One Woman’s Wrestling Match with Submission, Part I » CBMW

One Woman’s Wrestling Match with Submission, Part I

Vivian Hyatt – October 18, 2011

[Editor’s note: Vivian Hyatt and her husband Trent are missionaries to Eastern Europe and Russia with Campus Crusade for Christ.]

I was blind-sided by the ‘gender wars.’  After all, I knew what the Bible said.  Or thought I did.

My attitudes toward marriage were shaped in the context of growing up in what I would (much) later understand to be a traditional Christian home. I watched my father lead in church and in our family.  I took it as the nature of things that my mother was submissive to him, though I never doubted her strength as a person. Neither did I see him ‘lord’ it over her.  In fact, they had, observable to us kids, an affectionate and close relationship, one we admired and wanted to emulate.  Not surprisingly, then, I desired a husband with those same – what I considered to be biblical – beliefs.  When he came along, we set out to have a traditional Christian marriage with headship (his) and submission (mine) fully in place.

After all, we knew what the Bible said.

But then, well into our marriage, my confidence in ‘what the Bible said’ began to be somewhat eroded by voices within and without the traditional church. Views on women’s roles were changing, the voices said. Books questioning the traditional gender roles were put in my hand. Conversations more and more frequently centered on ‘those passages’ which could now be explained by the cultural situation at the time the New Testament was written.  Our society has moved on, the voices maintained, and so should the Church.  Women were strong and gifted and those gifts were going to waste!  The submission of the wife amounted to inequality and could not, therefore, be biblical.

Had I Missed Something?

Click here to read the rest of the Article:  CBMW » One Woman’s Wrestling Match with Submission, Part I.