MANLINESS, PART 14

If you will indulge me (and if you won’t, get off my blog!) I am going to run some quotes from a book I just love, Big Babies, by Michael Bywater.

Bywater is a reluctant atheist (I had a fascinating email conversation with him after reading this book), but he absolutely nails some of the problems we are facing. With wit and insight he shows how infantile we have become. Take this paragraph about stupid signs as a perfect example,

It strikes you as out of kilter that there's a notice at London Paddington station which says 'Please be ready to move away with your luggage when you reach the top of the escalator' because it implies that otherwise you wouldn't be ready to move away with your luggage but, instead, would stand there like a moron with other morons piling up against you so that eventually something has to give and you all tumble back down the escalator in a melee of morons and get sucked into the mechanism and ground to hamburger and they'd hose the blood down and scrub the gobbets of stupid flesh out of the machinery and start it up again and the same thing would happen again... or, if not, why the need for the notice?

Now, I almost choke myself laughing every time I read that (“melee of morons” – that is beautiful!), but only because it is so infuriatingly true.

Staying in a hotel recently my eye was caught by the sign in the shower, “Guests are reminded to take care when standing or walking on wet surfaces.” Well, thank you Mr Ramada Hotels! Without your carefully placed sign I would not know that water makes things slippery. In fact, I do not know how I have managed to take a shower in my home all these years without falling over and breaking my neck with the absence of such a sign to daily remind me of my stupidity. Why, oh why, does the Government not do something about this? Surely there should be some suitable EU legislation that insists on the appropriately qualified and High-Viz jacketed official entering every home in the land to ensure that such warning signs are properly affixed to every shower? And while there they could install CCTV to ensure compliance with all Health & Safety instructions. Someone needs to be held to account! The citizens of our land cannot be expected to take responsibility for our own skins in this callous manner. After all, we are but children, not adults. We need a mummy! Gordon Brown, will you not act!

Look about you. Check out the signs. They think you are a baby.

And we have let them.

MANLINESS, PART 13

Too many men are big babies. Our consumer culture has emasculated us, and the church is not immune. Writing in Leadership Journal, Skye Jethani says this,

Could it be that the consumer values, both inside and outside the church, that form the uncontested foundation of our preaching, books and ministries are fundamentally designed to promote puerility and oppose maturity?

By which he means the focus so much of the church places on meeting the felt-needs of the congregation completely miss the point – the point that we are meant to be disciples of Christ! Jethani continues,

Self-denial, the surrendering of immediate desires, is the Christian life. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer so succinctly states, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” But this invitation is noticeably absent in the gospel of consumer Christianity. It promises joy and new life, a healthier marriage, more obedient children, a more balanced life, and less anxiety about the future – but nowhere do these promises carry the price of death. Never are we asked to deny ourselves. That is a value utterly at odds with consumerism: the sanctity of personal desire.

For people fully formed by consumerism, any God that expects personal sacrifice on the level that Jesus does cannot be seen as benevolent, and certainly is not worth following.

Go into any typical Christian bookstore, watch any typical God TV, open any typical Christian magazine and it will be full of the kind of consumer drivel that keeps believers from growing up. And are we surprised that our churches are full of sentimental women and drippy men?

God help us.

MANLINESS, PART 12

An increasing amount of attention is being paid to problems created by absent fathers. The results of children living without their biological fathers are well documented; they,
• Are more likely to live in poverty and deprivation
• Are more likely to have emotional or mental problems
• Have more trouble in school
• Tend to have more trouble getting along with others
• Have higher risk of health problems
• Are at greater risk of suffering physical, emotional, or sexual abuse
• Are more likely to run away from home

This is all reasonably interesting, but the much more interesting question, the more fundamental one, is, Why do fathers go absent? Or, to put it more bluntly, Why are so many men so pathetic?

I think the answer brings us back to Michael Jackson: So many men never grow up.

Our consumer culture is designed to keep adults thinking, and buying, like children. As Benjamin Barber puts it, “For consumer capitalism to prevail, you must make kids consumers and make consumers kids.” The obvious symptoms of our cultural malaise – social problems like obesity, sexual promiscuity and consumer debt – are all signs of a culture of immaturity and overindulgence. It drives me crazy – grown men who behave like hormonal teenagers. The ability to delay gratification is a sign of adulthood; the way we live is a sign of adolescence.

Think of some of the social trends evident in the western world…

People are living with their parents longer than they used to. There are often financial reasons for this, as the high price of housing has made it increasingly difficult for young people to set up on their own; but as often as not it is immaturity and laziness. No man is still living with his mum by the time he’s 30. Men find a way round the financial problems that might prevent them from moving out. Men are ready to take responsibility for themselves and not depend on mummy to do their cooking, their washing, to clean behind their ears.

Another trend is that people are marrying later and having kids later. This displays a lack of ability to make commitments, to make a decision and stick by it. It reflects what is often at root sheer selfishness – an outworking of Nietzsche’s philosophy. “I need to advance my career; I need to ‘find myself’; I need my own space; I need to know that if I make a choice now I won’t be faced by a better option appearing later on…”

Another trend is that people are having cosmetic surgery younger (we’re all Michael Jackson now). It is an adolescent trait to be obsessed with ones body. When we become men we are not meant to spend so long staring in the mirror.

MANLINESS, PART 11

We live in a gender-neutral society, yet at the same time it is a myth that our society is truly gender-neutral. Culture recognizes sex differences all the time – for evidence of this just look at a magazine rack. Who is buying the magazines about fishing? about boats? about cars? about gadgets? about motorbikes? Men! The marketers know that magazine sales split on sex lines. There are womens magazines, and there are mens magazines. That’s just how it is.

The reality of sex difference is still seen in the different careers and career paths that men and women tend to take. A lot of effort is being expended on trying to change this, and egalitarians blame the differences purely on cultural legacies that need to be overcome, but I would suggest there is something more fundamental going on.

As Harvey Mansfield puts it (in a paragraph that must have seen a surge in hate mail!),

Men have the highest offices, the leading reputations; they make the discoveries, conceive the theories, win the prizes, start the companies, score the touchdowns. Men run things; women follow, accompany, imitate, elaborate, develop. This is not to say that women do not excel, but that they seem still to excel as women, in accordance with the traditional stereotype of women and not the new gender-neutral stereotype.

Men and women just are different. There will be women who rise to the highest political office, to the top of the boardroom, who excel in sporting endeavour, who make scientific breakthroughs, but there will always be more men who do this than women, because these are the things that men do.

Where women do rise to the top in advance of men is those areas which require more empathizing and less systemizing. There is nothing wrong with this, but something is wrong when we turn our economy over almost entirely to industries that favour female skills over male ones. To create a society where there is no space for men to be men is dangerous – to men themselves, but also to women and children. Sadly, this seems to be what we are doing...

MANLINESS, PART 10

We need to avoid clichés, but there does seem to be truth in the claim that women are stronger in empathy, and men are stronger in systemizing. There are good scientific reasons for this. Simon Baron-Cohen explains systemizing like this,

Systemizing is the drive to understand a system and to build one. [A system is] anything which is governed by rules specifying input-operation-output relationships. This definition takes in systems beyond machines, such as maths, physics, chemistry, astronomy, logic, music, military strategy, the climate, sailing, horticulture, and computer programming. It also includes systems like libraries, economics, companies, taxonomies, board games or sports.

If this definition is accurate, and if men are more naturally inclined to systemizing it explains why it is men who tend to take the lead in these areas. It is not that women cannot do these things, or on occasion do them better than men (one thinks of Dee Caffari in sailing) but that it will tend to be men who do them.

As an example of the different way in which male and female brains function Baron-Cohen describes the quite shocking water level test. In this test someone is shown a bottle, tipped at an angle, and asked to predict the water level. Apparently women more often draw the water level aligned with the tilt of the bottle, whereas the true water level, no matter what the tilt of the bottle, will always be horizontal.

Then there is the truly shocking fact that only three of the 170 living Nobel Prize-winners are women. And the equally shocking fact that the ratio of men to women working in maths, physics and engineering is the same now as it was in the 1970s at 9 to 1. Now it could be argued that this is simply the result of glass ceilings and social conditioning, but the further we get into the era of womens liberation the less legitimacy this argument contains.

Instead, there seems to be a biological reason for it, to do with the development of the brain. The right hemisphere of the brain controls systemizing and the left hemisphere controls empathizing, so if your right hemisphere develops more than the left, you are more likely to display characteristics that are more typical of men. What is it that controls this unequal development? Testosterone.

The more testosterone you have the faster the right hemisphere of the brain develops, and the slower the left hemisphere develops. So it is little surprise to discover that lower levels of foetal testosterone lead to better empathizing (language, communication skills, eye contact, social skills), while higher testosterone levels lead to better systemizing skills.

The behavioural differences that result in different levels of testosterone are evident from a very early age. From just six months old girls show more electrical activity in the left hemisphere of the brain than in the right when listening to speech sounds. Which indicates that females are better empathizers than men even when they don’t understand what is being said.

As Simon Baron-Cohen’s research indicates, autism is an extreme male brain. Males tend to be further along the ‘autistic spectrum’ than females because they are biologically programmed to be better at systemizing and weaker at empathizing. This is why geeks tend to be men.

The problem is, that in our gender-neutral society, the skills that are most highly valued are those of the empathizer. This is one of the reasons why so many men appear to be so lost.

MANLINESS, PART 9

Having briefly surveyed the biblical evidence for differences in roles between the sexes we can turn to some of the scientific and cultural evidence for sex difference.

Childhood development
Any parent knows that boys and girls play differently. Sociologists used to try and argue that this is all down to social conditioning – the fact that we treat boys according to stereotypical views of what boys should be like, and likewise with girls. But this is increasingly understood to be baloney.

I have four girls, and although I have encouraged them to be bold, climb trees and play in the mud, and although we don’t have a TV so they have escaped much of the “princess” advertising aimed at young girls, they still play like girls. When boys come round they play differently – it tends to be much more energetic, more violent, more destructive. It involves more competition than the creative imaginative games my girls play. And as well as destroying things, boys tend to be much more interested in detailed construction games than girls. It tends to be little boys who spend hours constructing space Lego models, and ferociously defending them against other children who might mess them up. (As they should, because the Lego set is their domain, and men have a God given mandate to defend their domains.)

Girls are more interested in the emotional aspects of play, while boys are more preoccupied with the activity itself and its competitive aspects. Boys’ friendships are also typically less intimate. Girls are forever hugging one another. With boys physical touch tends to be limited to play fighting!

As Cambridge Professor Simon Baron-Cohen puts it,

Boys’ main priority seems to be to join a group based on a shared activity. Once inside a group, there is a further priority to establish their individual rank in the dominance hierarchy that will emerge.

Boys want to be in a gang, with a clear objective, and a clear leader – just like men do.

Parenting
Parents do treat their children differently, according to their sex. Baron-Cohen explains,

Fathers are less likely than mothers to hold their infant in a face-to-face position. One consequence of this is that there is less exchange of emotional information via the face between fathers and infants. Mothers are more likely to follow through the child’s choice of topic in play, whilst fathers are more likely to impose their own topic.

It seems that this behaviour is not simply a result of social conditioning, but something fundamental in the sex differences between men and women.

I know from personal experience that when it comes to play I like to impose the game on my kids much more than does Grace. Grace is happy to got to the play park and spend hours watching the kids do what they want to do and chatting to the other mums. I have always detested the play park. The only time I enjoy going to the play park is when I can impose a degree of competition into the proceedings – a race around the climbing frame. or swinging my kids higher than the next parent is swinging theirs. That is because I am a man!

MANLINESS, PART 8

Four more of Grudem’s biblical reasons for understanding sex differences…

Key Issue #3: The Equality And Differences Between Men & Women Reflect The Equality And Differences In The Trinity
• For me this is really the issue.
• 1 Cor 11:3 But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.
• Headship and submission has existed eternally in the nature of God himself.
• Christ is not in any way inferior to the Father, but he is willingly submitted to the Father.
• Father, Son and Holy Spirit are equal in God-ness, but exercise different roles, and the Trinity should be our model.

Key Issue #4: The Equality And Differences Between Men & Women Are Very Good
• God made men and women different, and declared this to be very good.
• This equality and difference is fair, best for us, a mystery, and beautiful.

Key Issue #5: This Is A Matter of Obedience To The Bible
• What we believe about sex roles is a watershed issue because it stands as an important example of whether we believe the Bible to be true.
• It would be far more socially comfortable to be an egalitarian than complementarian, but the exegetical summersaults required to do this are just too serious to overcome (I know; I have tried!).

Key Issue #6: This Controversy Is Much Bigger Than We Realize, Because It Touches All Of Life
• How we view God, marriage, children, family responsibilities, sex, authority, sport, property, education, and so on, will all be affected by how we understand sex roles.

MANLINESS, PART 7

What is the evidence that men and women are different? We can examine this from biblical, scientific and cultural viewpoints.

First off, the biblical evidence…

It is important to begin here because what we believe on any subject must be grounded on biblical truth. The temptation is to skip over it, because for many of us the biblical evidence is already so settled. Being part of a movement of churches that is strongly and clearly complementarian in theology it is easy to lose sight of the fact that in the wider evangelical world this is still a hugely contentions issue. (“Complementarian” refers to an understanding that men and women are equal in value and dignity but different in role. “Egalitarian” refers to an understanding that there are no legitimate role distinctions between the sexes.)

This was illustrated by a recent interview with Terry Virgo in Christianity magazine, by its editor, John Buckeridge. While asking Terry about church growth and church planting it is clear that all John is really interested in is critiquing the complementarian position Terry holds. For John, this is the issue! Which is a shame, because it rather spoils the interview and makes it far less interesting than it might have been. It is also silly, because the new church streams that have pursued the egalitarian position in the UK have largely fallen apart. John might have better served the readership of Christianity if he had been more willing to listen and learn from Terry than dig away at what is in fact one of the very reasons Newfrontiers has been relatively successful in growing and planting churches.

The best resource I know for unpicking egalitarian arguments is Wayne Grudem’s Evangelical Feminism & Biblical Truth. Here I will just outline Grudem’s biblical arguments for sex distinctions.

Key issue #1: Men & Women Are Equal in Value & Dignity
• Gen 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
• This witnesses against the errors of male dominance and superiority
• Gal 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
• This demonstrates that there is no distinction in value between people of different ethnicity or sex. However, people still remain as slaves or Jews or women once they become Christians, and so continue to exercise different roles.

Key issue #2: Men & Women Have Different Roles In Marriage As Part Of The Created Order
• The question here is, Is male “headship” pre-fall or post-fall?
• There are nine reasons to understand it as pre-fall:
1. Adam was created first
2. Adam had a special role in representing humanity [1 Cor 15:22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.]
3. Adam named Eve, and naming represents authority, just as God named Adam and parents name their children
4. The naming of the human race as “Man” [Gen. 5:2 Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they were created.]
5. Adam had primary responsibility – it was Adam that YHWH addressed first after the Fall
6. Eve was created to help Adam [Gen. 2:18 “A helper fit for him”]
7. The curse of Genesis 3:16-19 had three aspects: pain on Adams particular area of responsibility (provision); pain on Eve’s particular area of responsibility (child rearing); and pain on their relationship – Eve’s “desire” now is to usurp her husbands rightful authority
8. The restoration of all things in Christ results in wives submitting to their husbands. Colossians 3:18-19 reverses Genesis 3 [Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them.]
9. Although Adam & Eve did not know it, they were created to represent the relationship between Christ and the church. This is a relationship in which the husband acts as “head” for his wife. [Eph. 5:23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.]
• Accepting these points should lead to marriages where the husband is neither wimp nor tyrant but exercises loving, humble headship; and where the wife is neither doormat nor usurper but exercises joyful, intelligent submission.

MANLINESS, PART 6

In thinking about the characteristics of manliness we need to be aware of the danger of an appeal to a mythical golden age of manhood. It is easy (for a Brit) to look back to the days of Empire and Victorian manliness and feel a wistful nostalgia about it, but there are aspects of modern life in which todays men are better men than their ancestors. Many men are better fathers than used to be the case. Men tend to be more involved with their kids now, not so formal and cold and distant. This can only be good.

Those of us who are Christians also need to be aware of the danger of being overly-critical about “men in our culture.” I know unbelieving men who are faithful husbands and good fathers; who really are men. Too often it is the wimps in our churches who are the problem more than the man in the street.

And we need to be honest about the similarities and dissimilarities between the sexes. In a call for manliness we must not set men over and apart from women. The way that God created us, as man and woman in his image, means that we cannot know what it means to be a man except in relationship to women. We are from the same root and are meant to work together.

There is also the serious danger of pursuing manliness over and above Christ-likeness. I detect this trend in some of the hyper-macho material being pumped into churchianity from certain quarters. We need to recognize the place of the Fall in certain male characteristics. There is meant to be an aggressiveness about men, but much of our aggressiveness is a consequence of sin, not creation.

We need to be followers of Christ, not of Nietzsche.

Nietzsche is the philosopher-prophet of manliness, and he despised Christianity as weak. For Nietzsche the real man does what he wants to do – he is bold and risk-taking and assertive. “Nothing is true, everything is permitted.” But the fruits of Nietzsche’s philosophy show the limitations of this kind of manliness.

Not many people read Nietzsche, but our culture has been greatly shaped by his teaching. He has given cultural grist to both the slacker and the tyrant. The slacker lies in bed and says “**** you! I owe no-one anything.” The tyrant beats his wife and says, “I am a man!”

Nietzsche regards Christianity as servile and cringing, but Nietzsche’s philosophy leads to a diminution of real manliness. To be men we need to be disciples of Christ, not of Nietzsche.

MANLINESS, PART 5

Standing outside the Brighton Conference Centre after an evening meeting during the Together on a Mission Conference it was interesting to observe the reactions of unbelievers walking by. One man stormed past with his girlfriend saying, “Lets push past these Christian *******” while another said ironically to his mates, “Watch out – there’s a large group of Christians – could be trouble.” Neither response demonstrated much expectation that there might be some men in the crowd.

We need to work towards defining some characteristics of manliness.

This is not so easy to do, although we all know it when we see it.

I am fortunate to have some manly men among my friends. A good example would be Scott Marques. Scott is from Zimbabwe, but has recently moved to Mozambique with his family to create businesses and start a church. Scott strikes me as manly because he is bold, entrepreneurial, gracious, able to get along with all kinds of people, a good husband and father, risk-taking, energetic, enthusiastic, generous. It is not easy to imagine him getting into a fight because he is so good with people, but if he did, you just know he’d win, if only through sheer dogged determination and grit. Scott is the kind of man you would want to be alongside in a battle.

When we see a real man, we know it, but when trying to define some characteristics of manliness we do need to be cautious about falling into stereotypes.

For example, I have so often heard the fact repeated that “women use twice as many words each day as men.” Pretty much every marriage seminar I have attended has come out with this one. But here’s the thing: its not true! I haven’t been able to find any evidence of research which supports this idea. The reality is that some men talk a lot while others don’t and some women talk a lot while others don’t. It might be true that women are often more comfortable in social situations and so more quickly get into chatting with one another, but get men onto a subject that interests them and they talk plenty. In my local pub the guys are talking plenty, about subjects that interest men.

Lets not be afraid to define manliness, but lets not settle for erroneous clichés.

MANLINESS, PART 4

The drive for women’s “equality” has in reality meant a drive for independence – from men and from children. The feminist movement rejected the claims that men and the womb made upon women.

Ironically, in this women were displaying a desire for manliness! Manliness is power (in a way that “Masculinity” isn’t). But this kind of stolen manliness is not real manliness at all.

Harvard academic Harvey Mansfield describes manliness like this,

Manliness seeks and welcomes drama and prefers times of war, conflict and risk. Manliness brings change or restores order at moments when routine is not enough, when the plan fails, when the whole idea of rational control by modern science develops leaks. Manliness is the next-to-last resort, before resignation and prayer.

Manly men are confident and know how to command. They take authority for granted, and this is attractive. People (both men and women) instinctively rally to manly men.

But over the past few decades our society has been following an experiment in being “gender-neutral” as though there were no sex distinctions. In reality, it seems to me that being gender-neutral actually means being feminised. Rather than being shaped by conflict and risk, we have become risk-averse, encouraging nameless “professionals” rather than bold entrepreneurs.

As Mansfield puts it, “Manliness favours war, likes risk, and admires heroes. Rational control wants peace, discounts risk, and prefers role models to heroes.”

Sometimes, however, manliness still shows up.

Neil Oliver recounts the manliness of the Penlee lifeboatmen, who died while trying to save the lives of others on a terrible storm lashed winters night on the Cornish coast,

On the morning after the tragedy volunteers stepped forward to fill the empty places. Just as strong as the sense of grief, perhaps even stronger, was pride in what the lost men stood for. Duty pulled the new crewman forward as irresistibly as a tide. Neil Brockman [who’s father had been one of the lost lifeboatmen] was one of them and today he is the coxswain of the new lifeboat. His own son is keen to join him and even to replace his dad if the time comes. Brockman understands the need. He gives thanks that he had his own father until he was 17 – other children in the village lost theirs while still babies or too young to remember the lost men.

A man is not afraid to step up and take command, take a risk, and if necessary lose his life.

MANLY COMMENTS

Just so you are aware, as of posting this I will be off-line for a couple of weeks - taking the regular and necessary tech break. However, my posts on manliness will continue, thanks to the miracle of scheduling.

I get the feeling that these posts will generate a fair few comments, but as I will not be around to moderate them none of them will appear on-line. So if you are commenting, don't think I am being snotty in not publishing your comment, I am simply absent.

When I turn the computer back on I will review the comments and follow my normal policy of letting most things through, except the libelous, overly-long or plain nutty ones!

Bye.

MANLINESS, PART 3

The root of the shifting use of words (masculinity rather than manliness; gender rather than sex; partner rather than spouse) is the desire to abolish traditionally accepted sex differences, and in particular to normalize homosexuality. So now, rather than identifying myself as “a married man”, I am supposed to describe myself as a straight male, living with my partner. As Bishop Tom Wright puts it in an article responding to the decision by American Anglicans to ordain gay bishops,

It is a very recent innovation to consider sexual preferences as a marker of “identity” parallel to, say, being male or female, English or African, rich or poor. Within the “gay community” much postmodern reflection has turned away from “identity” as a modernist fiction. We simply “construct” ourselves from day to day.

Part of the prophetic purpose of the church must be to move away from this slippery ground and call men and women to what is solid and sure. Rather than constructing ourselves we should respond to what God intended in creating us – in creating us male and female.

NEED A BOOK?

If you are looking for some summer reading I have posted a PDF of books that have influenced me over on the Gateway site.

All good stuff!

MANLINESS, PART 2

What is a man?

It is crazy that we even have to ask the question!

In his excellent book, Amazing Tales for Making Men out of Boys, historian Neil Oliver laments the demise of manly British men,

Great ships and manly men – these were the kinds of things we used to produce in this country. And the rest of the world accepted the truth of it like an immutable law of the universe. As a nation we used to have the best dreams and the grandest ambitions, and we fashioned from ourselves a breed of men that believed those dreams could be made reality with just a strong jaw, a firm handshake and a bit of backbone. We don’t make anything now. We’ve given away or destroyed all our industries and thousands of our men spend the best years of their lives answering phones in call centres or doing something or other in IT. A lot of the rest are at home minding the kids. How did we let all this happen? Men can be tamed and domesticated – that much is obviously true – but most would be better off out in the woods and hills, like the lions and tigers and bears.

There is an oft-talked about “crisis of masculinity” in our society, but even talking about this subject is difficult. It always feels dangerous – that if we dare say anything too manly we will offend the feminists. (It is amazing how nervous men are of offending feminists – why are we scared of them? Its not like they could have us if it came to a fight!)

This diffidence has affected the language we use, and this has happened so subtly that most of the time we don’t even notice it.

The very word “masculinity” deserves thought. It was the development of “Women’s Studies” that led in the 1980s to an academic subfield of “Masculinity Studies.” “Masculinity” deconstructs manliness. “Masculinity” is a much more slippery word than manliness; and less complimentary. It is socially acceptable to describe someone as masculine but it is not acceptable to describe them as manly. “Manly” is just too strong meat, unless used in an ironic manner, such as in the ad for McCoy’s “man crisps”, or Yorkie “not for girls” chocolate.


The replacement of a strong, clear, word with a more slippery one can also be seen in the use of “gender” in preference to “sex.” Sex is definitive: I am a man; she is a woman. Gender is much more flexible.

The same thing is seen with the use of the word “partner” instead of “spouse.” Partner can mean anything; spouse can only mean the person of the opposite sex to whom one is married.

Masculinity, gender, partner – slippery words that undermine what it means to be a man.

CALVIN BLOGS

With it being the 500th anniversary of Calvin's birth last Friday there has been a lot of Calvin blogging going on. This was, of course, predestined.

Here are two slightly left-field contributions that I enjoyed. First, some videos from the Desiring God blog on things that it would be nice to change about Calvin. I especially like Doug Wilson's comments about Calvin and the arts...



And, second, this from Douglas Estes on what is wrong with Calvinism. A quote,

Calvinism has many problems. I once took an advanced graduate seminar on the thought and theology of Calvin; it was taught by a leading expert on Calvin. Knowing my concerns with Calvinism, he would often say that he ‘wondered whether Calvin would be a Calvinist if he were alive today.’ I don’t know. Sometimes I really hope not.

MANLINESS, PART 1

As promised, I am starting to blog my seminar from last weeks conference that wasn't recorded. I am taking a couple of weeks holiday at the end of July so will try to get it all written up and scheduled to post while I am away. Here we go...

Joel Virgo relates a story about visiting a church with his dad when he was a boy. During the worship Terry leaned over to Joel and said, “This is a weak church.” By which he meant that the men in the church were weak.

In a strong church there are strong men who take a lead and carry responsibility, but too many churches lack these kind of men. And in our society at large there are too many men who lack real strength.

The recent death of Michael Jackson was worldwide news. An icon had fallen. But what most interested me about Jackson was the way he functioned as an extreme example of masculinity. In his case, so much of what makes a man a man had gone wrong.

Think about some of the things that characterised Michael Jackson:

• An abusive father. Jackson’s father used and manipulated his children for financial gain. Michael was exposed to a level of pressure and to a degree of control that no child should suffer.
• A search for identity. Jacko became parodied as ‘Wacko’ as he went through ever more bizarre changes in appearance in what looked a fruitless search to discover who he really was. The smiling black boy, dazzling audiences with his dance moves, became androgynous, white, and a laughing stock.
• Over-sexualised performance. The cod-piece; the groin grabbing…
• Questionable sexual behaviour. Nothing was ever proved, but there are few who consider the charges of Jackson engaging in inappropriate sexual behaviour with children to be all smoke with no fire.
• Financial irresponsibility. Jackson sold more than 750 million records, but frittered most of his money away, eventually having to sell his Neverland ranch to pay the bills.
• An inability to build and maintain lasting relationships. Jackson was married twice, but couldn’t make either marriage last.
• Perpetual childishness. Jackson was the boy who never wanted to grow up. Perhaps because of his lost childhood, he spent all of what should have been his manhood trying to live like a boy.

Michael Jackson illustrates on a grand scale the challenges to men in our society. Few people are as extreme as he was, but these seven characteristics of weak men appear again and again in the men around us. I see them every day – and that’s just in the church!

For men to be men we need to overcome these characteristics, and develop ones that make us strong, not weak.

MORE CONFERENCE VIDEO

While at the Together on a Mission conference I unexpectedly bumped into Jamie Haith, an old friend who is a curate at Holy Trinity Brompton, where he heads up Student Alpha. I asked him for an update on all things Alpha-ish...

LAUGHING WITH

Church was great this morning. Stephen Manhanga preaching up a storm, and Evan Rogers leading worship as only Evan can. Now I’ve got Spotify on and am listening to Regina Spektor. I like her new single, Laughing With...

No one laughs at God in a hospital
No one laughs at God in a war
No one’s laughing at God
When they’re starving or freezing or so very poor

No one laughs at God when the doctor calls
After some routine tests
No one’s laughing at God
when it’s gotten real late
And their kid’s not back from that party yet

No one laughs at God when their airplane
Starts to uncontrollably shake
No one’s laughing at God
When they see the one they love hand in hand
with someone else and they hope that they’re mistaken
No one laughs at God when the cops knock on their door
And they say “We’ve got some bad new, sir,”
No one’s laughing at God
When there’s a famine, fire or flood

But God can be funny
At a cocktail party while listening to a good God-themed joke or
When the crazies say he hates us
and they get so red in the head
You think that they’re about to choke
God can be funny
When told he’ll give you money if you just pray the right way
And when presented like a genie
Who does magic like Houdini
Or grants wishes like Jiminy Cricket and Santa Claus

God can be so hilarious
Ha ha, ha ha

No one laughs at God in a hospital
No one laughs at God in a war
No one’s laughing at God
when they’ve lost all they got
And they don’t know what for

No one laughs at God on the day they realize
that the last sight they’ll ever see is a pair of hateful eyes
No one’s laughing at God
When they’re saying their goodbyes

But God can be funny
At a cocktail party while listening to a good God-themed joke or
When the crazies say he hates us and they get so red in the head
you think that they’re about to choke
God can be funny
When told he’ll give you money if you just pray the right way
And when presented like a genie
Who does magic like Houdini
Or grants wishes like Jiminy Cricket and Santa Claus
God can be so hilarious

No one laughs at God in a hospital
No one laughs at God in a war

No one’s laughing at God in a hospital
No one’s laughing at God in a war

No one’s laughing at God
When they’re starving or freezing or so very poor

No one’s laughing at God
We’re all “laughing with God”

Sounds to me like Spektor has been reading Ecclesiastes. But then, as she is Jewish, this is probably not unlikely.

Church was quite Ecclesiastes-like, as church should be. We laughed and had fun, fun, fun as we worshipped. And then as Stephen expounded John 5 we saw the bitterness of life – life that so often feels like that of the paralyzed man lying helpless next to a magical pool, waiting year after year for someone – anyone – to help him into the water so that he might be healed, but never being healed. Until Jesus…

When Jesus appeared on the scene the paralyzed man suddenly didn’t need to get into the water; all he needed was to receive what Jesus was offering. No effort required on the man’s part – this was going to be all of grace.

People who have received grace are able to laugh.

CONFERENCE VIDEO

A couple of short videos for you...

First Mbonisi Malaba, and then PJ Smyth

CONFERENCE REPORT

Back from Brighton, and back to a decent internet connection.

Its been a very good week, but as always fairly exhausting and will take a few days to process through in my thinking. I love the preaching and worship, but probably the highlight for me is catching up with friends from around the world. It is great to hear encouraging stories. I was particularly excited to see photos of Tom Eaton baptizing two Japanese converts at the Nagoya church plant. Tom & Julie have been in Japan four years and it is simply inspiring to see what they are doing and the fruit they are now beginning to reap. It was also brilliant to have a big gang of us from Gateway at the conference this year - thanks for coming along guys!

While writing this I'm listening to Evan Rogers' new CD, Devoted, and looking forward to him leading worship at Gateway on Sunday. Evan led worship last night at the prayer celebration and there is no-one with his ability to get a praise party going! It is all so familiar to me now that I tend just to think of it as normal, but for people new to the conference, and new to Evan's energy it can be somewhat overwhelming. Someone who used to be part of a Newfrontiers church years ago and was at the conference for the first time commented, "I'd forgotten how Newfrontiers celebrate when they give!" The offering was tremendous with nearly £1 million given for the mission; it is an indication of how high our expectations are that this magnificent total was actually somewhat disappointing...

A quick summary of the good bits:

# Grace being able to attend for the whole week with me for the first time
# Some young men being allowed to step up to the plate - Mbonisi Malaba and Stef LIston opening up the conference with the first two sermons and hitting huge home runs; Stuart Gibbs anchoring the meetings
# Hearing Terry Virgo share his heart as he spoke about the past, present and future of Newfrontiers
# Evan's worship leading!
# Scott Marques and team leading us in prayer for Southern Africa - just got to love those Zimbos!
# Having PJ Smyth round up the conference this morning
# And then there was Fake Warnie! A wonderful slice of humor snaking through the packed schedule.

I had a lot of fun speaking on Manliness in a seminar but unfortunately something went wrong with the recording so it won't be available to download. I received an unusual level of positive feedback about the seminar, so will try and blog my notes next week.

If you are in the Poole area this Sunday do come along to Gateway where Evan Rogers is leading worship and Stephen Manhanga from Zimbabwe is preaching. We are expecting a crowd so are running two meetings - you can join us at either 9am or 11am for what is going to be a memorable time.

TOAM UPDATE

i haven't felt like carrying my laptop around with me, and the only connection I can get is incredibly slow, so not much blogging from this weeks conference. I have some videos to put up, but the bandwidth can't take it, so that will have to wait till I get home.

All in all the week is going well - great to catch up with old friends, hear some great preaching, be in a large worship setting. If you're not here, follow along on twitter - search for tweets using #TOAM. And, essentially, for the best coverage you must check out Fake Warnie. Brilliant!

BOOK REVIEW: BEYOND BELIEF

Beyond Belief by Colm O’Gorman

The title says it all really.

Colm O’Gorman was the man who sued the Pope and helped ignite the huge scandal that arose about sexual abuse committed by priests in Ireland. It is a shocking story.

The Ireland of O’Gormans childhood seems to have been inflicted with endemic child abuse. He recounts how as a small child he was abused by two men in his village, as well as by a teenage boy; however, the significance of these incidents recedes rapidly against the experience of prolonged abuse suffered at hands of Father Sean Fortune. Fortune was able to use his authority as a priest to gain control of O’Gorman and other boys, taking them to stay in his house whenever he wanted, without ever being questioned by the boys’ parents.

O’Gorman tells the story of this abuse, his physical escape from it and finally emotional escape from it. Along the way he decided to speak publicly about what had happened, discovered that many others had gone through similar experiences, set up a charity (One in Four) that helps victims of abuse, and pursued a legal case and media campaign against Fortune and the Roman Catholic Church.

A number of things particularly stood out for me in this story…

The way that abusers are able to ensure the silence of their victims is remarkable. By transferring their own shame to those they abuse they can act with impunity. I have seen this myself in people who have been abused by family members, but it is all the more the case when the abuser has the authority of a priest in Catholic Ireland.

That priests had such authority in Ireland shows what can happen when there is no clear separation between Church and State, and when a church becomes an institution rather than a living temple. The Catholic Church really doesn’t come out of this at all well, especially when it became apparent that Bishops were protecting priests who they knew were abusers, and continuing to place them in positions where they would be able to continue their abuse. When challenged, rather than showing the repentance that a church in error should, the Catholic Church threw up the defensive walls of a powerful institution, and did all it could to obstruct justice.

O’Gormans search for relationship with his father, and the effects abuse had upon this is also harrowing. Years later their relationship is at last restored, only for O’Gormans father to die ten months later. Very sad.

Having escaped from Fortune, O’Gorman ended up in first Dublin and then London, and lived on the streets at times – only surviving by exchanging his body for a bed and shower. What is very sad is that at this time the only community that reached out to him and extended care and welcome were the gay community. Eventually O’Gorman came out himself and now lives with his partner in Ireland. It seems clear that his sexuality is a consequence of the abuse he suffered – how sad that it wasn’t followers of Christ that rescued him from the streets.

The book ends positively enough with O’Gorman now at peace with himself, working as director of Amnesty International in Ireland. A measure of justice for the victims of abuse has been achieved and the Catholic Church has finally put better child protection procedures in place. But there aren’t really any winners in this. It is all just horrible.

Definitely one to read though. There are plenty of lessons to learn here.

GONE FISHING

Check out this fantastic undulate ray I caught while out fishing with some of the boys this morning. John Lanferman provides the narration...

QUICK SLOW

Its that time of year when everything is somehow both speeding up and slowing down.

Next week is the Newfrontiers leaders conference in Brighton, which means things are speeding up. I’m rushing to get everything finished that needs to be finished before the conference and have also been working hard on a seminar I am doing on Manliness. I reckon preparing this one seminar has been the equivalent of preparing three sermons. Surely something wrong there… Anyway, I’m feeling pretty testosteroned up with all this thinking about manliness, so if you want a fight I’ll gladly step outside.

I expect I’ll be doing some blogging from Brighton, so there will be no need for you to go to Warnock’s blog for the gossip!

Conference week also means that we have international visitors with us at Gateway. This weekend John & Linda Lanferman from St Louis, USA, and the weekend after Evan & Tracy Rogers from Dubai, as well as Stephen & Molly Manhanga from Zimbabwe. It is a real privilege to have these friends from around the world come to be with us. We are expecting to receive a great blessing!

Things are also slowing down as the normal run of church activities subsides for the summer. It is good to have a few weeks without much of an organized program to enable everyone to chill out. September will be here soon enough, and the pedal will be to the metal then.

The kids also have the faster/slower combo going on. Not much formal learning seems to be happening at school, but there is plenty of activity – sports days, school plays, summer fayres, friends to see… Took them out fishing for an hour last night – absolutely perfect weather, and the mackerel were practically jumping into the boat. Happy days.

TRIBE

Last night I took Daughter No. 2 to Poole Park where she was kayaking. While she was doing this I jogged the exercise trail that extends around the park and harbour, and noted the different cliques occupying their own distinct spheres within this small area of land.


There were the other runners and exercise trail-ers; mostly on their own or in twos, but some in club groups. The dog walkers. On the water were the kayakers. And the sailors – both on the lake and in the harbour. The fishermen. There were the model boat enthusiasts, over in their sectioned off corner of the lake. There were the bikers, pouring in for the regular Tuesday evening meet. There were the cricketers. And the cycle speedway. There were the skaters. And the families at the play park.

An incredible range of recreational activity, all happening in close physical proximity, but utterly distinct and separate from one another.

Apart from being just one more evidence that Poole is a very cool place to live, with huge lifestyle advantages and loads going on (you should move here!) it got me thinking about the essentially tribal nature of Man.

I got talking to another father whose daughter had not always shared his enthusiasm for their chosen hobby, “But this is our life now, so she has to get on with it.”

“This is our life now.” What a strong statement!

“Who am I? What tribe do I belong to? What gospel will I preach?” Everyone asks these questions. How they answer can lead to an interesting hobby. Or ethnic cleansing. Or eternal life.