Catholic school defends cross-dressing kids

I agree, it is not an abomination for kids to play at cross-dressing. But when they do so, the responsible Christian adults should respond by gently teaching them that cross-dressing is inappropriate. The behavior should be discouraged with the goal of teaching the children God's express will concerning differences in proper dress for males and females. The situation is similar to children taking items that do not belong to them, children looking up a woman's skirts, or children doing any other inappropriate thing. We teach the kids to not do those things.

We don't write books that teach kids it's normal to steal or normal to peer up skirts, and we shouldn't write books teaching kids it's normal to cross-dress.

 

True, but it is not an egalitarian message.

The man should love his wife. The wife should respect her husband. Why "respect" and not "love" for the wife? Because the male is the head of the earthly and spiritual household, and "respect" draws a line in the respective roles of husband and wife. Of course a good wife should love her husband, but respect comes first.

In Gen. 3:16 God curses the disobedient Eve and tells her, "Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you". This obviously rankles our modern egalitarian instincts, but it's instructive to find out what God is really doing here. He is cursing both Adam and Eve for disobedience to his commands, but their disobedience was not as simple as disregarding God's command not to eat the fruit of the forbidden tree. Eve was beguiled by the serpent on the promise that she could be as God is (Gen. 3:5); that she could in a sense overturn God's headship over her. Eve's sin was usurpation of authority as well as disobedience. Adam's sin was in his submission to Eve, rather than asserting himself and chastising Eve for her error. Adam's sin was rejecting his own authority through deference to his wife.

The husband protects, guides, defends, and provisions his family. The woman acts as helpmeet, comforter, supporter, and mother of her husband's children. Both are equal in their relationship with God, but not equal to each other in terms of the roles they play in the family. This is the essence of the complementarian design God has for the mortal family. Father, Mother, Children. It models in some respects the Holy Trinity. God loves all the same and all have the same promise of redemption if they follow God's commands; but not all have the same role to play.

In heaven these roles disappear because we are perfected in ourselves. Neither men nor women marry or are given in marriage because in heaven we are fully completed, sinless, and will not ever die. There is no further need for procreation, and "family" is perfected in that all are one with Christ.

 

I'm pretty sure that's not what it says...

It seems highly unlikely that God would've punished Adam if the serpent had tempted Adam instead, and had Eve convinced him not to eat the fruit. Some of you guys really need to get out of the nineteenth century with all this "submission" nonsense. It's literally warping the way you're interpreting the very Scripture you claim to revere. And it's frankly embarrassing that it's being said in the name of Anglicanism. I can only imagine what impression an interested passerby on the site might form of Anglicanism from reading some of these comments.

 

One additional note about the word "desire" in Gen. 3:16. This Hebrew word (teshukah) does not denote sexual desire in this case, but a willful urge that goes against that of her husband. "Your desire goes against your husband" is one way to translate it.

Note: The NET bible (the best translator's bible ever) renders this passage as "You will want to control your husband, but he will dominate you." Read translator's note 49 for why the verse is rendered this way -- textually, it certainly seems like a sound translation to me.

 

Newer ain't always better, Invictus. The state of the modern church should make his pretty obvious.

 

Please consider the implication of what you've written. You urge us to "get out of the 19th Century." But you might as well have urged us to get out of the first 19 centuries; the beliefs we hold regarding submission and authority in husband-wife relationships have been the view of the church for all of those years. So you're essentially urging us to disregard a belief held by Christians ever since (and including) the time of Jesus' earthly ministry.

Someone posted a while back, 'if it's new, it isn't true.' That statement certainly applies to this instance. Society has changed radically in the past hundred years: sexual promiscuity, gay marriage, women's lib, legalized abortion on demand, and more.... all of which coincide with a growing coldness toward God within the church as well as a sharp uptick in agnosticism & atheism. It's become socially acceptable to redefine and reinterpret what the Bible says, as well as to minimize or reject the authoritativeness of the Bible, in accordance with what society wishes to believe; this is what has enabled the above social changes to take place. Modern society believes that modern man is so enlightened, man no longer has any need for faith in God (religion is viewed as nothing more than an emotional crutch that mankind has outgrown).

The position that we should "get out of the 19th Century" is spiritually unhealthy. And it's embarrassing to real Christianity, the holy faith of our fathers. We actually would be better off if we returned to the Bible-based social mores of our predecessors.

 

Liberals believe in the 'higher and wiser' school of thought -- the idea that somehow the modern individualist, egalitarian ethos is the correct one (the progressive one, if I may say). This is the same Rousseauian vision of a perfectable humanity that has caused so much misery and confusion in the world. Human beings are not perfectable except by God through his Son, Jesus Christ. And even then we are only perfected on the Day of the Lord, when all creation is rolled up and made anew. This world is fallen and corrupted, and so are we. God lays out rules for us, the roles we are to play in life, not to perfect us but to bring us back into covenant with him through Christ our Lord.

Regarding modern teaching on gender roles, the family, homosexuality, and so forth, we need only go to Matt. 7:17-20. All of these "innovative" Christian teachings have borne fruit, to be sure...but is it good fruit? Has the church thrived under these modern ideas? Has God's Word advanced or retreated as the progressive vision has taken hold in the west? If we know the value of a teaching by the fruit it produces, what can we we say of the various liberal/progressive teachings over the decades? No honest person can survey the wreckage of the Christian church in the modern world and state that any of this is an improvement over the traditional faith of our fathers. As we have grown in scientific knowledge, so accordingly have we shrunk in morals and ethical capacity.

And bear in mind (I've said this many times) that these innovations did not come from worshipers in the pews! Nobody in the congregation was asking for this nonsense. It came from bishops and priests who were led astray in seminary; and seminaries were led astray along with the rest of the academic world by idolatry of the intellect and the carnal world. The Anglican motto is important here: "Scripture, Tradition, Reason". Scripture and Tradition must lie level with Reason.

 

Of course I have never suggested that equal means same. I love all my children, however that does not mean that they will all get the same thing for Christmas or Birthday.

I do have some difficulty in accepting your outline from the fall narrative. The stories, which I take it to have their origins in the prehistory of Israel which clearly provide a deep insight as to how things were understood. Typical of stories of origin from around the world they offer and explanation for the way things are, and in this case the understanding of marriage and the relationship between men and women as a key fundamental understanding of society and the order of things. We are however not automatically required to accept this as prescriptive, and may indeed understand this as descriptive.

The reaction of Christians to the changing dynamic of society as we move from a Patriarchal Structure to an Egalitarian Structure and ordering of things is implicitly variable. There are those who resist any change and see faith and the Church as the guardians of the eternal and unchangeable deposit. There are also those who see that change is in the dynamic of the faith, from God calling forth Let there be Light and John the baptiser calling us to Repent and be Baptised.

As a communion which places a significant understanding on the importance of the Incarnation, it is most likely that living out the faith in a changing world will be a changing experience. That does not for one moment mean that all change is good or desirable.

Ultimately I am inclined to think that the Ephesians passage is more helpful understood in an Egalitarian way, rather than as a Patriarchal Justification for male dominance, as it is so often used.

 

That seems like broken thinking to me. Ephesians 5-6 follows a clear theme, and bibles with section headings have always separated it as so:

• Introduction (Ephesians 5.1-2)
• Renounce Paganism (Ephesians 5.3-20)
• On Husbands and Wives (Ephesians 5.21-33)
• On Children and Parents (Ephesians 6.1-4)
• On Slaves and Masters (Ephesians 6.5-9)
• On All Christians (Ephesians 6.10-20)
• Conclusion (Ephesians 6.21-24)

To say that 5.21 is not talking on Christian Households, but rather to all Christians in all interactions with one another breaks that theme. Why would Paul have not put the verse before 6.10 instead, to keep the theme clear? It also has some weird implications. I'm not sure all Christians are called to submit themselves to each other. Parents cannot be considered to submit themselves to their children. Bishops to their priests.

Of course if Paul had given a little more context we could read into it that he doesn't mean a literal submission but rather a figurative submission, like Jesus bathing the feet of a disciple. Of course Jesus was never subject to his disciples in a literal sense, but he had the humility to sometimes behave as such. Paul doesn't give us that out, there is nothing in the context of Ephesians that would permit us to read the verse that way. It must be talking about a genuine submission to each other.

 

I’d say it depends on that passerby. If that passerby is someone looking to compartmentalize his religion, alongside his morning latte and his monthly yoga, to read fun books and ponder sometimes about Buddha, sometimes about Jesus, sometimes about Gandhi, then yeah, being excessive about Christianity makes as much sense as being too extreme about one’s yoga seminars. Ie. Just calm down, different strokes for different folks, do whatever makes you feel good.

But if that passerby is desperate to put his life on an eternal foundation, and get right with the Lord of the Universe, who will work out salvation with fear and trembling, maybe give up his latte if need be (I know!), if he doesn’t want to live in a fake plastic reality but is desperate to marry himself to the source and summit of life and live the utmost of what it means to be a human being in the world, then yeah he would appreciate people who believe what they say, and say what they believe.

 

I think you are using 'dominance' improperly. Headship, properly understood, is not a master/slave relationship. Paul calls himself a slave of Christ many times, and Christ certainly has dominion over him, but no one would call this relationship abusive at all. In fact, it is held up as the Christian ideal! The church is the bride of Christ, and men are called to model Christ, as their brides are to model the Church. Paul makes this explicit in the passage from Ephesians 5:22-24 that this is in no way an egalitarian message.

Men of course are not Christ and cannot model Christ perfectly; neither can women model the Church perfectly. But the Bible repeatedly, over and over, stresses the importance of hierarchy in human relationships as well as that of the Trinity. The hierarchy is not one of power, but of role. A husband cannot be a wife; a wife cannot be a husband. A man cannot be a woman; a woman cannot be a man. The husband is the head of the family as Christ is the head of the church. The man takes this role not as a privilege but as a responsibility that he is answerable to God for taking on. Likewise women take on the responsibility of being wife, mother, helpmeet. It's not a burden, but the role they are called by God to play. It doesn't make men better than women, or vice versa. It's only the modern poison of egalitarian individualism that even makes people think this way. It's a perverse idea that is destroying the whole notion of familial life in the west. (Just look at the rates of out-of-wedlock birth with absentee fathers in the US, UK, and Europe and tell me I'm wrong.)

Taking an egalitarian message from the Bible is eisegesis, not exegesis.

 

We differ in our understanding of this point.

 

Please consider the implications of what you’re saying. Polygamy, concubinage, slavery, capital punishment for juveniles…those were all part and parcel of ‘biblical morality’, which Judaism and Christianity wisely neutralized via a careful re-reading of the text. “If it’s new it ain’t true” is just a silly slogan. Tell that to Einstein, Bohr, Curie, Yeager, Watson, Crick, Pasteur, and all the other great minds who contributed to the progress of humanity. The Bible is not a manual for marriage and the family, meant to be followed blindly. It should be read and interpreted with discernment and common sense. If you want “biblical morality” I’m sure Iran or Saudi Arabia would be happy to show you how it’s done. No thanks.

 

Given what happened to the Israelites, I don't think you're making the point you think you're making. God is holy and abominates sin, and will punish sin (Rom. 2:2-5). Just because it may not happen on the timetable people want it to, don't be fooled -- God sees all sin, and pays the wages for it accordingly.

You also need to understand when the Bible talks about sinful behavior, it's not condoning this behavior -- quite the opposite! It's meant to show, in a narrative fashion, what happens when God's children stop obeying his commandments. It is true that God can sometimes use evil men to his own ends: Pharaoh in Exodus; the Canaanites, Philistines and Moabites in Judges; the Assyrians and Babylonians in the Divided Kingdoms era. But God takes his vengeance on those evildoers in their due course.

God does not do evil. God cannot do evil. What evil there is, men do to each other (or Satan does to them, either directly or indirectly). Don't blame God for polygamy, concubinage, slavery, or murder; lay the blame where it belongs: at the feet of fallen mankind. Man's evil takes place in opposition to God's commands, not in accordance with them.

By the way: pagan and secular societies right down to the present day have all those things you mentioned. Do you still consider it 'biblical morality' in those cases, or just 'cultural differences' that we must respect and not be judgmental about? Is the Christian ethos better or worse than that worldview? If better, why? After all, Jesus Christ was part of the Trinitarian Godhead in the Old Testament as well as the New; therefore by your interpretation he also approved of all those terrible things. Did Jesus simply decide upon his incarnation to change his mind? If so, what caused him to to change it?

 

One other point I want to make about his 'enlightened' world we live in.

Millions of unborn children are murdered worldwide every year, and it's cause for praise in many quarters. This is something so sick and deviant it puts moderns on a lower rung than the Israelites of old who sacrificed their children to Molech.

Pornography is a worldwide industry that generates about $50 billion USD a year (more likely twice that, and grows every year). The sexual enslavement of many women is commodified and the results sold for profit. And the culture just shrugs and demands more. In fact, many insist on calling this kind of enslavement "sex work" as if it were some sort of career choice.

Young people are destroying their bodies through gender-altering surgery, and all in the service of a mental illness (body dysmorphia) that is not only tolerated by actually advocated in the culture. These unfortunate creatures often die before their times, or take their own lives via suicide, when their self-mutilation does not satisfy the demon that drives them.

Homosexual "marriage", a logical impossibility, has been forced upon an unwilling populace by a Godless elite bent on destruction of all moral boundaries.

All of these horrors are the fruits of a "progressive", "enlightened" culture. It is an abattoir, a moral vacuum, a black hole that swallows every good thing. Yes, we have rockets and computers and all manner of diverting gadgets. Yet none of this stuff is worth the ocean of blood and sin that follows along with it.

 

Well said! Our society is in worse shape morally than during the great apostasy of Ancient Isreal. I pray the Lord will draw us swiftly from this period of degradation. I fear his retribution. Even those few among God's elect in Ancient Isreal still had to go through the Lord's judgment on their society.

 

I apologize for chain-posting, but stuff keeps coming into my head. I'll say this one last thing, and then leave the floor for the night.

Paul's letter to the Ephesians is mainly about unity in the Christian church. In fact, church unity comes up in most of Paul's letters in one way or another. He frequently asks his flock to love and be kind to each other, to carry each others burdens, to provide aid and comfort, encouragement and hope. In other words, he wants his churches to be families. This is why Paul uses the term adelphoi (brothers and sisters) when he refers to his flock in his letters.

But unity is not the same as equality, and Paul explains in Ephesians why he uses the metaphor of the body and head when referring to the Church's relationship to Christ. Ephesians 4:7-16 illustrates Paul's thinking -- each Christian should use their distinct gifts in service to Christ, but always in recognition that the body acts in obedience to the head. But the head and body are connected, intimately. The head "rules" the body with love, care, and devotion; commands are given in the spirit of mutual benefit. The body knows that its sustenance and health depend on the wisdom of the head; the body follows not in fear of punishment, but in faith and trust and love.

So when Paul says that women must submit to their husbands, he means submission as an act of love, faith, and trust; both husband and wife using their respective gifts in the role God set for them. If this faithful, loving, trusting relationship is violated by either party, the body is broken. Only through a re-establishment of God's design can the body be mended again.

 

Oh, that's great. Basing one's interpretation of the Bible on the headings inserted by some editor? Fabulous.

 

Conflating Judaic practices with Christian practices to win your point?

That's another conflation of God's enduring, unchanging moral principles with changing scientific understanding.

Now you're calling out Quranic 'morality' and labeling it "Biblical morality." Just because one can identify some similarities between the two does not give one license to imply that the two are the same; we know how brutal and repressive Muslim men can be toward their women, but the Bible counsels a loving, giving relationship in which the woman voluntarily lays her self-will at the feet of her husband in obedience to the word of God and in imitation of the church's voluntary submission to Christ our head. Just as God does not force anyone to submit to His Lordship, the Christian husband likewise does not force the wife. However, just as the Lord urges and gently leads us by the Holy Spirit to be in submission, so the husband counsels and gently leads his wife to fulfill the antitype.

 

In Genesis, we read that God laid different curses upon men than upon women.

Gen 3:16-19 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

Because of disobedience and the fall from grace, the wife is cursed with pain in childbearing. The husband is cursed with laboring to provide necessities for them both.

In the modern era, for the first time in history, wives have decided that their curse is not sufficient; they demand to shoulder the husbands' curse as well: to labor for necessities. And they are foolish enough to call this state, "women's liberation," and, "equality."

Plenty of single women 'want in' on this double curse, too! They want to get pregnant, have kids, and have a career... all at the same time. Wearing themselves to a frazzle in the process!