A few weeks ago, at an author event, Reverend Ovid Need  came up to me and gave me his book.

I asked him what made him an authority on women. He said, “The Bible.”

I wouldn’t call myself a Bible expert. I took a New Testament class in college but his book was based on the Old Testament. 

Here are the verses which inspired him to write 19 pages telling women what to do.

Proverbs 31 has a little bit of sexism in it but it is basically about marrying a hard-working woman instead of a beauty.

Leviticus 21 talks about tithing and how much people are worth. Men are worth more than women and young people more than old.

Here is how these verses were interpreted.

Note that he really strays from the passages, supporting homeschooling (unpaid labor by the woman basically), and declaring other people enemies to be shot down by weaponized kids.

He concludes with saying that women who don’t accept his advice are “pagan, anti-Christ, Humanists.” This is what life is like here in Marion County, Iowa. The hatred is getting intense. You can’t even go to your own book event without a confrontation.

There is no reason to consider people who believe this way to be nice or harmless. They are manipulative jerks with manipulated followers. They hate us. They consider us evil. The Bible is a very complicated book. One thing I learned in my long-ago Bible course was how many books were left out of the Bible and how much cherry picking was done to create the modern version of the Bible.  There are many great parts of the Bible such as the Beatitudes.  Jesus rebuking the Devil’s temptation is also a good section. These passages say that you shouldn’t hate and the ends don’t justify the means. Think about it, Reverend Need.