The SBC's family statement calls for a one-sided submission by the wife to the rule of her husband. Huckabee gave the impression that Southern Baptists believe in "mutual submission" between husbands and wives within the family. Here's a quote from the AP coverage of Huckabee's statement at tonight's debate:
In a 90-minute debate that touched on economic issues, foreign policy and immigration, Huckabee drew the loudest applause of the night from the audience when he was asked about having quoted a Biblical passage saying a wife "has to submit herself graciously" to her husband.If Huckabee's interpretation had prevailed within the SBC, Alan Brehm and Dan and Barbara Kent would not have been forced from their positions at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth.
A Baptist preacher before entering politics, he said he was "not the least bit ashamed of my faith," but didn't impose it as governor and wouldn't as president. He said the citation is from Ephesians, and "the point is that as wives submit themselves to their husbands the husbands also submit themselves" to their wives.
"That's why marriage is an important institution, because it teaches us how to love," he concluded.
Huckabee can't have it both ways. He can't endorse the the 1998 family statement and the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message and then endorse the egalitarian interpretation of Ephesians 5 -- an interpretation that the family statement was written to deny.
The unconditional nature of the wife's subjugation was made clear in 1998 at the official press conference following the statement's adoption. Dorothy Patterson, wife of Southwestern Seminary President Paige Patterson and a member of the committee that drafted the family statement, said, "When it comes to submitting to my husband even when he is wrong, I just do it. He is accountable to God."
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Mainstream Baptists have been opposing the rigid, sexist, patriarchal SBC family statement since 1998. Check here for documentation:
November 1998 issue of the Mainstream Messenger -- entire issue on the SBC Family Statement.
For the SBC's response to Mainstream Baptists, see the articles in the April 1999 issue of SBC Life -- SBC Life is an official publication of the Southern Baptist Convention's executive Committee.
For my response to the April 1999 issue of SBC Life, see my Dead "Head" leads SBC Family in the April 1999 issue of the Mainstream Messenger.
Subjugating Women in the SBC
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2 comments:
Ephesians 5:21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
The passage goes on to tell how the wife should submit to the man. The submission is not one of servitude but a commitment to marriage.
Further more Ephesians 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her
Should we interpret this as a sexist remark that all men should die?
This is a passage about please do not turn it into a passage about hate and inequity
cmercer8,
I didn't turn it into a passage about hate and inequity, the SBC did.
Huckabee endorsed the SBC statement publicly and condoned the termination of professors who interpret the passage as an admonition to mutual submission.
Now he wants to reinterpret the passage as mutual submission and pretend that that is what the SBC's family statement is saying.
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