The Myth of Mutual Submission

Monday, January 23, 2006
Headship of men, submission of women, and the myth of mutual submission

In the area of relationships and marriage, there cannot be a more explosive and divisive issue than that of the headship of men and the submission of women.

Sometime in the late 1990’s, I think, the Southern Baptist Convention issued an official statement asking women to “graciously submit” to their husbands. Needless to say, that statement was greeted with controversy, scorn and ridicule from different sectors (and even from within the SBC itself).

Feminist groups have been saying all this time that the Biblical injunction for women to submit to their husbands is an open invitation for spousal abuse.

(For a discussion of the rights and obligations of husbands and wives under the Family Code of the Philippines, please surf over to my Legal Updates weblog at www.famli.blogspot.com.)

If you want a thorough discussion of the Biblical doctrines of the headship of men and the submission of women, I recommend the following books to you:
[1] “Strike the Original Match” by Chuck Swindoll; Multnomah Press © 1980; specifically the chapters entitled “Let’s Repair the Foundation” and “Bricks that Build a Marriage.”

[2] “The Grace Awakening” also by Chuck Swindoll; Word Publishing, ©1996; specifically the chapter entitled “A Marriage Oiled by Grace”

[3] “Together Forever” by Anne Kristin Caroll; Zondervan, © 1982 by Barbara J. Denis); specifically the chapter entitled “Who Wears the Pants?”

[4] “Rocking the Roles” by Robert Lewis and William Hendricks; NavPress, ©1991; specifically the chapters entitled “The ‘S’ Word” and “The Masculine Counterpart to the ‘S’ Word.”
For more relevant articles, please surf to The Council on Biblical Manhood & Womanhood website.This ministry offers free resources like articles, journal articles, sermons, book reviews, conference audio, online books, questions and answers, evangelical feminism and Biblical truth; with multi-lingual resources in Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.

What stands out in my mind with Swindoll’s book “Strike The Original Match” is his statement on page 12,
The wife must come to terms with her role and ask, “Do I love my husband enough to live for him?” And equally important, the husband must come to terms with his role and ask, “Do I love my wife enough to die for her?” Searching questions. But they put the issues in the right perspective.
In “The Grace Awakening,” Swindoll rephrases his thoughts in this way (pages 149-151):
[1] “The wife’s primary responsibility is to know herself so well and to respect herself so much, she gives herself to her husband without hesitation.”

[2] “The primary responsibility of the husband is to love his Lord so deeply and to like himself so completely he gives himself to his wife without conditions.”
Lewis and Hendricks, while maintaining the traditional view of the headship of men and the submission of women, clarify however that submission is not a wife’s role. Rather, they say, submission is the wife’s loving response to her husband’s loving and sacrificial headship.

“Roles” and ‘responses” may sound like only semantics to you, but I encourage you to read “Rocking the Roles.” The most striking statement in this book about submission is found in page 135: “A biblically submissive wife’s focus is not on enabling wrong behavior, but in empowering her husband to pursue right behavior – to become the man God wants him to be, and the leader God wants him to be.”

I remember something Dr. James Dobson wrote in his classic book (highly recommended!) “Love Must Be Tough” about submission. Dobson said, “Being a spiritually submissive wife doesn’t mean being a doormat.”

Caroll, who writes her book out of the crucible of the pain of her divorce (and remarriage to the same guy) says on page 126, “Submission is freedom.”

The myth of mutual submission

One time, I was browsing through the bargain books section of PCBS Cubao, when I came across Stu Webber’s book, “The Four Pillars of a Man’s Heart” (Multnomah Books, © 1997; reprinted in the Philippines by OMF Lit Inc).Webber is my kind of guy! He first joined the US military with the Airborne division. He then went into the Rangers, and then finally into the Special Forces, the elite Green Berets. During the Vietnam War, while crunched in a foxhole in a Special Forces “A” Camp, waiting to engage the Viet Cong in bloody combat, God called him into the ministry.

(Decades ago, I and a dozen other Rizal High School students out of hundreds who started the training, completed a yearlong, Saturdays only Junior Ranger training. There, we learned how to assemble and disassemble a Garand M1, a carbine, a 30-caliber machine gun, a Browning Automatic Rifle, an M-16; go through the obstacle course, etc. It was great learning all these things but the only time we got to apply these skills, besides the Military Stakes, was during a rumble between about two hundred guys from Fort Bonifacio High School and only about fifty of us from Rizal High. When rocks started raining down on us, the valiant guys from Rizal High did all the right things – run, escape and hide until night fell and our enemies had to leave unless they wanted their mothers to scold them for coming home late. Who was it who said that prudence is the better part of valor?)

Anyway, enough of nostalgia.

What immediately attracted my attention in Webber’s book is his discussion of “The Myth of Mutual Submission” on pages 75 and 76. Webber says that submission is “always singular in direction when it refers to authority. It is never ‘mutual.’” The words of Scripture simply cannot be turned sideways and twisted to force the reverse. Nowhere are husbands told to be subject to their wives. Everywhere husbands are told to take the lead.”

Lest you begin thinking that Webber is just reacting on the basis of his military background, he states in page 79, “There is no room in biblical headship for self-inflated big shots.” Webber also cites approvingly Pastor John Piper’s discussion of what mature masculine leadership is. Among other things, Webber quotes Piper as saying that a mature man “serves and sacrifices for the woman’s good.”

(In a lot of Filipino families, the father merely makes occasional decisions in order to show everyone who is boss in the family. But it is the mother who actually runs the household and keeps the family together. A lot of Filipino men are passive when it comes to family matters, and the women are forced to take up the spiritual leadership of the family. One common complaint that author Joyce Landorf, I think, hears from women is that the man doesn't want to take spiritual responsibility for the family.)

Webber includes in his book a chapter entitled “A Woman Among the Pillars” and I assure all of you women out there, if you practice what he says in this chapter, you wouldn’t find it difficult dealing with men.

(You can find an interesting review in http://www.probe.org/. of Dr. Laura’s ‘The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands.” Dr. Laura says that women don’t understand or realize the power they have over their husbands. She says that husbands are putty in the hands of the women they love!)

If you want to find out what the four pillars of a man’s heart are, go to the nearest bookstore and get a copy of Webber’s book. And all the books I mentioned above. Right now!

Posted by Atty. Gerry T. Galacio at 2:51 PM

http://-salt-and-light-.blogspot.com/2006/01/headship-of-men-submission-of-women.html

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Sunday, February 05, 2006
The Myth of Mutual Submission, part 2

In a previous post, I cited to you Stu Webber’s book “The Four Pillars of a Man’s Heart.” Webber in pages 75 and 76 dismisses “mutual submission” (also known as “egalitarianism”) as being un-Biblical. Essentially, people who hold this view believe that husbands and wives should submit to one another, and not just wives submitting themselves to their husbands. They say that “there is no unique authority or leadership role for the husband in a marriage,” and that “men and women are equal and carry responsibilities in both the home and church which are mutual or interchangeable between the sexes.”

Main argument against mutual submission

The traditional (read that “conservative”) view is known as “complementarianism” which holds that “while men and women are equal before God, they serve him in complementary roles which are not always identical and in some cases ought not to be.”

As Webber stated in his book, the main argument against “mutual submission” is that you cannot find a verse in the New Testament explicitly telling husbands to submit to their wives. On the other hand, wives are explicitly told in several instances to submit to their husbands.

Ephesians 5

22. Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.
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.
24. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.

Colossians 3

18. Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord.

Titus 2

5. To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.

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;
2. While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear.
3. Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel;
4. But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.
5. For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands:
6. Even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement.
The quotes I used above are from two articles which I highly recommend to you. These articles are:
[1] The Myth of Mutual Submission by Wayne Grudem, Ph.D at http://www.soulcare.org/Counseling/MythofSubmission.html

[2] Christ-Centered Marriages: Husbands and Wives Complementing One Another by Chad Brand, at http://www.baptist2baptist.net/printfriendly.asp?ID=230
Essentially, Grudem says that “the whole idea of mutual submission as an interpretation of ‘be subject to one another’ in Ephesians 5:21 is terribly mistaken idea.” He also states that “it can be advocated only by failing to appreciate the precise meanings of the Greek words for ‘be subject to’ and ‘one another.’” Grudem concludes that “the idea of mutual submission in marriage (is) a myth without foundation in Scripture at all.”

Brand, on the other hand, says that people who preach mutual submission “hijack” the Bible in order to make it fit their egalitarian viewpoint. He says, “Texts are either accepted, rejected, ignored, or revised according to the way they fit in with that motif. But this is a mistake of the greatest gravity. The revisionist position does not of itself arise from Scripture. Rather, it is plain that while the Bible teaches full equality, it does not affirm egalitarianism or interchangeability in all things, but rather calls for distinguishable roles between men and women.”

For more relevant articles, please surf to The Council on Biblical Manhood & Womanhood website.This ministry offers free resources like articles, journal articles, sermons, book reviews, conference audio, online books, questions and answers, evangelical feminism and Biblical truth; with multi-lingual resources in Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.

Headship of men can never be an excuse or justification for spousal abuse

Please let me reiterate here what I said in a previous post. The headship of men and the submission of women cannot be and should never be used as an excuse or justification for spousal abuse. One extreme example of how these doctrines have been twisted by some twisted men as an excuse for domestic violence is the true story of Lucy Tisland, narrated in the book “Battered into Submission” by James and Phyllis Alsdurf.

Lucy Tisland and her children endured years of abuse inflicted by her violent husband. One child suffered brain damage and died at the age of seven after he was severely beaten by the father. When Lucy cried during the funeral service for this child, she was brutally beaten by her husband. To the people in their community, however, Lucy and her husband presented a picture of a trouble-free marriage.

One time, after her husband came home agitated over a brewing problem of his sexual involvement with a teenager, he threatened Lucy that he will kill her and all their children after his nap. Lucy, believing that her husband would actually carry out such a threat, got a gun, and then shot her husband in the forehead.

Lucy was charged for the death of her husband, but she was acquitted by the jury, after she recounted her years of abuse at the hands of her husband.

By the way, Lucy Tisland’s husband was a Baptist pastor from Minnesota.

As I mentioned before, I have been giving lecture-seminars in Republic Act 9262 or the “Anti-Violence Against Women and their Children Act of 2004” to barangay officials and day care center workers. I have given lectures in Laguna (Victoria, Alaminos, Pila, Kalayaan, and Lumban), Cavite City, and in Sto. Tomas, Batangas.

RA 9262 now expressly provides for what is known as the “battered woman syndrome as a defense.” Section 26 states, to wit,
“Survivors who are found by the courts to be suffering from battered woman syndrome do not incur any criminal and civil liability notwithstanding the absence of any of the elements for justifying circumstances of self-defense under the Revised Penal Code.

“In the determination of the state of mind of the woman who was suffering from battered woman syndrome at the time of the commission of the crime, the courts shall be assisted by expert psychiatrists/ psychologists.”
The “battered woman syndrome defense” has already been applied in our country in the Supreme Court decision involving Marivic Genosa in January 2004. I understand that recently, an abused woman (a policewoman) convicted of killing her husband (also a police officer) was released from the Correctional Institution for Women, after RA 9262 was applied in her case.

Under RA 9262, abusive men also cannot claim that they were under the influence of alcohol, illicit drugs or any other mind-altering substance when they carried out their abusive acts against their wives, live-in partners, dating or sexual partners. Section 27 of RA 9262 classifies this as a prohibited defense.

(You can find the complete text of RA 9262 in my "Legal Issues and Family Matters" website at www.familymatters.org.ph. Please look for it under either "Relevant Laws" or "Legal Procedures.")

On February 26, upon the invitation of Ptr. Many Orara, I will be giving a seminar on the essential provisions of the Family Code and RA 9262 for the members of Maranatha International Baptist Church in Parang, Marikina.

Posted by Atty. Gerry T. Galacio at 1:23 P

http://-salt-and-light-.blogspot.com/2006/02/myth-of-mutual-submission-part-2.html