Gender and Teaching
I was thinking about how difficult it is to get men involved in matters of faith. It seems strange to me because there are so many men in the Christian blog world. I wonder why that is. It seems to me a big part of that is the disagreements. On blogs it is OK to disagree much more sharply that is acceptable in small group fellowships. Men seem to thrive on it. I know I get my juices flowing when I get into a debate with someone.
Proverbs 27:17 says: “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” It does not seem to apply to women the same way. They seem more inclined to find gentler ways to interact. It seems to effect not just the style of presentation but the substance as well. In my previous post I talked about how some churches seem to steer clear of the offensive doctrines. Those are the same churches that tend to wonder why men don’t show up at their events.
This seems to connect with why priests must be male. As Fr Loya writes:
Men “carry the seed.” They are called to “plant the seed.” Anyone with even a little gardening experience knows that planting a seed takes some energy and strength. It is primarily a lovingly intrusive (‘phallic’) action. During the Liturgy a seed has to be planted. This requires a certain strength, authority, a loving intrusiveness which is precisely the language of the male body. The male priest is not at Liturgy to make everyone feel close and comfortable. He is there to deliver a seed-the Word of God.
The male voice, the very language of the male body speaks the language of power and authority. The word of God is not some nice fairly tale. It is the salvific message that must be planted deep into the hearts and souls of the faithful and in the process the salvific message must cut through many layers of sin and false teachings that have been implanted in the hearts of the faithful all week long by the secular world. Through the exclusively priestly actions of blessing, proclaiming the Gospel, delivering the homily and distributing the Eucharist the priest must work hard to mystically “penetrate” his bride.
Just like in marriage the husband must love the wife and the wife must respect the husband(Eph 5:33). So when the church does not respect a priest who is strongly planting the seed of God’s word then you will find a shortage of priests. There are a bunch of things associated with an increase in vocations but they all really come down to a respect for the priest when he delivers the Word of God. Either a desire for orthodoxy from the bishop or from the laity or a desire for the sacraments in the form of Eucharistic adoration, reverent liturgies, frequent confessions, etc. When these things are present then young men will step forward to become priests. If what we really want is mediocre priests who give wimpy homilies and let the laity run the parish then you will find the seminaries empty out quite fast.
