Christian Manhood

I wrote this speech for the ICC Master's conference I will be attending next week. Hopefully it goes well lol.

“C’mon, be a man!” “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do!” Everywhere a man goes today, he’s bombarded with phrases telling him what is and isn’t manly. “Football is a man’s game!” “Real men don’t cry!” The list goes on and on. However, despite all this blithering and advice-giving, the end result is still that the amount of real, Christian men is decreasing significantly. In today’s world, what is and isn’t “manhood” is defined less by scripture, and more by popular, and often fallacious, maxims as to what does and doesn’t constitute manhood. The decreasing amount of Christian men will lead to the downfall of the church as we know it. If the church wishes to survive, and more Christian men are to be raised, the problem must be stopped.

Before identifying what is threatening Christian manhood, one must identify what Christian manhood is. To find what a Christian man is, one should look less to ideals like Vision Forum and more to the Bible, where all our truth is taken from. Surprisingly, the Biblical ideal of a man differs from the one that many Christians think of today. The mark of the man of scripture is less that of a warrior, hiding their emotions and protecting their “weaker” wives, and more that of spirituality and maturity. Yes, Scripture has its “Jocks” in men like Samson and Gideon. However, many of the men of scripture are not as “manly” as would be supposed. David wept and wrote poetry. St. Paul was a scholar, not a literal warrior. Even Jesus wept. The men of scripture who God has given us to emulate are men of learning, men of wisdom, men of spirituality. When one looks at the Beatitudes in Matthew 5:3-11, the virtues extolled are poorness in spirit, spiritual mourning, meekness, hungering for righteousness, mercy, purity, peacemaking, even persecution for righteousness’s sake. Despite what many modern Christians put forth, the Christian man is not defined by a list of “do’s” and “don’t’s” but rather by principles, and these are less the principles of “chivalry” and more the principles of scripture.

The threats to Christian manhood are on two fronts, the church and the world. The world’s threats are numerous. Everywhere you look, the real and fictional men our society holds ideal are seen. James Bond-a womanizing assassin. Iron man-a womanizing alcoholic. More womanizing, drug using rockstars than can be counted. George Gilder, speech writer to Ronald Reagan, wrote in his book “Men and Marriage” about these role models. “It is the notion of the male deserter, lovin’ and leavin; that glamorous pattern of every male fantasy hero.” Christian society is not immune from this threat, as many christian youth idolize these secular rolemodels. Another threat of the world is the idea of the Sexual Revolution. With the sexual revolution came homosexuality, and with homosexuality died perhaps one of the most important parts of Christian manhood; friendship. To quote Doctor R. Albert Mohler of Answers in Genesis, “the most vulnerable victims of friendship’s demise are boys. Boys are no longer free to develop close friendships....because of fears that they will be tagged as homosexuals...Instead, in today’s world, they are left with surface relationships that do not edify or help them become better men.” Boys cannot be too close a friend with another boy without being labelled as “gay.” Boys cannot show physical affection for another boy unless there is enough violence involved to make even Quentin Tarantino happy. Hugs must involve pummelling the receiver’s spine into jello, and even then, if it lasts any amount of time, it is “gay.” With its sexual confusion and depictions of men as shallow, sex obsessed cavemen, the secular world has definitely played its part in destroying the notion of Christian manhood.

The other, more insidious threat to Christian manhood comes from inside the church. Our ideals as Christians have been misplaced. Those who lead the Christian pack are not the theologically educated, but instead the most charismatic. It is less important in the modern church that one can defend ones faith than whether one can pummel a ball into some assigned area. Spiritual gifts are no longer relating to how one can reason, how one prays, whether one feels connected to God, but rather-can you play music? And considering that I co-lead my church’s youthband and am the electric guitarist of my church’s praise band, I’m not speaking simply out of jealousy, but rather experience. Theology and spirituality, the traits that should be the mark of a Christian man, have been booted out and replaced with temporal and, ultimately, irrelevant skills.

The other attack from the church comes in the establishment of concrete gender roles. While yes, men and women are different beings, many modern Christians hold a notion of boyhood that, if one finds oneself outside, one is considered weird. Clipped hair, “proper” dress, and a general obsession with the culture of the last century mark this other branch of “manhood.” Never should a boy even consider wearing long hair. The proper wont of a boy should be weapons and heroes, and all sorts of things of a “chivalrous” nature. Even in ones scholarship, one should, according to such people, focus on the entire “warrior” image. It is well to notice that not one of the apostles was a warrior. The closest one, Peter, only is documented using a sword once, and judging by the fact that he could only cut off an ear, it is very doubtful that he was a trained soldier. He was a fisherman. The great missionary, Paul, was not a warrior, not a soldier, but a scholar, perhaps the best educated man in history, fully educated by the Rabbis and by the secularists. Not one of the bearers of the New Covenant has born a sword or slain thousands. To say that Christian manhood equates with being a warrior is also a fallacious picture of manhood. Some boys, myself included, like their hair longer. Some do not enjoy “manly man” activities. Some could not possibly care less that chivalry is dead, and are not obsessed with painting “the days of yore” as a picture of perfection.

Christian manhood is disappearing. The attacks from the world and from the church are killing it quickly. Now, not of the things that “attack” manhood are bad. Some can be good things. Maybe you enjoy playing sports, and love the idea of “the days of old when knights were bold.” That’s not in itself a bad thing. But if Christian manhood, and therefore the church, is to be preserved, we need to stop and refocus our ideas of what Christian manhood are. Until Christian men really “man up” and learn their theology, learn to defend their faith, until they put down their baseball bats or their toy swords and pick up their bibles, the idea of real Christian manhood will perish.