Psalm 15

Popular writers aren’t saying complimentary things
about Australian males. Donald Horne (The Lucky Country) says
they’re creatures committed more to mediocrity than excellence:
"Much energy is wasted in pretending to be stupid. To appear
ordinary, just like everybody else, is sometimes a necessary condition
for success in Australia." Overseas cricketers (like Hadlee
and Botham) have said some hard things about our crowds. "The
well- balanced Australian," said English journalist Jilly
Cooper, "has been described as a man with chips on both shoulders".
Perhaps the "Bazza McKenzie" image is our loutish way
of coping with a national inferiority complex.

I have a very thin file on "men" and a
very fat one on "women". Until recently nothing much
has been seriously written about men, and yet I sense their "role
conflict" is greater than women’s in many respects. So I
did a little research of my own, and listed women’s complaints
about the men in their lives. They can be summarised into four
categories: problems with identity, women, kids, and God.

Identity

Previously (unless they were sailors or travelling
merchants) men worked at or near home. The Industrial Revolution
changed all that. Then in the 1960s women invaded the workforce;
in the 1970s were demanding equal pay and status; in the 1980s
non-sexist language; and now in the 1990′s sexual harassment laws.
At the same time the counter-culture mounted the first overt challenge
to male sovereignty: the hippies were a put-down of the success-
driven "organisation man" off the 50′s, and the Vietnam
protesters heaped scorn on the consecrated masculine proving ground
of war.

Today, little girls may either play with dolls or
be a "tomboy", but little boys are not allowed to be
"sissy" in any way whatever. Because father isn’t around
the house much, many boys have few male models. As a growing boy
grasps for a definition of maleness, it seems to be that which
is not female. And media models don’t help – on TV men are generally
self-concerned, unemotional, preoccupied with career and dominating
of women. The whole "macho" thing is an attempt to cover-up
a deep sense of insecurity. After all, wasn’t it Benjamin Franklin
who told us that grown men are, deep down, "only little boys,
with more expensive toys"?

So males are mixed up in a historically novel social
arrangement. A Princeton sociologist writes: "Our young are
the first people of whom the following can be said: if they are
males, they and their fathers and their brothers and their sons
and all the males they know are overwhelmingly likely to have
been reared under the direct domination and supervision of females
from birth to maturity… To put the matter as dramatically as
possible, we do not even know whether viable human beings can
over any long period of time be reared in such a fashion. After
all, this has never held true of any substantial proportion of
any population for even one generation in the history of the world
until the last 50 years …"

In the Scriptures quietness and gentleness are emphasised
in women’s lives, courage and aggressiveness are underlined for
men. Such "manliness" equips men to take social responsibility
for groups, to lead them, and protect them from harm. Now aggressiveness
must not be confused with insensitivity. "Blessed are the
meek" Jesus says, and here the "meek" are not the
"weak", but have "controlled and disciplined strength".

Women

"Any man who says he can read a woman like a
book is probably illiterate", says one gag.

Jesus and Paul introduced a new ethic into male-female
relationships. Jesus, unlike his male contemporaries, treated
women with great respect. Paul told husbands to "love your
wives just as Christ loved the church and gave his life for it"
(Eph. 5:25). Peter similarly commanded husbands to treat their
wives with understanding and respect (1 Peter 3:7). Peter adds
that women, too, are recipients of God’s gift of life. (Some of
his old rabbinical teachers used to debate whether women even
had souls!). Paul tells us that in Christ there are no more discriminating
divisions between "male and female" (Gal. 3:28).

When you hear "so-and-so’s a success" what
do you think of? His home and marriage? Unlikely – usually it’s
his career. And yet, as Phelps puts it, "The highest happiness
on earth is in marriage. Every man who is happily married is a
successful man even if he’s failed in everything else".

Paul Wilson, an Australian sociologist, says most
Australian male- female relationships are based on the sex-love
bargain. He wants sex, she wants love. One is given for the promise
of the other. In his book Intimacy, a Sex or Love Experience?
(which he wrote while his own marriage was disintegrating!) he
says most men find it very difficult to have relationships with
a woman over and above sexual relationships. One problem is the
difficulty men (and many women) have in reaching behind words
and "hooking into the feeling agenda". (The test of
a man is how well he is able to feel about what he thinks. The
test of a woman is how well she is able to think about what she
feels).

I remember Billy Graham’s sermon on "The Home"
in his 1959 Crusade in Sydney – it was so popular it was put onto
a gramophone record. In it he says -very fervently – that if ever
he lost love for his wife, he would get down on his knees and
stay there until God gave it to him.

And remember, you haven’t married to "get happiness".
Happiness is a by-product, which comes when you give it to someone
else. If husbands loved their wives as Christ loved the church,
then women wouldn’t be interested in being "liberated"
from such a relationship.

Kids

One of the key family-destroying agencies in our
society is the "rat-race". Men are under incredible
pressure to be married to their jobs, rather than to their wives
and families. One mother overheard her pre-school son talking
to another four-year-old on the front steps. "Where is your
daddy?" he asked. "I’ve never seen him." "Oh,
he doesn’t live here," came the reply. "He only sleeps
here!"

A team of American researchers asked some middle-class
fathers to estimate how long they spent each day with their small
children, playing and talking with them. Average: "15-20
minutes". Then small microphones were placed on the kids’
shirts to verify these claims. Results: 37 seconds per day! These
fathers’ direct interactions were limited to 2.7 encounters daily,
lasting 10-15 seconds each!

Dr. Fitzhugh Dodson, author of a book on fathering,
says in all his 20 years’ practising psychiatry, no man ever asked
him for help to become a better father. Many men, he says, have
the idea that tenderness is somehow unmasculine.

There’s a growing body of research linking women’s
happiness in marriage to their relationship as growing girls,
with their fathers. After all, the father is the one who can best
communicate to a teenage girl that she’s a beautiful person. If
he doesn’t how’s she to know? Fathers, don’t be embarassed about
showing affection to your daughters: they need it more than you
may ever know!

The Bible has a lot to say about fathering, and it’s
blunt about the subject. Some of the fathers in the Bible were,
frankly, silly old fools! (Eli comes to mind). Fathers are supposed
to be the spiritual leaders in the home. They take the initiative
in saying "grace" at meals, reading the Bible and praying
with their families – and being a godly example to them.

Nowhere does the Bible say he’s boss! Ruling a household
with loving authority and being "bossy" isn’t the same
thing at all.

God

Who reads most of the books on family living? Women!
Who attends seminars on meaningful family life? The majority are
women. It’s time we men got embarrassed by all this!

Psalm 15 is the Old Testament’s best description
of a godly man. (See Proverbs 31 for a beautiful description of
a godly woman). Probably this psalm was used by pilgrims as they
entered worship. That’s a good idea! There are ten qualities mentioned
here of a man worthy to worship the living God. Let’s apply this
"decalogue" to ourselves.

Some undergraduates were talking in an English common
room about their life-goals. Many answers were given, many of
them not unworthy – academic distinction, an athletics prize,
a professor’s chair. Then one quiet, shy, sensitive man spoke.
‘You fellows will laugh at me,’ he said, ‘but I want to be a saint’.
May more men have such an aspiration!

Related Articles:

• The Parents Poem (Robert Bly)
• Gay man opposes gay marriage
• Being a Pastor Doesn’t Automatically Make You a Sex Therapist
• Is the Men’s Movement Dead?
• Making a Will

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