I just saw a CNN clip on "manosphere" - the groups of young man fighting against feminism viewpoints. The more moderate of these manosphere voices come from a more conservative Catholic reference - ie. claiming their interpretation of what the Bible says. While the more extremist manophere are strongly anti women but not biblically based (ie. its ok to sleep with many women, domination, control, etc.). The moderate manosphere points out this is just "feminism for men" - ie. just wrong on the Bible and too extremist.
So I'll ignore the extremist voices and hold this space for considering the more *normalized* traditionalist view of man-women relationships. While the traditionalist stand on the words Paul - that speak to the sub-role of women to men.
Further, the clip links this manosphere to the wider religious struggles within Catholics (as well as all Christian religions) - the conservative/traditional values versus the more progressive values of our society.
Traditionalist Catholic view point of women
Timothy J Gordon - the "traditionalist Catholic"
Today society is wired, aka "the Matrix", to teach that women can be independent of men - when the Bible teaches that
- women are dependent on men,
- women are defined in terms of their man,
- women are the man's help mate,
- women are happy when they do these things.
And are unhappy when are forced to be the main character acting like a man in the world. We need to restore masculinity and re-enforce a world view rooted in patriacrchy. Women are called to follow their man, under penalty of sin (8 places in the Bible). It is the path neccessary to show their love of God.
Giving men a voice
Mike Lewis - "the blog managing editor"
The blog where T. Gordon post was established to respond to American Catholic traditionalist attacking the Pope. The central point is that in communion together the Pope and Cardinals are responsible for the sole interpretation of scripture. Something, many of the Catholic manosphere reject especially in the face of Pope Francis who is said to be changing Catholic doctrine.
Complexity
I am sad. Not because of the views expressed. But here we have men speaking about how women should behave in a public forum.
While it is good too here that the Catholic leadership has moved to a "viewpoint that the church is the people of God on a journey" that opens up a diverse set of dialogues on various viewpoints.
What the manosphere is missing is the context of where the Catholics have moved away from. The negative elements of the past is most disturbing for the traditionalist and thus avoided in discussions. The traditionalist want to return to less dialogues, more infallibility of leaders as a means of giving power to older traditional views.
Here, change is the enemy that some can not stomach. Believing that changes in humanity, especially Catholic leaderships, means changes in God.
And this is what leads to the strongest dilemma facing humanity - with AI, quantum, dwindling global resources and population growth - our extremely complex interconnected world will have enough spaces for all views but leaving humanity incapable of a simpler model of the universe.
More and more words, with more and more viewpoints continuing to grow our consciousness. Here is the truth. Manosphere was, is and will be here. Feminism was, is and will be here. And traditionalist was, is and will be here. Progressive was, is and will be here. And through it all - God was, is and will be here.
Thank God for the Spirit at work.
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