“Esau” Christianity? Douglas Wilson Needs a Bible Study

258 thoughts on ““Esau” Christianity? Douglas Wilson Needs a Bible Study”

1. Look at Cynthia, dropping it like it’s hot!

   Yeah, so much of our ideas about what makes someone “masculine” or “feminine” are not only rooted in cultural trends, they are also based in our personal insecurities that we refuse to get resolved. Can’t we just leave all that nonsense at the cross and accept that our individual role in fulfilling the will of God has to do with what’s between our ears, not what’s between our legs?

   LikeLike

2. Wow, thanks for going all biblical on us. It’s nice to see someone who actually read their Bible.

   Amen brother!

   LikeLike

3. Cynthia you are the first person I have heard to make a comment other than my self in regard to the “rite” of circumcision. It is absolutely NO accident that this strange rite and “marker” happens right after the incident of Abe and Sarah attempting to manage/control promised “outcomes.” The placement is crucial in the text, I believe. Abraham and those who follow will be reminded when they “mark their organ” that leading requires a different point of reference than THAT.

   LikeLike

4. That’s a very good point, and I think thats a solid approach.

   LikeLike

5. I never said having a Y chromosome meant anything or imparted spiritual power.

   My point was how we treat each other and avoiding logical fallacies.

   “Welcome to the 21st century” is an implied attack on the sophistication of a person. Its the same thing as saying they’re a backwards or old fashion. I don’t agree with him, but I think it’s better if we keep those kinds of jabs out.

   LikeLike

6. Depends on what part of the world you’re from. My part doesn’t get much snow or ice.

   LikeLike

7. Not that funny if you’re on the receiving end.

   Think about it: “I Can Beat You Up!” is a Threat Display, a strong animal forcing Submission on another, weaker animal. Animal Forced Dominance Display. ANIMAL.

   LikeLike

8. The presence of homosexual activism in this world does not mean that beleivers must permit every distortion of form to have a place in their home, or their church.

   Funny… the closest thing I’ve seen to a textbook Homosexual Activist (TM) approached his Homosexuality with all the Righteousness of the Truly Reformed and his Activism with all the zeal of a Calvary Chapelite witnessing with a bullhorn. He either converted from straight to hyper-gay or uncloseted with what was in all but name a Damascus Road Conversion Experience; I referred to it as “He accepted homosexuality as his personal Lord and Savior and has been Witnessing ever since.” That is the only way you can describe it. It’s like homosexuality punched the same buttons and triggered the same Faith and Witnessing behavior as an Altar Call Conversion in an extreme Evangelical environment. No exaggeration to say that for him, homosexuality became a Fundamentalist religion. Bad Craziness.

   LikeLike

9. Masculinity and homosexuality aren’t exactly opposites of each other. Actually, it’s not unheard of for some “manly” men who turn out to be closeted homosexuals.

   I can make a case that a hypermasculine male-supremacist culture actually is predisposed towards MALE homoerotica. If women are nothing more than two-legged livestock, how else could a man have sex with another PERSON? As one pre-Christian source put it, “Women for breeding stock, Men for love, Boys for pleasure.”

   (When I posted that on one of the threads at Wartburg Watch, I got a response about American servicemen observing widespread homosexuality and pedophilia in Afghanistan/Talibanistan. And you can’t get more hypermasculine than the Talibani.)

   LikeLike

10. *GOD’S design in marriage. Sorry about that!

    LikeLike

11. John, you are absolutely right. The NT is very clear that the husband is the head of the wife. Pattie, you’ve quoted Gal. 3:28, where Paul is making the point that IN CHRIST we are all the same: we all have equal access to God through Christ Jesus. But this one verse does not dismiss the many more verses where Paul, Christ, and others delineate Gid’s design in marriage. This is not an “ancient male dominence worldview.” This is God’s design for the family, so that there is order and harmony. See Eph. 5:22-24; Col. 3:18; Titus 2:5; and 1 Peter 3:1-7, for starters.

    On the other hand, Paul does specifically say that, in the church, he does not permit a woman to have authority over men. However, I think the extra-Pauline support for this position is scant. It’s certainly not a slam-dunk that we should carry Paul’s view across cultural lines. God put women in charge of Israel in the book of Judges, and women were very active in the early church. So I think there’s room for some latitude there. But, I agree with John that this article is specious, and the mischaracterization of Jacob as feminine is pure bunk. I also agree with David’s reproof of Chaplain Mike, that his response to John was not done in brotherly love.

    LikeLike

12. If you look at the Bible, God isn’t keen on big burly he-men – the idea that super-macho men and ultra feminine women are superior to the average Joe and the average Jane is WORLDLY, PAGAN thinking, and it is straight out of Sodom and Gomorrah – in Lot’s day, there were few “homosexuals” as we would think of them today – just as now, most men were heterosexual and naturally preferred women, but “alpha males” also engaged in forced copulation with other men in order to dominate them and show superiority, as the great apes and other animals do today .

    Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau, Joseph and his older brothers, Jesus and Barabbas – in each case, the man of God is the LESS overtly macho of the two, and I think that it was no accident that God established CIRCUMCISION as the ritual of His covenant with His chosen people.

    LikeLike

13. Appealing to the worldly machismo ethic will ultimately bring disdain from the world. That serves the flesh

    And in any case, when it comes to “appealing to the worldly machismo ethic”, Islam (especially X-treme Islam) will always be able to outdo us.

    LikeLike

14. Laziness might be an incomplete picture. If there is any laziness, it’s over the decidedly greater effort males tend to need to marshal to relate and coimmunicate. With the caveat that this is a vague generalization, what is second nature to women (to excess, as far as many men are concerned) is a good deal harder work for men. The problem then is that many want to stereotype relationship and communication as being particularly feminine, when in fact those attributes are what make us persons, rather than mere stimulus-response animals.

    Problem is, faith is all about relationship and (necessarily) communication. So faith and religion get lumped in with the stereotypes of communication and relationship, and the church (all too) naturally is perceived as feminine.

    What makes a man arguably lazy about faith is the same thing that can make him lazy about a communicative relationship with his wife. We’re kind of disabled this way–it tends to be much more work for most of us to listen well and to share our thoughts, particularly in a relevant dialogue. It also takes a great deal more work for us to retain in memory words received by way of auditory. I believe there is good evidence to show that there’s much about this “disability” that is hard-wired into our brains.

    So we experience women expressing, listening, sharing, and relating with such facility, and our logical inclination is to think that the facility is feminine since women tend to do it so well . . . and so MUCH.

    So the laziness is kind of an unfair comparison. It’s like comparing a sprinter to a long-distance runner: what comes naturally for many women takes a lot more work for men, especially when the men haven’t trained or practiced much in the art . . . and especially when they don’t see the value of doing so. (Why does the long-distance runner want to win a sprint, after all?)

    The problem is . . . spirituality is (bottom line) all about relationship, and relationship requires communication. So when you resign relationship and its requisite practice of dialogue to a feminine thing, you make the thing that matters most in life–the very reason we exist, why God made us–a feminine thing.

    It’s no wonder that male-led evangelical theology tends to be suspicious and marginalizing of the very thing that Jesus insisted was the core truth and meaning of all theology and law: love for God and love for neighbors. Effectively, we say, “Just let the women take care of that.”

    Problem is . . . God’s Word is clear that EVERYTHING else is meaningless without love (recall particularly 1 Cor. 13, or 1 John). So if faith is really about love, men have to work a lot harder at faith as well. And naturally, we tend to make faith less about relationshiop than about trusting when you don’t have all of the answers (as if faith were a default backup rather than a foundation of love, as in . . . when all else fails, love doesn’t).

    LikeLike

15. Just remember, it was when David, the former runt, soft guy chosen by God, girded up his loins and decided to exert his “manliness” (errrrr. Bathsheba) that the Kingdom began to fold up. It was when David girded up his loins and decided to exert his “manliness” and “dance” into Jerusalem maybe almost naked that his bride called him out and they never slept together again. If you pay very close attention to the story line on King Dave you recognize when he does his “manhood” thing that he gets himself and a lot of others in trouble. Oh, and wasn’t it brother Paul doing his manly thing breathing threats and jumping on his white horse, wasn’t it Paul who got kicked into the dirt and dust by, oh yes, the Risen One? I know I can hear everyone saying it wasn’t the “manly” thing that was the problem it was their motives and intent. It is funny that the “manly” thing is almost always linked with the wrong thing in these narratives. One other zinger. I am reminded of Elijah’s great depression brought on, I believe, by his act of manliness, slaying and draining the blood of all those prophets of Baal. I’m not convinced that God asked him to do that, just show who was boss/God which the wet wood inferno showed. It’s interesting that Jezebel says to him, I paraphrase, “you’re not a whole lot different than me” doing the manly thing with the sword. That sends Elijah into a depression that will have God say to him, find a replacement. I’m sensing a lot of the “manly men” need find a replacement in the church. It is no accident that more women followed Jesus than men. It is no different today. Why 12 disciples (men only). My answer, they were the only “men” Jesus could find to follow him. Women got it.

    LikeLike

16. Excellently put.

    LikeLike

17. Half the time I go is simply because I’ll feel guilty if I don’t and particularly now I have children. Before children neither my husband and I were that regular at church. I used to skip across the road without waiting for the green light as well before children – now I patiently wait for the go ahead – it’s all about setting a good example!

    LikeLike

18. Thank you for clarifying that. From my own observations – I’m a daughter, a wife, a mother and I have lots of male friends – all the men in my life are generally incapable of compartmentalizing work off from the rest of their lives with a few rare exceptions. I also see women who try hard not to allow this aspect to dominate their family lives so make more of an attempt to keep these parts of their lives separate. This is one reason I am remain unconvinced that is a particular gender trait to compartmentalize. It could be that men and women tend to compartmentalize different things as a rule but I haven’t seen any studies that examine that aspect. The trouble with statistics it’s not always clear how they are being measured.
    I agree that you can’t build a theology around it – as people like Wilson are trying to do.

    LikeLike

19. What I find most frustrating about Wilson’s pronouncements is his tendency of dropping these bombs (pun intended) on his blog and elsewhere and then not sticking around to deal with the fallout. To wit, following the original “Effeminate” post, I attempted to get him to clarify his nebulous assertions that masculine worship is necessary in order to make women feel “safe” and “protected.” Naturally, I was curious as to the precise nature of the implied threat to female worshippers–from which they required protection–and why men were presumably immune to this same threat. So I asked him about it in the blog thread. No response. Asked again. No response. I give credit to a couple of readers who threw some comments my way, ostensibly in an attempt to help me clarify matters, but those responses were not particularly helpful, and, more importantly, I directed my questions to Rev. Wilson, who declined to respond to me, but who nevertheless had time to crank out another five blog posts in the 48 hours following my entreaties.

    In the interest of full disclosure, though, I should mention the possibility that Wilson’s failure to respond to my comments may have been linked to his being the subject of a fake interview at our satirical blog (Federal Vision Was All a Big Joke). But come on! It’s not like he wrote a book on Christian satire or anything!

    LikeLike

20. Hmmm. Maybe I am just tired, but I don’t think the Wilson’s response clears up very much.

    My two cents:

    So, Wilson says a little bit about the church’s corporate identity being feminine, but this claim is not really that consequential to the points being discussed here.

    How little does it matter? Well, I guess it points out he’s not afraid of the idea of being “feminine,” in a corporate sense. But then comes the clincher: he moves to define the church’s femininity as “submission to Christ” and then argues that this submission should include conformity to a set of trans-historial gender norms. According to these norms, an effeminate man or a manly woman is “grotesque.” And it world be quite dreadful for anyone to mistake the feminine corporate identity for their individual spiritual identity. What do you get in such a case? Ah, right: monsters. More precisely: monstrous worship leaders.

    But have no fear: Wilson is willing to assure us that he thinks women are great. He only dislikes women who are monsters. And men who are monsters. Especially when they write music. But that’s just because God doesn’t like monsters, either; Wilson is just being a good bride.

    So, even though he says his target is effiminancy, not femininity, the content worried over by the comments above is still pretty much on target.

    As to Jacob and Esau, the discussion of false-masculinity (Esau) and real-masculinity (Jacob) is interesting I guess. But in his attempt to actually use Jacob and Esau as trans-historical gender types falls a bit flat when he merely says Jacob is masculine because he was tending to the family business! Okay, fine, but the whole point of the Jacob-Esau tale isn’t that Jacob is more deserving, so that God picks him. The point is that God picks the younger over the older; the trickster over the meritorious son; the undeserving over the deserving. Men wrestle with angels and climb stairways to heaven. Chaplain Mike’s comments come closer to reflecting on the significance of this larger narrative point. If you even try to read the story as a lesson in being a Godly man, your missing the intent of the story.

    LikeLike

21. Ben, you and I, we’ve been through this before, and we disagree on this one.

    I will repeat my fundamental position for the sake of other readers who may not have been privy to earlier conversations. The foundational passage for me remains Genesis 1:26-28 —

    “Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

    Note the “him” and the “them” references in this passage, reflecting Unity/diversity after the fashion of the Trinity. God’s image is fully reflected only when male and female function together in partnership.

    The image of God is reflected in male and female together, living in the blessing of God, in full and equal partnership representing God and multiplying his blessing throughout the world. These words are not addressed to men but to men and women together. Only men and women together in full and equal partnership ultimately show “God’s image” to the world.

    The promise of Pentecost (Acts 2:17-18), to be exemplified in the Church (Galatians 3:28), is that this original creation design is being restored in the new creation.

    I know you don’t agree with this, and have other arguments to wield against it, but this is not the place for that. I just wanted to make sure everyone is clear about where I stand on this. And once again, unless I am persuaded otherwise, this will be the perspective from which I write on this blog.

    LikeLike

22. And “If at first you don’t succeed, USE A BIGGER HAMMER.”

    LikeLike

23. “Hello! My name is Elder Young!”

    LikeLike

24. Wow….if masculine means violence, brute force and disregard for others then it does have no place in Christianity.

    What they’re talking about is not masculinity but something called “Hypermasculinity”. I first came across the term in a reprint of a 1943 OSS Intelligence/Psych Profile of a certain A.Hitler. Basically, it means defining “masculine” as dominance and aggression — “violence, brute force, and disregard for others” — burning out all else with a white-hot iron, and firewalling what’s left to the max.

    I think I would just ignore these guys as a fringe group yet in the larger society context of increasing legislation to control women (prosecuting women who have had stillborn children, having pregnancy start before sex, personhood of the ovum) it is worrisome.

    Remember that other characteristic of Hypermasculinity: DOMINATION. POWER.

    LikeLike

25. Doug Wilson seems to have a pretty common affliction among middle-aged men.

    You mean what I’ve heard called “Hardening of the Attitudes”?

    LikeLike

26. Maniless or Hypermanliness?

    (And then there’s the leather boyz epitomizing Driscoll-type “I Can Hurt You!” manliness…)

    LikeLike

27. Before Ted got busted doing Meth with a male prostie?

    LikeLike

28. Wasn’t Romans 1 a literary device called a “Decline Narrative”?

    LikeLike

29. Maybe he means unchanged since God dictated it word-for-word from Heaven in Kynge Jaymes Englyshe?

    LikeLike

30. “The Bible has all these contradictions so if somebody goes off on a tangent with one of them, you can throw the opposing one in front of him to trip him up before he can do too much damage.”
    — My old Dungeonmaster on the subject, many-many years ago

    LikeLike

31. David:

    First, it is the “unrighteous” who shall not inherit the kingdom of God, but not because they practice unrighteousness. As with all sinners, it is because they have not been made righteous a la Christ’s saving grace. The sins do not make them unrighteous—their unrighteousness makes them sin. This is why Paul identifies them as various brands of sinners, rather than people who commit sins—these are their identities, not merely their practices. And it’s a good thing, too—else which of us could claim to have never been guilty of theft, greed, verbal abuse, or swindling? No, these are people who would identify themselves as such, having no interest or experience in the righteousness that can only be had by right relationship with God. Our only distinction from the rest of the sinners is literally, there but for the grace of God go we.

    Second, these verses are in the context of the 8 preceding verses, which are all about how shameful it is that Christians should get into legal disputes with each other. Rather, Paul says it is far better to simply accept being wronged and cheated (6:7) rather than shame the name of Christ before a watching world. The point of vv. 8-11 then is that Paul is assuring us not to worry—God will make right all wrongs. Those who practice according to their sinful, fallen nature (unregenerate as they must be) cannot be part of God’s kingdom . . . a far worse outcome than any judicial remedy could hope to accomplish.

    Your translation misrepresents as “effeminate” the original Greek, of which we do not have full and complete understanding in this particular case, as we are so removed from the cultural context. It is a reference to a particular scenario in their history, invoking “catamites” who were “in a passive same-sex relationship” (BDAG 613). Certainly Paul and his audience would have understood this allusion, but we undoubtedly don’t get it fully today. It’s far too simplistic to even summarily make this about simple homosexuality, let alone somehow having to do with men who have personality traits that differ from fleshly and worldly standards of normality.

    Again, this is proof-texting—taking God’s inspired Word and twisting it’s meaning to fit cultural (worldly) and biological (fleshly) assumptions.

    And what kind of theology could have the God of grace assigning people to hell because of personality traits. (Unless a misguided arch-Calvinist wants to argue God make them so, in order to predestine them to hell . . . to which Calvin himself would rightly object, once he could finally pause from spinning in his grave.)

    Nothing that you want to call “straight” or normal in terms of gender “affectation” has anything to do with God’s morality, and it certainly is not prescribed in the Bible, nor is it particularly or absolutely prescribed for Christ’s kingdom.

    And we shouldn’t be trying to make it out to be otherwise.

    LikeLike

32. You’re right that the slippery slope is a fallacy…but it is interesting to see how it works out sometimes, while still being fallacious.

    I would recommend reading Dr. Russell Moore’s essay “Why We’re All Egalitarians Now.” The source of a lot of the consternation for women’s ordination (after 1950 years of relative quiet on the subject) comes from sources who say that Christianity at its heart is patriarchal, because of the notion that God is our Father and Jesus is the Son. I read a book by a neo-Pagan, Sam Keen, where he makes exactly this argument against Christianity and monotheistic religions in general: they’re patriarchal, they destroy the environment, they oppress women. You have it from the horse’s mouth. He’s not the only one saying it.

    If we begin to walk away from the patriarchal nature of Christianity, we lose something very important. The pagans see the connection and they oppose it. Will we see the connection and defend it?

    So yes, when we speak of women’s ordination we are indirectly touching on Trinitarian issues, because like it or not, patriarchy is part of Christianity to some degree. It logically follows that if gender distinctions made by Paul no longer apply because we’re all one in Christ now, then why does it matter what we call God? Why not call Him Mother? Read some of the comments on Rachel Held Evans blog. People are going there, and why not? What principled reason can you give them for not going there?

    Sure the slippery slope is fallacious, but does that prevent it from ever being true? If a spade’s a spade, you gotta call it a spade.

    Rachel herself has written that as long as the church continues to withhold ordination from women, it is engaging in ongoing oppression of womens’ voices. Which means that the entire Church Catholic has been guilty of engaging in oppression since the beginning. It’s the old evangelical pit-fall: assume that everybody who came before got it wrong until you “figured it all out” by reading a couple of Bible verses one day. It doesn’t work.

    Also, I don’t think Austin or I would deny that women are “equal partners in the Gospel.” We merely do not think it right to ordain them to lead churches. I don’t know where Austin is on female deacons, personally I’m OK with it. I’m OK with women lectors, singers, etc. Just not pastors. And it isn’t because I think that men are better than women; rather we are engaging with sacramental realities in church, and the nature of that Reality requires that the person delivering to us the Mysteries of a Father God and His Son be a man. Much like the vestments worn by clergy, the gender of the pastor points us to a sacramental reality, which, because it is sacred, we had better not mess with.

    LikeLike

33. David:

    I don’t believe your application of Romans 1 is at all relevant to Mike’s excellent argument.

    First, per Romans 1: this is a classic example of proof-texting–with a presupposed agenda, we trot out a few obscure passages, out of context, and presumed to force-fit them to argue for broad-sweeping and irrelevant doctrines. Whatever else its anachronistically vague language (for us moderns) may be referencing, certainly this passage has nothing whatsoever to do with gender roles. The only way one might argue as much is if one held the myopic and fleshly (sinful) perspective that culture’s gender roles are all about sex.

    Any given culture’s supposed gender roles are defined far more by that culture (i.e., what the Bible so affectionately refers to as “the ways of this World”) than biology (i.e., what the Bible just as affectionately refers to as “the flesh”); and they certainly have no bearing on what the Bible characterizes as righteousness and truth. Seriously, how could it possibly be in the least reasonable to argue what is deemed “normal” by a fallen culture’s or fallen biology’s standards as having anything to do with righteousness?

    You want to insist that “one of the consequences of homosexuality is that men take on perverse feminine affects and women perverse masculine affects,” but that of course is not at all what the passage describes. The “shameful horrors” into which these were swept, Paul vaguely describes as “something” or other that constituted “lustful passions” . . . not your affectations. You apparently want to make it out that the “consequences of sexual perversity” upon “their own personalities” had something to do with gender roles. But that is not even remotely implied, let alone described. And regardless, the consequences to their personalities (whatever they may be) is not the subject that Paul is describing as shameful.

    If Paul intended gender roles to be indicated, he would have been as specific as he was about the real list of shame, following this passing illustration, in verses 29-32. (I’m always struck by how fond we can be of ignoring the much more explicit and much more disturbingly applicable list of unrighteousness warranting death [per v. 32] . . . gossiping included).

    Romans 1 has nothing relevant to say about gender roles and the heresy of God’s supposed masculinity standards (the God who, by the way, is not a man, is not biological, and therefore is not even masculine; angels aren’t either, by the way, per Jesus).

    LikeLike

34. “Bargh. I eat meat!”

    Way to offend the vegetarian males there, David. 😉

    LikeLike

35. So explain why asking the question about the obvious disengagement of men from church is a wrong question.

    And Phil, as an Engineer if you see a problem in something in your work are you obligated to ask why the problem exists. Poor design? Poor operating conditions? Or if there are system failures do you simply say I won’t address it because I may come up with the wrong answer?

    I have not been to every church, but what I have seen is that often women outnumber men and the question is why? My relative complains feminization of church (quotes a book called Why Men Hate Church’). The answer may not be simple but what you seem to propose is ignore it.

    Am I reading you correctly?

    LikeLike

36. If it was me, my reasons would be identical to your husband. I’m tired, leave me be.
    I have no dog in this fight, but do wonder why men often switch off.

    LikeLike

37. But you are not hearing anyone advocate for losing those distinctions here, are you? The slippery slope is a fallacy. Each step is a choice not a slide. If you see us taking actual steps call us on it. There is a long tradition of recognizing women as equal partners in the Gospel and I make no apology for making that one of the issues I care about and write about.

    LikeLike

38. I’m going to have to agree with Nate and say that iMonk seems to not have Wilson’s position correct. Some like to use, “… nor is there male and female…”. Context please. Make sure the bullet fits the gun before trying to fire it. I think this analogy applies to the article here as well.

    Read Wilson’s response linked by David above.

    LikeLike

39. It is unfortunate that Austin is correct with regard to opposition to egalitarianism becoming anathema in many places, including this blog.

    One of C.S. Lewis’ essentials for a “mere Christianity” was the notion of male leadership. He argued there were sacramental reasons why only men should be pastors; that what we call God and Jesus matters, and that if we lose sight of these distinctions we will cease to be Christian.

    Look at what is happening in some denominations with “Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier” replacing “Father, Son and Holy Spirit,” homosexual ordination shortly following women’s ordination and so on, and it’s hard to argue with Lewis.

    If we lose these distinctions were are losing a large part of what it means to be orthodox, catholic and evangelical. Period.

    LikeLike

40. When all you’ve got is a hammer, every problem starts looking like a nail.

    LikeLike

41. Doug Wilson responds…
    http://www.dougwils.com/Liturgical-Notes/five-more-volleys-on-effeminate-worship.html

    LikeLike

42. Haven’t heard the song but I’m baffled by that simile. ‘Like a flood, His mercy reigns’? I’m thinking really hard, but I can’t recall ever seeing a flood reigning over anything. Or is it meant to be a pun on ‘rain’ (but then surely it would be the rain that’s flooding, not the flood that’s raining)?

    LikeLike

43. …laughable men’s retreats that seem to think the only qualifying aspect of a male believer is that he likes football and eating lots of meat.

    Football or Hockey?

    I was the Omega Male of my high school. My face got very familiar with the boots of those Alpha Males who “like football and eating lots of meat”.

    LikeLike

44. What you are saying IS true, but what I was saying was NOT that women are completely unable to compartmentalize, merely that men tend to be stronger at it more often. It’s only a tendency, and not a rule, as confirmed to me by the vast majority of women I know. Not that I haven’t met women that could outdo me in this regard. I’ve also met some highly nurturing men, but generally we are a bit more brutish and insensitive than women. Generally speaking only, with plenty of room for exceptions, and no room at all for building a theology around it.

    LikeLike

45. We tend to dance around and hold up all the exceptions instead of the rule – seek out the individual instead of the group think… so I am going to say it… church is a learned behavior for men. We would rather be sleeping/fixing something/building something/watching footbal/making love to our wives than be at church. Now I actually really enjoy church and liturgy – but it wasn’t a natural thing where I had this desire from the beginning. It started as an obligation. And guess what… that’s OK!

    By the way folks, men are different than women no matter how much you try to make them the same… and thank God for that….

    LikeLike

46. Who was created first depends on which part of Genesis you are reading….doesn’t take long for the bible to start contradicting itself. (Which is why sola scriptura doesn’t work…)

    LikeLike

47. Excellent post.

    LikeLike

48. +1 !

    LikeLike

49. There is no ad hominem here, David….John is seriously wrong about scripture, and is overlaying an ancient male dominence worldview on his misplaced theology.

    …There is no Greek or Jew, male or female…..

    AND Christ Himself is the evidence of what a man should look like…..serving and loving His Bride, not Lording over her (and He alone would be the only “man” who had any right to speak with total authority over the lives of others, which He did NOT do).

    A “Y” chromosome does not impart any spiritual power…sorry, Bud.

    LikeLike

50. Based on our chat yesterday, I think my husband might playfully contend that it’s part actual laziness, and that the cause of skipping college English class at 8am and skipping church are roughly the same. Yes, the English professor will get a couple more kids out of bed by developing more charisma: but lots of people are still going to sleep in, for reasons having noting do with the a pedantic lecturer. The professor and the university can only do so much to create motivation; it’s widespread presence or absence is there (or missing) for more systemic reasons.

    He would agree with you, though, that he certainly gets more out of some services than others & that this effects motivation. No doubt some of his reserve stems from the fact that evangelicalism never quite “worked” for him, for a variety of reasons. (For example, He’s never liked the contemporary worship music his parents, who came of age in the 1960s, thrive upon.) But, significantly, all of evangelicalism’s attempts to attract men don’t really appeal to him either. He certainly doesn’t identify with Driscoll’s brand of masculinity. And I think the worst thing I could ever do to him would be to give him a birthday gift of tickets to a men’s retreat.

    He might like to go to a science fiction convention, but can you imagine how terrible that would be after someone got done trying to make it “Christian”? (Well, it might work out if HUG organized it and we gave poor directions to all the reps from Zondervan.)

    LikeLike

51. And I said very pointedly in one of the comments, the church should be reaching men. The place for doing so is outside the church. If they are not “attracted” to church, then we should not be pursuing “attractional” ministries but meeting them where they are, relating to them honestly, and showing them Christ.

    LikeLike

52. Thereby resurrecting the old “rule of thumb.”

    LikeLike

53. What do you mean by “unchanged”? Have you read the original Hebrew/Aramaic/Greek? Forget that, even just compare the English translations you’re probably familiar with, even something extremely simple such as KJ versus NIV. They are obviously different, and thus, simply, the Bible has changed over all those years. No two ways about it.

    LikeLike

54. I don’t know man. Have you seen gay bears? Those guys eptimomize manliness.

    LikeLike

55. I think he’s talking on a statistical basis. The thing about statistics is that it’s dealing with broad demographics while we should be dealing with individuals. I think we can gain some insight from stats but we should be very wary of how we apply it to people. God sees all people as individuals who he created, not merely as data on a sheet.

    LikeLike

56. Very true! I want to see something which explores more sides of male identity than just “Bargh. I eat meat!”

    For a period of time I was thinking about minoring in Gender Studies, specifically in Male Gender Studies. That’s actually a growing field and there’s some pretty interesting stuff thats starting to get cooked up. Perhaps in 10 years we’ll have some young animator or movie maker doing the same.

    LikeLike

57. This is very good. I think there does seem to be a false choice between the two. Many churches are trying to improve their gender imbalances with laughable men’s retreats that seem to think the only qualifying aspect of a male believer is that he likes football and eating lots of meat. I think those kinds of desperate attempts are the feeling out of people slowly waking up to a problem but without the mental tools to fix it. Hopefully more nuanced understandings can work there way through the Church. I know theres been some books and online communities working on these ideas and hopefully coming up with better answers.

    LikeLike

58. I don’t agree with him Mike, but I don’t think ad hominem attacks furthers this discussion. If you disagree with a person, its much better to say why, and say so in love. Dismissing a brother when he is wrong won’t help him.

    LikeLike

59. I would say I agree fundamentally with what you’re saying. Driscoll’s statements were pretty thoughtless and unfounded.

    However, I do think there is a problem going on here and a lot of us are approaching this from a false dichotomy. There is a problem with male identity in the church. Only 1/3rd of regular church goers are male. The same problem is cropping up in higher education. Being religious or educated is seen as “womanly” or wimpish. These gender norms are merely cultural. However,we also have to realize that cultural norms are part of being human too. (as anthropologist will tell you “Culture is the OS of human cognition”) We should not be shackled to them, but I think the desire for a completely neutral cultural medium is unrealistic for how humans function. Therefore, as in all earthly things, I think our purpose is to redeem these cultural norms.

    The Church should not enforce people into specific gender roles but I do think there is a crisis of male identity for many young males that isn’t being served.

    LikeLike

60. Miguel – oh but I would dispute that!
    SOME men and SOME women compartmentalize better than other men and other women. This is not a trait peculiar simply to one gender.

    LikeLike

61. ““The problem is that men are lazy. You work all week and then you just want the weekend to yourself.”

    Why is that lazy? Especially if you attend a church that you really don’t like. I know a lot of people who would call themselves lazy rather than admit that they think church sucks. i spent many years not attending church because I found the beach or sex with my wife a far more profitable endeavor than going to some church that I hate.

    LikeLike

62. HUG-

    Well, Lauren Faust *IS* an alicorn, so….. 😉

    But you are correct- if there are many sides to femininity, why can it not be the same for masculinity?

    LikeLike

63. When I read the list I hear the author saying that as far as the church is concerned two values apply:
    1) Men = good; 2) Women = bad. Obviously, the author would sputter and admit that all are equal in the sight of God. Nonetheless, the point has been made. There is nothing of Christ in this. Nothing of the Lamb who humbled himself to the point of death. Nothing of the Jesus who wept upon hearing of a friend’s passing. Nothing of the Jesus who suffered. If I want the kind of worship apparently favored in the list, I’ll resurrect the cult of Mars/Aries.

    LikeLike

64. Wow John, welcome to the 21st century. You might want to check your Bible interpretation too. Strongly disagree here.

    LikeLike

65. But it is hypocritical, too. The whole article criticizes those outside his little macho man support circle.

    LikeLike

66. This article is unmitigated bull, to put it nicely. Scripture plainly differenetiates between men and women and while there are some differences that are strictly “cultural”, that does not diminish the fact that God made us male and female. God, furthermore, made men the Head of family and church, not women. Nothing in the New Testament changes that.
    The otion that a manly Christian is an “Esau” is ludicrous, and the author’s characterization of Jacob is insulting and innaccurate. JAcob may not have been as aggressive or as proficient a hunter as Esau, but to claim he was a namby=pamby Mam’s boy is beyond the pale of reality. Moreover, God established Israel through JAcob, not because he was, as the author says, “a wimp” or because God abhorred Esau’s masculine characteristics, but because Jacob was the Godly brother, and Esau the infidel. Jacob, admittedly, was not perfect, nor perfectly masculine, in all situations, but that does not justify the contention that masculinity is not important. Forget not King David, Samson, Moses, and countless great warriors and manly men that God did great things through in history.
    Nor forget David’s advice to Solomon “Be strong and show thyself a man.”
    Wislon and others are right in at least one thing: too many churches are seeing a trend of feminization in the sense that men are not exercising their God-given authority, but are giving undue place to female influence. I don’t deny the role of women in church, nor their importance, but nowhere does God give permission for women to usurp authority over men(St. PAUL SPECIFICALLY FORBIDS SUCH BEHAVIOR ON THE PART OF WOMEN). Men, of course, must exercise their authority in family and church wisely and in a Godly manner–it seems more than likely that men’s failure to do that in many situations has led to the tendency of women to try to “step in and take over”.

    LikeLike

67. Good point. A wise pastor once told me there was no right answer to a wrong question.

    LikeLike

68. Appealing to the worldly machismo ethic will ultimately bring disdain from the world. That serves the flesh. Church is not a macho affair. It never will be. It shouldn’t be. Bowing down, worshipping, adoring, submitting – not macho. I am reminded of Sgt. Hulka’s line in Stripes (Search You Tube -‘psyco-lighten up’) on this occasion. Lighten up Douglas.

    LikeLike

69. That’s high praise, Nate. I’d be interested to get your take on what you think Wilson is saying. I thought it was pretty transparent.

    LikeLike

70. And of course, that something else may also be the interruption… We’re both pretty low key, but he is more likely to want to keep weekends unstructured.

    LikeLike

71. This is the first new post I’ve read on this site that made me do a double-take and wonder if the iMonk didn’t write it himself. Well done (even though I’m not sure you’ve got Wison’s position correct)!

    LikeLike

72. No, we are at church together almost every week. But he generally has a harder time liking church than me. On any given Sunday, he’s more likely to go because he ought to go, than because he’s enthusiastic about it.

    I’m always curious what the difference in intensity between us comes from. It could be gender, as some assert. It is simply the case that almost universally, people assume that religion, along with children and family life, are more the woman’s responsibility than the man’s. (My husband does not hold that view, but I suppose it could be in the air, so to speak.) Or it could be the fact that I am a teenage/adult convert, so for me church always been a choice, and a definitional one. My husband grew up in a very religious family and always felt pressured to be at church multiple times per week. He also experienced all the crazy stuff early and learned to put up some barriers.

    Or maybe its something else. Neither of us is certain.

    LikeLike

73. Danielle, speaking of Norman Rockwell in this post, I think he agreed with your husband:
    “The problem is that men are lazy. You work all week and then you just want the weekend to yourself.”

    

    LikeLike

74. Men do just tend to compartmentalize far better than women. I doubt egalitarians would dispute that. This ability comes with both advantages and drawbacks. Unfortunately, sensitivity is not one of the advantages, as Wilson so aptly demonstrates.

    LikeLike

75. Hm. He has an interesting thought, you have a decent counterargument. I don’t think we need to interpret his thesis as proposing that men work harder than women, as you’ve already intuited. The question this brings to my mind is: Is church a rejuevenative experience for women in a way it isn’t for men (in general)? Or is it more that church is more of an obstacle to relaxation for men?

    It doesn’t seem ridiculous to me to think so. Whether it be culture, genes, whatever, a lot of men react to stress by wanting to be left alone, while a lot of women react by wanting to socialize. Socializing is something men do when they’re happy, not when they’re sad or tired.

    Or maybe that’s just midwestern culture, I’m not sure.

    LikeLike

76. Wilson does deserve a “+1” for this one:

    “The sermons rarely deal with sin or, if they do, they deal with sins found outside the sanctuary, preferably those of secularists in Hollywood somewhere”.

    LikeLike

77. Wow, I never caught that one before. Yeah, a flood does seem to be the antithesis of mercy. But I was never big on his remake of Amazing Grace, I don’t see it as an improvement on the original, just like the vast majority or hymn remakes by CCM rockstars. Sandra McCracken’s version (correctly entitled “Faith’s Review and Expectation”) is far superior, and doesn’t turn a jubilant anthem of rejoicing into an emo ballad.

    LikeLike

78. I CAN BEAT YOU UP – That’s some funny stuff.

    LikeLike

79. As far as Tomlin’s poetic language goes, I’m still trying to get past his “And like a flood, his mercy reigns” in another of his songs.

    It makes me want to take arms against a sea of troubles or something.

    LikeLike

80. This reminds me of an old, old post on the Claremont Institute website many years ago from 2003 about the state of men in America with the option of two choices..wimp or barbarian. What has become an epidemic in society at large is, what I believe, trying to be remedied by certain veins withing American Christianity. The question is, what do other countries have that is more along the line of how the Church ought to be that tilts neither too far one way or the other? Here is the old article…

    http://www.claremont.org/publications/crb/id.1192/article_detail.asp

    LikeLike

81. The message of the Magnificat is repeated throughout scripture:

    “He has shown strength with His arm:
    He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
    He has put down the mighty from their thrones,
    and exalted those of low degree.
    He has filled the hungry with good things;
    and the rich He has sent empty away.”

    That should put the fear of God into the these macho bullies; God could care less about what they call “strength”. Jesus destroyed death by going to the grave, not by unleashing the legions of heaven against the devil. What God calls strength man calls weak, or as Luther stated in thesis 21 of the Heidelberg Disputation, “A theology of glory calls evil good and good evil. A theology of the cross calls the thing what it actually is.”

    LikeLike

82. +1

    To blame this evangelical garbage on women is insulting. Blame it on the vast evangelical complex which follows like lemmings every word of the marketing think tanks. It’s like fast food: is there really a market demand for this stuff, or do people consume it because there are no real alternatives available? Even if people really want insipid spirituality, church leaders should resist the temptation and serve the meat of God’s word as commanded. Judgement still begins with the house of God, right? Man, we sure aren’t acting like judgement is coming. Someone is going to have to stand in account for turning the gospel into spiritual “red slime”.

    LikeLike

83. I’m willing to give you Joshua, though probably most any Canaanite would have been a better clean-up hitter or free safety.

    LikeLike

84. Gotta disagree with you about Joshua; he took the whip hand, ready to take Canaan by force when others hung back. Church discipline (1:18), yes! The Lord gave them Jericho, but it was Joshua who ordered the slaughter (6:17). I think Joshua is the outstanding candidate for OT Manly Man.

    Someday I hope somebody can explain to me why Esau gets to be such a bad guy, whereas he seems to be just a bumpkin, always getting had. His father blessed him to be a blessing to his brother and it reads to me like he tried his best, but a devious man can’t trust even an honest one. At least he didn’t get murdered. Anyway I think it’s time to let Esau off the hook.

    LikeLike

85. This vexatious vixen says ‘amen’ to your post Ichabod. ‘The Devil’s gateway’ is such a poetic way of putting it.:)

    This whole ‘feminised’ thing is built on the idea that women approve of all the things listed: Jesus is my boyfriend music; over emotionalism; touchy feeliness; lopsided preaching, and so on. Many women think the church is insipid, mediocre and wonder just who that culture actually appeals to. I don’t really care if it’s labelled masculine or feminine, how about we just go for good music, good preaching, a balanced mature way of doing things…and so on.

    This discussion makes me tired. Let’s just be us, the redeemed, in all our human variety.

    LikeLike

86. Is your husband a chronic non-attender?

    LikeLike

87. Let me first say that I do follow Driscoll’s sermons on a fairly regular basis. I think that when the guy preaches The Gospel, the guy PREACHES The Gospel. Without knowing him or Mars Hill, I can’t speak against him or the work that God appears to be doing through that ministry. Do I agree with every theing he says? No. But then, I don’t agree with everything a lot of Pastors say.

    With that said, I am a HUGE proponent of men being men (making no mistake that I KNOW women hold equal position among God’s Kingdom and play a vital role in the advancement of that Kingdom). But for me it’s not about machismo or effeminacy. It’s fully about filling the role God desires us to. I think for too long men have abdicated that leadership role to pursue their own desires. It’s about leading with OBEDIENCE, humility, kindness, honor, integrity, purity and responsibility. Jesus portrayed all of these character traits and we trumpet the importance of becoming like Him. To say an effeminate man or woman cannot lead is ludicrous. If that’s the case, I know a lot of men that would fit in that category and woman who need to be told “Stop doing the work of Christ, because you’re not allowed. It’s biblical.” I’ve seen God do amazing things through these people, so it seems no one has told God either.

    Regardless, men being men is about loving and serving (see Jesus) others. Whether married or single, there is a flock you’re called to shepherd (whether it is small or large) and your responsibility to follow Christ as they follow you. Our goal should be to reveal Him to them, so ultimately they become like Him and are able to shepherd well.

    LikeLike

88. I should also add that the Salvation Army has had complete participation of women in all areas of ministry and governance since the 1860s.

    LikeLike

89. Just to float an idea:

    I messaged my husband to ask, “Do you think men–or you in particular–perceive churches as too feminine? Is it a reason men don’t go to church?”

    His response:

    “The problem is that men are lazy. You work all week and then you just want the weekend to yourself.”

    Thoughts? If his thesis has merit, I suppose one might ask why women don’t also all stay home on Sunday. Perhaps church plays a larger social role for more women? Women are more likely to network at church, whereas for men its more likely to function as an interruption?

    LikeLike

90. So right, important to remember that man was created in the image and glory of God. Woman is the glory of man – but not his image. Eve was last in creation, first in transgression. This hasn’t changed from the beginning either. So the daughters of Eve are easily led astray by deception, and consequently, they must be controlled for fear it will lead to false faith. Tu es diaboli ianua wrote Tertullian – you are the gateway for the Devil

    LikeLike

91. Victor, there was a moment when the Church was reduced to four women and one man at the foot of the Cross, all the ‘manly’ disciples having run away. Of course, the reason fluffy-bunny denominations like us Catholics mention women’s names in the Canon of the Mass is because we want to emphasise how girly and soft we all should be, and certainly not think of martyrdom in the arena by wild beasts – after all, Ss. Perpetua and Felicity just shrieked and swooned away at the very notion of being scourged, exposed to the jeers of the crowd, having wild beasts set upon them and then being slain by inexperienced swordsmen who made a hash of it, not like their fellow-prisoners who were real manly men:

    “Felicitas, who was eight months pregnant, was apprehensive that she would not be permitted to suffer martyrdom with the others, since the law forbade the execution of pregnant women, but two days before the games she gave birth to a daughter, who was adopted by a Christian woman. On the day of the games, the five were led into the amphitheatre. At the demand of the crowd they were first scourged; then a boar, a bear, and a leopard, were set on the men, and a wild cow on the women. Wounded by the wild animals, they gave each other the kiss of peace and were then put to the sword. “But Perpetua, that she might have some taste of pain, was pierced between the bones and shrieked out; and when the swordsman’s hand wandered still (for he was a novice), herself set it upon her own neck. Perchance so great a woman could not else have been slain (being feared of the unclean spirit) had she not herself so willed it.” So ends the Acta.”

    I wish the post would strip out the language of ‘effeminancy’ and instead replace it with ‘conformed to the Zeitgeist‘, as that would make more sense and not offend half the population of the planet, for whom Christ was born, suffered, died and rose again to save just as much as the XY chromosome-bearers.

    LikeLike

92. Just strikes me as ironic… this used to be Ted Haggard’s meme

    LikeLike

93. “One of the ministerial staff has taken to wearing a clerical collar and a powder pink shirt, and no one on the session has the courage to tell him that he looks like a thirteen-year-old boy with rosy cheeks, as painted by Norman Rockwell”

    Well, precisely! Pink is only the liturgical colour for Laetare Sunday (in Lent) and Gaudete Sunday (in Advent) and it should be rose, properly speaking (that is, shading towards a purplish hue rather than the bright pink of an indigestion remedy – then again, are you going to tell the Pope he’s too soft on doctrine?)

    Okay, the best sense I can make out of the point that ‘effeminate’ churches don’t preach on sin and don’t condemn sin because the elders are all doing it is the notion that women prefer consensus and getting along and not making a fuss, whereas men can handle conflict. Therefore, the avoidance of discussing sin is “feminine” (and when indulged in by men is effeminate) and a really “masculine” church wouldn’t be bothered about hurting anyone’s feelings by calling them out on their wrong-doing.

    Mm-hm. Trouble is, there’s a fine line between challenging the status quo and being a jerk.

    LikeLike

94. “All of this is so culturally based. Wilson, for example, lifts up Bach, Wren, Rembrandt, and C.S. Lewis as examples of robust beauty and truth that he would like to see more of in the church. How many men in our culture would find listening to classical or choral music, going to the museum to look at Rembrandt paintings, or reading a professor of literature who loved fairy tales as “masculine” traits?”

    I’m curious, Chaplain Mike. Are those genuinely things that in your culture a lot of people would find unmasculine? I suddenly feel really foreign. A lot of people here would certainly call them ‘posh’ or ‘old fashioned’ or, more probably, ‘not for the likes of me’, but they would all be broadly neutral activities with possibly a slight slant towards being associated with masculinity (Lewis is definitely regarded as appealing mostly to boys and men).

    LikeLike

95. This song does have a lot going for it, and it’s Tomlin at his best, Imo. It features:
    -A great text with complete sentences, poetic language, and connection to both the highs and lows of life.
    -A singable melody with a decent range that is easy for congregations to pick up on quickly
    -Simple enough accompaniment that even the most beginning of bands can pick it up quickly
    -Practically built-in dynamic contrast that helps keep it interesting.

    Nothing is wrong with the song, I just tend to put it in the “I Surrender All” category: It represents a good sentiment, but half the time I’m singing it I’m lying. “I know I am loved by the King and it makes my heard want to sing…” Well, sometimes. But unlike “I Surrender All,” this song works to connect with those who are struggling. It works great as an opening to worship, but recently I just can’t stop singing “Come People of the Risen King” by the Getty’s instead. Perhaps I just analyse the lyrics a bit much.

    LikeLike

96. I don’t know about your hymnal, but in the Lutheran Service Book, “Fight the Good Fight” is a “manly” text, but it is set to one heck of a lullaby tune. The contrast is nearly comical.

    LikeLike

97. Are you sure your Bible hasn’t changed or redacted Galatians 3:28?

    LikeLike

98. David, what exactly are the “masculine” and “feminine” standards we are to “promote as moral believers in God”?

    LikeLike

99. If so, it’s the best smelling abomination since bacon.

    LikeLike

100. I find it interesting that when Lauren Faust rebooted My Little Pony into its current form, she used six main characters who are six vastly different archetypes of the feminine, from a take-charge plain-speaking farmgirl to a cultured and glamorous city-girl artist, from a brash competitive tomboy to a shy and timid nurturer; from a scholar to a goofy free spirit.

     And yet Driscoll and Wilson, allegedly speaking for God Almighty, can present only one archetype of the masculine: “I CAN BEAT YOU UP!”

     Either Lauren Faust is more creative than God Almighty or Driscoll/Wilson/et al are getting their signals seriously crossed.

     LikeLike

101. Great post! Really well thought out and well-stated!

     LikeLike

102. Agreed!

     LikeLike

103. I occasionally use my wife’s conditioner in the shower… Is that an abomination?

     LikeLike

104. Hey Miguel,

     Some very good points there.

     LikeLike

105. Thanks for a thoughtful response to a thoughtless (and manner-less) piece.

     Wilson is entitled to his opinions, but has lost what little of my respect he had previously held through the snark and complete lack of Christlike humility in this piece. He does need a bible study.

     What’s more, I think that he needs to spend some time in confession, seeking the forgiveness and restoration of his brothers and sisters at the table of Jesus.

     LikeLike

106. The “Old Creation” paid attention to “male and female.” In the New Creation, there is not “male and female” but all are one in Christ. From now on we no longer recognize anyone according to the flesh. If indeed we have known Christ according to the flesh, now we no longer know Christ that way. So, then, if anyone is in Christ, it’s a New Creation.

     That is why the old patriarchal hierarchicalism that so many want to retain in the church is at odds with the New Covenant and the New Human, who is Christ and Christ’s Body. The Holy Spirit has been poured out on all flesh, male and female, without distinction. The giftings and empowerings of the Spirit are not gender-restricted or gender-determined.

     LikeLike

107. I overanalyzed this a bit in a thread a few posts above. Suffice to say, I have (1) a degree in music composition and (2) going on 20 years’ experience in church music and (3) no earthly idea what Wilson could possibly have thought he was talking about. (If anybody else has a clue, I’d be perversely interested.)

     To me, it makes just about exactly as much sense as saying men should avoid spelling with the letters F and W, since those stand for “female” and “womanly.”

     Of course, I’m the guy who once got momentarily concerned for a young guitarist’s salvation when she told me she wasn’t sure she knew Gsus….

     LikeLike

108. wow incredible stuff! We need to focus on the false doctrine in the church regarding the preaching of powerless gospels, pride-filled leadership, and unbiblical and constricting aristocratics within the church

     LikeLike

109. Oopse. This comment was supposed to go at the bottom, and is not a response to the topic of Norman Rockwell. Sorry for any confusion!

     (As for our dear old Rockwell: a little whimsy never killed anyone.)

     LikeLike

110. Many good and interesting comments above. And this article goes down as one of my favorite recent Internet Monk blog posts!

     I will simply add that the biggest misstep in Wilson’s complaint is that he assumes that the trends he dislikes (lack of judgment in sermons, Jesus-is-my-boyfriend songs, etc) is somehow a manifestation of femininity. These trends have at times been thought of as a result of feminine culture–with a grain of truth. But this is far from the obvious or whole truth. In fact, he’s just turning to his anxieties over gender as a way to explain developments he dislikes. There’s been a great deal of male agency behind the things he decries in each of his bullet points. Need I point out that women are not actually running most of the churches he is picturing?

     So what makes his hated contemporary worship, et. al., appear feminine? I am tempted to answer: his own, negative picture of femininity as synonymous with compromise, passion, fluidity, change, and corruption. At fault here is his belief in a gender system that depends on masculine and feminine natures being opposed, and his fear that the masculine is always in danger of being gobbled up because it relies on the exercise of powers that more and more women (and men too) are denying it.

     LikeLike

111. This is probably the engineer in me, but sometimes “addressing the problem” with the wrong answer is just as bad as doing nothing, and sometimes it can make the situation worse. I’m still not convinced that on the whole the church is too feminine. I’m sure people can find anecdotal evidence in places, but I often think that it’s simply an excuse that men use to justify their hardheartedness. Sometimes, the right thing to is to hold hands and pray together. Sometimes we do need to be reminded that there’s nothing wrong in showing physical affection in a church. Sometimes, if the song makes you uncomfortable, you’re the problem, not the song.

     LikeLike

112. The ACMTC? They’re still around? I first heard of them some 15-20 years ago — in the pages of KOOKS Magazine and at the old Kooks Museum website.

     LikeLike

113. Character from a book by James Thurber…

     Actually a short story. And for 50 years or so, “Walter Mitty” became the term for a nobody who becomes The World’s Greatest Hero in his daydreams.

     LikeLike

114. And don’t forget what’s-his-face who served as Jack Chick’s hatchetman during the Backwards Masking/Rock-and-Roll-is-Satanic jihad…

     LikeLike

115. How many men in our culture would find… reading a professor of literature who loved fairy tales as “masculine” traits?

     Bronies would. Because fairy tales are popular versions of the power of Myth, the Old Stories. Whether traditional or newly-coined. Chesterton, Tolkien, Lewis — all considered the “fairy tales” and children’s stories — especially those with all-ages appeal — the core of a culture’s storytelling.

     LikeLike

116. Dear dd, I am very sure that you are wrong about me contradicting myself, but I would like to hear you more than say I do. Will you explain how these statements are contradictory? And may I say that I post in hopes that the truth I believe might be persuasive to someone that they abandon all lies and the deceptions so widely held in this world. I don’t need an excuse to post. What motive have you to post your words? Is it your hobby to dethrone the truth?

     LikeLike

117. Yeah. Jonathan Edwards was one of the most brilliant men of his generation, involved in science and founding of higher education in Colonial America. And all he’s known for these days is ONE Hellfire-and-Damnation sermon, which for all we know he may have written during a bout of depression.

     LikeLike

118. What a great post! Thank you! I even shared it on my blog.

     LikeLike

119. And didn’t Esau lose his birthright? and he’s still angry.

     GOOD LINE!

     LikeLike

120. Yeah, well… St Clement was well known for his out-of-proportion turns of phrase.

     Sounds like St Clement wouldn’t sound out-of-place hosting morning drive-time radio on KFI…

     LikeLike

121. Leaving aside cultural distinctives, there ought to be a difference between men and women expressed by each that reflects the differences innate in their anatomies and personalities, differences that God has made in them which reflect His image and likeness. Anything that leads toward what moderns have called “unisex” cannot be of God, for He made two sexes, not one. The presence of homosexual activism in this world does not mean that beleivers must permit every distortion of form to have a place in their home, or their church. One part of this discussion will have to be the influence of demons in perverting what is normal sexual behavior.

     But more important in many instances is the question of faith. Do we believe in the inspiration of scripture and the infallibility of scripture? The scriptures have been with us for many centuries and unchanged for all that time. Do we now dare to change them? or to redact them? Do we dare remove and deny the virgin birth and the deity of Jesus, His resurrection and second coming? Many have done this. If you are one who does, I will not at all be able to think you competent in anway to comment on anything God has made such as man and woman.

     Hebrews 11:6
     But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

     LikeLike

122. It’s certainly not the first time that semi-romantic terms have been used in such a way.

     Check out the term “Bridal Mysticism” sometime. Never mind semi-romantic, that Medieval movement used flat-out erotic terminology. Of which our present “Jesus-is-My-Boyfriend” fluff is but an echo.

     LikeLike

123. So very well said, thank you!

     LikeLike

124. “My point is this: One of the consequences of homosexuality is that men take on perverse feminine affects and women perverse masculine affects.”

     “The fact that a masculine man may be a homosexual or that a man with a strong feminine affect is straight says nothing about the standards we are to promote as moral believers in God.”

     You’ve contradicted yourself in the space of one post. You’ve also shown that you see this discussion as nothing more than an excuse to trot out your favorite hobby-horse. Cool.

     LikeLike

125. You are probably seeing 20/20 on this one!

     LikeLike

126. This is a helpful comment Joshua. Can you explain why it is the biggest load of crap?

     LikeLike

127. Thanks for your thoughtful reply. I agree with much of what you have said.

     The overarching question I am getting at is why are men often not engaged in church? The feminization of church may be 1 factor, but there are others.

     If this is a complaint that some men have, I think we need to examine it. I am a church planter, so this is a big issue to me and I would love to discuss it. And it would take the form of asking What do we mean when we say feminization of church? Once we have defined it, do the critics have a valid point? I am saying we need to give this issue a fair hearing rather than focusing on those who are easy targets. It is easy to tar and feather Wilson, but what if there are kernels of truth in his assertions? It would be a sad thing to miss 49% of the population (I hear that women are 51%) because we do not think it is a valid question.

     This is part of a wider context. When I was a child, educators in Canada felt they were missing the boat with girls and science. Changes were made. Now we have another problem in this country at 2 ends of the scale: less men going to university and early child hood educators recognizing they are missing the mark with boys. And I can honestly say if my 2 sons were like their sisters they could have done well in primary school.

     So I think the likes of Driscoll and Wilson are actually addressing real problems that they see. Maybe they are going about it the wrong way, but that does not negate the issue.

     LikeLike

128. “There is room for all types of men and women in the Body of Christ, its worship and its mission. No standard of “masculinity” or “femininity” needs to be upheld or promoted.”

     This is the conclusion of the article being discussed.

     My point is this: One of the consequences of homosexuality is that men take on perverse feminine affects and women perverse masculine affects. To say that there is no standard of “masculinity” or “femininity” to be promoted or upheld seems so fair and reasonable. But there is a standard of sexual morality and behavior that we must promote and uphold.

     1 Corinthians 6
     9 Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,
     10 Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.

     Clearly the sexually immoral are condemned and excluded from eternal life. The fact that a masculine man may be a homosexual or that a man with a strong feminine affect is straight says nothing about the standards we are to promote as moral believers in God.

     LikeLike

129. Same with Bill Gothard. If a song had a strong bass line, it stirred up the baser passions and was to be avoided at all costs.

     LikeLike

130. Victor, you may want to do a search on Gavin Calver, a fellow Brit. He had an article in Christian Times on line entitled “God is Not Done With Britain Yet” which may make you think. I know Gavin and I know his father Clive Calver personally.

     LikeLike

131. I think a case could be made that both sides are based upon emotionalism and a man-centered gospel.

     LikeLike

132. Seriously, what does this passage have to do with anything being discussed here today? Masculinity and homosexuality aren’t exactly opposites of each other. Actually, it’s not unheard of for some “manly” men who turn out to be closeted homosexuals.

     LikeLike

133. “There’s some real jewels in there, but they are right beside a few duds.”

     I find that true for any hymnal I pick up – no matter how old (and I have a few around 100 years old). I Downloaded a hymnal for my ereader recently, and nine out of ten hymns in it are absolutely smarmy. But this problem really took root 100-200 years ago. Many blame Schleiermacher, but I agree with some who believe others read what they wanted from his writings (e.g. feeling versus intuition). I think the problem began with the dawn of the enlightenment, when the historical claims of scripture began to be challenged. If Christianity is not a religion rooted in history with substantiated claims, then it has no use but for the promotion of social morality and self-esteem.

     LikeLike

134. “In general men only follow men, or women acting like men.”

     Sorry, but at least here in the states, female leadership in management has grown. In my 30 something year career, I have had a majority of female management. This line is an old bugaboo that men will only follow the lead of men. In truth, men will follow who ever leads, especially if they lead well.

     LikeLike

135. It reminds me of Jimmy Swaggart’s stereotyping of certain chords and rhythms as provocative…to put it mildly. Nothing has changed. Just new packaging for the same old tired legalism.

     LikeLike

136. Heh. Playing it through in my head I realized I added a CMaj7 in there somewhere that’s probably not on the original chart. I guess I’ve contributed to the feminization of worship! (Bonus irony points, I’m a man adding my own “feminine” harmonies to a “masculine” chorus written by a woman…. I give up!)

     A poke around on the Internet just informed me that there is indeed a slightly-too-common change (vi-IV-I-V) that somehow got dubbed the “Sensitive Female Chord Progression.” This despite the fact that the inevitable blog dedicated to the subject says, “I’d say that half the songs I’ve found are by men (go figure), and it can be used quite aggressively.” Needless to say, Wilson’s “E minor to C Major” wouldn’t fit in there anywhere.

     I also recall that a cadence can be “masculine” or “feminine” depending where it falls in the measure (not on the chords themselves), though the terms are now seen as too sexist. One might also make an equally good case that, since lying is a sin, we should never go from V7 to vi since that’s a deceptive cadence. And now I’m officially overthinking this.

     LikeLike

137. Isn’t this history (and human nature) repeating itself?
     The men wanted control of the church and, POOF!, Mary Magdelene became a whore, the office of deaconess is totally ignored, women holding church services (Lydia), all were quietly swept behind the propaganda.

     The “Masculine Church” sounds like “The Aggressive Christianity Missions Training Corps”, a known cult.

     LikeLike

138. Maybe Driscoll, Wilson, et al, should reinstitute dunking, but not limit it to women. That’s the way to ferret out those feminine creatures (of any gender) and be done with them.

     LikeLike

139. http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=G3120&t=KJV

     The question so unfortunately addressed as effeminate versus Esau, is a valid question. Bullying aside, we have to deal with the scriptures. Romans 1:26 and 27 has me leaning in favor of Driscoll inspite of any pride and /or foolishness in his approach to the matter. here is J.B. Phillips translation:

     Romans 1
     The fearful consequence of deliberate atheism
     25-27 These men deliberately forfeited the truth of God and accepted a lie, paying homage and giving service to the creature instead of to the Creator, who alone is worthy to be worshipped for ever and ever, amen. God therefore handed them over to disgraceful passions. Their women exchanged the normal practices of sexual intercourse for something which is abnormal and unnatural. Similarly the men, turning from natural intercourse with women, were swept into lustful passions for one another. Men with men performed these shameful horrors, receiving, of course, in their own personalities the consequences of sexual perversity.

     LikeLike

140. I think our culture is one that wants evidence that a thing “works.” Many men (and women) may feel that they would attend church regularly IF there was good indication that by attending, the following things would happen:

     1. Their children would be less apt to get into trouble
     2. Their spouse (if married) would be more loving and would never leave the marriage
     3. They learned something useful each week
     4. They felt their presence helped the community in some way

     If they have no indication that those things happen for church-goers any more than for non-church-goers, then all the more reason to stay home, play with the kids, go fishing, golfing, hiking, whatever.

     Just a thought…

     LikeLike

141. Not only that, but Wilson needs to read church history beyond the Reformation. A serious perusal of the lives of the Christian martyrs of the first three centuries reveals that women as well as men endured torture and death for the Lord.

     Dana

     LikeLike

142. How Can I Keep From Singing is one of my favorite songs of the last few years, and it never even crossed my mind that there was anything un-masculine about it. I just take it as a happy and joyous song, and find it fun to sing.

     LikeLike

143. Yeah, well… St Clement was well known for his out-of-proportion turns of phrase. Context is everything. Just because the man was a saint, doesn’t mean he had wisdom about secondary issues, and his Christology was not fully developed. Always refer to the Cappadocians first!

     btw, one of the later Canons said it was inappropriate for priests to have beards.

     Dana

     LikeLike

144. This UFC Christianity that Driscoll and his ilk are pushing is the biggest load of theological crap ever pioneered.

     LikeLike

145. David played the harp because the electric guitar hadn’t been invented yet.

     LikeLike

146. Ken, I appreciate your input and will consider doing another post from another angle. This post by Wilson, however, was so outrageous that I felt it needed to be answered. Like it or not, this is part of the debate in evangelicalism today, and it tends to the extremes.

     The problem you talk about is nothing new, but I seriously do not think “feminization” of the church is the issue. I mean, come on, no matter what songs we sing, the very act of sitting together with a bunch of other people singing is viewed by a lot of men with distaste. And as for listening to sermons and reading books and talking openly about what’s happening in my life — when have men in our culture EVER been attracted to such things?

     All of this is so culturally based. Wilson, for example, lifts up Bach, Wren, Rembrandt, and C.S. Lewis as examples of robust beauty and truth that he would like to see more of in the church. How many men in our culture would find listening to classical or choral music, going to the museum to look at Rembrandt paintings, or reading a professor of literature who loved fairy tales as “masculine” traits?

     The church’s worship need not be changed in toto because it doesn’t fit the anthropological expectations of certain groups of people. John Wesley reached the roughest of the rough in his day when he preached in the fields to coal miners. That was an example of what the church needs to do — get out of the building and become missional toward men. But then when they became Christians, Wesley brought them to the mannered Anglican church for worship!

     Yes, we must reach men. To do so we should go to their workplaces, places of recreation, homes, engage them in the community and in neighborhoods, and so on. Teach them Christ and baptize them into a life of humility, sacrificial love, respect for women, and concern for the “least of these.” Much of the rest of what you say doesn’t have anything to do with “feminization” but with a lack of vision, depth, character, and challenge in what the church offers. Give men (and women and children) the genuine Christ and you are giving them all they need.

     LikeLike

147. CM:

     Thanks for this.

     Wilson is admired in some corners because of his abilities in framing logical arguments. But reading further into his arguments – which I did for a short while years ago, attracted by what seemed on the surface to be a coherent theology – his god is so unlike the One you describe at the end of your post… his god disdains the female portion of humankind and seeks to keep them children. The one true and living God is not like that.

     Christ is Risen – indeed, He is Risen!

     Dana

     LikeLike

148. Austin, I’m sure your experience is valuable.

     I’d like to share my experience in EOrthodoxy, where women’s ordination is not even on the table. As much as I love F. Mathewes-Green’s writing and respect her wisdom, I disagree with her about Orthodoxy having “a more masculine sensibility” as the reason it attracts men. For some men in this country, it is probably perceived that way, but it reflects a very superficial understanding of what Orthodoxy is. I can’t speak to the reasons “cradle Orthodox” men remain Orthodox, but among the “converts” I know, I think other reasons prevail.

     1) Orthodoxy has a really tight theology, centered on the Cross and Resurrection. In our Chrisitian cultures, all of them, men are expected to take an interest in theology; women are (still) not expected to bother their little heads about those things. (I’m very much the exception to that; my journey into O. was definitely theology-driven.) However, there have been about equal numbers of adult men and women, of all ages, received into the Church in my parish in the 3 1/2 years I’ve been there.
     2) The focus on Jesus, and communal worship of the Trinitarian Godhead through Jesus, is very compelling.
     3) Men are expected (as Jesus seemed to think his followers would continue to do) to pray, fast and give alms, to keep his commandments and to cultivate humility like his through continued turning to God (repentance), living a sacramental life, and through ascetic practice. This expectation actually works against any assumed or expressed machismo or patriarchy. [Oh, btw, women are expected to do these things too. We’re called to be saints, and sainthood is not restricted by gender.]

     I did have to work through the ordination for men only thing. One thing that really helped me is that in every parish I have had the opportunity to observe, except for being ordained, “on the ground” women can do anything men can do, and I’ve never heard any nonsense about any particular task being more “masculine” or “feminine” than anything else. (One of our best prosphora -offering bread- bakers is a man.) Theologically, priests and deacons are members of the congregation, just like everyone else; the only difference is that they are called to a particular kind of service in which the depth of theology of the Icon plays a role, not because being a male is somehow more elevated than being a female.

     Dana

     LikeLike

149. Unfortunately, the top 25 are not what are being sung by the majority of evangelicals under 30. The larger mega-churches are too cool to sing the same schtuff as everybody else, they’re bigger on making their own songs more popular or inflicting the latest disposable jingles from the hottest Charismatic youth bands that all sound the same and whose lyrics make hardly any grammatical sense. I don’t think they’re singing “Shout to the Lord” at Northpointe, the younger crowd would just laugh at how behind you are. Don’t underestimate the elitism that accompanies those closest to the leading edge of trends. Many of the songs in the top 25 are there because of the numerous small churches who just got their first guitar and they think that now they are “contemporary” because they sing “Lord I Lift Your Name On High.” I’d like to know if CCLI calculates their top 25 based on how many churches are singing the song, or if the number of people in these churches is taken into consideration, or if it’s solely based on how much they are printed off of Song Select. But my experience has been, go to any church with an average age below 35, and quite often the vast majority of songs are so new that no visitors know them. And I am very familiar with probably 95 of the top 100.

     Oh, and by the way, “sloppy wet kiss,” “satisfy me Lord,” and “how can I keep from shouting your name” are all in the CCLI top 100. There’s some real jewels in there, but they are right beside a few duds. All my friends who are my age and lead worship are more interested in the lastest hits from JMM, Crowder, United, or Jesus Culture than anything that’s had a chance to vet. This crowd is usually who get to call the shot, because they vote with their feet and go to whichever church will play them.

     On the positive side, the “Top 25” list does seem to have gotten better recently. And many songwriters who produced real duds have grown in their ability and are now churning out stuff I can use.

     LikeLike

150. We welcomed her to the discussion. I have no problem with it. To me I am proud when my oldest daughter can put me in a corner in an argument.

     She got offended because we did not agree with her and pushed back as men do. Somehow I suspect she had this idea that conversation always needs to be a certain way and we did not fit the bill.

     LikeLike

151. This is the same Douglas Wilson who wrote “Southern Slavery as it Was”? Wow. I always thought there were different people. Does Wilson still support the ideas in that essay/book? I read it and found it to be a Christian defense of neo-confederate nonsense. i had no idea that this was the same Douglas Wilson. Now I like him even less…

     LikeLike

152. 6. The worship music rides particular chord changes hard, with special mention being given to the shift from E Minor to C Major;
     …
     11. This list is printed out and handed around at your church, and at least three people are mortally offended.

     As a budding and aspiring guitarist (warning: Don’t wait until you’re nearly 60 to try to learn to play guitar!), I don’t get this. In fact, I think I’m mortally offended by point 6. 😮

     Please, somebody, explain what is effeminate about Em->C chord changes.

     LikeLike

153. Tongue planted firmly in cheek… Not to be picky but… The begining of “The Battle belongs to the Lord” actually alternates between Em and D, making it a much more masculine song. 🙂

     Can chord changes even be masculine or feminine?

     LikeLike

154. Is there truly no other choice other than emotional, touchy-feely, Jesus-my-girlfriend/wet slobbery kiss worship stage on one extreme and Driscoll’s ultimate fighting octogon on the other? Am I supposed to be less concerned about taking my family to a church were American alpha-mail brutality is validated than a church where the homosexual political agenda is validated? Are we saying that one is less evil than the other – which sounds a lot like cultural relativism?

     LikeLike

155. Ken – when women join in with the debating and the discussion let alone the verbal jousting and parrying as you put it, we are often told that we are being unfeminine. As someone who used to be a defence attorney it’s second nature to me to join in with that sort of conversation so it’s more than slightly irritating and difficult to know how to handle such condemning attitudes graciously at times. It really does seem as you’re damned if you do join and damned if you don’t.

     LikeLike

156. Chaplain Mike:
     On this issue it seems like unfortunately you taking shots at the extreme cases is to the detriment of the real issues at hand. I think some people like Drioscoll set themselves up to receive pot shots. So of course in your column you draw out all the people who want to bash men who hold these positions.

     And the effect is that genuine discussion on the issue becomes lost. It degenerates into being political.

     From my corner of the world I see that men are not terribly engaged in church. And part of that equation is the feminization of church, the other reasons I am not sure of. But it is a problem and needs to be addressed. Someone here commented that in his denomination if was not for the women there would be no church. That is not answering the question at all, but simply justifying things the way they are.

     Maybe there are reasons why only women are helping out.

     Here are some of the things that I see:

     * Lots of men by middle age get turned off church.
     * Get some of the men alone and you can engage them in issues, they will discuss things that are relevant to the world.
     * They are often disappointed that they are not permitted to make a meaningful contribution.
     * They are uncomfortable with the feminization of church, at times it is too touch feely

     This is a very important issue and I wish that you would frame the discussion differently in a future post so that we can actually discuss the issue underlying why Driscoll and Wilson are posturing as they do.

     LikeLike

157. I believe he danced as well…

     LikeLike

158. Ah, yes. The Castrati.

     Over 90% failure rate (either castration survival or voice training), all because “Women shall keep silent in church.” And my own denomination was in the forefront of it. (But then, my own denomination was also one of the late adopters when it came to ending slavery, though not so late as some.)

     LikeLike

159. Yeah. I’ve wondered the same thing. Why drink Predestination and God’s Will and Male Supremacy and Culture War Jihad watered-down when you could be drinking it straight on the rocks with the Wahabi, Salafi, and Talibani?

     LikeLike

160. (Just for the record and specifically for all those complementarians reading this, I know that you don’t all think of women in this warped way …)

     Take it from the guy with 20+ years in-country in Furry Fandom:

     THE X-TREME CRAZIES/LUNATIC FRINGE HAVE THIS WAY OF DEFINING EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING IN THE GROUP. Whether in the perception of outsiders or actual attempts to forcibly share their obsession/lunacy.

     LikeLike

161. The blogger over at Onward, Forward, Toward coined the term “Christlam” for this.

     And it has a similar dynamic. Reaction to Future Shock by going into more and more extreme forms of the faith tradition. Even the Culture War dynamic — take over and force everything into a Godly Golden Age (with US on top), a Perpetual Year One of the Hegira.

     For when conditions change drastically and Future Shock hits, there are only three courses of action:
     1) Adapt to the new conditions (hopefully without losing what makes you You).
     2) Die out, unable to adapt.
     3) Force everything to change back to The Way It Was; force THEM to adapt to Our One True Way.

     LikeLike

162. Austin:
     A few months ago I was at a family get together and one male relative started talking about how he felt the church was becoming feminized and how he and other men he knew felt uncomfortable. Part of it was on things like songs that were being sung and the pastor wanting people to join hands and pray.

     I could immediately see what he was talking about. One of his points was the lack of good debate and discussion, and how men had to tone down (he is not a combative type, his church circles don’t like discussion
     or disagreement). As if to demonstrate the point a few minutes later a female relative joined in the discussion and quickly got offended and left, and it was the typical type of discussion that men get into and will disagree with one another. Verbal jousing and parrying.

     In my own experience I see it as a pattern. It is the men who get turned off with church and drop out. The reasons may be many, and I suspect it also encompasses Ali’s comments.

     LikeLike

163. 😀

     LikeLike

164. The problem as I observe with this reaction is that because it has over reacted, it has become Machismo Christianity rather than Masculine Christianity.

     No, Joshua, it has become MALE SUPREMACIST Christianity.

     How long before God’s Anointed issue fatwas on the Godly way to beat your wife?

     LikeLike

165. I think this hits the nail on the head.

     It may also be worth noting that an earlier generation of fundamentalists were decrying theological liberalism as “effeminate” and the defense of the Christian orthodoxy as requiring a kind on manly courage. Battle metaphors abounded. No doubt this had a lot to do with general cultural fears about first-wave feminism, including the rise of female leaders within major Protestant denominations around the time of the “fundamentalist-modernist” controversies.

     Meanwhile, mainline denominations were worried that American religion had become too female-dominated as well, and pastors too gentile and pasty. That fear, in turn, had a lot to do with a crisis in the definition of what it meant to be a “man” in the early decades of the twentieth century. (Enter: Teddy Roosevelt as hero.) Anyway, the result was a big push for the promotion of sports and vigorous masculinity in the emerging bastions of the contemporary mainline.

     LikeLike

166. It seems as if “masculine Christianity” and compliementarism are being pushed more and more.

     Complementarism = “ME MAN! ME WANT FILL-IN-THE-BLANK! YOU WOMAN! YOU SHUT UP! GOD HATH SAID!”

     Some of this is no doubt due to changing roles in society, and soceity moving in directions that previounsly were not thought of. However, some is also a knee jerk reaction to that change. In the past you could control women..today not so much. Well….except in church.

     There’s also a dynamic involved called “Displacement Behavior”. When everything is spiraling out of control and you’re being overwhelmed from every side, there’s this deep urge to find something you CAN control and micromanage it to death. Like a company enforcing dress codes (even to the point of having VPs with rulers measuring employee hair length) while circling the drain. (Actually happened where I work some 30 years ago.)

     LikeLike

167. I wonder if it messes with these guys st all to know everyone, male and female, are the BRIDE of Christ…

     LikeLike

168. i believe the imagery of the militaristic Jesus is only something Jesus Himself can pull off perfectly. all other attempts by people emulating such can only become a source of abuse, manipulation, pride, ego, self-importance, etc.

     Jesus’ example to us during His Incarnation the one we were given to emulate here in this age, not the one in the age to come. there will be only one King-of-kings & here on this earth where His kingdom is be established, it is to be done in that “topsy-turvy” way Dallas Willard wrote about…

     since it is frustrated males that begin to fantasize about ‘kicking ass & taking names’ when their plans are being thwarted, it will become obvious in their speach & actions. they think that a dictatorial posture where it is “my way or the highway” closest to the divine methodology of Christ-like leadership. and when the topic segues into one of gender caricatures, you know the poor soul is misguided at best or an unfulfilled despot at worst…

     Lord, have mercy… 😦

     LikeLike

169. Who wants someone robed as a hunter tending sheep? It was my understanding that a pastor’s robe and staff were to symbolize their role as shepherd, employed by and accountable to the Good Shepherd. The way these bullies and punks treat their flocks, the imagery is more than symbolic: hunters slaughtering the sheep as bloodsport. Some bold shepherd who still remains faithful needs to go after these predators with the rod.

     LikeLike

170. There is a lot more to Edwards than Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God (and when he compares people to spiders, one should keep in mind that he liked spiders!). It’s kind of unfortunate that he’s been reduced to nothing more.

     LikeLike

171. If it were not for the women in my denomination serving in the church as Sunday School teachers, missionary presidents, board members, etc. there would be no Church. And no males in any of our Churches ever became effiminate working with these ladies.

     LikeLike

172. Victor I’m sorry but I cannot disagree strongly enough. I’ve been in plenty of churches led by men and machismo types still avoided them like the plague. As one commenter stated earlier anthropological answers won’t solve spiritual problems. After all the early church didn’t form militaristic style churches to reach Romans, did they?

     LikeLike

173. my God! he played the harp??? :O

     LikeLike

174. Some of your gender but not all! Not by a long stretch of the imagination! Men took the church to the place where it is now – get your head out of the sand and acknowledge the truth of that before you start blaming women for something they haven’t done.
     For the record, this might come as a surprise to you, but neither women and men want to follow a strong man at all – they want to follow Jesus and go where the Holy Spirit is leading. Our hope lies in Christ not in those He calls to lead.
     Which is why you shouldn’t walk away just yet Victor. See where God wants to take you next – it’s His church not ours and He has not abandoned us!
     Anyway, why don’t you start a missional community in Nero’s for men? Sounds like you have a congregation in the making there!

     LikeLike

175. And BTW — just WHAT, may I ask, is wrong with boys the way Norman Rockwell painted them???

     LikeLike

176. I also canlt type or spell!
     Turrah!

     LikeLike

177. *sigh* What a post to read on my first day back to work. I’m vascillating between outrage and unbelieving sorrow at the state of our Church today. Clearly we’ve allowed our vision and our minds to be pulled WAY off track. How Satan must be rejoicing over this chaos . . 😦

     LikeLike

178. That’s an interesting observation. I know that Wilson has made reference to Edwards. I am not sure about Driscoll.. Many in the Neo-Reformed movement like Edwards and Spurgeon. Like nothing new has been thought of in the past 100 or so years.

     LikeLike

179. For that matter, though, I’m sure if I put together a service full of stereotypically “masculine” hymns– say, “Onward Christian Soldiers,” “Fight the Good Fight with All Thy Might,” and “Soldiers of Christ Arise,” I’d succeed in making other men and women equally uncomfortable. The problem of course would not be masculinity but militarism, an equally controversial issue in hymnological circles.

     Hymnologically speaking, I might add, songs about a “romantic” (even borderline erotic) relationship with Jesus have a long and (mostly) distinguished pedigree in church history. The Reformers loved them, Bach wrote cantatas on them, the Pietists practically revolved around them, and in short they go straight back to the Church Fathers’ allegorical interpretation of Song of Solomon by way of the medieval mystics. Meanwhile, the infatuation with machismo, as far as I can work out, probably goes back no further than the “Muscular Christianity” of the late 1850s.

     Not that any of that is likely to impress the likes of Wilson, whose point 6 alone proves he knows or cares absolutely nothing whatsoever about music. “The worship music rides particular chord changes hard, with special mention being given to the shift from E Minor to C Major.” Seriously? Adding irony to idiocy, those are the chords at the beginning of “The Battle Belongs to the Lord,” which is surely militaristic enough for any manly man, in tights, tight tights– oops, wrong song. Speaking as a classically trained composer, there are only two possible ways to understand that statement: Either Douglas Wilson is a complete and utter sophist loon, or he’s trolling us all.

     LikeLike

180. Well, pretty sure you didn’t read any “church plant” info from the Catholic Church!!

     And btw……we have lots and lots of men, in every parish I have ever been in (except for Mass on Sunday nights at my all-female college…)

     LikeLike

181. Yes, very nice alliteration, CM!

     LikeLike

182. Last reply….. No Ali.. I am in touch. Last year I toured each of our 66 Cities in 66 Days preachign from each of the 66 Books of the Bible. And NOT in churches. i carried out 200-300 video interviews from crack cocaine addicts to the former head of the British army. From Bishops the Mayors, from the man and woman on the street to a few in the pews as well, I have Pastored several churches, and spoken widely in what’s left of what we call men’s ministry in this country…… I write for some pretty big Christian organisations and am reaonably well connected at high levels……and current with it…… I ftherefore feel that I am pretty well ‘in touch’. (www.66cities.org) . Unless we radically and in a revolutionary way get back to male headship in church and home….then all is lost., Even non believers know this.

     LikeLike

183. I like the song “Hasa Diga Ebowei!!” 😉 And the classic “I Believe…” especially the part where the Mormon is singing, ‘I believe that in 1978 God changed his mind about black people…”

     LikeLike

184. Pocketa, pocketa, pocketa

     LikeLike

185. No one is saying we don’t want men in the church and we don’t want men to be leading. There are plenty of reasons why men don’t come to church or connect with the church they go to and I don’t think it is entirely about so called feminisation of the church.
     From what I have observed, what really turns men off from church is the way in which their gifts are not used because ministers/pastors (predominantly males) often have a big problem with other ‘strong’ men coming into leadership with them. So some men who have gifts of leadership are sidelined from leading spiritually and switch off and turn their attentions elsewhere usually to work and family. I see it happening time and again.

     LikeLike

186. NO, I am not bitter Mike. I am in despair. Utter despair. I am sat in a Nero’s Cafe in London, surrounded by men that will never go to church. I know my gender and I know my culture. Men need men to follow. Women will follow either, but much prefer a strong man. I reckon that’s why God sent His Son and not His daughter. All these men around me right now…..not one would come to church and one of the main reasons is its nanciness.

     I am lastly disappointed in myself for getting drawn into this utterly fruitless arguement. Whilst the church continues to argue about who leads it and who they can have sex with, God’s plain order is gazzumped with a little green plastic house of the this charlattan churches own making, whose edges are so sharp edged by political correctness, that it would have my testicles off in the blink of an eye and use them as earings.

     Like I say, all this talk does not matter. The way is set. The end of the church in England is nigh.

     No, I’m not bitter Mike….but like the VAST majority of my gender…….. I am walking away from the whole sorry mess in utter despair.

     LikeLike

187. But Michael – I can’t find any women who will admit to liking those sort of songs either – not because they emasculating of course, they are just plain yukky (an excellent theological term!).

     LikeLike

188. Yes – she’s seriously impressive and definitely not the wrong gender!

     LikeLike

189. Sorry Victor but you sound more than a tad unbalanced here – and out of touch with the UK scene generally – which is weird as, apparently you are based in the UK.
     You have also failed to address the points I make about the historic decline and resorted to cheap jibes. Surely you can do better than that.
     Btw I would never say the Holy Spirit is doing a crap job – not even in jest. You may not understand what the Spirit is doing but that is an entirely different matter.

     LikeLike

190. The lyric is “Heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss”… I guess I don’t see the big about it. It’s just a way of describing the incarnation. It’s certainly not the first time that semi-romantic terms have been used in such a way.

     LikeLike

191. The “sloppy wet kiss” thing was supposed to be a clever lyric using a hurricane coming ashore as a metaphor for…something, I’m not sure what. It missed the boat all the way around.

     LikeLike

192. Driscoll and Wilson have issues, and its not just the weird theology they espouse. They need a few years of psychoanalysis, on the couch, with an old fashion Freudian helping them come to terms with the extreme alienation and insecurity that drives their lives.

     I’m just being half-serious here, but these men have problems.

     LikeLike

193. Chaplin Mike wrote: “Wilson is also critical of what he perceives to be wimpy worship music and bemoans the lack of militant music, songs that contain “references to judgment, wrath, battles, enemies, Hell, the devil, or apostasy.” He condemns musicians who are “more concerned that the choir trills their r’s correctly than that they fill the sanctuary with loud sounds of battle,””

     Wilson seems to reflect the problem with much of today’s churches. The emphasis is upon judgment. This is supremely manifest is that horrendous, though popular, sermon by Jonathan Edwards “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” I would submit that this is diametrically opposed to the gospel. God is not some ogre dangling man over the abyss of the pit of hell. He rather “so loved the world that he sent his only son …” The gospel is the message of God’s love. It only has any retributive function when we fail to trust in him.

     LikeLike

194. The truth of the situation in Britain is our churches are dead and closing doors. Good grief, most of the church buildings are up for sale! Every Christian charity is scrambling for money (apparantly men used to give when they were in churches) The C of E has become the nest to every foul spirit from the pit of hell…….and…… sigh…….oh forget it….like I said….it makes no difference now. It’s over….Mind you the muslims are doing well..I understand their fastest growing converts are indigenous white women? I wonder why that is?

     LikeLike

195. You sound a bit bitter, Victor.

     LikeLike

196. Then ladies, in the coming years, do enjoy your tiny little church of kids under 8, run by women and homosexuals.
     P.S. If this is the work of the Holy Spirit, then some might suggest He is doing a pretty crap job.

     LikeLike

197. Hmmm… I work for a small company that’s owned by two women, and as far as I can tell I haven’t turned gay yet. Thanks, for the pointer, though, I’ll keep my guard up…

     Actually, if you take a look at some of the fastest growing churches in the world, they’re pentecostal congregations that historically haven’t had any problem with women in leadership. I think your argument bears no relevance to the actual truth of the situation.

     LikeLike

198. not to mention, very simply, that Paul, the Apostle, said, “there is no male or female in the spirit…no Syncthian, no Jew, No Greek… all are one in Christ.

     Come to think of it, didn’t Esau lose his birthright? I often wonder if Esau was one of the souls that Jesus released when he descended into hell. Scripture doesn’t tell.

     LikeLike

199. not to mention, very simply, that Paul, the Apostle, said, “there is no male or female in the spirit…no Syncthian, no Jew, No Greek… all are one in Christ. And didn’t Esau lose his birthright? and he’s still angry.

     LikeLike

200. I don’t often write, yet I would like to post a great wise saying from the best authority available to all who would listen and be transformed . . .”There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Help us to understand our hearts in the light . . .may we pray to have our hearts rendered by your Spirit, Lord.

     LikeLike

201. And the fact that he wrote really emotional songs about an intimate relationship with God. And played them on the harp.

     LikeLike

202. Whenever I read article like Wilson’s, I’m reminded of the confession before communion in the Orthodox liturgy that talks about entering the “bridal chamber” of Christ. Imagery doesn’t get much more feminine than that… Was St. John Chrysostom a girly-man? It would appear that according to Douglas Wilson he was.

     I do agree with others. I just assume these screeds are borne out of something else altogether. That being fear and insecurity about these people’s world changing in a way they don’t like. Unfortunately for them, they’re fighting a losing battle.

     LikeLike

203. Character from a book by James Thurber, “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”. He’s an ineffectual dreamer who compensates for an unsatisfying life with hyper-puissant fantasies.

     LikeLike

204. But Michael (not Chaplain Mike),

     There are so few of these types of songs in modern worship. Go look at CCLI list of top 25 songs being sung. Tell me which ones you have real problems with. These are the songs that most churches are singing today.

     LikeLike

205. Excellent post. Tag it as a classic iMonk counterpunch.

     The disturbing spirit of male-dominant Christianity seems to me to flow from a single source–neo-reformed patriarchal theology and practice. Complementarianism is just a symptom, not the cause. In my view of the church, this stream of the neo-reformed movement is contemporary legalism, pure and simple. If some strains of fundamentalism practice behavioral legalism, the partriarchal strain of reformed-ism is practicing doctrinal legalism, which is much more insidious and dangerous. Rather than being honored as a worthy and acceptable theology because its purveyors have visibility and standing as Christian leaders, patriarchalism needs to be soundly refuted and rejected by the church as legalism.

     I am still a classical evangelical, but it is the unwillingness, or inability, of American evangelicalism as a movement to soundly and publicly condemn this kind of aberrant doctrine that makes me a frustrated evangelical. If the neo-reformistas are in the evangelical fold, then evangelicalism may be a lost cause. If they are not in the fold, then where is the unified voice of condemnation? Your voice, Chaplain Mike, is a breath of fresh encouragement. Keep it up.

     LikeLike

206. Austin, your comments are thoughtful as always. As for the church planting methodology you mention I wouldn’t deny that but I’m not sure it has anything to do with Wilson’s call for “masculine worship.”

     As for the egalitarian thing, you are right to a degree. Anything that shows contempt for women or less than full acceptance of their full partnership in Christ and his Body will likely get a response from me. It’s one of my issues. I might also remind you that contemporary feminism was originally a Christian project.

     LikeLike

207. Reading this, my thoughts jumped immediately to Clement of Alexandria:

     “But for one who is a man to comb himself and shave himself with a razor, for the sake of fine effect, to arrange his hair at the looking-glass, to shave his cheeks, pluck hairs out of them, and smooth them, how womanly! And, in truth, unless you saw them naked, you would suppose them to be women…. For God wished women to be smooth, and rejoice in their locks alone growing spontaneously, as a horse in his mane; but has adorned man, like the lions, with a beard, and endowed him, as an attribute of manhood, with shaggy breasts…” etc.

     The whole thing is so hilariously out-of-proportion (and shows that this hyper-masculinity thing is far from a new development) that I’ll risk this comment getting auto-blocked just to post the link:

     http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf02.vi.iii.iii.iii.html

     LikeLike

208. I went to a private high school modeled on another school (“Logos”), and our schooling style was advocated for /invented by Doug Wilson. There were parts I liked, such as a liberal arts basis that exposed me to logic, rhetoric, and lots of really great literature, but that was balanced with a sciences curriculum he had authorized (written by Bob Jones University, where “theistic evolution is a slippery slope”), a history class he wrote one truly vile book for (“Southern Slavery as it Was”, basically arguing slavery created friendship between the races), and having a theology class that leaned towards his pet brand of reformed thought.

     So I, for one, rejoice every time he opens his mouth to spew out more nonsense. If not for outposts like IM, highschooler Kero might have bought it wholesale.

     LikeLike

209. I read Wilson’s article and I think he does believe what he is saying but that he is saying it in a way he knows will be controversial. That is not always helpful and can make your legitimate points get lost in the noise. For instance, it is a pretty well known and well argued theory that men have become increasingly disconnected from worship since Victorian times due to the feminizing of worship. You can argue against it , but Wilson is not the only one saying it.

     Likewise, as a church planter and one who has actually read church planting material from a variety of denominations, it is a well known fact that if you want to be a successful plant you really will need to get the men in church. I know this will not fit with a lot of folks on this blog opinions, but the reality is, especially in just ordinary families, that if you can get the men coming to church they will bring their wife and kids but whereas if you get the mother, she will bring the kids at times, but the men will often stay home. I know there are exceptions to every rule but my experience as a pastor and planter has been that I have seen very few if any situations where the dad came but the family didn’t come with him.

     And frankly, as someone who had the very unpleasant experience to sit through a service a few weeks back where they actually sung the “sloppy wet kiss” song ( I had not heard it before) all I can say is YUCK.

     But I will say this as a side note, and a little red meat for folks to jump on if they wish. But the quickest way to draw the ire of this blog now seems to go against what has been accepted as indisputable- namely any rejection of radical egalitarianism. This debate over WO is not going away b/c WO is neither orthodox nor catholic. And kudo’s to the Pope for his smack down of radical feminist religious in America last week.

     LikeLike

210. Esau “Christianity? Didn’t God explicitly say “Jacob I loved but Esau I hated?” In it should we sell our bithright for a mess of pottage?

     LikeLike

211. I can agree with that to a point.

     LikeLike

212. I think he meant progressing from A minor to C major, because that’s the chart for ELO’s “EVIL WOMAN”.
     *sigh*

     LikeLike

213. Apologies… amendment to my last…first line replace ‘through’ with ‘throw’ – end.

     LikeLike

214. Feminism, masculinity whatever it is to be called…through it all out the window. Feminism is a new concept in the history of humanity. Masculism (to rule and dominate) is a poor worn out excuse for paternalism (to guide, lead and share an equal part in) where the man takes responsibility, but works equally to with a lady, to arrive at a well thought out and wise decision. When I read the scriptures that is way I interpret a healthy dynamic of male/female interaction in relationship with each other…before and with God…ordained by God. Apply this across the board and the way I see it you cannot go wrong.

     LikeLike

215. Ted,

     Do not worry: nobody in Europe cares about what men like Driscoll and Wilson have to say about our countries. For that matter, the disdain is very, very, mutual…

     LikeLike

216. Who is Walter Mitty?

     LikeLike

217. Agreed
     This is an example of why I read the comments before making my own. There are so many good commentators here that the idea I want to express is often expressed by others in a much more articulate manner than I would have been able to express.

     LikeLike

218. Oh Chaplain Mike, I love the term ‘vexatious vixen’. I may have a badge made…

     LikeLike

219. thank you for this article. don’t get me wrong, i’m all for guys “manning up” but when it takes the form of pride and self-reliance…the “ideal” becomes distorted.

     as another supportive biblical example to this article, consider the contrast b/w the apostle Peter vs. the apostle John on Maundy Thursday…

     “Masculine” Peter the rock brags that he will stick by Jesus no matter what and even cuts off ears if necessary…contrasted with feminine John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, leaning against Jesus’ breast…

     which one was there for our Lord in his time of need at the foot of the cross? the one who boasted in his love for God, or the one who boasted in God’s love for him?

     LikeLike

220. Hahaha yes!! Well played, Gail.

     LikeLike

221. Can I play devil’s advocate a bit? I think that stuff like what Douglas Wilson does goes way, way too far. The whole thing just devolves into something really nasty. But with that said, let’s be honest: these types of services CAN be rather emasculating. People don’t rant against Jesus-is-my-boyfriend music for nothing. It’s uncomfortable, as a man, to be singing lyrics like “sloppy wet kiss” and “satisfy me, Lord” and “how can I keep from shouting his name” and other lyrics with semi-sexual undercurrents, you know?

     It’s not that these awful lyrics are specifically “feminine” (as though the word feminine was a pejorative). In my experience, men and women like that type of music in pretty equal proportions. But, those lyrics are emasculating. And that’s what’s giving the professional chauvinists in the church such a following.

     LikeLike

222. I’d have been disappointed if they hadn’t blamed the Europeans, but they forgot to blame the 1960s. Gotta blame the ’60s; that’s when original sin (and socialism) started.

     Come to think of it, Obama was born in the ’60s.

     LikeLike

223. CM, you are going after this Driscoll/Wlson foolishness with the same spirit the Michael Spencer exposed Joel Osteen as a mere positive thinking motivational speaker. This is the best post I’ve read here on the imonk since MS passed on. Thanks much.

     LikeLike

224. I appreciate all the points made, even headswell’s up there, but yours especially, CM. You brought forth the most important point, I believe, that GOD is so totally beyond male/female that the very argument for/against our looking at the church that way is moot. We are the BRIDE, male or female, and as such we will naturally flow into a role of brideship the closer we come to truly worshipping God together. I didn’t sense your trying to effeminize biblical heroes at all; the point is that God would strip us of not just our wimpiness but our bravado as well as He refines us in the fire of sanctification in preparation for eternity in His presence. David was a man after God’s heart – let us remember this young boy who sat strumming his stringed instrument singing beautiful songs to his God, and who came before Goliath not in his own strength by any means, but in the strength and fear of the LORD of hosts. His manliness was not “manliness” at all, but humanness in all the ways God intended from the start – a relationship of complete dependence upon and fellowship with his Creator, Sustainer, Provider, the Lover of his soul. It was that slightly-built musician who “slew his ten thousands” and was this mighty warrior, but all along it was God doing the warring, not David. God does His work through men, through women, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with how well we stick to the gender guidelines, but everything to do with how we surrender to the One in charge.

     LikeLike

225. I think something even more insidious is at work here and we see in evangelical circles obsessed with Republican politics: What is a matter of dispute among these Christians is whether traditional Christian values, compassion, mercy, reverence for one another, mutual forbearance, and love are relevant at all. They have replaced them with the love of power, fawning on oligarchs, contempt for the poor, the sick and the powerless, and celebrity religion. In every instance, they have absorbed and espoused the various idolatries of the world. Attacking “feminization” is a great big smokescreen.

     This is not to say that some of what they criticize shouldn’t be criticized – but not because it’s “feminine” – it too is idolatry but of a different kind than the idolatry of Wilson, Driscoll, Land, Copeland, Graham, Podles, and the miserable offenders.

     LikeLike

226. I’m sure both of those are part of it. I’d also say that there are more than a few Walter Mittys in the church.

     LikeLike

227. Doug Wilson is a “land-o-plenty” of exotic, novel and proprietary views. Driscoll is his mini-me project. He has sycophantic admirers such as Phil Johnson at Pyromaniacs who echo these kinds of sentiments. Yes feminizing what is masculine is a real tactic by Satan. However Wilson’s greatest flaw is prescribing anthropological remedies to a perceived spiritual problem. WHY? Because like all good Augustinian Neo-Reformed his solutions are based in rationalism first with his theology (and exegesis) often at the service his rationalistic constructs. His complaints are vague and imprecise because he really does not know what the problem is and cannot prescribe a clear remedy.

     LikeLike

228. In case you missed it I am using Wilson’s own categories to answer him. I am no more arguing for “effeminacy” than for “masculinity.” read the very end of the article and you will get my view clearly stated.

     LikeLike

229. If you’re going to hold up David as a masculine Bible hero, be sure to mention his weepy relationship with Jonathan.

     LikeLike

230. I thought this bible study was actually really weak and just making an argument for the sake of being contentious. Your argument is poor to say the very least, are you really trying to show how hero’s of the bible, including Jesus are ‘effeminate’? Are you trying to justify being effeminate? Jesus wasn’t macho and wasn’t effeminate either but actually really well balanced in my judgement.
     As for the arguments about robes, knights, kings and rulers, seriously what century are you trying to reach! There is a whole world out there of unbelievers who have a really bad perception of what Jesus and Christianity is all about because we won’t enter their world and culture in the clothing, street language and manner that Christ did 2000 years ago.
     Let’s stop arguing over how to shepherd the sheep and just get on with it….
     Urban Missionary

     LikeLike

231. Perhaps the silliest bullet point on Wilson’s list was the one about emphasizing the iii-I chord progression too much. As a worship musician, I get the fact that we can sometimes do things with chord progressions that are screwy and unhelpful to the music. But how moving from E Minor to C Major too emphatically is “feminine”, I am at an utter loss to explain. Wilson genuinely has some good things to say about worship and church life, but it’s all getting tainted by hyper-masculinity and politics.

     LikeLike

232. Wow, great post, Chaplain Mike! Well-thought-out and constructed and all your points are excellent. In talking about David you write that God, “disqualified him from building the Lord’s Temple in Jerusalem. God said that was to be done by a man of peace, not a warrior.” That’s interesting. I had forgotten about that.

     LikeLike

233. Agreed…

     It is machismo toward women……

     As well as, I think, a deep seated fear of their own feminine side that could feel like, heaven FORBID, latent homosexuality.

     So, double down on the hyper-manly trappings and speech to prove it to…..themselves?

     LikeLike

234. The Salvation Army also have some amazing women preachers. Capt. Danielle Strickland was the main speaker for Spring Harvest (Probably the UK’s biggest interdenominational evangelical event) a while back – very impressive. I cannot imagine telling a woman like that that, that she should not be using her God given gift because she’s the “wrong” gender.

     LikeLike

235. Wow….if masculine means violence, brute force and disregard for others then it does have no place in Christianity. Luckily it seems to me that another model of what it means to be a man was shown to us by Christ. Compassion, service, seeing all people as equal in the eyes of God. Hanging on to this violent vision and teaching it seems to take us farther away from loving our enemies, forgiving those who wrong us and turning the other cheek..farther still from the servant model of leadership and doing onto the least of these.
     I think I would just ignore these guys as a fringe group yet in the larger society context of increasing legislation to control women (prosecuting women who have had stillborn children, having pregnancy start before sex, personhood of the ovum) it is worrisome.

     LikeLike

236. Has everybody heard this song? “Man Up,” from The Book of Mormon musical:

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1n_1jmKpu4

     LikeLike

237. REAL men have nothing to prove, except maybe to their wives!

     LikeLike

238. I’ve heard it compared to the collapse of Communism.

     LikeLike

239. At least they help the poor.

     LikeLike

240. Don’t forget about how Christinaity would take young male men and casterate them to make sorporanos becuase women couldn’t sing. It was thought that men should do the the singing…this was outlawed by the late 1800’s. But went on for a few centuries…and YES Christianity was involved in this also….

     http://www.religioustolerance.org/rcccast.htm

     LikeLike

241. Doug Wilson seems to have a pretty common affliction among middle-aged men. I watched my father go through it (and grow out of it) in his 40s. This is a great article, CM, and one that’s needed to be written for a long time.

     LikeLike

242. This is just a variation on a theme so don’t let it rattle you too much Robin. If you read and listen to the men who are promoting this they clearly have a limited view of women probably linked to their own culture and upbringing. Scripture is used to back up their ‘pop psychology’ on gender issues. The women they know best have had to collude with this viewpoint for decades to protect themselves. Such men seem to be genuinely scared of allowing women out of the box they have constructed for us so, as that box is being torn away, their anger increases and the rhetoric gets louder to bully all those who disagree (both genders) into line. At least that is my conclusion from following this debate over the years.

     (Just for the record and specifically for all those complementarians reading this, I know that you don’t all think of women in this warped way – there are plenty of complementarians who don’t have daft views about the genders on their mind all the time and who genuinely do base their theology on how they read the Bible – I just happen to disagree with your interpretation of it – I would hate you to think I am tarring you all with the same brush.)

     LikeLike

243. As much as I agree with the broad sweep of this article, I think it’s worth pointing out again for clarity’s sake that Jacob’s scheming, deceitful, ‘effeminate’, weakling nature isn’t held up as any more positive than Esau’s brutish ‘masculinity’. God’s (s)election of Jacob, or indeed of any other OT hero of faith, is by his sovereign grace and to forshadow Christ, the God-Man who perfectly fills the form of the true Israel.

     LikeLike

244. Sigh. If he wants to go to a church that wears battle dress every Sunday, he should go to the Salvation Army. A really good, traditional, Blood and Fire Corps that meets several times a week to fire volleys and storm the forts of darkness.

     Then he’d realise how silly it is to take that idea to its logical conclusion.

     LikeLike

245. Christianity was in decline in England long before women were being put in charge of churches and it was men who took us there.
     In fact, when the men were solely in charge, Christian allegiance was mostly about a legalistic expectation of outward conformity not as a result of a convicted choice.
     Happily now, those who are members, imperfect though we are, actually believe in something as opposed to doing something for form’s sake. We may be fewer in number but we may well be more potent.
     It’s a shame you won’t recognise the work of the Holy Spirit and seek only to criticise those men and women who hold steadfast to the faith.

     LikeLike

246. Great Bible study – I love the way that God turns all our human expectations of who should lead, prosper, know Him etc completely upside down.

     LikeLike

247. ENGLAND 2012- April
     In less than 20 years the church (some say less) the church will have no men in the church, Save homosexuals.
     In general men only follow men, or women acting like men.
     All the arging means nothing. Get back to God’s male leadership in church and home. NOW. Or we die.
     All this arguing means nothing….I am living in the gathering death…I see it everyday…
     All this arguing means nothing…..Change or die.

     LikeLike

248. Leaving aside the main issue for now (I’m still trying to work up the appropriate way to express my rage), which Chaplain Mike has dealt with excellently, I have to ask: does Douglas Wilson know any history at all? Has he even, possibly, looked at the pictures in a children’s history book? For instance:

     – In late 18th century Europe, the dandies (ie. makeup, powdered hair, flamboyant clothes) were considered hyper-masculine.
     – The ‘manly figure’ much in vogue in the middle 16th century was formless and gown-draped.
     – The early Romans thought trousers effeminate.

     21st century Americans do not set the standard for men throughout history.

     LikeLike

249. Great piece Chaplain – and I say that as an evil complimentarian. I agree wholeheartedly that the post you referenced was offensive and chauvinistic, and you made really excellent points about the biblical record of who God used for His plans. For me, the headship of the man over the woman is a headship of service and self-sacrifice. If men really are to be to their wives as Christ is to the Church, then we have to consider that Christ GIVES to His Church constantly through Word and Sacrament, and that even His rebukes are meant to drive us to those two things. So a man’s leadership should consist of the same thing: self-sacrifical service and tender care for his wife’s needs, even at the cost of his own comfort, reputation as a “manly man”, or pride. If I might cop out and quote C.S. Lewis: “The sternest feminist need not begrudge my sex the crown offered to it in either the Pagan or the Christian mysteries, for the one is of paper and the other of thorns”.

     LikeLike

250. I could almost sympathize with some of Wilson’s points if gender were completely removed from the equation. Substitute “effeminate” or “girly” with “cowardly” and “wimpy,” and we have an article that makes a bit more sense.

     LikeLike

251. CM: where do you find these guys???

     i did a quick search for something more about Douglas Wilson & he is a very controversial figure although a quite prolific writer/author…

     certainly not someone i would wish to read or consider authoritative, but he is certainly one of strong convictions…

     i have enough issues of life i must deal with on a daily basis. those of a more educated/academic position feeling they are, “a voice of one calling in the desert…”, simply adding to the already uncomfortable cacophony championing their viewpoint/cause/insight/theories/fixes, etc.

     {sigh}

     his viewpoints are going to tickle ears. he will have an audience. he may even have fans engaging in this post defending their hero & his ‘biblical’ rants…

     Lord, have mercy… 😦

     LikeLike

252. Am I the only one that , finds it at least slightly probable that one of the hyper-calvinists may end up converting to islam? Somedays I wonder..

     LikeLike

253. Update: The same site now has a link to Driscoll’s response, which I would summarize as follows: “Gee whiz, gender issues sure are tough and controversial these days, what with all them newfangled Bible translations and openly gay preachers and crazy Europeans with their unisex children. Buy my book!”

     LikeLike

254. CM,

     This frightens me. I hear very little gospel for women. I get the impression that sure Christ died for me but the man has to explain it to me and then when I die, the men will have some headship over me and then Christ will have headship over them. Where does this come from? I have grown up around the revivalistic SBC all my life but I have never heard search until now.

     LikeLike

255. Hmmm , i guess soon christian men will have to have long beards & refrain from wearing silk & must not wear pants to long. And they should cut out the feminine music & instead should write about Isa Al-masih and his destruction of Masih Ad-Dajjal. The men must fight for the glory of Allah!

     ..sigh…Christian Islam strikes again..

     LikeLike

256. Chaplain Mike,

     I wonder if this emphasis on Masculine Christianity is in part an over-reaction to the feminisation of the church (perceived or otherwise)?

     The problem as I observe with this reaction is that because it has over reacted, it has become Machismo Christianity rather than Masculine Christianity.

     LikeLike

257. At the risk of stating the obvious, it’s no accident that these ideas are being floated at a time when gender roles in the wider society are undergoing transformation. Feminism has become the new normal, in the sense that people (generally men) who oppose it are looked at askance, while gay rights has become the new frontier in civil rights. In this light, hyper-masculine rhetoric becomes a kind of code signalling political positions which it is hazardous to openly espouse. We heard the same sort of talk from churches like this during the civil rights movement.

     LikeLike

258. I look forward to hearing the discussion about this later today. It seems as if “masculine Christianity” and compliementarism are being pushed more and more. Some of this is no doubt due to changing roles in society, and soceity moving in directions that previounsly were not thought of. However, some is also a knee jerk reaction to that change. In the past you could control women..today not so much. Well….except in church.

     I’ve heard more than enough talks that if guys dealt with lust women needed to dress more “modestly” I thought it low, and that it removes responsibility. I also find it highly disrespectufl and a cheap shot toward women. This is a question for another time…but maybe it turns the tables and shows the fallacy in that line of thinking. If a guy is dealing with homosexuality…do men need to dress more? Cover themself up?

     But in the end I would suggest that much of this “masculine Christinaity” is about control. And the ability to control others. That is what is frightening. And I wonder if this “masculine Christianity” combined wih authorterianism plays out if there will be an uptick or increase in Christian rapes, domestic abuse, emotional abuse, etc..

     Lastly (and I don’t have my Bible with me…as I need to get to bed) but didn’t Paul warn about needless division? There are so many stories in the Bible of women being used. Look at Rehab, Esther, Mary Magdaline, Mary, etc.. I would like to see Esther attend one of these “masculine churches” whoever they might be. Tim Challis, Mark Driscoll, etc..

     Better yet…I’d love to see Margaret Thatcher attend! 😛

     LikeLike