Stephen
Terry, Director
Images
From Marriage
Commentary
for the April 19, 2025, Sabbath School Lesson
"There is
neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female,
for you are all one in Christ Jesus." Galatians 3:28, NIV
Our
Seventh-day Adventist denomination is guilty of adultery. Instead of marriage
to the bridegroom, they have fallen in love with male headship, a patriarchal
view of the Bible that insists that one gender dominates another, derived from
the culture popular during biblical times. This is why we end up with
statements like the following in our Sabbath School Quarterly:
"Here are three principles for marriage. First,
forgive your spouse, however undeserving, just as Christ forgives us, however
undeserving. Second, accept your spouse, faults and all, just as Christ accepts
us, faults and all. Third, just as Christ put us before Himself, put your
spouse before yourself."
While
the author carefully avoided the use of the pronouns "he" and "she," no abused
woman reading this would ever feel that the church had any love for her, only
for her abusive spouse. Such statements only load the victim with guilt and acquit
the abuser. This itself constitutes pastoral abuse of the gravest sort. It
causes me to wonder how many pastoral spouses suffer under such patriarchal domination,
including mental and physical abuse. Such an attitude as this quote portrays a kind
of spiritual narcissism that develops when a spouse feels that since they are God's
representative, they are above question, even in the relative seclusion of
their own home. It allows pastors, or anyone claiming patriarchal headship, to
escape responsibility for the hell they turn their relationships into because
their victim was not being submissive.
The idea
of headship comes from proof texts in both the Old and New Testaments. In Genesis,
it originates from the fall into sin in chapter three where we read "I will
make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give
birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over
you." (Genesis 3:16) There are three things patriarchal dominators read into
this text. 1) the male rule is the woman's penalty for her sin, 2) it is OK to
ameliorate the pain of childbirth but not the effects of male domination, and
3) they overlook that the male ruling over her may be the result of his sin and
its curse and not hers. I know from personal experience, whenever I am even
tempted to be harsh to my spouse, it is the result of my sinful nature, not
hers. These three assumptions have led us down a very dark path in human relationships.
Not only has disrespect for women led to mental and physical abuse, it has
allowed the proliferation of polygamy in the Old Testament and adultery throughout
history by men who convinced themselves it was the sinful woman who enticed
them to betray their spouses instead of owning up to their own sinful natures.
In
the New Testament, we have (Ephesians
5:22, Colossians
3:18, & 1
Peter 3:1) all telling wives to submit to their husbands. The Apostle Paul,
as an incel (1
Corinthians 7:8), tended toward misogyny in some of his epistles. He
reacted negatively toward women who might be tempted to question his authority
as an itinerant evangelist. (1
Corinthians 14:34-35) The Apostle Peter, who was drawn to Paul's leadership,
though he himself was married, may have been simply parroting Paul's position
toward women, although Peter's statement in his first epistle reveals this is a
legalistic position and not one of grace and faith. That Paul tended to
dominate those around him can be seen in his rebuke to Peter (Galatians
2:11-13), and his falling out with Barnabas over John Mark. (Acts
15:14-40) It brings into question whether Paul could ever see himself as
mutually submissive to any man, let alone a woman. It is a strange irony however
that women tended to be the gateways for evangelism as he traveled. Lydia from Thyatira
(Acts
16:13-15), Priscilla in Corinth (Acts
18:1-3), and Phebe from Cenchreae (Romans
16:1-2) all played major roles in the early church and were lauded by Paul.
Priscilla even instructed Apollos, another traveling evangelist from Alexandria,
to a better understanding of the faith. (Acts
18:24-26) This makes it even more strange that Paul would tell those in Corinth,
the place he met Aquila and Priscilla, that women needed to keep silent in
church.
In
Acts and Paul's epistles it is "Aquila and Priscilla" only twice, once in Acts
and once in a Corinthian epistle. All the remaining mentions are "Priscilla and
Aquila," giving her pre-eminence in addressing their work in the early church.
These relationships call into question Paul's statement about keeping silent in
church as any kind of a universal requirement. That most churches do not follow
this practice today argues that this is commonly understood in modern
congregations. Headship Theology tends to be in bed with perfectionism, so
Peter's reference to women submitting being according to the law would appeal
to that mindset, tying the two into a common package. However, the idea that
making women remain silent in church and denying them pastoral opportunities as
a way for the church to be saved is heretical, for we are not saved by the law.
It only condemns us and reveals our hypocrisy when we claim to submit to God
and then demand that others based on their gender submit to us as entitled males.
We acknowledge
that the church is married to Christ as the bridegroom, and although we would
never urge the church to be married to Satan instead, we effectually do the
same when we encourage wives to submit to devilishly abusive husbands even to
their own destruction mentally and physically. We have no right to even suggest
such a horror to others. As Christians we are called to relieve suffering where
we can, not perpetuate it through evil counsel. The cursed marriage model in
Genesis 3:16, is not salvific. We should seek to ameliorate the pain of that
curse just as we do for childbirth. It seems strange that we can ease that
pain, and we can lessen the influence of the curse of the thorns and thistles (Genesis
3:18) with herbicides, and weeding implements, but our male patriarchy must
leave hands off for lessening the curse in any way of male dominance. It is as
though we are saying, we were both cursed, but at least I get to boss her
around, even physically abuse her if I want because God said I get to.
The Apostle
John said that those who claim to have a relationship with God but are unloving
are liars. (1
John 4:20) Lies do not originate with God. They come from the enemy (John
8:44) and pave the path to perdition. Those lies by both clergy and laity
are well known by the spouses they abuse and will rise to condemn those
unloving souls who live out the lies by victimizing others. As a church, we
should not be enablers of such abuse. Despite the parable of the good Samaritan
who bound up the wounds of a fellow traveler when the good religious people
failed to lift a finger to help, we still pass by on the other side clicking
our tongues at the poor victim who failed to be submissive and forgiving. Those
victims will testify against us as well on that day for our stone-cold hearts when
the judgment is set.
We do
not need to be such heartless people. We can change our direction and instead
of walking deeper into darkness, we can start walking toward the light of God's
love. He has wanted to walk with us ever since humanity walked away from him in
Eden and with tears in his voice, he cried out to Adam and Eve, "Where are you?"
He does the same for us today, asking continually, "Where are you?" If we turn
to him and begin walking together with him, he will cure our hard hearts. (Ezekiel
36:26) Then we can love as we were meant to from the beginning. Empathy and
compassion will nest in our hearts like doves. Our great desire will be to
alleviate suffering, not perpetuating those distorted theologies that increase
it. It was good religious people that put Jesus on the cross. Good religious people
stoned the martyr Stephen to death. (Acts
6-7) So-called good religious people perpetuated slavery for centuries and
continue to denigrate others over not only their gender, but their ethnicity,
their culture, even their speech accents. They even persecute foreigners who
live among us legally when they attempt to enjoy the same rights we have. (Leviticus
19:34) Let us not become so fixated on being such good religious people
that we end up condemning the innocent. There has been entirely too much of
that. When we begin walking toward God, we also begin walking toward one another,
but with love and humility. Empathy and compassion are hallmarks of a Christlike
heart. Let us be known for that and not for being a means of turning the lives
of others into a curse upon their heads. Jesus did not do that to us, neither
should we do that to others. (John
3:16-17 & Matthew
7:12)