Blog series of SVRI’s Faith & GBV CoP, Working Group 1 on Evidence Building - Faith and Religion in SGBV Prevention
Written by Lucy Pearl Khofi, preacher and researcher
As a young woman who grew up in the church, a preacher of the gospel, and someone who has served in various church leadership roles, I write from the intersection of faith, scholarship, and lived experience. Called into ministry and shaped by sacred traditions, I now work as a researcher, pracademic, and award-winning activist. My work spans from the pulpit to public health, from spiritual care to social justice. It is from this place, both within and beyond the church, that I confront the urgent and uncomfortable truths about how religious spaces have responded to violence against women.
Faith leaders often serve as the first point of contact for survivors as trusted figures whose words carry immense weight and influence. Yet many are untrained in trauma response and are guided by patriarchal interpretations of scripture that prioritise family unity or male authority over a woman’s safety. This silence is not benign. It is structural. It is theological. It is deadly.”
Sacred spaces, silenced voices
The truth is hard to speak out loud: the church, a place that shaped me, sustained me, and called me, has also failed many women. Too often, it has remained silent in the face of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV). Worse still, it has sometimes been complicit, cloaking abuse in theology, shame, and institutional protection.
Yet I still believe in the power of faith spaces to heal, to restore, and to transform. But this belief requires that we confront the painful gaps between what is preached and what is practised, especially when it comes to protecting women.
In my work within both church communities and public health research, I have listened to stories that echo with pain: women discouraged from speaking up about abusive marriages; girls blamed for “tempting” male leaders; and survivors told to forgive before they are ever believed. Faith leaders often serve as the first point of contact for survivors, not therapists, doctors, or law enforcement, as trusted figures whose words carry immense weight and influence. Yet many are untrained in trauma response and are guided by patriarchal interpretations of scripture that prioritise family unity or male authority over a woman’s safety.
This silence is not benign. It is structural. It is theological. It is deadly.
Reclaiming faith for justice
We must acknowledge that certain teachings, often unexamined and passed down from one generation to the next, directly contribute to cultures of silence and shame. These theologies encourage women to be submissive, to suffer in silence, or to shoulder the responsibility of restoring broken homes, even when they are the ones being broken [1].
As someone called to ministry, I have wrestled with this tension. How do we remain within the church and love it, while demanding that it love women better? How do we speak out against violence without being cast out? I believe the answer lies in reclaiming faith as a source of justice.
The transformative power of faith
There are already powerful examples of this transformation underway. In parts of sub-Saharan Africa, faith-based dialogues on gender and violence are reshaping entire communities’ understanding of scripture, justice, and healing. These are not merely sermons. They are spaces for truth-telling, training, and accountability. I also visit churches where we hold vital conversations about the role the church can play in responding to and preventing violence against women [2].
In South Africa, where femicide and intimate partner violence have reached crisis levels – driven by deeply rooted social factors – we cannot afford for churches to remain passive. The reach of religious institutions is unparalleled, and the trust placed in faith leaders runs deep. This makes their inaction all the more damaging, but their action all the more potentially transformative [3].
We must also address the power structures within faith institutions themselves.
We must raise a new generation of pastors and leaders who view advocacy against violence not as optional, but essential to their calling.”
A call to faith leaders
Churches must become sites of sanctuary, not silence. Faith leaders must do more than offer prayers. They must partner with survivor services, undergo gender and trauma training, and actively challenge harmful doctrines. Preaching love is not enough; justice is love in action.
The need for gender-transformative theology is urgent. Too many theological schools and seminaries still exclude gender justice from their core teachings. Yet scripture holds stories of resistance, protection, and the sacredness of women’s voices – stories that must be brought to the centre. We must raise a new generation of pastors and leaders who view advocacy against violence not as optional, but essential to their calling.
We must also address the power structures within faith institutions themselves. When allegations of abuse are made against clergy or leaders, responses must be swift, transparent, and survivor-centred. Institutional protectionism, the impulse to “protect the church’s image”, has silenced too many survivors. We must say clearly: protecting abusers protects no one.
As an activist working both within and beyond church spaces, I know the cost of speaking out. I’ve encountered pushback, suspicion, and the weight of spiritual guilt. But I’ve also witnessed women reclaim their voices. I’ve seen church mothers rise as warriors for justice. I’ve walked alongside survivors who have said, “This was the first time I was believed.” That is what faith should offer.
Our faith must never be used to pacify the oppressed; it must liberate. It must amplify the voices of survivors, and it must be grounded in the sacred, often messy work of healing and repair.
To every faith leader reading this: We need your voice. But more than that, we need your courage. The pulpit must no longer be a platform for silence.”
This is not solely a church issue. It is a public health, legal, and societal issue. Yet faith communities are central, not peripheral, to the response. We cannot build systems of care that overlook the influence of religion. The state, civil society, and academia must engage faith leaders as partners and hold them accountable.
Research shows that faith-based interventions, when genuinely participatory and rooted in local cultural contexts, can reduce the acceptance of gender-based violence and increase survivor support. But the key is honest engagement, not tokenism, not photo ops, not watered-down theology. We need faith leaders who will weep, rage, and act [4] [5].
In conclusion, I write this not as an outsider looking in, but as a woman of faith, shaped by the church, yet unwilling to be silenced by it. To every faith leader reading this: We need your voice. But more than that, we need your courage. The pulpit must no longer be a platform for silence. Let it be a place where the truth is told, where survivors are safe, and where justice is not deferred to heaven but delivered here on earth.
References
[1] Barnett Jr, B.U., (2020) Breaking the silence: Courageous conversations about race and reconciliation in the local church. Doctoral dissertation. Mercer University.
[2] Le Roux, E. and Valencia, L.C., 2020. Partnering with local faith communities. In: E. Tomalin, S. Haustein and S. Kidy, eds. International development and local faith actors: Ideological and cultural encounters. London: Routledge, pp.215–230.
[3] Khofi, L., Manderson, L. and Moyer, E. (2024) ‘Speaking of Hunger: Food Shortages, Poverty and Community Assistance in Urban South Africa’, Ecology of Food and Nutrition, 63(4), pp. 323–342.
[4] Bailey, A. (2024). Empowering faith-based support: Resource development for domestic violence survivors in church organisations. Doctoral dissertation. Regent University.
[5] Chirongoma, F., 2021. Faith-based interventions in addressing violence against women in Cape Town.
About the author
Lucy Pearl Khofi is an academic, preacher, and award-winning activist affiliated with the University of the Witwatersrand and the University of Amsterdam. As an interdisciplinary researcher, she writes from lived experience across faith, gender-based violence, public health, and medical anthropology, exploring how spiritual and structural forces shape healing, justice, and the determinants of health. She is also a member of the Working Group 1 on Evidence Building – Faith and Religion in SGBV Prevention of the Faith & GBV Community of Practice.
