Why I Stopped Beating My Wife

An Indian pastor says the same evil spirit that once possessed his wife was manifesting itself in his former actions.

By Andrew McChesney, Adventist Mission

Chadamla, who like many people in India has no surname, stopped outside the Seventh-day Adventist church in his town on a Sabbath morning.

His life was not going well. Although he made good money driving a three-wheeled taxi, he was worried that his marriage was falling apart. He was beating his wife a half dozen times a month, and he couldn’t seem to stop.

The pastor’s voice from inside the church caught Chadamla’s attention.

The pastor was telling the Sabbath School class about Jacob. He spoke of a ladder of angels stretching into the sky. He described Jacob’s pledge to give 10 percent of his future income to the Lord in exchange for blessings.

When the Sabbath School class ended, Chadamla entered the church and curiously asked the pastor about the origin of the story. The pastor handed the 22-year-old Hindu man a copy of the “Adult Sabbath School Lesson Study” and a Bible.

That started a remarkable journey that led Chadamla to stop beating his wife, to be baptized, and to change his name to Samuel. Today, Samuel works as an Adventist pastor in central India.

Samuel said he realized that it was wrong to beat his wife when he read 1 Corinthians 3:16, which says: “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” (NKJV).

“Since the body is the temple of God, no one has the right to inflict harm on it,” Samuel, 42, said in an interview. “It is mandatory to love your wife as you love yourself. So you should not beat her. You should not only love her physically, but you should love her spiritually as well.”

The beatings began about three months after Chadamla, then 22, married Veeralankamma, 18, in the town of Nandigama. Both he and his wife had deep Hindu roots. Chadamla was named in honor of the Hindu god of the wind. Veeralankamma, whose name means “courageous woman of the island,” was named after a Hindu goddess whom her parents had asked for a baby daughter.

A Possessed Wife

Veeralankamma learned two years prior to the marriage that she was special. She would become possessed by spirits during Hindu rituals, losing control of her body, dancing, and tearing her clothing. Villagers invited her to attend rituals in their homes so they could seek advice from the spirits.

Although a Hindu, Chadamla strongly disliked his wife’s participation in the rituals. He particularly was disturbed by the conclusion of each ritual: His wife would leave the home and go to the nearest shrine, often dancing wildly, to sacrifice a rooster or small goat. Shortly after the sacrifice, Veeralankamma, with blood splattered across her face and torn clothing, would come to her senses and return home.

“I didn’t like those rituals, and I didn’t like to see my wife possessed,” her husband said. “Between the rituals, I would criticize my wife and beat her, telling her not to go any more.”

Chadamla said he felt bad after each beating but couldn’t stop. He said he now realizes that the same evil spirits that possessed his wife were manifesting themselves in his actions.

“I did not know that it was the devil’s spirit that was provoking me to beat my wife,” he said. “But after reading the Bible I realized that the spirt of arrogance is also from Satan.”

Veeralankamma would glare at her husband during the beatings and defiantly say, “Who do you think that I am that you are beating me?” Sometimes she fled to her parents’ house until Chadamla had calmed down.

But she kept attending the rituals, going to about eight a month. She also miscarried twice during the rituals, losing baby boys both times.

“So I beat her and told her not to go out again,” her husband said.

2 Lives Are Changed

Then he overheard the Sabbath School class being taught at the Adventist church near his home.

In just a few days, Chadamla read through the entire Sabbath School study book and looked up every referenced Bible verse. He then returned to the church to ask the pastor for more information about the God of the Sabbath School lessons.

The pastor explained God to him in a series of Bible studies. It was around that time that Chadamla read in the Bible, “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?”

He said he thought, “If I am beating my wife, it is the same as causing harm to the church, the temple of God.”

Chadamla was baptized in 1998, three years after his marriage, and changed his name to Samuel.

Veeralankamma initially opposed her husband’s interest in the Bible, but she changed her mind when she saw that he was becoming a new man: humble, soft, and kind. He was calm after reading the Bible, studying the Sabbath School lesson, and praying every day. He stopped beating her.

Samuel brought his wife to the pastor who had given him Bible studies and asked that he give her Bible studies to explain how harmful it is to be possessed. She slowly became convinced that it wrong to be possessed. She came to know God. She stopped going to people’s homes to participate in rituals.

But it was a difficult decision to make, Samuel said.

“People called her for the rituals and she would say, ‘No,’” he said. “Then they would curse her. But she bore all those things.”

Two years after Samuel’s baptism, Veeralankamma was baptized, too, and changed her name to Ruth.

Today Samuel is a pastor in the village of Purushothapanam located near his hometown. He and his wife have two sons, ages 8 and 10.

The church where he first heard the Bible story of Jacob is now closed, and no other Adventists remain in the Muslim-dominated town of 50,000 people. But Samuel regularly distributes copies of the “Sabbath School Lesson Study,” hoping that someone, like him, will accept Jesus.

Five projects in India will receive funds from the Thirteenth Sabbath Offering in third quarter 2017, including the Southern Asia Division’s first multipurpose conference center, the Pioneer Memorial Discipleship Training Center, located about 20 miles (30 kilometers) from Samuel and Ruth’s hometown.