To my sisters in Christ (and their husbands)
I’ve been wanting to write this letter for a few years now but it is a huge subject and it seems I cannot encompass all the things which could be said to justify my position. So, I’m giving up on being too detailed; I just need to write it and make my point. Then if you have any further questions about how this works, or how I came to these conclusions, let me know.
To begin with, this is an apology for teaching the doctrine of women’s submission. I am now convinced this doctrine has its source in organized religion and not the heart of God.
Let me first start with an important point how the change in my views came about:
I began to believe that the Bible cannot be, in its entirety, “The Word of God.” Not that it doesn’t contain inspiration, it certainly does, but if the Bible is entirely the Word of God, we should be required to obey it in every point...Old Testament and New. For the simple reason, God’s morals do not change.
There are too many issues in the Bible which are counter to our sensibilities; like getting the elders together and stoning rebellious children (Duet.21.18-21). If the Bible is the ‘Word of God,’ and God is the same yesterday, today and forever...then we should think stoning our children might still be legitimate in some situations. (And there are many more verses like this).
However, if the Bible simply represents what man thought was God’s will, this changes everything, and explains a lot! AND, if that command in the Old Testament was actually a reflection of the Israelite culture at the time, what else in the Bible may be similar?
I’ll tell you one more: The doctrine of Submission
I really had a hard time coming to this conclusion. No, not because I like being the boss, but because if I took this view I would be aligning myself with liberal feminism. However, the truth is, the churches are behind the liberals in this. Many feminists, not having the balancing factor of love, have become too militant; yet overall, they have got this one right! Women are equal to men in every respect, and firstly, in God’s mind.
As you know, I’ve been studying scripture for a long time. Karen and I have done lots of marriage counseling in the past; besides this, everything I have taught in Sunday School, Bible studies, and preached; had this one thing in mind, “FOLLOW THE BIBLE.”
Well, I’ve now learned, one cannot follow all scripture as if it’s from God’s mouth; it’ll make you legalistic...just as I was. I am really sorry for this.
But worse for the wife, it will make your life conflicted. At one point you’re told, ‘God says, obey your husbands in all points’ (Eph.5.22-24) In fact, if you want to learn anything, ‘keep quiet in the church, ask your husbands’ (1Cor.14.35). The truth is, in as many cases as not, the wife is just as godly, just as business capable, just as wise and intelligent as the husband. Yet she is continually told her perspective isn’t as valuable as the husbands; and ultimately he’s the boss.
Oh yes, I certainly counseled that the husband was to lay down his life for the wife. This was supposed to be the strong mitigation that would balance the whole scheme. This sounds very good but in the end if the husband could not love like Christ did, the wife is still considered the lessor in the partnership. The wife, then, finds herself in an endless and frustrating cycle of submission. And because the husband will not change, believing he has the support of scripture and the churches, many wives leave the marriage.
Because of the Apostle Paul’s verses, I truly believed the husband was designated as boss. I no longer believe this, and I am truly sorry for teaching a system that supported a doctrine, which I now believe was based on Paul's cultural view, instead of God’s heart.
I know my current view might be considered heresy by some, but this does not bother me in the least. You see, I now see the Bible, not as God’s Word, but a book of testimonies of men’s experiences with God, and sometimes when we think God is leading us, it’s just the culture around us. As I have said, there is certainly inspiration in scripture, but it has its issues as well. I no longer overlook these issues, but see them as men’s misunderstanding how God works. And I see the writers of the Bible as ordinary people, caught up in their culture, which dictated much of what they believed. So when Joshua thought that God told him to slaughter everyone in Canaan (Duet.21.16), the more reasonable view is, he thought God told him this. And why shouldn’t he think this? After all, the Jews were in their infancy, and they thought God was just like the gods the Israelites learned of in Egypt.
So, what about this doctrine of submission, is it all meaningless? Not exactly. Religion always takes the principles of the Kingdom of God then makes doctrines and laws out of them. As you can see in the life of our Lord Jesus, there is submission in the Kingdom of God. But it does not work through doctrine or mandate. For so many years I failed to see that “submission,” like “grace,” is a facet of love and forbearance. Like love, our capacity for submission is not mandated but learned; and like love, it is limited by our own personal experience, not someone else's view of our situation.
What we call submission is really deference to another. When the Apostle Peter said in his epistle “the younger submits to the elder,” he was, again, speaking of deference, respect and honor for others. When Jesus washed the disciples' feet, He wasn’t instructing us in another sacrament or ritual, He was showing us what love, deference, humility to one another looks like. Jesus died in deference to us to those who humiliated Him.
I hope you are seeing, Love and serving one another is the lifestyle of Jesus, and therefore Gods. However, God never fault’s us when we do not meet our own hopes to be like Him. Furthermore, Jesus never condescended to religious forms of submission. And since Love always does the right thing, there may come a time when we (correctly) choose NOT to submit.
One more word on correct submission. At every point in our lives we should submit to one another. But it is not submission based on status; the Son of God had a status, yet He was the servant of all men. This is the way love works; so when you read the word ‘submission’ in the Bible, in your mind you disregard the cultural definition of the word and imagine this word as love/humility, in action and to all people. It will, then, make you less like the Pharisees, and more like Jesus.
As I said, this idea that the Bible has issues is very complicated. But as with many things in the world, following organized religion instead of the heart of God, can lead into all kinds of miseries and confusion. But in the end I hope we all are just doing the best we can; all the while retaining our love for God.
“Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” Mat.11.29-30
PS. I am open to questions, or/or arguments. Also, I have written several books on my views and my own discovery on how I, what I call, Traversing Babylon, (religious confusion). Just go to Amazon and type in my full name, they’ll come up. Peter W. Rouzaud