Currently in an argument with a friend concerning the Bible and its treatment of women. He claims that Christianity is demeaning to women and that the Bible treats women as second class citizens. I told him that it has never been a dogma, doctrine, or discipline of the Catholic Church that women have to obey men. He keeps on going back to the Bible to prove otherwise. How do I rebut this?
Well, you’re going to loose if you continue to phrase your response in the way you’ve done.
“Obey” is latin for “ob-adura”, to “listen”.
There is a difference between the common American understanding of that word, and the latin one. However, your friend is NOT going to believe you. Anyone who is determined as he is, already has an impediment to learning. It’s more emotional than logical.
In America, the first meaning of obey is in the military sense: to obey without question or be “shot”.
All your friend is going to do, is quote to you the passage from Paul in Ephesians 5:21, and show that a traditional Latin translation is “Obey”;
IF you were to simply say; “A woman does not have to marry or can divorce.” then his argument is already destroyed. All bible references to the order of men and women vanish. Neither Mosaic law nor the New testament place any ordering or “heirarchy” between men and women except in a marriage which they choose.
Your friend has no bible argument to counter it, for in every instance there is a counter example. Unmarried women owned their own land even in Moses’ time, etc.
The only marriage which is unavoidable in the the bible / Christianity, is the marriage of Jesus and his church. That marriage is non-sexual, and covenental. But, both men and women are equally Jesus’ “bride”. Therefore, that marriage requires that all of us obey Jesus the Christ. Would ANYONE, dare to say that the bride of Christ is greater than the groom, ever? In that sense, yes – women are always second to their husband. None of us has any authority over Jesus Christ, save the honoring of his own mother because of her wisdom. We dare not try to rule over Christ, Jesus. We might next to him, but “under” his authority. The body of Christ CAN not be divided, or he will cut off (divorce and PUNISH) the division. Mark 3:25. “if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand”
Re-read ephesians 5:21 in this light.
Now, read the popes encyclial from 1935. This is “traditional” Catholocism.
“He” is inclusive of women. It means both man and women in Latin/church/bible teaching.
This is going to show you how hard the discussion will be, if you continue to argue obedience.
I am so sorry that the encyclical sentences are long and complicated… smart people are Hard to understand.
w2.vatican.va/content/pius-xi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_19301231_casti-connubii.html
pgp. 6 “so that
if one has once contracted matrimony he is thereby subject to its divinely made laws and its essential properties.”
pgp 8 “In choosing a state of life there is no doubt but that it is in the power and discretion of each one to prefer one or the other: either to embrace the counsel of virginity given by Jesus Christ, or to bind himself in the bonds of matrimony.”
(eg: The virgin Mary, is at once married in law – but virgin. )
pgp 26. Domestic society being confirmed, therefore, by this bond of love, there should flourish in it that “order of love,” as St. Augustine calls it. This order includes both the
primacy of the husband with regard to the wife and children, the ready subjection of the wife and
her willing obedience, which the Apostle commends in these words: “Let women be subject to their husbands as to the Lord, because the husband is the head of the wife, and Christ is the head of the Church.”[29]
I married and did all that Jesus commanded me, and I am divorced. My house “fell”. My wife would not “listen” to me, nor to the church. You can not have two “masters” in a hierarchy. You must have a “union”. In a union, any division MUST ultimately give way of one to the other. There are various ways a married couple can work out their problems, it is not “totalitarian.” ; for if that were so, God would be master and not Father. We would all be Moslems.
Moslems are another reason your argument is going to be very difficult.
You are facing a series of subtle objections. They can
partially be overcome, but chances are your friend will simply forget the arguments. They are too “complicated.”
(How much of the encyclical that I quoted are YOU going to remember?)
There are several posters, here on CAF, that I have had various bible arguments with.
They begin to understand. They come to the conclusion that what I have said is wonderful. But, within two years … they have forgotten the details of what I said. They begin posting the same horrible mistakes all over again because they have nothing better.
Bless you, and I wish you the best in making peace with your friend.
May your division not end in tragedy.
) capabilities.
