Saturday, June 20, 1998

Biblical submission: Careful look doesn't back Southern Baptists' directive

By Heidi Bright Parales

The Southern Baptist Convention recently passed a declaration that wives are to submit graciously to the servant leadership of their husbands. This seems, at first, to be a very biblical mandate. There are, however, some assumptions at work in this declaration. Unfortunately, these assumptions miss the entire thrust and integrity of the biblical passages used as the basis for this declaration.

The Southern Baptist declaration says men and women are of equal worth before God, yet calls a wife her husband's "helper" (referring to Genesis 2:18), a term that implies the woman is her husband's assistant rather than an equal partner.

Yet, the Hebrew word ezer, used to describe the woman in Genesis 2:18, actually describes God more than a dozen times in the Old Testament. God would hardly be considered an inferior assistant.

Next, look more carefully at the passage probably used for the basis of this declaration for wives to submit: Ephesians 5:22. It is usually translated "wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord." The Greek text, however, never uses the verb "submit." It says, "Wives, to your own husbands, as to the Lord." So, the Apostle Paul, author of the text, never directly tells wives to submit to their husbands. To find the verb for this verse, one must refer back to the previous verse: "and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ."

This verse is astonishing, considering the times. Paul was telling all Christians to be subject to one another: husband and wife, slave and free, Jew and Gentile.

A husband submit to his wife? The idea was so preposterous that Paul had to introduce it through the back door.

It is the husbands whom Paul spotlights in this passage, not the wives. Paul instructs men using 92 Greek words, but only uses 40 words in his guidance for women. Clearly, his focus is on male behavior in the Ephesian community.

Amazingly, men have a biblical precedent for submitting to their wives. In Genesis 21:12, God commanded Abraham to obey his wife, Sarah.

God calls husbands to submit to their wives, thereby loving their wives as Christ loves the Church. Jesus, as their model, loved the Church enough to die for her. Jesus certainly had the power to avoid crucifixion, yet He chose to lay down that power and submit both to the events taking place and to humans in positions of power.

Likewise, Paul addresses men whose government gave them absolute power in a marriage. Paul urges these men to lay down their power by sacrificing or submitting to the point of death for their wives. This would create a balance of power in marriage relationships, as well as greater possibilities for love between the spouses.

Jesus' example introduced the idea of mutual submission. He died to end relationships of dominance and submission based on power structures (Matthew 20:20-28). Following Jesus' example, Christians attempted to set up a new household of faith: a family of equals with no father-figure except God (Mark 3:31-35). All believers were to be treated as equals before God (Ephesians 2:11-22, 4:4-6; 1 Corinthians 12:13; Galatians 3:28).

This different way of relating made Christianity very attractive to women and slaves, who could join and experience a new kind of freedom.

The conservative male establishment responded by accusing Christians of threatening societal order by subverting the traditional household system and Roman "family values."

Fearing persecution, the writers of the epistles wisely borrowed ideas from their culture and modified them. They probably encouraged wives to submit for two reasons. First, wifely submission would result in fewer charges that Christianity destroyed Roman family values.

Second, a wife who challenged her husband's authority could end up divorced, preventing any chance for converting a pagan husband. Divorced women in antiquity were usually poor, and the typical "profession" for poor single women was prostitution. Encouraging wives to follow Roman law by submitting to their husbands actually provided them with economic protection.

A biblical parallel to the discussion of wifely submission can be seen in the issue of slavery. About 150 years ago, Christians used the Scriptures to support their pro-slavery stance: Leviticus 25:44-46, Matthew 8:9-13, Luke 17:7-10, 1 Corinthians 7:20-24, Ephesians 6:5-8, and 1 Timothy 6:1-2. The theology of slavery was hardly questioned, even though God had sent Moses to liberate the Israelite slaves in Egypt. In fact, when some Christians rose up about 150 years ago to denounce slavery, they were accused of denying the authority of the Bible.

Similarly, traditional biblical interpretation has supported the idea that women are to be subject to the authority of their husbands. Those who have called such interpretations into question in recent decades have been accused of not accepting the authority or inerrancy of God's Word, just as those who opposed slavery were attacked.

If Christians are to follow the traditional interpretations about the role of wives in marriage, then they also must be willing to accept the reinstatement of slavery. Yet, with scholarly interpretation, they need not. The passages directed toward the slaves were designed to comfort them in a situation that could not be changed.

The verses directed toward wives were written to help women cope with submission required by Roman law. Next to this requirement lay the new, astonishing idea that Christian husbands also were to love and submit to their wives.

Perhaps this concept of mutual submission seemed so radical that later Christians eventually lost sight of Paul's unusual teaching and reverted to the behavior of the surrounding culture -- insisting only on the submission of wives but not that of husbands.

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Heidi Bright Parales is the author of "Hidden Voices: Biblical Women and Our Christian Heritage," (Smyth & Helwys, 1998). She wrote this for the Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader, 100 Midland Avenue, Lexington, Ky. 40508.