Here is an outline of Tuesday’s thoughts on Manhood. When we next get together, we will contrast and compare “manhood” or “masculinity” as held by God, the world, the flesh and the devil. Is a man’s man a godly man? How does the “New Man” in Christ differ from distortions like “machismo”, “authoritarian”, “bohemian”, “consumerist”, or “libertine” man? Only when we first identify what God intended when he created humanity, male and female, can we discern how the Fall and sin distorted that original intention. Then we can discover how the Last Adam, Jesus, recreates the human- “male and female” and redeems us beyond God’s original creative purpose. Clue: The last Adam is superior to the first Adam. Grace perfects nature. “’The first man, Adam, became a living being,’ the last Adam a life-giving spirit” (1 Cor 15:45).
- What “crisis of manhood”?
- Society: Modern society tries to keep us in a perpetual state of arousal. Just consider how many “breaking news alerts” CNN, Fox and MSNBC issue daily. Media loves a “crisis”.
- Individual persons: We, too, have learned to manufacture “crises” to enhance our own personal dramas. We all know “drama queens”. Who wants to be known merely as a respectable worker of the soil when he can be renown as a slayer of dragons?
- Do we just have short memories and are easily duped about new “crises”? Remember all the attention heaped on tennis star, transgendered Renee Richards. LGBT stuff is not really a “new” crisis. Remember the splash created by Stephen Clark’s Man and Woman in Christ? When was that? Steve addressed this “crisis” 35 years ago. Do crises last that long? 17th century Puritan preachers in New England warned of a crisis of declining womanly morals. The occasion was a rash of bare ankles dangling under the pews and distracting the brothers from worship.
- Besides society does maintain an ideal of a non-feminized “civilized man”. Consider Adam Levine, tough divorced kid, overcomes failure, Maroon 5 rock artist, multiple Grammys plus, successful capitalist entrepreneur in men’s attire, colognes, recording studios, a model of health and wellness, People mag’s sexiest man alive, well groomed, coaches those less gifted. Earnings of 35 million in 2013. Tough and tender, right off pages of Esquire or GQ as well as Rolling Stone or Forbes. Does anybody really think he is “feminized” or “unmanly”?
WHETHER THERE IS A CRISIS OR NOT, THERE IS A PERPETUAL RESPONSIBILITY THAT MEN TRAIN BOYS TO BECOME MEN. AS FAR BACK AS PLATO THE TWO MOST URGENT PHILOSPHICAL QUESTIONS WERE: WHO TEACHES THE CHILDREN? & WHAT ARE THEY TAUGHT?
THE FACT THAT MANHOOD MUST BE TAUGHT AND DOESN’T JUST COME WITH BEING A MALE MEANS WE MUST DISTINGUISH BETWEEN SEX AND GENDER.
- Is there really a difference between sex and gender?
- Sex refers to biology and physiology. Terms are “male” and “female”. Sexual designation resides between the legs.
Gender, on the other hand, refers to how a given society defines “manhood” or “womanhood”. What roles, attributes, attitudes, behaviors, aspirations are proper to and constitute a real “man” or “woman”?
- There is an entire academic industry and new discipline called “Gender Studies” that can be a big target for mockery. The more lawyers the more laws and law suits. The more gender studies profs the more we seem to multiply genders like Heniz’ varieties of ketchup. For instance, Facebook now gives options of users to declare 56 different genders or the university instructor who told his students that he and his wife had decided after careful thought to not assign a gender to their infant believing that it could choose for itself when it gains social experience.
- In spite of some silliness, there really is a distinction everyone makes between sex and gender. Adolescent boys know they all have testicles but only a few are reputed to “have balls.” This is the distinction, crude as it is, between sex and gender. Jews distinguish between a regular male and a real mensch. To be male doesn’t make you manly. Maleness is chromosomal, manliness is acquired.
- If we fail to honor this distinction between sex and gender, we will find ourselves claiming that certain gender roles and behaviors are divinely required of a male or female, when, in fact, they are only prescribed by culture or society. Back in the early 70s the argument over whether Scripture addressed the question of whether or not a serious Christian woman and mother should be employed outside the home. Four sides quickly came up among friends of mine:
- It is ungodly.
- It is imprudent if children are involved.
- It is a matter of indifference and mere personal preference.
- It is a moral obligation in this new era for women to make their way in the career world in order to prove their equality and competence with men.
Sociologists of religion note that serious “religious” people have a tendency to “sacralize” the status quo and “baptize” existing social and cultural arrangements as divinely given. We must distinguish between “traditions of men” warned against by Jesus and Paul and those traditions which flow from the gospel or “sanctified” reason.
- Modern American culture erects many barriers to the flourishing of manhood: Absence of fruitful work, fathers and faith.
- Nearly 20% of American men no longer seek daily work. What do they do with the idle time? History shows that when men don’t work they develop unhealthy ways of affirming their “masculinity”. E.g., Fight Club syndrome arises when groups of young men are underfathered and underemployed. “I’m a 30 year old boy. I knew my dad for about six years, but I don’t remember anything…What you see at fight club is a generation of men raised by women.
- Walter Russell Mead: “What a surprise! We raised a generation of bright kids without a foundation in religion, and they’ve grown up and gone to Wall Street.” In fact, consider the movie Wall Street. “Greed is good” Gordon Gecko mentors young Bud Fox who is alienated from his hardworking union leader father. When Gecko tries to get Bud to use his father to raid the union’s pension fund, Fox sees his dad’s fidelity to faithful manhood and fulfilling promises. He undergoes a moral conversion.
- We have come to despise the code of the man as an arbitrary social imposition. The “code” is composed of basic moral obligations that characterize the mature man. We find this code in many places the Ten Commandments, the Boy Scout oath, the example of a virtuous grandfather, the Navy Seal Code. Immature boys, however, want autonomy rather than conformity to truth. Freedom without responsibility or relationship has become an ideal: “the unencumbered self”.
- Can we locate this “crisis” of manhood in our own interior struggle, our immediate and extended family, the workplace, the society at large? Later we will focus on the Church. The problem becomes more acute and consequential in the Church. This is because the Church is not just a “club” for us to experience fellowship, acceptance, love, consolation. It is the “city upon a hill”, the new nation, the royal priesthood, the chosen people. It is the community that stands as a witness to the coming kingdom. If the Church fails to bear witness the world is left without the normal out-picturing of the reality of Christ’s body. Here are a few places you found the problem of manhood in your experience. I may have missed one or two.
- In the way decision-making often takes place. The fear of standing alone and leading in decision-making preferring the safety and security of consensus.
- In the way men isolate themselves from others so there is no accountability or the challenge, even conflict that comes from having strong male friendships. Iron sharpens iron.
- The way that the isolated man can surround himself with perpetual entertainment and electronic digital stimulation.
- The fear of being wrong
- The confusion over feminist expectations.
- The hypocrisy of a culture that claims openness and tolerance but immediately marginalizes the man who will disagree about the morality of homosexual acts.
- This is especially acute among youth where not merely acceptance but approval and even applause for homosexuality has become a new orthodoxy. Buck it at your own social risk.
- The failure of fathers to stand firm in discipline and make hard decisions. The unwillingness to inflict necessary pain just as a surgeon must.
