At Thursday’s GOP Presidential debate, many believed Michele Bachmann’s answer regarding the question of submitting to her husband as showing weakness. Many critics questioned her perspective on leadership and authority.
Yet the idea of submission turns out to be central to what the President of the United States must do in order to lead our country.
Bachmann answered by saying submission equals respect. “I respect my husband,” she responded. “He’s a wonderful godly man. We respect each other and we love each other.”
The words respect and love would not be found as synonyms for submission in any thesaurus. Submission is often used as a negative connotation dealing with slavery, abuse or manipulation. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines submission as “an act of submitting to the authority or control of another.”
It appears that submission lacks freedom.
Bachmann’s belief of submission differs from what has been ingrained in today’s culture. How could it be that submission equals respect or even love?
Take for example a marriage proposal. Popping the question is the ultimate expression of love and in return asking, “Do you love me enough to spend your life with me?” The man is disposing his power by showing vulnerability and giving the option up to the woman. She has the choice to say yes, no, or even make a dramatic exit by running away in tears not being able to decide. It is a risk he is taking; a risk that exudes love.
Granted that the woman says yes, marriage ensues and the concept of submission again comes into play. In the context of the question Bachmann answered, submission meant putting her husband ahead of herself. Sacrificial love is another name for it. While it is a foreign concept for most of us, sacrificial love aims to help others—submission by serving.
In another way, take the perspective from two parents who see their grown child make choices that ruin his or her life and while they may try to direct their child in the right path, out of love they must ultimately surrender their will and let the child decide for him or herself.
Love does not impose.
Biblically, the story of submission is shown by God sending Jesus down to the earth to become human. He submits himself to death in order for the curse of sin to be broken for all of mankind.
Submission is the greatest act of love and respect.
Finally, take the President of the United States. While the president leads, guides and aims to be the stabilizer of the nation, ultimately he or she must grant the power to the people of the country to decide for themselves. It is in their power to vote, to live however they choose and to exercise their innate rights. We are a country of freedom, not dictatorship.
As the presidential election grows closer, the candidates must learn more and more the art of submission. Submitting to the mercy of the media through every step they take, every trip they make and too often than not, every persona they fake is part of the deal. Their ability to submit and respond with grace weeds out the weak from the strong.
Following the chorus of boos after the submission question was asked during Thursday’s debate, Bachmann’s answer followed with a celebratory cheer from the crowd. Her answer on the surface dealt with the way she treats her husband, but it also had larger implications. It expressed the way she looks at the world, the lens she views our country out of.
If Michele Bachmann were to become president, her act of submission would not be the kind that is weak. It would not be the kind of submission that gives up. To her, submission is showing complete sacrifice to the nation.
One of the most talked about moments at Thursday night's GOP debate on the Fox News Channel came when Bachmann of Minnesota was asked a question that raised some eyebrows. The question stemmed from a speech she gave in 2006 when she was running for Congress.
Bachmann told a church in Brooklyn Park, Minn., that she hated taxes, but went on to study tax law in order to be "submissive" to her husband.
"My husband said, now you need to go and get a post-doctorate degree in tax law. Tax law, I hate taxes. Why should I go and do something like that? But the Lord says, 'Be submissive.' Wives, you are to be submissive to your husbands," Bachmann told the crowd at the Living Word Christian Center. "Never had a tax course in my background, never had a desire for it, but by faith, I was going to be faithful to what I thought God was calling me to do through my husband, and I finished that course of that study."
Her response Thursday night to the Washington Examiner's Byron York was broader but no less faithful. Bachmann said she loved her husband and was "so proud of him."
"What submission means to us, if that's what your question is, it means respect. I respect my husband. He's a wonderful, Godly man and a great father, and he respects me as his wife," she told York and the millions watching. "That's how we operate our marriage. We respect each other, we love each other, and I've been so grateful that we've been able to build a home together."
The teaching is rooted in the fifth chapter of Ephesians in the New Testament: "Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
The mainstream media and others are trying to wrap their arms around the concept they don't understand," Brody said. "Even though tens of millions not just evangelicals, but Christians around the country understand they are being put on the spot to explain.
Although Brody thought the question was unfair, Bachmann's spokeswoman Alice Stewart said she saw it "as an opportunity for her to clear up any concerns people may have had about that word. Clearly, people view that word differently. But for Michele and her husband that's the way they describe their relationship in terms of having a mutual respect for each other; and they do, they have a fantastic marriage, a very loving couple, and when they're using that term it's their expression of how they have a mutual respect and love for each other."
And Bachmann's Iowa campaign chairman Kent Sorenson agreed, also saying it was a "great opportunity."
"Anybody can ask any question they want. I don't think she's afraid to answer those questions. The audience sounded like they had a little different response," Sorenson said.
Bachmann's husband didn't shy away from commenting today at the Iowa State fair. "I think the fact that she is talking about two people who respect, honor, and communicate to each other about decisions just makes a lot of sense," Marcus Bachmann told ABC News. "I think the American people can see that that makes for a good marriage.
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