I believe the man’s role in most religions as a “priest” has much
to do with tradition and traditional roles for men and women. As
I studied Hinduism as part of my journey of faith I could see parallels
to our own traditions and customs. In Hinduism, women are respected
as the means of giving the first birth while men are respected as
the means of giving the second birth or rebirth. Each man and woman
has a specific role in life. Men cannot give physical birth and
women cannot give spiritual rebirth. They must work together.
I think this same rational can be and has been applied to Christianity.
Women have the important role in physical birth, men have the important
role in spiritual rebirth through baptism specifically and the other
sacraments in general. Men and women must work together however
because spiritual rebirth cannot occur without physical birth. There
is an important role for both men and women in our historic cultures and traditions.
Many of today's "liberated" women want to do it all, to deny any
exclusive role of importance to men. Our modern culture must decide
if different roles should be held exclusively by men or by women.
In the case of physical birth, I doubt we will be able to change
this exclusive role for women any time soon. Men’s roles are less
biologically defined in our current age especially now in an era
of weapons of mass destruction that obsolete specialized characteristics
of personal physical strength, weapons that rely on intellectual
qualities that both men and women possess.
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