The Christian Hierarchy Between Masculine and Feminine | Jonathan Pageau 

Definitely got more courage than the average minister to say what's actually taught in the bible on this!

It’s a system of “order” and structure of roles, not value. Ephesians 5:21 should sum up most of it. 1- It’s a submission to each other. 2- the husband is to protect her as he would his own flesh and love her in a sacrificial manner. The reason people get this wrong is they only see the guy barking orders and everyone else has to follow. That’s not biblical

I used to work as a consultant training employees for Procter & Gamble in the corporate culture. Their viewpoint was that every manager should have a desire to move up, and that every manager should make every effort to prepare his subordinate to take his place. In like manner, every subordinate should have a desire that his manager move up and should make every effort to make that happen, recognizing that that was their path for moving up.

I think what you are omitting here, Jonathan, is that the roles of leader and follower, and relative positions on the hierarchy, are always contextual, even between a husband and wife. A woman, for example, would be higher in the hierarchy in the arena of, say, infant care decisions, or to be very traditional, something like skill in weaving. Hierarchies do not exist in a vacuum.

In a secular hierarchy, everyone at all levels serve the aim of the man at the top. All work together to achieve the will of he who is the head. In Christian hierarchy, this is still true, but with one very important difference: the aim of the man at the top is to love his wife and those under himself in the hierarchy, to serve them and “to give himself up for her” as Paul wrote. So in submitting to her “head” she serves her own highest purpose too! Jesus put it this way, “any man who wishes to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all.” 💜

Jonathan, Could you do a video on the Parables in Matthew 25. The Parable of the Ten Virgins and the Parable of the Talents.

Anyone wanting more context on the necessity of hierarchy should take a look at Pageau's video on mass shootings.

Well done. You might consider looking up Fr. John Riccardo's talk on Marriage or Ephesians 5.

Interesting stuff. I live alone in the wilderness. I'm not in charge. However, when hunting, for example, I am moving into the land in a masculine way to take my prey. I am the predator. But I'm also an off-grid, dry-land farmer. And this year mother nature has taken a dominant role and said, no-no-no, this is how things shall be. Like battle: the best-laid plans go out the window the second the first shot is fired.

I have clips that I've edited and would love to suggest for you guys to use.

@Remington Sloan I suppose my contention is that there is a kind (/ kinds) of specifically feminine authority. E.g. authority over the hearth, of childrearing, of the matriarch over the younger women of the tribe, ect. It is not "masculine authority wielded by women because all authority is masculine" but something that men are specifically unequipped to provide, and instead they act as the earthly power under this authority by bringing resources, ect. You can have authority and power as a top-bottom structure of reality generally, and when the authority is right(eous) it should not be rebelled against, agreed. BUT, (also remember transjectivity and the exception), using masculine and feminine for this (MAYBE unless you acknowledge exceptions that are actually feminine authority and masculine power, not women with a masculine authority or men with feminine power, which is already ridiculous) is far more confused and harmful to understanding and discourse and generally incoherent so as not to be worth it. I think the patriarchal view of many agrarian cultures (in contrast to the more egalitarian societies of forager / hunter-gatherer peoples and simultaneous patriarchy and matriarchy) perhaps partly was assisted by the participatory and perspectival knowledge of seeing the seed sewn into the soil and growing a crop and then exapting this idea to that of human procreation, and thus seeing the woman as merely a vessel with nutrients, with the man contributing 100% of the essence (his seed) to the offspring (something Pageau's brother explictly points out in his book while acknowledging science has discovered this is false), which is obviously ridiculous even if the former example of the seed in agriculture actually does work more this way. Now that we've moved away from agrarian and even industrial lifestyles such metaphors and patriarchal understandings are no longer so intuitive. It may well have been intuitive and pragmatic for women to be viewed and treated as inferior to men in agrarian cultures, but neither before nor after. Cosmologies based on this way of life are now partly defunct. Traditionalists want to keep them because the coherence of their religious tradition depends and is built alround it to a degree, but here I think separating past functionality and nostalgia from eternal truths plus current viability and accurate contextual mapping, is key. I think (certainly one of) the fundamental mistakes of Jonathan's symbolic mapping is equating on a 1:1 basis Authority with the Masculine and Power with the Feminine. It leads him to justify such ridiculous scenarios as the following. A woman feeling bothered by a drunk flirt requests her boyfriend or brother to rough him up a bit. He does so, beating the guy up. Under Jonathan's symbolic lens, the woman in this scenario is masculine, and the protecting man is feminine. It's so stupid to the point that if he still claims a 1:1 mapping in such a case I'd have to redefine what the heck we each mean by masculine and feminine and his use of the terms would just get re-labeled as new words in my (I think much more anthropologically accurate) definitional schema. I'm drawing much of this from his brother's book. I think the patriarchal culture of many agrarian cultures perhaps partly was assisted by the participatory and perspectival knowledge of seeing the seed sewn into the soil and growing a crop and then exapting this idea to that of human procreation, and thus seeing the woman as merely a vessel with nutrients, with the man contributing 100% of the essence (his seed) to the offspring, which is obviously ridiculous even if the former example of the seed in agriculture actually does work more this way. Now that we've moved away from agrarian lifestyles such metaphors and payriarchal understanding are no longer so intuitive. Context is crucial, something I think Jonathan downplays. It may well have been intuitive and pragmatic for women to be viewed and treated as inferior to men in agrarian cultures, but neither before nor after. Cosmologies based on this way of life are now partly defunct. Also, women had much more authority in the early Church during the time of Acts for example, and the oft-cited injunctions against women speaking or exposing their headsnin Church were later additions by author's claiming Paul's authorship that weren't actually written by him. Hierarchy is contextual; as the Church grew it streamlined things.

Why is the masculine above the feminine though? That doesn't make sense to me.

Male design lends itself to self sacrifice. You only serve love. Love is sacrifice path to resurrection. Find a man that serves.

I guess the down side to the Christian hierarchy is that the wife can take an opportunity to take the power from above herself and decide not to submit becuz the husband is giving himself to the family nod her interest. I’ve seen women manipulate this system and I think it’s part of the reason roles have been reversed. I think men have to be careful that when they give themselves for the family it must be by gods plan no layout and not his wife acting as god using the man as a figurehead leader

Incredible content. So politically incorrect but I think its true. Somebody has to be at the top of the heirarchy.

Hi, I'm so trying to understand what God's opinion is on male and female roles in the church and family. I'm wrestling with it but still so unsure. My local Church of England church will be getting their first female vicar soon. How should I think/feel about this? If we all play masculine/feminine roles at times, then can she just be a woman taking on a masculine role as head of the church family and the church that is made up of men and women will take the feminine role? Is this what Jonathan means regarding the queen having a masculine role etc? It seems obvious that in the early church, women hosted, led and taught in house churches but the established church made it more male centred. I feel as though I'll never come to a decision on this stuff. 😫

In this so called "top-down" society, I as man's "helper" am right there BESIDE him on top. As God's children we are all brothers and sisters and therefore on the same level - PERIOD. No submissions!

Hello Jonathan. I always enjoy listening to your work. However, the example you gave of male leadership in the home was of a husband giving himself to his wife and children. In what sense do I as an Orthodox christian wife and mother not also give myself to husband and children? ie that's Imitation of Christ page one! Of course both husband and wife and children struggle with issues of being taken for granted etc so we are talking about an ideal here aren't we? That s fine, but needs pointing out I think. Our children are all grown up now as it goes, but I see the Pauline treatment of the Pagan Household Codes as far more radical than that really, just like Jesus as saying to his disciples that the one who serves is the 'head 'in government in Mark. There are spheres in a marriage over many years where one or other needs to serve etc eg Illness, one of us studying, breastfeeding, doing a boring job to earn money for a season ...just loads of examples where in reality this pattern doesn't fit. And as soon as you ask a believer in hierarchy in marriage to give an example, one isnt really forthcoming apart from vague appeals to nature. I love how you draw your listeners into observing some of the natural patterns that impress themselves into our consciousness of God but in all honesty I think you are pressing this one too far. At the same time, forgive me if this seems like weaponising bible verses :) but the woman in Songs goes looking for her man too. I don't really think that the sexual dance theme works here either and I have been married now for 38 years! Show me a man who doesn't love a wife who initiates that part of the marriage and I will concede defeat. :)