Gender Roles In The Bible

Overview

Gender roles are culture based roles applied to the two sexes, largely enforced by the Christian tradition and repeatedly implied in the Bible. An evident manifestation of the gender division is the exclusion of women from priesthood, that is from the leading roles in the Church. This tradition of male priests has been a part of the Christian church from its foundation and goes back to the apostles of Christ. However, after the branching of the Christian church, some of its forms have abandoned this tradition. Still, the Catholic church has been opposing female clergy to this day and it is still an occupation open for males only. Two passages in the Bible, as well as the twelve apostles of Christ tend to serve as a foundation of

(Americancatholic).

According to the Gospels, Jesus Christ is believed to have had a very different attitude toward women, relative to the general attitude at that time. It was revolutionary how he allowed women to keep him company and the way he cared for their dignity and worth. He is even believed to have provided religious instruction to women directly.

Traditionally, the Church taught that women were not able to reflect or reason as well as men, but this conception of women is no longer taught.

Women have played a great role in spreading Christianity and they have also had important roles in the Church, for example as nuns or abbesses.

To the question of whether women can be ordained to the priesthood or not, the Catholic Church has always answered “No.”. (Catholic Answers). This teaching is justified by the New Testament and the writings of the Church Fathers. The Church Fathers were influential Christian theologians and many of them were respected bishops (ordained, members of the

However, a definition of the divine command ethics, states that “actions are considered right or wrong because they accord or conflict with the will of God”. The reasoning behind Wojciech Giertych’s statements are rather based on his own interpretations of the Bible and not any definite maxims or commands presented in it.

The two passages that mention the role of a woman in church (see Fig. 1&2), on the other hand, should, if anything, be considered as commands from God. From the point of view of the divine command ethics, these passages should be more convincing than the utterance of Wojciech Giertych.

Similarly to the followers of the divine command ethics, Kant strived to formulate a consistent set of ethical rules. However, Kant argued that ethical maxims should be derived from reason and not given by God. Believing that all humans were rational beings, Kant concluded that there is no need for depending on divine commands, as the universal moral rules that he believed existed could be derived through common sense. Kant called these maxims categorical imperatives and believed that they should fulfill the following requirements:

They should be determined by reason.

They should be based on good will.

They should never treat a human being as a means to an