by Vyckie Garrison “A Woman’s Choice” is a central issue in contemporary American culture, religion, and politics. Our society values Choice as an imperative freedom. Although “liberated” women would never personally choose to forego birth control in favor of welcoming each and every pregnancy as an unmitigated blessing from God, and even though privately feminists [...]
A review of “Me? Obey Him?” by Elizabeth Rice Handford. Trigger warning for former Quiverfull believers who actually read this book and tried to live according to the principles … this post is a disturbing trip down memory lane.
by Vyckie Garrison
Those fortunate enough to have never actually read “Me? Obey Him?” may be shocked and appalled by the teachings in support of “biblical patriarchy.” This review is simply quotations of Handford’s own words (in italics), followed by comments from my personal experience as a former Quiverfull Believer.
God’s Perfect Creation Required Order
Jesus, the Creator of Heaven and earth, submitted Himself to God the Father. He took His place in the chain of command. … It is no shame, no dishonor, for a woman to be under authority, if the Lord Jesus — very God Himself — submitted to the authority of the Father. (p. 14)
The submission of the Lord Jesus is our example. He submitted not just to the tender ministrations of the Father. He submitted to revilings and curses, persecution and suffering. He was our example, not just to obey a gentle and kind husband but a harsh and mean husband as well.
You may find that your obedience to your husband and your obedience to God are all tied together. You may not want to obey your husband because you are in rebellion against God. (p. 51)
By intimately linking Christ’s willing subjection to God the Father with a woman’s submission to her husband in “the chain of command,” the teachings of patriarchy create such an intricate tangle of enmeshment that it’s nearly impossible for an abused woman to extricate herself from the bondage of her husband’s tyranny without also throwing off her spiritual bond with Christ.
Kristen Rosser, who writes the FAQs for No Longer Quivering, is currently working on an article which will address the popular Christian teachings on the absolute necessity of hierarchy – coming soon …
Woman’s Nature Requires Obedience
We’ve had the impression that women as a class are more spiritually minded than men, with sensibilities more refined, and purer thoughts. Scriptures say the opposite is true! Women are more often led into spiritual error than men. Perhaps it is caused by her intuitive, emotional thinking. (Intuitive thinking is God’s gift, not to be despised, but it needs the balance of a man’s reason.) I should add too, that a woman does not have to be led into error. That is the reason God commanded her not to usurp authority over the man, so she can be protected from false doctrine. (p. 17)
Sexist generalizations are never useful in understanding human relationships.
In reality, I am no less rational than my (ex)husband. He also is gifted with a strong intuition and emotional intelligence. Convinced as we were that I was more susceptible to Satanic deception, our family was deprived of my reasonable input in decision making. My intelligence was squelched, my intuition was distrusted and my feelings were denied. My husband developed an artificially inflated sense of his own powers of logic. I can’t count how many times he said to me, “What you are saying sounds reasonable, but how do I know that Satan is not using you to deceive me?” I had no good defense. According to the Scriptures, we had every reason to believe that I was indeed being used to lead my husband astray.
His authority and my obedience did not protect us from tragic deception which ripped apart our family.
What Do the Scriptures Say About a Wife’s Obedience?
Beyond a shadow of a doubt, the Scriptures say a woman ought to obey her husband! … [Note, these ellipses represent page after page of scriptural support given by Handford to bolster her argument that God commands wives to obey their husbands.] If you are intellectually honest, you will have to admit that it is impossible to find a single loophole, a single exception, an “if” or “unless.” The Scriptures say, without qualification, to the openminded reader, that a woman ought to obey her husband. (pp. 24, 25)
1) She Is to Obey Regardless of His Spiritual Condition
The wife who obeys her husband may win him by her meek and quiet spirit, her loving behavior. (p. 25)
2) She Need Not Fear Conflicting Authority
There is no hint that a woman may have to choose between conflicting authority. … If it is needed in order to fulfill both obligations, God will do a miracle to make it possible. … It is safe to conclude that when God told a woman to obey her husband, He intended for her to be able to do it without risk of offending other authorities. (pp. 25, 28)
3) She Obeys Without Reference to Her Feelings About the Will of God
The Scriptures say a woman must ignore her “feelings” about the will of God, and do what her husband says. She is to obey her husband as if he were God Himself. She can be as certain of God’s will, when her husband speaks, as if God had spoken audibly from Heaven! (p. 28 – emphasis added)
When a concerned friend reported our family to Child Protective Services, my ex-husband lost custody of the children due to his abuse. The social worker told me that I was guilty of “failure to protect.” The only thing that prevented me from having my parental rights terminated and my children placed in foster care was my willingness to submit to a full psychological evaluation, undergo individual and family counseling, and cooperate with random unannounced home visits by Social Services.
My older children rightfully blame me for not protecting them against their father’s abuse. Even though they know that I was influenced by books such as “Me? Obey Him?” to believe that it was God’s will to submit to the abuse, my children cannot be fooled into thinking that I was not really responsible for their suffering. I have apologized for my neglect. Most of my children have forgiven me — still, the damage is done and some things can’t (and shouldn’t) be forgotten.
by Libby AnneThe Godly Woman recognizes that “the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man…” She willingly and joyfully submits to him in everything as she would unto Christ. What other women view as a burden and degradation, she views as an honor and a blessing.
My parents believed in male headship and the umbrella of authority. They believed that the husband is the head of the wife and that the wife must submit to the husband even as the husband must love the wife. And submission meant obedience.
My mother was constantly reading books like Me? Obey Him?
Yet interestingly, even as I watched my mother struggle with female submission, I nevertheless believed in it strongly. At the same time, I usually inwardly sided with my mom in her disputes with my dad, largely because he could appear so unreasonable and become upset over seemingly small matters. I justified this contradiction between my beliefs and my feelings with regard to my parents’ quarrels by telling myself that I would have no trouble submitting to my future husband since I would marry a reasonable man who would not give me such trouble.
Of course, my parents believed in more than just a wife’s submission to her husband. They also believed that children are under their father’s authority and are to submit to him. For boys, this lasted until age eighteen, when they would leave the home and start a career; for girls, this lasted until marriage to a man approved by the father. This meant that while my brothers would be out from under my father’s authority when they turned eighteen, I would not. My parents also believed that if my father died, I would be under the authority of my nearest male relative, which in practice meant my oldest younger brother.
In retrospect, I am almost baffled that I believed this so wholeheartedly and sincerely, but I think I understand why. First, I was also able to endorse female submission because I myself had never been in a position where what I wanted contradicted what my male authority wanted, and second, when I endorsed female submission I found myself praised and affirmed.
I loved and respected my father, and we agreed on petty much everything (except, I suppose, his disagreements with my mother). I was my father’s golden girl, his pride and joy. It was like he had shaped me to be the perfect daughter, to be everything he had always wanted. I was smart, and my parents educated me well so that I could carry on intelligent conversations with him on a variety of issues. I felt his pride in me and I basked in it. I lived for my father’s approval, and this was a driving force behind my diligence in education and in homemaking. I strove to be everything my father wanted me to be, and received nothing but praise in return. I thus had never had any reason to resent the presence of male authority over me and every reason to endorse it and claim it.
by Kristen Rosser ~ aka: KR WordgazerThe founders of No Longer Qivering spelled “Quivering” without a “u“ because, as they say, “There is no ‘you’ in Quivering” – there’s no place for self – and they claim this is a bad thing. But Jesus said that a true believer must deny himself, take up his cross and follow after Him. Quiverfull women take the Bible’s admonition to die to self very seriously. We use the acronym J.O.Y., for true JOY comes from putting “Jesus first, Others second and Yourself last.” How can you encourage Christian wives and mothers to turn from Christ’s teachings by making “You” a priority?
The problem with the way Quiverfull followers use the J.O.Y. teaching is that while they claim the “Y” is for “Yourself last,“ what is often actually practiced is “Yourself not at all” – and this particularly applies to wives, mothers and daughters. Quiverfull women believe that in putting their husbands and children first, they are putting Christ first, and that they are not to consider their own needs in any other way than as a means to an end, giving themselves just enough minimal care that they can go on serving “Others.”
J.O.Y. for Quiverfull women, in practice, usually looks more like O.O. – “Others Only.” But is this what Jesus actually taught or practiced?
The story of Mary and Martha is the story of how two sisters understood Christian service. Luke 10:38-42 shows how Martha “received” Jesus into “her house” – which is interesting in and of itself, for Luke apparently didn’t think it necessary to identify Martha in relation to a male authority (such as her brother Lazarus, seen in John 11 and 12). No, it was “her house” that Jesus came to, and Martha did what any good Quiverfull woman would do. Forgetting about herself, she bustled around preparing a meal. But Mary went and “sat at Jesus’ feet and heard his word.” “Sat at his feet” had a particular meaning according to the understanding of that time, which was “to learn as a disciple.” In Acts 22:3, Paul identifies himself as a disciple of Rabbi Gamaliel by saying, “I [was] brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel.” (Emphasis added.) What Mary was doing in Luke 10:39 was making herself a disciple of Jesus, sitting at his feet to learn with the other disciples.
Martha was upset. Here was Mary neglecting her womanly duties, leaving Martha to do it all herself while Mary took her place among Jesus’ disciples! So Martha went and complained to Jesus, asking Him to make Mary do her womanly duty and help in the kitchen. What did Jesus say? “Martha, Martha, you shouldn’t be thinking about yourself or your needs. If you have to prepare the meal alone, God will bless you all the more for your godly selflessness. But Mary, what do you think you’re doing? How will you find a husband if you continue to rebel against your God-given role?”
If Quiverfull teachings are to be believed, this is what Jesus should have actually said. But what He did say was quite the opposite. “Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things. But one thing is needful, and Mary hath chosen that good, which shall not be taken away from her.”
Jesus was telling Martha that it wasn’t necessary for her to be working in the kitchen at all! Instead, what was “needful” was to sit at His feet as one of his disciples, and Mary was right in what she had done. Jesus neither rebuked Martha for thinking about herself, nor said a word to Mary about forsaking her proper gender role. He made no distinctions for the practice of discipleship according to gender at all.
All right, I can see making an exception to serving “Others” if it’s really about putting my relationship with Jesus first. But isn’t Christian life about denying ourselves? Aren’t we just being self-absorbed if we focus on our own needs or desire things for ourselves?
Jesus did say to deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow Him. But does this mean it’s wrong to prioritize our own needs, to stand up for ourselves, or to ask others to do things for us?
Matthew 16:36-46 is the story of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. He is just about to give His life for the world. A greater example of self-sacrifice could not be shown. But listen to what He says to Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, His closest friends:
“My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with me.” Is that Jesus expressing a deep emotional need, and asking His friends to help meet it?
“And he cometh unto the disciples, and findeth them asleep, and said unto Peter, “What, could ye not watch with me one hour?” Is that Jesus, expressing disappointment, telling His friends honestly that they have let Him down?
Yes, that’s Jesus, thinking about His own human needs and asking for something for Himself. That’s Jesus, honestly telling others how He feels about not getting His needs met. It could not have been wrong for Him to do this– so how could it be wrong for us?
Vyckie Garrison started No Longer Quivering to tell the story of her “escape” from the Quiverfull movement.
Over time, NLQ has developed into a valuable resource of information regarding the deceptions and dangers of the Quiverfull philosophy and lifestyle. Several more former QF adherents are now contributing their stories to NLQ and our collective voice makes these Quiverfull warnings impossible to dismiss or ignore.
NLQ is a gathering place for women escaping and recovering from spiritual abuse.
Listen to Vyckie's Story now:
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