Point 3

Point 3: CTBHHM consistently asserts that a woman/wife bears responsibility for a man’s/ husband’s sins, going so far as to say a husband’s complete sanctification and deliverance from temptation is provided to him through his wife and her actions. It seems to teach that women are deceived by Satan but men are not, and that men’s primary weakness is their desire for (or to please) women. Therefore, women cause men to sin (or not) by their actions and submission.

This book blames the downfalls of Adam, David, Solomon, and Samson directly on the women in their lives (p. 111). While women arguably had a role in misleading each of these men, the Bible makes it very clear that these men made their own choices and bear the blame for their sins. Nowhere in Scripture is Bathsheba blamed for David’s sin or the brokenness it caused. Scripture does, however, put clear blame squarely on David’s head. Adam tried to blame Eve for his sin (just like Eve tried to blame the serpent for hers), but God was not impressed – he meted out punishment to each guilty party. Romans 5 repeats several times that sin came into the world through one man (Adam), clearly placing blame on him and his choice. Solomon and Samson were certainly misled by their wives/lovers, but it was their choice to give in to their appetites/lust and choose to live with/become vulnerable to/be influenced by these women. James 1:14-15 makes it clear that we each, individually, invite sin into our lives. Just as great parents can produce a child who willfully chooses sin, so a perfectly submissive wife does not guarantee her husband’s purity or sinlessness. To put the burden of a husband’s purity/thought life/ability to withstand temptation on the shoulders of his wife, as this book does, is not only unbiblical, but it is a burden too heavy for any human being to bear. Simply being responsible for our own behavior and thoughts is enough of a job!

In a particularly eye-brow-raising interchange (p.28-32) that is characteristic of a lot of the advice in the book, a “desperate wife” writes to Debi about her husband’s emotional affair with an office secretary. Debi suggests that the woman engage in a full-on competition to win her husband back, using the weapons of coquetry, feminine wiles, blushing, dependence, smiles, staged anger towards her “rival”, teasing, frequent sex, etc. It is clearly the woman’s responsibility to keep her husband faithful to her – not through love, prayer, and beauty of character, but through using the same techniques as her “rival”. “You can stand on your rights and stand on truth, but it won’t save your marriage.” (p.29) “If you feed him well, emotionally and sexually, her cooking won’t tempt him. God is on your side. Fight and win.” (p.32) In our understanding of Scripture, God is never on the side of using “feminine wiles” as opposed to standing on His Truth. The woman writing this letter has deep concerns and her marriage has deep issues, and Debi’s response addresses none of these. The woman is never once encouraged to even pray for her husband or their relationship. Instead, the reply reads as if it came straight out of a cheap women’s magazine like Cosmopolitan. Instead of Scripture (since there isn’t any, even twisted Scripture, to support this approach), she uses a secular song from Loretta Lynn called “You Ain’t Woman Enough to Take My Man” to back her advice up. In the absence of scripture, she also repeatedly threatens the woman with certain divorce and destitution if she fails to follow this advice. Debi’s response contains no true respect for any of the players involved the struggle. It reduces the husband to a helpless hormone-driven carnal animal and labels the rival a “cheap office wench” and “hussy” in the “dime-a-dozen class”. Perhaps the most disturbing sentence in this reply is the assertion that, “God has provided for your husband’s complete sanctification and deliverance from temptation through you, his wife.” (p.29) This statement is completely unbiblical and terrifying.

One final observation we want to make here is that Debi seems to have very little true respect for men in this book. She presents the vast majority of men as “carnal” creatures (she uses that term frequently) with little potential for moral strength and an extremely limited ability to control their appetites. It is up to women not to tempt them and to keep them in line, both by the giggling/flirting/providing good sex mentioned above, and by an extreme, unquestioning submission, which will somehow magically produce a redeemed, caring husband with his appetites in control. (The letter above actually says to “get down on your husband’s emotional level, and make yourself more attractive than that office wench, and do it now, today!” p.31) Never once are women even exhorted to pray fervently and faithfully for their husbands (in fact, we can’t think of an instance in this book in which women are exhorted to pray for their husbands at all). It is never appropriate for a woman to have any expectations of her husband. She should never confront him except for three or four specific issues (anal sex, cross dressing, stealing and possibly pornography viewing, although the last was unclear). If a husband is consorting with prostitutes, frequenting strip clubs, excessive in his corporal punishment, exposing his children to trashy TV programs, abusing his wife (up to an unspecified point) or spending all of his pay check and bringing nothing home, these things should be tolerated and ignored and the husband treated like a king and a “#1 Daddy”. The wife should suffer in silence for the glory of God. For a few illegal issues (like stealing or sexually abusing his children), a wife is advised to simply call in the force of the law (but not necessarily confront her husband). Women are encouraged to “hold their standards and hold their man” (p.67) if their husband thinks otherwise. In several places in this book, Debi warns women against trusting that their husbands will stay faithful to them just because of their vows. No, women must be ever vigilant to keep their husbands happy and satisfied, with the threat of unfaithfulness or divorce looming always before them.

One odd assertion, repeated several times in the book, is that Scripture gives women the opportunity to transform their husbands and bring them to Christ solely by their submission (1 Peter 3:1-2), but that men have no God-given ability or opportunity to transform or change their wives (p.131). While there is never any specific Scripture that lays out exactly how men can bring their unbelieving wives to Christ, Acts has several examples of men who became Christians and were followed immediately by their entire households. Scripture also has many examples of how a Christian can witness to a non-Christian, and how Christians can help each other grow in Christlikeness. There is nothing to indicate that this is not applicable to a relationship between a husband and a wife (or that the only way a wife can help her husband grow is by silent submission)!

Like so much of the book, here is an important truth which Debi expresses well, then stretches to an extreme. Women do have a huge role safeguarding their husbands’ virtue and exampling Christ to them. But it is no where near such an omnipotent role as she suggests.