Using the Bible to Gain Power Over Others

We all know use of the Bible to justify slavery and segregation was common. In recent times the Bible has been used to deny rights to abortion and to homosexual citizens. One of the remaining bastions of the Bible power play is using it against women.

I'm reading a long book about how women have had to put up with this power play and how they have cleverly tip toed around it in many ways. An example of how they are doing it right now is in a article on the conservative sight Christian Post.

Beth Moore is well known in Christian circles. She is a Christian entrepreneur who started her own company, puts on several conferences a year, writes books and gives paid speeches. In doing all of this, she interprets scripture and God's will for herself and others. To an outsider, she is a preacher. But she is not a minister in a church so she and her many fans can say, if they wish, she has not violated the conservative mantra that women are not permitted in the faith to "preach."

In a speech this week Moore launched into a discussion of "complementarianism," the religious theory that men and women "compliment" each other in marriage but are not equals. The man is the spiritual authority and "leader" of the marriage, the woman has children and keeps the house nice. Part of this is that women can never be preachers.

Does the successful CEO, Moore, believe in Complementarianism? Absolutely, she says. Then she goes on to make an impassioned plea for stopping men from using the concept to abuse women. Putting men in positions with power over women, she says, causes them to think there are no limits to this power. Unwanted sexual advances are the result.

Giving men the Biblical authority to claim it is their Christian duty to rule over women cannot but end in disaster for women. Whether it is priests, preachers or Christian husbands, putting into their heads some sense of superiority has harmed countless women.