Women of Valor: Elisabeth Elliot
Elisabeth Elliot Image Source: Billy Graham Center Archives, Wheaton College
Before Her Calling:
Just five days before my birthday, Elisabeth was born on December 21, 1926, in Brussels, Belgium, to her American parents, Philip and Katharine Howard, who were missionaries. When she was only one year old, their family moved back to the Germantown neighborhood in Philadelphia. Her parents educated her and her five siblings with a rigorous Bible reading schedule, family devotions around the table, singing hymns, and praying every morning and night. Elisabeth loved to read and write as she grew, and once she attended Hampden Debois Academy in Orlando, Florida, she knew that God was leading her to the mission field.
Her Competence:
In 1944, she enrolled at Wheaton College to study Classical Greek and become a Bible translator. She began to study linguistics and language structure (syntax, phonetics, and more) while in college. By 1948, she had met Jim Elliot (her brother’s roommate at Wheaton) and spent the year at Prairie Bible Institute in Alberta, Canada.
In April 1952, Elisabeth flew to Ecuador to work translating for the Colorado Indians. She created language patterns and sounds, a phonemic alphabet of Tsahfihki, and grammar, all from living and learning from the oral language of the Colorado Indians. Halfway through her time there, Elisabeth’s informant on the Indians, Don Macario, was brutally shot and killed in the jungle. Even without his help, Elisabeth finished writing down the language and sent all her work in a suitcase with another missionary to complete the Bible translation. Unfortunately, the suitcase and the past nine months of her work were gone. Elisabeth stated in that moment,
“All the questions as to the validity of my calling, or, much more fundamental, God’s interest in the Colorados’ salvation, in any missionary work—Bible translation or any other kind—all these questions came again to the fore… I was dumbfounded to realize that all that work was down the drain. I was also furious at whoever stole that suitcase and undoubtedly discarded that priceless paper.” Later, however, she wrote,
“This grief, this sorrow, this total loss that empties my hands and breaks my heart, I may, if I will, accept, and by accepting it, I find in my hands something to offer. And so I give it back to Him, who in mysterious exchange gives Himself to me.”
Her Call:
Many may disagree with me, but God called Elisabeth to the mission field by placing her within a family who saw the need for mission work. She saw the need for Bible translation for those who didn’t have access to a Bible in their language. At one point, she felt God’s leading to work in the Spanish assembly in Brooklyn, NY. God was pointing her to those who didn’t know Him.
Her Character:
From her childhood, Elisabeth’s love for Jesus grew. She was praying for missionaries and waiting for news from overseas. While pursuing higher education, she tutored high school girls and led Sunday School and After School Bible programs while waiting for God’s direction. After declaring love for each other, Jim and Elisabeth learned patience while waiting for marriage. They ended up waiting over 5 ½ years!
Her Courage:
Despite the shortcomings that both she and Jim experienced in their first separate missionary journeys, Elisabeth and Jim married on October 8, 1953, in Quito, Ecuador. They knew the risks of marriage in a foreign and hostile Ecuadorian jungle while missionaries, but they trusted God to provide and protect them. By February of 1955, their daughter, Valerie, was born, and shortly after, the Elliot family moved to the Shandia mission base to minister to the Quechua people. Their goal, however, was to reach the hostile Waodoni tribe.
By Sept. of 1955, the missionary group that the Elliots were a part of began to drop gifts via airplane for the Waodani tribe. What was once a hostile native group seemed to soften as the missionaries dropped the gifts. This same Waodani tribe had brutally murdered several Jesuit priests in the years prior when they had tried to make contact. However, after several months of dropping gifts, on January 3, 1956, the five male missionaries decided to begin “Operation Auca” and fly out to camp on Palm Beach with supplies to gain the Waodani’s trust. Three days later, they made successful contact with the tribe members. But by January 8, 1956, on a Sunday morning, members of the Waodani tribe returned to Palm Beach with spears. They attacked and killed all five missionaries: Jim Elliot, Nate Saint, Roger Youderian, Pete Fleming, and Ed McCully.
Despite her suffering and 27-month-long marriage, Elisabeth wrote the book, “Through Gates of Splendor.” It was then she began to build courage, and along with her daughter, Valerie, and Nate Saint’s sister, Rachel Saint, she learned the Huao language and went into the same jungle where her husband was killed to live with the Waodani People.
Her Legacy:
By 1960, many among the Waodani tribe accepted Christ as their Lord and Savior. Elisabeth continued to write several books about her husband, Jim, and her time with the Waodoni people. She went on to write more books and host her radio show. She passed away on June 15, 2015. She wrote,
“To be a follower of the Crucified means, sooner or later, a personal encounter with the cross. And the cross always entails loss. The great symbol of Christianity means sacrifice, and no one who calls himself a Christian can evade this stark fact.”
Her Impact on Me:
I grew up hearing the story of Elisabeth Elliot and her great empowerment of Christian women. However, I remember hearing her once answer a question on her radio show to a woman who asked a question about what to do since her husband physically abused her. Elisabeth’s response stunned me. She told the woman to stay and submit to her husband. I was appalled. I couldn’t reconcile the eighty-year-old woman whose voice cracked across the radio waves and the brave woman who faced the murderous jungle tribe with a toddler strapped to her torso. For years, I struggled to want to read anything that she wrote. Why would she tell a woman to stay with an abuser?
Just recently, everything began to make sense. I took a class at Western Seminary called “Women in Pain.” Throughout this two-course class, I learned the infinite number of ways that a woman can be abused by those she LOVES. When researching for this series, Women of Valor, I waffled between including Elisabeth since I didn’t agree with some of the things she spoke about later in life. But recently, I discovered that her change of theology, even her opinion on marriage, may have changed from her earlier years due to her later marriages.
Unfortunately, since her passing, biographers agree that Elisabeth’s opinion of women’s roles and functions within the home and church changed with each marriage. After Jim’s death, she married Addison Leitch, a conservative Presbyterian seminary professor. Before marrying Leitch, she was disgusted by legalism and hung with the feminist Christian crowd. After marrying Leitch, she shifted to a view that matched her new husband, more of an institutional bent and “unconditional obedience” of wives. After just four years of marriage, Leitch died of cancer. Five years later, she married Lars Gren, who, when he proposed, stated, “I want to build… fences around you, and I want to stand on all sides.” Elisabeth assumed Gren meant this as a promise to protect and support her. But as Vaughn (the biographer the Elisabeth Elliot Foundation commissioned to write Elisabeth’s biography) reveals, Gren wanted to fence Elisabeth in literally. Ellen Vaughn writes, “I could see… Elisabeth’s understandable loneliness, deep need for affirmation, physical hunger, weariness, and desire to be ‘protected’ [that] gradually, insidiously, controlled her for the rest of her long life.” Her desire for protection outweighed her desire for freedom. She later admitted to close friends that she’d made a mistake in marrying Gren. Gren, according to two biographers, controlled Elisabeth for the rest of their 38-year marriage, even going as far as sitting her on a church stage, when she was in the depth of dementia, while Gren played a recording of one of her previous talks to a church. As Liz Charlotte Grant writes,
“Gren decided when she drank a cup of tea, took a bath, and when she slept. He frequently checked her car’s odometer, double-checking that she hadn’t made any unplanned stops. He controlled the house thermostat. He listened in on her phone conversations and had the final say on whether she visited her friends, often declining invitations for her at the last minute. When he grew angry with his wife, he would refuse to speak to her for days. And most painful for Elliot, Gren unpredictably denied her access to the daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren she loved.”
Learning about how controlled Elisabeth was later in life helped me to fit the rest of the puzzle pieces together and explain why her flippant change of heart affected me so much. Could it be that when she answered that woman on the radio show that she was fearful of the repercussions from her husband if she told the woman to seek help and leave? Did she honestly believe that physical abuse was just a part of submission? We may never know why Elisabeth decided to remain in an emotionally abusive marriage, but perhaps it harkens to the fact that she is willing to be put in harms way when she feels that God is calling her to it. She knew when she strapped her toddler onto her body and walked into that jungle, that the chance of her being abused and even killed was high. But she knew deep in her heart, that God was with her in it. According to several biographers, due to her dysfunctional and abusive marriages, Elisabeth had begun to believe that God REQUIRED it for her. It was part of “submitting” to her husband(s). However, this is an abusive message that goes against our call as women in the Kingdom of God. As ezer kenegdos (delivering allies who partner and work alongside mankind to further God’s Kingdom).
As Kaeley Harms writes, “We cannot afford to teach our daughters that the gold standard of womanhood is to submit to abuse.” According to Elisabeth’s granddaughter, she is working to forgive Lars and that Elisabeth “didn’t believe she was being abused,” even though she clearly was. Isn’t that just it? If you’re not aware that you’re being emotionally abused, controlled, or manipulated, how will you ever know how to combat it wisely? Harms writes,
“So let me say this loudly and clearly for anyone who needs to hear it: You don’t need a broken bone to be abused. Coercive control is abuse. Restricting access to finances is abuse. Name-calling is abuse. Isolating you from your friends and family is abuse. Degrading you sexually is abuse. Mocking your body is abuse. Forcing you to have sex is abuse, even if you’re married, is abuse. (It’s actually called rape if you say “no,” and he still takes what he wants.) Stranding you in the home is abuse. Controlling your social calendar is abuse. Threatening you is abuse.”
Knowing that Elisabeth, in her later marriage, was controlled and manipulated hurts me to my core. God created woman as a “Delivering Ally,” a partner to support and positively oppose or challenge man as they work together to further God’s Kingdom. God did not create woman as a doormat, a plaything, or something for men to push around. But our Bible is jam-packed with stories of people of God who fell flat on their faces later in life, reaping the consequences of their choices. If God kept their stories open and honest, should we also not be with the people around us that we point to as men and women of faith?
I still see Elisabeth Elliott as a Woman of Valor, despite her later years where she is now known to be an abused and controlled woman. Because before, she stood and followed God’s leading even when she was widowed, a single parent, and alone in a country that didn’t speak her first language. Her strength is apparent, and her love of Jesus so bright when she wrote to her supporters before entering the jungle to live among the Waokoni people,
“I would never go because I thought it would be “safe” – or for any other reason, such as “carrying on my husband’s work” or whatever. There is one reason alone: I believe it is simply the next step. It is the thing required at the moment.”
END NOTES:
Lucy S. R. Austen, Elisabeth Elliot: A Life. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2023).
Aubrey De Vries, “What Elisabeth Elliot Taught Me,” Heroic Life Discipleship. July 1, 2018. Accessed April 24, 2024. https://heroiclifediscipleship.com/blog/what-elisabeth-elliot-taught-me/
Liz Charlotte Grant, “Elisabeth Elliot, Flawed Queen of Purity Culture, and Her Disturbing Third Marriage,” The Revealer. Online. February 6, 2024. Accessed April 24, 2024. https://therevealer.org/elisabeth-elliot-flawed-queen-of-purity-culture-and-her-manipulative-third-husband/
Kaeley Harms, “So Elisabeth Elliot is trending…” Online. Christian Post. Sunday, February 18, 2024. Accessed April 24, 2024. https://www.christianpost.com/voices/so-elisabeth-elliot-is-trending.html
Thomas S. Kidd, “Elisabeth Elliot Was a Flawed Figure God Used in Extraordinary Ways,” Christianity Today. Online. June 12, 2023. Accessed April 24, 2024. https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2023/july-august/elisabeth-elliot-biography-lucy-austen.html
Kayla Sawoski, The Life of Elisabeth Elliot: A Missionary in Ecuador alongside the Waodoni Tribe,” Western Seminary: WL504 Women in Leadership. Fall 2022.
Ellen Vaughn, Being Elisabeth Elliot. (Brentwood, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2023).
Unknown. Elisabeth Elliot. Online. “Timeline: The Life and Work of Elisabeth Elliot” Online. Accessed April 24, 2024. https://elisabethelliot.org/about/timeline/