Bewitched Americans

Americans have been so badly bewitched they have been driven off course, and Christ has become of no effect. Although they may have been saved by grace at one point in their lives, they attempt to maintain their salvation by works; women through “submission” that is actually obedience to males, and males through taking authority over women.

Consider this: for years we were taught that Genesis 3:16 COMMANDED husbands to rule their wives, and commanded wives to allow their husbands to rule them. It was made into a church law that had as much weight as the ten commandments. In recent years, since the husband-authority crowd has had to admit God is telling Eve what will happen rather than commanding her, they have latched onto the teaching that the verse is saying wives want to rule their husbands. By putting the focus elsewhere in the verse, they dredged up a false reason for the husband-authority law. But they still have made it into a law.

By making it into a law, they put themselves under the curse of the law, thus obligating themselves to keep the whole law.

“For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.” Galatians 3:10

Indeed, even as in Paul's time, people continue to seek to put the Children of God in bondage.

Galatians 2:4 “And that because of false brethren unawares brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage.”

By teaching wives total subjection to their husbands and teaching husbands to take authority over their wives, they have put both men and women in bondage. And the result is unhappy marriages, domestic abuse, domestic violence, divorce, and women leaving Christianity altogether.

Galatians 5:3-4 “For I testify again to every man that (takes authority over his wife, and every woman that obeys her husband) is a debtor to do the whole law. Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.”

The word fallen is #1601 in Strong's Exhaustive Concordance and means “to drop away; specially, to be driven out of one's course.” In other words, “whosoever of you are justified by the law, are driven off the course of grace.” This lawish doctrine of authority/subjection is driving couples off course and away from grace and liberty in Christ. Instead, they add marriage roles to their requirement for entrance into heaven. If you doubt this, notice how wives who leave their abusive husbands are ostracized, and how husbands who do not take authority over their wives are called names thought to indicate they are feminine and thus ungodly.

I experienced this misbelief myself. When I finally realized something was not correct about the wife submit law, that it was resulting in my husband sinning against me repeatedly, and I stopped obeying when my husband's commandments were illogical or simply would not work for me, and started applying boundaries, I went through a time of questioning if I would go to heaven. That alerted me that somehow my faith in Christ's atonement had lost its strength and had been replaced by faith in my works of obedience to my husband. I had indeed been driven off course by the husband-authority/wife subjection doctrine.

Considering the many pastors, teachers, & writers who put so much emphasis on husband authority and wife subjection, it is likely the majority of Evangelical and conservative Christians have been driven off course. Many husbands are neither loving their wives, nor submitting to their wives, even though they are commanded to in Ephesians 5:21 & 25-28. Many wives are putting their husbands ahead of God, and practicing husbandolatry. Husbands and wives who do these things are not loving God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength, nor are they loving their neighbor as themselves. Instead, they end up encouraging their spouses to sin against God and neighbor, and this sin-leaven has spread to the whole lump, causing the church, which is supposed to be salt to the world, to lose its savor.

“I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain. O foolish (Americans), who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you? This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith. Are ye so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?" Galatians 2:21-3:3

Waneta Dawn is the author of "Behind the Hedge, A novel" See www.wanetadawn.com A Mennonite woman fights to save her family yet keep her faith.