I don’t know why we keep this blog…

… when men with authority such as Rick Phillips are doing a much better job on the Reformation21 Blog!

Biblical Masculinity #1: Fear of the Lord

Biblical Masculinity #2: A Definition

Biblical Masculinity #3: Industry

Biblical Masculinity #4: Integrity

Biblical Masculinity #5: Self-Control

Necessary Dispensibility

Dr. Esolen writes in the December issue of Touchstone:

“Women are beautiful, and men are necessary.  It has been the great victory of the feminist movement to make women unlovely by persuading them that men are not needed.”

A few pages later, as it happens, I found an article on John Gray’s Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.  In reference to the book it says “Whereas women need to receive caring, understanding, respect, devotion, validation, and reassurance, men need to receive trust, acceptance, appreciation, admiration, approval, and encouragement.”

Doubtless there are many questions that could be raised about that statement and the extent of its validity, but set them aside for a moment in favor of one single question:

Do men have a particulary need — or need in a particular way — to be needed?

Clearly we — the human race — need women.  Otherwise there would be no human race.  But with the advent of artificial insemination, single-parent homes and working mothers, women in every area of business, government, and ecclesiastical leadership, it is rapidly becoming less clear why we need men.

In a previous post we (and a great many commenters) discussed another piece by Dr. Esolen, in which he maintained that men must be “dispensible,” willing to lay down their very lives.

He is right that real men will gladly die — but we must have something to die for.  A man can die knowing that he is dying to save his wife and children, to preserve his homeland, to keep his integrity, to glorify his God.  A man can brave peril and danger knowing that his doing so is integral to the success of the mission, gladly carrying out his orders so that the goal will be accomplished, even if he does not live to see it.

What manhood itself cannot survive is being rejected as unnececessary.

We have no right as men to blame feminism for our failings.  But I wonder, realistically speaking, how much more might be accomplished by many men if they were driven by the honest need and trusting expectation of mothers, sisters, daughters, wives, and female friends?

What do you all think?

Psalm 18

The Psalm appointed for today in the Book of Common Prayer is Psalm 18. I noticed this Psalm some time ago, and enjoyed the opportunity to appreciate it again. It is almost militantly masculine… and yet in such a way as to recognize the psalmist’s desperate neediness. His source of strength is God alone.

PSALM 18

Part I Diligam te, Domine.

1 I love you, O Lord my strength, *
O Lord my stronghold, my crag, and my haven.

2 My God, my rock in whom I put my trust, *
my shield, the horn of my salvation, and my refuge;
you are worthy of praise.

3 I will call upon the Lord, *
and so shall I be saved from my enemies.

4 The breakers of death rolled over me, *
and the torrents of oblivion made me afraid.

5 The cords of hell entangled me, *
and the snares of death were set for me.

6 I called upon the Lord in my distress *
and cried out to my God for help.

7 He heard my voice from his heavenly dwelling; *
my cry of anguish came to his ears.

8 The earth reeled and rocked; *
the roots of the mountains shook;
they reeled because of his anger.

9 Smoke rose from his nostrils
and a consuming fire out of his mouth; *
hot burning coals blazed forth from him.

10 He parted the heavens and came down *
with a storm cloud under his feet.

11 He mounted on cherubim and flew; *
he swooped on the wings of the wind.

12 He wrapped darkness about him; *
he made dark waters and thick clouds his pavilion.

13 From the brightness of his presence, through the clouds, *
burst hailstones and coals of fire.

14 The Lord thundered out of heaven; *
the Most High uttered his voice.

15 He loosed his arrows and scattered them; *
he hurled thunderbolts and routed them.

16 The beds of the seas were uncovered,
and the foundations of the world laid bare, *
at your battle cry, O Lord,
at the blast of the breath of your nostrils.

17 He reached down from on high and grasped me; *
he drew me out of great waters.

18 He delivered me from my strong enemies
and from those who hated me; *
for they were too mighty for me.

19 They confronted me in the day of my disaster; *
but the Lord was my support.

20 He brought me out into an open place; *
he rescued me because he delighted in me.

Part II Et retribuet mihi

21 The Lord rewarded me because of my righteous dealing; *
because my hands were clean he rewarded me;

22 For I have kept the ways of the Lord *
and have not offended against my God;

23 For all his judgments are before my eyes, *
and his decrees I have not put away from me;

24 For I have been blameless with him *
and have kept myself from iniquity;

25 Therefore the Lord rewarded me according to my
righteous dealing, *
because of the cleanness of my hands in his sight.

26 With the faithful you show yourself faithful, O God; *
with the forthright you show yourself forthright.

27 With the pure you show yourself pure, *
but with the crooked you are wily.

28 You will save a lowly people, *
but you will humble the haughty eyes.

29 You, O Lord, are my lamp; *
my God, you make my darkness bright.

30 With you I will break down an enclosure; *
with the help of my God I will scale any wall.

31 As for God, his ways are perfect;
the words of the Lord are tried in the fire; *
he is a shield to all who trust in him.

32 For who is God, but the Lord? *
who is the Rock, except our God?

33 It is God who girds me about with strength *
and makes my way secure.

34 He makes me sure‑footed like a deer *
and lets me stand firm on the heights.

35 He trains my hands for battle *
and my arms for bending even a bow of bronze.

36 You have given me your shield of victory; *
your right hand also sustains me;
your loving care makes me great.

37 You lengthen my stride beneath me, *
and my ankles do not give way.

38 I pursue my enemies and overtake them; *
I will not turn back till I have destroyed them.

39 I strike them down, and they cannot rise; *
they fall defeated at my feet.

40 You have girded me with strength for the battle; *
you have cast down my adversaries beneath me;
you have put my enemies to flight.

41 I destroy those who hate me;
they cry out, but there is none to help them; *
they cry to the Lord, but he does not answer.

42 I beat them small like dust before the wind; *
I trample them like mud in the streets.

43 You deliver me from the strife of the peoples; *
you put me at the head of the nations.

44 A people I have not known shall serve me;
no sooner shall they hear than they shall obey me; *
strangers will cringe before me.

45 The foreign peoples will lose heart; *
they shall come trembling out of their strongholds.

46 The Lord lives! Blessed is my Rock! *
Exalted is the God of my salvation!

47 He is the God who gave me victory *
and cast down the peoples beneath me.

48 You rescued me from the fury of my enemies;
you exalted me above those who rose against me; *
you saved me from my deadly foe.

49 Therefore will I extol you among the nations, O Lord, *
and sing praises to your Name.

50 He multiplies the victories of his king; *
he shows loving‑kindness to his anointed,
to David and his descendants for ever.

(Yes, it has been roughly forever since anyone posted on this blog. No, it is not dead, just in need of a little resuscitation. If all goes well, there will be another post before too long. Lord willing.)

Wet Fish

I remember once, some years ago, when I introduced a friend of mine to a man I knew—the father of some other friends—who we happened to bump into. After we left, my friend commented that the man’s handshake was like a wet fish.

Well, less wet. But otherwise, I know what he means.

On the other hand, a month or two back, I shook hands with a man around my own age, who almost damaged my hand because I wasn’t expecting a vice on the other end.

My father taught me to shake hands firmly, because that’s what men do. So why is that? Although I do remember one young lady, daughter of a military family, who had the hardest grip in the large room full of people I was meeting that night, she is something of an exception. If one is old-fashioned enough, one expects to take a lady’s hand, not to shake it. In America, the capable, can-do frontier mentality (or something) broke down that distinction somewhat, though no doubt it survived in the big house on Southern plantations, and in the wealthier homes of the Northern metropolises. But I’ve never heard anyone comment negatively on a woman not having a strong handshake.

So why do we pick on men? I don’t know that there was anything especially unmanly about the older man I mentioned earlier, the one with a fish attached to his wrist. He may have had a tendency to be too harsh and too lenient, by turns, toward his kids; he was fairly easygoing otherwise. And he had a good, if wacky, sense of humor.

Mostly I think it must be a question of strength. If strength is a manly characteristic, a man’s greeting should communicate strength. A deep voice doesn’t hurt, nor does size or rippling muscle, but a thin wiry second tenor can catch your attention by looking you in the eye and shaking your hand like he means it. Older men especially seem to appreciate young boys who grasp this concept (and their hand) with straightforward manliness.

On the other side, I wonder, if gentleness is really a manly virtue, whether the bone-crunching grip of some men shows a lack of control, and is also a kind of failure?

(Bonus Question: What kind of wet fish?)

Struggling With Hypocrisy

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the fear some men, too often including myself, feel regarding situations of confrontation.

Central to this fear is the basic human desire to have other people like us, think well of us. That same desire can lead to a lot of other interesting things; one of its results, notable in certain Christian circles, is the euphemistic use of the word “struggling.”

The Oxford English Dictionary defines “struggle” thusly:

“To contend resolutely, esp. with an adversary of superior power; to offer obstinate resistance; to make violent efforts to escape from constraint.”

“To make great efforts in spite of difficulties; to contend resolutely with (a task, burden); to strive to do something difficult.”

“Struggling” is a present active participle. It indicates continuing action.

How very peculiar, then, the way we often use this word when speaking of various personal besetting sins. “I’ve been struggling with using my time well.” “I’ve been struggling with lust.” “I’ve been struggling with trying to love certain people. It’s hard, you know?”

Now sometimes these sentences mean what they purport to mean. A person might really be contending resolutely, in spite of great difficulties, to love people who are just downright not very lovable. (Yeah, you know who I’m talking about. Those people.)

But more often, at least in my own personal experience, this is not quite what I mean:

“Struggling with using my time well” means something like “I keep wasting hours on the internet, and I don’t have the self-discipline to just make myself stop, but if I phrase it this way you’ll excuse my sin as a common human foible and I can have the pleasant sensation of accountability without all the uncomfortable realities.”

“I’ve been struggling with lust” means “I keep entirely failing to restrain myself when tempted to imagine pleasurable, if forbidden, encounters with whichever female has caught my attention at the moment. Sometimes I don’t even make the usual halfhearted attempt at purity. But now I can pretend I’ve confessed without actually giving you any of the nasty particulars.”

“I’ve been struggling with trying to love certain people” translates into “I haven’t been struggling with loving those people. I just don’t like ‘em, and I’m not particularly interested in changing; but I can’t admit that to you Christian types, or I’ll look bad, so I act like I want to and just find it very difficult.”

In short, the only continuing action this present active participle denotes is a continued failure to actually face up to my sin and conquer it. It’s a hypocritical attempt at the kind of false honesty that lets people like me for being a good Christian person, and like me even more for being honest.

Men – we have to stop doing this. We should be struggling with sin: offering obstinate resistance, making violent efforts to escape, striving to do something we know is more difficult than our own abilities will allow. More than that, we should be winning – because it’s not about our own abilities. As one missions organization proclaims, “Don’t let your struggle be in vain.” As a certain apostle might add, “For it is Christ who works in you, to will and to do according to His good pleasure.”

We should be experiencing victory. But when we fail, we need to take responsibility (that word all bad men hate and all good men learn to submit to) for our actions, and their results.

This doesn’t mean we have to broadcast the details of our sin to the world. I wouldn’t recommend it. But with spiritual leaders, mentors, accountability partners, close friends, wives for those who have them, we cannot be less than honest. We dare not. Dishonest euphemisms undermine our spiritual support structure and mire us in masks we can’t possibly maintain.

Brothers, we are not called to slavery beneath the yoke of sin, but to freedom in Christ. His yoke is easy, and His burden is light. Maybe we need to start by being honest with God… and with ourselves.

Take responsibility. ‘Fess up. Be men.

Leadership: part one

Men are uniquely called and naturally equipped for leadership. I want to spend several posts examining this extremely important aspect of true manhood.

Introduction

God calls all men to be leaders. Although women must also lead at times, the burden of leadership always falls upon men. A man’s primary call, repeated over and over again in Scripture, is to lead his family. Some are also called to lead within the church. But male leadership is not limited to heads of households or pastors–it is the universal assumption of Scripture. When men in the Bible are not leading, it is usually an indication of a major problem.

Is the Biblical paradigm symptomatic of a cultural problem?

Some claim the implicit emphasis of Scripture on this point merely reflects the oppressive views of society during the period the Bible was written. There are two reasons this objection carries little weight. First, Scripture, though penned by men, is the inspired and perfect revelation of God, which communicates a view of the world characterized by the redemptive actions of God in Christ. Christ came to save mankind from the penalty of sin and reestablish the perfect world that was lost at the Fall. The Church is the foremost reflection of his work. Why, then, would the Apostle Paul direct the church, “I do not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man” unless this were the way God really intended it to operate? Various scriptures on this theme are scattered around the New Testament. The Old Testament may be a shadow of things to come–”In the former time God winked,” Paul wrote, and Jesus told the Pharisees that “Moses allowed some things because of the hardness of your hearts,” but the witness of the New Testament calls us to an absolute standard, and so if patriarchal society was wrong it ought to have been addressed in Scripture. To claim that the Christian worldview is variable according to shifting societal norms misses the point of what the Bible is and why it exists. Second, the patriarchal culture of Ancient Israel, rather than being typical of the culture of the time, actually stood in sharp contrast to the goddess-worshipping tribes around them. In fact, the Israelites were always forsaking Jehovah to worship Ishtar and had to be called back by the prophets. The obvious reason that the Lord did not eventually come to be worshipped as a goddess is that He is not, and would not allow his people to change his image into something more compatible with the surrounding culture, even though it would have made the religion more popular.

In the Trinity

A study of leadership takes us back to the beginning–even before creation. Before time, even. What was then? God existed. In three persons! The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Far from existing in “mutual submission” or some such egalitarian arrangement, there clearly exists a hierarchy within the Trinity. Jesus submitted himself to the will of the Father. We see this clearly in John 8. Jesus says the Father has sent him; he does not act on his own authority, but according to the Father’s will; he does not seek his own glory, but the Father seeks it. The relationship between the Father and the Son is one of perfect love and agreement, and yet the Father does not submit to the Son, but the Son to the Father. In the same way, we see that the Holy Spirit does not seek His own glory, but that of the Son, and bears witness of the Son to our hearts (John 15).

Dominion

God displays the leadership and harmony within the Trinity in creation. God created man (mankind) in His image, to rule over the physical creation, to give it order and cultivate it. The Bible places men in a position of benevolent leadership over their families which ought to reflect the way God rules His people. This type of leadership might be extended to civil society as well, but that is a complex issue that cannot be addressed in this post. The basic unit of society is the family, and the husband and father rules over it.

Failure

The detrimental effects of leadership failure first show up in Genesis 3. In his Paradise Lost, the (misogynist) poet John Milton gets Adam off the hook to some extent by portraying the Fall as being precipitated by Eve after her unwise decision to separate herself from Adam. In reality, we read in Genesis that Adam was with her when she ate the fruit. He watched the temptation, saw her eat, and then listened to her and ate! This is a failure of leadership, to be sure. The man who was supposed to protect and lead his wife stood by as the serpent tempted her, and then meekly accepted the fruit of perdition. I like to think I would have cried “NO!” attacked that Serpent tooth and nail, calling on the angels for help, and not stopping till I had crushed its wicked head . . . In reality, however, I would probably have done just what Adam did. The sins of other men seem ridiculous only when we do not compare them with our own.

Since that time, men have always had a knack for either abdicating or abusing their leadership role, and it usually results in disaster. Looking at today’s culture, the shocking irresponsibility of the majority of young men indicates a fault in the way they were raised; it was not always this way. The blame must be laid at the feet of fathers who did not lead their sons and model responsible leadership for them.

Redemption

Christ is the golden thread that runs through every verse of Scripture. He is the beginning and end of all things. It is to His character we must ultimately look in finding a pattern for leadership in the Bible. We will pursue this avenue further in a future post.

Conclusion

What I want to assert here is simply that men are naturally equipped, gifted, and called to lead. This is our responsibility and our privilege. Further posts will examine in detail what being a leader means.

Teddy Roosevelt on the Great Man

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”

(“Citizenship in a Republic,” Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910)

Poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins

(The Soldier) 

YES. Why do we áll, seeing of a soldier, bless him? bless
Our redcoats, our tars? Both of these being, the greater part,
But frail clay, nay but foul clay. Here it is: the heart,
Since, proud, if calls the calling manly, gives a guess
That, hopes that, makesbelieve, the men must be no less;
It fancies, feigns, deems, dears the artist after his art;
And fain will find as sterling all as all is smart,
And scarlet wear the spirit of wár thére express. 

Mark Christ our King. He knows war, served this soldiering through;
He of all can handle a rope best. There he bides in bliss
Now, and séeing somewhére some mán do all that man can do,
For love he leans forth, needs his neck must fall on, kiss,
And cry ‘O Christ-done deed! So God-made-flesh does too:
Were I come o’er again’ cries Christ ‘it should be this.’

Fears of Men

A while ago – far too long to justify the lapse in posting – I wrote about fear, and challenging it.   

(Aside: somewhat ironically, the day after I posted about being afraid of heights I got sent up into a belfry to help fix a ladder.  God has a sense of humor.) 

Anyway, since then I’ve been thinking about fear, and especially about fears that seem to afflict men in particular.  There are several of these, and since I’m prone to most of them, it’s a matter of some personal interest.  Of course, it is possible that these are my own faults, and I’m just seeking psychological comfort in projecting my personal character-flaws on others; but I’m reasonably sure there are at least a few others who may have the same failings, from time to time.   

Anyway, I intend to write a series of posts on fears I’ve observed in myself and other men, and – hopefully – get a little insight into the sources of these fears, and the proper (manly) response to them. 

Here goes.  

* * * 

Recently a man under the moniker “djs” has been posting some rather hard-hitting comments beneath posts on this blog.  This has led to several reactions, all of them interesting, but he made what I thought was a useful point on this post: 

I understand this blog, based on Jonathan’s initial post, to be an exploration into what it means to be a man, generally, and a Christian man, particularly. Moreover, I understand this blog to be dialectic, for there to be give and take, argument and counter-argument (”as iron sharpens iron . . .”). Thus I have commented vigorously in the past, not to argue for the sake of argument, but to elaborate real criticisms in the hope of participating in a process that will bring the writers, the commentators, and the readers of this blog closer to a true understanding of the nature of manliness. My understanding, however, appears to be exceptional; most commentators on this blog either enthusiastically endorse the posts or meekly ask questions about them. Thus I fear that I am perceived as strident when that is not my intention. 

Of course, there is nothing wrong, per se, with agreeing with a post, any more than there is with disagreeing with it.  And I am, personally, a big fan of questions.  But there is nothing inherently wrong with vigorous criticism, either. 

Still, that this note was necessary (and I think it was) should tell us something.  “djs” has in this passage captured the spirit of the project quite well.  Why does he need the clarification? 

Part of the problem is rooted in an endemic spirit of “niceness” which I have already maligned (without defending the action) in my original introductory post.  I’m not going to defend my maligning habits here either, nor even explain at any length what I mean; only to suggest a connection with the fundamental fear that I believe is at work: 

Fear of confrontation. 

As an RA for two years, on several occasions I had to challenge people for breaking rules.  I must admit (mea culpa) I absolutely hated doing this, and would have much preferred to let them get away with it rather than confront them.  On one or two occasions I probably did.  (The technical term for a person who acts like this is “mealy-hearted wimp” – but there it is.)  I didn’t mind too much if I knew the person would respect my authority; but I really disliked challenging anyone who I thought would react negatively in any way. 

On other occasions, I had to challenge friends to overcome spiritual faults in their lives.  I honestly believe that in some cases the words may have been more difficult for me to say than for them to hear.  I spoke because I had to, because I loved these people; but I would have much rather not. 

I was afraid of confrontation.  And I know why, too – I wanted people to like me.  In the first case I was afraid of making enemies, of people despising or rejecting me.  In the second case I was afraid of damaging friendships I valued highly. 

In Christianese we call this “fear of man,” and we are warned against it – or rather, we are commanded to live on a level at which it does not apply.  Slaves in the ancient world were surely more justified than most of us in being cautious how they acted, or at least in disobeying secretly rather than openly where they might be severely punished.  But for Christian slaves their actions were removed from this sphere entirely.   

Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ, not by the way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. (Ephesians 6:5-6) 

“Fear and trembling” – but not because of what their masters might do, because it isn’t ultimately about pleasing their masters at all.  

When I let fear of another person’s opinion get in the way of saying or doing what I know is right, I am practicing a kind of idolatry.  I am letting a human being matter to me more than God.  The fact that it is fear, rather than love, that I feel toward this person only underlines its similarity to other pagan idolatries.  Who can love Moloch?  But you had better fear him, and please him, or face the consequences. 

My point is not to compare your friends (or enemies) to Moloch.  My point is that men must not be afraid of confrontation.  This doesn’t mean that those of you who don’t disagree with us are somehow less manly.  It doesn’t mean that we are necessarily less manly because we will probably communicate most disagreements between ourselves personally rather than publicly on this forum (although sooner or later I expect to see a follow-up post saying “nonsense!”).  It does mean that you should be able and willing to express your disagreement, when appropriate.  (Yes, this applies to ladies as well, but so far y’all seem quite capable of taking us to task when you think we need it.) 

Note that there are several kinds of confrontation, and a man may be very bad at some while managing others quite easily.  Here is a handy list, probably incomplete, which I would like your comments on: 

1) Physical confrontation.  (Beating someone up, or being beaten up, as the case may be – okay, yes, that’s the more extreme end of the range.) 

2) Relational/emotional confrontation. 

3) Purely intellectual confrontation.  

4) Confrontation of authority. (For many of us it is difficult to publicly disagree with the priest or professor, on anything other than purely intellectual matters.  The president is easier because you don’t know him; if you’re an ordinary person, he will probably never hear what you think anyway.) 

5) Confrontation from authority.  (Those of us in some position of leadership often dislike challenging the people under us, as I related above.) 

6) Spiritual confrontation.  (I’m not sure what exactly this entails, although it may include such things as St. Anthony battling evil spirits in the wilderness, or Jesus with the Gerasene demoniac, but it need not necessarily involve demons directly.) 

* * * 

So, men.  What kinds of confrontation are you afraid of, and why? 

When will righteous fear of God overcome your cowering fear of man? 

Interlude

Recently one of the blogs I read went for a long while without any posts.  Don’t you hate it when that happens?

More posts are coming.  Honest.