in support of new feminism?

When I came to the conclusion three years ago that I was against birth control, most of my old-school church friends asked if I had converted to Catholicism. I found it comical that I was being lumped into a single group in support of my view, since evangelicals had only in the last fifty years found justification for their position. But I speak for my own heritage when I admit that evangelicals are anything but good historians.

However, I said it at the time, and I still find this to be true: my position against birth control is the beginning of a larger understanding God desired to present concerning His heart. I received the easiest parallel first; because I was already seeking the leading of the Holy Spirit, God spoke to me in allegorical terms about His design for fruitfulness and man's struggle for control. Understanding control on a spiritual level opened my heart towards the physical misdeed.

I knew God had disqualified me from beginning a relationship with 99% of the women in my life, if only on this one condition. Still, I couldn't shake it. I had to remind myself that a value held by a majority isn't necessarily right, just more commonly accepted -- not unlike the Gospel I preach. Likewise, I didn't need to be Catholic to believe that they were right about a position, anymore than I had to join the NAACP to recognize the bitter root of racism, or the ACLU to support separation of church and state. We are given our own minds to pursue truth and hold it with conviction; it does not require the adoption of a recognized society to form appropriate conclusions, particularly those concerning God.

This conviction transformed my understanding of what it meant to be pro-life. I began exploring other ways in which we had accepted corruption. A painful evaluation of male/female relationships ensued. This corruption has taken on a standard form: man justifies his claims and dismisses his responsibilities, woman grieves her position and rejects it, which sets in motion a continual back and forth for control of rights and the meeting of personal needs.

However, in the rejection of one another's selfishness, man and woman have never taken time to acknowledge what else they have rejected. Woman in the birth control age have every right to reject that they should be under-appreciated baby-making machines. By all means, reject this behavior in men! But to deny the innate beauty and design that makes woman uniquely feminine, is an affront to God and not man.

Similarly, many good men have felt the sting of rejection as a result of the gender game. This usually results in two more corruptions: receiving the approval of the "liberated" women by denying a responsibility to lead and protect (physically, emotionally, and spiritually), or forcefully laying claim on the "rights" of men through the same tactics that already drove the women away.

In relationships, the "liberated" women are drawn towards weak men that will not subject them to their will, and traditional women are drawn towards domineering men that under-appreciate (or worse, abuse) the partner that serves them selflessly. Over generations, the offspring of these relationships continue to overcompensate and snowball the corruption.

Over the past three years, God has laid all of this on my heart. However, there is one question I cannot seem to breach: what can we do about it?

I felt helpless. Even my own well-intended efforts have been thwarted by my insecurity and woman's prior experience. Were I less hypocritical, I would still only be one man.

Thankfully, God has shown me one more piece of the puzzle. I had spent so much energy focusing on the corruption that I had lost sight of what He desires to restore. Yes, identifying the lie is necessary for restoration, but is insufficient without acknowledgment of the truth. And here is the truth:

God has designed man and woman perfectly -- with His hands, in His image. The more I seek the eyes of God, the more I recognize the beauty of His design. The beauty of woman is not in a contemporary disguise; it cannot be fully known through external measures. Rather, the beauty is discovered in the qualities that make woman uniquely feminine. This femininity is vibrant, protective, willing, and pure. It's sensitivity and regard for life cannot be fabricated. And we are all worse off for the dismissal of this beauty.

I can admire and desire this, but what is my part as a man? How can I affirm this beauty within my own perfectly unique design? This a wikipedia summary on new feminism, based on the work of Katrina Zeno, a Catholic new feminist:

For New Femininsts, being a man means being a father. In order to become a physical father, a man must give away his semen, in order to create new life.

In Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, spiritual fatherhood means spiritual priesthood -- the offering of a man's body and blood for the sanctification of the world. It was because Jesus gave his body and blood away both as a sacrifice for his Church and as a gift to the Church in the form of the Eucharist that new spiritual life could be conceived. "A man is 'head' of his wife not to stroke his own ego, but in order to give up his body for her" and thus create new life. As keepers of the Eucharist, men are entrusted with the body and blood of Christ. All men, whether single or married, are entrusted with woman -- the body of the Church. "She is their Eucharist."

All spiritual fathers, according to New Feminists, also have a responsibility to protect the mutual self-giving of man and woman. This sense of protection of their wives and families is also built into a man's physical capacities -- in the greater physical strength of men, generally speaking, as well as their psychological need to feel competent and capable.

While I may differ on my theological understanding of the Eucharist, I fully support the interpretation of the "profound mystery" between Christ and His church, and man and his wife (Eph. 5:33). I humbly and joyfully accept this role, and pray that while single or married, I will thoughtfully care for and protect the women in which I have been entrusted.

Check out this wikipedia article for an elaborate easy-to-read summary on the movement, along with references for the academic work. I think this is really good stuff.