Some Promises Best Left Unkept No To Patriarchy Women Deserve Equality And Respect - And They’ve Fought Hard For Both.

What will those wacky Promise Keepers think of next?

A call for women to remain silent in church? A crusade for long skirts and head coverings? A proposal for backyard huts where menstruating wives may be banished?

There’s danger in seeking simplistic, literal guidance on gender relations from the texts of ancient patriarchal societies. The Bible, despite its wisdom, is steeped in the culture of its era. When Promise Keepers take a chapter from Ephesians as a guideline to healthy relationships in the ‘90s, the results can both retrograde and dangerous.

Wives be subject to your husbands, Paul wrote, for the husband is the head of the wife. And husbands, love your wives. This was a radical idea because, during Paul’s time, marriages were arranged. People lived brief, constrained lives with partners they did not choose and did not love. Today, couples share egalitarian roles. Women deserve equality and respect - and they’ve fought hard for both. Emotionally, contemporary women thrive best in relationships where husbands act not as benevolent father figures but as equal partners. The strongest couples work as a team, making decisions and leading the family together with mutual respect.

Ancient teachings have long endangered women. Abused wives cowered in church pews, dutifully vowing to try harder, for centuries. Pastors, priests and rabbis delivered pat advice on forgiveness - and sent battered women back alone to confront the terror of their own bedrooms. Today, virtually every mainline denomination has begun to examine its role in perpetuating abuse, according to the Center for the Prevention of Sexual and Domestic Violence in Seattle. Churches are forming victim support groups, urging women - battered men, too - to leave. To value safety over meaningless forgiveness. In a decade when we’ve had the trials of O.J. Simpson and Marv Albert, renewed calls for female submission can only make certain ugly situations that much uglier.

How far can this line of thinking go? Consider one of this week’s top news stories. Brian Ratigan was convicted on Tuesday for bombing the Spokane Valley Planned Parenthood office in 1996. Witnesses testified about his pseudo-religious white separatist views. Women were cows, Ratigan and his North Idaho friends agreed. Cows destined to be subservient to men.

Let’s lose that submission message. Otherwise, what will those wacky, right wing Promise Keepers think of next?

, DataTimes MEMO: For opposing view, see “Promising to be what’s best for all”

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