No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us

by Rachel Louise Snyder

In today’s interpretation of Christianity, God literally sacrifices his own son, the ultimate filicide, so that the world can be saved. The Romans may have committed the act of putting Jesus on the cross, but it was all part of God’s master plan. Other examples abound in the Bible. Abraham brought his son, Isaac, to the altar, prepared to sacrifice him, but God stopped him at the eleventh hour, the knife at Isaac’s throat, his arms and legs bound up. God said Abraham had passed the test, had proven his love. O’Hanlon refers to Isaiah 53:8–9: He was taken from prison and from judgment; and who shall declare his generation? For he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken. And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. In a religion in which family killing is not only rationalized, but also celebrated as the ultimate form of love, devotion, and faith, perhaps the connection is not a stretch today. O’Hanlon himself says it took three lives to save his: Jesus Christ, Dawn O’Hanlon, and April O’Hanlon. He was, by his own admission, a “lukewarm” Christian until the murders. “I ask God, ‘Why? Why? Couldn’t there have been any other way?’ ” In his interpretation, the murders seemed to be a way for God to get O’Hanlon’s attention, to straighten up, to restore his faith in the Lord, to serve. He said God is working miracles through him, sa...