Part 1: Control and Entitlement- Harmful Evangelical Materials

 

Diane Langberg says  in Redeeming Power:

“Abuse of power is a cancer in the body of Christ. How Christendom uses terminology regarding gender is sometimes an aspect of the disease. We need to let the light of a holy God expose us and our systems. A man named Jesus had nothing to do with these ways. He used his power without abuse, coercion, or complicity. A male named Jesus interacted with all kinds of women and protected, blessed, healed, encouraged, and lifted them up. He never told them to submit to evil or wrongdoing. He didn't silence them. Much of masculinity in Christendom looks nothing like Jesus. It has been contaminated by secular culture and sanctioned using theological terms. Any theology that does not produce the fruit of Jesus is false. We are doing great damage to countless vulnerable people and to God's church because people destroyed by abuse perpetrated by the powerful cannot use the fullness of their God-given gifts to bless his body. Those perpetrating the abuse are not gifting the church as God intended either. We simply keep repeating theological words almost like a mantra: leader, head, submission, authority, God ordained. We need to drag into the light those things we cover with familiar and good words and test them to see whether our labels and our applications are of God. Many are not.

We use our theological mantras when faced with a battered woman who has no access to money and gets tied to the bed whenever the man, who considers himself her "head," wants to have sex. We use these words when a thirteen-year-old comes forward and says that his youth pastor taught him about pornography and had sex with him and when the senior pastor uses his "authority" to silence the boy. We use these words when we speak to a woman whose "shepherd" used counseling sessions to repeatedly rape her so she would learn what men like and so be a better wife. We use these words when a female comes alone before a board of all male

"shepherds" with an accusation of rape or battering and ends up being cross-examined rather than believed. We are using familiar theological words and concepts in ways that sanction or minimize abuse and crush human beings. We assume we hold the correct position. Instead, we need to examine our individual and collective histories, our use of words, and our biases and prejudices that we have baptized with theological language.

A tree is known by its fruit. The fruit of the church ought never to use power to serve the self or to be complicit in such things. We need to listen to and learn from one another, just as I had to do when first hearing stories of abuse and violence that were unimaginable to me. That is incarnational work. We are failing our Lord and his body if we do not.” 

Before I get started, I want to say a couple things-

I am not doing these posts because I am on a rampage against “Biblical marriage and submission”. I actually believe in Biblical marriage and submission, but I believe that what I have been taught about them has been wrong. I have been doing a lot of studying and reading over the last few years and have come to a (Biblical) disagreement with what I had been taught. 

I am also not speaking solely out of my own trauma and therefore I am just nitpicking and trying to find fault where there is none. I have done extensive reading and learning in trauma and abuse and have walked through abuse in marriage with too many friends. It is true that I have been harmed by popular evangelical marriage materials and advice. It hurt me in ways that I am still recovering from. And I will never apologize for talking about my pain and the things that harmed me. I am not pointing to specific people but to an entire system that is harming… a system that uses the Bible as a bludgeon, twisting it until we are afraid to disobey what we have been told. I still hold to the inerrancy of Scripture and believe the Bible is to be obeyed. Yet I am convinced that the Bible has been not only seen through our modern, American eyes, but that it has been twisted so much that we are actually being abused by the use of the Bible itself (notice my wording, not by the Bible itself but by the use of it). 

I am not speaking only out of my own experience either. Over the years as I have spoken out about the harm that has been done, I have also listened to HUNDREDS of other women’s stories of harm and abuse. And so I continue to be a voice for those who cannot speak for whatever reason, and for those who do not yet understand that what they are feeling isn’t simply sin but is a result of emotional manipulation by a system perpetuated by people. No, not everything is abuse, because if everything is, nothing is. I get that. But I also believe that true abuse is minimized and I am tired of watching people I know and love suffer and think they are being godly for just taking it. If we TRULY believe that Marriage is a picture of Christ and the church, and we believe it can be distorted (I see people say that egalitarian marriage is a distortion because it reverses or erases roles, and homosexual marriage is a distortion because it doesn’t reflect Christ and the church but one or the other….) then why would we not also say that abuse in a Christian marriage is a distortion of the picture we are meant to be portraying? 

And so I speak out against the distorted picture portrayed as “good” and cannot accept that it is something we should just turn a blind eye to because “authority and submission”. 

Now, last comment before I begin: 

 Not everything in the books I critiqued is bad. There are genuinely some good nuggets and truth. I am glad that some people seem to have been helped by them. I will not invalidate your good experience, so please, PLEASE don’t try to invalidate countless bad experiences. God truly can use anything. Yet I believe that when we look at the harm done compared to the good, we should take a step back and reevaluate whether it is worth it. As Kristen LaValley says, "It's easy to walk through life unaware of how our theology is harming us or other people. So when we are given the opportunity to engage with our beliefs and gain a more intimate understanding of who God is, it's not a punishment; it's a grace."

It is good to reevaluate what we are teaching people when we learn that it is harming them. If we TRULY believe that the husband is a picture of Christ (which I don’t believe that but the books I look at do), then what an awful picture we are painting of God by what we tell women to accept from them. We fight so hard to “preserve the sanctity of marriage” from homosexuals but when it comes to abuse IN OUR OWN MIDST, we say “eat the meat, spit out the bones”, “suffer for Jesus”, “divorce is not an option”, “just be gentle and quiet and he will stop”, “pray and he will change”, “he hurts you because you disrespect him”, “your tone of voice and facial expressions can make or break him”, “he can’t be who God wants him to be if you aren’t submitting the way the husband wants”. How is that not a distortion of what marriage should be? A distortion of the picture of Christ and His Bride? 

I am convinced that our evangelical marriage books/advice are creating abusive men, or at least catering to them. I am going to look at the book, Why Does He Do That? Inside The Minds of Angry and Controlling Men by Lundy Bancroft, and a couple other books by counselors, and compare what they say with some popular marriage books. Lundy was a counselor for abusive men and the book is a culmination of his 15 years of experience in this field. His book takes a deep dive into the myths people believe about abuse and abusers, and looks at why men abuse and the motivation behind it. Bancroft repeats that the victim is not the reason for the abuse, and the victim’s actions will not stop the abuse—in fact trying to cater to him to make life easier or to stop the abuse often makes the abuse worse, because the reason behind the abuse is power and control. Getting what they want is only a part of it, but constantly reminding the victim who is in charge and who has the power, and that with that comes repercussions if they don’t feel powerful or if the victim stands up to the abuse. As I read the book, I kept finding parallels between what he said about how abusers act and what they expect from their victims, and the advice given to Christian women. It was both heartbreaking and horrifying. I will also use Darby Stricklands, Is It Abuse?, which heavily cites Bancroft.

I am going to start with what Bancroft, Darby Strickland, and Diane Langberg (all abuse experts and counselors) say about how the victims aren’t responsible for their abused and how their actions cannot change the abuser, and compare that with what is said in the popular marriage books:

Diane: “Those who are violent and abusive are powerless to control themselves. Those who are victims are powerless to change the violent one.”

Darby: “One fundamental truth we as helpers need to know is that we cannot solve oppression, and we cannot make it stop.” Darby uses an example from Judges 9 to discuss how teaching the abused to simply be a better spouse and cater to the oppressor simply feeds the oppressors desire for power and domination and often makes the oppression worse because they are never satisfied. 

Lundy: “But abuse is not a product of bad relationship dynamics, and you cannot make things better by changing your own behavior or by attempting to manage your partner better. Abuse is a problem that lies entirely within the abuser.”

Chapter 3 of Bancroft’s book, the chapter on The Abusive Mentality. 

Reality 1: He is controlling

• ”An argument should only last as long as my patience does. Once I’ve had enough, the discussion is over and it’s time for you to shut up.”
• “If the issue we’re struggling over is important to me, I should get what I want. If you don’t back off, you’re wronging me.” (Tie breaker teaching…this is directly related to the “submission teaching”. John Piper says: “Mature masculinity accepts the burden of the final say in disagreements between husband and wife, but does not presume to use it in every instance.” Yet he has the option to…) 
• “I know what is best for you and for our relationship. If you constitute disagreeing with me after I’ve made it clear which path is the right one, you’re acting stupid.” (Again, “submission, hierarchy, and male authority)
• “If my control and authority seem to be slipping, I have the right to take steps to reestablish the rule of my will, including abuse if necessary.” [The Excellent Wife says that if a wife is disrespectful, a consequence may be that her husband becomes abusive because he feels hurt, and she would cause him to lose motivation to be the spiritual leader, allowing himself to be paralyzed from taking responsibility as the leader and may experience embarrassment and humiliation, responding by becoming embittered, angry, and abusive… but “even more grievous than receiving the brunt of his sin, your sin of disrespect tarnishes the reputation of the Lord Jesus Christ. While I definitely affirm that we should be respectful, Peace blamed the wife for her abuse and says that her disrespect is worse than her abuse.] 

Reality 2: He feels entitled 

• Entitlement is the abuser’s belief that he has a special status and that it provides him with exclusive rights and privileges that do not apply to his partner. The attitudes that drive abuse can largely be summarized by this one word. (Being the authority and having the tie breaker vote…“Submission should be from the husband's perspective not from the perspective of what the wife thinks is important.”~Martha Peace. So the husband gets to decide when you are or are not being submissive to his authority.) 

• From Diane Langberg’s book, Redeeming Power: “What I came to understand was twofold. Males are taught to be strong, competent, and in charge; their authority is to be obeyed. Females are taught to yield, support, and nurture. The tasks are not interchangeable. Hence, violence is the male's right, and the burden of managing it is the female's.” We see this exemplified and praised in Created To Be His Helpmeet, Love & Respect, The Excellent Wife, and The Power of the Praying Wife 

• The illustration given in the book {which looks suspiciously like the Gothard umbrella of protection…} is of 3 circles, representing a person’s rights-the man’s and woman’s circles are equal in size, and the child’s is a bit smaller. This is how it should be. The next illustration is of a very large circle with the man inside and the other two, for the woman and child, are very small in comparison. This shows how in an abusive relationship, the man has more rights than the woman who has the same rights as a child. Some of the “rights” the abuser claims to have are:
1. Physical caretaking—she needs to take care of the house and kids to his specifications, and he shouldn’t need to lift a finger because those are “her” areas and he “deserves” to rest after work with peace and quiet. He also controls her out of home activities to make sure she “does her job” and will criticize her and complain, saying that her work is easy so he can’t understand why it isn’t done “right”.
2. Emotional caretaking—He uses an example of a man who got angry at his wife for not giving him enough attention when their son went missing for 2 days. He expects that she will give him her undivided attention at all times, she will drop everything to soothe him when he feels down, and she will anticipate his needs and desires…and if she doesn’t he feels justified to react
3. Deference—He expects that she will cater to his tastes and preferences unquestionably (Love & Respect talks about how Scripture clearly teaches that in order for things to work, the wife is called upon to defer to her husband. Emerson says that “the key to empowerment for women is this: you get what you want by giving him what he wants”)
4. Freedom from accountability—he considers himself above criticism. If she raises concerns, she is “nagging” or “provoking” him, and he may retaliate (Love & Respect page 243. Emerson said he got tired of his wife expecting them to conform to her standards about crumbs on the counter, shoes on the floor, candy wrappers on the floor next to the trash, and wet towels on the bed. She left for a week to see family, and when she came back he told her they hadn’t missed her or her badgering and criticizing.)
• In this same reality, Bancroft talks about how the abuser doesn’t have a problem with his anger, but has a problem with your anger… you must be extremely careful not to have any “tone” with him or any indication of a reaction to his actions, which he sees as a challenge to his authority. You have to be very careful how you approach him, but he isn’t held to that same standard. (Martha Peace affirms this clearly and tells women to be careful of their tone… Emerson Eggerich also affirms this, warning women that their tone can make him feel disrespected and can damage his self esteem.)
• “He isn’t abusive because he is angry; He is angry because he is abusive”. He makes sure you can’t actually meet all his demands and expectations. 

Reality 3: He twists things into their opposites

Reality 4: He disrespects his partner and considers himself superior to her

(Martha Peace says in The Excellent Wife:

“You may be smarter, wiser, or more gifted than your husband, but you are still to respect the position God has given him. You are like the soldier who stands at attention, salutes, and says, "Yes, Sir!" to his superior officer.”

and “Consider the example of a child obeying a parent. Should the child obey only if it is really, really important? Of course it is not all right for the one under authority to decide what is important. They are to obey unless providentially hindered, unless asked to sin against God, or unless they make an appeal and the person in authority over them changes their mind.” Nancy DeMoss-Wolgomuth also talks about making an appeal to your husband—which needs to be done very carefully and after much prayer and possibly counsel and MUST be done in a specific way— and then you drop it and don’t bring it up again) 

Reality 5: He confuses love and abuse

Reality 6: He is manipulative 

• Changing his moods abruptly and frequently 
• Denying the obvious about what he is doing or feeling
• Convincing you that what HE wants you to do is what is best for you 
• Getting you to feel sorry for him
• Getting you to blame yourself, or blame others people, for what he does
• Lying or misleading you about his actions, his desires, or his reasons for doing certain things, in order to guide you into doing what he wants you to do
• Getting you and the people you care about turned against each other 

Reality 7: He strives to have a good public image

(The advice to women to never speak ill of their husband works in an abusers favor of having a good public image. While wives shouldn’t slander or gossip and tell people their business just to be spiteful, abused women will sometimes share events or things said in an effort to see if what was said and done is “ok” and to see if she is over reacting. If we just say “don’t talk about your husband” and don’t ask more questions, then the victim is left feeling like either she overreacted or like she has no where to turn. Is It Abuse? by Darby Strickland is a great book to read to learn how to differentiate what is gossip and what is a cry for help)

Reality 8: He feels justified 

• “She knows how to push my buttons”
• “She wanted me to go off, and she knows how to make it happen”
• “She pushed me too far”
• “There’s only so much a man can take”
• “You expect me to just let her walk all over me. What would you do?”

Reality 9: Abusers deny and minimize their abuse (all these books talk about a woman not submitting to abuse, but then make it seem that abuse is ONLY physical violence, and they minimize other forms of abuse. They often go on to describe abusive situations- 

Eggerich praises a woman whose face was cut by a dish thrown at her by her husband for not mentioning that in her letter…and claims that they used the L&R model and he changed…he has many such stories of abusive men who changed because their wives learned to respect them. 

Stormie Omartian says her husband “used words like weapons that left me crippled or paralyzed” and that her children and herself were the objects of his anger, but she stayed and prayed and he stopped…

Martha Peace says abuse is less sinful than disrespect so she should in fact submit to abuse even though she tried to have an addendum that says she shouldn’t…

So on one hand they say never to submit to abuse, but then all use examples of abuse that women submitted to and praise them for their submission and how it changed their abuser…”

They all say that if you just pray more, respect him more, submit more, and give up our desire to have our own way in anything that he will see it and want to change. They minimize and deny how awful and horrific abuse is)

Reality 10: Abusers are possessive

• He wants her life to be focused entirely on his needs. He feels that other social contacts will allow her less time for him, and he doesn’t accept that she has that right. (The books warn women against doing things outside the home and that they must listen when the husband tells her he wants her to spend more time at home… but if he is a workaholic and she tells him she wants him to spend more time at home, she damages his self esteem, hurts his feelings of being a good provider, is disrespectful, and basically told him he is a loser…) 
• He doesn’t want her to develop sources of strength that could contribute to her independence…An abusive man commonly attempts to keep his partner completely dependent on him to increase his power. (Lies Women Believe actually says that women who work outside the home and make money become unhappy. All the books talk about women staying home and letting the man be the provider… they say it is a fundamental NEED and part of who the man is to be THE provider, and if he isn’t, he feels disrespected and like a loser and then can’t love her well) 

Key points to remember still from chapter 3:

• Abuse grows from attitudes and values, not feelings. The roots are ownership, the trunk is entitlement, and the branches are control
• Abuse and respect are opposites. Abusers cannot change unless they overcome their core of disrespect toward their partners
• Abusers are unwilling to to be nonabusive, not unable. They do not want to give up power and control

Abuse is not a marriage problem, it is an abuse problem. Therefore marriage books and advice are not only not helpful for those in abusive marriages but are often harmful. That is the biggest message I want to get across. Too often marriage books are given as a way to “fix” the marriage and they most often cause harm instead of helping. They place more burden on the victim to submit, work on herself, forgive, not complain, and to endure, “suffering for Jesus”. That is incredibly harmful as we will continue to see. 

Part 2 coming soon where we look at how abuse begins, emotional abuse, manipulation, and spiritual bypassing.