Jesus Was Not Effeminate
In an email to the men of Coram Deo this past week, I wrote: "Many of you guys are more feminine in your spirituality than masculine." This rubbed some guys the wrong way. They felt that I was being harsh and provocative.
Actually, I was just stating the facts. My source is the book Why Men Hate Going to Church by David Murrow (Nelson Books, 2005). Consider some of Murrow's sprightly observations:
Women comprise more than 60 percent of the typical adult congregation on any given Sunday. At least one-fifth of married women regularly worship without their husbands... Although males have not completely abandoned the church, manly men... have all but disappeared. Tough, earthy, working guys rarely come to church. High achievers, alpha males, risk takers, and visionaries are in short supply... These rough-and-tumble men don't fit in with the quiet, introspective gentlemen who populate the church today... Today's churchgoing man is humble, tidy, dutiful, and above all, nice.
What a contrast to the men of the Bible! Think of Moses and Elijah, David and Daniel, Peter and Paul... They fought valiantly and spilled blood. They spoke their minds and stepped on the toes of religious people. They were true leaders, tough guys who were feared and respected by the community. All of these men had two things in common: they had an intense commitment to God, and they weren't what you'd call saintly.
Such men seldom go to church today.
...No man wants to follow a feminized man. Men are looking for a real man to follow: dynamic, outspoken, bold, sharp-edged. They want a leader who is decisive, tough, and fair. They respect a man who tells it like it is and doesn't mince words, even when it makes them mad. Men most respect a leader who doesn't care what others think of him... The Jesus of Scripture was exactly this kind of man... the most courageous, masculine man ever to walk the earth.
On the first weekend in December, men, we'll gather to discover what it means to be masculine like Jesus. I hope you'll join us. And if you're looking for some preliminary reading, check out Murrow's book.
Actually, I was just stating the facts. My source is the book Why Men Hate Going to Church by David Murrow (Nelson Books, 2005). Consider some of Murrow's sprightly observations:
Women comprise more than 60 percent of the typical adult congregation on any given Sunday. At least one-fifth of married women regularly worship without their husbands... Although males have not completely abandoned the church, manly men... have all but disappeared. Tough, earthy, working guys rarely come to church. High achievers, alpha males, risk takers, and visionaries are in short supply... These rough-and-tumble men don't fit in with the quiet, introspective gentlemen who populate the church today... Today's churchgoing man is humble, tidy, dutiful, and above all, nice.
What a contrast to the men of the Bible! Think of Moses and Elijah, David and Daniel, Peter and Paul... They fought valiantly and spilled blood. They spoke their minds and stepped on the toes of religious people. They were true leaders, tough guys who were feared and respected by the community. All of these men had two things in common: they had an intense commitment to God, and they weren't what you'd call saintly.
Such men seldom go to church today.
...No man wants to follow a feminized man. Men are looking for a real man to follow: dynamic, outspoken, bold, sharp-edged. They want a leader who is decisive, tough, and fair. They respect a man who tells it like it is and doesn't mince words, even when it makes them mad. Men most respect a leader who doesn't care what others think of him... The Jesus of Scripture was exactly this kind of man... the most courageous, masculine man ever to walk the earth.
On the first weekend in December, men, we'll gather to discover what it means to be masculine like Jesus. I hope you'll join us. And if you're looking for some preliminary reading, check out Murrow's book.
posted by Bob | 9:49 PM
3 Comments:
Bob, right on! I know I have been and in many (possibly most) ways very effeminate in my faith. The thought of stepping on toes and and making someone mad makes me cringe. I know I'm thought of as a "nice" guy most of the time. But one of the things I learned from my failed engagment is that no one wants to follow a nice (read spineless follower) guy.
The frustrating part is that every time I read something like this or discuss this kind of thing with my buddies, I get all fired up, but my character has been formed up til now such that I quickly fall back into my "emasculated" self. And then, when I do make a stand, it always seems to be the wrong timing or the wrong issue and it seems to backfire.
But at least I'm nice right? :)
T-Money,
Love your honesty! It's not about being nice or not nice. It's not about letting people walk on you or around you.
It is about Romans 1:17. Just believe in the power of the gospel. Believe that it will transform you into the man that God wills you to be. The man who will stand up and draw a hard line in the sand when no one else will. Being a man of God means one thing, staying close to Him, even if you have to distance yourself from social norms!!!
In my mind...It's a great deal of fun figuring out what that means in our culture.
I know that I am writing stuff that you already know! But here is the deal man, what we consider our greatest failures, often will be a great catalyst for transformation. So just sit back and enjoy the crash.
One Love
"Think of Moses and Elijah, David and Daniel, Peter and Paul... They fought valiantly and spilled blood. They spoke their minds and stepped on the toes of religious people. They were true leaders, tough guys who were feared and respected by the community. All of these men had two things in common: they had an intense commitment to God, and they weren't what you'd call saintly."
...thinking...let's see, Moses was too afraid to talk for himself, so he whined until God had Aaron speak for him. Very manly indeed. Oh yeah, then he had another incident where he whined to God, so God had to punish him by not letting him step foot in the promised land.
How about Peter...he didn't want to step on any toes, so he denied Jesus three times instead. I guess he did cut a guy's ear off, so maybe that counts as manly, just not Godly masculinity (since Jesus rebuked him), but rather this Americanized, John Wayne version of masculinity that Christians today embrace as their own.
The only thing any of those guys had going for them is that they were called by God. That's it. They didn't possess any manly traits of their own, and when their true personalities did come through, they proved to be rather weak and passive (what about David and Bathsheba, or how David's family situation was a mess and his own son rebelled against him?). But God called them, God chose them, and God would not let them stay as the men that they were. It's not that they got together and said, "let's eat steak and be risk-takers and confrontational so we can feel like a man." It's just that God transformed them because He had a purpose for their life. Funny that for those guys, being a man came by humbling themselves, dying to themselves, and letting God change them.
Also, I just don't buy the fact that there is one mold for every Christian man to fit in. There are not just two parts in the body of Christ (male and female)...there are all kinds of parts, each with their own role. Some men are called to be the outspoken leaders. Some are called to be the "nice guy" encouragers (see: Barnabus). Every guy has their own personality, and it's just amazing to me that Christian men in America are so desperate and searching and lacking in this idea of masculinity that they have to do the "I like football and hunting and outdoorsy things, and saying the wrong thing at the wrong time (if I even say anything at all), and being blissfully ignorant of what my wife's feelings are, because after all, I'm a man, and a man shows his love by bringing home the money so the wife can cook and clean and raise kids, and speak only when spoken to."
And I know that these are not things that this article is saying, and I'm kind of creating a straw-man here, but it's just that in the college groups I've been a part of, this is where the general population seems to be taking these ideas. Being a man is suddenly not about Godly principles like love and faith and hope and patience and kindness and goodness...instead it's about guns and loud noises and wrestling around and convincing each other that talking to the guy in the cubicle next to you about God is somehow some huge "risk." Instead of focusing on those things, I wish men would focus on being tranformed by Christ. Seriously, our identity is in Christ, not in our culture's (Christian or American) definition of what a man is.
And by the way, I should also note that I know I'm way late on any discussion on this issue, but I was reading through old entries tonight, and I have such strong feelings about this topic that I felt like I had to chime in, even if my words here are really nothing more than a bunch of waves splashing against an empty shore.
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