Love, Joy, Feminism
Created To Be His Help Meet, pp. 21-23
Debi starts by looking at the Genesis story of the creation of Eve. She explains that Adam was completely delighted that God gave him Eve as a gift, and that every woman’s husband should similarly be delighted in having her as a gift.
And then comes this nasty bit:
When you are a help meet to your husband, you are a helper to Christ, for God comissioned man for a purpose and gave him a woman to assist in fulfilling that divine calling. When you honor your husband, you honor God. When you obey your husband, you obey God. The degree to which you reverence your husband is the degree to which you reverence your Creator. As we serve our husbands, we serve God. But in the same way, when you dishonor your husband, you dishonor God.
Reverence? Now might be a good point to mention that “worship” is a synonym of “reverence.”
What Debi is doing here is sick. She is explaining that women are to obey their husbands as they are to obey God – absolutely and without question – and that by obeying their husbands, they are obeying God. In other words, God has created women to be helpers for their husbands and commanded them to obey, honor, and reverence their husbands.
No. Just, no. I mean, isn’t this blaspheming or something? It’s placing man in the place of God. It’s demanding that man be treated as God. It’s sick and it’s wrong.
But I promised that I was going to tell you about Debi twisting scripture, didn’t I? After discussing Adam and Eve, Debi turns to the question of whether God “changed his mind” in the New Testament. The answer of course is “no.” She explains that “Paul, Timothy, and Peter wrote to us, telling us God’s original plan was still the same as it was in the beginning when Adam and Eve were first learning to be husband and wife. … God’s will is that you be a suitable helper to your husband.”
And then Debi backs this up with scripture. One verse. Just one. Here it is:
But she that is married careth for the things of the world, how she may please her husband. (I Corinthians 7:34)
See? God affirms here in the New Testament that women’s sole purpose is to be helpers to men and married women are to serve, reverence, and obey their husbands. What, you don’t see all that in this one verse? Here, let me put it in context:
But I would have you without carefulness. He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord: But he that is married careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife. There is difference also between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit: but she that is married careth for the things of the world, how she may please her husband. And this I speak for your own profit; not that I may cast a snare upon you, but for that which is comely, and that ye may attend upon the Lord without distraction.
You see that? Right there, in this passage, God confirms that women’s sole purpose is to be helpers to men and that married women are to serve, reverence, and obey their husbands.
Wait a minute. Um, actually, that passage actually says the exact opposite of that!
This passage says that those who are unmarried can focus on pleasing God, and if you read even further up in the passage, Paul suggests that Christians – of both sex – are better off single and serving God, and should only marry if they truly feel they must. So, does this passage say women women were created to be helpers to men, to serve the men while the men serve God? NO. Not in the least. In fact, it says the exact opposite.
But this passage does say that the married woman should honor, obey, and reverence her husband, right? Um, actually, no. Instead, it says that women who are married care about pleasing their husbands – a statement of fact, not a command – and that men who are married likewise care about pleasing their wives. The exact same language is used here. Unless Debi is suggesting that men ought to honor, reverence, and obey their wives too, she’s completely out of luck. This passage treats men and women as equals, and treats their situations as identical – focusing on God before marriage, focusing on each other after marriage.
How Debi thinks she can do this and get away with it I do not understand. This passage does not just not say what she wants it to say, it says the opposite. If someone was reading and open to listening to Debi and following her advice, this should be the point where they stop. (Actually, they should stop way earlier, probably right about the moment Michael Pearl talks about “the taming of Debi” in his brief introductory endorsement.) How anyone could take Debi seriously after this (or before this, really, but that’s neither here nor there) is beyond me. This isn’t just a sloppy reading of the Bible. It’s lying. It’s deceiving. It’s intentionally misleading (or else having no idea how to read, and since Debi homeschooled five kids and wrote this book, I’m going to make the assumption that she can read.)
After twisting a poor unsuspecting passage of scripture to suit her diabolical needs, Debi finishes this section with the following:
It is not a question of whether or not you can do a better job than he; it is a matter of doing what you were “designed” to do. If you successfully do the job of leading the family, you will not find satisfaction in it. It is far better that the job be done poorly by your husband than to be done well by you.
In other words, your individual gifts and talents do not matter. God gave you a gift of public speaking, or of managing money, or of opera singing? Too bad. Your individual gifts and talents do not matter. You think you can go out and do great things for God? No! All that matters is that you fit yourself into this little box that Debi, er, I mean God, has created for you. All that matters is that you serve, reverence, and obey your husband. So says the Gospel of Debi. Period and full stop.
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