Does teaching submission encourage abuse?
Princeton Seminary is giving an award to Tim Keller, one of the loudest, most read, and most adhered-to proponents of male headship in the home.
I am in the midst of a book tour, talking about Healing Spiritual Wounds, and I have been amazed at how people delve the depths of theology and swim there with relative ease. Believers and non-believers alike think about complex ideas about God on a regular basis.
One question that often comes up as I talk about the book is the relationship between domestic violence and the Christian teaching that wives must submit. Specifically, people want to know if abuse occurs more often in homes where they are taught that husbands are the head of the household.
I have looked at this question, fairly extensively. In my own experience growing up, abuse and submission were very related, whether the teaching was the cause or the excuse for the abuse, I don’t know. I do know that they worked together to create the discord. I also have the background of being middle-aged with many friends who got married as fundamentalists. As they leave their husbands, with visible and invisible scars, my immediate answer would be “yes.” But as I look at research, I don’t see it. Abuse happens across the board, with people in every belief and non-belief.
