Thursday 19 May 2022

the Christian ethos of 'respect'

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

I suspect what most Christian men using the "I want respect from my wife" line are saying, intentionally or unintentionally, is that they want to be an authority - they want to be "Christ to their church": unassailable, unquestionable, godlike.

Perhaps rather tellingly, though, I don't see 'treat a man as an authority' as a particularly Christian ethos. I mean, every man since Adam - be he Christian or not - wants to be the authority to the women in his life, whether he was a king with a thousand concubines or an indentured slave who was permitted to couple with a fellow slave (for the purposes of 'breeding stock').

Treating a woman as a person? As Jesus did to the women around him, not only teaching them (Martha) but challenging them (the woman at the well), declaring their faith beyond that of any man they'd met (the Syro-Phoenician woman) and sending them out as his missionaries (to proclaim his resurrection to the men around them)?

That is a unique Christian ethos; distinct in the history of the world before Christ and only existing since due to the influence of Christ on our society - divinity who sent femininity out to proclaim the comity of his resurrection.

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