The End of the Long Winter

 Response to Shirley Taylor's "Something is About to Happen"

Something wondrous has been happening. A side effect that the CBMW did not consider possible as they pushed women underground, snowed on them and iced them forever into slavery and silence—or so they thought. But similar to how bulbs and roots gather strength in the winter and push out shoots and bloom when the time is right, and similar to how sap flows within trees while they appear to be dormant, so has the “sap” been flowing virtually unseen in the lives of a growing number of women. Women have been gathering strength to shoot forth and bloom and no weed-killer complementarians devise will shut them up.

While complementarians have been silencing women and forcing them to lives in the lowest level of the caste system, not allowing them to speak in churches, forcing them to remain with abusive, destructive husbands, the women have been studying the word and writing what they find. Gary Smalley once shared that although he began as a one-on-one counselor, he found that speaking to groups was more effective and reached more people, that video tapes reached even more people, and that writing books was the most effective and reached the most people. Without intending to, complementarians have kept lowest-caste, spread-thin women from doing the busy-work of pastoring, thus freeing them in the small time they have available to do the most effective work of all—write books.

Women from all over the world can “hear” other women “preach” via books, no matter where they live. Women are not limited to those in the local congregations; their work and outreach goes global.

True, complementarian male pastors also write books and their work goes global. But in their effort to silence women by hanging the most time-consuming work around women's necks and refusing them a pulpit, complementarians inadvertently directed women to the one door complementarians left unblocked—the most effective means of communication—especially for the small amount of time women have available to pursue their own interests—like communicating truth for women from God's Word.

So all these years, while women have been silent in the churches, the roots and bulbs have been growing underground, gathering strength and power to spring forth in glorious freedom in Christ.

Daughters have been prophesying—via books and blogs. Women and men have stopped hanging onto every word of the men behind the pulpits and instead are listening to the teachings in books and blogs, teachings that make far more sense than what was being taught from the pulpit, teachings that agree with what we know of the heart of God.

Joel's prophecy has become true and the power of God is becoming increasingly evident: “And it shall be in the last days, God says, that I will pour forth of my spirit upon all mankind, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy.” Increasingly more daughters are prophesying, and a ground swell is growing, similar to the power of an avalanche or a tsunami, with the power to destroy the evil doctrine that is holding men, women, and the entire Christian community captive to that rotten and divisive caste system teaching that has been inflicted upon the church all these generations.

Praise God! Indeed, all things do work together for good to those who love God and who are the called according to His purpose. Rom 8:28. What the complementarians meant for evil, God meant for good—to bring freedom from oppression and a voice-heard-by-all to women.

The long winter is nearly over. Spring is beginning to burst forth.

Glory be to God.

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.

When Differing Roles Become Inequality

There is an on-going difference of opinion between egalitarians and complementarians about the equality of men and women, or the lack thereof. Complementarians argue that men and women are equal, but have different roles.  Egalitarians argue that the differing roles ARE inequality.

Some questions for all to ponder: are slaves equal to their masters?  Are children equal to their fathers? 
What causes people to be equal or unequal?

We are told to not be "unequally yoked together with unbelievers," II Cor 6:14-18, so we know inequality is possible. In the case of unbeliever with a believer, the inequality is in the choices each would make. If Paul intended the will of the husband to be sovereign, why bother to tell Christians to avoid marrying unbelievers? "Can right and wrong be partners? Can light have anything in common with darkness? Can Christ agree with the devil? Can a believer share life with an unbeliever? Can God's temple contain false gods?" As long as the husband is a Christian, his wife would be obligated to obey her husband and these questions would not apply. The wife would have to agree with her husband whether she wanted to or not.

However, the above passage makes it clear that Paul expected wives to have choices, to be involved in decision-making. If it was only a token giving of her opinion and then the husband could make the final decision, this command would still not apply. Paul expects wives to have the freedom to choose for themselves, to have an equal say and to not continually set aside their own wishes to obey their husband instead. 

So what does make people equal? Is it merely stating that God says men and women are equal, therefore husbands and wives are equal, but husbands can still tell wives what to do and the wives must obey? Are nurses equal to doctors? Do patients believe the nurse is equal to the doctor? Do patients respect nurses as much as they respect doctors? Are employees equal to their employers? Are the poor equal to the rich? Are the poor respected as much as the rich are respected?

When do relationships become unequal?

Isn't it when one person or group is given more respect than another person or group? James 2:1-13 points out how sinful it is to respect the rich more than the poor. Yet complementarians respect and favor husbands more than they respect and favor wives. They assign husbands more influence and more respect than they assign to wives. They assign husbands and males more "rights" to have things their way than they assign to wives and females.  Complementarian pastors tell wives to have their say and then lay down their rights to cause their preferences or beliefs to come to pass. They also tell wives that if their husbands abuse them, it is because the wives did not submit sufficiently.  In other words, they accuse wives of not laying down their will so the husbands can have their will fulfilled. Is not that basic inequality and basic loss of respect? Are not men as well as women to follow Jesus's example of not grasping at equality and instead choosing to lay aside one's own will for the sake of another? When husbands also lay down their will for the sake of their wives, then the relationship is equal, with equal influence and equal respect.

In regard to equal but different roles, I keep seeing the picture from the movie "Ever After" where Cinderella went to rescue the slave that had been sold by her step mother. The step mother owner and the slave certainly had different roles, and the roles were quite similar to complementarian husband and wife roles, with the slave doing all the obeying and the step-mother/master doing all the commanding. The slave was penned up in a moving prison, that was on a cart pulled by horses.  He could see through the bars, but had no way of stopping the horror that was happening to him. That slave's plight is similar to the plight of married complementarian women. Is the person who has no freedom to choose where she will go or what she will do next, an equal of the person who makes the decisions for her?  Is a person who is an equal in the eyes of God, but an equal in name only in the eyes of humans truly an equal? And when a wife is denied the freedom to remove herself from mistreatment, is she his equal? Isn't she more an equal of animals who have no choice in their lives?  That is similar to the horse, Black Beauty, who had no choice over who bought him, or how he was treated.

Isn't a complementarian wife more of an equal to a child who has been beaten or verbally smeared by a bully, or who has been whipped and/or chewed out by his dad? The equality is in name only, like a dad is equal to his ten-year-old daughter whom he spanks and sexually abuses as often as he pleases.  The child's role is to obey and suffer abuse, but the child is still equal to her dad, according to complementarian insistence.  The dad's role is to have his way with the wife and child, and that is considered equality to complementarians.  Just like complementarian wives, the child can cry and complain all she wants, but it will make no difference, except perhaps that her dad/husband will use that as an excuse for being even more cruel.

Complementarians will claim this is a straw-man argument, that their roles do not include permission to abuse. Yet, until they stand firmly against husbands abusing their wives, punish and discipline the abusive husbands and offer protection and support without judgement to wives, they DO support domestic abuse. And their insistence that husband and wife are equal while they support the abuser, is equivalent to claiming that a sexually abused child is equal to her daddy/abuser. In both cases the abused is robbed of dignity and power, of respect and influence.

Equality is measured by the power one possesses to influence the outcome of what happens in life.  Complementarian wives, similar to nurses, children, and animals are commanded to turn their power over to another.  Some complementarian men give that power back and the result is equality. But many complementarian husbands do NOT give the power back and the relationship is one of master and slave, of upper caste vs lower caste. And the church has largely been siding against the slave, lower caste and supporting the power of the master and upper caste, even to the point of punishing the wife-slave for her master-husband's cruelty toward her and their children.

As Jane Doe has pointed out, when the church insists that wives give up their power and turn it over to their husbands, the wives become powerless like little girls, and the marriage bed like the relationship between a pedophile and a child.  The wife's role of giving up her power and the husband's role of taking his wife's power plus keeping his own, result in extreme inequality.  This is not mere difference of roles. This is a difference of respect and the difference of power to effect an outcome. 

When complementarians refuse to allow husbands any lattitude to use any form of abuse against their wives, whether verbal, emotional, mental, spiritual, physical, psychological, social, or sexual, when they teach that husbands are sinning against their wives when they attempt to control them, school them, and take authority over them, then and only then can complementarian roles be anywhere close to equality.  


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.

Authority and Power, Part 3: The Irony of Husband Authority Reveals a Cover-up

In the world of men one frequently sees competition for power. In sports, for example, one man faces off against another to show greater strength, brawn, stamina, skill, and even intelligence than his opponent. Wrestling is a good example of this competition. In wrestling, combatants are divided into categories based on weight. If a 200 pound man pinned a 300 pound man to the floor, that would be a major victory. In that case, the 200 pound man would be seen as virile and desirable for his strength and cunning. He would be admired, and considered powerful. But if the the 300 pound man pinned a 200 pound man to the floor, it would be small victory for the heavier man. In fact, he may be seen as less than manly, as lacking in strength and prowess for agreeing to such an uneven match.

Strangely, these rules are scrapped in complementarian homes and churches. Not only are husbands considered manly when they triumph over an opponent who is smaller and lighter weight than they, but men are also given much latitude to do what they want to TAKE authority over their wives. In the world of men, the size difference between husband and wife (in most cases) would prohibit the man from attempting to overpower his wife—if she were a man. But somehow, the husband who does not control his tiny wife and dictate to her how things shall be, is seen as lacking in manliness. Complementarians would see it as unmanly—and even cowardly—for him to pick a fight with a man who is the size of the man's wife, but it is manly for him to pick a fight with his wife. If he picked even a verbal fight with a smaller man, he would be seen as a bully. But if he picks a verbal fight with his wife, he is seen as taking his rightful, God-given place and as standing up as a man.

Weird. Illogical.

Wait! One way that could be logical is if men feel more threatened by women than they do by smaller men. More specifically, that they feel more threatened by their wives than they do by smaller-sized men. Now this possible conclusion flies in the face of the testimony of many women who are actually doing their best to submit to their husbands, and then their husbands respond by attacking them either verbally, physically, or any other way. In spite of that contradictory reasoning, we'll consider it anyway. Why would a big man feel intimidated by a female half his size, who is submitting to him and serving him?

Someone has suggested that a woman's ability to conceive and bear a child is so far and above what a man is capable of doing, that men feel inferior and inadequate and have been trying to compensate for their own lack through claiming power and authority—and even superiority—over women. Men cannot bring forth life, no matter how hard they try. For much of history, they have claimed that women are more sinful, less intelligent, less valuable than men. Men often glorify the male erection, claim they are “penetrating” the woman and that their seed also penetrates the woman's egg, thus claiming superiority and power-over for themselves. Yet newer research says the egg blocks sperm it does not want, swallows up the sperm it does want, and then blocks all other sperm from entry. In the same way, it could be said that the woman “envelops” the man, for no one claims to “penetrate” a sleeve or a sock. Perhaps many men are afraid that their posturing is a thin veneer that their wives will easily see through, so they work harder by erecting a wall of power and authority to protect their non-existent superiority, hoping if they make the wall appear thick enough their wives will not attempt to knock on the door, since that would cause the wall to fall down.

Another possibility is that men feel intellectually inferior to their wives. Believable or not, a number of men have confessed to feeling such intellectual inferiority, and therefore they throw the first verbal punch to prevent damage to themselves. Other men have claimed to feel so soft and mushy toward their wives, that they are like teddy bears, totally pliable in the hands of their wives. Therefore, they create conflict in order to steel their hearts and be less pliable. Never mind, that the requests of their wives are entirely reasonable. Being men, they believe they should refuse most of their wife's requests in order to show their power and authority. To these men, their wife's request that they pick up a quart of dish soap when they are going to the deli at the grocery store anyway, is a threat to their manhood. Even though the request is reasonable and sensible, these men interpret it as the wife usurping authority over her husband, and that it should not be tolerated—except that it is a financially sound request which is advantageous to the entire family. So these men apparently feel trapped into yielding to the requests of their wives, when they believe they should be asserting their authority by refusing.

Yet, complementarian leaders claim God is the author of this foolishness. In other words, since many men feel inferior to their wives, or think they are too yielding to their wives, God has decreed (so men say) that men should take authority over their wives. So men twist themselves into pretzels to claim superiority, by any means they can dream up—while denying they are doing so. And they claim the right to whatever means necessary to dominate and control their wives—unless it is illegal according to the state—even though if the same were applied to their relationships with other smaller-sized men, they would be seen as bullies.

Frankly, not only have they made God, our true authority, to appear like a fool, they have done all they could to replace Him with themselves to hide their feelings of inferiority, and have brought shame to the name of Christ, and by extension, to the name “Christian.” Even the Gentiles can see through the veneer and know “husband authority” is ridiculous.

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.

Complementarian Equality

Complementarians claim that they do believe in equality of the genders, but that men and women have different roles. However, their behavior says they do NOT think men and women are of equal value. Complementarian Phyllis Schlaffly is a lawyer who works with father supremest groups to repeal WAVA, the Women Against Violence Act, which allows women to obtain a restraining order to protect themselves from their abuser. Apparently, Phyllis thinks the right of men to maintain authority over their wives through threats, verbal assault and physical punishment ought to be protected, even though their wives are afraid for their lives and frequently the wives who are afraid of their husbands do end up severely battered or even murdered by their husbands. Schlaffly claims it is unconstitutional to inflict a restraining order on a man without finding him guilty in a court of law.

On the other side, people like Bruce Ware suggest husbands would not beat their wives if wives submitted. The first thing pastors tell wives who complain of being abused by their husbands, is to go home and submit to their husbands. In other words, Ware and friends prejudge wives as guilty without a trial.

When couples go to pastors for counseling, pastors tend to focus on wife submission. Only after they have been working with the couple for 6-12 months or more, and see that the wife is actually submissive and docile, do they even begin to suspect the husband may be at fault. By that time, they have helped produce such an extreme imbalance in the marriage, it is frequently beyond saving because their intervention has taught the husband that he is lord, king, master, and god of his wife, and the husband is unwilling to relinquish his entitlement and privilege.

So on the one hand, complementarians refuse to believe a man is guilty of abusing his wife until the truth is so obvious they can no longer deny it. On the other hand, they refuse to believe the wife is NOT guilty of insubordination and insist she must be at fault, until the truth is so obvious they can no longer deny it.

Just how is this presupposition equality? Clearly complementarians believe men are more righteous, more believable, more right than their wives, and their behavior is more justifiable. Complementarians also believe wives are liars, untrustworthy, selfish, unrighteous, unscrupulous, rebellious, God haters, men haters, & etc., and their behavior is NOT justifiable. And these beliefs continue in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

I repeat: how can they claim their teaching/belief is equality of the genders? Doesn't this show a belief in male superiority and female inferiority? In fact, this shows they do NOT deal with men and women, husbands and wives, with anything remotely resembling equality. It is NOT just about differing roles. It IS about inequality and about MAINTAINING that inequality.


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.

The Joyful Submission of the Plush Doormat

Mary Kassian's claim that complementarian teaching is misrepresented by non-complementarians, and the misrepresentation is what is argued against, and thus is a straw man (woman) argument, says a lot about Mary Kassian, and possibly about her husband, close friends, and her church, but not much else. See Hannah's article: http://eaandfaith.blogspot.com/2011/04/fannie-feminist-and-other-scary-straw.html The fact is, complementarians are not just insisting that wives become doormats, (although they deny subjection makes a wife into a doormat) they are pushing wives to joyfully make themselves into plush, comfortable-to-walk-on doormats, or even into plush, beautiful, priceless Persian carpets specifically designed to give husbands tread-on pleasure.

Kassian seems to have forgotten that most, if not all, of the Christian women who write against patriarchy and husband authority were in fact greatly harmed and even devastated by that very teaching. They know it was caused by husband authority beliefs because their husbands told them so—frequently—often ranting while they did so. These wives did as was taught and demanded of them, and suffered for it. They know many women have been killed by their spouses, and that their own lives have been spared. Their writing and arguments are clearly NOT straw-woman arguments. They KNOW what they are talking about because they lived it and fought to free themselves from the suffocating grave-clothes of complementarianism, of wife denigration, of husband privilege and elitism. And the men who fight complementarianism, also experienced the harsh realities of homes where the doctrine was pounded into the victims' heads.

Kassian's argument that complementarianism is misrepresented, suggests that either she is not very submissive, or that her husband makes most decisions with her and not for her, which is not the experience of those real women her argument misrepresents and ends up denigrating as non-existent straw women. It also suggests that most couples she knows, also do not practice what complementarians teach via pulpit, books, articles, Bible study, Sunday School class, and peer pressure. So while she, herself, does not practice what she preaches to the point that it is foreign to her, she still demands that other women joyfully make themselves into plush doormats and plush priceless Persian carpets for their husbands' to denigrate, manipulate, & dominate for their own pleasure and comfort.



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.

If Father knows Best Why are Wives Choosing Divorce?

There is a five-fold fallacy in the husband-authority doctrine, and it results in divorce.

First, it requires the very person who is prone to keep himself detached from others to make decisions for them as if he was up-to-date about the details he needs to know in order to make a wise decision.
Second, is the assumption, by both the husband and his peers, that the decisions the husband makes truly ARE best for his family.
Third, is the reasoning that in those “rare occasions” that the husband makes poor decisions, it is enough for the husband to bear 100% of the responsibility (meaning blame) for his decision, neither blaming his wife for her input, nor blaming her for his decision. This focus exposes a belief that the husband's poor decision(s) will harm no one but himself and/or his finances/concerns, that somehow his wife and children are insulated from his poor judgment and will not be effected.
Fourth, is the assumption if the husband isn't harmed by his decision, it was likely a good one, therefore if the wife doesn't like it, she should just submit and get over it.
Fifth, all of this is decreed by God, Himself, and anyone who argues against it is a feminist who is rebelling against God.

With these beliefs, instead of building their marriages on Christ and His principle of the Golden Rule and not taking authority over others, complementarians build their marriages on a foundation of male-promoting gravel that lacks the cement necessary to hold marriages together. Instead of being able to point to a notably low divorce rate, which one should expect from the Christian community, conservative Christians have a higher divorce rate than atheists do. Making matters worse, they blame feminism and female rebellion for their failure and refuse to look at the real cause.

By pressuring husbands to take authority over their wives, complementarians urge husbands (whether or not they realize they are urging them) to distance themselves from their wives in order to rule them. Husbands tend to discredit and devalue their wives and their input, and tell themselves that they are making objective decisions because they know things that women are too ignorant and too emotional to know or decide. Husbands often pat themselves on the back because they “listened” to their wives, even if they already had their minds made up and would be unlikely to value any input from their wives.

The belief in husband wisdom and near-infallibility, blinds Christian men to the multitude of important information that they do not know and have no interest in knowing or considering. Because they think only male-interest information is worth taking into account, they deny the experiences, make-up, and development processes of both wives and children. When they believe that other experiences, perceptions, feelings, etc don't exist in their wives and children, or when they perceive they do exist but must be discounted, and when concrete facts are the only basis for decision-making, husbands limit themselves from pertinent information to such a degree they are LIKELY to make poor decisions. This denial both makes them believe they made the best decision, blinds them to other decisions they could have made, and blinds them to the devastating effects their decisions are making on their wives and children.

Husbands who claim to prayerfully consider the best interests of their wives, defend the right of other husbands to wield authority over their wives and expect them to submit to the decisions of their husbands. They justify this by saying the husband will then be the one to take responsibility and the blame for the decision.

I had a discussion about this with a man recently and pointed out that it was immaterial whose fault it was; the problem was that so often a husband's decision ended up causing major pain, distress, and even damage to his wife and children. He looked startled, as if he had never considered that. He seemed to think that taking the blame somehow justified the harm a husband brought on his famiy through the use of a doctrine that required his wife to lay down what she thought was best and accept her husband's decree as a law she must embrace--even against her will.

The notion of justifying the insistance that the wife must yield herself to her husband's decisions by saying the husband would then take responsibility for his decisions and absolve the wife of all blame totally ignores the effect of the decison on wife and children. They assume the husband alone bears the distress of his disasterous decisions. I have yet to hear any preacher talk about the wife and children harmed and hurting because the husband over-rode his wife's decision and brushed off her advice. They fail to mention that her husband's financial failure forces her to go without and to work extra hard to make up for it. Her husband does NOT carry the blame alone. The community, and especially the IRS, holds her just as accountable, and often more accountable than her husband. But in the case of decisions her husband makes refusing needed medical care or education for the children, his wife and children suffer and work for years to overcome the handicap the husband ordered upon them. This is an uncomfortable truth the complementarians refuse to deal with.

Further, if wives protest the decisions their husbands make, their husbands, pastors, other husbands and even other wives, claim the wives are rebellious. They deny that the reason for the protest is the distress and suffering they and their children are enduring because of the high-handed decisions of their husbands. Again and again, it isn't simply that wives don't like the decisions. It is that they and their children are harmed and even damaged by the decisions. Decisions that range from, 'No, we will not participate in the family gathering on YOUR side,' to 'You and the children will attend a church of MY choice,' to 'I will choose where we eat out every time unless it doesn't matter to me,' to 'No, Junior does not need tutoring, and I certainly will not pay for it,' to 'We will NOT use birth control, and you will satisfy my sex urge anytime I want you to, and you will bear and care for as many children as are conceived by our union, without outside help even if it ruins your health,' and etc, DO harm his wife and children and stunt their growth and cause them unnecessary hardship. Yet, the husband often is not aware of the harm he has caused. Instead, he believes he is a loving and wonderful husband and father, who does what is best for his wife and children. He believes his wife needs to repent of her spirit of rebellion and submit joyfully to her husband's decisions, and often his pastor and church will agree with him.

Finally, the belief that God has decreed that husbands are to take authority over their wives brings us full circle back through the whole fallacy. If God decreed it, it doesn't matter if the decisions the husbands make are wise or if they damage their families. All that matters is that the wives “submit” (meaning obey to the point of agreeing with their husbands and laying aside their own will and beliefs) and that children obey, too (although they are allowed to have their own thoughts as long as they keep them private). If the ill-equipped wife must tutor Junior, she and Junior must devote much more time to the process than it would take for a trained tutor to do the job. The result is that Junior may never learn what he needs to succeed at life, and many chores will be left undone and other children left unattended. She, her children, and her family of origin will be harmed by the family split her husband created, and because she is never allowed to decide anything for herself, she will atrophy in this area, getting slower and less decisive in decisions she must make on her own. The house may get messy, for example, because she cannot decide what to do with things.

The bottom line is that although the Bible not only never tells husbands to take authority over their wives, and also tells them to NOT take authority over others, males teach that it does command husbands to take authority over their wives. They discard valuable knowledge from their wives, including the intimate knowledge that wives have about themselves and their children, and claim their own knowledge is superior. The damage and oppression they inflict is what is driving wives to reluctantly choose divorce. Yet, these husband-authorities refuse to look at the destructive elephant which is so obvious in complementarian marriages. In the words of Caleb in "Fireproof," complementarian husbands are "trampling all over their wives."

Complementarians have what they deserve: a high divorce rate. They can insist that marriage is for keeps and that wives must not divorce, but until they teach that husbands share power, authority, and decision-making with their wives, the divorce rate will remain high and is likely to increase.

Husbands are never commanded to rule or control their wives. Whatever head means, the application is to submit one to another, and for husbands to love their wives, caring for them tenderly as they care for their own bodies, and to love them, giving themselves up as Christ gave himself up for the church. When husbands do marriage the Jesus way, by treating their wives as they want to be treated, which includes not over-ruling them or taking authority over them, wives will be inclined to stay married to their husbands.

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.

God Said it; You Just Don't Like It

A common refrain of complementarians is “God said it; you just don't like it.” They are usually quoting their favorite women submit and women keep silent verses. These same people are silent about the 'husbands love your wives' and 'husbands be considerate to your wives' verses, and have nothing to say about all the women in Paul's day who were prophetesses and leaders in the Christian churches. When they do quote those pro-women and husbands treat your wives right verses they don't talk in depth of what that means. Instead, they breeze over them to focus on the woman be in subjection and silent verses.

Having lived with an abuser and having facilitated a men's batterers group, and having read books pointing to this very behavior, I recognize the tactic the speakers are using. They are switching truth, attributing the other person's innocent or righteous behavior as their own, and projecting their own behavior/attitude onto the innocent party.

In other words, these speakers do not like that husbands are to love their wives so much that it is the same as submitting, so they focus instead on the wife submit verses. The “God said it, you just don't like it” speaker does not like that husbands are never told to take authority over their wives, because that is not the way they want it to be. The speaker also does not like that women in Paul's day as well as in the Old Testament and in Jesus's circle were also leaders, thereby showing that the prohibition to women was for specific cases. These complementarians do not like that truth, so they brush it off and put the focus and weight of their argument on the verses they do like.

Sometimes a woman, who claims to be submissive to her husband, says “God said it; you just don't like it” to a woman who is explaining that the “woman submit” doctrine is one-sided and as such is not biblical. Usually the women who claim to be so submissive sound smug. They are impressed with themselves for “getting it right.” They seem completely unaware that they are self-righteous. They are unaware that their self-righteousness is sin, and that it will not earn them a way into heaven. They also are unaware that they have not truly listened to the statement of the person who is explaining that the woman subject yourself doctrine is one-sided and encourages both husband and wife to sin.

Frankly, I don't like that people are maligning God, giving Him a bad name, by claiming He says such belittling things about women and that He made the women to be an underclass who are beneath men and who have the sole purpose of being the personal slaves of their husbands. That He made them a class He will never call into service, except to as invisibly and silently as possible serve the all-important male gender. I don't like it that they lie and call this one-sided servitude "equality." I don't like that so many women have turned away from the “church” because it has become a den of thieves that robs women of their dignity and worth. I don't like that their are so many atheists, who became atheists because of the sin of organized "Christianity" against women and their children. I don't like that “church men” are doing to women like white men did to American Indians. They are taking from women their property of value, which is their God-given dignity, worth, equality and whatever God has actually called them to do, and replaced it with worthless pretty beads, which is this so-called “glorious subjection,” which they themselves wouldn't be caught dead wearing because it is so demeaning. They are persuading women to give up their high worth in exchange for groveling in the dung-heap.

And the reason they manipulate and deceive women into this exchange? Because they themselves do NOT like what God has told them to do—to sacrifice for their wives and to love their wives as they love their own bodies.

How do they love their own bodies? They insist on freedom—freedom to choose whatever they want to choose. But they deny this freedom to their wives.

Complementarian men have claimed the Declaration of Independence for themselves, but denied it to their wives. Wives who are married to complementarian husbands are in the same class with slaves who only have whatever rights their masters choose to allow them, rights that can be taken away at the whim of their masters. And all because their masters do not like what God said.


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.

Expendable Wives and Children

A repeated refrain on many blogs is that the gender issue is secondary doctrine that has nothing to do with salvation. Folks who believe husbands are to take authority over their wives and wives are to subject themselves to their husbands, (even when they are abused) are going to heaven just as much as those who believe husbands and wives as a team are to take authority over their children and households. But is this a scripturally sound view? I considered splitting this into several posts, but decided against that, since it needs to be read in one sitting to get the picture.

On the surface, I could agree with them. The Bible does not say Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and submit to your own husband, or take authority over your wife, and you shall be saved. Nor does it say Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and practice egalitarian marriage and you shall be saved.

Although egalitarians often understand that the doctrine of husband authority and wife subjection is the seedbed—yes, the CAUSE—of domestic abuse and domestic violence among Christians, complementarians deny that this is so. We know this is so because the abuser announces it frequently, telling his wife she is required to do as he says, because he is the man and God gave him the authority and she must submit to him. He frequently verbalizes this as he is abusing her for any real or imagined infraction of his rules, or just because he feels like it. He believes he has the right to determine the value of his wife, himself and of each of their children, to define their character--usually falsely defining himself as righteous and his wife as evil, decide the freedoms and limitations of each, the work each is to do, how much influence each will have, and to decide how much of their lives he wants to control. He can change the rules at a moments notice and punish the person who has not obeyed the rule that he had not yet decreed. He also believes he has the right to determine the type of punishment, whether "verbal unkindness," put downs, name calling, threats, intimidation, a slap, physically restraining, choking, raping, beating, kicking, or more subtle control methods like manipulation, driving wedges between people, deception, etc.

Except for wife beating and smacking, all these forms of domestic abuse against wives are protected by John Piper's church, for example, (see http://eaandfaith.blogspot.com/2009/09/john-pipers-ignorance-is-killing.html). Bruce Ware publicly suggested the wife is at fault when the husband does these things, and most (if not all) of the Counsel for Biblical Manhood & Womanhood say things that indicate similar viewpoints.

Some complementarians say “Of course, a wife should never tolerate abuse.” Yet, churches all over, even those who seem to support women in divorcing abusive husbands, are frequently inhospitable to the abused women among them. The result is that many abused women give up on going to church. They have already suffered for years, and when their church hears about it, they abuse her still more through their avoidance of her, and frequently through taking disciplinary action against her. Some claim they don't want to get involved or take sides, yet uphold her abuser, offering him support, praise, and important and prominent roles in the church. Frequently, an abused woman's own friends turn away from her, and/or tell her she ought not be bitter or angry and to just get over it. If the couple had friends in common, the friends tend to maintain friendship with the husband, while claiming they cannot take sides.

The result is that many women who have experienced abuse, whether from pastor or husband stop attending church. Now this is NOT their initial response. They usually try to stick it out for awhile, but soon find that the retraumatizing at church in addition to the abuse they have already suffered, and are still suffering at home, is too much. In my work with abused women a common theme is that they stop going to church, often for more than a year. Some keep trying to find a church where they can find friendship and support, but never are able to find such a church.

One woman who had suffered domestic violence and long-term abuse through the custody decision of the court and her ex-husband, reported that it was so hard to even find someone to say “hi” to, after trying to make friends for 1-2 years, that she left that church, too embarrassed to return. A friendly, talkative, and open person, she experienced similar responses in 4 churches, including those where she never or rarely shared her personal story and made every effort to engage people in conversation of their choosing. She currently finds it too embarrassing to go to church, because people act as if she has the mark of Cain on her, often even refusing to make eye contact. If she did, she would have to plan to make a beeline for the car every Sunday, thereby defeating the purpose of attending church—which is fellowship. (One can worship, read the Bible, and listen to sermons at home.) But she knows that kind of self-isolation also hurts, so she associates extreme pain with church attendance and has no desire to force herself to suffer that kind of pain Sunday after Sunday.

Children who have suffered domestic abuse are also affected by the church's attitude toward abused women. When a mother leaves a church or stops attending church altogether, she usually takes her children with her. Yet the response of Christians is to either ignore those who give up on church, punish them, or shame them into returning to church, even though the only way to survive such shunning and shaming is to attend without any expectation of warm fellowship with other Christians—ie: avoid eye contact with others and make a beeline to the car the second the last amen is said so it won't hurt so much.

Diana Garland, co-author of a ground-breaking study on the sexual misconduct of ministers against their congregants, said

“(I)f the cases of reported abuse were spread evenly across the country, every average-sized congregation with 400 members would include seven women who have experienced clergy sexual misconduct at some time since they turned 18. That includes only women who go to church regularly, not those who stopped attending after their abuse.” (see http://www.abpnews.com/content/view/5749/53/ for more on the clergy abuse article)

Finally someone mentions the fact that many leave church because of abuse! Even if the article deals with clergy inflicting sexual abuse on women, the comment applies. No one seems to be keeping count of the women who are not attending church because of the abuse they suffered from a complementarian, authoritarian husband. And then there are the women who attend, but who will never again be members of a congregation because of the "permission to abuse" that membership seems to carry with it. And we have no clue how many children are leaving the faith altogether because of the church's support of their abusive father. According to Barna, the number of non-churched Christians is growing steadily.

My first experience with this issue I was in my thirties, and found my insurance agent had left her church and said she would never go to church again because of how the pastors did not deal with her abuser and blamed her. She still had a good relationship with God, but would never again involve herself in organized religion. It was my own experience with abuse that opened the subject, so it appears that abused women share this information among themselves, but through experience know better than to divulge such information to men or to the 50%-75% of women who have not experienced abuse. Recently, my insurance agent mentioned a rule she had set for her daughter. Even though she said it in humor, I caught how difficult it is to train up a child in the way she should go when there is no church family to second the message.

At a time when a woman is in dire need of Christian support, when she has suffered years of abuse that has drained her energy and her belief in her own worth and competence, when she becomes a single parent, that is the time the church adds their pounding, humiliation, and avoidance to an already beaten-down woman and her children. The attitude of some churches toward abused wives seems to be “good riddance.” Her husband doesn't value her, therefore, her church refuses to value her, too. The faster they can push her out the door, the sooner they wash their hands of a difficult problem. Meanwhile, they keep the person who caused the problem in their midst. No one bothers to invite her back to church, or offers to be her supportive friend. And if someone does offer to be her friend, that person, too, will be ostracized. If she doesn't come back and face their shaming and disciplinary action, they are well rid of her.

But why blame the wife for her husband's behavior? Could it be that most Christians, in spite of what they SAY they believe, are acting on the belief that it is the WIVES who are to subject themselves to husbands and therefore any marital discord must be the wife's fault? From their behavior, it would appear that most Christians, even those who claim to be egalitarian, hold a deep-down suspicion that if the wife would just submit all would be well, therefore, the abuse must be her fault. Why else would they avoid abused women and cozy up to her abuser?

Not only has the church refused to be the Good Samaritan to abused women and their children, some of them have been the “Priest” and the “Levite,” passing by on the other side in their avoidance of her, and some have been the robbers as well, going right up to her and verbally attacking her and beating up the very one who is already black and blue on the inside.

After making every attempt to drive the abused woman and her children away from God's table, and succeeding, or after sitting by and watching others drive the abused woman and children away from God's table, they sit in their emptied pew and declare the egalitarian/complementarian debate is not a salvation issue.

What does Jesus say? Matthew, Mark and Luke all recorded Jesus's statement.

Matthew 18:6 “But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.”

According to Strong's concordance, #3684, Jesus was talking about a large millstone that required an ass to turn it. So He was speaking of a large enough weight to make sure the person goes down to the bottom and can't get back up. It sounds to me like Jesus is saying it would be better for a person that they drown than that they offend a little one.

Who are the little ones? The context in Matthew is speaking of children. But the context in Mark and Luke is speaking of anyone. Little, Strong's #3398 refers to “small in size, quantity, number, or (figuratively) dignity. The word clearly refers to short people, like children. The figurative usage would definitely include anyone who is already downtrodden to the point they are small in dignity—like the handicapped or abused wives; people who may be more easily intimidated due to social standing, past experiences, or height. Interestingly, although there is a list taking up ¾ of a column for verses with “ones” in them, the word is only used in Hebrew once, and not at all in Greek. It is added for understanding, but not italicized.

Offend, Strong's #4624, is “skanalizo,” where we get “scandalize.” The word is from 4625, and means

“to entrap, ie trip up (fig. stumble or entice to sin, apostasy or displeasure). (make to) offend.”

The offense Jesus was talking about is that of a believer being tripped up and enticed to sin or even apostasy. Jesus said it would be better FOR HIM that HE were drowned in the sea than that HE should offend a believer, causing them to sin or turn away from Christ. (Caps used to show who Jesus was talking about.) We already know it would be better for the offended one to not have been offended, but Jesus said it would be better for the one who does the offending that he/she were drowned rather than give them a chance to cause someone to stop believing in Christ. This suggests that God's judgment is extremely harsh on one who causes another to sin so much that they are in danger of losing their faith in God. Do we know of any such harsh judgment meted out to those are saved? No. So this suggests the one who causes another to lose or nearly lose faith is in danger of losing their salvation and going to hell.

Thus, in a round about way, the issue of husband authority vs functional equality in marriage does become an issue of salvation for both those believers who are driven out of church and those who drive them out. This is the second count against the abuser, who already does not produce fruit that shows he is connected to the vine. It is also the second count against the church that protects an authoritarian husband's right to maintain his authority over his wife, requires the wife to suffer under her husband's cruel reign, and now drives out the wife and children who are the targets of their husband and father.

It looks to me like the narrow way is much more narrow than I thought. If whole churches are teaching husbands to take authority over their wives, causing some of them to become lords and disconnect from the vine, if whole churches push traumatized believers away from church, causing abused women and their children to lose or nearly lose faith, are whole churches going through the strait gate, but leaving the narrow way to join those on the broad way to destruction?

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.

New Creatures

2 Cor 5:17 Therefore if any man be in Christ he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold all things are become new.

Recently, I spoke with a woman who said the man she married changed radically after the wedding ceremony. Before the ceremony he was kind, courteous, respectful. But after the wedding, he became someone she didn’t know: he became her boss. Other women have also complained of the same phenomenon. One woman said it is as if a man goes through brain surgery during the wedding. His kind, loving, personality is exchanged for a nasty, domineering one. He is a “new creature” alright, but not one that matches any “new creature” list in the Bible. Instead, his behavior can be found in the “old man” list.

Season 7, episode 20 of The Waltons, entitled “The Outsider” shows what happens. Ben is dating Cindy, and is such a kind and loving gentleman that she wants to marry him. Within 24 hours after the wedding, Cindy is crying because Ben has chewed her out and told her how things shall be. A conversation between Ben and his dad tells us what is going on.

Dad: I’m not sure you know what a serious business marriage is.
Ben: Cindy and I are going to work at it same as you and Mama.
Dad: It’s not easy.
Ben: It’s worked for over 25 years for you, hasn’t it? You’ve made the final decisions around here; that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

Ben has just described what so many men believe when they marry. They are confident the marriage will work because they are THE MAN, and they will make the final decisions. They will have the authority, and their wife will both listen to them and obey them. There! All they have to do is follow the husband-is-the-authority formula and all will be well. They will be ecstatically happy, and their wife will be, too.

But it doesn’t work that way. For some reason their wife cries--especially if she yields to her domineering husband--or she shuts him out of the bedroom or even out of the house, and stops listening and obeying. The husband doesn't have a clue why HIS marriage is not working.

Ben’s dad gives us a clue, though. He says to his daughter Mary Ellen:

“Ben’s not the easiest person to live with. He seems to think that being a man means being the boss.”

Husband authority is the very thing complementarians teach. Have you ever noticed how many complementarian marriage books are on the market claiming to be the solution for marriages? Yet wives are miserable. (Jocelyn Anderson in “Woman this is War” notes in chapter 2 that both Nancy Leigh DeMoss and Betty Friedan have said that women are miserable and frustrated.) Complementarian marriage books tell wives it is their rebellion that makes them miserable. So Christian wives dutifully try to submit even though they know their husbands are wrong, and it makes them even more miserable. Some wives cry themselves to sleep most nights and read more complementarian marriage books, looking for that elusive solution. And wouldn't you know it, complementarian authors came up with the answer. Manuals now tell wives the solution is to submit JOYFULLY. YES! If a wife doesn’t JUST submit, but submits JOYFULLY, her misery will be gone. But is it? Or is she just trying to fool herself? Trying to deceive herself? Woman after woman wakes up after years of allowing herself to be deceived into “joyful submission,” and finds herself more miserable and more down-trodden than she was before.

Take another peek into the Walton household. Ben tells Cindy he’s going to take her out for supper and a movie, so Cindy goes to clean herself up. She hasn’t put it together that the Waltons have only one bathroom, and that family members must keep their time in the bathroom short. While she leisurely bathes, four siblings are waiting their turn for the bathroom. Her new husband shows up and orders her to hurry up. She protests that she had to wait to use the bathroom, too, and he increases the volume and the pressure. She quickly ends her bath, and Ben keeps shouting at her while she dries herself. She tells him to stop yelling at her, but he just yells even more. When she opens the door, she apologizes to the family, saying she didn’t realize the situation. Ben then scolds her in front of his siblings, even though she has already apologized. She hurries away, and Ben tells his siblings it won’t happen again.

Ben’s siblings tell him he was being too harsh, that Cindy is trying her best. Ben yells:

“Will you keep out of it? She’s MY wife. What goes on between us is my business, not yours.”

Like Ben demonstrates, these are the typical beliefs of controlling husbands: 1. that their wives are their property, 2.) that they can treat their wives however they choose, and 3.) that how they treat their wives is nobody else’s business.

All three of these beliefs are false. We are all accountable to God and to one another, we cannot treat others however shabbily we choose, and no one is our property. Children are given to us on loan from God, to be prepared for life in a responsible and loving way, and spouses are also on loan from God, to be companions for the ups and downs of life. But those spouses are not ours to mistreat, to take advantage of, or to dominate. They are ours to respect as joint heirs with Christ, with value that is higher than ours, (In lowliness of mind, let each esteem other better than themselves." Phil 2:3) and with specific calling to serve as the Spirit of God calls, not according to our desires or beliefs. The calling of God doesn’t give anyone permission to ride roughshod over their mate. It doesn’t require the mate to do anything they don’t feel right doing, not even in the name of submission.

In the Walton house, Ben doesn’t follow these rules, and Cindy stops listening to him, kicks him out of the house, and tells him she’s leaving him. She refuses to consider giving him another chance.

Ben yells at her: Cindy! You’re my WIFE!
Cindy hollers back: No I’m not. I’m just somebody for you to order around.

Has Cindy hit the nail on the head? When a husband dominates his wife, are they really two who have become one flesh? If her half of the input is cut off, do they have a marriage? Doesn’t marriage require TWO people melding together into one, instead of one person taking over the other and erasing her as if he were a victor of war? Is the woman really a wife when her personhood has been erased, or when the husband has attempted to erase her? If a wife has been erased by her husband and she is a non-person by reason of stolen influence, can anyone claim God has joined them together? Is it possible to join together 1 person and a nobody, a ruler & a person who is usually overruled, making her a person of no significance? This is the definition of a hostile take-over, not a marriage. And what if the wife "rebels" or refuses to become a prisoner of war, a piece of chattel?

Ben confides to his dad: She won’t listen…Aren’t I supposed to (be the boss)? Aren’t I the man of the family, just like you are?
Dad replies: There are all kinds of ways to be a man. Listening to others is one of them.

Here Ben reveals that he has seen a pattern in his parent’s marriage. Dad usually tells Mom how things shall be, and Mom usually yields. Nothing is said about this doctrine being taught in church, but since Mom and the children are Baptists, (while Dad doesn’t go to church) it is likely they do hear that doctrine from the pulpit. Ben seems not to have noticed that Dad listens to Mom and to the children and frequently respects their wishes. Dad usually gets all the facts from the children and/or from Mom before he issues an order. Ben seems not to have noticed that at times Mom does the opposite of what Dad said, or that Dad highly respects Mom.

Why did Ben miss all these details? Could it be the church’s doctrinal emphasis, that every dad he knows orders his wife around and every wife he knows obeys, and that the most usual pattern in his parents’ marriage is that Mom mostly does what Dad says, while Dad seldom does what Mom says, with the exception of coming to eat? These are the very reasons young men begin their marriages expecting to be the “loving” bosses of their wives. They scold and chew out their wives for minor imperfections. Like Ben, they associate manliness with bossiness and with being in charge and in control of their wives.

Dad tells Ben of the thing he hasn’t noticed: that Dad does listen to and respect his wife. (perhaps because he doesn't go to church?) He urges Ben to listen to his grandma. Ben acts taken down a few notches as he follows his grandma back to his wife.

Cindy lets Grandma in the house and tells her:

"He won’t listen to me. He’s just like my father, loud and bossy."

Grandma hands Cindy a broom and tells Cindy to do the talking, implying Ben should do the listening. Cindy pokes Ben with the bristle end of the broom and says:

“‘God bless OUR house,’ that’s what Grandma’s sampler says. It can’t be ours unless you let me make it mine, too.”

Those words finally hit home with Ben. He realizes that he has been making it HIS house, instead of both of theirs. He also realizes he has been hurting his wife by excluding her from the decision-making. He does apologize, the two make up, and thereafter they have a respectful and loving marriage where Ben values Cindy for who she is, and stops forcing her into being an extension of himself.

That broom helped Ben become a “new creature.” The narrator says that broom always had a place in a corner of the kitchen, implying that from time to time Ben may have needed help from Cindy and her broom to return to his “new creature” status and shed the “old man.”

Isn't it time complementarians stop urging husbands to put on "old man" behavior and to instead put on "new creature" behavior of love, respect, not-lording-it-over, treating their wives as they would like to be treated? This means wives should be allowed to define who they really are and behave accordingly, instead of acting out some role prescribed for them by their husbands and the church hierarchy.

It is time to teach husbands to be "new creatures" instead of acting like the "old man" Adam, who ruled over his wife.



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.

What God Authorizes Husbands to do

Whether one claims to be complementarian, egalitarian, or any other arian, the rules God, our authority, has given are the same. What behavior does God authorize for a husband?

1. As part of the body of Christ, a husband is to submit to his wife, Ephesians 5:21, I Peter 5:5.

2. A husband is to love his wife as he loves and cares for his own body. He is to sacrifice for her, doing what it takes to benefit her—even at the expense of NOT getting what he wants. Ephesians 5: 25-31

3. A husband is to esteem his wife as better than himself, Phil 2:3

4. A husband is to treat his wife as he would want to be treated if he were her. Matt. 7:12

5. A husband is to demonstrate God’s agape love to his wife I Cor 13.

6. A husband is to guard his tongue. James 3

7. A husband is to honor his wife so his prayers won’t be hindered, I Peter 3:7

8. A husband is to have the fruit of the spirit, love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, and this is to show up in all his dealings with his wife, not just at church.

There are likely more, but this is sufficient.

With a commandment list like this, why would any husband prefer to be a complementarian? If he is a complementarian and he has the job of making that final decision, this list requires him to make the decision his wife wants.

God did not give him an exception clause. He is always to honor, love, submit to and sacrifice for his wife, all the while esteeming her better than himself. This is the commandment of God, not of the egalitarians.

It seems to me the egalitarians are easier on the husbands. Egalitarians teach that husbands and wives are to divide responsibilities based on gifting, not on pre-fabricated roles that may have both spouses struggling to pretend to be what they are not. They also teach couples to come up with solutions both spouses feel good and at peace about. That means neither of them make a final decision that hurts their spouse, and that both seek to find a solution that pleases them, yet pleases their spouse as well.

Life in egalitarian families is win-win, while life in complementarian households frequently has one spouse being the loser while the other gets things his or her way depending on whether the husband obeys the command to sacrifice for his wife, or whether he indulges in sinful self-pleasing.

Again, if complementarian husbands truly live in obedience to God’s word and authority, they will always sacrifice their own wishes, desires, needs in order to serve their wives.

But even with the complementarian rules, which give a husband authority over his wife, a husband has the authority to set up a relationship where neither spouse overrides the will or preferences of the other. The husband can use the authority he believes God has given to him to live by the Golden Rule, to honor his wife, to esteem her better than himself, to lay down his wishes in favor of his wife's, and to use disagreements as a means to learn to know one another better as they search for solutions each spouse will actually like. But when he does that, it is important that he tell her that he considers her his equal, not just for salvation and in the eyes of God, but in his eyes, too. Only then will she be free to totally be herself, to fully entrust herself to her husband, and to be all God has made her and called her to be.




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.

The Silent Plea of Complementarians & CBMW

I confess, I have been so wrapped up in my own research of submission tyranny that I completely missed an important detail, and I have failed to submit properly. I apologize for being so blind to this fact that has been right in front of my face all along. Yet this opens exciting possibilities that could put a stop to the war between the sexes.

Women, the complementarian, CBMW-type men in our lives claim to be Bible-believing Christians, who follow the plain reading of scripture, correct? They obey the scripture to the best of their ability. The problem is us, women. We have failed to “listen” to what they are trying to tell us.

For centuries Christian men have been trying to tell us that they want to be subjugated, and now the CBMW has been making this ever more clear with their Danver's statement. That is right. Complementarian MEN want to be SUBJUGATED. I don't know what I was thinking, why I didn't see the signs before. I was listening to what they said with their mouths instead of to what they said with their actions. I totally forgot that actions carry much more weight than words. That is why pastors do not offer help to abused women who come to them for help; they are hoping the women will turn the tables and CONTROL their husbands.

You'd be surprised how I figured this out. It's the rule of the Golden Rule:

“Therefore, all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.” Matt 7:12
“And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.” Luke 6:31

These men who “live according to the scriptures” are telling us by their actions that they want WOMEN to make the final decisions, that they want WOMEN to be the leaders, that they want WOMEN to put men in subjection to women, that they want WOMEN to take AUTHORITY OVER MEN.

Think of it, they are doing to women what they secretly want women to do to them. They want to be dominated by women. They want women to be the preachers and teachers. Some of them want women to beat them, chew them out, denigrate them, call them horrid names.

The problem is, since I don't want men to subjugate me, I don't want to subjugate them lest they get the wrong idea. But perhaps I could find a way to tickle their fancy without actually subjugating them. Perhaps I could order them around three days a week, (although many of them complain about women acting as ditches--except the first letter is b--three days a month.)

Women, we need to develop our skills at keeping men, especially husbands, under our spiked heels without actually subjugating them. This apparently is much closer to what they want.



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.

Complementarian, Hierarchicalist, or Traditionalist

John Piper and Wayne Grudem write a preface (1991) for “Recovering Biblical Manhood & Womanhood.” Here is a telling paragraph:

“A brief note about terms: If one word must be used to describe our position, we prefer the term complementarian, since it suggests both equality and beneficial differences between men and women. We are uncomfortable with the term “traditionalist” because it implies an unwillingness to let Scripture challenge traditional patterns of behavior, and we certainly reject the term “hierarchicalist” because it overemphasizes structured authority while giving no suggestion of equality or the beauty of mutual interdependence.”

These are great-sounding words. But do Piper and Grudem live up to them?

First, their so-called equality is limited to salvation and that we are equal in the eyes of God. But they refuse practical equality in the eyes of man. Theirs is equality in name only, not equality that makes any difference in a woman’s earthly life nor that lifts women from the status of “lifetime servants to/slaves of men.” Although they reject the term hierarchiacalist, saying it overemphasizes structured authority, structured authority is exactly what they teach. This authority is so important, that Piper advises wives whose husbands practice “verbal unkindness” toward them, to endure it for a season, and when the husband smacks them one night, to call the pastor in the morning. Talk about minimizing husband-supremist behavior! Most folks would call that traditionalist at the very least, since it winks at selfish and abusive male behavior, and it would not be stretching it to call it hierarchicalist.

Second, although they give lip service to the scriptural command to husbands to love their wives self-sacrificially, that is not what they push. When a wife is mistreated, their first focus is for her to be more submissive. Piper claims to not allow physical abuse, yet tells wives to wait until they are physically abused to report it to a pastor. In other words, he DOES allow physical violence and it is unclear what he will do if a wife calls him in the morning. Will he thoroughly question her about her submission or will he actually hold her husband accountable?

Note that the term “mutual interdependence” is not the same as “mutual submission,” but the context of the paragraph--"equality," "overemphasis on structured authority," and "challenge traditional patterns of behavior"--leads one to believe Piper and Grudem are speaking of mutual submission. Wayne Grudem believes “mutual submission” except for “mutual consideration and deference,” is unscriptural, He says:

“Within marriage an egalitarian view tends toward abolishing differences and advocates “mutual submission,” which often results in the husband acting as a wimp and the wife as a usurper…”

Grudem claims in Chapter 10 of “Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood,” that husbands are never told to submit to their wives, denying that Ephesians 5:21 “Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God,” means that the husband is also to submit to his wife. But he claims that “Wives submit to your own husbands” means that husbands have an authority and leadership position, even though the Scriptures never state that husbands are to take authority over their wives, nor command husbands to be leaders of their wives. So even though, husbands are commanded to submit along with everyone else, Grudem denies that this includes a submission to their wives that is equal to the submission of wives to their husbands. Grudem reasons that “Submission acknowledges an authority that is not totally mutual.” Meanwhile, he ignores the “submission” that husbands are called to when they are commanded to love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for it.

Interestingly, Paul Hegstrom, in “Angry Men and the Women Who Love Them,” agrees that the submission of husbands and wives is not mutual, because the submission required of husbands is more demanding than that required of wives. He says:

“Eph. 5:25-28 reminds us that as Christ died for the Church, a man should give his life for his wife. A childish, abusive man will spiritually abuse his wife by telling her that she has to be subjected to her husband in everything. He does not realize that a husband’s mandate is to literally be willing to sacrifice his life for her. Which is the greater submission? The greater submission is for the man. I Pet. 3:5-6 in essence says that the wife should not be terrified, fearful, or full of anxiety in a godly home. The passage as a whole speaks to the man with a mandate of creating a very safe place where she is not terrified or living in fear and anxiety.”

Which are we to believe, those who subtract submission for husbands from scripture and add an authority that is never mentioned or those who point to the scriptures that state that submission and sacrificial love is required of husbands?

And what of “mutual interdependence” that Grudem and Piper believe is so beautiful? Apparently, they think making wives totally dependent on and obedient to their husbands is beautiful, and that husbands depending upon their wives to serve them and do whatever the husbands want is beautiful. And, of course, getting together to make babies when the husband so desires, is beautiful, too.

This arrangement APPEARS beautiful for husbands, but their prayers are being hindered. As Paul Hegstrom points out, when a man rebels against the principles of loving self-sacrifice toward his wife, (IE a greater submission than her submission) “his prayers will be hindered and cut off, and he will not be able to pray effectively (1 Pet. 3:7).” And wives have to LIE to themselves to convince themselves it is beautiful for them, too. Many a wife who has been freed from the grip of complementarianism, admits that although she told others she was happy, she actually was NOT happy.

It is no wonder Grudem, Piper, and the rest of the complementarians are “uncomfortable” with being called “traditionalist” or “hierarchicalist.” Thieves don’t like being called thieves, either, and con-artists reject being called con-artists, too.

But even the choice of “Complementarian” is a lie. As Piper and Grudem say, the word “suggests both equality and beneficial differences between men and women.” The word does indeed suggest those things, but the complementarian doctrine emphasizes neither equality nor beneficial differences. The doctrine is primarily about the authority of men—husbands in particular—and the submission and subjection of women, with special emphasis on wives. The correct term to define those with Grudem’s and Piper’s so-called complementarian doctrine is Hierarchicalist. It is the Egalitarians who practice true Complementarianism.


Waneta Dawn is the author of "Behind the Hedge," a novel about a wife who discovers traditional marriage advice doesn't always work. See www.wanetadawn.com

CBMW Complementarian teaching Threatens Wives

When leaders of Christians for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood state that a wife who is abused or beaten by her husband has brought it on herself because she is not submitting to her husband, they are publicly threatening all Christian wives because they are giving license to all Christian husbands to abuse their wives—even if they add there is no excuse for using physical violence.

Wives who hear such statements understand the meaning quite well, and redouble their efforts to do all within their power to make sure their husbands are happy. Wives who suffer abuse, understand their husbands have been given license and encouragement to abuse or beat them for any reason, since no matter what the reason, it will be blamed on the wife.

Many wives who are not abused or beaten, join with the CBMW in blaming the abused and beaten wives, because they assume they are doing a better job than their abused sisters of submitting to their husbands.

Husbands who hear such statements, experience no pressure to stop their nasty behaviors. In fact, they are encouraged to enforce their man-given authority rights. They know their pastors and peers will not hold them accountable for their sinful actions, but will instead shift the accountability onto their wives.

The result of this is an entire Christian community of wives striving to obey their husbands. Those whose husbands are kind and non-abusive do not need to strive as hard and can voice and push their opinions and preferences. But those whose husbands are harsh and demanding, live in fear of punishment from their husbands and put their entire effort into pleasing their husbands, even if that makes them less than perfect in the eyes of God.

Wives who live with domineering husbands are so focused on submitting, that they are rarely abused for non-submission. Contrary to the teaching of Bruce Ware and other CBMW teachers, these wives are abused because their husband is unhappy about something, or because he feels less powerful than he thinks he ought to feel. If he wasted the day being social, he will come home and chew out his wife for doing nothing all day, even if she was extra energetic and accomplished more than usual that day. If he is attempting to repair the car and the process is not going according to his wishes, he may beat his wife or hurl the wrench at her when she comes to tell him lunch is ready.

Abused wives know this, and do all within their power to make things go well for their husbands. It is unfortunate that they are unable to control the weather, wild animals, pets, inanimate objects, children, other men, the government, & etc.

Because “Christians” blame wives for the sinful behavior of husbands, husbands know they can freely sin against their wives and children.

When pastors like John Piper refuse to intervene until the husband’s violence against his wife turns physical or until the husband demands “major” sin from his wife, they are tempering the threat against wives by disallowing physical violence and blatant sexual sin, but still encouraging husbands to use all other forms of assault and control against their wives.

Furthermore, withholding intervention until the abuse turns physical, makes it unlikely the abuser will stop abusing. The abusive husband’s mindset has become so engrained that any other way of thinking seems ridiculous and non-biblical to him.

When pastors spend 90% of their effort to push wives to forgive and reconcile, and 10% of their effort to encourage husbands to stop abusing, and continue to teach husbands to take authority over their wives, wives know it is pointless to go to pastors for help.

The result of living with this threat from their peers is that far too many abused Christian wives never go to anyone for help until the abuse is so severe their lives, or the lives of their children, are threatened through health problems, suicidal thoughts, or from the abuser’s own hand. And far too frequently, they never go to anyone for help, and one day they end up dead, killed by the very person who vowed to cherish them.

And then some “Christians” claim the murder is the will of God. This blames the wife for being murdered by her husband, and ends up also being a threat against all Christian wives.

It is no wonder Christian women are fearful and prone to anxiety. They live with a major threat over their heads.


Waneta Dawn is the author of "Behind the Hedge," a novel about a wife who discovers traditional marriage advice doesn't always work. See www.wanetadawn.com

Complementarian is “Thievarian”

Complement: That which completes or makes perfect; either of two parts or things needed to complete each other.

Complementary: Completing; supplying a deficiency

Complementary colors: Primary or secondary colors in the spectrum which, when combined, make another color.

~The Living Webster Encyclopedic Dictionary of the English Language

According to Webster, the parts that complement one another complete one another or make a different color together. They are not first changed into something less than or more than they first were in order to make the completeness work.

The husband and wife are to be joined together and become a unit. That’s somewhat like red and blue joining together to make purple.

But the way the Complementarians teach it, the red must first become less red and give her strong pigment to the blue. She becomes light pink. The blue takes the deepest red pigment as his own and becomes a dark blue. The two never become a blended color. Instead the blue becomes dominant blue and the red becomes washed out pink.

Like sheets of paper, the dark blue moves over the pink, eliminating her input and hiding her from view—except as his servant whose focus is to help him reach his goals. The two appear to be 90%-100% the husband.

In reality they have remained two people, two colors. They have not blended at all. Instead the power of the red was taken from her and given to the blue. The red is denied power of choosing what is best for either herself, her husband, or her children, denied the power of developing her interests in any sphere accept that allowed and dictated by the dominating blue.

The real essence of the red is either destroyed or frozen.

Meanwhile, the blue steals the power of decision-making, the power of following God’s direction from the red and takes it for his own personal use.

The two can never become a new blended entity, because a large part of the red has been stolen from her and is controlled by the blue. Since red has lost control of her future, her choices, her preferences, her gifts, and her personality, she has too little left to blend with the original blue color. If she tries to blend the washed out pink she has left into the dark blue over which she has no control, she will be obliterated and destroyed, and her husband will become double his size and rise up like a giant dark blue Goliath. Because none of her red essence or choice will be allowed to impact the corrupted Goliath, their union of red and blue can never make purple.

Instead of two becoming a blended purple unit, the two become a more prominent blue.

In order for a husband and wife to become one, they must each have full control over their own being, and not yield that control to their spouse. Each person and his/her input must be valued highly and equally for their red and blue to become purple.

To complete one another, each person and his/her input must be valued highly and equally. If one takes a large portion away from the other by taking authority over her or demanding that she give her authority away, instead of being completed, he has been corrupted. And the wife from whom a large portion has been stolen, is also not completed, but diminished to the point of annihilation.

There is no way an enlarged corrupted man can blend with a non-entity wife to make a more complete new organism. Instead of becoming more valuable, both individuals become less valuable because he is corrupted and she is reduced to child-slave status. Instead of becoming a new, blended, different color, they become a darker his color. As a “unit,” they become the dominant partner—who is corrupted.

Indeed, in male authority, female submission marriages, neither person is completed. They are not Complementarian.

Since husbands are taught to be thieves and steal freedom of choice from their wives, and wives are taught to offer their valuable freedom of choice to their husbands to be stolen, a more accurate name would be Thievarian.


Waneta Dawn is the author of "Behind the Hedge," a novel about a wife who discovers traditional marriage advice doesn't always work. See www.wanetadawn.com

The Complementarian Caricature

Those who insist Complementarian marriage is scriptural, seem to have an idealized notion what such a marriage looks like. First of all, they imagine that IF the wife is always submissive, and always subjects herself to her husband, that her husband will always be kind and loving. Secondly, they think the husband will accomplish whatever he sets his heart to do because he has the support of his wife. Thirdly, they imagine peace, harmony, and well-being will reign in the Complementarian home because everyone in the family does the will of the husband.

Friends, the above is a caricature. Only, the Complementarians don't know it.

Even in homes where this SEEMS to be the case, most likely everything is not as it seems.

First of all, as a man commented on one of my early posts, how can a husband be certain that his decisions for his wife are completely unselfish? How can he be certain that he has been listening to her input, that he isn't shrugging off something she says because he doesn't think it is important? How can he be certain that his wife feels safe enough, important enough, respected enough to say anything that needs to be said? As the commenter pointed out, a husband cannot be sure his motives are unselfish. He cannot be sure he has created an environment where his wife feels free to say it as it is. He cannot be sure he is capable of making good decisions for his wife.

Secondly, in a relationship where the rule is that the wife must always set aside her wishes, her opinions, her gifts, even her personality, in order to take on a God-prescribed role, it is highly unlikely that her husband can ever truly know her. He ends up sharing sexual intimacy with a person of his own imagination who is playing a role, rather than with his wife as she really is. Women respond to having to set their preferences, thoughts and gifts aside, by not having an opinion, by shutting down their gifts, by telling themselves their wishes will probably be seen as illogical, silly, uninformed, and less than whatever it is their husbands want. Additionally, although the Complementarian wives in the “perfect” marriage pictured above may see where their husbands are taking advantage of them or otherwise hurting them, they tell themselves to ignore it because to notice it would be disloyal, sinful, unloving, or non-submissive.

So the submissive wife puts on a front for her husband, their children, and her church, and the husband makes decisions for his family without having all the facts. The loving, authoritative husband (what an oxymoron!) has no idea what he doesn't know, and the wife either believes she is not allowed to tell him, that he would brush her off, or that telling him would hurt him or cause him (and as a result cause herself and their children) great distress.

At times the wife feels a wave of resentment washing over her, and she quickly tells herself she is being disloyal and non-submissive to have such a thought or feeling, that she cannot allow herself to feel that way. So she stuffs it away and denies anything is wrong.

So the pair goes on, unaware of what is causing the wife's illnesses. Yes, research has shown that abused wives get sick more often and are more chronically ill than non-abused wives. The illnesses include depression, anxiety, back pain, headaches, menstrual disorders, chest pain, among others. See http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=EQz0flR0cRM&feature=related

The truth is, at least 1 in 4 women are abused by their husbands. Some statistics say the number is 1 in 3. These are limited to reported cases. The health study mentioned above that questioned 3500 women of a health plan in Seattle, says 44% of women are affected by partner abuse.

In group settings when women are asked to anonymously raise their hand if their husband has abused them but they have never reported it, 50% of the women raised their hands. At least one of these anonymous reports was conducted among church women.

If 50% of wives are abused but never report domestic abuse, and 25% do report it, that leaves 25% who either who refuse to acknowledge their husband's controlling and abusive behaviors, or actually have loving, non-abusive husbands.

If a study of 3500 women with a particular health plan shows that 44% of women have been abused, how many women without health insurance experience domestic abuse? It is likely those numbers are higher than 44%, since it is common for abusive husbands to deny their wives health care.

These statistics indicate that it is likely the majority of wives live with or have lived with abusive husbands. Even if a husband abuses his wife only once, that act changes the couple's relationship, because he has made it clear that deep down he thinks it is acceptable to hurt his wife. One act of abuse changes the relationship to something similar to master and slave, and this is especially so if the husband believes the Bible teaches husbands to be the authority and wives to submit to their husband's authority. Even if the husband apologizes, deep down the wife is never sure he will never abuse her again.

The real caricature in today's society is not of the abusive husband, but of the loving husband. The flaws are so apparent to everyone but those who claim to have such marriages. Descriptions of self-important, authority wielding husbands are reality, not caricatures, for the majority of wives. Even if the husband does not use physical abuse or overt emotional abuse on a daily or weekly basis, the fact that he requires his wife to continually and daily set aside her will, to live like a child without the freedom to choose what she thinks is best, so he can have things his way and feel in charge, is in itself domestic abuse.


Waneta Dawn is the author of "Behind the Hedge," a novel about a wife who discovers traditional marriage advice doesn't always work. See www.wanetadawn.com

If Jesus was a Complementarian

If Jesus was a Complementarian, He would have refused to come to earth. He would have insisted that He is the Authority and people are to submit to Him because God said so; He didn’t have to do anything to deserve the people’s respect, service and loyalty. He would have gathered the angelic host around Him, basked in their praises, and commanded them to reconcile humans with God. God the Father would have had to force him to come to earth against His will.

If Jesus was a Complementarian, He would have gone to the temple when He was 12 and wouldn’t have asked the priests anything. Instead, He would have told them He was God, their authority, and that they better do what He says and serve Him. When His parents reprimanded Him, He would have told them to buzz off, that He was their authority and they were to surrender themselves to Him, get a horse for Him to ride home, and that the home they were providing for Him was not good enough. He is God, after all and even a palace leaves much to be desired.

If Jesus was a Complementarian, He would have either refused to turn the water into wine, or He would have bragged about His miracle and used the event to announce that He is God, the Everlasting Authority, and that everyone there was His bride and required by God to subject themselves to him or suffer the consequences.

If Jesus was a Complementarian, He would have scoffed at John the Baptist’s baptism, took over the preaching for the day and demanded that all the hearers bowed before Him because He is the Authority, and God gave Him the role of directing their lives.

If Jesus was a Complementarian, He would have ordered the disciples to follow Him, instead of inviting them. Claiming that any type of service was beneath His dignity, He would have refused to heal the sick, lame, and blind. Instead, He would have ordered the disciples to heal the people and scolded His disciples when they could not, and ranted and raved about what idiots they were.

If Jesus was a Complementarian, instead of inviting people to come to Him for rest, He would have ordered them to come and give Him their hard manual labor. Instead of saying “Ask and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you,” He would have said, “Ask and I’ll yell at you, seek and I’ll spit in your face, knock and I’ll beat you up, for everyone that asks makes Me mad, he that seeks disgusts Me, and he that knocks sends me into an uncontrollable rage because he is trying to usurp My authority. He would have declared that His rage, yelling, spitting,and beating was not sin, that the seeker had brought it on himself.

If Jesus was a Complementarian, He would have refused to lay down His life for us. Instead, He would have demanded the death of every last one of us, insisting that since we are rebellious and unable to serve Him perfectly, we must die for Him.

If Jesus was a Complementarian, He would have neglected to love us and treat us with kindness and mercy. Instead, He would have focused on His authority. There would be no Christmas, no Good Friday, no Easter, no Ascension Day.

If Jesus was a Complementarian, he would deny us salvation, and damn us to Hell.

If Jesus was a Complementarian, we would neither love nor serve Him.





Waneta Dawn is the author of "Behind the Hedge," a novel about a wife who discovers traditional marriage advice doesn't always work. See www.wanetadawn.com

A parable of a Woman and her Children

Now the children of a certain woman spent most of their days quarreling: fighting over toys, taking toys from one another, yelling at and insulting one another, calling each other nasty names and even hitting each other. Being tired of the chaos, the woman called her children to her and told them that since she loved them both dearly and loved them equally, she had come up with a solution to stop their fighting and bring peace and love into their home. She would assign a role to each child. The children were to follow their roles the same as they would if they were putting on a play.

Since the six year old daughter was the younger, her role would be to always have whatever she wanted. Any toy her brother had, she could take it away and play with it. When she tired of it, she could choose to give it back to her brother, put it where it belonged, leave it on the floor, or hide it so her brother could not find it. Any time she wanted him to do something, he had to do it. The woman commanded her daughter to be kind to her brother, but the primary rule was that the daughter was to have things her way.

Then the woman turned to her son and commanded him that he was to willingly offer his sister any toy she desired, he was never to take a toy from his sister, and he was to do anything she told him to do. Being 7, he was the elder, so it was his responsibility to see to it that his sister was happy. If he complained about his lot, he would be punished. If he retaliated against his sister he would be punished, too. No matter what his sister did to him, he was to endure it patiently and keep giving her his toys or anything else she wanted.

Now I ask you, would anyone in their right mind consider this woman to be a just parent? Wouldn’t we all conclude she is evil?

Yet the commandments of the woman in the parable are comparable to the commandments the complementarians claim God has made in regard to husbands and wives.

John Piper indicated a wife should endure her husband’s mistreatment for a season, until he smacked her one night. THEN she could ask for help. Bruce Ware claimed a husband only hits his wife when she doesn’t give him his way. (IE: she refuses to give him the toy he wants, so he hits her.) Ware says the hitting is not acceptable, but his blaming it on the one who supposedly wouldn’t give up her toys makes it clear he thinks otherwise.

How can we as Christians judge the mother in this parable to be evil, yet judge God, who the complementarians claim does the same thing, to be good?

Frankly, if that is really what their god is like--unjust and a liar--I want nothing to do with him.

The God I serve is a God of justice, truth, and of love for ALL His children, female and male alike. He does not lie, nor does He distort truth. He does not set one gender up to rule and debase the other, nor does he dispise and make one gender a lifetime slave to be mastered by the other. And He certainly does not set half his children up for mistreatment at the hands of the other half of his children, and claim that mistreatment is actually equality of persons but differences of roles!

The God I serve loves each of us equally and demonstrates this by clearly telling all Christians to submit to one another, including husbands and wives. Those who convince themselves otherwise have twisted the scriptures.

If the woman in the parable is evil for inflicting evil on her children, is it fair to say that Piper and Ware and others who do the same are also evil?

Or do we give them a pass because they are popular "Christian" leaders who are so "nice?"






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