What does God make of feminism?

[PrayforMallory]

This is probably a good example of why we, as Catholics, are not Sola Scripture. If one continues to read 1 Cor. 11, one would find it self evident that women’s heads should be covered in Mass, and so on. However, being blessed with a living Magesterium, we have proper guidance. The Church understands that 1 Cor 11 must be taken in context, both historical and theological.

As the NAB notes, Paul in primarily using a local custom and particular instance to introduce a theological concept of heirarchy, which he better develops in a later letter. The irony, of course, is that by interpreting the letter as above, in contrast to the Church’s more nuanced understanding of proper male, female relationships, one is, in fact, missing what Paul is fundementally trying to teach.

Think about it, by placing one’s own interpretation of scritpture ahead of the Holy See, one is foresaking one’s proper role in the heirarchy of the body of the faithful - something we believe to be created by God. Having forsaken one’s proper role in God’s Church, one is no longer a proper Christian model - hence no longer a suitable fit for Paul’s analogy above.

While certainly I believe you have a valid point, at the same time I think you are relying too much on the historical-critical method in your exegesis. Paul is certainly is speaking in a local context, to the particular Church in question, but I’m skeptical that his message is not also applicable to the Universal Church, especially in light of other passages and the fact that the Church’s Magisterium encouraged the practice, which was widely adopted, all the way up until the 1960’s, when secular attitudes began to seep into the Church.

Lots of women do wear head-coverings in Church, if you go to the more traditional parishes. My wife and daughter wear veils. It’s not a sign of subjugation to me. My wife makes more money than me, is likely smarter than me, and certainly stricter in regards to discipline than I am. She wears the headcovering as a sign of feminine humility before the blessed sacrament.

However, I have to work to live up to my divinely mandated duty to be the head of my family, despite the fact that I want to lay on the couch and play video games all day. As for the husband being the head of the family, this wasn’t something I derived from Sola Scriptura. I’ve never had anything but contempt for Sola Scriptura.

Pope Pius IX, in Casti Connubbi,

“False liberty and unnatural equality [in authority] with the husband is to the detriment of the woman herself, for if the woman descends from her truly regal throne to which she has been raised within the walls of the home by means of the gospel, she will soon be reduced to the old state of slavery (if not in appearance, certainly in reality) and become as among the pagans the mere instrument of man.”

Pope Leo XIII

“The man is the ruler of the family, and the head of the woman; but because she is flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone, let her be subject and obedient to the man, not as a servant but as a companion, so that nothing be lacking of honor or of dignity in the obedience which she pays… Let divine charity be the constant guide of their mutual relations, both in him who rules and her who obeys, since each bears the image, the one of Christ, the other of the Church.”

 

[PrayforMallory]

Would you clarfiy what you mean by “may” - as my response depends on whether you mean “is allowed to” or “is likely to”.

Yes, most unfortunately some men do react with physical force to what they see as disobedience by a woman and in my view this is not acceptable - nor is it the other way round.

But if you are saying that it is okay for a man to use physical force to complel her to obey, then this is totally unacceptable. When would this start? The day the woman said “no” to marriage, or the first time they said “no” to anything else.

A general comment - not in response to RobbyS - any movement/group/church/religion can be demolished if the views of the most of the exteme are considered its norm.

This seems to me to be happening here in regards to feminism - especially after the improvements feminism has bought to many women’s lives are stated.

My choices, and those of my sisters, would have been very limited if I had been born even in 1800’s. I would not have been able to leave a marriage that had not worked out whatever the reason as I would have owned nothing - not even the clothes I wore. If I had not married I would have been considered “a poor thing” probably eking my life out as “a poor relation” in a brother or sister’s house or in some else’s as a governness if I was lucky and my father had considered that a girl should be literate. Otherwise a pittance as a seamstress or down a mine, perhaps.

Given these improvements I think God approves of feminism while being sad when it is rides rough-shod over the rights of others but then I think God also feels the same way whenever anyone’s rights are stamped.

Based on my understanding, it’s never permissible to subjugate, humiliate, or coerce anyone into anything.

You’re right about feminism doing some good in society.

My objection to it now is that it isn’t just correcting wrongs in the secular world, it’s seeping into religion,and the family where it doesn’t belong, since the Catholic religion never suffered from sexism to start with.

I’ve had women bosses and thought nothing of it at all. I just don’t get why our conceptions of God have to go against the Church to be “inclusive.”

 

[thomfra]

well my wife reads the bible and the follows scripture. Because of that, she knows that I am the head of the family and expects me to act that way. She knows that God made the man the head of the family and she needs me to be that way. When we pray she thanks God for that.

There are many men who haven’t grown up and have never learned how to be good men. Sadly being a “MAN” isn’t something that is explained very well in todays society.

Exactly why a woman would want a man who isn’t a good provider is unknown to me. Perhaps she isn’t making choices that are good for her future, If a woman can’t view her man as the head of the family then she shouldn’t get married to him. If she does, her own pride will destory the marriage. After all, he has the given right to be the head of the family as per scripture. Therefore, a man has a right to object to his wife taking control without just cause.

Maybe your wife just lets you “think” you are the head of the family.

May I ask whether your wife works or has a formal education?

 

[thomfra]

Who taught you that?

Here a thought Chaldean Rite. Maybe she thought the whole thing up all by herself!!!

I do believe God gave us free will. In order to excercise this God given gift you might find some people have resorted in desperation to using a bit of the old grey matter.

 

[SpiritMeadow]

scripturecatholic.com/husband_headship.html

1 Cor. 11:3 – “But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a woman is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.”

“For the man is the head of the woman in perfect order when Christ who is the Wisdom of God is the head of the man.”* Augustine, Against the Manichaeans 2, 12, 16 (A.D. 391).*

Screaming at people is just plain rude. Please stop this.

 

[SpiritMeadow]

SpiritMeadow;3878003:

When you use the term “fairer” sex you automatically set women as “different” and less. Why should women be denied any opportunity pursued by men btw? Just wondering.

There are plenty of feminists I would assume who are not in favor of abortion, in fact I would hazard a guess that most are not in favor of it. Being in favor of the right to choice is not the same. And as to ABC, well, you are going to have a hard row to hoe convincing even men that this is a bad thing if you arent’ Catholic. 85% of catholics use it, and 98% of the pop. at large believes it is a good thing./

QUOTE]

Spirit, you have said a mouthful…keyboard full

One thing I’d like to know is who and why was God assigned a gender???

I’m not sure he did. Evolution suggests that this form of procreation was effective. Ask a biologist. I guess God thought it was a useful thing as well. By placing emphasis on Genesis as literally true, you automatically subscribe it seems to a literalist interpretation that given the patriachal melieu of the day, would obviously place men before women. I’m not at all sure God does this.

 

[adrift]

Screaming at people is just plain rude. Please stop this.

It is annoying too!

 

[SpiritMeadow]

Well,

I recently revived a thread on another forum and some people objected. I am very new here so didn’t know I was supposed to check the date of the thread and then not revive it.???

Anyway, looking for something interesting in the fora and stumbled upon this. Someone might object to the reviving of it???

I am a 40 year old attorney and my mother was a full time nursing supervisor throughout her married life.

She taught me in no uncertain terms that I must get an education and be able to go out and support myself - both to take care of myself and any children in the event of being widowed or abandoned etc…I grew up with an awareness of the plight of women of my mother’s generation who were subjected to a tidal wave of divorce, leaving them impoverished and struggling to care for children after devoting themselves to being mothers and homemakers.

I do believe a woman has an obligation to train herself if possible to assist in the support of the family or to be the sole support if needed. I am frustrated but compassionate to see so many struggling on their own with children in my generation and the next…

In my extended family a woman would be seriously frowned upon for marrying before completing her basic education (university degree).

We live in a society where a woman cannot expect to find a man to be a strong leader/provider and be committed to a traditional role. This may not be rare, but it seems so.

I respect men who take on the lifetime obligation of taking care of their families but I didn’t wait for one to appear and expect one to take care of me forever.

Does this make me a feminist? Who knows - during my college days at a Catholic university women were under pressure to go around denying any tendency toward feminism (or forget about ever having a date!)

There are problems with modern feminism and I don’t subscribe to much of what it has offered, but it is sad that college educated women had to shut down their minds and play pretty and dumb sometimes to get the approval of our male peers/community.

Even today I get grief, often from women, when I display competecy, strength or any semblance of having authority in my professional role! Men are actually more respectful/admiring often.

I like to turn that off and enjoy my feminine side in my personal life, but sometimes a woman who displays softness can be subject to attempts to take advantage. So it can be hard.

Furthermore, I personally have experienced numbers of men masquerading under the “traditional” guise. I’ve seen men use their greater strength and greater ease with dominant behavior to control their families in the interest of serving only the man’s selfish desires. Signs of this are domineering, controlling behavior and such.

I believe the passages in the Bible about marriage are beautiful - the man loving his wife as his own body…would this were more common.

Should I meet a man who could lead in the Bible sense, putting my needs and the needs of children in the forefront, I would respect him and give him a chance to show me how that might work…

But in the meantime I am awful glad I can support myself as my mother required of me and enjoy the stimulation of my career.

It is hard sometimes to figure out how to date some of these Catholic guys - but I have been surprised how many admire a woman for her accomplishments, something not so common when I was in college playing Miss Nice (don’t worry I am not too too smart!)

Interested in more discussion if anyone so desires…seems my posts are boring and noone replies!

The way you have examined the data and reached conclusions suggests you are wise beyond your years. I think you have arrived at pretty much the correct conclusions. Most men, freely admit that they have suffered under the pressure to be “bread winner and decider”. It’s much easier and fairer to share the decisions and thus the mistakes. In today’s society, most working and middle class families simply cannot make a go of it financially unless both work and share the other responsibilities. That means sharing the decisions as well. It can be difficult to negociate between those men who are by the book bibliophiles and claim superior rights because of it. Since most are not raised to do this in any manner that is equitable or rational, they as you say end up serving their own needs mostly. Most men I find are not at all like this. I witnessed and continue to witness dozens upon dozens of Catholic marriages and I simply don’t find this “head of the family” stuff. Everyone is just too busy trying to get everythhing done in a week to worry about who is leading. Each pair divides the responsibilities and their individual abilities and time allow. These imposed rules of who does what and hwo decides what only work in limited situations where the parties are ppsychologically matched to accept their “roles”.

 

[adrift]

The way you have examined the data and reached conclusions suggests you are wise beyond your years. I think you have arrived at pretty much the correct conclusions. Most men, freely admit that they have suffered under the pressure to be “bread winner and decider”. It’s much easier and fairer to share the decisions and thus the mistakes. In today’s society, most working and middle class families simply cannot make a go of it financially unless both work and share the other responsibilities. That means sharing the decisions as well. It can be difficult to negociate between those men who are by the book bibliophiles and claim superior rights because of it. Since most are not raised to do this in any manner that is equitable or rational, they as you say end up serving their own needs mostly. Most men I find are not at all like this. I witnessed and continue to witness dozens upon dozens of Catholic marriages and I simply don’t find this “head of the family” stuff. Everyone is just too busy trying to get everythhing done in a week to worry about who is leading. Each pair divides the responsibilities and their individual abilities and time allow. These imposed rules of who does what and hwo decides what only work in limited situations where the parties are ppsychologically matched to accept their “roles”.

You still haven’t addressed the impact it has on children.

 

[SpiritMeadow]

And the Children? Who is rearing them? Is it babysitters, daycare, nannies and schools? Feminism promoted the idea of “quality not quantity” and our children have suffered. The children being shuffled off to spend hours with those whose only interest in them was the dollar.

How many women are working at the level you indicate? Most women are in minimum wage jobs. They need their job plus their husbands to make ends meet. They don’t have the luxury of staying home and rearing their children. It is a shame that the only equality that some see is that of the almighty dollar. Feminism promoted the idea that being a mother and taking care of the children was demeaning and made the women less than the man. Somehow the women taking care of the family made her less equal. It was a lie but many bought into it with the result that being a mother and homemaker has been devalued which is what feminism was trying to accomplish.

It seems you answered your own first paragraph with your own second paragraph. Parents are rearing children to the best they can given that usually both are working and sometimes more than one job a piece. Men and women both share equitably as time allows doing the very best they can. If people need babysitters and day care, they need them, its not so they can hang out at the country club. They are working to make enough to give their children the best possible start in life and opportunites they themselves might not have. As the case is now, the sandard of living of children is less than parents. My generation was the beginning of the downward trend. And that was still where both parents worked.

Most women are in low paying jobs, and guess what? Most men are too. If feminism once downplayed the housewife, it was to make a point. That time is long past. Feminism no long makes those kinds of judgements. They recognize that all persons, male or female have equal responsibilites to raise children and to help with finances. There is no chasing the dollar, there is mere survival these days.

YOu missed completely the point of feminism even at the start. There is NO point in demeaning homemaking for the mere point of demeaning it. It was to show women that there was a world of opportunity out in the world they were being denied. That is no longer the case, young girls aspire to be doctors and physicists and even president. They know longer ignore those jobs as reserved for men. That is the reason for the downplaying of traditional roles. And as I said, you are using old rhetoric that is no longer the case in any event.

 

[SpiritMeadow]

How do you know this? Have you had a private revelation or something?

Do you? I didnt say that I knew anything. I said I IMAGINED, and that I presumed he MAY. Those are words of conjecture not statements of fact. Your dislike of me has colored your ability to read the text as given. Further I said, I COULD conclude that he MIGHT …If you think that God wants us to worry about his gender than show me the scripture, and I’ll start worrying about it. I think there are seriously more important issues to contend with. Jesus seemed to address others did he not?

 

[SpiritMeadow]

It’s true that he doesn’t need it, but why do we have to go to Mass, obey the moral precepts, etc., if God doesn’t want our obedience?

What good is this whole “Catholic thing” if it’s just a game we’re playing, and not something that provides us with eternal life?

We go to mass because IMO, the trinity reflects the imporance of Community, and Mass is a community of believers who come together to support each other in faith. We obey moral precepts because we all agree that they are the subject of a loving God.

Your queries have little to do with my statement. If I obey and worship what harm am I doing to you or God that I do so freely and willingly without believing that it is demanded of me by God. this has nothing to do as far as I can see with the usefulness of church per se. The “Catholic thing” doesn not provide us with eternal life, unless you are prepared to say that all protestants are condemned.

 

[SpiritMeadow]

The Magisterium of the Church is the determiner of the status of particular scriptures, and for some crazy reason she has maintained the words of the Savior.

Go figure

I have no idea what this has to do with what I said. We are not fundamentalist in our reading of the bible. That is what some protestants do and it has been highly frowned upon by no less than Benedict himself.

 

[jennifer67]

Glad I revived this thread after all. Seems I am not alone in my views.

 

[SpiritMeadow]

To someone with faith, even a historian with faith, the resurrection of Christ is certainly “historic.”
The modern, secular, concepts of empiricism and falsifiability ought to be subordinated to the virtue of faith, imo.

As for giving you advice, I shouldn’t have. I got carried away.

But I don’t understand your point of view. Not necessarily your points, but the whole purpose of it. If the Church isn’t timeless and objective in regards to truth, what good is it?

If we can change the words of the Savior, was he God? If a dogma that is temporal life feminism, which won’t be present in recognizable form in 200 years, can contradict and conquer the immutable faith, what good is the faith?

Was St. Paul wrong, was St. Augustine wrong, was St. Padre Pio wrong? Is our truth not their truth? If it isn’t, why be Catholic?

I
2 years ago, I was an ultra-liberal atheist. Though I’m a man I paid lip service to feminism. What I can’t grasp, however, is how it can be reconciled, at least in its contemporary form, with the Bible and with the living Magisterium of the Church.

One of the greatest benefits of Christ walking the Earth is that we have an image and experience of God in a concrete form. He isn’t this abstract principle that we can twist and reevaluate every couple of decades. He came in concrete form, because he is a real, concrete entity, and we experience him in concrete form in the Eucharist. As such, his timeless moral law, things like his human gender, etc. are as real and pervasive today as yesterday, imo. If it isn’t, let’s dismantle the Catholic Church and found another institution, because it clearly doesn’t possess the truth.

God is not “ungendered” in the sense that feminists use that phrase today. God has no gender, it’s true, but God is beyond gender. He can’t be confined to gender. He is still, however, “Pater Noster,” and as such cannot be described, in my opinion, in any feminine way, because he specifically instructed us, in the sacred languages of his preaching and the New Testament, to use specifically male language

Ungendered in this instance doesn’t mean that he is as female as he is male, or vice-versa. Due to the finite nature of our minds, however, and the natural and supernatural realities of gender, we have no recourse but to conceptualize and describe God in masculine terms.

What this comes down to is simply that you don’t want me to be right and so you parse. Historical is a defineable word. Faith is a defineable word. You cannot conflate the two because you believe. It’s not logical. The resurrection is a supernatural event, not subject to proof, therefore not historical fact. It is faith.

I didn’t change the words of Jesus, but they have been changed. We have at best copies of copies of copies. The earliest transcripts of any of the NT is no more than 200 CE. We believe that and hope that most are nearly the same, but when you have upwards of 5000 independent transcriptions and they are not all the same, you can assume that it is likely that the words are not exact. The words were written down decades later in any case, and whose memory is that exact? The three synoptic gospels attest to the fact the the same story is told from different prospectives and the words used by Jesus are not exactly the same. So there is no exact words of Jesus available to us. Had someone had a tape recorder that might have been different.

Feminism does not contradict the bible. Many new Catholics especially those who were protestants often over use Paul instead of Jesus. Paul’s work is often misunderstood and the context is everything in paul. Paul was not writing a book of the bible, he was writing letters to address very specific problems in local communities. We must be very careful in assessing what he adds to Jesus’ statements.

As I said, I see little conflict. Other than people’s general misunderstanding of Paul and how his texts must be viewed.

Feminists do not as a rule call God anything. This is not a feminist issue but a simple issue of what the Church itself asserts. God is ungendered. Jesus called God Father as the WAY he related to God. The bible is full of maternal references to God. There is no prohibition to referring to God as either or both. God is spriit and without gender, though he has attributes of both male and female as the bible most seriously alludes to.

Jesus did not instruct us that that was the only means to speak to and of God. He gave us a wonderful way of relating, God as father, meaning God loving us as a father would. He could just as easily have said as a mother would as many of the prophets did. Father had more meaning in his society, women were lesser beings. What is always missed however, is that Jesus always treated women much differently than did the other men of his time.

 

[SoCalRC]

What I am saying, is that if Jesus wanted to take on the tenets of what we call “feminism,” he could have. If he wanted us to refer to God as mother, he could have, instead of giving us his own mother to refer to as our mother.

Can you give an example? All the examples that I gave have Jesus challenging traditional gender roles of his time.

If he didn’t want the man to be the head of the household, well, he could have stated otherwise. Did he lie to us when he said this? If he wanted women’s ordination, he could have ordained women. If he wanted divorce, he could have stated otherwise. There were plenty of cultures around the world that didn’t hold to our concepts of gender. He could have come through them. He didn’t. He came through a patriarchal Jewish culture, and he set up a patriarchal Church.

Again, you seem to be blurring everything together. We know that Jesus had both male and female followers whom he ‘sent forth’ as part of his earthly ministry. We see this mimiced in the early Christian sects. In fact, it was the much greater acceptance of female particpation that both helped fuel the exansion of Pauline Christianity, and quite likely led to some of the excesses we see discussed in Cor.

We know that women served as Deacons in the early Church, something the Mother Church has concluded that we should not do, so one needs to be careful in connected their views directly to Christ. After all, the first generations of Christians were often converted by apostles who actually knew Him.

As for the second half of your post, well, the part about the Church becoming "adult,"and the Second Vatican Council part, catch me on the Traditional Catholicism section.

Which runs us full circle. If one rejects the Second Vatican Council, than one rejects the succession of the Vicar of Christ and the infallibility of the Magesterium. If one rejects a heirarchy created by God, then how can one thump one’s chest about a family heirarchy and its implications with respect to God?

In other words, isn’t the “Traditional Catholicism” label an oxymoron in this case? After all, traditional Catholicism would be, say, what we profess in the Nicene Creed. Once you have abandoned portions of that, isn’t it really just Protestantism with the audacity to try claiming the Catholic label from Rome?

 

[SoCalRC]

While certainly I believe you have a valid point, at the same time I think you are relying too much on the historical-critical method in your exegesis.

Notice that I mentioned the footnotes from the NAB - since it is approved by the American Catholic Church for individual study. Much as you blur sources together from scripture, you seem to be blurring what I believe and what the Church teaches.

In this case, the desire to establish some sort of heirarchal right causes one to actually miss Paul’s lesson altogether. Think about it, Paul’s audience was already masogonistic to a point that is difficult for modern audiences to understand (much like it is hard for us to understand that “Pharisee” sounded like “Ultra Devout Catholic and War Hero” to Jesus’ audience). In a male dominated society, why would Paul need to explain male dominence?

So we have to look at the themes he was stressing. Paul was in a position of both defending his status as an apostle, despite never having met Christ in the flesh, and of teaching and establishing what that apostolic authority meant - remember, the Nicene Creed had yet to be written and the concepts of a Holy Catholic and Apostolic Chruch were just starting to be taught and understood.

Paul is certainly is speaking in a local context, to the particular Church in question, but I’m skeptical that his message is not also applicable to the Universal Church… seep into the Church…

However, I have to work to live up to my divinely mandated duty… I’ve never had anything but contempt for Sola Scriptura…

Pope Pius IX, in Casti Connubbi…

Actually, I’m not sure how to respond to this. You profess that the church is morally eroding (“seep”), which would defy it’s Holy and Apostolic Nature, and you insist not only in interpretting Paul for yourself, but prior Encyclicals as well. We are blessed with a living Magesterium, and the Church gives ongoing guidance. For example, then Cardinal Ratzinger wrote a document for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith on male and female issues in 2004. Similarly, Pope John Paul II wrote and spoke on the subject, so we do not need to go back to, say, 1930 and parse things for ourselves.

 

[SoCalRC]

As I said, I see little conflict. Other than people’s general misunderstanding of Paul and how his texts must be viewed.

Don’t missunderstand me, Paul is an incredibly important figure in Church history, and his writings are the lion’s share of the New Testament. But they are much harder to properly understand than the Gospels. Remember, the Gospels were written expressly for the purposes of Evangelization. Conveying and spreading the faith. So they are, by and large, theologically coherent. But even so, we are not literalists. For example, we believe that the Gospel of Luke and Acts were written by the same individual, but those two writings describe the same event quite differently.

Paul’s letters are often like listening in to one’s Pastor in the day to day management of a Parish. But what makes it even more difficult is that he is not talking to our fellow parish members, people from the same culture and community as ourselves, but to people who are extremely different from ourselves and whose lives where markedly different from our own.

Those who seek ordination as Priests or Deacons get significant education with regards to the proper context of Paul’s letters (some of which we doubt he, himself, penned BTW). But the average Catholic does not. We hear a lot of Paul, but while the first reading and Gospel reading are almost always connected, much of the liturgical year, a disconnected reading from Paul is inserted in between. Understandably, the homily will generally be an explanation of the prevailing themes in two of the readings, with no side trip into Paul’s meaning.

This is unfortunate, particularly in the Luke cycle. At first glance, St. Paul sometimes appears to be engaging in behavior that Christ directly warns us against. It is only on closer inspection and a proper explanation of historical context that the seeming contradiction is reconciled.

Peace

 

[SpiritMeadow]

Don’t missunderstand me, Paul is an incredibly important figure in Church history, and his writings are the lion’s share of the New Testament. But they are much harder to properly understand than the Gospels. Remember, the Gospels were written expressly for the purposes of Evangelization. Conveying and spreading the faith. So they are, by and large, theologically coherent. But even so, we are not literalists. For example, we believe that the Gospel of Luke and Acts were written by the same individual, but those two writings describe the same event quite differently.

Paul’s letters are often like listening in to one’s Pastor in the day to day management of a Parish. But what makes it even more difficult is that he is not talking to our fellow parish members, people from the same culture and community as ourselves, but to people who are extremely different from ourselves and whose lives where markedly different from our own.

Those who seek ordination as Priests or Deacons get significant education with regards to the proper context of Paul’s letters (some of which we doubt he, himself, penned BTW). But the average Catholic does not. We hear a lot of Paul, but while the first reading and Gospel reading are almost always connected, much of the liturgical year, a disconnected reading from Paul is inserted in between. Understandably, the homily will generally be an explanation of the prevailing themes in two of the readings, with no side trip into Paul’s meaning.

This is unfortunate, particularly in the Luke cycle. At first glance, St. Paul sometimes appears to be engaging in behavior that Christ directly warns us against. It is only on closer inspection and a proper explanation of historical context that the seeming contradiction is reconciled.

Peace

I agree with virtually everything you say. Such has been my learning about Paul. I take somewhat a different bent on a few things probably. I think that Paul in some of the passages considered most misogynistic was actually doing the ends justify the means thing. He, I believe, recognized that women being in strong positions of leadership was just too uncommon for the people who were in the greater population in which these small house churches existed. I think he deliberately asked women to tone down their behavior to protect his fledgling church. In that respect he gave in to the power of Rome.

As many exegetes attest to, the fact of his admonitions suggests that women were very much in the forefront and I agree, those Churches and their practices were much closer to what was considered correct given the short span of time from the resurrection to the time of these letters. I agree that there are a few Pauline letters that are highly suspect as having been written by him, rather they are probably the product of one of his disciples. This would be in line perhaps of the Gospels in some respects as well.

Mark is often considered to have been a disciple of Peter’s, but others think he was the John Mark who traveled a time with Paul. In any case, its wonderous fun and so enlightening to try to figure it all out, and thus arrive at the best interpretation of what happened.

I often wonder what Paul might have produced had he sat down to actually write a gospel instead of simply letters he could have had no expectation at all would someday be called canon. I suspect we might have heard things a good deal differently, but alas that in the end is simple speculation.

Your remarks as always are well researched and enlightening.

 

[jennifer67]

Hello,

I have been following the thread here and there and have found it interesting. I haven’t been exposed to some of the things you are discussing, so I won’t comment further…

The information shared about the writings of Paul has given me a different perspective.

I don’t want to go too far off topic, but just want to clear up a little thing that happened to me that’s puzzling.

I am new to this and I apparently unknowingly had “revived” a 2 year old thread on another forum, not knowing perhaps I was supposed to find a date on the last post and then not “revive.”? People made some serious sounding comments about that and mentioned a possible need for official action…anyway, got the idea I am somehow supposed to avoid “reviving” threads…and the threat of “official action.”

Must have gotten confused and made a passing remark about “reviving” this thread or mistakenly thought it was also an old thread. Sometimes one cannot see the whole prior thread or at least I had not been able to when I first posted…

Anyway, someone emailed me privately, saying they didn’t want to be “rude” but I frustrated them with the “reviving” remark and correcting me, letting me know this thread was new in July.

I tried to email back explaining my mistake but the person had either blocked me or does not accept emails.

Anyway, sorry if I mistakenly thought in passing I had “revived” this thread if referencing “reviving” has any significance at all to anyone…

I thought it quite strange anyone would become “frustrated” by such a trivial passing remark and enough so to email me about it???..but have not been in the anonymous posting business very long…

just commenting on this to clear up any confusion, but thinking surely noone else bothered to notice my mistaken “reviving” comment…

Sorry to diverge from the discussion. Peace.

Well, just had to get that