Modern, mainstream, official and mandatory ideas about sex and sexuality are so dishonest, inverted, and extreme in their evil - that it is very tempting to wish to re-assert, and seek to impose, traditional sexual relationships.
But this cannot happen, and indeed should not be attempted.
The results would be overwhelmingly negative, in terms of what God wants from us here-and-now.
Our modern souls (in the 'consciousness soul' phase) rebel against being crammed into simple-and-few categories that are never quite right - because being crammed-into a few fixed roles thwarts that seeking after divinely-loving co-creativity which is our destiny.
Therefore, traditional roles could now only be imposed (artificially, top-down) by a system of overwhelming coercion; which would have other and strongly-negative side effects.
Of course, the devil has (via his favourite instrument of socio-political totalitarian globalist leftism) taken this fact, and twisted it by the sexual revolution, into the opposed-to-Good evils of modern sex/uality we see all around us. That is true and terrible.
But the double-negative strategy of opposing the oppositional is not a path to Good.
Traditional attitudes and roles cannot now be re-imposed except coercively - and in ways that would be net-harmful.
Men and women can no longer operate in a positive creative way within the roles prescribed by traditional categories, nor by any modification of such categories.
There is no formula, checklist or blueprint for what men and women ought to do in their relationships. All beautiful, good and true relationships between men and women are each essentially unique.
(You may have noticed that among all the Good marriages that you know - and I mean marriages that you know genuinely and spiritually, and by personal experience over time, and have judged as good - each such marriage is essentially unique.)
In rejecting the utterly-fake, inverted and manipulated hedonic 'individualism' of the World Establishment manipulators - we should instead seek the genuine spiritual individualism of Romantic Christianity.
The categories of 'man' or 'woman' are, indeed, eternal metaphysical realities, and the original basis of divine creation.
But each real and valid actual relationship of a man and a woman is nonetheless between unique beings; and needs to be approached as such.
8 comments:
I completely agree with this. All human beings, both men and women, are now more individual and this means the past ways of relating are defunct. The fact that the new form of individuality has been perverted and funnelled into materialistic channels does not mean that in itself it is wrong. It is actually an evolutionary advance and will, when properly managed, lead to a much higher and more fulfilling understanding. I believe the new way will contain more of the old way than the current distortion of the two sex roles but it will be that on a more conscious and spiritual level.
@William - I'm glad you agree.
"I believe the new way will contain more of the old way than the current distortion of the two sex roles but it will be that on a more conscious and spiritual level."
I think that is very likely - but the essence of this is that we cannot know how and in what ways the new way resembles the old-traditional way; until *after* we have arrived at the new way - and are able to approach matters with the new kind of consciousness.
Making that development in ourselves should be our priority from here.
I think you make a hugely important point here, Dr. Charlton - and one I both heartily agree with and seriously appreciate!
As mother to an only child, a daughter, it frustrates me no end to read 'so-called' Christian men advocating for severely "traditional" roles in marriage.
Right from earliest childhood, my daughter (while definitely heterosexual) had no interest in playing 'mother', never wanted a baby doll - it was always animals she wanted to care for (she ended up with a degree in Zoo Keeping, though 'the Covid' has made that career difficult to break in to).
So, when I think of my daughter's future happiness, I know absolutely that she was not born with the sort of 'mindset' which is necessary to being fulfilled in a 'traditional' wife/mother role -
- and I definitely think that there are young men out in the world today (particularly among Christians) who have the kind of nurturing 'personality' needed to enjoy being a 'stay-at-home parent', and why should any of them be limited in marriage by some 'pre-subscribed' ubermensch masculinity role?
And furthermore, as a former childcare professional - working both within child development centers and for many years as live in Nanny - it has been my observation that as long as there is 'someone' in the role of 'loving, homemaker/at home childcarer' - the children do just as well as if it were only the mother who 'stayed at home'...
Oh dear, sorry for ranting, but thank you for that post Doctor, I'm grateful for the opportunity to let off that bit of steam, which has been building for some time!
Carol
Hello Carol, I enjoy reading other women in these blog circles and enjoy reading all of your posts. I was wondering what everyone's opinion is on people who don't fit into these traditional roles. Are these differences premortal in origin?
Hi MVT!
I'm glad to know that you've enjoyed reading my comments on the blogs we have in common - thank you!
That's a good question, and I'm sure Dr. Charlton would say "premortal in origin", which could well be....though, I am on the fence as to whether people have 'always existed' right along with God.
I think it's entirely possible that human souls/spirits were 'created' way back (tens of thousands of years ago) when homo-sapiens reached the evolutionary point of equivalency to modern humans, and that God has 'utilized' reincarnation as a means of 'evolving' our spirit/souls.
On the other hand, some people seem to be 'new/young' souls - when my daughter was born, she was able to lift her head up from her very first day and though her eyes couldn't quite focus (which is normal), she kept them open wide as she possibly could - trying to look around at everything....I always got the impression of a newly incarnated spirit, who was so excited to be 'here'!
MVT- if you ever want to 'talk' on other topics - most days I 'check by' the monthly discussion thread at the blog linked below:
https://newworldisland.org
A lot of "traditionalists" including myself are so influenced by modernity that we don't notice it. The notion of imposing a system of roles is quite modern. Pre modern societies were not planned. They developed and changed according to circumstance. The reason tradition tends to be enduring is it is the accumulation of wisdom through trial and error; not formed by a bureaucracy trying to plan a perfect society. For example, the English Constitution is unwritten. It has adapted though the unification of the Saxon kingdoms, the Norman Conquest, the Tudor period, union of the Crowns under the Stuarts, etc. Unlike the United States, England doesn't have an exact founding date formalized by a convention.
@CAE As a woman, I have mixed feelings about gender roles. I absolutely hate my job and would be quite happy to leave it if I am fortunate enough to marry. I understand that the rise of women in the paid workforce has a huge cost in terms of infants left in daycare and exhausted parents trying to split chores at the end of the day. However, the rapid change in the workforce resulting from the Industrial Revolution and managerial regulation centralized a lot of interesting work into bureaucracies. As a result, work and home became viewed as increasingly separate. Unfortunately, middle class housewifery became isolating and boring. Now feminism is absolutely evil. I'm not advocating for women to fulfill their desires by becoming middle managers (Blech). However, the right hasn't really acknowledged how the Industrial Revolution changed the nature of the work. Dorothy Sayers pointed this out in her essay "Are Women Human". Many female occupations such as milkmaids, wet nurses, cheesemaking, brewery, clothmaking, midwifery, herbalism, etc. have been eliminated by technology or replaced by historically male occupations (doctor). Even politics used to be centered around the family (monarchy). The term court literally meant "household".
@MVT-Jesus acknowledged in Matt. 19 that some people were called to be eunuchs and couldn't marry. The Church historically provided monasteries and holy orders for such people. While I appreciate many aspects of the Reformation as a Protestant, I believe a lot of babies were thrown out w/ the bathwater by abolishing monasticism and other celibate orders.
Thank you for this, Bruce. I tend to socialize with fellow traditionally-minded wives and mothers. It’s common in these circles to rag on feminism and working mothers. But my past travels within Africa have given me pause and make me reluctant to add my voice to their protestations.
Now, by no means are African societies identical to Westerns ones pre-feminism. So this isn’t an apples to apples comparison. But given that we cannot travel back in time 1870 it must serve for these purposes.
My experience is that even traditionally minded women like myself bristle at how they are treated in more traditional societies. We can’t fully appreciate how thoroughly modern we are. And as a practical matter we can’t go back we can only move forward.
@Laura - I might summarize the situation, as I see it, as being that men and women are qualitatively different and complementary - but this difference is so fundamental as to me metaphysical; and the difference cannot adequately be captured at the surface level of personality, nor dealt with by the crude generalizations of mortal laws.
It is not every man or woman's destiny to marry (either in this world or the next) - some have other destinies (and these seem to include some of the greatest creative geniuses as well as those whose role is Heaven is in service to God directly, or to their other loved ones, rather than a spouse); but there is a sense in which men and women both need and benefit from each other, and that a man and a woman eternally committed are the completion of 'Man' (somewhat as Mormons envisage it; albeit this perfection cannot genuinely be attained, but only approximated, in this entropic world of corruption and death).
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