If you want even more proof that the denizens of A Voice for Men live in Imaginary Backwards Land, let me draw your attention to a recent posting from FeMRA TyphonBlue and JohnTheOther. The post’s bland title, Men, and patriarchy in the church, belies the loopiness of this particular bit of theological argument, the aim of which is to prove that Christianity is and always has been about hating dudes.
Oh, sure, TB and JTO note, it might look like Christianity in its various forms has been a tad dude-centric. I mean, it’s based on the teachings of a dude. And there’s that whole “God the Father” thing. Oh, and Christian religious institutions have been almost always headed up by dudes. There has yet to be a Popette.
But apparently to assume that the people running something actually run that something is to indulge in what MRAs like to call “the frontman fallacy,” by which they mean that even though it looks like men run most things in the world it’s really the sneaky ladies who call the shots, somehow. TB/JTO, citing the aforementioned faux “fallacy,” ask:
Because Christianity has a male priesthood, is headed by a man and uses masculine language to refer to the God and humanity’s savior, does it necessarily follow that Christianity is male favoring?
Bravely, the two decide not to go with the correct answer here, which is of course “yes.” Instead, they say no. And why is this? Because Jesus didn’t go around boning the ladies.
Seriously. That’s their main argument:
[Christ] had no sexual life. This absence leaves no spiritual connection between the masculine body and the divine.
The Christ is sexless; presumptively masculine, but never actually engaging in any activity unique to his masculine body. …
The implicit stricture of making the female body the vessel of Holy Spirit while offering no corresponding connection between the divine and the male body creates a spiritual caste system with women on top and men on the bottom.
Also: Joseph didn’t bone Mary, at least not before she gave birth to Jesus.
The birth of Christ is without sin because, quite simply, it did not involve a penis. The entire mythology around the birth of Christ implicitly indicts male sexuality as the vector of original sin from generation to generation.
Uh, I sort of thought that the notion of Original Sin had something or other to do with Eve and an apple in the Garden of Eden. But apparently not:
Forget Eve. Forget the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and the Serpent. If all human women, tomorrow, conceived and gestated and gave birth without ever coming into contact with a penis, our race would be purged of original sin.
Pretty impressive theological revisionism from a couple of blabby video bloggers who apparently don’t know how to spell “canon.” (ProTip: “Cannon” refers to one of those tubey metal things you shoot “cannonballs” from.)
The two conclude:
Our culture’s war against masculine identity, male sexuality and fatherhood is an old one. That war arguably began as we adopted a faith which marginalizes the role of men in procreation, idolizing a story that removes them completely from the process. The exemplar of male virtue in this theology is a man who had no natural sexual expression, although his character is designated as male. And his primary purpose was to be flogged, literally tortured for the “crimes” of others, and then bound and nailed through his limbs, still alive to an erected cruciform scaffold, to die from shock and exposure on a hilltop. And we somehow manage to claim that this religion elevates men over women?
Well, yeah.
Rather than supremacy, Christianity provides to men the role of asexual stewards of women’s benefit, and sacrificial penitent, preaching the gospel of a female-deifying, male-demonizing faith. It is true that women have not historically been allowed to front this farce, but mostly because that would make the message too obvious.
What?
While some kinds of Christianity get rather worked up about the evils of premarital sex and/or birth control, I’m pretty sure married and/or procreative sex is a-ok with all Christians this side of the mother in the movie Carrie. Even — well, especially — if it involves dudes. (I’m pretty sure the church fathers were never big proponents of lesbianism.)
And if women really run the show, despite men “fronting” the church, could you perhaps spell out just who these all-powerful women are? Like, some names perhaps? Who’s the lady puppeteer behind the pope?
They of course don’t offer any real-world evidence for this secret supposed matriarchy. Instead, they ramp up for a sarcastic ending:
But we continue to ignore all of this, and we entertain the farce that our religious institutions constitute a male-elevating, female oppressing patriarchy.
Yeah, tell us another one.
No point in telling you guys anything any more. Clearly you can twist any and all facts about the world to fit your increasingly weird and baroque fictions about men always being the most oppressed, past, present and future.
A Voice for Men is slowly but surely disappearing up its own ass.
The MRA’s should also love the story of Samson and Delilah. She was an evil temptress that betrayed him for money. She cut his hair and made him lose his strength. Samson’s mistake was ever trusting her in the first place. It has MRA written all over it.
How about Jael? She lured a guy into his tent and, when he fell asleep, HAMMERED A FRIGGIN’ TENT PEG THROUGH HIS HEAD.
Obviously because Mosaic law wouldn’t allow her to falsely accuse him of rape.
I dunno, though – she’s married to a wealthy, successful man, but wants to have sex with a slave instead because he’s hot. It works for the “women all want to fuck Brad Pitt” sort of MRA, but not so much for the “women have no sexual desire and only go for rich alpha males” sort of MRA.
Also, Joseph refuses to have sex with her, which probably makes him a mangina or something, since we all know a Real Man (TM) cannot possibly be expected to have any control over what he does with his penis.
Also, cage match! John vs. John!
What the fuck? Are these people aware of how girls and women are expected to remain silent, not teach or hold authority over others, obey their husbands, etc.? Did they ignore those parts while twisting around the parts they cherry-picked?
The sooner these guys create MRA island and leave the rest of us the hell alone, the better.
Except, yanno, that whole thing about God sending his son to earth IN A MALE BODY.
*sigh*
Note all the women, and references to females, in this typical (high Anglican?) church service: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBqe5xvYnNc
This is far beyond stupid. And accelerating rapidly.
They are obviously on cocaine.
AVFM has always been my favourite MRA borough. I find them so innocent compared to MGHOWs and the like; it’s oddly touching. They have never really gotten over their initial fascination upon discovering that there were Women in the world prepared to talk shit about Men for social coverage.
This is ridiculous. In reality, Christianity was created by and for parakeets. You never see parakeets in positions of church power? That’s just proof of how deep the conspiracy runs. THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE.
@Shaenon: Bah! They told you it was from parakeets? The conspiracy is deeper than I thought! Truly it was cockatoos!
@lam
nah. you can always tell shit written by somebody on uppers because there’s a giddy disjointed rush to the train of logic. jto doesnt exhibit that so much as ramming things together that clearly dont belong.
Welp, if the only manly thing men can do with theiir bodies is fuck, I want them to quit using “we hunted the mammoth and built the whole world” because we’re men bullshit.
His point seems to be that it doesn’t count because Jesus never does anything “male” (i.e. have sex) with said body, whereas Mary definitely did something female (have a baby) with her body.
He almost has a ghost of a point about Christianity making ordinary men feel inadequately righteous if they have a sex life–forcing them into a sexless existence if they wish to be “holy men,” that sort of thing…but if so, he ignores that it does the very same thing to women! Mary didn’t get to have sex either, and likewise nuns must be as chaste as priests. Only I would argue that women have it worse in that regard (and much, much worse in many, many other regards), because their ultimate role model did what is literally impossible for them. Men can, if sufficiently motivated, live without having sex and become Christlike in that sense, but women cannot live without having sex and have a baby–Maryhood is beyond their reach.
They may have to be chaste to be holy, but even then, they still get to do what women can’t: lead a congregation and receive the Sacrament of the Holy Orders, which doesn’t apply to nuns.
It’s hard to pick a favorite part of this little screed, but I think
“The Christ is sexless; presumptively masculine, but never actually engaging in any activity unique to his masculine body.”
it’s going to have to be the implication that asexual and chaste men aren’t real men. Because, obviously, “sexless” equals “nongendered”. Good times.
I saw this yesterday, a hey girl fundamentalist Christian pick up line tumblr….
http://heychristiangirl.tumblr.com/
This. Even if the bible was misandrist as fuck, the church certainly hasn’t been.
starterlife: OMG, my life was exactly like that in high school and college.
Srsly?
Being the “Son of God” and walking on water is just not macho enough for these hyper masculine boneheads?
I used to love Typhonblue years ago when I last heard of her. She goes places other MRAs won’t, because most MRAs aren’t yaoi fangirls. She’s been picking on St. Augustine for years for his homophobic/man-bashing belief that penises are yucky. Maybe the post in question was so boring because of her co-writer. I wish she were really let loose and fantasized about a cock-worshiping homoerotic pagan alternate history without Christianity.
On a sidenote: The Bible mentions four brothers of Jesus by name and “sisters” in plural without naming them or saying exactly how many they were. That sort of implies that Mary and Joseph had a bunch of children after Jesus. Unless you want to do some really tortured interpretation of that passage in order to save the idea that Mary was a virgin forever.
I don’t remember WHERE in the new testament, since it was a long time now since I read it, but I remember the context: Jesus is coming back to his hometown to preach, and somebody goes “How could he be a prophet? We know him, he’s just an ordinary guy. We know his brothers so-and-so and we know his sisters, he’s just an ordinary guy.” Or something like that.
It’s been pretty common throughout the history of the church to say and write stuff like “we were all condemned through Adam but saved through Christ”. So… that’s blaming a man for sin, but it’s also crediting a man for saving us. I could see the misandry point if it had been “condemned through Adam and saved through Mary” but that’s not the way it’s usually phrased.
And how could Jesus not have been a real man? He was a man going his own way!
The Abrahamic faiths have always been tools to keep power from women, so to say that Christianity oppresses men and favors women is just plain stupid.