Waneta Dawn

Pinklight (102),
“‘They also break the first of the 10 commandments: Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Compism is men’s shrine to themselves, and they bow down to the god of husband authority…’

So that I understand what you are saying here on this point, could you elaborate?”

(sorry for the delay in answering. Life has been a zoo around here!) Actually, you answer the question quite well yourself! But it may be helpful to go into more detail for those who have not given this much thought.

Any person, place or thing that is more important to us than God, becomes a god to us–a god that we are placing ahead of the triune God Almighty. There are many scriptures that tell us what behaviors indicate a true love for God. As you mentioned, treating others as we would like to be treated is one, laying down our lives for others is another, love is not self-seeking, it is not proud and does not consider itself superior, it genuinely seeks the best FOR OTHERS instead of the best for ourselves. (in spite of the comp denial of husband superiority in their teaching, the dictionary meaning makes it clear that authority includes superiority, or “ascendency.” So the comps are claiming that husbands and wives are equal, but with different roles. The husband has the role of superiority, and the wife has the role of inferior second-fiddle. Their denial is all semanics.) When we love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, there will be no room for other gods. Because God is love and His influence on us causes His love to infill us as well and also to flow out to others, we will love others and will not seek to be preeminent.

Both the husband authority teaching, and many of the husbands who practice husband authority insist on husband preeminence over their wives. Although some claim the “job” of final decision-maker is not one they want to do, those who beat the husband-authority drum DO want that final say-so. Furthermore, the teaching tells wives to only give their view once and at the most twice, and then to shut up. Wives are not just talked to, preached to, advised to, but they are also pressured to take the lesser, the second fiddle position, and even to push their husbands into the preeminent position. Yet, the Bible tells us only GOD is to have the preeminent position. Pushing husbands into the preeminent position, when it is against so many scriptures, puts husbands ahead of God. Comp husbands are insisting on taking God’s place in their wives’ lives, as well as in their own. Because enforcing their authority is more important to them, they don’t have to be kind, loving, gentle, peaceable, forgiving, good, or patient with their wives, but the wives MUST show all these evidences of the Fruit of the Spirit. By ignoring the scriptures they don’t want to obey, excusing or explaining away other passages–like claiming Ephesians 5:21 “Submitting one to another in the fear of God,” means some submitting more than others–they have indeed put themselves above God Almighty. They have imposed their own bias upon God’s Word, and made themselves and their own desires superior to God’s Word.

“Compism is men’s shrine to themselves, and they bow down to the god of husband authority…'”
In other words, they have put their own teaching above scripture, and the whole complementarian doctrine is aimed at keeping themselves in the king/god position, even while they deny this is so. Any scripture they can twist to bolster husband-authority, they teach with frequency and fervency. They’ve established an entire group, Christians for Biblical manhood and womanhood, to pressure others to elevate men and husbands. Any scripture that would show their husband-authority teaching to be false they ignore or explain away. They’ve even twisted their teaching on the trinity to resemble their husband-authority doctrine, in spite of the fact that the trinity involves a 3rd “member” and therefore is a poor symbol for a 2-person relationship, even if the Father did expect subjection from the Word who became His Son, which there is no indication that The Father did, except when the Word became flesh. Their misuse of the trinity would suggest a dominant husband with 2 second-fiddle wives.

Indeed, the discussion about Christ always being submissive to the Father is being used to argue for wives always being subject and secondary to their husbands. And that is why they are so adamant that Christ was always Christ and always secondary to the Father, even though the Bible says that The Word’s subjection has to do with the incarnation.

These male complementarian teachers are not ignorant, they are twisting scripture purposely. (That is a VERY difficult charge for me to make! Everything in me wants to believe this is not so, but the evidence says otherwise.) They are college educated, and have many resources at their disposal. Yet a very brief look at a concordance by someone with no divinity degree makes it clear they don’t have a leg to stand on. Most of the OT uses of the word “God” refers to a plural God, including Genesis 1:26 “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…” So the plural God, the triune God, apparently in unison said “Let us make man in our image.” Genesis indicates the triune God was 100% submitted one to another! The Father was just as submitted to the Holy Spirit and to the Word as those 2 were submitted to the Father. Genesis 1:26 is not God the Father telling the rest of the trinity what to do, nor is it God the Son or God the Holy Spirit making a meek suggestion to the dominant Father.

Similar to how Nebuchadnezzar defended his statue, commanded everyone to bow down to the statue, and punished those who did not, the male complementarians are defending, commanding, and punishing in support of their god. Only in this case, their god is themselves. And they claim a large portion of society’s ills are the direct result of both men and women who refuse to bow down to the men’s shrine of husband-authority. If husbands just made sure that wives made themselves into their husbands’ personal whores, did everything their husbands want, effaced themselves and made sure the families revolve around the wishes of the husbands and made the husbands the centerpin, the top dog, the kingpin of the family, then families would stay intact, husbands would be loving, children would have their priorities straight, and generation after generation would be decent God-fearing people.

But how can we end up with a God-fearing people, when the heavy focus has been to teach wives and children to be man-husband-father fearing people? The depravity in our society comes from centuries of elevating males above God, and teaching, pressuring others to do the same. Yet God says we are to fear Him, not man.

Wow! I wasn’t expecting to end with that conclusion! But it’s as if more of the puzzle has snapped into place in my mind. 2 concepts that I thought were unrelated are actually very related, and our “fatherless,” man-fearing society is caused by doctrine that elevates males-husbands above God.