Declaration of Independence from Complementarian Church and Husband Tyranny

Complementarians insist on roles; subjection for wives and authority for husbands. Church leaders like Bruce Ware, John Piper, and Wayne Grudem, among others, offer little recourse when husbands view their role as one of absolute authority over their wives. They claim that a husband chooses to physically assault his wife BECAUSE she is not submitting, when the opposite is true, and they deny that a husband should be held accountable for non-physical abuse.

This is absolute tyranny.

In 1776, the King of England chose to usurp a similar authority over colonized people in the Americas, denying them the right to govern themselves or address their concerns in a timely fashion. The result was the Declaration of Independence.

The tyranny of church leaders and abusive husbands has reached a similar intolerable level. It is time women put forth their own Declaration of Independence. I offer an abridged and edited version of the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men {and women} are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. … That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness …{W}hen a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government…all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over {women}.

(see http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/index.htm for entire original declaration.)

Indeed, many Christian women and their children have never experienced the freedom the Declaration of Independence seeks to guarantee. The church has stripped from them the right to pursue life, liberty, happiness, and safety. Instead, they live in a culture of death, danger, and destruction and many church leaders minimize the problem, deny it exists, or blame the women.

When are church leaders going to stop denying women the right to liberty and freedom from tyranny that males have enjoyed for over 200 years?


Waneta Dawn is the author of "Behind the Hedge, A novel,"a story about a woman who grapples with her husband's demands that she submit--no matter what. Please visit www.wanetadawn.com