In God's Shadow: Unveiling the Hidden World of Domestic Violence Victims in Religious Communities

Unpacking the Bunker

“…Studies have shown that religious membership is not a significant factor in incidence of abuse, though minority religious membership can complicate attempts to leave abusive situations. 63 This is not to dismiss abuse in minority religious communities, but rather to interrogate the discrepancy between the size and influence of these communities and the scale of public outrage and intervention. We must take seriously both Americans' moral outrage at the vulnerability of women and children-and FLDS women and children are vulnerable, made so by poverty, isolation, lack of education, and patriarchy, if not religion per se-and the culturally contingent definitions of abuse.…”