Bachmann sets record straight on Biblical submissions

AMES--On her Sunday talk show circuit, Representative Michele Bachmann, after winning the Iowa straw poll, fielded questions about a comment she made in a 2006 stump speech in which she said she became a tax lawyer because her husband wanted her to. "“Tax law? I hate taxes,” she said in the speech. “Why should I go into something like that? But the lord says, be submissive. Wives, you are to be submissive to your husbands."



Bachmann said on Face the Nation that "submission" really meant "respect." “I respect my husband, he respects me,” she said. “We have been married 33 years, we have a great marriage…and respecting each other, listening to each other is what that means.”



The Flannel Diaries feels that a reexamination of key Bible passages is in order, since previous instances of the word "submit" or "submission" may have been misconstrued by earlier scholars and pious readers. Here are some revised passages:



"Now as the church [respects, mutually respects] Christ, so also wives should [respect, mutually respect] everything to their husbands." --Ephesians 5:24

Clearly some syntax problems here, since "bow to the will of" works much better in context. Nevertheless, the early Bible was way ahead of the sort of Biblical allusions that would be used to keep women barefoot and pregnant for years to come.



"Obey your leaders and [respect, mutually respect] them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you." --Hebrews 13:17

Clearly someone "keeping watch over your souls" is not someone you need kowtow to. After all, regardless of your level of power, they think of you as an equal. That must have made for some really liberal slaveowners in the day.



"[Mutually respect] yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." --James 4:7

See? God is more like a business partner. One hand washes another. He's open to your ideas. It's not like he's God or anything.



Any more passages we missed, please submit them to us. Whoops...we meant "respect" them to us. Because we respect you. Mutually.