Are You Man Enough To Be A Christian?

Now, Religion in the News, a report and comment on religious trends and events being covered by the media.This week’s item is from The Los Angeles Times, December 7, 2006, with a headline:Manliness is next to godliness.The following are excerpts:Brad Stine runs on stage in ripped blue jeans, his shirt untucked, his long hair shaggy.He’s a stand-up comic by trade, but he’s here today as an evangelist on a mission to build up a new Christian man one profanity at a time.A moment later he adds a fervent, Thank you, Lord, for our testosterone.It’s apt anthem, Stine’s day long revival meeting, which he calls, God Men, is cruder than most, but it’s built around the same theory as the other experimental forums.Traditional church worship is emasculating.John Eldridge, a seminal writer for the movement goes further in, Wild at Heart, his best selling book.Christianity, as it currently exists, has done some terrible things to men, he writes.Men believe that God put them on earth to be a “good boy.”Christian radio host, Paul Coflin, author of, No More Christian Nice Guy, takes the stage.Jesus was a very bad Christian, Coflin declares.After all, he says, The Son of God trashed the temple and even used profanity, or the New Testament equivalent when he called Herod, “that fox.”The virility crusade is, in part, a response to stark gender gap.Those churches has tried all sorts of gimmicks to attract men, more than 60% of the adults at a typical service are women, according to David Murrow, author of, Why Men Hate Going to Church.The most famous men’s ministry, Promise Keepers, packed stadiums throughout the 1990’s with men who wept and hugged one another as they pledged to be dutiful and pure.Men at Promise Keepers rallies today make the same vows but conferences now carry titles such as, “Storm the Gates” and “Uprising.”This year this theme is “Unleashed” as in Unleashing the Warrior Within.It’s not about learning how to be a nicer guy, the website declared.

Tom:

Dave, you get upset sometimes, this makes me more than a little upset.Here are individuals who claim to be evangelicals.An evangelical is supposed to be somebody who believes the Word of God, reads the Word of God, but these people are not reading the Word of God.I don’t know where they get this stuff except out of the culture, looking at what’s in the culture, and then doing things with men who profess to be Christians, that are culturally relevant.But this stuff is bad, this is incredibly bad.It’s psychobabble, the book by John Eldridge, Wild at Heart, is based more on movies Eldridge has seen rather than Scripture.It’s got a lot of psychobabble in it.Anyway, it just really—it’s upsetting, because it’s contrary to the Word of God.

Dave:

Well, Tom, I know that Promise Keepers is way down below what they used to be in their influence, I don’t even hear about them anymore.What about these people they mention?I’ve never heard of any of these people.Sorry, as I often say, I lead a sheltered life.

Tom:

Well, you’ve heard of John Eldridge.

Dave:

Not really.

Tom:

Okay.

Dave:

No, I’m real ignorant in this area, but anyway—

Tom:

Well, I’ve read these books, Dave, and they are bad.

Dave:

How many people do these guys attract?Is there a big audience?

Tom:

Well, you know, Dave, as we’re seeing in the church, developing in the church, as I mentioned, it’s like the emerging church movement.You want to appeal to the culture so you become like the culture.But in this particular case it’s like these guys, rather than go into a church or a church situation that may have hymns and some traditional things, they want to make it out like a tailgate party.You know, I mean, at the NFL, these are men, they’ve got to be manly, they’ve got to do men kinds of things, yet what do the Scriptures say?Galatians:5:22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
See All..., can you find any of these attitudes or ideas within the fruit of the spirit, you know, kindness, gentleness, and so on?2 Peter:1:3According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:
See All..., And to godliness, brotherly kindness.

Dave:

And to brotherly kindness add—

Tom:

To love or charity, and so on.This is diametrically opposed to the Word of God, but it’s a feel-good thing, and it’s a manly thing, but it’snot biblical, it’snot scriptural.

Dave:

Well Tom, it’s just symptomatic in so many other ways, the departure from Scripture.Scripture is supposed to be our guide.“Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.Thy words were found, I did eat them.They were unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart.The Lord is pure.”I mean, Psalm 1119, is all about the Word of God:Wherewithall shall a young man cleanse his way?By taking heed thereto according to thy Word.Sounds like these guys want to uncleanse a young man from all that the Bible wants him to be.We used to sing the hymn:Lord, I want to be Like Jesus in My Heart.And the Scripture says, Paul says that, We all, beholding as in a glass, the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, that we are supposed to be becoming more and more like Christ.The only Jesus they know of is the one who made a scourge out of cords and chased the money changers, overthrew the tables of the money lenders and those that sold doves, and so forth, and chased them out of the temple.That’s not the only Jesus, that is one side.The Scripture tells us, He is led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before his shearers is dumb, He opened not His mouth.And Peter tells us, He left us an example that we should follow His steps, who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth, who when He was reviled He reviled not again, when He suffered He threatened not, but committed Himself to human justice righteously, who His own self bear our sins in His own body on the tree.So, everything that you find in Scripture, Paul writes:Be ye followers of me, even as I am of Christ.And I don’t see Christ into any of this stuff that these guys are into.

Tom:

Well, Dave, I can see them reacting to the problem, you know, for a long time inner-healing was a big part of the church and this is unbiblical, and maybe emasculating to a certain degree, many men were led into this by their wives.On the other hand, you don’t correct that problem by another error, and that’s what they are doing.They are not, as you said, they are not turning back to the Word of God.What do the Scriptures say?How should we go about these things?Well, you do it God’s way, not man’s way.

Dave:

Amen.