Churches, just like families, tend to hide their dark secrets from the outside world. Many times leaders or parents don’t even need to tell families to do this; it’s understood.

“...there is a way in which people relate to each other; it’s called the united front,” said Pauline Zimmerman, a marriage and family therapist who is also a Mennonite abuse survivor. “And if they ever get any help at all, there are severe problems. Mennonites are part of keeping that united front – keeping everything OK.”

One Lancaster Conference Mennonite woman who had grown up in a more conservative Mennonite church said she was harassed when she took out a protection from abuse order against her husband.

One man she barely knew followed her across the grocery store lot, telling her she needed to submit to her husband and not run the marriage, she said. At church, her former friends avoided her. Nasty notes appeared at her door and silent phone calls woke her in the night. Her phone line was cut, her mailbox smashed and people shook their fists at her when they passed by her home.

“Everywhere I went, I was harassed,” she said. “That’s what people who are not Mennonite don’t understand .... the terrific onslaught you get once you buck the system. It just comes to you from every angle, from people who are not related to you, people you don’t even know.”

For some, the punishment for breaking the code of silence is more formalized, particularly when the victim’s actions involve violating a law of the church. The more conservative Mennonite and Amish churches practice excommunication, also called shunning.

Shunned members are not allowed to eat at the same table as their family or other church members, and they may not take communion. Some of the more conservative groups do not allow shunned members to transact business with other church members for at least six weeks. They must confess their transgression in front of the church before they are allowed back in.

“The idea is not to separate them in hate,” explained one conservative Mennonite church leader, “but it’s to remind them of what they did.”

Sometimes “what they did” was going to the law – calling police, getting a protection order, or telling someone who might call the police. In the more conservative churches, involving the law in family matters is considered a violation of church practice and Biblical instruction.

The expectation, instead, is that people would turn to church leaders for help. But very few conservative Mennonite or Amish leaders have education beyond eighth grade or any theological training, let alone training on dealing with abuse.

“I really believe that many of them are desiring to be helpful but don’t know what to do,” said Titus Kauffman, who is ordained by the Conservative Conference of the Mennonite Church and is a pastoral counselor at Petra Christian Fellowship in New Holland.

Instead, they fall back on what they have always been taught about the Bible’s teachings, including the sanctity of marriage and male headship.

“We firmly believe God instituted marriage,” said one Horning Mennonite leader. Any problem, no matter how big, can be resolved by God if the husband and wife are willing to work at it, he said.

Horning church leaders do whatever they can to keep a marriage together, he said, because the alternative is sin. “Divorce is a continuous state of adultery, with or without the paperwork.”

The strong commitment to marriage is wed to a strict belief in male headship in many Amish and Mennonite homes: Men lead the churches. Husbands are in charge of their families. Wives submit to their husbands. Children obey without question.

In some churches, women are considered “the weaker vessel.” Therefore, they must rely on their husbands to lead and make decisions. Their “weakness” may make them more prone to feel they’re being abused, one conservative bishop said.

Women feel powerless when they approach ministers who have strong opinions on male headship, Kauffman said. Ministers tend to take the side of the husband and father, shifting the blame on the woman for failing to submit to her husband’s will.

Not all church leaders put the burden solely on the women, according to a Horning Mennonite and an Amish church leader.

“Jesus died for the church, which is his bride. We husbands are commanded to love our wives with that kind of love – so much so that we’re willing to die for our wives. Under those guidelines, no woman would have trouble with submission,” the Horning leader said.

While that may be the ideal, many victims describe controlling, demanding attitudes from their husbands, fathers and ministers rather than a sacrificial love.

“Mennonites are very quick to tell you that the man is the head of the house,” one victim said. “But whenever there’s a problem in the marriage, the onus falls on the wife.”

In churches where dominance is a birthright, male privilege often follows, said Roger Steffy, an ordained Mennonite minister and leader of a batterer’s intervention program.

“There’s lots of coercion, entitlement of sexual behaviors among men,” said Steffy. Many women feel forced into sexual behaviors they don’t want to do, but don’t see it as being abused, he said. Sexual issues grow larger than life in these churches, too, because they aren’t talked about, counselors say.

“It’s been my experience that in Mennonite circles, the more conservative the group is, the more any kind of sexual stuff is seen as taboo,” said Steffy. “This overemphasis on trying to prevent sexual behavior that they perceive as inappropriate, elevates the risk of inappropriate behavior between brothers, sisters, uncles...”

Incest and molestation is exacerbated because Mennonite and Amish children often aren’t taught about appropriate and innapropiate touch, said several counselors. If a child is molested, children tend not to talk about it because they “know” sex is a shameful subject.

In addition, Kauffman said, the teaching of humility can be abusive. Some parents believe they can’t affirm their children for fear they will become proud, and the low self-esteem that results, he said, can make the child more vulnerable to sexual advances.

Even if marriage or child abuse problems are identified, church leaders are reluctant to accept help from the outside world to deal with them, several ministers and counselors said. The churches’ very identity is based on the Biblical call to be “separate from” and “not conformed to” the world.

The separateness leaves some women and children ignorant of social and government resources. And even if they are aware of this help, victims say, they know that church leaders would disapprove.

Professional counseling is eyed suspiciously by some Amish and Mennonite church leaders, who fear therapists will lead their people away from the church and its practices. Instead, these leaders stress using self-trained laypeople who are part of the church and are seen as being more trustworthy.

Although churches are gradually becoming more open to accepting the need for professional counselors to work with abusive marriages and abused children, the primary approach to any problem is spiritual.

Victims and church members are expected to forgive abusers repeatedly, “to forgive 70 times seven,” one Amish bishop said. Church leaders expect victims to let go of anger and bitterness quickly and reunite with their abuser.

“It’s one of those comfort things that makes the church feel good,” said Jim Laughman, deputy director of administration at Mental Health/Mental Retardation of Lancaster County and former executive director of T.W. Ponessa and Associates, a local counseling service.

“It certainly feeds into the offender’s thing: ‘Well, it’s all done and over with; why don’t you let me go?’” said Laughman, who has worked with Mennonite and Amish sexual abusers, “At the same time, we have a victim, the hands-on victim, but also, what about the other kids in the home? The wife certainly is a victim, the extended family, the whole community is, in fact, the victim.

“And too many times, it’s just, ‘Hide it under the rug; let’s just move on,’” Laughman said. “Unfortunately that kind of behavior and ideology perpetuates continual victimization.”