Tag: submission | Spiritual Abuse Blogs

A response to a response on 55 Things Christian Women Hear

One pastor wrote in response to the Twitter feed #55thingsonlychristianwomenhear. He emphasized a handful of tweets that said women were valued, and then went into a complaint against tweets that Christian women had heard about being in leadership or wearing certain clothes. He apparently didn’t read the feed itself, which included things like:

“‘The ultimate healing would be if you two were married’– said by the mom of my rapist.”
*meeting my friend’s baby* “Don’t worry this will happen for you soon.”
“It’s not your job to read the bible to our children. Their spiritual education is my job said the man.”
“If you had to pick, you’d rather follow the call of God on your life than get MARRIED? I don’t understand!”
“I recently got my PhD, after congratulations everyone talks about me needing to get a husband.”
“The nerve of women to complain. And, PUBLICLY! A woman’s job is to keep the peace, at her own expense.”
“‘The definition of biblical womanhood is marriage & motherhood.’ So single/childless women are unbiblical?”
“When you heard many sermons on how women submit to husbands but 0 on how husbands lay down their life for wife.”
“I know we’ve been friends 20 yrs & the divorce wasn’t your fault but I can’t have a divorcee near my husband.”
“Ambition isn’t godly.”
“Did you come to seminary to find a husband?”
“You need to let a man provide for you.” Me: “I’m single, so if I did that I wouldn’t eat…”
“Said to male/female youth: ‘Every woman has an inherent desire for children. If she doesn’t, something’s wrong.'”
“The church: ‘The dental hygienist deserved to be fired” (boss lusted).’
“You must be mistaken! Your hubby is a GOOD Christian, You can’t be a battered wife!”
“Well, no, he shouldn’t have done that, but as his wife you have to submit.”

The above are just a sampling. They were not addressed in the response.

Now, as for what was, there was a lot on clothes and dressing modestly. It happens that I’ve known this man. It happens that he’s known me ever since I left an organization that taught women should only wear dresses or skirts that come at least 6″ below the knee, should always wear sleeves below the elbow, should not let their collarbones show. He is very familiar with this group… and disagrees with them. Yet what he says in this response about clothes sounds so like them. And then he says: “How a man views a woman who is dressed immodestly is different than the way a woman perceives it.”

Wait. Do all men view women who dress immodestly “differently?” What is immodest? Isn’t what is considered modest at least partly cultural? (Consider what some tribal people in Africa consider modest compared to what is modest in America, or what is considered modest on a beach compared to what is considered modest in an office.) And do men really think “differently” about women who breach whatever their definition of modesty is? In my experience, they do only or mainly if they are told they should or if it is often called to their attention.

He ends with this statement:
“Perhaps you need to learn to “count it all joy, my brothers [and sisters], when you meet trials of various kinds” (James 1:2). And you need to do that first before taking your grievances to Facebook or Twitter. Slandering the church is demonic. Watch out that you’re not like the wicked servant who beats his fellow servants in Matthew 24:45-51. God will cut you into pieces and throw you out with the hypocrites.”

Count it all joy. Unless he is saying that “trials” are dressing “modestly” and staying out of leadership in the church, he has read some of the other tweets. Count it all joy. When your parents tell you they wish you’d marry your rapist? When you are told that you should go to a Beth Moore study and do a craft while the men discuss theology? When you’re told a man’s just being a man when he stalks you at church, so deal with it? When you’re told that you should stop wanting to be married but should get married and, if you’re single, that your life is on hold because women’s highest calling is to marry and have kids? Hmm…

Our grievances have been taken to churches. For years. And they have been ignored, in large part, in too many churches. But now he warns us not to take these grievances to Facebook or Twitter. Don’t discuss them. Don’t bring them into the open. “Slandering the church is demonic.” Where is that in the Bible? Who is beating his fellow servants? There is NOTHING wrong with saying that something being ignored by the church shouldn’t be.

In that way, how is 55 Things so much different than Luther’s 95 Theses? Yes, he responded to different things. But he called out the church for teachings that were harmful to people and were unscriptural. Yes, the man who wrote the response would say that some of the responses were scriptural. But surely not all. Surely not the ones I listed. And as for “God [cutting] you into pieces”… that is not in Matthew 25. I have not seen that in the Bible at all, though I have heard similar fear tactics used to silence those who would stand for right. I’ll take my chances. I’ll stand.

As Kelly Ladd Bishop said in her blog post: “The hashtag took some criticism from Christians who claim that it reflects poorly on the church and will turn people away. But that’s no different than covering up abuse because it reflects poorly on the abuser. These quotes are the reality for so many women in the church. So if it is reflecting accurately and turning people away, then perhaps it’s time for the church to listen to what the women are saying and do better.”

God hates abuse

If you’re lucky enough to have been raised in a healthy church and by a healthy family, your first thought when reading the title of this post might be, “obviously.” And I’m surprised if you read past the title. For others of us, the title seems drastic. God hates other things, and maybe, just maybe, He doesn’t condone abuse… but…

but we deserved it.
but if we’d been better people it wouldn’t have happened.
but we have to stay in the marriage because God hates divorce.
but God says “honor your father and mother.”
but wives should submit.
but we have to stay in the church.
but we’re supposed to forgive and forget.
but if God really wanted it to stop, He’d stop it.
but the spouse/parent/leader didn’t really mean it…

Sound familiar? God hates abuse. Not just when it happens to other people, but when it happens to you. He hates what it does, how it makes you feel less than a person, less than others. He created you and he loves you, and that love isn’t conditional like people’s may be. And he doesn’t expect you to stay in a situation that is hurting you or your kids.

You don’t deserve to be hurt repeatedly.
You are not responsible for others’ bad behavior.
Abusers are abusive because they are bad, not because you are.
You deserve respect and love.
You are valued. You are loved.

If you’ve been abused, particularly if you’ve been abused or abuse was permitted by a church, you’ve heard passages about what you should do, how you should accept whatever happens, how you should forgive. We do not often hear verses against abuse… and if we do, the parts against abuse are quickly glossed over. Did you know (I didn’t):

I Tim 3: Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money.

Psalms 11:5 The LORD trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth.

Malachi 2:16-17 “I hate […] a man’s covering his wife with violence, as well as with his garment.” says the Lord Almighty….

James 1:26 If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain.

1 Cor 13: Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Eph 4:29 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.

James 1: 19-20 Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.

1 Tim 3: But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.

1 Tim 5:8 But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

Ex 21:10-11 …he shall not diminish her [his first wife’s] food, her clothing, or her marital rights. And if he does not do these three things for her, she shall go out for nothing, without payment of money.

Titus 2:6-8 Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled. Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity, and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us.

When I was a child, I knew an adult who my parents guessed was being abused by her husband. She often “fell.” Bruises on her face and arms were common. They talked about these and other signs in front of us kids, and encouraged us that if we were ever hit by a man who said he loved us, to leave him the first time he did it. That was instilled deeply within me, and though in time, in that particular situation, through a radical conversion experience of her husband, the woman suddenly stopped ‘falling,’ the affect the years of abuse had on her and her children were long lasting. One married a probable abuser (the signs, again, were there), another became abusive and has been through a number of relationships that ended badly.

However, I saw the verbal and spiritual abuse I dealt with very differently. I blamed myself for what happened. I needed to keep my head down, needed to be a better person, wouldn’t be abused if I were a good person. These were the lies I believed, and the ones I repeated to myself until the night when I remembered the battered woman from my childhood and the emphatic statements of my parents that if we were ever hit, to leave. No, I hadn’t been physically abused, but weren’t the harsh words, the angry responses of my pastor to the mildest requests just as harmful? I didn’t leave that night. It took another year, a year of taking OTC medications to get through services, of shaking so badly that I could barely stand if I so much as got a text from the pastor, to leave. It took being called out in a service for simply quoting a verse to someone next to me. And it took realizing that I would have to leave or lie to cover a situation that I was aware of but that the pastor would want kept a secret for me to finally leave.

Nine years later, I still struggle with the affects of that abuse. There are still verses that completely drain me, and it’s still difficult for me to believe that God is not OK with abuse, to the point that I’ve debated changing the title of this post several times because it’s difficult for me to say that God hates abuse. But he does. He hates abuse.

And he loves you. He loves me. And he wants much better things for us than what we have received at the hands of evil people who’ve abused us.

Jer 29:11 For I know what I have planned for you,’ says the LORD. ‘I have plans to prosper you, not to harm you. I have plans to give you a future filled with hope.

Abuse and submission

I’m doing some research on abuse and submission as a result of a recent incident (poorly framed sermon) at the church I was attending. Here are a few thoughts from articles that are jaw-dropping… unfortunately mainly because I’ve never, in 40+ years of church attendance, heard them.

Why women stay in abusive domestic situations:

One woman was Beverly Gooden who tweeted on September 8, “I stayed because my pastor told me God hates divorce. It didn’t cross my mind that God might hate abuse, too.” ~https://www.etbu.edu/php/theintersection/a-biblical-response-to-domestic-violence/

Toward the end of the above article there are verses that show the Bible to address domestic violence and abuse. I don’t recognize most… and never heard them in church. The church has generally taken the stance that divorce is wrong. Why have they not discussed the sin of abuse? The response of my former church would have been that the woman wasn’t sinning in accepting the abuse, but would have sinned by divorcing the abuser. Is this accurate? If she allows him to continue sinning by her silence, particularly if she has children who are also subjected to abuse or the affects of living in a home where abuse is accepted, is she sinning less by her silence than by leaving?

A lot of the messages around violence against women are aimed at women – like not taking illegal cabs for example. But we feel there also needs to be a campaign aimed at men saying ‘please stop’,” he says.~https://www.christiantoday.com/article/towards.an.effective.church.response.to.domestic.abuse/27307.htm

Wait. Please stop?!?! This was taken from Christianity Today, not some obscure website. Please?

From the same article:

In the Christian context, abusers may use Scripture or theological positions to justify their behaviour, while the women may believe that the permanence of marriage, the importance of forgiveness, and the headship of the man in the family means they must simply accept it.
“This needs to be talked about and what forgiveness means needs to be explained because people don’t realise that it is not being a doormat,” says Natalie, who is helping to draft Restored’s resources.

Notice that Natalie does not say that the permanence of marriage and the headship of man needs to be discussed. Just the issue of what forgiveness means. One of her last statements, though, stands out most:
“At the minute, the church isn’t the answer for people suffering abuse,” says Natalie.

Interesting to me was a Catholic article that stated, among other things:

Violence and abuse, not divorce, break up a marriage. ~https://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/marriage-and-family/marriage/domestic-violence/when-i-call-for-help.cfm

This article also brings out scripture that shows abuse is wrong. I may post some of those in a separate article. They aren’t discussed or quoted nearly enough… and they need to be heard much more than “Wives submit…” and “women must remain silent” do. There are far more of them, but they are far less heard.

One last statement, because those reading it may well hear their own stories, no matter what sort of abuse they faced or from whom within the church:

He wanted submission from his wife and children. He wanted us to sit at his feet and learn from him. He wanted support and adoration from everyone. He wanted service and loyalty. Everything became HIS way. He knew BEST in EVERYTHING. … I didn’t seem like I adored him enough. I wasn’t loving him enough.

I sank into a deep depression. I began to see God differently than ever before. I felt like God was ONLY for my husband and not for me unless I was more obedient…more submissive…more adoring. I began to see myself as only a person in regards to my husband. Not an individual loved my Christ. I didn’t even feel like a human being anymore. Only a servant…and a terrible one at that. I don’t go to church anymore. I can’t pray. I don’t trust God. I struggle so hard to believe He loves me anymore.~https://cryingoutforjustice.com/2016/10/14/the-churchs-response-to-feminism-has-swung-the-pendulum-too-far-the-other-way-and-it-is-leading-to-abuse/

The quote above is very similar to things I’ve said due to church abuse. Only the man wanting submission and adoration was the pastor, not my husband. Abuse is wrong in any form.

Church Submission Teachings

I sat in church this morning trying to convince myself that it was going to be OK, that the verses being read were not meant the way I’d heard them preached. I succeeded for awhile, but the more we read, the more concerned I became. Why were we reading about God’s wrath the week after we read about his resurrection? What was happening? The verses read still don’t make sense. The songs were poorly chosen, too… and all I know is that the main song leader was out, so perhaps it was just a bad day.

But then the preacher got up. He read Ephesians 5. He began with a verse that I’ve heard yelled and preached too many times: “Wives, submit to your husbands as unto the Lord.” He didn’t stop there, and to his credit at least he did continue to read through the part about “men, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it…,” which was so little read in the unhealthy church I came from that many men didn’t recognize that part of the passage, even though they quoted the first (about submission) to women often.

The boys would actually sit in the narthex and tell passing women two or three times their age to do things and then say they were unsubmissive if they didn’t, not understanding that the verse didn’t say women were supposed to be subject to all males. A man would follow me around the church, and even off church property, muttering in tongues and saying I was rebellious and unsubmissive for not marrying him. We’d never been on a date. One woman confided that her husband raped her and both he and the church said it was OK, because he was her husband and she should submit.

In Sunday School the pastor’s wife laughed until she cried telling the single young ladies about the man who spanked his unsubmissive wife with a frying pan and another who came home and threw the supper she’d made in the trash, telling her to start over because he wanted something else. The pastor’s brother meanwhile would stand behind the pulpit calling women “loud-mouthed heifers” and other derogatory terms. They were not to take offense, but to submit to that.

And finally one overstepped the line by saying that women were things, because a verse says “he that desireth a wife desireth a good thing.” Therefore, women, in his mind, were things. Objects to be used and set aside, automatons to do the men’s biding without a word. If a woman was to speak her mind at all, it was to be done as entreating her husband, begging and/or flirting until he might consider what she said.

I know that isn’t what the preacher meant this morning. But it was way too close. Talking about how he used to want his wife to be like someone else, asked why she didn’t do this or that like someone else… he said she did speak her mind when it was best for the family now, but he didn’t say he respected or loved her for it. He said it (to my hearing) as a necessary evil of being and staying married. I hope it was just that what he said was filtered through years of abuse. I hope he didn’t mean what I heard. But I can’t shake it.

He said that there is power in submission, because submission requires trust, that the women who submit are, basically, the least damaged or most healed. He does not know me. He does not know my story. He doesn’t know the stories of others I have known, who submitted without trust, whose trust was broken through that submission… not only their trust in a man, but their trust in men in general and more important their trust in God. We were told if God loved us he would protect us if we just submitted. And the abuse worsened. We tried to submit more, and it got worse yet. In “rebellion” to that we found freedom…. in rebellion to the false idea that we should accept whatever we are handed by abusive men because God said “submit”. In rebellion, too, to the false idea that we should remain silent as we see others’ pain, as we all submitted to such abuse.

So excuse me, preacher, if I tuned you out today. It wasn’t because I wasn’t married and so didn’t see an application. It was because that passage was too often applied to me without love, and with a little too much hate or apathy or just general wickedness of narcissists left with a power they didn’t deserve and was not of God.