Saturday, July 05, 2008

our flawed human nature

I have received a few emails and read lots of comments so I will just write for a few minutes. I am protesting the placing of prior blame on the woman because she "rebels against authority."

If we look back at Gender and Grace, page 44, by Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen we read,
    In Gen. 3:16, the woman is being warned that she will experience an unreciprocated longing for intimacy with the man. … "[she] wants a mate and she gets a master, she wants a lover and she gets a lord, she wants a husband and she gets a hierarch.”

That's a little more like it. I argue that men and women both, humanly and in their flawed way, long for intimacy and resist giving someone else the authority/permission/liberty or what-have- you to love them. Women and men both, abuse, abandon, and betray. We are a sorry lot.

For some of us our longing for intimacy will never be reciprocated. So we just need to do all the things that make us fully human. We need to be active, have friends, and belong to a community. We need to feel that we have those for whom we can make a difference. We need to understand the fullness of friendship, engagement with ideas, expression of self, and service for others. We need to have fun.

I am trying to confront the serious extremes of complementarianism. No, I do not think that complementarians as individuals are any worse or better than anyone else. Absolutely not. And I don't worry about who is who on this blog. Yes, if you write a book that caricatures women, I may very well critique it. But I know you won't do that. Thanks to eveyone who reads here my disorganized thoughts.

And if you are "soft comp" then I officially seek forgiveness for any implications that all comps are alike. Anyway, we are all alike, fallible.

I will get down to my email soon.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Always enjoy your thoughts, Sue, and am so grateful that you are a voice.

Suzanne McCarthy said...

Thanks Molly. Its great to know we are not alone. How are you?

Ruth said...

Sue,
"n Gen. 3:16, the woman is being warned that she will experience an unreciprocated longing for intimacy with the man. … "[she] wants a mate and she gets a master, she wants a lover and she gets a lord, she wants a husband and she gets a hierarch.”

I think this is true for many women. They long for their husband until they marry him. If he stops respecting her, she goes off him. Why do so many women have so little desire for sex once they marry?

It's personal for me too, although I don't talk about it much. I agree, I am also a source of trouble and strife, but I also know that the teaching of male "leadership" and one sided submission is devastating. It takes a man who is really humble not to lord it over wife, and it takes a wife that is close to God, with a healthy self-esteem not to look for a "little god" in her husband.

Thanks for writing about these issues. It helps, even just to gain some self esteem.

Ruth said...

Sue,
There are some easy to read, very interesting articles regarding church, authority, marriage, and divorce. I thought of you when I read the article titled "God hates divorce". Don Francisco, the author, did a study of the Hebrew word "Agunah", that has apparently been mistranslated in Malachi

www.rockymountainministries.org

Go to Religious Myth Busters, and it's in there, under "God hates divorce."