Understanding how violence against women is experienced and perpetuated in the Australian Christian context is required to ensure the Church is a space of safety and protection for women. Attitudes endorsing gender inequality and rigid gender role expectations have been found to promote violence against women in Australia, yet little empirical knowledge is known about how these attitudes present in the Christian environment. The proposed research aims to examine how attitudes relating to gender, sexuality and violence relate to the violent experiences of women in the church. It specifically examines the Australian Pentecostal context due to a lack of information available for this sub-community as well as its more egalitarian beliefs regarding gender, emphasis on spirit empowerment rather than education, word of faith culture and focus on salvation and end times. These factors evident in the Pentecostal community may have a unique impact on the way the gendered attitudes attached to violence are expressed. 

A mixed-method is proposed to provide the recommended quantitative data for this community, as well as ensuring a qualitative understanding of women’s experiences is understood. Questionnaires from the National Community Attitudinal Survey (NCAS) will be replicated in this sub-population alongside the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (ASI) and some developed questions examining Pentecostal distinctives and an individual’s faith beliefs. Open text questions will be embedded within the questionnaire to help capture the depth and complexity of how these attitudes are expressed in individual experiences. The collected data will enable comparisons to the general population and will contribute to establishing an understanding of the particular vulnerabilities and attitudes present in this community. Overall, this study aims to enrich the knowledge base for understanding and preventing violence against women in Australia by adding unique information about the sub-population of Australian Pentecostal Churches.