Ruth Marcus’ July 21 column, “Are Bachmann’s views presidential?” regarded Michele Bachmann and her questioned fitness for the U.S. presidency because of the Biblical teaching to be submissive to her husband. My, what a tired old excuse to mask Marcus’ apparent opposition to Bachmann’s more significant beliefs and political philosophy. In St. Paul’s teaching regarding wifely submissiveness, he directs the husband to love his wife, unconditionally, “as Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself for it.” One cannot, in any kind of objectivity or journalistic integrity, condemn a religious faith or its followers by so conspicuously ignoring the complete context of a statement. Here both husband and wife are admonished to live to sometimes sacrificial standards that are very worthy, and can go a long way toward making for the most happy and successful of marriages.
Marcus suggests that an educated, professional Christian wife feels the need to obtain her husband’s approval for any or all decisions made in the fulfillment of her job responsibilities. Marcus writes, “Can’t she think for herself?” and, “Who’s pulling the strings?” How outrageously shallow and unfounded for a writer who is afforded a nationwide readership.
Daniel H. Seng
Vancouver
