Religious Bigotry and #FakeNews Come Together
The Hill newspaper today tweeted out this attention grabbing headline:
This click-bait drew the desired response from The Hill’s readers even as it mangled what this candidate said, when and why he said it and what he really meant.
First, you should know that The Hill is referring to something this GOP candidate literally “preached” back when he was actually a preacher. No, he’s not running around today as a candidate for Congress talking about roles in the home. (Certainly, that is what The Hill seemingly wants him to have to talk about.)
But even still, what is this “submit” stuff?
Well, first you have to take a quick look at the Bible’s description of Christian marriage in Ephesians 5. (Bear with me, this isn’t going to be a Bible study.)
Instructions for Christian Households
21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
22 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. 23 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. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing[b] her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
This is one of the most misquoted Bible verses in all of the media. The media focus in on verse 22 (“wives, submit to your husbands”) and ignore the rest. They treat it like they’re splicing video on The Daily Show.
Christians who’ve studied these verses see that the passage starts with an instruction to “submit to one another.” In other words, its mutual. Next, they notice that husbands are to love their wives “just as Christ loved the church.” In case you don’t know the story, that guy Jesus Christ said that he came “not to be served, but to serve” and then He gave his very life for those he served.
So, the role of a husband in a Christian marriage is to serve his wife, even to the point of death. Yikes! And to love her even as he loves his own body. But remember, the passage starts with the words “submit to one another.” So, there’s no surprise that the wife has some serving of her own to do.
Gosh, doesn’t that sound a lot like a healthy marriage? That both sides give to the other in love?
It’s a far cry from the one-sided “submission” The Hill intentionally implied in its tweet.
And actually, when you get into the body of The Hill’s article, you find out what candidate Mark Harris actually said, back when he was a preacher: “It’s really submitting one to another in a relationship.”
And so there is the complete fake news. Harris did not even say what The Hill claims. Harris – back when he was a preacher – preached sermons which accurately described Paul’s teaching on marriage. The Hill would have Twitter believe that a GOP candidate is Christian extremist of some sort, running around arguing that women should be subservient to men.
Did it work? No question.
Nice.
Completely fooled.
Mission accomplished.
You don’t say?
It goes on and on. Tweet after tweet of readers who don’t have a clue what Harris actually said, when he said it, in what context and what he actually meant. So, a former pastor who encouraged his parishioners to healthy marriages where husbands and wives jointly submit to one another is now smeared as a Bible thumping Republican misogynist.
And the media wonder how Trump was able to popularize the term Fake News.
Shame on The Hill.
politicalsock 