Can you call your husband ‘Lord’?

Doug Phillips, the founder of Vision Forum and a big noise in the Christian patriarchy movement, told the audience at a convention about watching his wife counsel young women who are thinking about marriage. She always asks them “Are you willing to call your husband ‘Lord’?” The answer tends to be shocked silence followed by No. He goes on:

We’re not talking about Lord as in the Creator, but your earthly head. And one that you have to follow, even when he makes bad judgments. Are you ready to do the most vulnerable thing that a woman ever can do and submit yourself to a man, who you are going to have to follow in his faith, who is incredibly imperfect and is going to make mistakes? Can you do that? Can you call your husband ‘Lord’? If the answer is no, you shouldn’t get married. [Quiverfull p 3]

Harsh, isn’t it. You have to follow him even when he’s wrong. It doesn’t matter that he’s wrong, it matters that you submit.

That’s not just harsh, it’s immoral. It’s wicked. Not just because of the arbitrariness and the official subordination of the woman, but because it mandates obedience no matter what is being obeyed. That’s anti-moral; it’s the opposite of moral. If someone tells you to gas this room full of people, it is immoral to obey.

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