Lordship is Satanic?
Any person by comparing what Bushnell writes with what the Bible says can see that Bushnell's ideas are opposite to what the Bible teaches.
Bushnell writes in "God's Word to Women" that lordship of husband over wife is Satanic:
The third chapter of Genesis, rightly translated and interpreted, reveals to us the fact that lordship of the husband over the wife, which began when man sinned, was Satanic in origin.
If she simply means that anything negative came from Satan, such as thorns and briars, sin, death etc, I would agree, these things came because of Satan originally. And if not for Satan, man and woman would enjoy the sort of gender equality which Bushnell seeks, and women would enjoy painless pregnancies and men would not have to work the ground so hard for a living. However I think she means more than that, that the God-ordained lordship and authority-submission roles are actually Satanic.
However the Bible says:
1 Peter 3:6 Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord. And you are her children, if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening.
Sarah also called Abraham her lord in Genesis 18:20:
Genesis 18:20 Sarah laughed to herself, saying, "After I have become old, shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?"
Since Sarah is commended for obeying Abraham, even calling him Lord, how then can it be Satanic?
I think Bushnell would have wished Paul to insert a caveat here "by the way, Abraham's lordship over Sarah was actually Satanic in origin".
Each of the verses claimed by Bushnell to be lemon verses is really a "did God really say?" argument, and the "did God really say?" argument is the same line Satan used to deceive Eve, who also used it to deceive Bushnell.
But that's why 1 Peter 3:6 is also said to be another "lemon verse", because Satan would want doubt to be cast upon any verse which speaks the truth as plainly written.
Saying that lordship of husband over wife is Satanic also has implications for other types of relationships, e.g. relationship between children and parents, relationship to governing authorities etc.
Rather than being Satanic, the concept of Lordship, submission and obedience, when properly and rightly observed, is ordained by God, and was practiced and taught for centuries in Judaism and Christianity. Lordship between husband and wife, parents and children, employer and employee, master and slave, Jesus and the Father, the believer and Christ, is not Satanic, but Godly. Many Christian couples reflect this sort of relationship in their daily lives and some women have even published books about this too.
I believe that Bushnell's work is not a neutral, scholarly pursuit of knowledge to uncover the proper or correct translation of the Bible, but rather a cleverly crafted twist on the Word of God that contains unbiblical and inventive food for thought speculations and claims such as that Lordship is Satanic. Any scholar worth their salt tries to remain objective and unbiased in this regard and avoid superfluous arguments.
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