Twisted Masculinity

Judges 21:24-25

Introduction

Masculinity is certainly under attack by our culture.

The Washington Post ran an article by a gender studies professor titled “Why Can’t We Hate Men?”

“You can’t hate all men, can you? Actually, I can. . . . As a class, I hate men.” - the New Statesman

You can buy T-shirts with the slogan, “so many men, so little ammunition.”

Books have appeared with titles like I Hate Men, The End of Men, and Are Men Necessary?

“Talking about ‘healthy masculinity’ is like talking about ‘healthy cancer.’”

“Testosterone is the problem. . . . Women should be in charge of everything.”

A media researcher named Jim Macnamara conducted an extensive content analysis of more than 2,000 mass media portrayals of men, including news, feature articles, talk shows, and so on. He found that more than 75 percent of all media representations of men portrayed them as “villains, aggressors, perverts, and philanderers.” - in 2006!

So, how did we get here? Are there any legitimate complaints here? How do we move forward?

Broken Homes

God’s picture of the home was a connected unit with purpose (Gen. 2:18; 1:28).

Circumstances drove men from their homes to provide for their families (1 Tim. 5:8).

The unit that was the home broke into individual pieces (cf. Matt. 24:45).

Men went to the office or factory.

Children went to schools so they could learn how to function in this brave new world.

Women were left alone at a home that had once been the center of life and was now only a respite from life.

Men vs. Women

Animosity between men and women is inevitable where sin reigns (Gen. 3:16).

Men became absent from most of what went on at home (Eph. 6:4; Deut. 6:1-9).

Boys no longer worked alongside their dads, they didn’t even know what their dad’s did.

They longer had a constant picture of a man ought to be.

Boys began to wonder “what they would do with their lives” whereas this had previously been mostly answered by who’s son they were.

“Whenever I played house, the mother doll had a lot to do. I never knew what to do with the daddy doll, so I had him say ‘I’m going off to work now’ and threw him under the bed.” - Erma Bombeck

Women (and children) came to be viewed as consumers where men were viewed at producers (Prov. 31:10-31).

At the same time that men were driven out of the home, the traditional means of women’s economic activities were made obsolete.

Women purchased what they used to make and had appliances to accomplish tasks that used to fill their days.

This perception was highlighted most by the feminists of that era who got swept up into the economic evaluation of everyone’s worth.

Men became hardened and coarsened by the new workplace (cf. Eph. 2:1-3).

“The assembly line applies principles of “scientific management” based on time and motion studies to make workers as machine-like as possible—efficient, competitive, task-oriented. But parents dealing with children must be patient, cooperative, people-oriented.”

At best, men became clumsy outsiders who came home and interacted awkwardly with a family who they spent more time away from than with (this planted the seeds of the buffoonish dad in literature and film depictions).

“As men adapted to that cutthroat environment, people began to protest that they were growing callous, egotistical, competitive, and morally hardened. The moral expectations that had been placed on men in the colonial age—sobriety, piety, benevolence, and responsibility for the common good—were being swept aside.”

The focus that men were called on to give to industry were robbed from God and family.

Male membership in churches began to plummet.

“Theodore Greene found that, in the colonial age, articles praised men for their moral qualities—honesty, piety, thrift, sobriety, hard work, and civic service. But in the nineteenth century, magazine articles praised men most often for personality traits needed to get ahead in the marketplace, such as ambition, dominance, and strength of will.”

Drinking skyrocketed (in 1830, the average American man drank three times what the average is today).

Women took on the task of reforming men (Rom. 3:23)

“The world corrupts, home should refine.”

The home was turned into a refuge and the woman became the representation of that refuge.

she argued; it means woman was created “to refine his human affections and elevate his moral feelings. Endowed with superior beauty of person and a corresponding delicacy of mind, her soul was to ‘help’ him where he was deficient—namely, in his spiritual nature.” - 1853 magazine

“To bring about the true Christian civilization, the men must become more like women and the women more like angels.” - same magazine

The male element is a destructive force, stern, selfish, aggrandizing, loving war, violence, conquest, acquisition, breeding in the material and moral world alike discord, disorder, disease, and death. See what a record of blood and cruelty the pages of history reveal! What was needed Stanton concluded, was “a new evangel of womanhood, to exalt purity, virtue, morality, true religion, to lift man up into the higher realms of thought and action.” - Elizabeth Cady Stanton

This went so far as to believe men had been more affected by the fall than women.

Men began to rebel against the reformation (Gen. 3:16).

As religion became more feminized, men felt there was no place for them.

Worse yet, they began to accept the characterization of themselves as naturally brutish and coarse.

The solution began to be a “return to nature.”

Nature was represented by pagan savages (“noble” savages) not by Christ.

Even religious groups accepted this as the “natural” state of man and tried to adapt.

“Get back to nature” and cowboys, pirates, and Indians became the ideal picture.

This was all mixed up with the “new” theory of evolution that had taken the world by storm.

Boys too began to be depicted as natural when rebelling against the almost all female instruction in their lives. (“boys will be boys” referring to sinful disobedience.)

Obedient boys are “momma’s boys”

Mostly the result has been mixed up virtues and vices depicting masculinity.

A degree of chivalry mixed with bawdiness.

A real man can “hold his liquor” but a drunkard is irresponsible.

There is a duty to do what is right but not a duty to family.

The response has been to once again lump all male behavior as wicked.

“The bad news for Dad is that despite common perception, there’s nothing objectively essential about his contribution.” - The Atlantic

“One of the most persistent and frustrating problems in evolutionary biology is the male. Specifically, . . . why doesn’t he just go away?” - New York Times

Now there is no message of reform.

Masculinity (good and ill) are mere evolutionary relics.

Religious significance is completely set aside.

Rehabilitating Men

Make home the priority (Gen. 1:28; Deut. 6:1-9).

You are a husband, you are a father. You have no more right to be “career-minded” than a woman does.

A 2012 Atlantic article titled “Why Women Can’t Have it All” was the most read article in the magazines history.

Men can’t “have it all” either

“I’m not raising corn, I’m raising boys” - Raising Boys

The real work we are about, happens after we clock out for the day.

Even if you can’t work at home, you need to see the value of working at home and work to make up for lost time instead of tuning out.

Focusing on the responsibilities at home is a mark of truly fulfilling our roles as men.

“Don’t you ever say that again about your fathers, because they are not cowards. You think I am brave because I carry a gun; well, your fathers are much braver because they carry responsibility, for you, your brothers, your sisters, and your mothers. . . . I have never had this kind of courage.” - The Magnificent Seven

Jesus is our picture of masculinity not a caveman (Matt. 5:5).

Too often we associate masculinity with something primitive but God calls us not to primitive displays but to disciplined responsibility.

When we look at Jesus, we need to see the strength and not the false portrayal of weakness.

A Greek military leader named Xenophon used the word to describe war horses that were well trained—strong and spirited yet highly disciplined. Socrates said a meek person was one who could argue his case without losing his temper. Plato used the word to describe a victorious general who was merciful to a conquered people. Aristotle referred to a meek person as someone concerned about justice but whose anger does not degrade into revenge or retaliation.

One of the good things to come out of the religious response to the feminization of Christianity is some great hymns that highlight this (The Son of God Goes Forth to War).

We are trying to get back to something in our past (Rev. 22:1-3).

Conclusion

What do you want to accomplish in this life (Josh. 24:15; 1 Pet. 3:20)?

The world has made a mess of the relationships between men and women.

They don’t have the solution for making it better.

The solution isn’t 50 years ago. It was delivered over 2000 years ago.

His image will always be the solution to our every departure. It is the image we were created to bear and so it is the only one we will find true fulfillment in.