Tea in a Beer Mug

This is not going to be a sermon on anger. I just need to vent my anger somewhere and I thought I’d warn my visitors before they read the post. This is about a woman’s anger.

I’m sick and tired of not being able to say what I think about a situation.
I am sick and tired of being subjected to people’s irresponsibility and having to rescue them out of their own mess.
I am sick and tired of being told how “beloved” I am by someone who has only ever screwed my life up and shown no repentance or even regret.
I am sick and tired of being calmed with platitudes and Bible verses, so they can keep throwing crap in my direction.
I am tired of explaining what is so wrong with some people’s handling, all to be told “I understand, you are so right”, but doing nothing to change our circumstances.

I am tired of feeling helpless. I won’t entertain shameless, abusing idiots. I won’t entertain lazy daydreamers. I’m tired. Tired. Tired.

Read any Complementarian article or book on marriage and there is a lot of talk about a man’s leadership and his authority over his wife. Complementarians teach that the meaning of the husband being “head of” his wife means that he is in a position of authority, leadership, and responsibility over his wife. Different teachers add or subtract from these responsibilities and authority, but they all agree that the husband has a higher position in the marriage to which the wife is supposed to submit, and all teach some degree of privilege (even if they don’t call it such!)

Now, the expression “head of” appears a few times in the New Testament. I don’t recall ever finding it in the Old Testament.
Husband is head of his wife as Christ is head of the church (Eph 5, 23) . The head of every man is Christ, the head of every woman is man, and the head of Christ is God (1Cor.11) . All say that one is head of the other, not head over, and the passage where this “head of” is explained with more detail speaks of Christ being head of the church, his body, of which he is savior (not lord, leader or ruler).

Why jump to the conclusion that “head of” means “authority over”? More importantly, why teach that a husband’s “role” is to be the leader and vest him with authorities that the Bible never mentions?

Some teachers, like Bruce Ware, believe that the fact that man was created first, that he named the woman, and that he was given the task to name the animals before the woman was made from his rib, mean that, from the very beginning, man was given “headship”. This may be true, but I wonder why don’t we find any specific instruction regarding this authority before the fall? And why didn’t God ever specifically instruct men to have authority over their wives?

Yes, men are called “head of” their wives, and this fact means that wives are to submit to their husbands. It doesn’t say that they have to submit to the authority of their husbands, but to their husbands. Period.

Every time I read an article that talks about the authority, leadership or headship of the husband, and the wife submitting to this authority, I can’t help but notice the greater emphasis placed on leadership and authority, rather than laying down his life, loving, serving, cherishing and honoring. Yes, all of these are mentioned, but in the context of his authority. Authority comes first, then everything else.

I don’t want to go into what the word “head” means in the texts. Whether it means “source” or “authority” or some mixture of both doesn’t change the facts that husbands are told to love, cherish, honor, lay down their lives for their wives. They are not told that God will speak to them, that they must make all final decisions, that their wives are going to try to usurp their authority, and that if they are not leading their wives they are not pleasing God. That teaching is not from the Bible.

Here are a few quotes from leaders who teach that a husband is to be a “servant leader”, not a tyrant.

- Mark Driscoll: Ways a husband can handle disagreements with his wife: Pray and discuss with your wife. Be patient. Wait for her to come around.
Appeal to a higher authority (pastor/counselor).
If the matter is pressing and/or a decision cannot be reached, the husband must decide. His wife should submit to the decision.

- A short video from Mark Driscoll Leading an unsubmissive wife

- A wise husband will also value his wife’s opinions and actively seek her counsel and insights (see Prov. 12:15; 20:18). He will seek to form a consensus with her on all decisions (cf. Matt. 12:25); if she has serious reservations about a particular decision, a wise husband will carefully reconsider the issue before proceeding. The basis for his evaluation must never be, “What will be pleasing or convenient for me?” Rather, he must ask, “What will please and glorify God, and what will be best for my wife (and children)?” If he and his wife cannot agree on the answer to that question, he is the one whom God has authorized to break the tie, and he is the one whom God will hold responsible for the results. (CBMW, Love and respect in marriage )

The quotes above are from Complementarians who are rather moderate and whose teaching is not extreme. I don’t really want to quote from articles that promote hardcore Patriarchy, although there are some that would make my point very well, because I believe most Christians who know their Bibles would quickly see that the teaching is not from the Bible. Soft Complementarian teaching is more subtle, but it still has a component of Patriarchy that I believe needs to be questioned.

Those of you who followed me over here from my Madame Rousseau blog will already know this sermon and what I think about it. I’m writing about it again, taking John MacArthur’s teaching that woman was designed in need of a leader, and that if she isn’t married she is leaderless.

She was designed with the need for a head. She was designed with the need for a leader. She was designed with the need for a protector and a savior. (…) Some of you men around here are leaving these girls leaderless. Now, if…if you see some lovely Christian girls around here, you better ask them to marry you and get this thing moving.

MacArthur is preaching from this passage in 1 Timothy chapter 2.

11A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. 12I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. 13For Adam was formed first, then Eve. 14And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. 15But women[a] will be saved[b] through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.

The following sermon excerpts are MacArthur’s teaching on verses 13 and 14, which are in bold.

“For Adam was first formed, then Eve.” Now that is so clear. Woman’s place was ordained in the order of the creation. Adam was made first and then woman. First, protas, first in rank, chief. He is ish, she is ishshah, in the Hebrew. In 1 Corinthians chapter 11, verse 8, “For the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman. but the woman for the man.” And that’s why she ought to recognize his authority. In creation, God made man first. Now keep this in mind. Man was made for God and woman was made for man. Eve was made for Adam. She was made to be his helper. Genesis 2:18-25. She is his glory. Man is the glory of God, woman is the glory of man. She is made to be the helper of man. She is to follow his lead, live in his provision, find safety in his strength and protection in his courage. The tendency to follow was built into Eve until the fall, and then came the curse, and in that curse the tendency to…to rule and then the conflict.

Where do we find any instruction for women to follow man’s lead, live in his provision, and find safety in his strength and protection in his courage? Not that husbands providing for their wives, providing leadership and protecting them is a bad thing per se, I just don’t find any instruction for this pre-fall.

“And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, was in the transgression.” We talk…we talk about the fall of Adam, and rightly so, because in Romans, chapter 5, that is the way Paul refers to it, “As in Adam all die.” So forth. We talk about the fall of Adam, because Adam, his name represents generic man, if you will. His name represents the race. He is the head of the race and he did fall. But we have to keep in mind that he didn’t fall first. First, the woman fell. And her fall confirms what verse 13 says, that…that woman needs a head. She needs a strengthener. Because when she got out from under the strength of Adam and tried to operate independently in conflict with the enemy, she was, what? deceived. And the intent of what the word is saying here, is that woman needs protection. That she has a certain vulnerability. She was designed with the need for a head. She was designed with the need for a leader. She was designed with the need for a protector and a savior. And I said I was going to say this and I am going to say it right now. Some of you men around here are leaving these girls leaderless. Now, if…if you see some lovely Christian girls around here, you better ask them to marry you and get this thing moving. They’re, they’re ready to fulfill their God-given calling, but some of you guys have a standard that’s absolutely on the fantasy level of what your looking for. You’re not that hot a catch yourself. So come down. Enough of that. Right?

Ok. Woman was absolutely designed with a need for all the things John MacArthur says. And she finds all of those in Jesus. The biggest mistake women make is to look for all those things in a man! Men are not Jesus. Period.

But woman, woman who is designed by God to be under a head and a leader and a helper and a protector and a savior, when she stepped out on her own and acted independently of the headship of Adam, when she acted without his leadership, without his counsel, without his protection, she became vulnerable. And it is inherent in the nature of woman that she should not find herself in that position of ultimate responsibility. For woman has a deceivability, when out from under the headship of a man.

Who says that women are more deceivable? Would that not make men, by default, considering that Adam went along and sinned with Eve, more prone to sinning knowingly?

I don’t think it is WRONG for a man to desire to protect women from false teachings, from the lies of the enemy, etc. But I believe that any greater deceivability which may be innate to women is absolete when she becomes a new creation and lives under the counsel and protection of the HOLY SPIRIT.

So the woman, then, in verse 14 was deceived. She showed by that her inability to lead effectively. She met her match, and more than her match, in Satan. She shows an inability to act independently of her protector. And, by the way, the term for being deceived is very strong. It is stronger than just the common word for deceive. It is a word that means, because it has the addition of a…of a preposition on the front of it, it means to be fully deceived, to be thoroughly deceived, to be completely deceived. And so we conclude then, beloved, that when a woman leaves the shelter of her protector and savior, provider and nourisher, she has a certain amount of vulnerability. Because she is designed for protection. That’s true even in a physical sense, isn’t it? So the fall, then, was the result of not only disobeying the God’s command not to eat, but the fall was the result of violating the divinely appointed role of the sexes and woman acting independently of man.

I absolutely agree with John MacArthur here. When a woman leaves the shelter of Christ and fails to follow the lead of the Holy Spirit, she becomes vulnerable. But John MacArthur is replacing Jesus and the Holy Spirit with a mere man: a woman’s husband.

This is a huge problem I have with Complementarian teaching. The more I have read, the more I see teachers instructing women to place their husbands in the position that only Jesus rightfully has in their lives.

Unmarried women are not “headless” or “leaderless”. We have a leader and a head in Jesus. We belong to Him, and He is our protector, our provider and our leader. That does not change when we marry!

I think that understanding this is slowly helping me work out what submission to my husband means. But I will write more about that in another post.

John MacArthur sermon on women’s Role

Whether you agree with every point made in this document or not, I think most Christians who are aware of what CBMW teaches will be in agreement with the need for them to re-examine their teachings in the light of the damage they have caused and are still causing.

Here are a few statements made by CBMW teachers which can be found on their site.

The Bible teaches that all believers are part of a “royal
priesthood” (1 Pet. 2:9), and that there is no intermediary between
man and God except for the man Christ Jesus (1 Tim. 2:5). Still, if a
man aspires to be a godly husband, he will assume responsibility to
oversee the spiritual condition of his wife. To love and serve his wife
as Christ loves His church, a husband must intercede on her behalf.

As part of the headship responsibility, every husband also bears the
call to be a prophet in the home. In its simplest definition, a
“prophet” is “one who speaks for God.”

Here are some marks of a prophetic husband:
- He hears from God.
- He establishes a doctrinal foundation for his home. Rather than ignoring theological and doctrinal issues, dismissing them
as foolish or unnecessary, a husband should find himself wrestling
with the issues raised in Scripture and should determine for his wife
and his family what is right and true.
- He faithfully proclaims the truth of God. So many of us have abandoned any attempt to
lead our wives in any kind of informal study of the Scriptures.
- He confronts sin and calls his wife to repentance.

- A husband as king: He is to lead his wife. He is her provider. He is her protector. He is to know and apply the law of God in the home. A husband is responsible to represent his wife and his family in the culture.

There will also be attacks from your closest ally, your wife. While
her spirit will welcome the leadership, protection, and provision of a
wise king, her flesh will war against her spirit and will seek to thwart
your authority. Over time, there will be showdowns as you wrestle
with whether to compromise and gain her approval or to stand fast
and face her wrath. There will be times when you’ll have to decide
whether to serve her or to serve God

All quotes are from A Husband as Prophet, Priest and King by Bob Lepine.

Is God calling husbands to assume the “role” of Christ as Prophet, Priest and King of the church in their relationship with their wives?
Is the analogy of Christ head of church-husband head of wife to be interpreted as husbands being to their wives what Christ is to the church, in every area?

“Do you believe that God has brought us together?”
She did.

“In that case,” he replied, “God will lead me and you will do the following.”

This is an excerpt of a conversation between Billy and Ruth Graham. Ruth was trying to convince Billy that God was calling him to Tibet to minister along with her, but Billy didn’t feel the same calling.

I chose the quote because it is, in a nutshell, the Complementarian teaching of husband-headship/leadership, and what it means: God will speak to the man, the wife is to follow.

Complementarians teach that a man’s role in marriage is to “lead”. The man is responsible for hearing from God, and leading his family. With this responsibility comes the right to have the final say in all decisions, and vests him with a certain authority. Whether he delegates or not, he is the final responsible person, and the final authority. His wife is second in command.
Complementarians understand the passage in 1 Corinthians 11:3-12 as prescribing a chain of command or a hierarchy. Therefore, the man being “head of” the wife implies greater authority and a higher position in the chain of command where God is at the top, followed by Jesus, followed by the husband, followed by the wife. I find this interpretation problematic, but I won’t go into that today. I want to stick to the teaching of husband leadership in marriage.

Based on this understanding of the 1 Corinthians 11 passage, Complementarians teach that husbands are to seek God for direction, and wives are to seek their husbands and God for direction. If husband says A and wife feels that God is saying B, she must be willing to do A, even if she believes it isn’t what God wants her to do, which may (will!) lead to deep emotional and spiritual struggles for many wives.

In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul speaks specificaly on marriage in chapter 5. Complementarian teachers take the passage from verse 22 to 33, concluding that Paul is teaching a model of leadership and respectful submission to this leadership, but that this leadership ought to be loving. They define the husband’s role as that of “servant leader”, one who serves by leading and leads with a servant heart. Not a despot.
This sounds very good, at first. Until you get down to what it actually means: God will lead me, you will do the following. Husbands have final decision making authority. In the event of disagreement, a wife is to give in and allow her husband to make the final decision. God speaks to the husband.

So. What is my big problem with this interpretation of the passages? Well, let’s go back to Genesis chapter 2.

23 The man said,
“This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ‘woman, [k] ‘
for she was taken out of man.”

24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

Marriage, as defined in Genesis (pre-fall), and later by Jesus and the apostle Paul, is about unity. Two people become one. Two wills have to learn to merge into one. God sees one unit. Complementarian teaching of husband being head as meaning husband leadership places the burden of unity on the wife, and potentially separates them. Why? If a husband is told that God will speak to him, he may very well seek God’s will for his family without his wife. Then he will bring what he believes to be God’s will to her, and expect her to support him. Of course, there are many complementarian husbands who take their wife’s input very seriously, but just the fact that they believe they are vested with final responsibility and authority places them in a position where they can very easily hurt their wives and make big mistakes for the sake of living up to their role.

Reading further down the article where I found the statement from Billy Graham, I found that Ruth, while very supportive of Billy, insisted upon things she believed to be right, didn’t submit to everything Billy would have wanted her to, and clearly said no in some instances. I wonder whether any of these situations would make it into a Complementarian book for wives!

More on head-ship in another post, which I hope you won’t have to wait so long for!

It’s been three months since I promised to share my reasonings with you regarding Complementarian teaching and why I don’t subscribe to it. If you have been waiting, I hope you made yourself comfortable in my absence.

I’ve been thinking about how I want to share my thoughts about Complementarian teachings on marriage and how I believe they are harmful and miss the point. I would like to quote well known teachers and leaders of the church because their words carry the message powerfully, but I also don’t want to fill my posts with quote after quote, and I don’t have the time to do that either!

Anyway, I had best get to work if I ever want to share my musings with my readers.

Something like two years ago, while searching for information on marriage on Christian sites, I became aware of the different “doctrines of sexuality or gender” which are popuplar in the Christian comunity, especially in the United States. Patriarchy, unashamed and unapologetic belief that men were created to rule and women to submit, in every sphere. Complementarianism, which ranges from hard to soft, from people who subscribe to patriarchy but don’t want to call themselves patriarchalists, and people who believe men and women have distinct and important roles within the family and the church. Egalitarians, or people who believe in complementarity without hierarchy, that is, that God created male and female to complement each other, to work alongside each other, but there is no hierarchy in their relationship.

Two years ago, I self-defined as a soft-complementarian. Today, I am rejecting the title

My purpose with these posts is to bring my thoughts on paper (or screen), because I want to have my reasonings written somewhere; To have a series of posts that explain my position which I can send people to if they ask what I believe about the topic; To put my thoughts out there and maybe get feedback or help people think.

Two years ago I discussed these issues with passion, heatedly. Today, I think I have moved on. I have peace and not fear. I no longer believe God likes men better than women, and not because I have seen the beauty of keeping my mouth shut and doing as I’m told.

I will be addressing common and maybe not so well known Complementarian-Patriarchal teachings. Look forward to reading what I think about:
Headship.
Submission.
Authority.
Roles.
Obedience.
Regulations.
Losing touch with reality.
Following the teachings to their logical end.

And more, as they come up.

The purpose of this post is to add my voice to what I hope is, by now, the clamor of Christian voices speaking up against abuse in the name of our Savior.
This bit of news shook me to the core. A seven-year-old little girl is dead. The little girl had been adopted three years ago from Liberia. Apparently, she was repeatedly beaten with a length of 1/4-inch plumbing supply line, as Michael and Debi Pearl of No Greater Joy Ministries teach parents to do.

A swift swat with a light, flexible instrument will sting without bruising or causing internal damage. Many people are using a section of ¼ inch plumber’s supply line as a spanking instrument. It will fit in your purse or hang around you neck. You can buy them for under $1.00 at Home Depot or any hardware store. They come cheaper by the dozen and can be widely distributed in every room and vehicle. Just the high profile of their accessibility keeps the kids in line.

In the same article, we find that the number of “licks” they recommend to properly satisfy a child’s need to experiece payback is ten to fifteen. Pearl says that is being kind.

If you have trained properly, this may never happen to your child, but if it does come to this, you are not helpless. The soul of your child needs to be punished. He feels the need to suffer for his misdeeds. What I am telling you is well understood by the most reprobate of modern psychiatrists and psychologists. They call it a “guilt complex.” Children and adults in this state of mind often do harm to themselves. Their anger is turned inward because they hate the bad person they know themselves to be. Their soul is crying out for justice to be done to the self. They don’t know what is happening, and they will not voluntarily seek punishment, but their soul needs judgment. When your child is in the first throes of this debilitating condition, be kind enough to punish him. Care enough and love enough to pay the emotional sacrifice to give him ten to fifteen licks that will satisfy his need to experience payback.

If you don’t agree with him, you don’t love your children.

If you do not see the wisdom in what I have said, and you reject these concepts, you are not fit to be a parent. I pity your children. They will never experience the freedom of soul and conscience that mine do.

In another article, Michael encourages the mother of a four-year-old who runs away when she knows she’s in trouble, to sit on her if necessary, and to discipline until she gives in.
Yes, he emphasizes control, but he encourages to start with five licks, add two for the fit, and keep adding on until she gives in, threatening with more and harder blows.

The issue is not one of control, or not disciplining in anger. Nothing tells us that Lydia’s adoptive parents were angry at her, or disciplining her out of control. You don’t have to lose control to abuse a child.

Perhaps the most insidious aspect of their teaching is that they claim it’s God’s way.

When is a marriage no longer worth fighting for?
When disrespect creeps in?
When one spouse is unfaithful once?
When unfaithfulness becomes the norm?
When one spouse wants out?
When one (or both) spouse(s) is not committed to the marriage?
When one spouse disregards the other spouse’s desires?
When the couple have no sexual life any more?

In Christian circles you’ll hear a lot about how God hates divorce. I believe he does. But I wonder, is divorce an event, like a wedding, or does it creep in slowly, as two people who promised to be one start drifting appart, or as one spouse sets something else above the marriage even if that something else is a threat to it; Or when both spouses lose respect for each other.
Sure, divorce papers, like a marriage license, are formalities that make something final. While people are not legally married or divorced until they sign the papers, the commitment to each other begins and ends before papers are signed.

One spouse may have left the marriage and be treating the other as a meal ticket or a servant. There’s no respect, no love, no commitment. I think that spouse needs a paper in the hand that legally frees him (and the abused spouse) to go on with life.

Some people will hang on to a defunct marriage for decades believing that not divorcing is what it’s all about. Like the engaged couple who don’t have sexual intercourse before marriage ( but indulge in everything else), believing that “abstinence” makes them sexually pure.

Sometimes it’s so hard…