A Seventh-day Adventist pastor told his Bronx, New York congregation that wives belong to their husbands, as property, and they must “submit” themselves to their husbands, even if that means being raped by them.
“Wives, you must submit to your husbands,” Pastor Burnett Robinson said, as shown in the video below.
“I would say to you gentlemen, the best person to rape is your wife,” he added in his November 13 sermon, as Religion News Service reports.
“In this matter of submission, I want you to know upfront ladies, that once you get married, you are no longer your own. You are your husband’s. You understand what I’m saying? I emphasize that because I saw in court the other day on TV where a lady sued her husband for rape. And I would say to you gentlemen, the best person to rape is your wife. But then it has become legalized.”
RNS notes that “Robinson was apparently preaching from a passage from the New Testament’s Letter to the Ephesians, in which the Apostle Paul says, ‘Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.'”
A Change.org petition with over 1100 signatures is calling for Robinson’s resignation.
The Grand Concourse Seventh-day Adventist church has apologized and placed the pastor on leave, according to its website. Robinson has led that church as senior pastor since 2013.
NCRM will not post the video directly, but it can be seen here.