During the Iowa debate, Fox News interrogator Byron York asked Michelle Bachmann to clarify her comments about Paul’s command in Ephesians 5:22, “Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord.”
York asked, bluntly, “As president, would you be submissive to your husband?”
Conservative reaction was fairly universal, against both Fox and York for “gotcha” journalism turned into bad taste. Carrying a bias against the media, including Fox, into this debate, I can fully understand this outrage, but Glenn Beck raises a good point, namely, that by York bringing this question up now, he had “inoculated” Bachmann from it ever being brought up again.
Chew on this, for there’s probably some truth to it, whether intentional or not.
But in a way, it’s a shame, because I’d like to see Bachmann have another go at that question, so then she could then turn it into a conservative teaching moment.
The Teachable Moment
My greatest disappointment with the candidates so far, except Rick Santorum and Herman Cain, is they have turned every question asked them into a way to recite, ad naseum, their resumes. “Me, me, me, I did this, I did that” can get very stale, very quickly. Tim Pawlenty has been, by far, the worst offender in this regard, but Bachmann and Romney also offend.
Perhaps worse, especially for the non-conservatives looking in, is to lose the teachable moment, and perhaps set a few of those minds into a higher state of inquiry about constitutional conservatism. Santorum especially seems to look for opportunities to insert a constitutional or moral precept into any discussion he’s a part of. It’s always good, as I’ve written often, to have a Ben Franklin around the council table, constantly reminding everyone else at the table of the bigger picture, and where this issue or that fits into it.
Then, this can be edifying to more than just conservatives or Republicans. By rehearsing or being coached to answer every question with a me-me-me resume, the candidates pass on a great opportunities to do a little teaching.
The Submissive Wife
So, I would love for Michelle Bachmann to get a second bite at the “submissive wife” apple to explain that this phrase is one of the most abused sections of Paul’s teachings (Eph 5:21-32)…especially by non- or anti-Christians of the Left.
Every Christian husband and every Christian wife knows what it means, and does not mean. Every anti-Christian, feminist Leftist has tried to portray this wifely submission as a slave to a man; a barefoot, pregnant, stupid, repressed woman, always with that damned apron on, a mammy scarf on the head, a Mixmaster in one hand, a scrub brush in the other, a tub of Spin N’ Span on the floor…yadda, yadda, yadda.
From the beginning of time, the sky (circumstances) has always determined this relationship. Without trying to pick any fights I will only say that most of the decisions made in any relationship (not just marriage) is made by one person, but almost never the same person every time. By a process impossible to detail in less than 1000 pages, each party cedes to the other power to decide, from kraut and wieners or pot roast, to Disney World or the Atlanta Braves, to your parents or my parents at Thanksgiving. Oh, there may be hell to pay sometimes, and that hell is so varied as to defy any single book.
Christians just seem to deal with all this drama better than others. (Go figure.) Christians seems to be more content in their decisions. There is more happiness, more light and less dark. And somehow, Christians seem more able to bear these conflicts, for more of them stay married. And they put out into the world children who seem more able to enjoy its fruits and the fruits of their labor, rather than sitting in a dark corner, seething about this or that, as the children raised by only one parent are more apt to do.
There are no trophy wives, and while even Christians may stumble, there are rarely mistresses, stained blue dresses, or a No 9 stamped to a Client list. These are all attributes of an angry agnostic Left.
Clearly Christian “submission” means something entirely different from the “submissiveness” the anti-Christian Left implies.
Left Wing Submission
Still we are led to believe the word “submissive” is the nuclear red button to the Left. Well, it is not, though they do try to disguise it. The word they most hate here is “wife”, especially in the context of Paul’s exhortation to the “Christian wife.”
For in truth, there is nothing in this world more submissive than the empty, hateful Leftist.
I could not detail for you in a thousand pages all the ways in which a wife does not “submit” to her husband, while still keeping within Paul’s strictures to be submissive. Again, all drama (and comedy) in fiction is built on this one one essential conflict, from Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf to Lucy and Desi. But what can be proved statistically, in every category of every human emotion, e.g, happiness, love, joy, even dealing with loss, and every human virtue; e.g., honesty, fidelity, charity, kindness (look them up) the submissive Christian comes out much higher than the “open-minded” humanist. Morality is high in survival enhancement, while immorality is in cultural self-destruction.
This is because the anti-Christian humanist is a complete and total slave; submissive to his/her passions (dark and angry as they are), his/her appetites (avaricious as they are), and his/her vanities (preening and narcissistic as they are).
The most submissive being on earth is the one that worships himself.
