A new book by a survivor of domestic violence says churches are failing abused women through a combination of bad advice, faulty theology and a Catch-22 where women are told divorce is not an option and yet held in contempt for staying in the situation and tolerating abuse.
Author Jocelyn Andersen opens Woman Submit! Christians & Domestic Violence by describing a brutal attack by a former husband that she believes, except for God’s grace, should have left her dead.
A self-described Bible-believing, evangelical Christian, Andersen told EthicsDaily.com she was raised as a Baptist but now attends an independent evangelical fellowship not affiliated with any denomination. She doesn’t use those labels in her book, however, because it is a problem she says crosses denominational lines.
Andersen says one big reason that men who profess to be Christians beat their wives is the doctrine of wifely submission.
I don’t know about anyone else but it was my drunken Irish ancestor that beat his wife. That all stopped when he became a christian.
The heart can never be won by a beating and it is the heart that must submit first to God. Once submited to God, a spouse is able to submit one to the other.
Methinks modernity burns while the hedonists fiddle. Christians are the scapegoats, yes?
DonGander
The fastest-growing religion in the UK has some pretty strict rules about beating the missus. Perhaps Ms. Andersen can look into that.
Gee Ms. Andersen, what about those verses that strictly forbid a man to beat his wife? I guess you are ignorant of those.
And “wifely submission” is in the context of mutual submission of spouses to each other.
[blockquote] Ephesians 5:21-33 21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22 Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. 25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church– 30 for we are members of his body. 31 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” 32 This is a profound mystery– but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.[/blockquote]
In patriarchal society verses 21-24 might seem expected, but verses 25-33 place recriprical obligations on the husband. This is radical for the time.
A man who beats his wife does not need a religious reason for doing so and will find one regardless of what Scripture says. Christianity is just being a scapegoat for the ills of society.
YBIC,
Phil snyder