Theorizing Religious Abuse within the Context of Intimate Partner Violence: The African American Community

This work conceptualizes the perpetration of religious abuse within the context of intimate partner violence ( ipv ). Some scholars have examined the importance of spirituality or religion in the lives of domestic violence survivors, and only a few have explored how abusers use religion to mistreat their partners. This gap in the literature has caused religious abuse itself to be understudied, as a method of control within ipv . The author presents an argument supporting the need to acknowledge religious abuse, details a set of tactics that may be used, and describes the occurrence of this abuse through the description of a theoretical model that focuses on the African American community.