March 2, 2002

• Submission

  
  

  DISCLAIMER:  Some may object that what I have to say about submission is not orthodox.  My answer: Having a great number of people convinced of a particular interpretation, doesn't mean that interpretation is true.  The commonly accepted doctrines of any institution are the orthodoxy.  Anyone holding a minority opinion is flirting with heterodoxy.  Outright rejection of the orthodox opinion is a heresy.  150 years ago my opinions would have been nothing short of heresy.  Nowadays, there is enough discussion and rethinking going on that I'm probably only mildly heterodox.  (Don't worry, I retain my heretical badge in multiple other areas.)

  
  

  If you've hung around a church of any Christian demonination, or even if you just happened to catch the news of the Southern Baptist Convention's statements on women and children, you've probably heard the quote "Wives submit to your husbands."  Because that's a quote from the Bible, some claim that their statements regarding men and women in marriage relationship represent God's view.  Most of us have had experiences with people like these who equate the term submission with obedience inside an ordained hierarchical relationship.  We respond by either accepting that deformed teaching and adopting a posture of self-hatred.  Or we reject any form of submission and are caught in the web of pride and self-centeredness.

  
  

  The longest passage in the Bible on the concept of submission is found in Ephesians Chapters 4-5.  I'm not going to quote it all, but I'd like to point out key ideas.

  
  

  
  
  • Be completely humble and gentle, be patient, bear one another in love.
    
  • Don't be a baby! Grow up supporting each other in love.
    
  • Don't live as the unenlightened, cultivate sensitivity.
    
  • Be kind and compassionate, forgive one another as Christ forgave you.
    
  • Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

  
  

  You might notice that there is nothing in the above that implies that any of us are expected to give up our selfhood in obedience to another.  In each statement the assumption is that we retain the right to determine our own response to the people around us.  The doctrine of submission has nothing to do with obeying another person, it is cultivating a spiritual freedom in our response to people.

  
  

  One of the greatest bondages in my life and the lives of those I love, is the obssessive need to have everything go our way.  In spite of our having been raised on Sesame Street's golden rule, "COOPERATE!", we don't cooperate.  Far more often the attitude is, "I'd rather see this project fail than have it succeed any way other than the way I want it to go."  The Spiritual Discipline of Submission gives us freedom from this burden.

  
  

  The Bible doesn't endorse ordained hierarchical relationships.  The central teaching of Jesus is that the greatest in the Kingdom of God serves others.  It is impossible to overstate the revolutionary character of Jesus' life and teaching on this point.  It did away with all claims to privileged position and status.  It called into being a whole new order of leadership based on service.  (In my opinion, it is the use of biblical terms in a nonbiblical way that has resulted in so many sincere people going so far wrong in this doctrine of submission.  Bibical leadership is a place of service and sacrifice, not ruling authority.)

  
  

  It is the principle of submission that transforms an act of service into an example of spiritual strength and dignity.  Does anyone think that Mother Teresa was a doormat to anyone?  She lived the premier 20th century life of service, working with poor, sick people who lived in horrible dehumanizing circumstances.  She didn't do it because she was obeying orders from a superior, she did it because she cultivated the discipline of submission and service was the natural outworking of her spiritual lifeview.

  
  

  In submission we are free to value other people.  Their plans and dreams become important to us.  We give away the infantile demand that those we love must love us in return, in other words, we refuse to be manipulative in our relationships.  We love unconditionally.  We rejoice in their successes and genuinely sorrow in their failures.  We know that it is better to love them through the steps of their own success or failure than to try to control circumstances to force them to succeed. 

  
  

  The corresponding psychological principle to the spiritual discipline of submission is Assertiveness.  But, while submission has been perverted by some to be obedience, assertiveness is easily misunderstood as primarily a means to achieve self-centered goals.  In completely non-spiritual terms, good assertiveness training covers the same territory that is learned in the doctrine of submission.  There is great practical value in the application of assertiveness training as it crosses the bridge between the abstract teaching into concrete situations. 

  
  

  Submission/assertiveness is not the magical middle ground between subservient/passivity and aggressive/domination.  Submission is the path away from hierarchy and conflict into freedom within relationship. 

  
  

                     

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