I’m reading Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement by Kathryn Joyce and it’s proving to be an *interesting* read. I knew a number of people who were raised in this environment, several of whom (Elizabeth Esther and Young Mom) who are now blogging about the damage done by people in that movement.

Chapter 7 is on Michael and Debi Pearl of No Greater Joy Ministries (not linking them for reasons that will become obvious) but focuses mostly on Debi’s advice on “submitting to one’s husband”. The Pearls are known most widely in the media for their child-abusing manual To Train Up a Child which has been linked to several cases in which people beat their children (some only babies) to death under the influence of the Pearls. The chapter touches briefly on this but mainly focuses on Debi’s psychopathic advice to women.

Here’s an excerpt. (**WARNING** Reading this may be a trigger for abused women.)

A woman who writes to complain that her husband’s TV-watching is exposing the family to bad influences is warned that the social circle for divorced women with children is painfully small and that the job they’ll be forced to take will leave the kids in the hands of a fornicating baby-sitter. Other single mothers, Debi suggests, end up with bad haircuts and cheap clothes, pooling resources with other divorcees and becoming lesbians; they live in fear of eviction and violence from their exes and are only courted by men who aim to molest their children. When they get breast cancer, Debi writes, there will be no one around to care for them, and it’s all because they got high and mighty about the TV. “Listen to me, young mother. Do not play the fool. You don’t know how bad it can get.”
–p. 96

I kid you not. I almost vomited up what I was eating when I read that. I read it to Jon and he had the same reaction. What kind of psychopathic crap is that?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
It gets better as Debi admonishes women that their submission involves “reverencing” one’s husband — monitoring their food/drink at dinner (to refill their cup or plate), being present for any and all sexual duties the husband requests, and blaming women if their husbands’ eyes wander. (They’re apparently not catering to their husbands enough.)

She also advises women who are being physically abused by their husbands to try and love them back to the Lord. She tells the story of a woman whose husband stabbed her in the stomach when she was expecting their third child and how she told her to leave her husband if she *had to* but instead to “wage an all-out campaign to win his heart by refusing to bring the stories of his abuse to their church or her family again, reverencing him by keeping his ‘flaws’ hidden.” (p. 101) Apparently, her fellow psychopath-by marriage — I mean husband is ignoring his role as a mandated reporter (which is the law in all 50 states if he’s a pastor) because this kind of abuse cannot be kept from the police. In fact, most states have domestic violence laws that would require the woman to press charges. But anyway… WHAT KIND OF GOD DO THESE [insert unmentionable word] PEOPLE PEOPLE WORSHIP THAT CONDONES A MAN BEATING HIS WIFE AND EXPECTS HER TO TAKE IT JOYFULLY?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? It sure isn’t the God I worship — that’s for darn sure! It’s a completely anti-biblical attitude. The oft-quoted passage in Ephesians 5 states “husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church?? for we are members of his body.” (Ephesians 5:25-30, NIV)

Add in Pearl’s admonishments against having female friends (apparently isolation and loneliness breed desire for one’s husband) and you have a worldview where women are essentially the property of their husbands and forced to depend on them solely for emotional support and physical well-being. (Keep the women isolated and they won’t cry “ABUSE!!!!!”) According to the evil Pearl, “when God puts you in subjection to a man whom he knows is going to cause you to suffer, it is with the understanding that you are obeying God by enduring the wrongful suffering.” (p. 101) Yeah.. I personally would be divorcing the [insert unmentionable word] and getting massive alimony as well as a restraining order and sole custody of my children. Again… WHAT KIND OF GOD DO THESE [insert unmentionable word] PEOPLE PEOPLE WORSHIP THAT CONDONES THIS CRAP?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Pearl is apparently not the only so-called “religious authority” spouting this crap. James Dobson is also guilty of this (surprise surprise) as is John MacArthur who only advocated women leaving their husbands for a limited time “while the heat is on” but with the intent of returning when the violence has cooled. (pp. 102-103) Dobson is a grade-A moron (listing the reasons is another post entirely) so it doesn’t surprise me that he believes that women “seek abuse for the ‘moral advantage’ that a black eye gives them as a ‘martyr’ in the relationship.” (p. 102) MacArthur, however, surprises me because he’s relatively well-liked in the evangelical community so I guess I assumed that he wouldn’t be so deluded as to think that it’s completely acceptable for a man to beat his woman for not submitting.

If the rest of chapter 8 is like this (the idiocy of Dobson and MacArthur), I may have to skip the rest of the chapter. I honestly can’t stomach this as it goes against EVERYTHING I believe with regard to God being love and how I should be “submitting to my husband”. It’s this kind of garbage that gives ammo to atheists and others to claim how hateful Christianity is.

If you’ll excuse me, I think I’m going to go puke again from disgust.