Her Marriage Glitters and Twinkles

[Burris]

Most readers here are familiar with the doctrine of Complementarianism, and so it’s not really a surprise to find yet another article where a wife edges really close to idolatry when writing about her husband.

Being a daughter-in-law of the late Charity Ministries pastor Denny Kenaston, Christy married into a kind of Christian royal family. Ever conscious of her duties – of her noblesse oblige towards the weaker ladies – she abandons all restraint and openly admits to what most people suspected of these fundamentalists all along: She quite literally idolizes her husband.

Oh sure, the First Commandment may say not to have any gods except the God of Israel. Since Paul wrote that the balance of authority between wife and husband should mimic the one that exists between Christ and God, it’s only reasonable that Christy view her husband as a personal Jesus. (Duh, right?)

In an article called, “My Lord and My lord,†she claims that, “Our relationship with our husband is one and the same with God.â€

For people fortunate enough to have happy marriages, it’s probably not a stretch for either spouse to express admiration – even great admiration – for the other. Christy’s article goes far beyond that, however, blithely leaping over any line representing decency and good taste.

My husband and I, along with our little daughter, live as missionaries in West Africa. We live such a blessed life here, and we are thrilled to be in the center of Christ’s will. Life on a foreign field affords anyone who lives there many lessons, and not only lessons but tests too! Daniel and I have daily opportunities to die to our flesh. That is what we all want, right? Unfortunately, many times our flesh is weak. We have to live in constant connection with our Savior so we can live victoriously.

…as if the people of West Africa haven’t suffered enough, Christy and her husband Daniel land there and not only make a nuisance of themselves, but they spew so much nonsense from their blowholes that even for those who speak English, the language becomes a mystery when missionaries use terms such as, “Die to self.â€

A few months ago I faced some tests and was being tempted to carry a downcast spirit.

This is where the fun starts – when the Christianese is laid on so thick no one could fully understand the author unless familiar with the fundamentalist subculture. It’s not clear how this imprecise bastardization of the language came about. Maybe those who use such terms as “carry a downcast spirit†are trying – and failing - to ape the poetic style of the KJV.

Christy can’t just be feeling low. She can’t just be depressed by the rigours of missionary work coupled to raising a daughter. No; she’s not like other people, and so she can’t speak as other people do.

I felt my outlook on life becoming discouraged…

TRANSLATION: ‘I was discouraged…â€

…so I went to my husband with my burdens. As I opened my heart and my feelings to my dear husband he looked at me in love and began to share into my life.

TRANSLATION: ‘I discussed my feelings with my husband, and he [GASP!] participated in the conversation.’

He told me he thinks that I am carrying unnecessary burdens on my heart. If I have no conviction of any sin, I need to walk in joy knowing that I am free before God and my husband. While I don’t claim to understand the awesomeness of a husband’s authority in a wife’s life, I can tell you that at that moment my cloud disappeared. I was clear, released.

TRANSLATION: ‘After I told my husband how discouraged I was, he told me I was being too hard on myself. I feet better knowing that someone so important to me thinks highly of my work…â€

Now I am not saying that our husbands can forgive sins, but at the same time they ARE our earthly lord. Our relationship with our husband is one and the same with God.

TRANSLATION: ‘…and so, out of gratitude to my husband for his thoughtful response, I built a golden idol in his likeness and fell down upon my face to worship.’

When my relationship is strained with my husband, my communion with the Lord has stopped flowing.

TRANSLATION: ‘Well, first of all, I suck at trying to sound like any of the 17th Century scholars who helped to translate the King James Bible into English. And secondly, when I am at odds with my husband for any reason, I cease to feel content until we have worked out our differences – which, in my case, means I go along with everything my husband says in unquestioning obedience. He is, after all, my god.’

Christ has designed marriage to be a ONE PERSON relationship. We are one flesh. When Daniel speaks into my life I listen in the same way I would listen if it were Jesus Christ talking to me. My dear husband IS Jesus speaking into my life!

“The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife.†1 Corinthians 7:4

“And the woman which hath an husband that believeth not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy. But if the unbelieving depart, let him depart. A brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases: but God hath called us to peace. 16For what knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband? Or how knowest thou, O man, whether thou shalt save thy wife?†– 1 Corinthians 7:13-15

There’s a much higher degree of mutuality in Paul’s beliefs about marriage than his decree that wives should reverence their husbands would suggest. Paul does speak about order at home, arguing that wives should submit themselves to their own husbands. Whether people agree or disagree with that belief is immaterial right now: My point is that while Paul did compare the marriage of man and woman to the marriage of Christ to the church, arguing that the relationship between spouses should ideally be as close and ordered as the relationship between Christ and God.

But the Old Testament makes it clear, and Paul makes it clear again in the New Testament, that all men (and women) are imperfect creatures who are to follow and worship but one God. Paul also suggests a way for wives to transform “unbelieving†husbands: "Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives; While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear." 1 Peter 3:1-2

If a husband can be swayed for the better by conduct of his wife, then it stands to reason that whatever their earthly relationship, women and men are spiritual equals. And it could be no other way, really, since – and Christy actually points this out while failing to see the implications of it – husband and wife are to become as one person, fellow heirs to the grace of life.

This oneness exists, to a lesser extent, among all Christians regardless of earthly position (Galatians 3:28).

If Daniel were wise, he’d have put an end to Christy’s idolatry a long time ago. The article was published in 2002, and has been in circulation for 12 years, I can only assume Christy is still worshipping Daniel and Daniel is still encouraging it.

Many woman have hypothetical situations they give wondering what a woman should or shouldn’t do when her husband tells her to do something.

Hypothetical – a word Christy may not understand.

At least some of the women writing to her are asking for advice concerning a real problem, rather than offering a hypothetical “what if†situation for consideration by the author.

I don’t know the answer to these difficult questions, but what I do know is that God keeps blessing me and blessing me and blessing me to no end as I keep casting my total trust upon my husband.

TRANSLATION: ‘It has never occurred to me that finding a good husband was itself a blessing; that some of the women who write me are saddled with complete assholes who disregard their feelings and perhaps even abuse them or cheat on them.’

One of the decisions we prayerfully made was Daniel going from riding a motorcycle to using his bicycle for transportation as much as he can in all of his village ministry. This means that he is sometimes gone overnight because he is not able to make it back before dark on his bicycle. My heart sank when the realization settled down in my heart, “I won’t have Daniel here as much as I used to because of this decision we are making.†A sadness came upon my spirit as I struggled with counting the cost. Daniel took me on a special date that day, and we sat talking over this together. I opened myself to my dear husband as he again shared the exact words God would have spoken to me if He were sitting there.

TRANSLATION: ‘Some women adopt the pose I’ve assumed because they genuinely feel inadequate next to their husbands. I, on the other hand, suffer from a spiritual hubris that allows me to discern when my husband is speaking the very words God would use in his place.

‘And although I don’t have the guts to come right out and say it, I believe bad men go to bad women.’

Oh, my dear sisters, how can I relate the beauty that has come in our marriage these past weeks as I put my whole trust in Daniel?

This must be really stressful for her husband, trying to live up to an impossible standard. Seriously.

I sense God’s blessings upon me for trusting in Him THROUGH my husband. The truth that our husband is our earthly lord and its spiritual outworking is a mystery; but it is not ‘mysterious’ to me as it is a real experience I am living out day by day. I treasure Daniel’s guidance in my life. It is my soul’s connection with God.

…and yet, if anyone asked her, Christy might condemn Catholics for seeing Mary as a mediator between people and God.

May we as wives learn what it is to be so utterly trusting of our husbands that we would never trust ourselves over them.

That simple sentence is destructive enough to leave welts on women and children at the hands of their husbands and fathers.

If the Biblical Abigail (1 Samuel 25) had taken this advice, trusting her husband Nabal’s judgment when he demonstrated inhospitality toward the servants of King David, then she and her husband and their household may all have ended up dead. (Another example of a wife disobeying her husband and being praised for it is the more disturbing story of Jael.)

We so need the strength and protection (physically, spiritually and emotionally), of GOD’S CHOSEN authority for our lives—our husband.

Where did this ideology of the helpless woman come from? It’s not in the Bible, even in those passages considered sexist by modern standards. Women had to carry their own weight – including Ruth, who supported herself and her mother-in-law by gleaning – a thankless, labour-intensive job where, as Boaz indicates in the text itself, women (and probably men as well) risked being assaulted by the hired reapers.

I am seeing the gorgeous glitter and twinkle of a husband’s authority shining off this diamond called marriage.

Glitter and twinkle? I…LOL!

[Rebelwife]

Man, somebody is working really hard to convince herself and everyone else how happy she is. I hope she doesn't strain something. :roll:

[nelliebelle1197]

This is pretty sick stuff. The translation is brilliant, btw.

I don't understand how she cannot she the inherent contradictions in everything she is postulating. She is putting her husband before her god, relying on the word of a man when her Jesus tells her to rely on him for her path to salvation. I read this through twice looking for a way to articulate my reaction, but all I can really see is a giant red neon CULT sign flashing. The way she describes her relationship with her husband echoes the language used by followers of charismatic cult leaders when they describe the man or woman who is translating their path to salvation. Make sense?

[BrownieMomma]

I ran into this teaching at a church I was attending while my husband and I were separated. Okay, let's just be truthful, we weren't "separated" he took off and had nothing to do with our marriage or our pregnancy.

I was attending a church I hoped he would feel comfortable in, as ofc I was believing in the restoration of my marriage. One of the ladies at church started a class in which this was the teaching, along with Pearls for child raising.

I am thoroughly convinced this is as true idolatry as casting a statue and bowing down to its clay feet.