by John L. Odhner, Council of the Clergy 2022
Partial Truths
Most of you know the story of the blind men who went to “see” an elephant. Each of them touched a different part of the elephant and each came away with their own impression of what the elephant was like. Then they had an argument, and each thought that all the others were wrong, because their own experience of the elephant did not at all match the others’ descriptions of the elephant.
I have often heard this story used to illustrate how different religions see different parts of reality, yet all fit together as different members of one human form (Divine Providence 326.9). Yet it can also describe the different ways that people in the church see the Word.
As regards the Lord’s kingdom on earth, that is, His Church, because its matters of doctrine are drawn from the literal sense of the Word it is inevitably varying so far as these are concerned. That is to say, one group declares that this idea is the truth of faith because it is so stated in the Word, while another declares that that idea is the truth because that likewise is stated there, and so on. Consequently because its matters of doctrine are drawn from the literal sense of the Word the Lord’s Church differs from one group to the next, and not only from group to group but sometimes from individual to individual within a group. But dissent in matters of doctrine concerning faith does not mean that the Church cannot be one Church, provided all are of one mind in willing what is good and doing it.
Secrets of Heaven AC 3451.2
There can be a variety of opinions, each based on teachings of the Word, because “For the literal sense is such that in many places it seems to contradict itself” (Secrets of Heaven 3451.3). This passage gives an example: some people believe that faith makes a person loving, and others that love makes a person faithful. Either position can be supported by passages from the Word, and people from either position are in the Lord’s kingdom if they act with love for others. Even if their doctrines are false they have truth in their life and hearts. Another example: some people focus on the Lord’s teaching that we should do good without hoping for something in return. Others believe in doing good for the reward in heaven, because many passages promise such reward, but still when they do good they aren’t thinking of what they will get for it, and they give the credit to the Lord. These, too, have truth in their life if not their doctrine. “So it is with every other example that could be taken” (ibid.).
I sometimes think of the Teachings as being like a jigsaw puzzle. I find a few pieces that have the same color and am able to match them up to form a face or a flower, a small section of the puzzle that makes sense and has some meaning. Meanwhile someone else is working on another part of the puzzle and manages to put together a fence or a doorway. The fact that we each see something different in what we understand so far does not mean that the other is wrong. And there may be many more pieces that do not fit than do fit what I’ve pieced together so far. I have been piecing together a few ideas about gender for the last half century or so, and I want to share some of those ideas with you, yet I recognize that these ideas are a very, very small part of the vast mosaic of Divine Truth. Perhaps we will find that some of your pieces will fit in nicely with some that I have been trying to figure out.
“As-of-self”
Before I get further into this subject, though, I want to acknowledge one of my mentors. When I was in Bryn Athyn College 45 years ago Erik Sandström was my teacher for a senior religion course on gender. Since I was the only student in the class, we had many hours of long discussions poring over every passage we could find on the subject. Many of the thoughts in this paper go back to that formative time for me, so these ideas are not new. Since I am mostly sharing my experience of ways to teach these ideas, there is nothing confidential here that I have not already shared with many people. Please feel free to share whatever fits your pieces of the puzzle. A passage that Erik Sandström came back to again and again was True Christian Religion 3, teaching that we should act as if of ourselves, yet acknowledge that the work is done from the Lord by means each person. (See New Church Life 2001:307-309) He emphasized that this teaching was not only unique to the New Church, but at the center of every doctrine, because the heavenly marriage (our connection with the Lord) exists in the proprium or our “as-of-self.” (Secrets of Heaven 2891,155) Especially it is at the heart of the relationship between the Divine and the Human in the Lord (e.g., True Christian Religion 154).
The heavenly marriage is one in which heaven, and so the Church, is united to the Lord by means of the proprium, even to the extent of it existing within the proprium itself; for if there is no proprium the union does not exist. And when the Lord from His mercy instills into this proprium innocence, peace, and good, it still looks like the proprium, but it is now something heavenly and richly blessed.
Secrets of Heaven 252
Such is the nature of the heavenly marriage that it exists within the proprium, and such is its nature that a proprium given life by the Lord is called the Lord’s Bride, and also Wife. The proprium given life in this way by the Lord is enabled to perceive every good that stems from love, and every truth of faith. It therefore possesses all wisdom and intelligence coupled with an indescribable happiness.
Secrets of Heaven 155
I would even say that to truly understand gender and the relationship between the sexes we must first understand influx and the “as-of-self”. The “as-of-self” is of course linked to love and freedom. To act from freedom, to act from love, and to act as if of ourselves are all the same thing.
Freedom is to think and will from affection, and the freedom is such as is the affection.
Secrets of Heaven 2847
All freedom belongs to the love or affection; for what a man loves, he does freely…. Since freedom belongs to the love, it is the life of every one.
New Jerusalem 148
All reformation is effected in freedom, and that all freedom is of affection, and that the Lord keeps man in freedom, so that he may from himself and from what is his own be affected with truth and good and thereby be regenerated.
Secrets of Heaven 3145
New Truths
My goal here is to share some of my experience with teaching people about what the Writings say about gender and differences between men and women. What I’m discussing here is not anything new, but rather what I’ve been teaching about throughout the forty years of my ministry. I have found that sometimes people have a hard time understanding concepts of gender that are taught in the Writings, for a variety of reasons:
- They might be thinking from outward appearances.
- They may have unexamined assumptions about what it means to be a man or a woman.
- They may be confused by corrupt doctrines from traditional Christianity.
- Words like “good” and “truth” may seem too abstract and vague to them.
- They may be deeply wounded in their gender experience.
- Lack of communication skills and experience in relationships may make it harder to relate teachings to their lives.
The challenge is to explain teachings in ways that people can easily understand. Sometimes I have stumbled on expressions that have worked well, and I am sharing some of them with you. I also want to hear what practical ways you have found to talk about gender.
Though I am not offering any new doctrinal concepts here, I hope we can find some new ways of expressing familiar doctrinal concepts. Yet I want to keep in mind that the New Church concept of marriage and gender is different from what most people have heard before. A quarter millennium ago Swedenborg wrote that “There is true married love which today is so rare that people do not know what it is like and scarcely that it exists.” (Married Love 58) A narrative at the end of the work describes angels in good spirits asking swedenborg, “What news do you have from earth?” Swedenborg responds that “the Lord has revealed secrets which surpassed in excellence all the secrets previously revealed from the inception of the church” including secrets “about true married love and it’s heavenly delights.” (Married Love 532, 534)
I believe that the New Church offers ways of thinking about gender that surpass in excellence all the secrets previously revealed from the inception of the church. Sometimes I have presented our teachings about marriage and gender in ways that don’t clearly distinguish it from other churches, and sometimes the response to this is that we have the same tired message that other churches have, or that we sound just like the Catholic Church. So one of my hopes is that we can present New Church teachings in a way that reveals what has been newly revealed.
Sources of Gender Concepts
Before we talk about different ideas of gender in the New Church, however, I want to consider where our concepts of gender come from. What does it mean to be a man or a woman, or to be masculine or feminine? I’m thinking of four ways that we can develop these ideas. Perhaps you can think of some others or would change the categories.
Physical function and form
The first way that we come to understand gender is through physical form and function. A man’s body is designed to father a child, while a woman’s can gestate, give birth, and breastfeed. These provide a very clear distinction between genders—a woman cannot fertilize her own eggs, nor can a man gestate and give birth. It is a very clear example of how husbands and wives need each other and can work together, each contributing something unique. Thinking this way, gender is binary. A transgender woman can display many feminine traits, but cannot give birth. Likewise, a transgender man cannot physically father a child.
While this distinction is very clear, it does not apply as well to men and women who do not reproduce. Is an infertile woman less feminine, or a sterile man less masculine?
In physical form men and women differ in many ways that are not so binary. For example, men are on average taller and stronger than women, yet neither height nor strength are binary. Many women are taller than the average man, and many men are shorter than the average woman. Some people think tall men are more masculine and tall women are less feminine. Similarly, some think weak men are more feminine and strong women more masculine. Yet judging people by their physical characteristics may be a superficial, worldly view of gender.
Physical functions can also illustrate spiritual functions.
Wisdom from the Lord with men knows nothing more agreeable than to propagate its truths. Love of wisdom with wives knows nothing more delightful than to receive these truths as in the womb and so to conceive them, carry them in the womb and give them birth. Of this sort are the spiritual prolifications among the angels of heaven. And if you will believe it, natural prolifications have the very same origin.
Married Love 115.5
Yet while physical function is foundational to this spiritual concept, the concept itself comes from revelation (#4 below).
Culture & education
From infancy children are influenced by people who have formed assumptions and expectations about their gender. These assumptions and expectations affect what kinds of clothes they wear, what toys they are given, what games they will play, how and with whom they will socialize, what books or videos they will see, how people will look at them and talk to them, how they will be taught, rewarded, and punished, what they may want to be when they grow up, and even (significantly) how they may be mistreated, ignored, or abused.
The concepts of gender children acquire from their culture may be linked to intrinsic traits of their gender, or they may be traditional or invented expectations that society tends to impose to help (or make) everybody fit in. To complicate things more, our culture is not monolithic, so people may experience a variety of different gender cultures, sometimes sharply conflicting, at home, at school, at work, in social life, and in their media.
Inner experience.
Part of our experience of gender is our private thoughts and feelings. In certain places, with certain people, we may have thoughts or feelings of shame, fear, sadness, hope, resentment, excitement, comfort, peace or joy that we do not share with anyone else. We see these in ourselves from the inside, and in others from the outside.
As a result we make faulty comparisons between ourselves and others. Our sense of how we fit in with our own gender and with the other gender and consequently how we see ourselves will inevitably be skewed by how much we hide from each other, how much difficulty we have understanding each other, and how well we know ourselves.
Revelation, the soul
While physical characteristics, cultural expectations, and personal experiences are sources of gender ideas for everyone, in the New Church we have another source which is divine revelation. As I mentioned, the Lord has revealed to the New Church secrets that surpass in excellence any revelation since the beginning of the church.
Only through the Word can we understand the Lord and approach Him as the Source of that love. Only through the Word can we know how genders are distinguished on the level of the soul and how the Lord’s love and wisdom flow into their souls and minds and unite them. Only through the Word can we uncover the hidden evils we must shun (especially love of dominion and pride of self-intelligence), in order to open the way for that love to flow in. Only through the Word can we be raised from worldly priorities and perspectives to heavenly ones, and thus from a sense-based experience of sexuality and gender to an angelic one.
Rational vs. Emotional
I want to begin with a stereotype about men and women that has been around for a long time. (So there is nothing uniquely New Church about it. It’s not one of the newly revealed secrets.)
Men are more rational and women are more emotional.
I am simply picturing a woman as a red circle representing her emotions or love, and a man as a blue circle representing his rationality or wisdom. This idea that men are more rational and women are more emotional has not only been common in today’s culture, but is also very similar to ideas about men and women written by people such as Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, and Rousseau. I have quoted a little from those philosophers below, but feel free to skip over them, since this is not important to this paper, other than to note that this has been an enduring cultural stereotype.
Aristotle
[T]he male, unless constituted in some respect contrary to nature, is by nature more expert at leading than the female.”
“The slave is wholly lacking the deliberative element; the female has it but it lacks authority; the child has it but it is incomplete.”
Politics
Women are more compassionate and more readily made to weep, more jealous and querulous, fonder of railing, and more contentious. The female also is more subject to depression of spirits and despair than the male. She is also more shameless and false, more readily deceived, and more mindful of injury, more watchful, more idle, and on the whole less excitable than the male.
History of Animals, Book IX
Augustine
We see the face of the earth, replete with earthly creatures; and man, created in thy image and likeness, in the very image and likeness of thee—that is, having the power of reason and understanding—by virtue of which he has been set over all irrational creatures. And just as there is in his soul one element which controls by its power of reflection and another which has been made subject so that it should obey, so also, physically, the woman was made for the man; for, although she had a like nature of rational intelligence in the mind, still in the sex of her body she should be similarly subject to the sex of her husband, as the appetite of action is subjected to the deliberation of the mind in order to conceive the rules of right action. These things we see, and each of them is good; and the whole is very good!
Confessions 13.32, compare De Trinitate, 12.10
Aquinas
Aquinas replies that “woman should have been produced in the Eden, since she is necessary for the generation of the species.” He then goes on to cite with approval Aristotle’s infamous affirmation that “the female is a misbegotten male.” (De Gener. ii, 3). Aquinas himself declares that women are “deficiens et occasionatus” – defective and misbegotten. (Summa Theologica Ia q.92, a.1, Obj. 1)
And there is more.
In reply to the question of whether the female should be subject to the male, Aquinas asserts that females are inherently subordinate to males and that this “subjection existed even before sin.” Female subordination, for Aquinas, is not a result of the fall, but part of the created order. Such female subordination, he argues, is actually “for their own benefit and good.” (This sounds eerily familiar.)
Following Aristotelian logic, Thomas adds that without female subordination, “good order would have been lacking in the human family if some were not governed by others wiser than themselves. So by such a subjection woman is naturally subject to man, because in man the discretion of reason predominates. (Summa Theologica q.92, a.1, Obj. 2).
Carolyn James (https://carolyncustisjames.com/2013/08/06/thomas-aquinas-on-women/)
Rousseau
Through Émile, Rousseau was demonstrating that through the proper education men’s reason could be cultivated to make them in charge of these destructive passions thus making them free individuals. Women, however, could not develop in the same way, as he believed they could not be capable of abstract reasoning therefore could not achieve freedom. However, by retaining their natural virtue they could achieve happiness in a way that men could not. For this reason, Rousseau believed that women who tried to cultivate their reason were foolish, by defying their nature they were deserting happiness that only they could enjoy. To support his ideas, he strongly suggested breast-feeding of their own children to elite women rather than sending them to wet-nurses. He argued that breast-feeding was a manifestation of their maternal nature.
Rousseau used the theory of gender complementarity to base his idea of the two spheres, the public and private. The public sphere of the commercial economy and state was to be driven by men and their rational calculation and self-interest. The principles by which the public sphere should be governed were laid out in The Social Contract published too in 1762. The private sphere of the family was to be driven by women due to their natural virtues.
Karen Hagemann (https://hist259.web.unc.edu/rousseau/)
I find Rousseau interesting because he published at the same time as Swedenborg. His work shows some similarities to and many differences from the Writings.
If we take certain teachings in isolation from others, they may seem to harmonize with this long tradition of seeing men as rational and women as emotional. For example:
The male is born intellect-oriented and that a female is born will-oriented,… the masculine form is a form of the intellect while the feminine form is a form of the love of the intellect, … In short, nothing in the two sexes is the same, although there is nevertheless a capacity for conjunction in every detail. Indeed, masculinity in the male is masculine in every part, even in the least part of his body, and also in every idea of his thought, and in every bit of his affection. So, too, with femininity in the female.
Married Love 33
I’m picturing a man or wisdom here as blue and a woman or love as red. That is a pretty simple description of men and women, and it seems to have some support of philosophers through the ages. Yet when I have presented this idea to lay people, I have usually gotten the objection that men have feelings too, and that I am implying that men are smarter than women. When I start with Married Love 33, the conversation often goes off track.
What’s on the inside?
I have found that it is truer to the Teachings, and I get much better responses when I start with Married Love 32: “The difference essentially consists in this, that the inmost quality in masculinity is love, and its veil wisdom, or in other words, it is love veiled over with wisdom, while the inmost quality in femininity is that same wisdom, the wisdom of masculinity, and its veil the love resulting from it.”
If we focus just on the wisdom with the male and not the love, then we are just looking at his outside, not his essence. Likewise, if we look at a woman’s outward love without considering her hidden wisdom, we miss her inmost essence.If I stop explaining at this point, or if I jump to Married Love 90 (saying that the truth of good is masculine and the good of truth is feminine), then I mostly get blank stares because most people don’t have a concrete (or even any) idea of things like “good of truth.”
What works better is to talk about thoughts and feelings. Men have a tendency to hide their feelings and share their thoughts, while women have a tendency to share their feelings and hide their thoughts. When I put it this way, the response is often, “Oh yeah, I can see that. That describes me and my spouse.” It also helps people see that men’s wisdom is not superior to women’s, but rather more visible, and likewise women’s love is not superior to men’s but more visible. Emphasizing also sets the stage for sharing passages that describe men’s and women’s visible forms, their characteristics from birth, and their mental and emotional development (such as Married Love 33 & 90). These descriptions are mostly about how they appear outwardly. People have expressed relief to learn that in the Writings men are not described as being all intellectual, but there inmost essential quality is love, and likewise that wisdom in the inmost essential quality in a woman.
A thinner veil
Once we see how men and women both have love (and emotions) and both have wisdom (and rationality), yet they differ as to which of those in on the inside and which is on the outside, we can see more easily how they share so much in common, yet are distinct from each other. I find it is useful to point out that the outward veil of love in women and wisdom in men can be quite opaque, or relatively transparent. If the veils were completely transparent, we would not see the love on the outside of the husband so much as the love shining through from within. Likewise we would see the inner wisdom of the wife shining through the clear veil of love.
More often, though, the veils are only partially transparent, so a man shows some of his feelings, but not all of them, nor as easily, and a woman shares some of her thoughts but reserves others. The degree of transparency depends in part on our degree of regeneration:
If a person remains in the external or natural inclination to be married, then the internal or spiritual inclination is covered with a veil, until the person knows nothing of it, even, indeed, until he calls it an empty fiction. But, on the other hand, if the person becomes spiritual, then he begins to know something about it, afterwards to perceive something of its character, and gradually to feel its pleasant, agreeable and delightful sensations. And according as this happens, so the aforementioned covering between the external and internal inclinations begins to grow thinner, then to melt, so to speak, and finally to dissolve and disappear.
Married Love 148
This is similar to the way the veil over the literal sense of the Word becomes thinner and more transparent as a person comes into a love for the genuine truths of the spiritual sense:
In many places where the [spiritual] meaning is clothed [by the literal sense] it shows through like a face seen through a thin veil. As the truths of the Word are multiplied by being loved and in this way gain coherence, they shine through their clothing more and more clearly and become more visible.
Sacred Scripture 55, compare True Christianity 229
Since the veils become more transparent with regeneration, we can see why when a people reach a heavenly or celestial level what is on the inside becomes more apparent.
When we are being regenerated the affection for truth has the lead, for we are affected with truth for the sake of good. But when we have been regenerated the affection for good has the lead, and from good we are affected with truth. The affection for good belongs to the will. The affection for truth belongs to the understanding. Between these two affections the most ancient people instituted a kind of marriage. Good, or the love of good, they called a human being as a husband. Truth, or the love of truth, they called human being as a wife. The comparison of good and truth with marriage has its origin in the heavenly (or celestial) marriage.
Secrets of Heaven 1904
In the spiritual church the wife represents good and the man represents truth, but in the celestial church the husband represents good and the wife truth; and—what is a mystery—they not only represent, but also in all their activities correspond to them.
Secrets of Heaven 4434:9
In the celestial church good resided with the husband and the truth of that good with the wife; but in the spiritual church truth resided with the man and the good of that truth with the wife: Such is and was the actual relationship between the two, for in human beings interior things have undergone this reversal. This is the reason why in the Word, when celestial good and celestial truth from this are the subject, they are called ‘husband and wife’, but when spiritual good and spiritual truth from this are dealt with, these are called ‘man and wife’, or rather ‘man and woman’ (vir et mulier).
Secrets of Heaven 4823.2
People who are in spiritual perception love women who are affected with truths, but do not love women who are have knowledges; for it is according to Divine order that the men might be in knowledges, but the women solely in affections; and thus that the women might not love themselves from knowledges, but love the men. From this comes the marriage relationship…. But you should know that the case is so with those who are of the Lord’s spiritual kingdom; but the other way about with those who are of His celestial kingdom. In the latter kingdom the husbands are in affection, but wives in the knowledges of good and truth. From this comes the marital union with these.
Secrets of Heaven 8994.4
Essentially this distinction is on the celestial and spiritual degrees of the mind and is manifest in the celestial and spiritual heavens. Yet the natural heaven, the church on earth, and the natural degree of the mind are all distinguished into the celestial-natural and the spiritual-natural, so corresponding differences between the celestial and the spiritual can be seen on the natural level. The difference can even be seen in children, some of whom are more affectional or celestial in disposition and some more intellectual or spiritual:
In general young children are in disposition either celestial or spiritual. Those of a celestial disposition are unmistakably different from those of a spiritual disposition. The former are more gentle in thought, speech, and action, so that hardly anything is seen except something radiating from a love of good to the Lord and towards other young children; whereas the latter are not so gentle in what they think, say, and do, but something like a fluttering of wings reveals itself in everything they do – as is also evident, among other things, from their anger. Thus each small child varies in disposition from every other, and each is brought up in ways that accord with their individual disposition.
Secrets of Heaven 2301, Heaven and Hell 339
I know of no passages which specifically speak of how such spiritual/celestial differences manifest themselves differently in small boys as compared with small girls, but I’m pretty sure from these teachings that figuring out what it means to be a girl and later a woman would be different for a little girl of a spiritual disposition than for a little girl of a celestial disposition.
Influx
Ideally, we could educate each of them “in ways that accord with their individual disposition.”InfluxKey to understanding the nature of men and women is knowing that everything we think and feel flows in from the Lord through the spiritual world. This is core to who we are, yet it is something that we can never experience, because we receive that influence as if it originated in us. We can know from the Word that that influence comes from the Lord, and we acknowledge it and thank Him for it, but we can’t observe or experience the influence as something coming from outside of us. This is why the concept of the heavenly marriage existing in the heavenly proprium is so central to our relationship with the Lord.
Now there is love within wisdom in the male, and wisdom within love in the female, and we might think of these as being something that actually exists within them. Yet we have no life in ourselves, but are merely receivers or containers of life. Consequently, the presence of the Lord’s life within us is not a static, intrinsic reality, but rather a process of life flowing into us and out of us, with the proprium or the appearance of self-life being what allows us to freely participate in the process of receiving and giving love and wisdom.
So instead of thinking of love and wisdom existing within a man and a woman, we should think of them constantly flowing from the Lord through them, as air is constantly flowing through the lungs and blood through the heart. As I understand it, the love and wisdom come united from the Lord the same way to each person, but a man receives wisdom more outwardly as a veil, and love more inwardly, while a woman receives the love more outwardly and the wisdom more inwardly.
Since the marriage of husband and wife corresponds to the marriage of goodness and truth, there is a similar flow of love and wisdom from one to the other and back again. Just as there is a circle of life that flows from love to thoughts and from thoughts to love from love in all things of the human mind (Divine Providence 59), and there is a circulation of blood (and thus oxygen) from the heart to the lungs and back to the heart, so love flows from the wife to the husband and from the husband to the wife.
Love in the husband
I want to look a little more closely at this mutual influence, beginning with the love that flows into the husband. There are two ways that love flows into a husband.
While the good which is joined with truth in the husband is directly from the Lord, the wife’s good which joins itself with truth in the husband, is from the Lord indirectly through the wife. There are accordingly two kinds of good, one internal, the other external, which join themselves with truth in the husband. They bring it about that the husband is constantly in an understanding of truth and so in wisdom through true married love.
Married Love 100
In the husband, the wife’s love from the outside connects with the Lord’s love from the inside to moderate his affections and so raise his wisdom (since higher wisdom is wisdom from a higher love) to make it more able to receive that love from the Lord by means of his wife.
Wisdom in the wife
Just as the husband has two loving influences, one from the Lord and one from his wife, so the wife has two ways that wisdom comes to her, one directly from the Lord and the other indirectly through her husband. In Married Love 32 and many other passages we learn that it is wisdom a wife receives by means of her husband that becomes her inmost identity. “The inmost core of the female is the wisdom of the male.” Wives in heaven continually reflect on their husbands’ wisdom and “learn it daily from their lips.” (Married Love 293.3) “Wives recognise inwardly and support the views they hear or have heard from their husbands.” (Married Love 165)
At the same time, wives’ wisdom far surpasses their husbands’ wisdom. It is perception of their affections and inclination that is implanted in the wives “from creation and so from birth.” It is like an instinct, though it comes from Divine Providence. (Married Love 208) Yet the wives’ perception depends on reception of her husband’s wisdom. By connecting with her husband in various ways a wife accepts into herself her husband’s wisdom so that “an image of the husband is formed in the wife, as a result of which she perceives, sees and feels in herself what is in the husband, and even feels herself in him.” (Married Love 173) In this way the direct influence from the Lord giving the wife perception works together with the indirect influence of wisdom coming by means of the husband. Consequently her inner wisdom or perception “appears, continues, remains, and rises” to the degree that they love each other on account of wisdom and judgment. (Married Love 155r.5)
Husband and Wife Together
If we put these together we have a picture of how the husband and wife each have within them a marriage of good and truth, receiving love and wisdom together from the Lord, while at the same time the wife receives wisdom by means of her husband and the husband receives love by means of his wife.
My intention is to represent three different marriages within this one picture. The arrows showing influx of love and wisdom from the Lord represent the marriage of the Lord with the church.
The red and blue circles represent the marriage of love and wisdom within each individual.
The arrows between the circles represent the marriage of husband and wife. We can see from these three together how the marriage of
husband and wife comes from the marriage of love and wisdom in each individual, and the marriage of love and wisdom comes from the Lord. This image works for me to fit together a few pieces of the puzzle, and I have generally had positive reactions to it from lay people. Mostly they have not found it overly rigid or demeaning to either gender. Still, this is a small section of the puzzle and there are many pieces that I don’t know where to put, so please modify or replace these ideas to fit your needs.
One more point about this flow of love and wisdom. It is absolutely vital that the love and wisdom be received in freedom, as if of oneself. We have already described how this is important for our reception of life from the Lord. It is also important in the husband and wife receiving love from each other. Although men have no love of marriage or of women in themselves, but receive it only by means of women (as can be demonstrated in the spiritual world), it is necessary for the men to feel as if the love resides with themselves, so that they can receive the women’s love freely as if it were their own. (Married Love 161) Now men who become spiritual and have a deep love for their wives can come to acknowledge and believe that that love flows in through their wives, yet even they must choose to act on that love as if it were their own. In a similar way wives must receive their husbands’ love with affection, in freedom. They know better than their husbands what their real wisdom is, and how it can be moderated, and what aspects they can embrace. Wives may choose to be silent and listen while their husbands speak (Married Love 165), but if they are made to listen, no wisdom will be received. “Truths and goods that are learned, but with which a person is not affected, do indeed enter into the memory, but adhere there as lightly as a feather to a wall, which is blown away by the slightest breath of wind.” (Secrets of Heaven 4018)
Broken gender stereotypes
Near the beginning of this paper I discussed four sources for our concepts about gender:
- physical form and function
- culture and education
- inner experience
- revelation
Up to this point I have mostly focused on the last source, revelation. Physical form and function could fill a whole other useful paper, but it is out of the scope of this one. Inner experience, too, is beyond this paper, though it is extremely valuable to hear each person’s unique story. In what follows my focus is on the second item, culture and education, since much confusion surrounds the current political and social conflicts about gender as a cultural construct. The source of gender differences is the Lord, who in the beginning created human beings as male and female, both of them being an image and likeness of the Lord, especially when joined together. When the Lord’s love and wisdom are received in the church, the church with all its communities is filled with love, wisdom and usefulness, and this guides people’s understanding of themselves and each other and their divinely given abilities, affections, and uses.
But churches decline as a result of increasing love of self and love of the world and the consequent spread of actual and hereditary evils of all kinds. This brings about not only a loss of true married love and any concept of what it is, but also a loss of genuine understanding of gender and what it means to be feminine or masculine. I want to examine a few of broken and even hellish ideas of gender that have invaded the church especially in its darkest night.
“Women should submit to men”
Since love of dominion from love of self brought about the fall of the most ancient church those who have been in the love of dominion have made women subject to men.
The serpent, or the evil of self-love “seeks not merely to exercise dominion but also to exercise it over everything on earth. Yet it is not satisfied even with that, but seeks to rule over everything in heaven…. From this it is clear how ‘the serpent’ or evil constituting self-love wishes to have dominion, and how it hates the person it is unable to dominate.” (Secrets of Heaven 257) Although Secrets of Heaven makes it clear that the story of the serpent in Eden is about how love of self corrupts both the will and the understanding in an individual and the church, taken literally it became a justification for men to dominate women and make them submit.
The self-styled apostle Paul penned words that would keep Christian women in subjection for two millennia:
But I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.
1 Cor. 11:3
Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
Eph. 5:22-24
Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.
1 Cor. 14:34-35
A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. But women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.
1 Tim. 2:11-15
The Writings clearly reject Paul’s statements about a husband being the head of his wife.
A husband does not represent the Lord and his wife the church, because husbands and their wives both together form the church. It is a common saying in the church that as the Lord is the head of the church, so the husband is the head of the wife. If this were true, it would follow that the husband represents the Lord and the wife the church. But the truth is that, whereas the Lord is the head of the church, people—both men and women—are the church, and still more so husbands and wives together.
Married Love 125
The Writings say that Paul from love of self wanted to rule over heaven, and was rejected by the other apostles. (Spiritual Experiences 4412) I imagine that since he wanted to rule over everyone, he wanted to rule over women as well, so he would want women to be submissive. In any case, Paul’s ideas about women being silent and submitting did not come from from the Lord. “Paul has not mentioned, in his epistles, the least word of what the Lord taught, nor cited one of His parables, so that he received nothing from the life and discourse of the Lord.” (Ibid.) Paul’s words about submission have diminished womens’ roles in the church and society and have been echoed by Augustine, Aquinas, and many others. Even Rousseau, who abandoned many traditional Christian doctrines, apparently did not shake off the view that women should serve men (a view Rousseau likely acquired from his Catholic and Calvinistic background).
Paul’s words are still used by many conservative churches today to maintain a culture in which being feminine requires being submissive to men. This male-dominant/female-submissive view of gender is pervasive. Here is a description of gender roles from a more liberal, psychological point of view:
Gender roles are based on norms, or standards, created by society. In the U.S., masculine roles are usually associated with strength, aggression, and dominance, while feminine roles are associated with passivity, nurturing, and subordination.
courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-psychology/chapter/gender/
It seems that even groups that support gender equality and have no allegiance to Paul continue to see dominance and submission as characteristic of masculinity and femininity.
There is no place in the New Church for any domination of husband over wife or wife over husband.
True marriage love is heavenly love which is without dominion.
True Christian Religion 805
The love of dominion of one over the other entirely takes away marriage love and its heavenly delight.
Heaven and Hell 380
Married love places the highest value on a union of wills, and so on freedom of choice. These two aims are banished from a marriage by vying for superiority or command.
Married Love 248
Yet a true New Church concept of gender free from domination cannot spread as long as false teachings from the former church have not been removed. The descent of the New Jerusalem…
cannot take place in a moment, but it takes place to the extent that the falsities of the former church are set aside. For where falsities have already been implanted what is new cannot enter until the falsities have been rooted out, and this will take place with the clergy, and so with the laity; for the Lord said, “No one puts new wine into old wineskins, else the skins burst and the wine is spilled, but they put new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved” (Matthew 9:17; Mark 2:22; Luke 5:37-38).
True Christianity 784
It is of the Lord’s Divine providence that the church be at first among few and that it gradually grow to be among more, because the falsities of the previous church must first be removed. For truths cannot be accepted before then, inasmuch as truths accepted and implanted before falsities have been removed do not remain, and they are also expelled by followers of the dragon.
Apocalypse Revealed 547
The idea that women should submit to men has been hurtful to marriages in our culture in many ways. One of many examples is that girls and young women who become assertive about their own needs can easily be labeled as aggressive, unfeminine, or trying to act like a man. An implication is that if they stand up for their own choices and are not submissive, then they will not be loved, and may be punished, abandoned, or excluded. This can lead to them giving in to a boyfriend who is pressuring her to have sex, or failing to confront someone who sexually assaults her, marrying someone out of obligation or fear rather than love, or submitting to domestic violence against herself or her children. All of these can destroy the love in a marriage.
Another example focuses on men. Boys and men may believe the falsity that to be more dominant is to be more masculine. To become “real men” they focus on winning and demonstrating their superiority. They come to believe that women exist to serve them and give them pleasure, and so they dismiss or denigrate women who don’t meet their expectations or refuse their advances. Ultimately such desire for domination leads to “not only hatred but revenge, cruelty, and adultery as well.” (Secrets of Heaven 1307)
Of course, not all men become so dominating. Yet the falsity that men should be dominant is damaging also to males who aren’t so strong or successful. Boys who are timid, shy, weak, or gentle may learn that only alpha males are “real men.” They may be bullied, beaten and ostracized by the more dominant males, and then feel so much shame and inadequacy that it is difficult to have a real conversation with women, to say nothing of hoping for success in the role of male dominance.
“It’s masculine to fight”
The Writings teach us that women’s way of understanding things is naturally “modest, gracious, peaceable, compliant, soft and gentle,” while men are naturally “critical, rough, resistant, argumentative, and given to intemperance.” (Married Love 218) At first glance this seems to support the description of masculinity and femininity above where masculine roles are usually associated with strength, aggression, and dominance, whereas passivity, nurturing, and subordination are more feminine. The passage continues with Swedenborg’s observation of some striking differences between boys and girls playing in the street.
The boys would play together in accordance with the temperament inborn in them – raising a commotion, shouting, fighting, striking blows, throwing stones at each other. In contrast, the girls would sit peacefully at the doors of the houses, some playing with little children, some dressing dolls, some sewing on bits of linen, some giving each other kisses. And yet I was surprised to see that they regarded the boys the way they were with friendly eyes.
Married Love 218
If the passage ended here, we might suppose that boys fighting was simply preparation for them to be warriors, strong men who can save their families and countries from the world’s violence and oppression. Yet the passage ends with almost a warning—from watching boys fighting we can see what kind of men they might become without the influence of women. Other passages tell this same story with a somewhat different moral. Swedenborg often saw children playing in the street this way, but the angels watching through Swedenborg’s eyes were horrified that not only are the boys fighting, but the parents are egging the boys on.
The good spirits and angels who through my eyes saw what was going on were so appalled that I sensed their horror, especially at the parents encouraging them to behave in such ways. These good spirits and angels declared that by doing this the parents annihilate in the earliest years of life all the mutual love and all the innocence which young children receive from the Lord, and lead them into ways of hatred and vengeance. As a consequence they deliberately shut their children out of heaven where nothing but mutual love reigns. Let parents therefore who desire what is good for their young children be on their guard against such things. (Secrets of Heaven 2309, Heaven and Hell 344)
Clearly the “boys-will-be-boys” approach to gender that glorifies violence has grave dangers. It is natural for boys to start out fighting. They tend toward this in outward form and by birth. Yet the goal is that they can grow into a deeper, more loving masculinity, filling that outward form of truth with an inner innocence and love for the Lord that completely changes for them what it means to be a man and a husband. That inner love in a man comes directly from the Lord, but still a man reaches it by accepting the influence of women and especially his wife. Thus a man becomes more masculine by becoming more loving, innocent, gentle, and nurturing. These are quintessential characteristics of masculinity. Yet at the same time, he is in a sense becoming more feminine because he acquires from his wife the very qualities that make her feminine:
The Lord took beauty and grace of life from man and transferred them into woman, and that is why a man not reunited with his beauty and grace in woman is stern, severe, dry and unattractive, and also not wise except for his own sake alone, in which case he is a dunce. On the other hand, when a man is united with his beauty and grace of life in a wife, he becomes agreeable, pleasant, full of life and lovable, and therefore wise…. Women were created to be beauties, not for their own sake, but for the sake of men, so that men’s natural hardness might become softer, the natural solemnness of their dispositions more amiable, and the natural coldness of their hearts warmer. And this is what happens to them when they become one flesh with their wives.
Married Love 56.4
The gender stereotype of a man always fighting compared to the ideal here of a man getting in touch with the innocence and love which is at his core through the moderating, gentle, friendly, loving influence of his wife, fits with the image of masculinity represented by Ishmael and the one represented by Isaac.
The whole of the genuine rational consists of good and truth, that is, of what is celestial and what is spiritual. Good or what is celestial is its actual soul or life, truth or what is spiritual is that which draws its life from that good. A rational devoid of life received from celestial good is as is described here, that is to say, it fights with all, and all fight with it. Rational good never fights, no matter how much it is assailed, because it is gentle and mild, long-suffering and yielding, for its nature is that of love and mercy. But although it does not fight, it nevertheless conquers all. It does not ever think of combat, nor does it glory in victory…. But truth separated from good, which is represented here by Ishmael and is described in this verse, is altogether different, for it is like a wild ass, fighting with all and all with it. Indeed it hardly does anything else than think about and long for conflict. Its general delight or ruling affection is conquest, and when it conquers, it glories in victory. This is why it is described as a wild ass, that is, as a mule living in the wilderness or an ass in the wild, that is unable to live with others.
Secrets of Heaven 1950:2-3
Married Love 90 says that truth from good is masculine, because a man receives love from the Lord within his understanding of truth. And the picture of truth from good is mild Isaac, not aggressive Ishmael.
“Men are smarter than women”
I see two primary sources of evil and false gender concepts in traditional Christian churches. One is the love of dominion from the love of self (mentioned above), which leads to the notion that women should submit and men should take charge. The other is the love of ruling from the pride of self-intelligence (Apocalypse Revealed 502), which is closely linked to “faith alone.”
The dragon here means people who believe themselves wise because of their arguments in support of the mystical union of the Divine and the human in the Lord and in support of justification by faith alone, because they pride themselves on their wisdom and know how to reason. From that pride or conceit then springs hatred, and from that hatred rage and a longing for vengeance against people who do not believe as they do.
Apocalypse Revealed 565
When we think of men superficially as being rational and not emotional, we may then demean or abandon the emotional part of a male and are likely to fall into pride of self-intelligence because we think that what we know is more important than what we intend. Other fallout is that we think men are better than women because truth is better than love and women are so emotional and lack men’s rational light.
It seems as though truth is the primary thing in the church, because it is its first concern in time. It is because of this appearance that leaders of the church have given the palm to faith, which has to do with truth, over charity, which has to do with good. In similar fashion, the learned have given the palm to thought, which has to do with the intellect, over affection, which has to do with the will. As a result, what the good of charity is and what the affection of the will is lie buried in a mound of earth, so to speak, and some have also thrown dirt on them, as though on dead men, to keep them from rising again. The good of charity is nevertheless the primary thing in the church.
Married Love 126
It’s tempting for men to think that women should comply with their rules because men know better than women. It is also tempting for men to want to be right, to argue and brag, and to discount thoughts that women share. So intelligence may be an advantage for men, but not pride. “If a man loves himself on account of his intelligence, he draws it back from his wife to himself, which results in disunion instead of union.” (Married Love 331)
“Big boys don’t cry”
An overly simplistic, superficial view of men as rational and women as emotional can distort our concept of gender. types, such as that men are not emotional, or that emotional men are effeminate. As we have seen, we might better think of men hiding their feelings than not having feelings.
To understand the dynamic of emotions between men and women, it can help to understand that anger is an intellectual emotion. Swedenborg learned from some zealous angels that “zeal in a man has its seat in his intellect” because married love protects itself through the intellect, as good protects itself through truth. Thus a wife protects those concerns which she has in common with a man through her husband. And for that reason zeal is implanted in men, and through men and on account of men in women. (Married Love 372)
Since zeal has its seat in the intellect, it shows up differently than emotions like grief and fear that spring more directly from the will. There is fear and grief in all love (Married Love 371). As I understand this, fear and grief in the will flow into the understanding, calling up angry thoughts—arguments, defensiveness, resentments, lists of injustices, plans of attack, judgments, etc.
Now, since men are love veiled with wisdom, and there is fear and grief in love, and these show up in the understanding as anger, men tend to show their anger, but hide their grief and fear. On the other hand, women are wisdom veiled with love, so they tend to hide their anger while sharing their fear and grief. Just as men by nature and in outward form are intellectual, they tend to be angry as well (witness the boys fighting in the streets). As they develop their inner love, they may also find they have some work to do around fear and grief.
Similarly, women by nature and in outward form are affectional, so their growth challenge may be to grow in zeal, to be more assertive, and to recognize and deal with the anger that lies hidden behind their grief and fear.
Of course, the degree to which boys and men show their fears and grief, and the degree to which girls and women show their anger and zeal will vary from person and from state to state, depending on how thin the veil is in each one.
These tendencies of men to hide their fear and grief and of women to hide their anger or zeal can turn into hurtful stereotypes when they become external rules. In modern society (just as for thousands of years) boys who openly cry may be teased and bullied. They hear, “Real men don’t cry,” “You’re a sissy. You’re crying like a girl.”
Likewise girls may be pressured to not express anger because it is too masculine. While men may gain respect by expressing zeal, women often may hear that their zeal is unfeminine, unjustified, and unwelcome.
We can see from all this that the distortion of view of gender, of what it means to be a man or a woman has a long history. Every church, when it falls away from its marriage with the Lord, also falls away from the marriage of goodness and truth in each individual, and consequently from the genuine marriage of husband and wife. As a consequence they lose sight of what it means to be truly masculine or feminine. We can regain a true concept of gender if we both look to the heavenly concepts of gender supplied in the Writings, as well as rooting out the hurtful social constructs of gender endemic in our society.
Similar and different
Just as married partners have similarities and differences (Married Love 227), there are similarities and differences between the genders. Ultimately these similarities and differences derive from the Lord, in whom love and wisdom are distinguishable, yet united. (Divine Love and Wisdom 14-17) Somewhat paradoxically, their perfection increases as they become more distinctly different, yet united. (Divine Providence 4) Yet it is their similarities that unite them more than their differences (Married Love 228). True married love is said to exist when each of the partners wishes to think the way the other thinks, and to will what the other wills.
One in whom that love is present loves what the other thinks and what the other wills, and so also loves to think in the same way and to will the same things as the other does, consequently to be united to the other and become so to speak one human being.
Secrets of Heaven 10169
Any love of control of one over the other utterly destroys marriage love and its heavenly pleasure, for as already noted, marriage love and its pleasure consist of the intent of one belonging to the other, and of this being mutual and reciprocal. A love of being in control in a marriage destroys this because the dominant partner simply wants his or her will to be in the other, and does not want to accept any element of the will of the other in return. So it is not mutual, which means that there is no sharing of any love and its pleasure with the other, and no accepting in return. Yet this sharing and the union that follows from it is the very inward pleasure that is called blessedness in marriage. Love of being in control stifles this blessedness, and with it absolutely everything heavenly and spiritual about the love, to the point that even all knowledge of its existence is lost…. [2] When one partner wants or loves what the other does, then there is a freedom for both, because all freedom stems from love.
Heaven and Hell 380
Each is also filled by that love with the desire to will and think as the other does, and so to be together with and joined to the other on the level of interior things belonging to the mind.
Secrets of Heaven 10756
At the same time the Lord is flowing into the affections of them both as into a single affection.
Secrets of Heaven 4145.3
So while it is vital to see clearly the distinction between goodness and truth, and between male and female, if we fail to see what they have in common, the distinction will not lead to unity. In a way husband and wife become more distinctly one by focusing on what they have in common, especially their relationship with the Lord. Likewise men become more and more masculine as they become more influenced by women’s love, and women become more and more feminine as they receive more and more masculine wisdom into themselves.