The New Christianity has some very new ideas. Some of these concepts are so profound that they contradict both western “progressive” values as well as our “traditional” perspectives. The challenge for us is to stand outside the cultural boxes we exist in, and take a look at our world as God describes it.
The Heavenly Doctrines paint a truly unique picture of what it means to be a woman and what it means to be a man and how these two different creatures are designed to fit together. I can find no similar perspectives to this either in the current world cultures or in my studies of history. This makes these particular teachings fascinating and exciting for me, but I have also discovered that the very uniqueness of these teachings can make them confusing to conceptualize.
So I’m on a mission to help. Following is a storybook example of some of the basic New Christian concepts of men and women. And if this story catches your interest please please consider jumping into the source from which all these concepts stem: Married Love.
Our story begins with Mr. Independent. As a man he is hardwired with a hunger for wisdom and a love of growing wise. This can be very useful—it drives him to explore and analyze the abstract and unknown (including spiritual concepts). But it is also dangerous; Mr.Independent’s love for wisdom leads to a pride of his own intelligence and, if unchecked, that love-of-himself will lead him straight down to Hell.
But the Lord foresaw all this and provided a savior for Mr. Independent–a woman. He designed this new creation to be a vessel for all that is most beautiful in humanity. She is better looking, better feeling, better sounding and better acting than her male counterpart. But the Lord implanted in her a rather strange quirk: rather than having a love for growing wise, she has a deep desire to love the wisdom of Mr.Independent!
So now our lovely, affectionate, gracious woman is stuck hardwired to love the wisdom of Mr. Independent despite his harsher, uglier, crasser self (which perversely Miss Dependent can’t help but find appealing).
Miss Dependent is well designed to catch Mr. Independent’s attention– an impressive being hardwired to love his own wisdom is just too much to ignore. So Mr. Independent has a choice: he can continue on his path of loving his own intelligence all the way into Hell or he can choose to turn and pursue Miss Dependent.
If he wants her, Mr. Independent will have to work for her. He will need to fight his evils– including his love of his own intelligence and he will need to learn to share his wisdom with her. This quest will never end. And the more he fights his evils and seeks to follow the Lord, the more the Lord can bless Mr. Independent with deeper wisdom to turn and share with his wife.
Miss Dependent also has work before her. She has evils to fight and selfish desires to put out of the way as well. And the more she fights her evils and seeks to follow the Lord, the more He can bless her with deeper love to share with her husband.
And eventually a profound change occurs–Mr. independent transforms into Mr. Dependent. So the Two become truly One. Intrinsically conjoined by the love and wisdom they share. With a deep and unbreakable dependency on each other. And a deep and unbreakable dependency on the Lord.
The End.
A very special Thank You to Lt. Kendal King, who kindly drew these illustrations for his big sister while on a short leave between intense field training and his deployment to the Middle East (in two weeks). Thank you! I Love you! Come back with your shield or on it!
Thank you, Eden! This helped clarify some of my understanding on men and women. I’ve always been bothered/confused by men being a love of wisdom and women “only” a love of husbands wisdom. I found myself slightly bristling at the name “Miss Dependent,” and so got a pleasant ‘oh–duh’ moment from your resolution of both man and women becoming dependent on the Lord as one. I think that idea has finally clicked, and without rancor. Thank you!
Ps. Kendal could definitely have a future as a cartoonist!
Thanks, Tania. Yes, the continual demonization of dependency was what made me first think to write the article. I believe it is a very dangerous falsity to have floating around– I mean true innocence (innocence of wisdom) is a turning over/ acknowledging dependency on the Lord. How are we ever supposed to move towards that as a culture/ church if we are conditioning ourselves to disdain reliance on others?
Yes! And moving away from thinking of it as women dependent on men, but rather BOTH together dependent on the Lord.
Thank you very much to the author and to the illustrator. I think you have encapsulated well the symbiotic relationship of male and female that is unique in NC teachings. Here’s one thing to maybe add: WHAT is the ultimate wisdom a male seeks and which his wife loves in him?? It is the wisdom that the wife alone is to be loved. I think when I learned that I was happy because that’s a wisdom a wife can wrap her life around for sure!
Ann, I never new this! That is definitely easier to take in as you said! Thank you!
So true Ann! CL 130 is one of Derrick’s fav passages. I think it is important to emphasize that “wisdom’s shunning the evil of adultery as a pestilence injurious to the soul, to the civil state, and to the body,” is arguably the most powerful wisdom which married love attaches itself too, but it is by no means the only kind. It took great self control to limit what the story covered. There is so much depth! You could fill a whole book ?!
Loved it! Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for the article, and thanks for the thoughts in the comments! I got a lot out of reading it all. And it is amazing how warm and fuzzy it makes me feel towards my husband when I know he is working on some element of focusing on our marriage, his loving me, and working on developing that connection. Such an amazing back and forth of independence and dependence.
Cool! I’m realising that I mustn’t really have ‘gotten’ much of what CL is about, and I certainly didn’t appreciate WHAT that ultimate wisdom was, either. Thank you, Eden, for laying this all out in easy-to-understand bits (and kudos as well to the illustrator!), and to Ann for that last golden nugget. That definitely does ‘soften the blow’ (of us loving ‘only’ our husband’s wisdom). I’m gonna have to re-read this a few times, I reckon! -and then head back to the source. Thanks for the nudge.