While I originally intended to leave this topic alone, my ankle is still messed up from when I got drunk the day after a particular argument with a particular person, so the whole thing is still on my mind, though not as intense. In the complementarian worldview, I have yet to read of the role of the woman, yet here is some of what I can discern about the role of the man.

The man is mandated to lead, be an example, protect, and provide. On the matter of being a provider, so many things in our culture chip away at this significant aspect of being a Christian man. We take out loans to go to college, and some of us take public assistance. While one should not be ashamed if they need those things for the moment, it should motivate a man to better himself. Once he has a handle on providing for himself, then he is more capable of providing for wife and child. The wife and child deserve it. It is only wise and right, then, to delay serious relationships in college until there is a more definite plan of what the man will be doing with his life after that. Or, at the very least, dive deeper into the word and seek out community and advice.

While women can and should have the opportunity to use their spiritual gifts to contribute to a ministry and be as loud as they want with that (my apologies to Paul of Tarsus), it is ultimately the man that leads; much like how a family ought to operate. Women don’t have to lead to still have the same level of power- they are powerful in different ways. Perhaps I should read more on the role of the woman. But, back to leading, I think that if I had more spiritual leaders that were men, there would be less mixed signals and awkward consequences in my past experiences with Christianity.

I have often been accused of not being the best example of a believer- normally because of my temper, avoiding interaction, being a Democrat, discussing what’s interesting about other religions, and especially my Facebook activity- even down to the detail of specific things I have reacted to, what source pages they were from, and what time of day that I did so. While I admit to being passive- aggressive at times when I should be directly addressing an issue with a person, sometimes I wonder about when it is said in the congregation that Jesus loves us in our mess and that you’ll only be perfect when you get to heaven- is that just a strategy to rope people into one of the first of a number of levels of respect? All of the relationships I have ever witnessed have spent most of their time and energy on improving and building bridges where they differ. If he loves us in our mess and most of a relationship is spent making my mess fit together and complement another’s mess, why are we basing our standards on petty matters, for instance, politics?

Some of my more egalitarian brothers and sisters take issue to the idea of man as a protector. Me, I just think that for me, my protective side comes from when I was real little, I picked up on some serious issues in the extended family and just the whole spending most of my childhood wrestling because my father regretted quitting wrestling on account of drug use (self- medicated to forget his brother’s abuse) through which he watched a friend die. There have been times where being a protector has gained and re- gained me respect. There have been times where being a protector has caused me to be verbally and emotionally abused by women I’ve cared about. There have been times where I have been appreciated years after the fact. Underneath my regrettably callous and bitter attitude there is a protector waiting to be appreciated and searching for the right way to love his woman.

While I’d like to be on a different topic now, I hope this helps someone understand either me or themselves or things about Christianity and how it works.