Imago Dei

Brent has been writing some posts about what it means to be masculine in our culture vs. what the Bible says about being masculine. His thoughts were sparked by a quote in John Eldredge’s popular Wild at Heart:

Eve was created within the lush beauty of Eden’s garden. But Adam, if you’ll remember, was created outside the Garden, in the wilderness. In the record of our beginnings, the second chapter of Genesis makes it clear: Man was born in the outback, from the untamed part of creation. Only afterward is he brought into Eden. And ever since then boys have never been at home indoors, and men have had insatiable longing to explore.

This prompts him to take a look at stereotypes that we have in our culture:

Our culture has no lack of stereotypes about what men ought to be. More often than not, we find that these stereotypes are on one extreme or the other. On the one hand, ours is a very effiminate culture and we’re made to believe that being sensitive is equal to being effiminate. Thus, we have the branding of the “cool to be gay” culture where if you have any sense of fashion style or home decorating, then you must be gay (not that there’s anything wrong with that our culture wants to reminds us). On the other end of the spectrum, we have the image of some sort of uber-machismo in which sports stars are gods, and baptism is by sweat; a view in which “pain is just weakness leaving the body” and “if you can’t run with the big dogs, stay on the porch.” As Douglas Wilson points out, “There is more to masculinity than grunting and bluster.”

Somewhere in the middle is the culturally popular doof who sits in his Lazy-Boy recliner, one hand cuddling the remote control while the other grips his coozie-cup. He digs through the chip crumbs on his chest to find some edible ones, drinks cheap bear and watches other men do manly things like race cars and tackle each other. The family lets him think he’s handy, but he really makes a mess out of just about everything he touches. Sadly, turn on just about any sitcom and most of the fathers fit this mold more than the others. Even the Bernstein Bears mocks the dad.

Obviously, neither extreme is biblical, but I worry that something else is happening as many Christian men seek to reclaim a sense of masculinity. I worry that we’ve imported more of the world’s stereotypes than we realize. It not uncommon to find approaches such as Elderedge’s taken to the unhealthy extreme that, as Douglas Wilson notes in his book Future Men: “the distinction between masculinity and feminity is one of “outdoors” and “indoors.’”

One thing I would note here. He speaks of the “culturally popular doof” and laments that everywhere you look (TV and even children’s books) you can see a characterization of this type of man. Brent seems to be trying to say that this man doesn’t really exist, or isn’t as widely prevalent as the media would have you believe, but I have to disagree. I think that the loss of masculinity that our culture has experienced (epitomized by this caricature) has, in fact, encouraged this type of behavior. Men who want to men but don’t know how. I think that’s a better way to describe this man. He isn’t a culturally popular doof, but a man who has never been taught how to be a man.

Brent offers a solution to the problem of masculinity, which is a good one, but it doesn’t fully embrace the problem that I mentioned above:

We must regain a wholistic view of masculinity that understands that the academic battles are no less masculine and certainly no less important than the physical battles we fight. We must regain a society in which college athletes are made to pass their classes or they do not play sports and we must convince ourselves that culture is not allowed to redefine what God has already defined. We must oppose portrayals of masculinity which demean women, which elevate any one area (physical/mental, leader/follower) over another. Instead, we must submit ourselves to the Word as our foundation and our guide. The Church must stop looking to the world for approval and we must foster a sense of masculinity which values the head as much as it does sweat.

Bottom line is this: We need more men to teach their sons how to be men.  

Why do I feel like I’m going to get some flak for this idea?

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