Stereotypes and Status

As many of you know, Mark Driscoll, pastor of the Mars Hill Church in Seattle, has been causing quite a stir among Christian writers, thinkers, bloggers, and church leaders. I thought I'd wade into these waters as a Christian research psychologist and offer up some thoughts on Mark Driscoll.

The aspect of Driscoll's ministry that I'd like to focus on is Driscoll's thesis regarding the place of masculinity within Christianity. This "Macho Man" emphasis is the most provocative and controversial aspect of Driscoll's ministry....

When you listen to Driscoll much of what he is talking about has more to do with traditional gender role interests than agenic personality. Changing the oil in my car, shooting guns, and loving NASCAR are, stereotypically, male gender role interests. And Driscoll has a point that none of this is intrinsically unChristian. The trouble comes when issues of gender role interest get confused with issues of agenic psychology. Loving Monster Truck rallies is a separate issue from psychological needs for power, control, and dominance.

Here's my point. People tend to confuse gender role interest and agenic personality motives. If "Joe Six Pack" shows up at church and gets the vibe that he "can't be a man" what, exactly, does this mean? That to be a Christian you can't drink beer or go to Ultimate Fighter matches? It seems to me that the feminine/child metaphors of Christianity are pushing back against agenic strivings rather then stereotypical gender interests. But this is not at all clear to many male believers. The two issues--gender role interests and agenic motives--are often conflated. This leads to a great deal of confusion about if "real guys" have a place at church....

A lot of the reaction to Driscoll isn't even about gender. We are actually talking about the little discussed fissure running through many churches: Education.

I see this everyday in my own church. The educated teach, preach, and have the public leadership roles. The uneducated are marginalized. Worse, if you are an uneducated male, you are force-fed those feminine metaphors. Educated males, being chickified, don't mind or even notice the feminine metaphors. But Joe Six Pack notices the metaphors. All this creates a disjoint in the church. Two groups of males who find each other alien and weird. So when Joe Six Pack wants to start a Wild at Heart study the chickified church leader just blinks uncomprehendingly. Or, if you are me, turns back to his knitting...

Let me offer up this little test for your reflection and experimentation:

If you hear a man trash Wild at Heart or Promise Keepers that person very often has a graduate degree. {full post}

[via Experimental Theology, HT: Notes From Off-Center]

Flesh, Blood and Soul

There is a raging new interest in vampires this weekend, at least for those inclined to go see the new movie, Twilight, Stephenie Meyer's story that in book form sold 1.3 million. These 'paranormal romances' or 'urban fantasies' spin around human females falling in love with supernatural beings (vampires, gods, fairies, werewolves) .

I have not seen the movie, but I'd like to point out that a common theme exists in these vampire romances. The heroine is captivated by the perfect man: lovely body, rich, well-dressed and someone better than her, a man both strong and consuming. This is a formula the Bronte sisters introduced in the characters of Heathcliff (Wuthering Heights) and Mr. Rochester (Jane Eyre). Men who were passionate, gifted in lifting their beloved into irrational, but sumptuous heights of erotic love. Men who were powerful, rich, darkly handsome, mysterious, even controlling sometimes cruel, but so dang sexy. They were irrisistible....

Deep down I believe most women struggle with a desire to be exalted by a man mysterious and otherworldly (be it Lydia's Wickham, Jasmine's Alladin or Bella's Edward in Twilight), a man worthy of joining, uniting to, a man stronger, better than us. The female captivation with men who are "out of our league" tells me more about the state of women's souls, than the reality of the number of good men on planet earth. It tells me that we're more in love with our version of romance, than we're in love with a real man of flesh and blood and soul.

My concern, here, is that these longings are not worthy of the image-bearers of God that we are. We cannot dream of a romance between "unequals", and then expect a marriage of mutual love and respect, of partnership, unity, sexual satisfaction and enduring warmth. If we expect that a man with the prowess of a Mr. Rochester or a vampire-powered Edward will appear in our lives, we can safely assume that 20 years into our marriage we will find ourselves much more like Mrs. Bennet in Pride and Prejudice than Mrs. Elizabeth Darcy.

[via Jonalyn Grace Fincher]

Sense of Manliness

And this comes from the Church for Men blog (catchy blog name). This blogger, David Murrow, knows Sarah Palin personally and also is writer of Why Men Hate Going to Church. The post is innocuous banter about personal experience notwithstanding the final graph....

I find the comparison to Teddy Roosevelt quite odd--but maybe not. In Murrow's world, where church has to "restore the masculine spirit" perhaps his comparison of Palin to Roosevelt fits his perceived worldview quite nicely. Roosevelt was a president quite consumed with his own masculinity; one blogger even recently referred to him as the "manliest creature to have ever existed."

But in this world where the church has been robbed of its masculinity, has adopted the "Jesus is my boyfriend" persona, and church is tailored for women, Murrow advocates that a "strong shot of testosterone" needs to be injected into the church. This blurring of the lines in these people's theology is making my head hurt. In this world where feminism has bought Palin this opportunity to be John McCain's running mate (though not even a backward glance will be made toward feminsim, though she will enjoy the benefits), many men cannot be comfortable with Palin simply as a woman running for VP. So, we must liken her to manly Teddy Roosevelt and it takes a woman to bring this sense of manliness to the White House.{from this post}

[via The Rambling Prophet 2]

Biblical Justification

“Talibaptists.”

For me, that one word just about says it all by way of response to Ware’s way of thinking.

The sad thing is how unsurprised I was by Ware’s remarks. That’s because the same sick belief-system bleeds over into the arena of clergy sex abuse.

Men who abuse their wives do so because of their need for control and dominance. With Southern Baptist teachings on “biblical manhood,” those abusive men find biblical justification for their dominance.

Baptist clergy sex abusers also have control and dominance issues. And guess what? They also use biblical justification. Why? Because their victims were raised from the cradle to believe that the Bible is the inerrant word of God.

“The Bible tells me so.” Every 3 year-old in a Baptist Sunday School sings that song. If the Bible says it, then I believe it, and that’s what I must do. It’s what we were all taught. Thinking otherwise wasn’t even thinkable.

Clergy-predators know how to exploit that early indoctrination. They become masters at biblical perversion and they turn the word of God into a weapon.

They even convince themselves they’re entitled. After all, they’re called by God Himself. And countless other Southern Baptists fall into that same thinking whenever an abuse victim tries to speak up. “Touch not mine anointed!”

[via Stop Baptist Predators]

Why Christian Men Abuse their Wives

[via The World According To Bruce, HT: Suzanne's Bookshelf]

What are Canadians so blase about Father's Day?

[via jordoncooper.com]

Bikini-inspired Impatience

[via the view from her]

"A man is a sperm bank, a meal ticket, a handyman and an early retirement plan,..."

[via Dr. Helen]

Containing Control

Coercive Control
Coercive Control, cont.
Coercive Control : 3
Coercive Control : 4
Coercive Control : 5
[via Suzanne's Bookshelf]

Standing With Others

I try, when viewing a story about yet another child molestation case or rape of an adult woman (the latter being a crime I take very personally as a blow against all men as well as women), to get past that feeling of guilt/defensiveness a sensitive male can hardly escape in such matters. Women do view men with suspicion, and my feminist sensibilities tell me we often give them more than adequate reasons to do so. Rather than complain that we are being discriminated against (which as a white male I feel is singularly disengenuous), I suggest we men find ways of standing beside women and children against predators, most of whom are in fact male.

I would hope that in an instance where we experience discrimination due to being male (a mother's apparent nervousness at our presence, a woman's sudden outburst in the office or a social situation about how men are all dogs, that "all men want the same thing" and so on), we allow that feeling of unfairness and anger and sadness at such accusations against us to remind us of how much more often such things happen to minorities and women. Let our small bit of suffering teach us to empathize with the greater suffering of others.

The terrible truth is that regarding sexual violence, the male is implicated. We personally may not feel that we are, but our manhood is for far too many women a sign of their own, and their children's, lack of safety.

[via Blue Christian on a Red Background]

Men: Irrelevant, Unlovable and Useless?

My baby or My job?

[via grrrl meets world]

Thoughts on Three of Them

[via Charming, but Single]

Why are we single? The male view

[via Sexless in the City]

Frustrated by Fathers and Feminism

But here's how we come to today: I also believe that our society holds Mother's Day to be a day of thanking women for their role in childbearing and rearing, and Father's day as a time to celebrate... golf. For every wonderful, good Father out there, there's probably two selfish men who think rape is the best kind of self-gratification, or that children are a woman's responsibility because she shouldn't have gotten herself knocked up.

I am mildly jealous of those who hold functional marriages and dating situations. I explained to a friend last week why I use the word functional rather than happy - happy is, as Switchfoot suggests, a yuppie word. A truly functional relationship will mean that when a couple has an argument, they resolve it. Functionality means that their sex life is healthy and balanced between individuals, that their agreed upon roles are being fulfilled to the extent that they can be. Where both individuals have a realistic view of the kind of partnership that married life entails, and they realize that communication is the life and death of any relationship.

I cannot avoid the happiness of friends who are functionally married and have children or are looking forward to having them sometime soon. I don't envy them in a way that wishes their loss, and I am not jealous because I want what they have. I am merely filled with sadness over the reasons for my all-female family - the loss of what could have been my life. That all the men connected to my family were assholes. And that women were naive and only escaped from one hell to another. That in their whole lives, very few people ever tried to help them....

So let me take this Father's day to rejoice in the fact that I have met good Fathers, people who inspired me as much as they made my gut ache. And I have met some guys my age who will make good Fathers one day - boys who will become real men with feelings and a capacity for love and protection. And let me be thankful that despite my unfortunate history, I have seen relationships between men and women that make the militant members of today's feminism look foolish for asking for something so low as mere equality.

[via You saved my life from a colorless one]

Another Part of Father's Day

Remember widows who lost their companions and single mothers who lost the father of their child/ren today. Especially remember the daughters who are confused/struggling with their identity because of an absent father, and help those who resent their mothers for it.

Because Men Are...Animals?

Animal Dads: HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!

[via Mission: Kim Possible!]

"...a naked Barbie in one hand, panties in the other..."

Teaching Discipliine, Stifling Creativity

Maybe you’ve been following all the hoopla surrounding Mark Driscoll’s posting of the “banned” church planting video. Now, please, let’s not get into the whole Driscoll vs. Hybel debate here. That’s been done enough elsewhere. I just wanted to give some thoughts on Driscoll’s comments about twenty something guys who have their priorities all backwards, especially when he talks about guys who are “trying to figure out how to get a larger subwoofer into their retarded car”. Why did I find that interesting? Because I am that guy…or at least I could be perceived that way. I’ve got a ten inch sub in my trunk (not just any sub mind you, a MOMO sub). It’s not huge, but it’s pretty big, and can be pretty loud when I want it to be, which this time of year with the windows down and some rockin’ tunes on is pretty often.

So the big question: Being that guy, how did I feel about that statement?

....Now here’s what a lot of people miss, and why a lot of twenty-somethings are staying away from Church, just because we’re teaching discipline doesn’t mean we should stifle creativity. Car enthusiasts are more than just unmotivated jerks with retarded cars and loud subwoofers. Actually, they are extremely motivated and creative individuals whose cars are their artform.

[via one mo blog]

Christus Victor, The Sense of Challenge

Mark Driscoll, pastor at Mars Hill Church in Seattle, has hit the emerging church blogosphere this week, with a video clip he provided for the National New Church Conference Church Planting conference in Miami last week. Mark wasn’t able to get to the conference and so sent a videotape of him speaking.

Mark focuses on 2 Timothy 2, the passage in which church planter Timothy is encouraged to be focused, hardworking and able to endure hardship.

“You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others. Endure hardship with us like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No one serving as a soldier gets involved in civilian affairs—he wants to please his commanding officer. Similarly, if anyone competes as an athlete, he does not receive the victor’s crown unless he competes according to the rules. The hardworking farmer should be the first to receive a share of the crops. Reflect on what I am saying, for the Lord will give you insight into all this.”

Mark delivers his rant from a military cemetery, with a video closeup to the firm-wristed gun-toting soldier statue. He paints the church planting scene in terms of battleground and body count. He believes that selecting the ‘right man’ is critical to the success of a church plant. He suggests that the core mission is to find men to serve, put them through boot camp, instruct them, and through God’s grace force them to be people who will live as God’s people....

Clearly the soldier image does it for some men. And some women. However the writer of 2 Timothy goes on to use the image of athlete and farmer as well. The early church would have had a healthy percentage of pacifists for whom the military connotations would have been repugnant.

I don’t agree with Mark’s commitment to use only men in church leadership roles. But I can sympathise with his efforts to develop a concept of church that will equip and inspire people with the Y chromosome. So are there models and metaphors that provide the sense of challenge and focus needed by men today?

Denny Weaver, in his book, Nonviolent Atonement, works with the Christus Victor concept in a way that clearly portrays Jesus as an alternative to the stereotypes of ‘macho marine’ and ‘gay hippie’.

[via Pacific Highlander]

Open Hand, Closed Fist

I realize that for Mars Hill Church in Seattle, women in elder/pastoral ministry (or more precisely, not being in elder/pastoral ministry) is in the "closed hand" of issues/doctrines not up for questioning or reconsidering, as opposed to the "open hand" of things over which Mars Hill people can disagree without disengaging. I get that.

I also get that the last time we were together, I heard Mark say specifically that when it comes to relationships/fellowship outside of Mars Hill, women in ministry is an "open hand issue."

What I don't get is Mark's tone-deafness when speaking to a huge group of people that he knows are all over the map on this issue, including a number of women pastors and church planters. I realize he has his opinions. Boy, does he.
I also know he's smart... and I really don't want to believe that Mark would intentionally poke a stick into a bee hive every few months just to draw some attention. I really don't.

So we're going to go with option 2- He forgets that in terms of relationship with other churches and the Body of Christ as a whole, he's trying to see this issue as an open hand thing about which good Christian people can disagree. And in forgetting, he speaks with perhaps less grace, less care than he should to people who he knows feel very strongly and very differently than him about the issue. In fact, the more he talks about this issue, the more he pushes and pounds it, the more that open hand feels like a closed fist.

[via bob.blog]

Daily Sex With Pastor Mark

[via internetmonk.com]

Thoughts on Mark Driscoll and Tony Soprano

[via Philosophy Over Coffee]