From the Creation to Pentecost
Sex & Gender, Masculinity & Femininity
Working Draft - 15 May 2016
PRAELUDIUM 1 - Original Unity
Genesis 1 & 2 ~ Adam and Eve are created in natural unity and complementarity, in the image of God.
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PRAELUDIUM 2 - Patriarchal Binary
Genesis 3 ~ The image of God is not uncreated, but is corrupted and becomes a binary of masculine domination and feminine subordination.
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PRAELUDIUM 3 - Before and After
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Before original sin, unity and complementarity are for interpersonal communion.
After original sin, the subjective dimension is degraded, men and women become sex objects in the patriarchal order of things, and unity and complementarity are for corporal unity/complementarity and interpersonal domination/subordination.
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ORIGINAL UNITY & ORIGINAL SIN
Genesis 3:15-16 ~ Redemption is promised, but there are consequences for all men and women, universally manifested as the patriarchal sex/gender binary, whereby the bipolar unity in diversity of personal subjects becomes a bipolar disunity of men and women reduced to sex objects.
The patriarchal gender theory of sex/gender binary is a corruption of natural unity in complementarity. Religious patriarchy is the most harmful manifestation of this cultural disorder, to the point of thinking of virtue as masculine ("vir") and making God exclusively masculine in the image of human males.
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FROM THE INCARNATION TO PENTECOST AND BEYOND
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The path from the incarnation to the ascension is one of restoration and renewal: restoration of the original (natural) unity and complementarity of man and woman, and renewal of the image of God in human nature and interpersonal relations, in ways that the people of Israel can absorb (cf. John 4:27, 16:12-13). After Pentecost, we are in the "already but not yet" of salvation history, the time of the Church, journeying from "born of a woman, born under the law," to "there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." (cf. Galatians 3:28, 4:4). The first two legs of the tripod are well under way. What about the third leg?
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NEW CREATION & NEW COVENANT
After the redemption of the body, a NEW CREATION and a NEW COVENANT. Baptized men and women are a new creation in Christ. The original unity of man and woman has been RESTORED and even more, RADICALLY UPGRADED in Christ. Likewise, the old covenant between Yahweh and Israel has been superseded by the new Christ-Church covenant whereby the Church is the body of Christ.
Rev. Griselda Delgado was elected Bishop of the Episcopal Church of Cuba in 2011, after 22 years leading the parish of Santa Maria Virgen. She is humanly consubstantial with Jesus Christ and members of her flock, and she is gifted with the signs of the priesthood and the episcopate. So, why not? After the redemption of the body, male and female, why should we be afraid of patriarchal taboos?
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COLLOQUIUM 1 - Original Unity Restored
What is not assumed is not redeemed. The original (natural) unity of man and woman has been fully restored by the redemption of humanity, body and soul, male and female.
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COLLOQUIUM 2 - Original Unity Renewed
Human nature, and the original communion of man and woman, was not only restored but radically renewed by the redemption. In Christ, we are a royal priesthood, a new creation, a nuptial communion of love and life.
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COLLOQUIUM 3 - Apostolic Consubstantiality
The apostolic consubstantiality of man and woman is negated by the patriarchal sex/gender binary but is NOT negated by the masculinity of Jesus and the 12 apostles. The Church is "one, holy, catholic, and apostolic," but NOT essentially patriarchal. Apostolic succession is NOT contingent on masculinity. As we enter the third millennium of the Christian era, the confluence of pastoral needs and signs of the times point to the ordination of women to the priesthood, for the greater glory of God and the greater good of souls. Start ordaining some nuns!
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