Another baby for the Duggars … 1st grandchild is on the way

Anonymous says:

I’m feeling a little uncomfortable with how people are ganging up on Amy. Amy – I don’t share your views but I don’t think this current forum conversation is going to change any of your views. I know some of Amy’s comments about the blog seemed hurtful to me because of being privlaged enough to read Laura and Vyckie’s experience. Amy, I think it would be wonderful if you kept reading this blog, but I’d also like you to understand that your experience is in the context of your life. Keep your ears and heart open.

Cecilia

Anonymous says:

Tabby – I bet it hurt like hell. Where I’m coming from is just wondering if the way Amy is being talked to would have changed your view point. Go to Amy with love, no one can argue with love.

Cecilia

PS: I posted a post earlier about the increase in homosexuality amoung younger sons. Was that not posted on purpose or was there just a glich?

Tapati says:

I just caught up on the back and forth with Amy.

I fully understand the reaction to her words and the impulse to show her a different way. Let’s assume for a moment that her life either does or will come to be just like some of the negative experiences we’ve been reading about. It will take time for her to come to that conclusion. It can’t be forced or rushed. Preaching to her, essentially, will just make her less likely to remain here and keep reading. If we want to help, be friendly and welcoming and write generally about what we’ve observed in the lifestyle without directing it AT her.

I know, it requires a lot of patience.

Amy, I apologize for talking about you like you’re not here! I just had quite a reaction to reading the whole comments section here all at once and it really does feel like everyone’s ganging up to convince you to change your life. I don’t think it’s productive for anyone.

Lou Ann says:

Anonymous said…
Cecilia:

A lot of us were Amy.

It hurt.

–Tabby.

Oh, this is so true! Like a knife in the gut couldn’t hurt worse, I think. To totally love and trust God, your husband, and want nothing more than to be a good wife and mother, try your best, knock yourself out, and have it all come crashing down on your head…and then to be ‘to blame’ for the fall…to blame yourself on top of it all…nowhere to run, nowhere to hide…

Vyckie says:

Cecelia ~ I have heard from others that occasionally their posts don't go through. It is almost never because the post was rejected ~ I absolutely hate to push that reject button

My suggestion is that you make a copy of your comment before you hit the "post comment" button ~ and then if it doesn't appear while other comments are going through ~ post your comment again and hopefully it'll make it through the second time.

I just got home from picking up Hazelle at the airport ~ she's back home now after having a super fun week in Seattle with Laura & Richard.

I see that there's been a whole lot of discussing going on here in my absence ~ and I'm sorry I missed it ;( There's a lot here that I'd like to respond to ~ when I get a chance, I'll most likely pull these comments "Out of the Pile" and address as many as possible.

Thanks so much for your participation here ~ it's great to see you all "policing" yourselves regarding what could be perceived as "ganging up" on Amy. I'm sure no-one intended to come across that way ~ but when I got home and read all the comments directed at one person ~ even though I think the individual responses were in no way attacking ~ taken all together, it is a bit overwhelming. Anyway ~ I appreciate the way you all handled that discussion.

I'll be responding here asap. More later!

a.b.e. says:

I’ve known a lot of women who held Amy’s beliefs and in the long run were disappointed. In fact I’ve never known a successful long term marriage that worked for a woman with Amy’s beliefs.

The problem isn’t the Bible, it’s the way its interpreted. That’s why we have to question what we believe. Otherwise our beliefs will disappoint us, just as Amy’s belief system has disappointed so many women.

a.b.e. says:

Here’s something important for you to understand, Amy – the word “head” in Ephesians 5 did not mean “leader” or “authority” in the original Greek. To give it that meaning when it isn’t in the original Greek is to change the Bible. Another thing, Paul told wives to submit, not obey. When Christians tell women to obey their husbands they are not telling them what Paul said.

Someday you may be one of those burned out, betrayed by their husbands women. And then you will understand what the women here were trying to tell you. I just hope you don’t have to go through a lot of suffering first.

Anonymous says:

To be clear, Amy stated:

To be clear, I am not quiverfull. My husband doesn’t know the Lord (I was saved after I married him). But I am still called to submit to him, even if he is not obedient to God. Again, my perfect example is Jesus Christ, who submitted Himself to the Father even to the point of death. Any submission I am called to do to an unregenerate man is nothing compared to what my Lord went through.With that thought in mind, she doesn’t even fit the stereo type that Laura and Vyckie are talking about.

By Amy’s own words, she is making these choice, without her husband even suggesting them to her, for her life, in obedience, not to a person, not to a movement, but to her reading of God’s Word and personalizing it for her life.

May the Lord Bless you, Amy!

Kelly

a.b.e. says:

Amy,

Jesus says to lend to everyone who asks you for money. Are you obeying this scripture? And if not, why not? After all, Jesus said it.

There is such a thing as selective literalism where we ignore some scripture and magnify other scripture. Are you sure you aren’t doing that?

Anonymous says:

MELISSAwith4kids. You got it right. All of this talk of submission baffles me. In most churches you do not hear this preached, but you hear that a man should leave his wife and cleave unto his wife. Dale was not a very good cleaver I take it from his trips to Brazil and his lack of attention to his families living conditions. Also that the two become one. Your arm would not cut of your leg because the whole person would bleed. My husband and I work as a great team. We accomplish a lot: taxes, business decisions, what cars to buy, how to raise our kids, how to remodel, how much money to spend and we do it together smoothly because we function as one. A friend offended me when she said my husband really trusts me a “gives me a lot of descretion in the decisions” in our home. We have been married 22 years and it never occured to me or him that he gave it to me. We have always owned our life together, wins and losses. If the truth were preached correctly then you would see that it would say submit to one another!! We must yeild to each other constantly as niether of us have the time to be involved in every aspect. I have CHOSEN to not work outside the home very much. We I say to my hubby that I feel like I am not contributing enough he reminds me how smart I shop and save us money, how seldom we have to eat out that we do that when we want to. How my kids have advanced in school through my involvement, and how straight our finances are because they have my daily attention. He has never dominated or tried to make me feel like a lesser person or partner. He has never dicatated I stay home and if he came home now and I had a job he would do 50/50. My husband has told people pressuring him for answers about jobs, money deals, purchases “I am half of a top notch corporation, let me check with my CFO and CMO and we will let you know”. And yes we often attend church and are never in your face about it. It is about balance and marrying a man who is emotionally ready to share his life as 1/2 of one.

Responding to:Anonymous said…
Hey there everyone, I am not a scholar or really for that matter know the Bible that well, but, I just wanna throw this question out there: It says in scripture that you leave to cleave. It also says that the two shall become one: so if the fact,and husband and wife are one, does it not mean they are a partnered union? Are they not equal? Do they not have equality in decision making? I would really like someone to take the wording of submission back to the original, greek and hebrew to find out the exact contectual meaning of it…
MELISSAwith4kids.

Equal partner in Oregon

a.b.e. says:

I’ve been really chatty over this issue of one way female submission but I have one more piece of advice.

When you feel the Holy Spirit come over you to share your witness of female submission to male authority you may feel blessed. But you will turn your audience off to Christ.

an atheist in the bible belt says:

I don’t really think that it’s fair to tell Amy that preaching submission will turn off her audience to Christ. If that’s what she believes that God expects, that’s what she’s conscience-bound to say. She is more honest and honorable than the proselytizers who only present the fun stuff (heaven! jesus loves you!) and then spring a list of their real requirements on you later. If you feel you have to hide stuff about your beliefs so as not to scare off or turn off unbelievers, what are you ashamed of and why?

As an atheist, it actually doesn’t turn me off any more than anyone claiming that the Bible is THE truth.

Anonymous says:

Aimai Said:

I’m glad I, for once, stayed out of this debate. But where is Charis? I think her experiences are very on point here. The niceness or otherwise of Amy’s marriage is neither here nor there. A person can freely choose submission and people often do. Freely choosing submission doesn’t mean its a good idea–a guy in Germany “freely choose” to allow another man to kill and cannibalize him. Amy’s choice to “submit” even to a bad husband (which her’s admittedly is not, but she stated that she was called to submit even to a non christian) is either a super good idea because he’s an amazingly prescient and moral person or because she is wilfully giving up her moral being to another person and she doesn’t care what kind of decisions he makes for her.

Charis’s position on an earlier thread is on point here. She choose to “follow her husband” and “submit to him” and almost wound up losing her children because, as she discovered, social services almost stepped in and took them away when they became ill because of poor living conditions. As she stated so eloquently here on the board (and I’m paraphrasing) you can choose to give up your decisions to another person but that’s no legal defence if the government finds you at fault. Its possible for both parents to end up making some radically bad decisions and you will both be equally guilty and will both equally suffer.

Now, on the larger point, is it worth having this discussion with Amy? Well, Jadehawk made two incredibly important observations (at least I think it was Jadehawk) when she likened religious fervor to a drug addiction and also to a romance. I’d say it can be like a romantic fever that has to run its course. Good bad or indifferent Amy is in the throes of a totalizing institution, a little sect within a little part of a greater whole. Her little church and her little family are a romance that she is having, a drug to which she is addicted. She might say, using the same language, that it is the medicine for what ails her and she can’t give it up without dying. We might say that time will tell and she won’t know whether it is good medicine or bad drug abuse until she is old enough to have seen all that it will bring. The world she’s in is, as she says, a changeful one and she is a person who is afraid of change. She has chosen this way, and its a time honored way, of putting off fear by shoving decisions and control onto first her husband and then onto her all powerful god. None of us can say, or does say, that’s a bad thing. If Amy is happy and doesn’t ruin the lives of her children more power to her.

We just seem to think, especially those of us who have known lots of “Amy’s” that on balance tying your boat to a branch found floating in the water isn’t really as stable as it first seems. Personally, I don’t believe in Milton’s assertion:

“He for god only, she for god in him.” I believe, to the extent I believe in any numinous divinity, that we all have god within us and we are all equally responsible to cultivate that spark of the divine. And when we do we can say we are acting morally in the world. And that is our duty. The very notion of submitting to another–even or especially in something as pathetically petty as hair or dress and mistaking that for actual morality, astounds me. If you want to take it back to Jesus it is clear from all surviving records that he had no interest in making his followers conform to any kind of social imperative–whether in family matters or in dress or food or anything else. He lived in a world of class and custom, dress rules and food rules and he overthrew them all. The notion that he wants you *now* to conform to some fake fifties beaver cleaver image is just absurd. But whatever floats your boat.

I guess what I’m saying is that even, or especially, if we believe that Amy is in a dangerous situation–dangerous because she has given her love of a transcendent being to a mere human in error. Or dangerous because she is submitting her own moral authority to that of another person who may abuse it and her. She is in the throes of her own romance and she can no more be reasoned with than a teenager during her first love affair.

But when the student is ready, the teacher arrives. Let this be a place where “Amy” and people like her, can come and find some recognition and some comfort as they are journeying in or out of this, to me, idolatrous lifestyle.

aimai

Anonymous says:

Talking about fairness – is it fair to tell women to obey their husbands when scripture doesn’t tell them to do that?

Paul tells believers and wives to submit, and slaves and children to obey. Yet Christians constantly tell women to obey. If Paul had wanted wives to obey, why didn’t he use that term? Why did he instead use the term submit?

By the way, I don’t believe in slaves obeying. I think Paul only advised slaves to do that since they were not in a position to gain their freedom. They really had no other way of staying safe, since there was often physical retribution against slaves who didn’t obey.

The day evangelical Christians are fair to women I’ll faint.

Gem says:

Aimai,

aka Charis here.
the kids are on spring break, I just retrieved my virus infected computer from the shop yesterday, and came home to our dog having puppies yesterday (4 days early), so its been wild around here I just took a minute to read the thread now.

Thanks for missing me and you are soooo right! Being controlled like a 10 year old child is dangerous for the family! I see above that KR Wordgazer summarized the truth that KEEPER of the home is about protecting and guarding the home. I FAILED to do this! And KR pointed out the verses about a wife’s authority (she is the oikeDESPOTeo- penned by the same Paul, and obscured by biased translation- see the “DESPOT” in the middle? The word reeks of authority)

Amy,
Just for the record. I suggest digging really deeply into the scriptures you hear as advocating this lifestyle. I used to hear them the same way as you and I believe it was a fruit which looked really shiny and healthy but was deadly. It ROBBED my husband of the equal and powerful companion God intended, and ROBBED my children of the protection God intended.

More later…

Anonymous says:

Rach, Syd
A post I replied to on Monday has disappeared and my reply was never published. It was about the Campbell family. Was this on purpose?
Just wondering…

Anonymous says:

rach, syd
hmm was trying to find the post about the Campbell family. Obviously working night duty is giving me brain fog! Now I will have to look at all the posts you have written lately to find it! Oh well…still 7.5 hrs to go and my patients are very quiet tonight

Anonymous says:

Kelly said:

a.b.e. stated: See the word “submit” in verse 22? It’s not there in the oldest manuscripts of the New Testament. The translators put it there in the English because they saw verse 22 as a continuation of the thought in verse 21. In other words, Christians are asked to submit to one another, and in the same way wives are asked to submit to their husbands. That’s false.No, it is not false. The oldest manuscripts of the New Testament did not include the word “submit” in Ephesians 5:22. (Some of the newer ones include it) You need to do more research before you call something “false” that actually isn’t false.

Anonymous says:

Becky,
Well, that seems fair but of course Amy herself came here to show the rest of us the error of our ways so its only tit for tat. I personally think that people might want to ratchet back and ignore the pro-submission trollers on the grounds that either they can’t be reached, aren’t interested in real dialogue, or are yearning for some information or help that they can’t yet articulate. Better to encourage them to keep reading and thinking for themselves than to discourage them by piling on. But of course comments tend to post simultaneously so the conversation itself takes place in fits and starts and can’t be organized that way.

I think some of the posters, with more experience of the culty/submission focused side of christianity are seeing warning signs that the rest of us are not. Some of us are just personally a bit put off by the notion of an adult woman who pretends to have given up moral and intellectual authority to another adult while simultaneously indicating that her submission is selective and therefore somewhat fake. I say that on the basis of the many things Amy has said which reveal that she actually picks and chooses very carefully to make sure that her submission is comfortable and easy for her. For example, as someone pointed out up above, she ignores the strong NT adjurations to give up everything material to follow Jesus and prefers to live comfortably in a domestic idyll. Her witnessing to others, too, could be called fake (if she’s doing it at all) because she’s unable to convince some or any of us that her way to Jesus is better or more authentic than anyone else’s. God called *me* to a happy closeted life but has made the rest of you suffer with abusive husbands, miscarriages, other issues is just not that generous a missionary message.

aimai

Gem says:

Kelly,

In a way, we are both right because there are some textual variations. The earliest and oldest manuscript called “P46″ omits the verb in Eph 5:22. This manuscript was discovered in the 1930′s. There was some discussion of P46 here:
http://complegalitarian.wordpress.com/2009/01/31/calvins-ideas-about-women/#comment-8022

Amy,
1 Peter- the entire book was extremely helpful to me. I’m sure you are familiar with the famous Sarah role model of submission? Looking really closely at Sarah- how she is with Abraham- is eye opening (I have blogged on this some “as Sara obeyed Abraham”. Also, and extremely critical, the “no guile” sandwich around the renowned Sarah role model (2:22; 3:10). I was extremely conflict avoidant for 22 years of my 27 year marriage, stuffed my feelings and brushed things under the rug to keep the “peace”. IF one wants the following BLESSING, then one must be prepared to be honest (NO guile!)

“For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile“ 1 Peter 3:10

There is another angle to this, in that the heart of the wife of a disobedient (to God) husband is “hidden” 1 Pet 3:4 KJV. That is not a justification for conflict avoidance. I think that is more about her pearls and treasures, she best keep them to herself lest they be trampled underfoot (by verbal and emotional abuse).

Anonymous says:

Ok, maybe this is a different perspective on the “submit” thing, maybe not.

I was/am a very strong willed person. I grew up in an abusive household. I was not, never, ever going to let someone be in charge of me EVER again.

I was constantly “forcing” issues with my husband. He is pretty laid back and eventually it led to me demanding and he just kind of “eating” it. We had an aweful relationship. I was so busy being perfect, right and in charge I couldn’t see what it was doing to my husband. I got saved and was introduced to the “submit” to your husband doctrine. Which I did know about before and thought was hooey.

But now, I had a change of heart, a lot of pressure was taken off my shoulders (life) with the realization that “what we do-works” does not save us. I began to see how my domineering behavior was not only affecting our relationship and how my husband felt about himself, it was also not allowing him to take responsibility for his actions and for him to mature as an individual. He would do sneaky kid stuff and hope I never found out.

So I did practice the submission thing and still do. This has been good for me to read both sides. I still think it is good for me to learn to submit (bite my tongue, let him make some decisions, ask his opinion, etc). But am I going to ever be the woman who won’t do anything with out his permission?

Probably, not? I will say, I am wanting to serve on the board for xyz, what do you think? Because it will affect him, too. If he was totally against it, I would really need to rethink it…

Anyhow, this is kind of rambling…

Rose

Jadehawk says:

Kelly,

I don’t know about others, but I was, at the beginning, willing to accept Amy’s word that she was happy in her submission, and was merely defending the position that what worked out for her is NOT what works for all women.

but after a while, she started saying things that just do NOT sound like things a really happy person would say:

“Any submission I am called to do to an unregenerate man is nothing compared to what my Lord went through.”“I’ve never seen complaining as a right. The Bible tells us to do all things without complaining”“I never said anything about my choice of a husband or whether he is a good man or not. The simple truth is that it doesn’t matter one way or the other, because I am called to live with him, to submit to him, and to love him”I would never have lasting joy and happiness if I relied on my circumstances to make me happy, because they are always changing.“He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. John 12:25″Now those are maybe a bit ambiguous, but that sounds more like the words of someone who has found a way to cope with a bad situation, rather than someone who is genuinely happy.

aimai says:

Kelly,
I didn’t see your post until just now. We’ll have to agree to disagree. I think Amy was saying a lot more than that and she posted many, many times and many things. I, myself, didn’t bother responding to her until very late in the thread so her original intentions had long since been lost in a sea of self justification and contradictory statements.

But it really doesn’t matter if Kelly’s original intention had been to kindly draw our attention to her own marriage as proof positive that everyone else’s experience of patriarchy was false. Or simply to attack “feminists” for not being “feminist enough” in her mind to defend her submissive marriage. She started the discussion but she doesn’t get to control how the rest of us understand it.

On the feminist issue and what feminists are, or are not, required to do with the self styled history of women who renounce their human individuality in order to submit to the demands of particular men or gods–well, that’s a whole ‘nother kettle of fish. Let me break it to you. Feminists aren’t required to do anything. We aren’t required to clean up the messes made by non feminists. Or to exclaim over christian patriarchal marriages. Or to discount testimony from Vyckie and Laura because Kelly and Amy say that their experience is not identical to V and L’s experience. This is how I take your remark “In fact, of all the families I know, that are Christian, have lots of children and educate their children at home, in all these years, I can think of only one family I have met that had me *wondering*…”**

** I’ll put my footnote here. You know TWO FAMILIES that don’t fit the model of healthy, submissive, Christian patriarchy because you are blogging here where two (and more) women have sincerely testified to their experiences. I don’t expect you to agree with me since the very first thing that every good Christian Quiverer, or any other kind of Christian does, is explain why every other Christian family that the writer might know is “not really Christian” or “not doing it right” or belongs to a “splinter group” with the “wrong interpretation” any testimony that “I’ve never known a Christian family that was doing something bad, or wrong” has to be taken with a heaping cupful of salt. In fact that was the whole argument of several previous threads. Both Laura and Vyckie were in bog standard Quiverful Christian marriages and both seem to have gone wrong. That’s two serious patriarchal marriages that didn’t work. You might consider them in the tally of “those you know.”

OK, back to what Feminism is or is not responsible for. Amy started it off by saying that Feminism, specifically, wasn’t making her happy. It wasn’t good enough for her. Fair enough. I’m not surprised. Feminism isn’t a dating service, a god substitute, a life raft, a tolerance handbook, a floor wax or a set of ginsu knives. Its a principle that some men and women ascribe to that says that both men and women are equally endowed with reason and with rights and that even in the context of marriage (or outside of it) neither man nor woman should abdicate his or her responsibility to act morally. If that didn’t make Amy happy or give her the kind of family life she wanted more power to her for rejecting it. But why does feminism have to approve her choice? I’m willing to say that this feminist is *indifferent* to her choice. I’m also contemptuous of it. But so what? Why does she need my approval? As I understand it the kind of women who are attracted to these very submissive, family centered, slightly paranoid and anti social churches and family structures already think I’m going to hell for having short hair, or approving gay marriage.

I’ll leave you with a little joke from one of my favorite sience fiction writers. Once upon a time there was a Chinese Emperor and he decreed that since order was very important every misdeed by each person would be punished equally severely. The punishment for every social infraction was death. One day a huge revolution rose up and swept his empire away. What started the revolution? Three peasants had been ordered to report for duty in the military. They were sitting in a muddy field when they realized they would be late for report. One said to the others:
“what’s the punishment for being late?”
“death”
“and what’s the punishment for revolution?”
“death.”
“Ok, guys,” he said “I’m leading a revolution. Because *we’re already late.*”

My point is that, in my personal experience, highly separatist Christian women with a hate on for feminists despise me, and my perspective, before I even open my mouth. Since the punishment for not wearing my hair long, not wearing dresses, not having ten children, not being a Christian etc… is exactly the same as disagreeing on minor points of interpretation I see no reason to bother with the fine points of what Amy thinks or doesn’t think. She doesn’t really respect my *existence.* Let alone my arguments.

aimai

madame says:

Amy said:
There is a potential for abuse in ANY relationship.
Agreed

I personally believe there is greater potential for abuse from men who do not know the Lord and who do not strive to be like Jesus Christ. They have no perfect example to follow as Christians do. I guess it’s all in one’s perspective.I can’t agree with you there. I’d say abusive Christian men hide their sense of entitlement behind their belief that God has given them certain rights and entitlements, sometimes called responsibilities (that boil down to rights).
It’s a very twisted abuse.
The worst case of abuse I know is a Christian married couple where the man verbally, emotionally, and sometimes physically abuses his wife. It’s all done in the name of the Lord, it’s always “her fault” for not submitting the way she should, for not supporting him, for being a Jezebel… Sometimes I wonder whether she’d be so hurt by his abuse if he didn’t use God’s word the way he does against her.

adventuresinmercy says:

I believed what Amy believes, pretty much. Because my husband was a Christian, a well-respected minister, and could quote practically half the Bible or more verbatum, well-studied and doctrinally sound, that he couldn’t be abusive.

So I thought it must be me.

I spent about 8 years that way. I started catching on, eventually, when I realized that it couldn’t be possible that EVERY single problem in our relationship was MY fault for eight entire years. When I started catching on (and it was a very slow process), it started getting a lot worse. His ability to control was being challenged, and it just spiraled downhill from there.

The primary tool for my husband’s abuse was God, helped GREATLY by him taking full advantage of my own sensitive heart that wanted to please God no matter what).

I have since discovered that I am not alone…that this has happened many many times over and will continue to happen. Abusive men will use whatever resources there are at their disposal.

My husband would treat me with contempt, twist my brain into a confused pile of knots, accuse me of all sorts of things, blame everything on me, control where I could go or who I could see or what I could read, and then go stand up in front of our church every Sunday and sing passionate praise songs to God, lifting up his hands, even crying sometimes.

BECAUSE he was so passionate for God (or so it seemed), BECAUSE he was such a fervent Christian, BECAUSE he was so well-respected and loved by my church, I thought it *had* to be me. A man like that COULDN’T possibly be abusive, right?

I did the whole, “When it doubt, it must be my fault” thing, since I’d learned through complementarian and patriarchal teachers that Genesis 3:16 means that a woman is always going to be trying to usurp her husband…must be my fault, if I don’t like what he said or did, it must be my own rebellious heart. (This lack of ability to trust my own mind was also helped by doses of “I-am-just-a-worm theology” that promotes the idea of self-hatred and shame).

Check out, “The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse” by VanVonderan. It’s really a must read for those of us who’ve been abused spiritually.

I am currently in a situation where I’m not sure what to do. My husband is swearing he has changed. I am looking at a dismal financial future if I leave him for good…five kids…eleven years of no job experience becuase I was a stay-home homeschool mom…or I can try again…even though my gut tells me that the things that are wrong with him are so deep that I’m not sure they are “fixable.”

I am trying to get my degree finished but have 1.5 years left to go on it. That will help. I’m thinking I might try a “last try” thing, and hopefully I can stick it out until I get my degree. I hate it. The whole thing just sucks.

And one of the worst parts is being chided by those who are supposed to be my sisters, for not embracing wifely submission…when wifely submission just about killed me.

You do NOT submit to a tyrant. There is NOTHING positive that comes from submitting to tyranny. There is NOTHING good gained for abusive men when they are catered to, and I don’t care what Debi Pearl says to the contrary.

The Pearls tell us not to cater to whiney two year olds—why should women cater to whiney men? It is the LEAST loving thing we can do for them. I know. I did it.

Because nothing he said or did was flagrant sin (and I was taught that the ONLY time you disobey a husband is when he tells you to commit a flagrant sin, such as to kill someone, etc), I did everything he wanted, I tried to be everything he wanted, I tried to THINK every way he wanted me to think, (though all of those things were never enough for him, never good enough) and you know what it did?

Took a bad thing and made it MONSTROUS. Monstrous. There really are no words.

My thoughts on Paul’s instructions for wifely submission really aren’t all that complicated. Dude, women in Paul’s day *had* to submit to their husbands. Paul didn’t make up that concept, it was the law.

So Paul saying that women should submit is neither here nor there. Of course they should submit. They had to, under pain of death, just as slaves had to obey their masters or be beaten and/or killed.

Making an eternal law out of Paul’s acceptance and acknowledgement of the law of the land seems really irresponsible, unless a person has made double-dog sure that these are actually eternal decrees. Paul commanded, literally commanded, the church to greet each other with a holy kiss SIX TIMES in the New Testament. I don’t see anyone kissing at the churches I’ve been to, though. Why? Because we understand that it wasn’t an eternal decree, even though it’s written as if it was one.

Yet when it comes to women, there’s this double standard. Any verses that mention women are taken automatically as eternal decrees. We’re not allowed to take in cultural context at all. It’s so strange. (I can’t complain–I did this too).

Anyways, Paul telling women to submit is a no-brainer. That was NORMAL, totally normal, and made a lot of sense (same with slaves obedience). Christians were already dealing with the death sentance for beliving the Christ rose again, no sense adding mass social upheaval to the mix (anymore than was already taking place, that is).

So what we really should pay attention to is what Paul told husbands. Because THAT is where he really broke status quo, albeit in a slyly subversive manner (just as he did with masters when he intimated that slaves and masters were equal in the eyes of God, a shocking thing to readers then!).

Instead of telling husbands to rule over their wives, or to lead their wives, or be in authority over their wives, Paul told husbands to… (drum roll, please) LOVE Their Wives As Christ Loved The Church.

And just a couple chapters earlier, we learned that Christ took the church, who was certainly lower than He was, and raised her up and put her INTO Him. He seated her in heavenly places (to that culture, a clear uncontested statement of putting her in a ruling position). THIS is how Christ loved the Church.

In a different letter, Paul described very clearly what he believed “love” to be. 1 Corinthians 13 is a good picture of what Paul told husbands to be toward their wives.

And somehow, through the space of two thousand years and all the confusion that obviously brings, we assume that he means husbands LEAD your wives? The passage says no such thing. And the original readers would have read no such thing. THe original readers would have been shocked to no end at the radically subversive thing Paul just said about husbands loving wives as their own selves (what? WHAT?) and loving their wives as Christ loved the church (what? WHAT?)…

Christ didn’t view the church as someone to serve Him—He went and gave His life to the church. He served HER. Crazy. THis is that reciprocal love, reciprocal submission, reciprocal service, reciprocal respect thing here…something my hierarchal marriage never ever even came close to.

My must-have-control-or-die-trying husband had a lot of love, but it was love of self. You can’t feed that kind of love. It is the WORST thing you can do to it.

So those of you who advocate for wifely submission, please know that when you do so in the context of abusive marriages, you are feeding destruction and misery and pride in ways that future generations will perpetuate. Is that really something that brings glory to our God?

Concerned,
Molly