‘Submissive Wife’ Not What Left Thinks it Is

In Thursday’s FOX News GOP Presidential Debate, a resounding roar of ‘boos’ filled the auditorium when debate moderator Washington Examiner Columnist Byron York asked Congresswoman Michele Bachmann whether she would be “submissive to her husband” if she were elected president.

This question was framed after a comment Bachmann had made a few years back about how she didn’t want to do something her husband had asked her to do (return to school to become a tax attorney), but she buckled down and did it because he asked. She said she was ‘submissive’ to his wishes.

The idea of wives submitting to their husbands is a Biblical-based principle ingrained into fundamental Christians since Paul wrote the words in Ephesians 2:22-24:

“Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. 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. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.”

The writer of Ephesians, Paul (formerly a soldier known as Saul who persecuted Christians in Rome), was writing letters to churches he supported while he was in prison and during his vast travels to support Christians in the region. He was outlining instructions/guidance to keep the people of the church focused on God in a society not all-together friendly to the Christian faith.

Let’s not forget Christians were being herded up and thrown into arenas and into Lion’s Dens. His words were those of comfort and of unity and were spoken out of a desire to allow Christians a support system. In the social class present back in the day, men were revered as the leader of the home and of the society in which they lived. Therefore, Paul instructed women to listen to their husbands (who were often more educated and world wise than they were) and then in turn, for husbands to support the church as Christ had.

There is still a place for this, but it is different now as times are different and a woman’s role in this society has astoundingly changed.

In our culture, meanings change through the years based on the times and the interpretation. If they didn’t, “gay” would still mean “happy”; “cool” would only mean a temperature and a rainbow would still represent God’s promise to Noah.

Times have indeed changed.

(more…)