It should be noted that even the most orthodox Christians weren't this hung up on gender until relatively recently. Some of the earliest Christian movements were regarded by their pagan peers as horny af sex cults and you hardly have to get to The Family International or Ted Haggard/The Falwells to find instances in which Christians have made a (virtual or literal) sacrament out of sex at every point on the sexual spectrum and morality compass.
If you wanted to be particularly glib, the root idea of the modern Catholic Priesthood - one in which you take a vow of chastity and pledge yourself in a sacramental marriage to God and the Church - becomes its own sanctioned gender of sorts. You (ostensibly) separate yourself from both men and women as a kind of asexual spiritual paragon, through a ritualized transition from man to priest.
For all the perverts and freaks in the Catholic Church, I think you'd be surprised to find how many men-of-the-cloth have used it as a refuge to disguise their distinct lack of sexual appetite or gender affiliation. And it can't be ignored how these religious garments have strayed from modern gender norms, either.
To say the modern Christian faith is plagued by contradictions would be an understatement.
like how what would in modern eras be "dorks, geeks, nerds" tried to get into monastic orders in middle ages to just do nerd stuff and stay out of the grime and conflict
my source: just look at the doodles they did in the margins of books
It should be noted that even the most orthodox Christians weren't this hung up on gender until relatively recently. Some of the earliest Christian movements were regarded by their pagan peers as horny af sex cults and you hardly have to get to The Family International or Ted Haggard/The Falwells to find instances in which Christians have made a (virtual or literal) sacrament out of sex at every point on the sexual spectrum and morality compass.
If you wanted to be particularly glib, the root idea of the modern Catholic Priesthood - one in which you take a vow of chastity and pledge yourself in a sacramental marriage to God and the Church - becomes its own sanctioned gender of sorts. You (ostensibly) separate yourself from both men and women as a kind of asexual spiritual paragon, through a ritualized transition from man to priest.
For all the perverts and freaks in the Catholic Church, I think you'd be surprised to find how many men-of-the-cloth have used it as a refuge to disguise their distinct lack of sexual appetite or gender affiliation. And it can't be ignored how these religious garments have strayed from modern gender norms, either.
To say the modern Christian faith is plagued by contradictions would be an understatement.
like how what would in modern eras be "dorks, geeks, nerds" tried to get into monastic orders in middle ages to just do nerd stuff and stay out of the grime and conflict
my source: just look at the doodles they did in the margins of books