Rural Evangelical Radio – Stand by Your Man, Beat Your Kids

Cruising under the big sky of rural Western Oklahoma last week, I heard something on the radio that about caused me to spit coffee all over the dashboard and windshield of my Honda Civic.

Something I like to do out on the open road between courthouses is check out local Christian radio. Sometimes I will stumble upon some evangelical who is actually offering up advise that would be wise in any context. All religions do have that potential, even if it isn’t exercised regularly.

More often than not what I hear is more like comedy–the espousing of traditional/agrarian values completely out of touch, and in constant battle with the modern world.

The woman who about caused me to make a mess of my car said this: “It is a woman’s place to be in the home and obey, and be subservient to her husband. Why do I know this to be true? Because The Bible says so. If The Bible says so, then it is true. It’s the way it has always been.”

My goodness, I thought. I imagined arriving home that evening and telling my wife, with conviction, “Woman! From henceforth you shall do as I tell you to do. The Bible mandates your obedience to me. Now, fix me my supper, fetch me a beer, and don’t give me any lip.”

The rebuke would be certain and swift. “Did you just say what I think you said? You can bend over, grab your ankles and I’ll stick your supper and beer right up your…”

I grew bored with Tammy Wynette’s admonitions and scanned a little further for another biblically inspired lecture. “The devil is out there, watching everything we do,” some raspy old codger was saying. “The devil is in each of us as rebellion. All rebellious behavior is the work of the devil. If your children are acting out in a rebellious fashion, you must pray over them like your life depended on it, and beat the devil out of them.”

If I chased my kids around the house with a belt, yelling, “Lucifer, get thee gone,” a quiet evening in jail would be my divine destiny.

It is supremely interesting to me that we can inhabit the same planet yet live in such different worlds. For some of us, the one-true-way and good old fashioned values would get us in all kinds of legal troubles consisting of protective orders, domestic assault and battery, and child abuse charges, and a petition for dissolution of marriage.

I can’t afford to be morally erect.