Mike Huckabee On Marriage And Submission Of Wives

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Richard Clark

Richard Clark is the Founding Editor of Christ and Pop Culture. He is also the managing editor of Gamechurch and a freelance writer for Unwinnable, Paste, and other outlets. He lives with his wife in Louisville, KY and has a MA in Theology and the Arts from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
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13 Comments

  1. That’s a job well done for Mr. Huckabee…and of course he’s right, “It has nothing to do with presidency.”

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  3. Ya. I’m not so sure that I’d call that a “job well done.” His response was scattered and only mildly coherent. I guess he deserves some leeway considering the on-the-spot nature of the forum, but I got the impression that he was trying to save face more than explain his position. If he could sum up his doctrine of husband-wife relations as “100-100”, then why would he so boldly affirm the much more controversial “submission-sacrifice” paradigm? I don’t buy it.

    I really do not trust Huckabee as a president. It’s incomprehensible to me how uncritically so many evangelicals eat this stuff up.

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  4. Well I don’t endorse Huckabee for President but I thought he handled an obviously ridiculous set up nicely. I am not sure what you thought was “scattered” about the comment.

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  5. I think I get Scott’s point. Huckabee dances around the question of why (if the point was really that both parties in a marriage “submit” to each other) the SBC statement only focuses on wives submitting to husbands. Further, he totally welched on addressing the core of the doctrinal question, which is that there is a real debate within evangelical circles between the complementarian and egalitarian views of marriage. The SBC statement would appear to be very much coming from a complementarian viewpoint. If that is the case, it is simply dishonest for him to pretend that his position does not favor male headship and female submission or to say that it is about mutual submission when it is not.

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  6. I think Geoffrey summed it up well, but here’s a more detailed explanation.

    Question:

    In 1998, you affirmed “a wife is to submit graciously to the servant leadership of her husband.” Is your position viable in the general election of 2008?

    Answer:

    1. Religion questions aren’t fair.
    2. Tithing joke.
    3. My wife doesn’t let me do whatever I want.
    4. The verse in question is to Christians (therefore, not binding on all civilians).
    5. But I’m not gonna flinch from true doctrine.
    6. The point is that husbands and wives “submit” to each other.
    7. This isn’t about superiority, it’s about treating your spouse the way you treat the Lord.
    8. So, this has nothing to do with presidency.
    9. This is what biblical marriage calls for: mutual devotion.
    10. And that’s why I support marriage as an institution, because it teaches us how to love.

    4 and 8 seem to be at odds with 10.

    7 and 9 are red herrings, since whether or not marriage calls for devotion is hardly in question.

    If 6 really is “the point,” then why affirm the language of the SBC? This strikes me as horribly disingeuous. Rather than waste time with points 7 and 9, he should have been explaining how 6 is consistent (if it is) with the SBC statement that prompted the question.

    And by scattered, I mean things like point 8 that could only follow from 4 (and maybe 1), but contextually seem to be lost in a host of sub-points. Additionally, point 10 kinda came out of nowhere thought he probably thought that point 9 called for such a comment.

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  8. Point taken, brothers. Huckabee does at least deserve to be applauded for pointing out that he always gets asked to defend Christian doctrine when no one else has to defend their religious beliefs.

    I am not a Huckabee supporter. The guy is nice enough, but strikes me as a bit more goofy than responsible to run a country. Not to mention that I think he’s a democrat in republican wool. But I do think he is getting abused with the religious questions when no one else is even being asked about their faith.

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  10. But hasn’t he made his faith a point on his campaign ticket? Seems fair game for someone to be quizzed on part of the platform that he himself offers.

    It’d be like if Paul said he believed that the U.S. should not be in Iraq and made that part of the reason you should vote for him. You would then not be surprised when people asked him about the ramifications of that.

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  11. That is the other point I wanted to make as well. Thanks, Dane. Anyone who makes religious faith one of their key campaign messages should be ready to answer questions about how his beliefs will affect his performance as president.

    If I’m a candidate, and I tell you that I have a deep personal opposition to abortion (whether rooted in my religious faith or some other set of beliefs about life), you have a right to ask what I’m going to do on that score as president.

    Similarly, if I hold a deep belief in male headship and female submission (again, whether rooted in my religious faith or some other-wise), it’s legitimate to ask how that is going to factor into my decision- and policy-making as president.

    And P.S., to the extent that Huckabee is presenting his faith as a campaign asset, then he is strongly suggesting that his beliefs WILL factor into his decisions and actions as president.

    I feel exactly the same way about Romney and anyone else who has said one way or another, “My deeply held religious beliefs are one of the reasons you should vote for me.” I don’t think Romney has gotten nearly the grilling on the content and ramifications of his Mormon beliefs that he should be getting.

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  13. So the real question in my mind, then, is who is making Huckabee’s faith a bigger part of his campaign?

    Is it Huckabee, Is it his opponents, is it Evangelical voters?

    Again, he doesn’t get my vote, but this is relevant material for any candidate.

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