Page 2847 – Christianity Today (2024)

Brandon O’Brien, assistant editor of Leadership, has a provocative article over at ChristianityToday.com about the shortcomings of the new Christian men’s movement. From worship songs that inspire men to “Grab a sword, don’t be scared. Be a man, grow a pair!” to chest-thumping sermons, the de-feminizing of the church may be doing more harm than good. Here is an excerpt from O’Brien’s article:

Mark Driscoll, pastor of Seattle’s Mars Hill Church, desires greater testosterone in contemporary Christianity. In Driscoll’s opinion, the church has produced “a bunch of nice, soft, tender, chickified church boys. ? Sixty percent of Christians are chicks,” he explains, “and the forty percent that are dudes are still sort of chicks.”

The aspect of church that men find least appealing is its conception of Jesus. Driscoll put this bluntly in his sermon “Death by Love” at the 2006 Resurgence theology conference (available at TheResurgence.com). According to Driscoll, “real men” avoid the church because it projects a “Richard Simmons, hippie, queer Christ” that “is no one to live for [and] is no one to die for.” Driscoll explains, “Jesus was not a long-haired ? effeminate-looking dude”; rather, he had “callused hands and big biceps.” This is the sort of Christ men are drawn to – what Driscoll calls “Ultimate Fighting Jesus.”

Here’s a video with more about GodMen, a ministry highlighted by O’Brien in his article. It was started by comedian Brad Stine to provide space where “men can be men; raw and uninhibited; completely free to express themselves in the uniquely male way that only men understand.”

Are you inspired or insulted? Read O’Brien’s entire article, “A Jesus for Real Men,” at Christianity Today’s website.

With gasoline flowing toward $4 a gallon in the U.S., some Americans are trying to figure out what they can cut from their budget to remain behind the wheel. In other parts of the world, high prices for basic items are causing more trouble.

The prices of wheat and rice this year will have doubled since 2004, according to World Bank projections. Soybeans, sugar, soybean oil and corn are expected to be 56% to 79% costlier than in 2004. The bulk of the increases have come in the past year and can be attributed to the West’s push to turn these crops into fossil-fuel replacements like ethanol. Food prices will likely remain overinflated until at least 2015, the Bank says.

The result of these rising prices is that 100 million people could slip back into poverty, erasing seven years’ worth of gains, Bank President Robert Zoellick warned earlier this month. Food inflation and shortages have sparked riots from Egypt to the Philippines, and six people were killed in Haiti alone during nine days of related unrest there this month.

Soaring oil prices have made it more expensive to transport food products, though the World Bank estimates this and costlier fertilizer account for only 15% of the rise in food prices. Improved eating habits in developing nations are also increasing demand for grains – both for human consumption and to feed livestock, since rapid economic growth in places like China means more people have enough money to buy meat. But the Bank notes that “almost all” of the increased growing of one of the key crops, corn, “went for biofuels production in the U.S.”

For a look at what the World Bank says about the food crisis, click here.

While the science of whether ethanol is an efficient use of corn, given its proportional removal from the world’s food supply, is beyond me, the current world food crisis points out the fact that there are economic costs and drawbacks with every government mandate and subsidy. There is no such thing as a free lunch. When corn is turned into fuel, it cannot be used for food, and some who would eat that corn will have to buy other food (presumably at a higher price) or go hungry.

If you’ve talked to 20-somethings lately, you’ve probably noticed we’re disillusioned about almost everything—government, war, the economy, and most things having to do with The Man. We’re especially disillusioned with church. Somewhere between the Crusades, the Inquisition, and fundamentalists bombing abortion clinics, we lost our appetite for institutionalized Christianity. A slew of recent books addresses this growing disenchantment.

An oft-disillusioned (and hopelessly idealistic) 20-something myself, I picked up Life After Church: God’s Call to Disillusioned Christians (InterVarsity), and Dear Church: Letters from a Disillusioned Generation (Zondervan). I figured that I’d find writers who share my frustrations. But I was also hoping they would push me toward a deeper and richer relationship with the church—and in this, I was left unsatisfied.

In Life After Church, Brian Sanders writes specifically for “leavers”—people who are committed to Jesus Christ but often view church as a “failed experiment.” They feel that following Jesus and staying in a local congregation have become mutually exclusive. Likewise, Sarah Cunningham in Dear Church writes for those who “question whether attending a local church has anything to do with a person’s faith.”

Both authors focus on local congregations as the primary source of disappointment. Sanders says leavers find Sunday morning services irrelevant—they’re repetitive, they don’t address issues that really matter to them, and they fail to provide meaningful outlets for service. Leavers often feel that they’ve outgrown what they perceive as simplistic, seeker-oriented messages; nor do they find churches conducive to deep community. Cunningham says 20-somethings are uncomfortable with overly cool, overly polished churches “whose onstage dress code seems to keep designer clothing stores in business.” She also wrestles with the socioeconomic and racial hom*ogeneity of local congregations.

Both authors identify a variety of complaints with the church. But naming a problem isn’t the same thing as addressing it.

Sanders and Cunningham suggest drawing on a “clean canvas” what it means to do church. Sanders looks to Acts 9, which describes the apostle Paul’s calling following his conversion, in order to propose an “ecclesial minimum” of worship, community, and mission. He writes, “As easily as we have formed churches around cathedrals and buildings with steeples and stained glass, we can form churches around pubs and laundromats, parks and coffee shops. … Simply inviting believers and nonbelievers into our homes for the purpose of worshiping and sharing Jesus transforms our homes into churches.”

Obviously it is essential that we as Christians intentionally build relationships with nonbelievers in pubs and laundromats, because that is where they are. But that isn’t church. Church is much more complex than “worshiping and sharing Jesus.”

Cunningham cites various New Testament passages that deal with early Christian communities. She mentions Matthew 16 a few times—where Jesus appoints Peter to be the rock on which the church will be built—as the biblical grounds for her understanding of church. Ultimately, though, she shies away from any notion of the church as an institution (the closest she comes is saying that the church should be “a permanent fixture in society”). Jesus, she says, “did away with institutionalized religion and instead championed a real-life faith where he hung out with his followers in a way that was perhaps reminiscent of Eden.”

I’m unclear on how one can create a “permanent fixture in society” and not create an institution. Cunningham seems to suggest that “real-life faith” is stifled by institutions, so we should avoid them at all costs. I’m not sure it’s possible to sustain real-life faith without institutions.

For those who leave the institutional church, the focus seems to be on alternative communities. In “A Leaver’s Manifesto” at the end of his book, Sanders says that the foundation of this new movement is the home church. He is so committed to this idea that he writes, “We can affirm the larger gathering for worship and celebration, but we can’t call it church.”

There is no question that home churches can facilitate powerful, deep community. Indeed, worship, community, and mission are all part of what it means to be the church. But I suspect there is a reason the institutional church has incorporated from its beginning liturgy, catechesis, creeds, and ordained offices—not to mention the sacraments. Over time, we discovered these were vital elements of church. As much as these things can sometimes feel rote, it would be naïve to wave them off as unessential.

In trying to make church relevant again, the authors focus on rethinking the Sunday morning service. In the process, they suggest how culturally trapped many in my generation are. “Too often,” Sanders writes, “churches have failed to create an experience that serves and nurtures people at each point on that journey.” Cunningham quotes a 20-something who declared, “I’m really tired of the pulpit-pew congregation style because it doesn’t transform lives in the same way as one-to-one communication does.” She quotes one pastor whose rule of thumb is, “If it doesn’t help someone live out their faith Monday through Friday, it’s not worth saying.”

Of course, local congregations should encourage and disciple their members, help them to serve one another in practical ways, and offer opportunities for meaningful community. But just because those things don’t happen on Sunday morning doesn’t mean we’re not being the church when we gather for worship.

Yes, we’re Americans. We multitask all day long. Efficiency is one of our top cultural values. I, too, am pragmatic. I’d like to use Sunday morning to worship God, to get a few pointers on how to improve my relationship with Jesus, and to reconnect with community. But every Sunday, the first words heard at my institutional church are, “Blessed be God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” And I’m reminded that we gather weekly not to hear a practical talk on how to better live out our faith or to provide a venue to tell our friends about Jesus. We gather corporately to worship God, to celebrate the redeeming work of Christ on the cross, and to remember that our lives are not about us.

Sanders and Cunningham don’t completely disagree. Each spends some time giving a kick in the pants to the disillusioned, and Cunningham’s warning hits home: “This kind of unexpected idolatry—the obsession with living in despair over what is wrong with the institutionalized church—creeps up on you (like most shifty little idols do). … Criticism becomes what we end up worshiping.” She encourages 20-somethings to have a little more grace and patience with the failures of the church and ends her book with a love letter to the church.

The church can indeed be bureaucratic, inefficient, and, at times, hopelessly outdated. It remains one of the most embarrassing institutions to which one can belong. But it has also given us a 2,000-year legacy of saints and social reformers, and a rich liturgy and theology—the very gift 20-somethings need to grow into the full stature of Christ.

Katie Galli, a barista and a member of an Anglican congregation in Glen Ellyn, Illinois

Copyright © 2008 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Related Elsewhere:

Life after Church: God’s Call to Disillusioned Christians and Dear Church: Letters from a Disillusioned Generation are available from ChristianBook.com and other retailers.

His advice may surprise or offend, but it is still worth thinking about.

Consider these excerpts (you can see the full interview here):

“Churches are the oldest businesses around today. And yes, they’re businesses. They don’t necessarily sell a physical product, and they don’t always charge money, but there’s a transaction nonetheless. And that involves the individual paying attention. Attention is precious and it’s rare and it’s non-refundable?.”

“Just because it’s important to you (and it could be your Tupperware product line or your sermon) doesn’t mean it’s important to me. The essential idea here is that new media is selfish and you can’t buy or demand attention, no matter how worthy you believe your idea may be?.”

“I’d say you need to concentrate on what’s remarkable and interesting and noteworthy and touches my faith, and stop spending time on tasks that don’t amplify any of those elements. Doing something because you’ve always done it isn’t an idea worth spreading?.”

What do you think? Do we short-change ourselves by taking people’s attention for granted? Do we recognize the selfish way in which people listen to our messages? How can church leaders make the most of insights from the business world?

Let us know what you think. If you want to read more, check out the full interview on StreamingFaith’s website.

There is a quiet and subtle beauty to Jhumpa Lahiri’s writing. It’s never flowery, never too much. You may remember her first short story collection, Interpreter of Maladies, for which she won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2000, or perhaps her novel, The Namesake, which gave Gogol—her boy–then–man protagonist who detested the birth name he’d been given—a second life in theaters around the country.

Superficially, Unaccustomed Earth is fraught with the same assimilation hurdles—the frustrations of second–generation immigrant children attempting to conform to American or English culture against their parents’ insistence on maintaining their homeland traditions. It’s something Lahiri knows quite well, being raised in a Bengali home in Rhode Island. It’s fitting, then, that the title of her new collection comes from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Custom–House”—his preface to The Scarlet Letter: “Human nature will not flourish, any more than a potato, if it be planted and replanted, for too long a series of generations, in the same worn–out soil. My children have had other birthplaces, and, so far as their fortunes may be within my control, shall strike their roots into unaccustomed earth.”

What distinguishes Lahiri is her sensitivity both to story and language. The Bengali details are there, in fresh and vivid light, for those of us who are unfamiliar with the culture, but ultimately, it’s the human universals—love, betrayal, rivalry, lust, dishonesty—and subsequent unfolding dramas that convince you you’re under the spell of an observant and truthful narrator, one who will be bluntly and meticulously honest, to the point of not sparing her protagonists’ fates.

There are eight stories in all. The three that conclude the book constitute a trilogy of sorts, linking two characters who meet as teens under dire circ*mstances, then again as love–struck adults. I would tell you which story was my favorite, but that would be like saying, “Do you want this chocolate or this chocolate?” when any one of them would do the trick. That said, “Unaccustomed Earth” is the most tender of them all. A widowed father travels to Seattle to visit his married daughter and family. What he doesn’t know is that his daughter feels an annoyed obligation to invite him to live with them. What she doesn’t know is that he’s met someone and doesn’t want to be bound by his daughter’s limited and claustrophobic life. It’s this plausible tension that heightens the anticipation of their interaction.

“Hell–Heaven” is narrated by a daughter who recalls the acrid tang of thwarted and unrequited love between her mother and a lonely Bengali bachelor. “A Choice of Accommodations” highlights a couple who travel to a quaint ski lodge in the mountains, ostensibly to attend an old friend’s wedding but in reality to face the hidden demons in their marriage. “Only Goodness” tells of an older sister who introduces her younger brother to alcohol, to the Stones and the Doors, trying to be a cool sister–friend, but everything goes awry when his drinking devours his living. “Nobody’s Business” is about a girl who moves into a shared apartment. When Paul, one of her housemates, discovers the truth about her boyfriend, he can’t bring himself to tell her, and the situation deteriorates rapidly.

I have one minor complaint. Are all Indian–Americans in high–profile postgraduate jobs, working as engineers or architects or doctors? I think not. But this is the impression I get, reading the stories, and I wish it weren’t so. Maybe I’m being picky, but the characters and their families start to blur together, and the course of their actions is too predictable (love always ends in illicit affairs).

If it weren’t for Lahiri’s exquisite prose, I’m afraid I would have lost interest long ago. But then again, just so you know how much of a waffler I am regarding Lahiri, I have to remind you that her books shimmer with persuasive glimpses of human nature, in a way that few books can and do. And so I’ll lay my indecisive arguments at your feet and applaud Lahiri for her truth–telling, wherever it may lead her.

Elissa Elliott is a writer living in Rochester, Minnesota. She’s at work on a novel about Eve.

Copyright © 2008 Books & Culture.Click for reprint information.

On the way home from Grand Rapids this last Sunday, skirting Lake Michigan along the Blue Star and Red Arrow highways, not forgetting to stop at the Swedish bakery in Harbert, Wendy and I listened to a glorious CD, Llibre Vermell de Montserrat: A fourteenth–century Pilgrimage, a project of the indefatigable Jordi Savall, originally recorded in 1979. A monastery founded in 1027 at Montserrat in Catalonia, where the Virgin Mary was greatly venerated, became a site of pilgrimage. As the copyist of the manuscript from which this music is taken tells us, “the pilgrims, while holding night vigil in the Church of the Blessed Virgin in Montserrat, sometimes desire to sing and dance, even wanting to do so in the Church Square.” The manuscript was stored for centuries in the monastery’s library and survived a fire in 1811—so we can listen to the pilgrims’ music today, in a world wildly different and yet not so different from 14th-century Catalonia.

I wondered what those medieval Christians might make of the roughly 2,000 pilgrims (Wendy and I among them) who gathered for the Festival of Faith & Writing, which takes place at Calvin College every other year. Many of them are devoted to St. Wendell—indeed, there were two sessions in his honor, one on “Wendell Berry and the Life of the Church,” the other on “Wendell Berry and the Life of the Academy,” both midwifed by Jason Peters, who teaches at Augustana College and is the editor of Wendell Berry: Life and Work. Alas, I wasn’t able to attend either session, but I heard good reports. (I’m not a Berryite myself—more a skeptical admirer. On the trip to and from Calvin, Wendy and I were also listening to a Berry novel, A Place on Earth, in an excellent audio version.)

The biggest treat for me was hearing Michael Chabon in person for the first time, as the plenary speaker Thursday night—he read an essay from his splendid collection Maps and Legends, just out from McSweeney’s—and in an interview the following morning conducted by Don Hettinga of Calvin’s English Department. Chabon’s novel The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, scheduled to be adapted as a Coen Brothers’ film, suggested that his firsthand acquaintance with Christians of the Calvin College variety is extremely limited. Perhaps this visit, however brief, helpfully complicated his impressions. And maybe not.

To single out a handful of sessions from an embarrassment of riches seems rather arbitrary, but I must also mention Dan Taylor’s interview with Edward P. Jones, author most recently of All Aunt Hagar’s Children, and the conversation about memoir–writing between Haven Kimmel and Carlos Eire. The two plenary addresses in addition to Chabon’s—Yann Martel on Friday, and Katherine Paterson on Saturday—were also worth attending. Martel’s international bestseller Life of Pi isn’t my cup of tea—I tried it when it came out and didn’t get far—but it was interesting to get a better sense of what he’s about, and he’s a man of considerable charm, not insulated from the ordinary goings–on of the festival as keynote speakers often choose to be. Paterson’s Wiersma Memorial Lecture, “Stories of Beauty,” overlapped to some extent with a plenary talk she gave at the festival a few years ago, but there were some wonderful bits, including an excerpt from her 2006 book Bread and Roses, Too, based on the 1912 millworkers’ strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts. A novel for young readers, it’s clearly for grownups as well, and Wendy and I resolved to get a copy immediately.

There are very few events resembling this festival, where readers and writers—mostly Christian—can gather to hear speakers whose faith deeply informs their work and others who represent different faith traditions or no faith at all but who are willing to join the conversation. Three cheers to Calvin College and the supporters of the festival from Grand Rapids and elsewhere; to Shelly LeMahieu Dunn, director of the festival, the festival committee from Calvin’s English Department, and the attentive student helpers; to the speakers; and to the community of pilgrims, many of them repeaters, who make this a memorable occasion.

John Wilson is the editor of Books & Culture.

Copyright © 2008 Books & Culture. Click for reprint information.

In the introduction of their new book whose title says it all – Why We’re Not Emergent: By Two Guys Who Should Be (Moody, 2008) – authors Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck offer yet another attempt at defining “emergent Christianity.” I’ve included the full quotation below. Check it out and tell me whether you fit the bill.

After reading nearly five thousand pages of emerging-church literature, I have no doubt that the emerging church, while loosely defined and far from uniform, can be described and critiqued as a diverse, but recognizable, movement. You might be an emergent Christian:

if you listen to U2, Moby, and Johnny Cash’s Hurt (sometimes in church), use sermon illustrations from The Sopranos, drink lattes in the afternoon and Guinness in the evenings, and always use a Mac; if your reading list consists primarily of Stanley Hauerwas, Henri Nouwen, N. T. Wright, Stan Grenz, Dallas Willard, Brennan Manning, Jim Wallis, Frederick Buechner, David Bosch, John Howard Yoder, Wendell Berry, Nancy Murphy, John Frank, Walter Winks, and Lesslie Newbigin (not to mention McLaren, Pagitt, Bell, etc.) and your sparring partners include D. A. Carson, John Calvin, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and Wayne Grudem;…

if your idea of quintessential Christian discipleship is Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, or Desmond Tutu; if you don’t like George W. Bush or institutions or big business or capitalism or Left Behind Christianity; if your political concerns are poverty, AIDS, imperialism, war-mongering, CEO salaries, consumerism, global warming, racism, and oppression and not so much abortion and gay marriage; if you are into bohemian, goth, rave, or indie; if you talk about the myth of redemptive violence and the myth of certainty; if you lie awake at night having nightmares about all the ways modernism has ruined your life; if you love the Bible as a beautiful, inspiring collection of works that lead us into the mystery of God but is not inerrant; if you search for truth but aren’t sure it can be found; if you’ve ever been to a church with prayer labyrinths, candles, Play-Doh, chalk-drawings, couches, or beanbags (your youth group doesn’t count); if you loathe words like linear, propositional, rational, machine, and hierarchy and use words like ancient-future, jazz, mosaic, matrix, missional, vintage, and dance; if you grew up in a very conservative Christian home that in retrospect seems legalistic, na?ve, and rigid; if you support women in all levels of ministry, prioritize urban over suburban, and like your theology narrative instead of systematic; if you disbelieve in any sacred-secular divide; if you want to be the church and not just go to church; if you long for a community that is relational, tribal, and primal like a river or a garden; if you believe who goes to hell is no one’s business and no one may be there anyway; if you believe salvation has a little to do with atoning for guilt and a lot to do with bringing the whole creation back into shalom with its Maker; if you believe following Jesus is not believing the right things but living the right way; if it really bugs you when people talk about going to heaven instead of heaven coming to us; if you disdain monological, didactic preaching; if you use the word “story” in all your propositions about postmodernism – if all or most of this torturously long sentence describes you, then you might be an emergent Christian.*

Now that you know the symptoms, take the quiz on the left and let me know if you consider yourself an emerging Christian.

(*Reprinted with the permission of Moody Publishers)

This year’s Together for the Gospel conference felt markedly more defensive than the inaugural 2006 event. The speakers each zeroed in on the topic of theological error. Mark Dever ranged widely as he argued that evangelicals must not confuse implications of the gospel with its essence, the salvation of souls. Al Mohler capped the second evening with a relentless defense of substitutionary Atonement. The schedule was exhausting, the content hard-hitting.

Ligon Duncan, president of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, set the tone with his opening talk on Tuesday night. Speaking on “Sound Doctrine: Essential to Faithful Pastoral Ministry,” Duncan bemoaned our anti-theological age. He quoted from an article, “The Dangers of Theology,” that ran in his hometown newspaper in Jackson, Mississippi. In it, Valerie Cohen, rabbi at a local Reform Judaism congregation, wrote,

Theology. What a tricky thing. A devious thing, sometimes. A dangerous thing, often. Perhaps that is why Jews focus so much on deed and not creed, on doing rather than believing.

Duncan observed that Jews have experienced the deadly consequences of bad theology. So as a defense mechanism, some Reform Jews such as Rabbi Cohen have tempered all theology in order to render it benign. This move creates an environment in which anyone who holds strong beliefs about God’s character is suspected of nefarious motives. To meet this challenge, we must remember that the word theology demands a modifier. The Germans who supported the Nazis believed in a racist theology. Christians counter with a biblical theology that rejects such theories of racial superiority.

Sometimes, however, pointing out these differences will not persuade. That’s when Christians must demonstrate their theology by their actions. Duncan made this point when he called on Christians to out-live and out-die the critics of their theology. Otherwise, what good are these beliefs? Mark Driscoll from Mars Hill Church expressed a similar pastoral burden. “I believe that doctrine is not just true; I also believe it’s helpful,” he told me. “In addition to arguing for the truth of doctrine, we also need to show the helpfulness of doctrine.”

Duncan’s talk did not just defend theology. It also aimed to defend systematic theology in particular. He praised the work of Bruce Waltke but also criticized the Old Testament scholar’s explanation of the differences between biblical and systematic theology.

“Biblical theologians differ from dogmaticians [systematicians] in three ways,” Waltke writes in his Old Testament Theology, which Duncan quoted. “First, biblical theologians primarily think as exegetes, not as logicians. Second, they derive their organizational principle from the biblical blocks of writings themselves rather than from factors external to the text. Third, their thinking is diachronic — that is, they track the development of theological themes in various blocks of writings. Systematic theologians think more synchronically — that is, they invest their energies on the church’s doctrines, not on the development of religious ideas within the Bible.”

Put that way, how can systematic theology compete with biblical theology? After all, as Waltke writes, systematic theologians draw their organizing categories from outside the Bible. Does that make systematic theology less biblical? Duncan countered by showing how the Bible itself displays systematic theology. Jesus taught a systematic lesson on the topic of himself (Luke 24:25-27). Apollos encouraged fellow believers by debating the Jews on the topic of whether Jesus was the Messiah. He systematically taught this topic from the Scriptures (Acts 18:28), Duncan observed.

He also pointed to the critique of systematic theology that comes from Emergent leaders. “The emerging movement tends to be suspicious of systematic theology,” Scot McKnight wrote in Christianity Today. “Why? Not because we don’t read systematics, but because the diversity of theologies alarms us, no genuine consensus has been achieved, God didn’t reveal a systematic theology but a storied narrative, and no language is capable of capturing the Absolute Truth who alone is God. Frankly, the emerging movement loves ideas and theology. It just doesn’t have an airtight system or statement of faith. We believe the Great Tradition offers various ways for telling the truth about God’s redemption in Christ, but we don’t believe any one theology gets it absolutely right.”

There is much to chew on in this provocative statement. For a detailed response, listen to Duncan’s lecture. McKnight is right: Christians have creatively compiled an alarming array of systematic theologies. Yet each new generation’s textbooks still rely on a crucial foundation of systematic theology reached after painful debate, especially in the early church. Chief among these triumphs is the doctrine of the Trinity. The recent Wheaton Theology Conference, “Rediscovering the Trinity: Classic Doctrine and Contemporary Ministry,” once again showedhow the Trinity is a faithful and fruitful category in systematic theology.

We may rightly wonder about overly philosophical and insufficiently biblical systematic theologies. We may turn a skeptical eye toward any systematic theology that claims to exhaust God’s truth. But we must not forget to thank God for giving us minds to systematically comprehend and apply his Word.

Verses for the Fortnight

“And [Jesus] said to them, ‘O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?’ And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.”

Luke 4:25-27

Collin Hansen is a CT editor at large and author of Young, Restless, Reformed: A Journalist’s Journey with the New Calvinists.

Copyright © 2008 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

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Previous Theology in the News columns are available on our site.

"The stallions hang out in bars; the geldings hang out in church." This observation from David Murrow strikes a little close to home for someone like me. I always thrived in my congregation but was never certain I fit the mold of masculinity I saw modeled around me. So as much as I resent Murrow's sentiment, it nevertheless rings true: In many churches, a certain type of man is conspicuously absent.

The disparity in men's and women's attendance in American churches has made men the target of specialized ministry over the last two decades. Promise Keepers kicked off the men's movement in 1990 by challenging stadiums full of men and boys to fulfill their duties to God and their families. Today a growing body of literature is leveling its sights on the church, suggesting that men are uninvolved in church life because the church doesn't encourage authentic masculine participation.

The first writer to popularize this concern was John Eldredge, who, in his three-million-selling Wild at Heart (Thomas Nelson, 2001), lamented that the masculine spirit was at risk because "most men believe God put them on the earth to be good boys." The church's tendency to promote discipleship as merely becoming "nice guys" keeps men from embodying their God-given maleness.

Wild at Heart sowed seeds that have sprouted as a new "masculinity movement" aimed to get men into church by changing the church's atmosphere. David Murrow, author of Why Men Hate Going to Church (Thomas Nelson, 2004), founded the group Church for Men because, while the local congregation is "perfectly designed to reach women and older folks"—with its emphasis on comfort, nurture, and relationships—it "offers little to stir the masculine heart, so men find it dull and irrelevant."

Inspired by Murrow, comedian Brad Stine began GodMen, a ministry that provides space in which "men can be men; raw and uninhibited; completely free to express themselves in the uniquely male way that only men understand." In a 2002 GodMen meeting, this experience included videos of karate fights, car chases, and songs like "Grow a Pair!" whose lyrics read:

We've been beaten down
Feminized by the culture crowd
No more nice guy, timid and ashamed …
Grab a sword, don't be scared
Be a man, grow a pair!

It's not sung to the tune of "In the Garden."

The message of Church for Men and GodMen is resonating with ministers of all stripes. Following Murrow's advice, Don Wilson, pastor of Christ's Church of the Valley in Peoria, Arizona, has geared his entire ministry toward reaching young men. And while his ministry is not to men in particular, Mark Driscoll, pastor of Seattle's Mars Hill Church, nevertheless desires greater testosterone in contemporary Christianity. In Driscoll's opinion, the church has produced "a bunch of nice, soft, tender, chickified church boys. … Sixty percent of Christians are chicks," he explains, "and the forty percent that are dudes are still sort of chicks."

The aspect of church that men find least appealing is its conception of Jesus. Driscoll put this bluntly in his sermon "Death by Love" at the 2006 Resurgence theology conference (available at TheResurgence.com). According to Driscoll, "real men" avoid the church because it projects a "Richard Simmons, hippie, queer Christ" that "is no one to live for [and] is no one to die for." Driscoll explains, "Jesus was not a long-haired … effeminate-looking dude"; rather, he had "callused hands and big biceps." This is the sort of Christ men are drawn to—what Driscoll calls "Ultimate Fighting Jesus."

Paul Coughlin, author of No More Christian Nice Guy (Bethany House, 2005), agrees: The problem with the wimpy Jesus of the popular imagination is that "a meek and mild Jesus eventually is a bore. He doesn't inspire us."

I respect what these authors are trying to accomplish. They recognize that the Jesus of the Bible—unlike the Jesus of much contemporary Christian art and music—was not afraid to denounce, challenge, and offend. After all, he called the Pharisees vipers and Peter the Devil. Thus, the greatest contribution of the movement is that it identifies ways the American church has reduced Christian discipleship to minding one's manners. Murrow is right; much of a typical experience in church is "sweet and sentimental, nurturing and nice." For these writers, nice is an expletive that summarizes the church's digression from radical discipleship to simple moralizing. In short, the movement reminds us of what Jesus and Paul insisted: The gospel is an offense and discipleship is an invitation to the cross.

Re-masculating Jesus

The movement's method of reclaiming the radical nature of the gospel, however, poses a genuine threat to Christian discipleship. These authors see the church's fixation on morality as part and parcel of the church's feminization, and they suggest that the solution is to inject the church with a heavy dose of testosterone. In other words, allowing women to create Jesus in their image has emasculated him; thus, regaining a biblical image of Christ is as simple as re-masculating him.

The masculinity movement's solution assumes that Jesus came to model genuine masculinity. The authors don't say so explicitly, but their rhetoric assumes manly instincts are inherently godly. In Wild at Heart Eldredge claims, "We are never told to kill the true man within us, never told to get rid of those deep desires for battle and adventure and beauty." The GodMen repeat the theme: "None of our maleness is toned down because we believe … that we are fearfully and wonderfully made." These statements imply that when the church adopts the supposedly male psyche, it fulfills its purpose, but when it conforms to the supposedly female psyche, it becomes aberrant.

Murrow tries to avoid this conclusion by insisting that the church is healthiest when it looks like a marble cake, with masculinity and femininity present in equal parts. But what he gives with one hand, he takes away with the other. He says that women believe the purpose of Christianity is to find "a happy relationship with a wonderful man"—Jesus—whereas men recognize God's call to "save the world against impossible odds." Moreover, he claims to have history on his side. While the church was masculine, it fulfilled its purpose. But in the 19th century, women "began remaking the church in their image" (and they continue to do so), which moved the church off course.

Driscoll comes closest to imagining Jesus as the model of maleness when he argues that "latte-sipping Cabriolet drivers" do not represent biblical masculinity, because "real men"—like Jesus, Paul, and John the Baptist— are "dudes: heterosexual, win-a-fight, punch-you-in-the-nose dudes." In other words, because Jesus is not a "limp-wristed, dress-wearing hippie," the men created in his image are not sissified church boys; they are aggressive, assertive, and nonverbal.

I'm not sure where a man like me fits when the only categories for masculinity are "metrosexual" and "Ultimate Fighting champion." Like Jesus, I've worked as a carpenter, and I've sweated in a lumber mill. But I don't gauge my masculinity by the girth of my neck, and I'd rather not sweat for a living. I'm happiest when I'm reading and writing. I like lattes.

Besides offering an extremely narrow view of masculinity, this framework totally excludes women from real discipleship. To begin with, it blames them for neutering the gospel. Left in their hands, the church became nice and affirming and lost its vision to reach the world. Perhaps worse, if Christ is the model of masculinity, then women can't imitate him. They can pursue him as the lover of their souls. They can imitate his devotion to the Father in their relationships with their husbands. But they can't become like him in any essential way.

Jesus, Fully Human

Fortunately for women and men alike, the Bible never speaks of Christians as reformed men and women, but as altogether new creations (2 Cor. 5:17). The Fall has done more damage to the human heart than the masculinity movement seems willing to admit. For instance, a man's natural inclinations may prompt him to be "Boss, Bold, Brash, Bully, and Blunt," as one of GodMen's sayings suggests. But most of these are qualities of the old self that are destroyed when one is transformed into the image of Christ. A man's urge for battle—with fist or pen—may well be natural, but that doesn't automatically make it godly. In other words, conversion does not sanctify our instincts; rather, it demands that we submit all our instincts to the lordship of Christ and crucify the sinful ones, what Paul calls "the flesh" (Eph. 2).

Most importantly, Scripture gives no indication that Jesus came to earth to model masculinity. He is the "image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation" (Col. 1:15). As such, he is not simply the perfect male; he is the perfect human being. Through his obedience to the Father, Christ exhibited the qualities that should characterize all believers, both male and female.

Jesus' triumphal entry is commonly considered evidence of his essential maleness. It seems reasonable: Angered by the blasphemy of the temple officials, Jesus topples tables and whips moneychangers in a demonstration of righteous aggression. But the story must be understood in the context of Luke's entire gospel. Earlier in Luke (13:34), Jesus describes his love for Jerusalem in maternal terms; he has longed to gather Israel to himself "as a hen gathers her brood under her wings." Anticipating his final entrance into Jerusalem, he says that he will visit Jerusalem's house (the temple) when the people proclaim, "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!" As he approaches the city in Luke 19, he weeps at their stubbornness. Only then does he chase the merchants from the temple. In other words, the temple cleansing was premeditated—not a manly burst of anger, but a passionate and symbolic display of God's judgment.

My point is this: If Adam and Eve illustrate the essential differences between men and women, Christ highlights their essential unity. All believers are called to imitate Christ by exhibiting the same qualities; Paul makes no distinction between masculine and feminine fruits of the Spirit. In fact, the evidence of the Spirit's work looks very different from the qualities the masculinity movement suggests typify a "real" man. Instead of "brash, offensive" (Stine), "self-reliant, competitive" (Murrow), "punch-you-in-the-nose dudes" (Driscoll), Paul says that those who are filled with the Holy Spirit will be loving, patient, peaceful, kind, and gentle.

The masculinity movement would have us emulate the glorified Jesus—the one who will return on horseback and brandish the sword of judgment. That is certainly the Jesus we worship. But it is not the Jesus we are commanded to imitate. The only times Jesus appears in Scripture as a warrior are in his pre-incarnate debuts in the Old Testament and post-resurrection glory. Our model of behavior, then, is the suffering Son, not the glorified one. Humanity in the image of Christ is not aggressive and combative; it is humble and poor (Phil. 2:5). We are most like Christ not when we win a fight, but when we suffer for righteousness' sake (Eph. 5:1-2; 1 Thess. 1:6; 2:14).

Arguing for common characteristics between men and women is not to argue for identical roles. I don't intend to downplay the significant differences between the genders or the distinct challenges in discipleship that men and women each face. I mean that if courage is Christlike, then men and women should both develop courage, even if the ways in which they display it may differ. In other words, we should mistrust any interpretation of Scripture that simply confirms our instincts. If it is more natural for a man to be aggressive and a woman to be passive, then a genuine encounter with Christ should challenge a man to become gentle (Gal. 5:23) and a woman to become bold (2 Tim. 1:7). The challenge of discipleship is extended equally to both men and women.

True Strength

Indeed, Jesus was not afraid to offend and rebuke. He was not kind at the expense of the truth. But those qualities are not masculine as such; they are godly. Imposing qualities we consider masculine on an image of Jesus we consider feminine does not solve the problem. It only gives us a new problem—another culturally shaped Jesus, only masculine this time.

The way to recover the biblical image of Jesus is to submit ourselves to the Scriptures and let them discipline our preconceptions. In the process, we must remember that the purpose of discipleship is not primarily to become fulfilled men or women, but rather to be transformed into the image of Christ. In the end, the biblical image of Jesus presents a far more radical role model than Jesus the dude. Jesus was gritty, honest, and fearless. Yet his strength was not displayed in his willingness to punch evildoers in the mouth, but in his suffering at the hands of the wicked for their good. Where such strength is found—whether in a man or a woman, a latte-sipping sissy or a muscled mason—there is godly strength.

Brandon O'Brien is assistant editor for Leadership and BuildingChurchLeaders.com.

Copyright © 2008 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Related Elsewhere:

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In 1990, Christianity Today published the results of a survey of readers' views on male and female roles in home, church, and society.

More articles on sexuality and gender are available in our full-coverage section.

The pre-release controversy surrounding Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed didn’t quite reach the fever pitch that preceded The Passion of the Christ, but it has nonetheless “bought” the filmmakers more free publicity than they ever could have afforded.

Recent weeks of hullabaloo have included:

• Film critics allegedly “crashing” private screenings
• Interview subjects claiming they wereduped by filmmakers
• A prominent atheist being deniedadmission to a screening
• Producers suing opponents for allegedly “suppressing free speech”
• The advent of a website devoted to “exposing” Expelled

There’s yet another comparison to the pre-Passion hype: While critics accused director Mel Gibson and his film of anti-Semitism, the filmmakers behind Expelled—and movie host Ben Stein, who is Jewish—argue that Darwin and evolutionist theory paved the way for Hitler and the Holocaust (but Scientific American begs to differ). Perhaps it’s no coincidence that Motive Marketing, which is spearheading publicity for Expelled, was also in charge of PR for The Passion.

Now that the movie has hit theaters, does it live up to all the pre-game hype? Well, sort of.

On the one hand, it does accomplish what its title infers. “Expelled” refers to several college profs and scientists who were reportedly denied tenure or lost their jobs because they dared to mention Intelligent Design (ID) in the classroom, in research papers, or on the job. The film presents these cases in varying degrees of detail, but always implying that a clear injustice was done in each situation. (Christianity Today looked into at least one of the cases earlier this year—that of Guillermo Gonzalez, denied tenure at Iowa State University ostensibly due to his support of ID.)

The film’s subtitle, “No Intelligence Allowed,” refers to what Stein and the filmmakers decry as a lack of “academic freedom” or “open inquiry” in academia and the scientific community. The movie argues that gatekeepers in those circles aren’t even allowing ID as a topic of discussion. Of course, filmmakers only depicted those situations which support their premise—the movie was made by a company called Premise Media—but ignore any cases of public school classrooms across America where ID theory is at least discussed, if not taught.

So, the film succeeds in making the point that Intelligent Design should at least be on the table for discussion. But if you’re looking for ammunition to argue your Darwinist friends under the table, you may want to look elsewhere. While Expelled certainly leans heavily toward the ID side of the debate, it’s not trying to present an airtight case, or to shut the door on evolutionary theory.

Still, Expelled was made by people—including Stein—who believe in ID, and indeed in God as Creator. There is little talk of “biblical creationism,” and in general, folks in the ID camp either don’t want to be perceived that way—or they simply don’t buy a literal interpretation of the Genesis account. Still, ID proponents argue that the complexity of organisms—even within a single cell—points to some sort of designer, whether or not they call that designer “God.”

Prominent atheist and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins certainly wouldn’t call the designer “God,” if he were to even acknowledge a designer in the first place. Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, is one of many experts interviewed in the film from both sides of the debate. (And it must be said here that even the “sides” aren’t clearly defined. There are some creationists who also believe in parts of evolutionary theory, and there are some evolutionists who believe in a creator—and plenty of people in between. There is very little black-and-white on either side; and even though the complexity or organisms might imply a designer, it certainly doesn’t prove anything.)

Dawkins is interviewed twice in the movie—once by an unseen questioner early in the film, and again at the end by Stein. That concluding interview will get audiences buzzing; the folks at the screening I attended were certainly talking about it as the end credits rolled.

Stein, in his inimitable way, tries to corner Dawkins into acknowledging the possible existence of God—or at least some sort of intelligent designer behind it all. At first, Dawkins doesn’t budge, and is incredulous at Stein’s line of questions. But Stein, deadpan yet persistent, latches on to Dawkins’ comment that he’s 99 percent certain there’s no God—and runs with it. “Why not 97 percent?” Stein asks. “Why not 49 percent?”

Stein continues to press until a clearly irritated Dawkins says something quite astonishing. “Okay,” he says in essence (I’m paraphrasing, because I don’t have the precise quote), “maybe there is an intelligent designer. But if there is, I can guarantee that that intelligent designer is a life form that evolved elsewhere and came to earth and seeded life here.”

Huh? So that’s his concession to the ID camp? That if they’re at all right, that we were designed by aliens who evolved somewhere else in the universe? Yowza.

The filmmakers clearly opted to put that segment at the end for dramatic purposes; they couldn’t have scripted a better conclusion themselves—by making one of the world’s most brilliant men say something so silly.

But there are plenty of interesting interviews along the way, with scholars and scientists coming from all perspectives on the issue. And even though the filmmakers are ID believers, they didn’t merely throw softball questions to the experts on their side. They—mainly Stein, a decent interviewer—challenged many of the ID proponents’ claims, pushing them to further explanation and clarification.

And filmmakers can’t be accused of denying Darwin proponents equal opportunity—Dawkins, PZ Myers, Will Provine, and Eugenie Scott, among others, get plenty of screen time. While they certainly edited these interviews for their own purposes, it’s clear the filmmaker didn’t pull a cut-and-paste way-out-of-context fast one either—this is no Michael Moore hack job, slicing and splicing every which way so you have no clue what footage to trust, or not.

The film’s biggest flaw is a too-long segment where Stein explores Darwinism’s alleged connection to Hitler, Nazism, and the Holocaust, essentially implying that such horrific events are almost a necessary result of belief in evolution. In an interview with CT Movies, Stein said he was especially taken by the book From Darwin to Hitler, saying that “It’s about how Darwin’s theory . . . led to the murder of millions of innocent people.” Well, maybe, or maybe not. That may be a theme to be more fully explored in another documentary, but for the purposes of this film, it seemed too tangential.

But another result of wartime Germany did not seem tangential—recurrent images of the Berlin Wall as a metaphor for the supposed “wall” in academia and scientific circles, the wall that represents the two “sides” of the debate. The filmmakers—and Stein—would say that the wall is very real, that it was constructed by the “thought police” of the scientific community (read: evolutionists) who have no intent of allowing ID proponents any access to the other side.

I.e., no intelligence allowed. It’s not even up for discussion. And the film leaves us wondering, “Why not?”

Talk About It

Discussion starters

1. Is believing in Intelligent Design the same thing as believing in creationism, or vice versa? Discuss.
2. Can a Christian believe in evolution? Why or why not? Can an atheist believe in Intelligent Design? Why or why not?
3. Can a person believe in both creationism and evolution? Are the two terms mutually exclusive? Discuss.
4. If you’re a student, does your science teacher allow discussion of Intelligent Design or creationism in the classroom? How do you feel about that? If you’re a parent, what do your kids’ science teachers allow? How do you advise your children to handle such discussions?
5. If you’re a student who believes in creationism, should you argue with a teacher who is teaching evolution? Why or why not? Should you learn evolutionary theory, whether you believe it or not? Discuss.
6. What do you think the filmmakers mean by “academic freedom”? What is their goal? How far should it go? Should anything be allowed to be discussed in the classroom? In scientific communities?

The Family Corner

For parents to consider

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is rated PG for thematic material (creation, evolution, eugenics, the Holocaust, etc.), some disturbing images (pictures from the Holocaust) and brief smoking. While there’s nothing in the film inappropriate for young children, kids will likely be bored with the subject matter and the dialogue. But for teens and up, there’s some very good discussion fodder, so we encourage you to check out our discussion guide on the film.

Photos © Copyright Rocky Mountain Pictures

Copyright © 2008 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

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