Description
The physical and mental pain of abuse—many children and adults in our churches regularly suffer that pain in their own homes! Now, Abuse in the Family, part of the Helping Others in Crisis series, shows you how to identify victims and help them toward healing. Abuse in the Family carefully deals with the problem of child abuse and neglect, incest, and wife beating.
Abuse in the Family will equip you to help victims overcome the painful scars of past or present abuse. You’ll learn how to guide victims toward emotional and spiritual wholeness and how to increase sensitivity in your church to the problem of abuse.
In Abuse in the Family, author Karen Burton Mains:
- Acquaints you with the facts of abuse in the family.
- Prepares you for situations you may encounter.
- Investigates questions victims often ask.
- Advises you of effective counseling patterns to follow.
- Enables you to address the problem of family abuse in your church.
- Explores Scriptural teaching and its application.
- Informs you of significant laws.
- Guides you to resources for further reading.
Karen Burton Mains co-hosts a nationwide radio ministry with her husband, David Mains—Director of the Chapel of the Air. Karen is also the chairperson of Women for Christ, a Chicago-area retreat ministry. She and Maxine Hancock coauthored another book on abuse, Child Sexual Abuse: A Hope for Healing.
Bradley P. Hayton –
In her popular treatment of the problem of abuse in the family, Karen Burton Mains doesn’t blame the traditional family for abuse, nor make the abuser irresponsible for his behavior. She blames the increased sexual permissiveness in society as the culprit that has caused more violence and abuse. Pornography and television have increasingly desensitized our culture to sex and violence.Nevertheless, Abuse in the Family is primarily a rehash of her other popular Child Sexual Abuse (Shaw, 1987). Like others, she abuses statistics. The book does, however, contain some worthwhile sections on dealing with questions abused often ask of counselors as well as some questions that adult victims often ask. She outlines ten steps of protection, ways to respond to the sexually abused child, helps for the mother of a child in an incestuous relationship, and outlines specific ways how the church can get involved in both child abuse prevention and ministry. Her list on the warning signs is the most succinct I have seen in print. Burton Mains also includes some excellent lists and abstracts of bibliographic sources and agencies, as well as gives some good legal counsel.In sum, this is a book that I highly recommend for clients or laymen interested in an overview of the topic, not for professionals.