When was the last time you experienced a gulf between men and women?
I recently experienced a vivid reminder.
I had just parked my car at Target and was walking toward the entrance when I came upon a Muslim woman with three kids in tow struggling to get a large box into the trunk of her car. She was having no luck as her children were crying and her burqa was, frankly, getting in the way. It was hard for me to detect how she could even see. I saw no male companion so I walked over and offered to help.
I no sooner got within six feet of her when she wheeled around with her hands raised, signaling to me to back off. I said I only wanted to help her get the box into the car. She shook her head back and forth and kept her arms stretched in front of her. I did a quick cultural study and got the message squarely. I was a male stranger and in no way was I to come in contact with her.
Fourteen hundred years of tradition suggested I had no role in assisting this woman.
For the rest of the day my mind danced around the strange religious/cultural influences that separate men from women.
“Men are from earth. Woman are from earth. Deal with it.” ~ George Carlin
I decided to look at my own Christian heritage first. I traveled back in history to when Christian thinking was being codified into doctrine, back to the time of Augustine.
- That’s where I found this quote, “Woman was merely man’s helpmate, a function which pertains to her alone. She is not the image of God but as far as man is concerned, he is by himself the image of God.”
- The same Augustine in whose order Martin Luther served had this to say about women, “The word and works of God are quite clear, that women were made either to be wives or prostitutes.”
- Then John Calvin, the other great lion of the Reformation, carried on the Augustinian view of women, “Thus the woman, who perversely exceeded her proper bounds, is forced back to her own position. She had, indeed previously been subject to her husband, but that was a liberal and gentle subjection; now, however, she is cast into servitude.”
I thought, WOW, this author of Christian doctrine set in motion a tragically flawed view of women, a view that was to have catastrophic implications for the male-female relationship for the next 15 centuries. It became crystal clear that the preeminent early Christian thinker, this father of Christian orthodoxy was, by his own admission, an unapologetic misogynist. Did my experience in that Target parking lot in 2015 perhaps have its origins in the the mind of Augustine in 450?
Just where did this man Augustine get his point of view? From the same place you and I get ours ~ from his own life experience.
You see, Augustine in his youth was a bit of a reprobate, a tomcat, a 5th century player, maybe even a sex addict.
We know a lot about Augustine’s early life because he wrote about it in what many consider the first autobiography, Confessions. For those familiar with the 12-step program, it reads a little like an unfinished 4th Step. As you read his story it becomes clear that he was more than a little tortured over his many dalliances.
Sex had become an obsession for Augustine.
“From a perverted act of will,” he wrote, “desire had grown, and when desire is given satisfaction, habit is forged; and when habit passes unresisted, a compulsive urge sets in.”
I’ve pulled a couple of quotes to give you a flavor of his thinking:
“my sin was this, that I looked for pleasure, beauty, and truth not in him but in myself and his other creatures, and the search led me instead to pain, confusion, and error.” (Bk. I, 20, p. 40–41)
“In my youth I wandered away, too far from your sustaining hand, and created of myself a barren waste.” (Bk. II, 10, p. 52)
As I read Augustine’s Confessions the thought came to me that he and I were a lot alike.
I could identify with many of his experiences. In fact there was not much difference to carousing in the 5th century than carousing in the 20th century. All tomcats look pretty much the same.
But there is a big difference between Augustine and many of us reformed reprobates.
- Augustine admitted his wrongdoings ~ sort of
- Augustine shared his own pain ~ but not the pain he inflicted on others
- Augustine listed his transgressions ~ but not his own role in them
He skipped the final step of a true moral inventory. When he listed his sexual transgressions he never assumed responsibility.
- Instead, he blamed women
- He defended his gender
- He deflected responsibility from himself
- He generalized his experience to ALL men
His conclusion was to project outward the source of his troubles – onto sex in general, and women in particular. In not pushing through his bedeviling issues on sexuality, Augustine initiated a profoundly disturbing view of women that would become codified in Canon Law and go on to influence 1,500 years of male-female relationships. He elevated celibacy over human sexual intimacy, codifying a celibate priesthood and religious orders for men and women in the Catholic church.
The tragedy of any incomplete journey is where it might lead.
So, may I simply suggest:
Had Augustine finished all his steps to recovering from his own addiction he would have likely left us a very different message on the role of women and human sexuality.
Had Augustine assumed responsibility for his own thoughts, words and deeds, what a difference that would have made to Western civilization.
Had Augustine fully completed his own confession, maybe he would have paved the way for other men to do the same.
Just a thought…
Pat
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