Why wives are to submit to their husbands
Here’s another one, this time by a man, the pastor of a Reformed Baptist church in Aberystwyth, laying down the law for women.
So the sentiment of our text, that a wife is to submit to her husband, is found
throughout the Spirit-breathed New Testament. It is not a curious message found in just one place – like the phrase in the letter to the Corinthians of being baptized for the dead, whatever the correct meaning of that may be. So rejection of this word by those who claim to reverence the Lord Christ, is plain disobedience.
Except that it wasn’t the Lord Christ who is supposed to have said any of it, it was Paul; why does reverence for Jesus entail obedience to Paul? Because them’s the roolz of Christianity, but why else? Never mind; that’s theology; call a professional. Meanwhile –
A wife’s conduct toward her husband always says something about the church’s response to Christ, either right or wrong. If a woman does not honour her husband and is not loving toward him, if she is independent and defiant toward him, she proclaims this as the church’s response to Christ and thus attacks God’s Word.
Yikes. She’d better not be independent then.
…the reason why wives are to submit to their husbands is not because they are wonderful guys who deserve it. Sometimes husbands deserve very little from their wives. The reason why you submit is because your Lord Jesus Christ deserves it. Out of gratitude to him, for all that he has done for you, you submit. It is not because you love your husband that much, but it is because you love the Lord Jesus more.
But why is it so important to Jesus? And if it’s so important to him, why didn’t he say it himself instead of leaving it for Paul to tidy up?
More theology. I can never make sense of this stuff.
So a wife must be subordinate to her husband, but “she is not below her husband at all”?!
You know, just because one can say this stuff doesn’t mean it isn’t complete nonsense.
Goodness Gracious, said Brother Ignatius.
I have spent a short while this morning in an opthamologist’s waiting room, reading a National Geographic article vintage 1983 about Martin Luther and his times. I emerge with still-dilated pupils into the present, and what has changed?
In Aberystwyth, an on the face of it, I’d say nothing much. Meanwhile, elsewhere, people are planning a manned flight to Mars.
It’s a pity St Paul is not still around. He might write an interesting epistle or two about this situation.
Because Jesus was a feminist.
He said the meek shall inherit the earth. So he wants women to be meek so that they’ll inherit the earth.
I can haz theology degree now?
“Spirit-breathed?”
Paul and the early Christians were engaged, at the time, in an argument over the status of women with many pagans, who thought differently. No-one (bar Plato and a few Stoics) argued that the sexes were equal in terms that we would recognise, but quite a few pagans had a version of the ‘separate but equal’ doctrine that weighted the woman’s sphere heavily.
This is why the Romans had unilateral no-fault divorce. This is why Roman women kept their property. This is why there were laws against wives guaranteeing their husbands’ debts or other financial commitments, and why it was actually illegal for a woman to seek her husband’s permission to open a bank account. She either did it herself, or no-one did it.
The early Christians set their faces against this system, while other more sexist cultures in the Roman Empire resented it enormously. Greeks complained about their daughters running off with Roman soldiers. Jews complained about Roman women wandering around everywhere unchaperoned, breastfeeding their children in public (including at the theatre and amphitheatre, quelle horreur!) and having authority over men.
Schulz, the great scholar of Roman law (in the midst of arguing for the liberalising of divorce laws in both England and his native Germany, and also joining with H.L.A Hart in arguing for the legalizing of homosexuality between consenting adults in private) made the following observation (in 1950):
This is a very old debate. The Christians thought they’d won it when they defeated Roman paganism. The problem is, modernity has now sided with the Romans (on everything when it comes to sex and gender, too: abortion, sex for fun, married women’s property rights, gay rights).
And at least some Christians are really, really unhappy about it. I mean, no-one likes zombies, and Christians thought this other, alternative tradition was not just a closed book, but a burnt and buried one, too.
I’m rereading Mere Christianity right now (because I spotted a few areas on my wall that hadn’t been head-banged yet), and I’d forgotten that the revered Lewis, in chapter 3, gives passing endorsement to the whole wives-submit-to-their-husbands thing.
… then they’re in a bad marriage and need to get some counseling. From a secular counselor. And said counseling may even lead to divorce. So fracking what.
What on earth makes these people think that just because I’m independent, doesn’t mean I honor my husband and am loving toward him? Or that he doesn’t — maybe even shouldn’t — honor me and be loving toward me in return? Or can’t they even imagine a relationship that’s not patriarchal?
Idiots. Imaginationless idiots.
(31 years of happy marriage and counting…)
Aberystwyth is such a lovely town, but there are vile creatures squirming around in dark corners almost anywhere. I take it this guy is not a big fan of Sue Jones-Davies.
When the Holy Spirit breathes on me, I try to be tactful and offer him some breath mints, but he never takes the hint.
@7: 31 years and counting here, too — despite having started it as fundamentalists who in theory believed this stuff (well, not quite to the extreme this Aberystwyth bloke seems to). Of course we wound up pretty much just paying lip service to the whole thing, then effectively ignoring it.
So independent women make baby Jesus cry. Wonder if Beyonce knows this.
Seriously though, that’s some trick. Convincing women that if they want to be their own person, they’re not just defying their husbands, they’re causing the whole church to defy Jesus! A lot of responsibility these women have, isn’t it? The entire Christian church could come crashing down if she refuses to make hubby a sammich.
@5: Fascinating comment, thanks for that, skepticlawyer.
@11: For shame! Don’t you know that saying sammich makes OB cry? :)
(Well, she once wrotesomething about her loathing for ‘samwidge’ and I’m assuming ‘sammich’ brings on the same response
The form of Geoff Thomas’ attack was inexplicable!
Spirit-breathed what, now?
Even if these religious dopes could wave their spirit-breathed wands and actually secure the submission of wives to their husbands, why would a husband find a wife like this the least bit interesting?
“Spirit-breathed” is an alternate literal translation for “divinely inspired”. The etymological connection between “inspire”, “spirit” and “breath” exists in both English, NT Greek, and a whole whack of other languages (even the Hebrew “ruach” IIUC — not closely related to European tongues).
Saying sammich makes me cry but writing it is sarky, so that’s all right.
Haw!
Reverence is a noun, not a verb (I checked). You don’t reverence someone, you revere someone.
I don’t trust people who can’t use the language properly to interpret textual meaning for me.
“Reverence” is used as a verb in the King James Version. Also, “they” as a singular pronoun. God said it, I believe it, that settles it.
Anti-feminism and alpha male masculinity is not exclusive to old-school Baptists – it’s hugely trendy in mainstream evangelical churches. Check out Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, the so-called “cussing pastor” – all the misogyny, none of the bland politeness. Or this post from the Presbyterian anti-feminist Bayly Brothers:
http://www.baylyblog.com/2007/11/wooing-as-warfa.html
Kathryn Joyce talks about Driscoll. He’s on my list of Stuff To Look Up.
If that’s the case one would at least expect Jesus to have some moral sense to ensure that the man a woman ended up with was a good and loving person. Then again, a good and loving person probably wouldn’t expect submission and fealty from their spouse.
Heh, klingons are fun.
Not much worse than “you” as a singular pronoun. Kids these days.
Something tells me you wouldn’t enjoy saying that within earshot of a Klingon female.
If someone think’s that’s unacceptable, they are wrong.
Flora Poste:
If someone thinks that’s unacceptable, they are wrong.
They’re doubly wrong, it appears.
Sorry about that.
“Husbands are the head of their wives as Christ is head of the church” – What this means is – a wife should love and support her husband in a submissive role. Why this is important is because two people can not both “head” the same family. There will be disputes that neither “head” will want to drop their argument over. If they drop their argument then they are “submitting”. If a man and his wife both argue and she won’t submit and he won’t submit either then there’s a marriage going to fail. And this has been proven in the past 40+ years of pro-feminism/anti-Christianity ideology. We have placed women equally to men and divorce rates are somewhere around 70% in the US today. The marriage rate has also dropped from 83% from 1965 to 50% in 2011. We have created a gender war by pairing women against men and men against women. We’re also seeing an increase in homosexuality and atheism across the board. They’ve conducted studies into the “happiness” of women and surprisingly, they’re more unhappy today than they were during the 1950s when men and women were both rated at their happiest level with each other. You see a lot of women stressed out today because they have to work a job. Many of these women wish they could just be homemakers and housewives but nobody can afford that type of lifestyle except the very rich. Kids are the ones suffering the most though. They no longer have a mother. They have two fathers and each goes to work and comes home unhappy and constantly fight. Then they divorce and the children suffer even more as they no longer have the discipline that their masculine father had to offer them. Instead they are left with a stressed out angry woman that is prone to abusing her children because she can’t handle the responsibility of raising kids and working a career at the same time. And all this stems to the idea of feminism – something we replaced Christianity with. The idea that women and men should be considered equals. We’ve tampered with nature and disobeyed the Lord (for a second time) and now we’re stuck all with the hell we’ve created.
Nice parody! Very droll.
<i>We’re also seeing an increase in homosexuality and atheism across the board.</i>
You say that like it’s a Bad Thing.