I have to give Larry Solomon of Biblical Gender Roles some atta-boys for half his answers to a lady. They were not entirely toxic for a change. Just half toxic. Larry talks about a woman disobeying husband for the Gospel. Apparently in Larry’s imaginary realm a woman is allowed to disobey her unbeliever husband to share the Gospel, all the while winning him without a word by her reference.

Yeah, like that’s going to work. *insert image of rolling eyes here* This is one of the most covered subjects in the early days of No Longer Quivering, this belief that is at the heart of Quiverfull that you can change your husband merely by changing your own behavior. It never works.

Let’s set the scene, in the letter Larry received this wife says her husband is no longer a Christian, wants her to go with him to a Buddhist Temple and is still sending the kids to Catholic school. That’s a whole lot of different theology and religion for one sentence. Here’s what Larry had to say about this idea of changing:

We have seen time and time again in Quiverfull that the more submissive and honoring many women become, the more like a petty, tin-plated, dictator with delusions of Godhood the men become. It’s not healthy to treat anyone that way, not for you, or for them. It’s fake, and it encourages those weaker willed men to be their most awful.

The other reason this is a very bad idea is that it’s not really submissive. Think about it for a second, you cannot just accept your husband for who and what he is, you have to appeal to a deity to change him, appealing by attempting to do everything right. It’s a strange kind of manipulation and it has nothing to do with love, and everything to do with the dissatisfaction of the wife. Please don’t do this, respect your husband enough to love and accept him as he is.

Larry just justified cruelty and abuse of wives with this passage. If you are being abused please do not try to become more submissive. Leave, leave immediately even if you must go into a battered women’s shelter for a few nights. Abuse escalates and what Larry is advocating here is a recipe for a disaster that ends with your possible death.

So many cultural enforcers like Larry think you have no rights to leave or divorce an abusive spouse, but you do have every right. Even if you have no interest in divorce leaving an abuser to buy yourself some breathing room, and time to figure out your next move is never a bad idea.

Now for one of the rare decent ideas of Larry.

I am guessing his remark about Catholic school is part of the Quiverfull Evangelical nonsense ideas that Catholicism is one step away from Satanism.

He goes on to cite Abigail feeding David’s men and admitting her husband is a jerk as a reason why telling the kids what she believes is perfectly fine even if her husband orders her not to.

Does this mean I’m supposed to chase down my gardener and his helpers tomorrow morning and immediately witness to them because I am temporarily over them in authority? I hope not! Actually this is all pretty horrifying, even if Larry is saying that wives can disobey a husband. I take back what I said about it being good. Larry has stated in the past that he thinks slavery isn’t a bad thing, he’s framing this as if it was a question involving slaves and masters, and that’s never a good thing. Husbands and wives are equal in the eyes of the law, in rights, in responsibilities and in every possible way everywhere but in Christian Evangelical circles.

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