Category: submission | Page 5 | Spiritual Abuse Blogs

Male strength and leadership

I’ve often been told that men have God-given, biblically mandated authority because of their greater strength. Women, we were told, are the weaker vessels. In nearly the same breath, I and other women were told to submit to this authority, this leadership, this masculine strength and power, to dress modestly, to obey whatever men told us. If we were abused, if we were not loved by our husbands, we only needed to submit more and everything would be OK. God would take care of the rest. He would deal with our husbands, our fathers, our pastors if they were wrong. We were to silently accept whatever happened in the meantime, or we were in sin.

The responsibility rested entirely on the woman or the child or the church member, even while the man or pastor boasted that he was granted authority by his masculinity, his strength. He was strong (but the woman was at fault if he lusted). He was strong (but if he didn’t love his wife it was because she wasn’t submissive enough). He was the strong one (but we were the ones expected, as women and children, to endure anything that happened). That doesn’t sound like strength to me.

How can a man be considered the strong one in the relationship if he blames everything on the other person, if the full weight of responsibility for the relationship and the man’s behavior rests on the woman, not the man? How can he even consider himself a leader if all responsibility is laid on someone else’s shoulders? Who is stronger, the one bearing the burden or the one telling her to bear it, and to bear it alone? And is there a leader in these situations? Leadership requires direction, not demand, and the best way to lead is by example.

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Marriage Trouble Part 4

I want to explain why I think the teachings in ‘Created to be His Help Meet’ book by Debi Pearl and the ‘Marriage God’s Way’ DVD by Michael Pearl are completely heretical at least in situations like mine was, and worse, dangerous for abusive marriages.

In ‘Marriage God’s Way’ Michael Pearl lists something he calls a “Moral Earnestness Test” on the screen showing all the difficult passages of scripture for women using the King James Version. He then does some commentary between verses and I’ll write whatever I can remember and/or what I understood his comments were. And then maybe I’ll add some personal comments underneath.

**Trigger Warning**

Michael Pearl’s “Moral Earnestness Test,” not necessarily in order:

Proverbs 31:11 – The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. {Michael Pearl taught that a woman should never spoil her husband’s reputation by saying anything negative about him to anybody.}
Ephesians 5:23 – For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.
1 Timothy 2:11-15 – Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection.
Ephesians 5:22 – Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. {Wives should submit to their husband just like they submit to God.}
1 Peter 3:1 – Likewise, ye wives, [be] in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives; {If they are not interested in Christianity, don’t try to evangelize them.}
Genesis 3:16 – Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire [shall be] to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
1 Timothy 2:12 – But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. (I understood that to mean it was sin to try to apply the great commission, to contend for the faith, to correct my husband in any way whether privately or anywhere.)
1 Corinthians 11:3-16 – But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman [is] the man; and the head of Christ [is] God. {Michael Pearl said that this means in the chain of command, my husband is god to me.}
1 Corinthians 14:34 – Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but [they are commanded] to be under obedience, as also saith the law. (So it was inappropriate for me to ask the pastor anything about the teaching. I had to ask my husband about it whether he heard the lesson or not.)
Colossians 3:18 – Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord.

I just wanted to add some words and say that after seeing all those Bible verses scrunched together in that way, it is enough to keep a new young Christian wife very oppressed and confused, thinking I had to pick and choose whether to obey God’s Word or my husband. And to try to do both was really hard because I felt unequally yoked and in my zeal my husband would make fun of me. I hated being made fun of.

Don’t get me wrong. I was often rebellious to this system when I just had enough which was probably every day. Then I’d just keep trying to work the system. It felt like the rest of the Bible couldn’t possibly be for me. When I’d try to apply my personal studies I felt like it just didn’t work with my circumstances being married to a man who at the time seemed annoyed with my Christianity. This made me start feeling like I was losing my saltiness.

I couldn’t ask anybody for help because then that would require me to probably share something negative about my husband which would make me fall short of Proverbs 31 womanhood. I was stuck in bewilderment for many years just picking and choosing what seemed convenient at the time living with a confused conscience for a long time never trusting my head too much.

To be continued.

Marriage Trouble Part 1
Marriage Trouble Part 2
Marriage Trouble Part 3
Marriage Trouble Part 4
Marriage Trouble Part 5

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Marriage Trouble Part 3

Some of the things I remember that were negative about all the power I was giving my husband was I was busy trying to be so perfect. If my husband was less than happy it would really break my heart. One time he was unhappy for a whole week. I can’t even tell you what that did to me but I will say this. I got so desperate I asked God for help.

I gave up trying to make my husband happy by being a good wife. It wasn’t working. Debi Pearl was wrong! But after I prayed my husband called me on the phone on his way home from work and I was really raw with my emotions. I think God helped me by being able to get really honest with what I was feeling like. My husband had a long talk with me that night and it seemed he was a changed man. It was supernatural. Debi didn’t save us, God did. Debi put me in bondage to my husband.

We were having some financial problems and my husband wanted me to go to work. I told him I would learn to be frugal but that I couldn’t go to work. We had 3 children at the time. It wasn’t only because I was indoctrinated not to go to work. I also had some personal traumas about working with men coworkers. I also did not want to leave my children with strangers because of traumatic things I experienced as a child. I’ve always been very adamant about staying home. I don’t care what anybody says. That’s deeply ingrained into me. Yes, mommy issues again.

So for years I lived on change and a small allowance bi-weekly on payday. If I needed to use the bank card I asked permission. This wasn’t only because of my husband. It was also partly because I didn’t trust myself with money.

I think this came from the book too because I didn’t trust myself. Like I said my husband was very whimsical and I had to adapt. It was all on me to make everything work or rather, seem to work.

I felt so small and dependent, like a little kid. I didn’t have as much passion for God anymore. God thought I was inferior according to the Pearls. They never said it that way but that’s what happened in my experience as a result of their teachings.

I think what saved me is listening to my Bible CDs. I was coming across a lot of stuff that the book didn’t mention. It became clear that I needed to not pick up that book anymore and only read my Bible.

To be continued.

Marriage Trouble Part 1
Marriage Trouble Part 2
Marriage Trouble Part 3
Marriage Trouble Part 4
Marriage Trouble Part 5

Marriage Trouble Part 2

Continued from part 1

Some positive things I gleaned from ‘Created to be His Help Meet’ was learning to be thankful and cheerful. I was probably stuck on living opposite most of the time. So this convicted me and I really appreciated it because I knew she had to have a real point there. Besides, I remembered my mother was often discontent and how that affected my parents marriage which ended in divorce.

I learned to be more organized with meals and keep things simple. I learned to ask my husband what are some simple things I can do to keep the house tidy enough. What were his main peeves? This really helped me a lot not to be overwhelmed and feel like a failure.

Positive to negative: I learned to be extremely flexible with my whimsical husband who was also a bit of a ‘Command Man.’ Well, he had some blind spots. He seemed to love the change in me. But I made a big mistake. I told him I wanted to submit better and almost perfectly. By this I meant that even for things I had qualms about. I would defer to him for concerns of conscience regarding some gray areas. I got the idea that I shouldn’t trust myself. Now my husband was to be the spiritual leader regardless of spiritual maturity and that God would ultimately be correcting and convicting him.

Debi Pearl used a lot of scripture and I didn’t look into the ways she used them. I started realizing later that some of the verses she cited were used in a highly questionable way. During Bible reading I would come across verses of scripture that seemed like it could clash with some things she was teaching women.

Another problem is I would be really bewildered about the way she treated the women in her letters. It was downright knife twisting mean! I felt sorry for these women. I wanted to write a letter to Debi Pearl but I was just too busy with raising the children and besides, I was afraid I might receive a verbally abusive letter. So I shrugged figuring she was just over passionate and she was wrong to be so mean but I’d just chew the meat and spit out the bones. I still had it in my mind that this book was an answer to prayer, so Debi’s zeal, while I felt it was wrong, I thought it might be there for a reason. Maybe she’d seen too many marriages die just like my mother’s.

To be continued.

Marriage Trouble Part 1
Marriage Trouble Part 2
Marriage Trouble Part 3
Marriage Trouble Part 4
Marriage Trouble Part 5

A conversation with a pastor

I emailed the pastor of the church I’ve been attending:

I know Refuge is complimentarian, but what to what degree? On a continuum, there might be “men and women are fairly equal, but women don’t preach” on one side, and on the other might be “women should remain silent, submissive, barefoot, and pregnant” on the other. That’s a very broad spectrum. I know you don’t fall on either side, but where in the middle of that does Refuge fall?

Regarding Ephesians 5, could you please define ‘submission’ as you understand it?

Yes, I’ve known they are complementarian, but the subject had never come up and women are very involved in the church, so it was easy to ignore. His response was interesting:

Mary, those are great questions!

For complementarian, we do believe that men and women are created equal (Gen 1:26-28) but they are created different (Gen 2). We were given different roles, but we are all gifted in different and unique ways. In Genesis 3 we see the abuse of those roles, especially in the curse – “Your desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you.” Those are abuses of the way God designed us to be…working together and in harmony. So, how that all plays out in our world is tricky, but it is a posture of our hearts. So, we believe that the role of “elder” is reserved for men, not at the top of the food chain, but the bottom. To carry weight, to stand in the gates and protect the sheep from wolves. As elders, we believe that if we are doing our roles well, that every person in the church (male and female) ought to feel the freedom to serve in every other capacity. We don’t want to lord it over people, we want to serve and guide and protect.

As for “submission,” we are all called to submit, but it’s more invitational and not coercive. That means we see submission as a willful act, not a forced act…if that makes sense. In a marriage situation, that means that husband and wife work together, but the husband takes on the accountability to lead well and his wife helps him lead well – encouraging him when he leads well and opposing him (not in rebellion, but in encouragement) when he is doing things that are destructive to himself, to her or to their marriage. We see that playing out very similar in the role of elder.

Paul, in Ephesians 5 says that the church is to “submit” to one another. Wives are to submit – willfully trust and/or fight to trust her own husband (not all men), but also, that is balanced by the call to men to “give up their lives” for their wife. We do not believe that means women are to be silent, but are to be “helpers” as God called Eve in Genesis. I hope that makes sense. There are a lot of loaded words in there 🙂 so please ask for further clarity if needed.

The first sentence feels a bit condescending… and a lot fake. Women are “equal but different”… to a degree this might be OK. There are physical differences between men and women, and every person is different. I’d never realized that some translations say that the woman will desire to control her husband, and never thought of the verse as a warning before. It is these sorts of things that make me enjoy being there, even if I don’t agree with them on many things. That he adds that men are to be elders “to carry weight, to stand in the gates and protect the sheep from wolves…” is very triggering to me, since that was taught in the unhealthy group I came out of. Pastors in my experience are undershepherds who tend to run at the first sign of a wolf. And sometimes people need to be protected from them. And people aren’t sheep. The Lord is my shepherd….

Yes, there are a lot of loaded words there… and a number that are triggering to me. My background includes a LOT of misuse of the words and verses surrounding “submission”, “shepherd”, “accountability”, and even “protect”, to the hurt of those who had trusted the leaders using them.

I’m not sure I understand what you mean by this statement: ‘In Genesis 3 we see the abuse of those roles, especially in the curse – “Your desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you.”‘ I thought this was a statement of fact, a consequence of sin, rather than abuse of roles or part of the curse. (It’s my understanding that the ground was cursed and the serpent was cursed, but not Adam and Eve. Though sin did carry consequences, God didn’t curse them.) Or do you understand the passage more as the NLT puts it: “And you will desire to control your husband, but he will rule over you.” (I was a little surprised to find that as a translation, having understood it to mean her focus would be on her husband, on gaining his attention and affection, and that he would have the authority and sole decision making ability in the marriage. It wasn’t a verse I’d looked up or consider I might need to “untangle” from possibly poor teaching.) Could you explain?

Notice he doesn’t respond fully:

Yeah, I know those words are loaded and I would rather help redeem them than just dump them, but I am so very sorry that you’ve experienced the dark side of those words. That is, unfortunately, way too common.

The statement from Genesis 3, the relationship between Adam and Eve was also broken in the rebellion. In Genesis 2 we see them work together in harmony. Adam did not “rule over” her and Eve’s desire was not “for her husbands position.” They were secure, they worked together, they thrived in their relationship with God and with each other. I think we see the redemption of that in Ephesians 5. Part of that brokenness was each of them abusing or abandoning the way God designed them to work together. So, instead of working in harmony, their relationship became contentious. Adam (man) would be tempted to abuse his authority/headship, to use it for personal gain or self-protection. I think we have all (I hope) experienced some good practices of authority, but we usually don’t recognize it as authority. If you’ve ever had a good teacher or boss or someone who you knew would support you and you felt a sense of freedom with them. A good boss, for example, doesn’t threaten or govern with fear, but helps to push or encourage you to be your best. That’s good authority.

On the other side, Eve is tempted to “desire her husband’s position.” I think the temptation there kind of carries an “undermining” tone.

These discussions might be better over coffee or something so we can give a gentler tone to some of these words, because my fear is that you might hear these words wrong, and I really don’t want you to. I want you to feel confident and cared for and it sounds like you’ve experienced a lot of the opposite of that.

I am sorry for your past experiences. I really am. I appreciate you asking questions and I want you to feel a freedom to do that. We try as hard as we can to not have any “back rooms” or “hidden agendas” or anything that we hide up front. So consider that an invitation to keep asking and clarifying.

Hmmm… dump them? I’m not sure where he came up with that. The idea that Genesis was redeemed in Eph 5 is something I don’t understand. The sudden turn to “good” authority irritates me, too, mostly because I don’t see the point within the conversation unless it is to draw a parallel: there are good bosses and teachers so therefore there must be good authoritarian husbands. Hopefully I’m wrong, but to then move to Eve and parallel to a negative reinforces my distrust. Then comes the invitation to discuss in person… and again a condescending tone, followed by a statement out of the blue that they try not to have any hidden agendas. Once again, this raises red flags.

I responded, and have not received a response in nearly 24 hours:

Thanks for the responses. I don’t think most ‘authorities’ who support and encourage us to do our best see themselves as authorities. They lead, but they are just as apt to follow because they don’t see their leadership as a position and don’t view it with any permanence. Because of that, they are free from the fears and insecurities of authoritarians and freer still to do all things well, as are those around them. At least that’s been my observation.

I have learned good things [while at this church]… some things taught and some that drove me to study things out on my own or piqued my interest in a topic that I hadn’t already untangled. There is quite a bit that is believed that I don’t agree with, but I’m used to agreeing to disagree as long as I’m learning and don’t feel threatened or shunned for coming to different conclusions. My past experience is what it is. However, because of it, and because of what I learned from it, I am more cautious… and wiser, I hope.

I am available for coffee or whatever… But fair warning that any discussion of these things will not end or even slow my questions.

I may be too hard on him. He may have triggers from what I said as well. I’ve learned at this church, which is good. I’ve begun to want to study and pray. Those are good things. And there is no church in existence where I wouldn’t see red flags. What do you see? What do you think of my questions and his responses?

A Conversation With A Pastor, Part 2

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