This is not a new topic, but I thought I shouldn't pass up the opportunity to pass along this meditation on masculinity of Christ the Savior. It's written by Aaron D. Wolf, associate editor of Chronicles Magazine. From "Effeminate Gospel, Effeminate Christians" in the July 2005 issue:
Every definition of masculinity into which our Lord Jesus Christ does not fit belongs in the rubbish heap. Indeed, there could be no greater example of a man than He. Contrary to modern portrayals, Jesus was neither a sensitive metrosexual nor a macho-macho man. The tenderness that He displayed toward those who He loved (including His enemies) was paternal and sacrificial, focused not on self-gratification or expression but on the real needs of those He came to save. The Son of Man did not strut about flexing His muscles or cursing at His enemies, because He possessed the quiet confidence of One absolutely certain of His mission and did not need the approval of others in order to maintain that certainty. No did He need to "be His own boss" in order to be a man (Isaiah called Him "God's slave"), insisting, instead, that He came not to do His own will but the "will of Him Who sent Me"--His Father. He resisted the temptation of Satan to perform a spectacular feat of strength by casting Himself down from the pinnacle of the Temple, choosing, rather, the way of the Cross. This Man wept--for Jerusalem, for the family of Lazarus--not out of hypersensitivity or fear but because of His great love for a people languishing under the weight of their own sin. Even in the hour of His torment in Gethsemane, He prayed for those entrusted to His care while battling the Old Serpent, whose head He crushed in the greatest battle ever fought by man. And He emerged from the grave a King, still bearing the wounds of battle. There will be no democracy on Judgment Day when "the Man comes around," because only one vote will count: that of the God Who humbled Himself in order to save the ones He loves.
This is not the language of the American Christian man, who strolls, rosy-cheeked and all aflutter, "in the garden alone, while the dew is still on the roses."
This, instead of "a romantic fantasy" in which "Jesus rescues me from my own loneliness and despair and fills all of my emotional needs." The article, not available on-line, goes on to a discussion the de-masculization of the churches, fatherhood, Christian manhood, Ann Douglas's The Feminization of American Culture, where she "traces the problem of the effeminacy of the American Christians man to the disestablishment of the churches," and Great Awakening. I don't know about that disestablishment link--the Church of England is established, and so, too, was the Church of Sweden until recently. Men hardly flocked to these churches.
I would like to read Wolf's article. If anyone would happen to know how I could obtain/read this article, please let me know--I woudl appreciate it.
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Posted by: Lisa | January 10, 2008 at 04:36 PM