The Wife Follower

the husband leader | the wife follower

I’m realizing that questioning the husband-leader-dynamic is part of the larger debate about women in the church. (I’m usually late to the circus.) And although I wish I had gone to a seminary-type college when I was young, so I already knew what was going on, I was raised to distrust women who speak in church. So I wouldn’t have considered it.

In my early doctrine formation, I understood definite roles in the church for men and limitations for women. It shaped my fear that any woman who exercised knowledge in religious matters or in scripture would probably end up becoming the woman who rides the beast, or at least, help bring her to power.

Beliefs surrounding a woman’s role in creation leads to understanding her role in the home and her role in the church body. I recommend reading 3 Female Ghosts in your Church by Jen Wilken to see why it matters how you view women in the church. Each role informs the others.

I don’t know enough about trajectory theory (and I try to avoid using terms to define my beliefs) but I do believe that God met the culture of the Old Testament in their corruption, and instituted laws which sent them toward a direction that was a better way than the one man had come up with. And then, the New Testament brought even more radical change to show that the goal of God’s kingdom was to eliminate social, economic, and biological differences.

In my deepest wound and false belief, I understood that woman was made as a trinket for God’s beloved creation, man. All of God’s interest wasn’t enough for man… Adam needed a pretty helper, too. So, it was only natural for woman to decrease herself and spend her life mitigating his emotions and whims. After all, she was created for helping and making babies. “Ladies, we can’t have kids. Focus on that. Do the one thing we can’t do!” You can reject something as a lie—but not realize how you still live it out. I thought I’d worked through that poison when I wrote Sworn to the Desert, but deep roots take as many years to weed as they do to grow. And the theme I used in that book is a self-girdling tree, a tree choked by its own roots.

In my last blog, I talked about why I don’t think men are called to be spiritual leaders in the sense that they are between their wife and God in any capacity. And calling them leaders, or giving them a role they can’t fill, is damaging. Defined roles hurt both men and women. In the book The Great Sex Rescue, the authors found that believing in clear gender roles in the home correlated with a wife’s diminished sexual pleasure/increased pain. “Women who do not believe traditional gender roles are moral imperatives feel more heard and seen in their marriages. In fact, women who act out the typical breadwinner-homemaker dynamic also feel more seen if they see it as a choice and not a God-given role.”

Fortunately, I always knew my role in the home was my choice. And, I learned that mutual submission is also my choice. But if you think your husband, your church, or your God are demanding you take a knee, then there is definitely going to be some diminishing. And not the “he must increase and I must decrease” diminishing. Check out that book.

It might be true that some women want a husband to carry all the burdens and take all the blame. But I believe most women truly desire a partner. I know if I believed someone was in charge of the spirituality of my home—I wouldn’t live at peace with him unless everything was spiritually perfect. All the time. Bitterness would grow over any discontent if I had someone responsible whom I could blame.

Don’t follow him

I’m actually in a unique position to write this because I’m very much in love with my husband of 31 years. I trust him, and in no way is he unworthy of me following him. I couldn’t be who I am as a cook, a writer, or a human without having had his encouragement and space to grow.

But… I’ll never forget waking in the middle of the night and complaining to God that I was frustrated because I felt compelled to follow him at the loss of agency. When I seek counsel and comfort because I’m Awake at Night, and prayer doesn’t work, I often open my bible. I was reading the One-Year-Bible, and curiously, the next passage was Joshua 7. After Achan’s sin, they brought out the whole family. And stoned them all. And after they stoned them all, they burned them all with fire.

Needless to say, I was not comforted that night knowing God allowed/endorsed Achan’s wife and kids to be eliminated because of his actions. Even though Ezekiel 18:20 says that children will no longer pay for the sins of their parents, I realized there were more examples in the Bible of a man making a bad choice and his is family being destroyed. Haman’s ten sons in Esther, and the men who tried to kill Daniel in a lion’s den through King Darius. They were thrown in with their wives and children.

I used the example in my previous post of Moses’ wife doing his job when he wouldn’t and therefore saving his life. But also consider Abigail, in 1 Samuel 25. She was married to Nabal, and since she knew he was a worthless man (verse 25), she went behind his back and gave provisions to David. She saved all the men of her household because of it. (verse 34)

Kings make tactical alliances, and sometimes wives are alliances. It always strikes me as interesting that David scooped Abigail up. Maybe after the Lord struck Nabal dead, she ran away with David because in a patriarchal society—even a fool for a husband, or becoming one of many wives, was better than no husband. (I have a girlfriend who wondered recently if Abigail lived in caves with David!) Maybe, in her intelligence (verse 3), Abigail had learned how to stay alive by strategically following power… and David was rising.

I know there are warnings to pastors to watch out for women who would lust after them merely because they have authority—and everybody likes followers, and to be pursued—even pastors. So, I wonder if we didn’t have a Shepherd/King down model as in most western churches; would it be such a problem?

We are told not to call anyone father, in a way of showing human spiritual authority one over another. So, as is typical of us rebellious humans, we claim inerrancy to the letter of the law, skip the heart, and rename the guy in charge pastor, instead of father.

Regardless of Abigails’s motives, it just shows me that even though David always returned to “running after God‘s heart,” he liked to collect women. More than just a king making alliances—because he gathered women who were loved by other men (Bathsheba aside) as in the example of when he wanted Michal back because Saul had given her to David first. I’m always struck with pain that Michal’s new husband went along the way, weeping after her, as she was returned to David.

But when you follow a human, you give your power over to them. Don’t follow anyone but God.

If this feels like a side rant, it is. I’ve heard men in the church say they idolize David or want to emulate him. They think as long as they return to running after God’s heart, they can meanwhile destroy all the people in their path and lead like a worldly king.

Partnership

Just because man shouldn’t lead, it doesn’t mean woman should. One of the reasons the Israelites were told not to marry outside of Israel was because the wives of other nations would lead the men to follow other gods.

“During the days of Moses, however, Yahweh was increasingly clear about the marriage of his people, the Israelites, to foreigners. Mosaic law forbade marriage to particular groups of people, as it resulted in wives leading husbands into idol worship (Deut. 7:14). Vindicating the Vixens: Revisiting Sexualized, Vilified, and Marginalized Women of the Bible, p. 61

Taken out of context, no wonder men of the church are over-afraid that women can only lead them to Babylon and to other gods. Never to God Most High. But I believe 1 Timothy 2:12 “I do not permit a woman to exercise authority over a man” is merely talking about this same oppressive, dominating, displacement of power that no believer should hold over another. It was happening in Timothy’s context and needed to be addressed specifically.

Here’s where it changes for us ladies: in the New Testament. Furthering the move from how men ruled the world as each saw fit in his own eyes, toward the direction of bringing God’s kingdom to earth, the disciples gave a woman authority over herself. When Ananias and Sapphira sold land and lied about the total, the apostles didn’t automatically kill the wife because of the husband. She was questioned separately. She was punished for her own sin, not his.

Realizing this, is huge to me. The new century church did not treat the woman as an accoutrement to her husband and throw her in the lion’s den automatically.

Interdependent

A woman came from a side of man, but men come from women. I like the idea of men being told to rise up in the church as, “Dude, pull your weight.” Just because she’s almost capable of doing everything doesn’t mean she should.

Women were segregated into the outer court of the temple, the court for women and Gentiles. Men had greater access if they were circumcised. And priests had even greater access than that. But now that the veil has been torn, 1 Peter 2:9 says we are a kingdom of priests. Men and women, we are priests.

I like how Gerry Breshears explains in his Male Elder Woman in Leadership video says that a husband as the head of the wife indicates authority, but a “nurturing authority,” for building up love. See Ephesians 4:15–16.

Consider the freewill the church has in relation to “Christ the Head.” Typically, people who believe God demands subjugation (through the threat of eternal torment) end up leaving the church, or hardening and announcing online that everyone is going to hell.

If your men are “leading” you just fine and you’re content with where you’re going, great. Just keep an eye on the road. If not, lead yourself. Both Tamar and Ruth acted when the men in their lives remained passive and they’re named in the line of Christ. And whether he leads on the intimidating side or the passive side, realize that following bad leadership is not being a helpmate.

Following is not helping.

And I think woman is to be a helpmate only so long as her man pursues God, but then a hindrance to him.

My grandma had a plaque on her wall when I was a kid. It said:

Do not walk in front of me, I might not follow.
Do not walk behind me, I might not lead.
Just walk beside me and hold my hand.

I tried to find attribution but think the plaque said Author Unknown.

I remember the first time I understood the poem. I thought it was a little radical and wondered if my parents knew it was there. (At a very young age, I understood my dad was in charge of everything that mattered.) Sometimes it felt uncomfortable to read it, not quite scandalous, but it was probably my first memory of cognitive dissonance.

So of course I memorized it.

Even though I settled the dissonance by viewing the poem as a picture of friendship, I hope my tendency to lean into something discordant never changes. I don’t want to just hope there aren’t any monsters, or to surround myself with people who agree that there are no monsters—but to find a weapon and clear the house, to investigate what I’m dealing with, even if it’s scary.

Whether or not you’re someone’s helpmate, realize that following a someone other than God is not helping.

Just walk beside me, and hold my hand.