Then Moses summoned Joshua and said to him in the
sight of all Israel: 'Be strong and bold, for you are the one
who will go with this people into the land that the Lord has sworn
to their ancestors to give them; and you will put them in possession
of it. It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you;
he will not fail you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.'
(Deuteronomy 31:7-8)
The God who has girded me with strength has opened
wide my path. He made my feet like the feet of deer, and set me
secure on the heights. He trains my hands for war, so that my
arms can bend a bow of bronze. You have given me the shield of
your salvation, and your help has made me great. You have made
me stride freely, and my feet do not slip. (2 Samuel 22:33-38)
O Lord, who may abide in your tent? Who may dwell
on your holy hill? Those who walk blamelessly, and do what is
right, and speak the truth from their heart; who do not slander
with their tongue, and do no evil to their friends, nor take up
a reproach against their neighbors; in whose eyes the wicked are
despised, but who honor those who fear the Lord; who stand by
their oath even to their hurt; who do not lend money at interest,
and do not take a bribe against the innocent. Those who do these
things shall never be moved. (Psalm 15:1-5)
A gentle tongue is a tree of life, but perverseness
in it breaks the spirit. Scoffers do not like to be rebuked; they
will not go to the wise. Better is a little with the fear of the
Lord than great treasure and trouble with it. Without counsel,
plans go wrong, but with many advisers they succeed. To make an
apt answer is a joy to anyone, and a word in season, how good
it is! (Proverbs 15:4,12,16,22-23) It is good for one to bear
the yoke in youth (Lamentations 3:27)
I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan; greatly
beloved were you to me; your love to me was wonderful, passing
the love of women. (2 Samuel 1:26) Two are better than one, because
they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one
will lift up the other; but woe to one who is alone and falls
and does not have another to help. (Ecclesiastes 4:9-10)
A man may beget a hundred children, and live many
years; but however many are the days of his years, if he does
not enjoy life's good things, or has no burial, I say that a stillborn
child is better off than he. (Ecclesiastes 6:3)
.....
There's an old Celtic motto: 'Never give a sword
to a man who can't dance.' Although the sword has been, from ancient
times, a potent phallic symbol, there is now a wider wisdom in
this saying. Men, particularly those who are fathers, suffer more
'role confusion' in our Western cultures than any other group,
with the possible exception of teenagers. And yet their importance
in the developing self-esteem of their daughters, and the initiating
of their sons into manhood, can't be overestimated.
I have had a thin file on `men' and a very fat one
on `women'. But that is changing: from the mid-1980's the burgeoning
American 'men's movement' is addressing the severe role conflicts
in the modern male.
Robert Bly begins his seminal book Iron John: 'We
are living at an important and fruitful moment now, for it is
clear to men that the images of adult manhood given by the popular
culture are worn out; a man can no longer depend on them. By the
time a man is thirty-five he knows that the images of the right
man, the tough man, the true man which he received in high school
do not work in life. Such a man is open to new visions of what
a man is or could be... We know that our society produces a plentiful
supply of boys, but seems to produce fewer and fewer men.' [Robert
Bly, Iron John: A Book About Men, New York: Vintage Books, 1992,
pp.ix, 180]. [107]
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 work-force,
and in the 1970s were demanding equal pay and status. 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
`organization man' of the 1950s, and the Vietnam protesters heaped
scorn on the consecrated masculine proving ground of war. (They
had studied war in college and learned, for example, that in World
War 1 at Ypres in 1915, one hundred thousand young men died in
one day. None saw the machine-gunners who mowed them down. For
some reason these 'post-war' students couldn't understand why
anyone would 'glory' in that.)
Little girls may either play with dolls or be a `tomboy',
but little boys are not allowed to be `sissy'. Because father
isn't around the house much, many boys have few intimate male
models. As a growing boy grasps for a definition of his 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 may
cover up a deep sense of insecurity.
So males are mixed up in a historically novel social
arrangement. A 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...'
Here's the 'composite male' I come across in my counseling:
he is marginal to his family, has no deep relationships with anybody,
and angrily 'comes on heavy' with the kids as almost his sole
contribution to parenting. He has no deep religious faith - that's
something for women in church and kids in Sunday School. He is
undeveloped emotionally, and has never before talked to someone
meaningfully about his inner life. When his wife mentions any
marriage difficulties he can't see the problem (so long as she
keeps the home - and sexual - fires burning). He is very reluctant
to change into a caring, (and cared for) growing person...
A German psychologist, Alexander Mitscherlich, has
written that society has torn the soul of the male, and into this
tear demons have fled - demons of insecurity, selfishness, and
despair. So men do not really know who they are; they define themselves
by what they do, who they know, or what they own.
Back to Robert Bly's Iron John. In essence Bly says
that we have inherited a 'responsible workaholic male' from the
50s; the 60s male, reacting to the Vietnam War got in touch with
his feminine side; then there was the 70s 'soft male'. The key
challenge for the 80s and 90s male is to get in touch the 'hairy,
primitive Wild Man' at the bottom of his psyche. This ought to
happen when boys are initiated into the ranks of the men of the
tribe. Modern fathers are too preoccupied to do this properly;
and, anyway, our society has given them a 'Dagwood Bumstead' image.
Our modern psychology, says Bly, comes from two 'mothers' men',
Freud and Jung. So the young are angry; they 'rage'.
But there is positive energy buried deep within the
male psyche. As 'Wild Man' (in touch with positive sexuality,
and nature as protector of the earth), 'Warrior' (in the service
to the 'True King', i.e. a transcendent cause), Lover, 'Trickster'
(who does not 'go with the flow' but reverses it), Magus (in touch
with energies in the invisible world), and Grief Man (deriving
great strength from the power to grieve) men can endure and achieve
almost anything. But such energy comes only through 'wounding'
(an old tradition describes Jesus walking with a limp).
Another writer, Verne Becker , defines this woundedness
in terms of passivity: modern men (particularly in the family)
respond and react rather than initiate; they feel a vague sense
of loss and are alienated; they don't know how to relate to other
men; they avoid responsibility, struggling with addictions or
compulsions; they don't know how to get angry; they are entranced
by women; they say yes too often; they have difficulty defending
and setting their boundaries; they have no idea who they are on
the inside, having lost touch with the core of their being buried
deep in their psyche. This passivity, writes Becker, finds its
origins in a wound, actually several kinds of wounds: techno-wounds
(since the Industrial Revolution they left home to relate to machines,
and, now, computers); entertainment-wounds (TV is our society's
greatest passivity-creator); religious wounds (where religion
does not introduce us to a deep experience of God); and eco-wounds
(man's relationship to the earth has been severed). So we have
a couple of generations of underfathered and overmothered sons,
a suicide rate among men that is four times that of women, and
a life expectancy 10 percent shorter. 'Men account for two-thirds
of all alcoholics, 90 percent of all arrests for alcohol and drug
abuse violations, 80 percent of America's homeless, and 60 percent
of high school dropouts. Among minority groups the statistics
are even worse... Together these data show the despair and desperation
so many men feel.' (Verne Becker, The Real Man Inside, Zondervan,
1992, p.57). [51]
So everything conspires to rob modern men of 'masculine
grandeur'. We have few adequate mentoring relationships. Women
have had two or three decades to sort out who they are (that process
isn't finished yet), but men have a lot more work to do. Patriarchy
has kept women in their place, so (as with any systemic injustice)
women have had to be demanding and shrill in claiming equality
with men. Within churches the issue of women in leadership is
not, I believe, a theological or hermeneutic problem at its core.
It's a problem of masculine psychology. The greatest horror for
any male from puberty onwards is to inhabit the same house (or
church) with a domineering authoritarian mother-figure. (Read
the many allusions in the Book of Proverbs: that wise man would
rather be anywhere than in a house with a ranting woman). Males
marry to get away from such mothers (and if they marry a 'shrew'
they'll spend evenings in the pub with the boys). So the last
thing male-controlled churches want is to let women loose in positions
of authority!
I believe we should be 'liberal' in our view of the
equality of the sexes, and 'conservative' in our view of their
God-given roles. Generally (but not always, for God is not a legalist)
men are initiative-takers, women are 'responders'. Sometimes (e.g.
Deborah in the Old Testament) women are better leaders, so God
doesn't mind them leading. Sometimes men are better in a subordinate
role (e.g. Deborah's lieutenant Barak) so that's what God ordains
for them.
When women who are not given leadership gifts usurp
the role of leader then there's trouble. If men refuse to be initiative-takers
when God ordains that role for them, there's also trouble. Part
of Eve's 'original sin' was in her taking the lead in response
to the serpent's offer, and one of the results of the Fall was
men 'ruling' over women. But the Fall is reversed in Christ. Nowhere
in Jesus' teaching is there any note of women's subordination.
Most of the evils of patriarchy result from our fallenness. In
Ephesians 5 we have a beautiful picture of the church as the Bride
of Christ, and husbands loving their wives with Christ's love.
Women ought to 'respect' their husbands; husbands ought to love
their wives sufficient to die for them: that's the evangelical
ideal. After counseling with women for 7000 hours, I've yet to
meet one who knows her husband loves her like that and is not
prepared to respect that man! The pre-Fall creation mandate, and
the ideal of our re-creation in Christ is of a man and a wife
enjoying complementarity, living in unity and equality and interdependence.
.....
Grown men are, deep down, only little boys, with
more expensive toys.
Benjamin Franklin [12]
Approximately 140 boys are conceived for every 100
girls. The rate of miscarriage is so much greater for boys that
the ratio of live births is only 105 boys to girls, and the greater
early mortality rate for boys is such as to make the ratio an
even 1:1 by age one.
Mary Stewart van Leeuwen, Gender and Grace: Women
and Men in a Changing World, England: Inter-Varsity Press, 1990,
p.56. [48]
Men of all ages in our culture are in such a sad
state that it is a national crisis.
George Lough and John A. Sanford, What Men are Really
Like, Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1988, p.3, quoted in Presbyterians
and Human Sexuality 1991, Published by the Office of the General
Assembly Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Lousiville, KY, p.36. [19]
The boys in our culture have a continuing need for
initiation into the male spirit, but old men in general don't
offer it. The priest sometimes tries, but he is too much a part
of the corporate village these days.
Among the Hopis and other native Americans of the
South-west, the old men take the boy away at the age of twelve
and... he does not see his mother again for a year and a half.
The fault of the nuclear family today isn't so much
that it's crazy and full of double binds (that's true in communes
and corporate offices too - in fact in any group). The fault is
that the old men outside the nuclear family no longer offer an
effective way for the son to break his link with his parents without
doing harm to himself.
The ancient societies believed that a boy becomes
a man only through ritual and effort - only through the active
intervention of the older men.
It's becoming clear to us that manhood doesn't happen
by itself; it doesn't happen just because we eat Wheaties. The
active intervention of the older men means that [they] welcome
the younger man into the ancient, mythologized, instinctive male
world...
When women, even women with the best intentions,
bring up a boy alone, he may in some way have no male face, or
he may have no face at all... A clean break from the mother is
crucial, but it's simply not happening. This doesn't mean that
the women are doing something wrong: I think the problem is more
that the older men are not really doing their job...
In New Guinea [they say]: 'A boy cannot change into
a man without the active intervention of the older men.' A girl
changes into a woman on her own, with the bodily developments
marking the change; old women tell her stories and chants, and
do celebrations. But with the boys, no old men, no change...
Robert Bly, Iron John: A Book About Men, New York:
Vintage Books, 1992, pp. 14-15, 17, 19, 86-87. [328]
When a man reaches his twenties, he sets out to make
his place in the world. It is an exciting time for him as many
aspects of his life begin to change. He starts to put most of
his life's energy into building his career and, if he is married,
into his marriage. He may be acutely aware of the burden he carries
to meet his family's financial needs and may work fifty to seventy
hours a week in order to provide the best of everything for the
family he loves. He may jump through hoop after hoop in an effort
to meet his driving need for achievement and his family's need
for financial security.
In the midst of these compelling concerns, a man
has little time for friends. There is no time to maintain close,
caring friendships with his peers, or to develop relationships
with older men who could support him in his growth as a husband
and father and guide him as he navigates the twists and turns
of his career. At this point in his life, a young man's energies
are focused on priorities other than relationships.
Unfortunately, this is also a dangerous time for
a young man. Every man needs close relationships with other men.
When those relationships are lacking in a young man's life, trouble
lies ahead. The emptiness a man feels inside from the woundedness
of his relationship with his father can only be filled through
relationships with other men and with God. Often, however, a man
will seek to fill that masculine woundedness through relationships
with women, but women cannot meet this deep emotional need. A
man who shares his deeper feelings exclusively with women is either
in trouble emotionally or is setting himself up for trouble later
on.
This period of life is also risky because at this
age most men... are disconnected from their feelings. When a man
is out of touch with his feelings of grief, emptiness and loss,
he is simply unable to recognize the emotional needs of others
around him. He cannot really identify with another person's feelings
or what they are going through unless he has some understanding
and connection with his own feelings. Since family relationships
are emotionally intimate, an emotionally disconnected man will
have a destructive impact on his loved ones.
Dr. Earl R. Henslin, Man to Man, Nashville: Thomas
Nelson Publishers, 1993, pp.47-48. [386]
Around thirty-five, men begin to realize that the
images they were given of what a man is don't work. They don't
work in their jobs; they don't work in a relationship; they don't
work in a marriage; they don't work! But when the childhood myths
die, what can take their place?
Robert Bly, in Bill Moyers, A World of Ideas, 2,
New York: Doubleday, 1990, p.265. [52]
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.' 'The well-balanced Australian,' said English
journalist Jilly Cooper recently, `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.
Rowland Croucher, from an unpublished sermon, 'God
and the Australian Male'.
[The following are some ways men tend to appear emotionally
unaffected and in control of their lives]:
* Men rationalize a course of inaction by telling
themselves 'What good is it going to do to talk about it? That's
not going to change anything!' * Men worry internally, but rarely
face what they really feel. * Men escape into new roles or hide
behind old ones. * Men take the attitude that the 'feelings' will
pass and shrug them off as unimportant. * Men keep busy, especially
with work. * Men change one feeling into another - becoming angry
instead of experiencing hurt or fear. * Men deny the feeling outright.
* Men put feelings on hold - put them in the file drawer and tend
to forget what they were classified under. * Feelings are confronted
with drugs and alcohol. * Men are excellent surgeons. They create
a 'thinking bypass' to replace feelings with thought and logic.
* Men tend to let women do their feeling for them. * Men sometimes
avoid situations and people who elicit certain feelings in them.
* Some men get sick or behave carelessly and hurt themselves so
they have a reason to justify their feelings.
Ken Druck, The Secrets Men Keep, New York: Ballantine
Books, 1984. pp. 27-28. [189]
Men, by nature, are task-oriented. Most men find
it hard to come before the God who says, 'Be still, and know that
I am God' (Psalms 46:10). Unless they are writing something, building
something, moving something, or changing something, they don't
believe they are getting anywhere. Daily quiet times don't come
easy for men, not even for pastors. It has to be cultivated, developed,
and groomed before it becomes a natural part of the day.
Dr. Bob Moorehead, The Husband Handbook: Essentials
For Growing a Successful Marriage, Brentwood, Tennessee: Wolgemuth
& Hyatt, Publishers, Inc., 1990, pp.85-86. [75]
It is not a very encouraging picture. We are hurting.
But the hurting goes beyond the physical. It is found in our yearning
for emotional intimacy with other males - sons, fathers, and friends
- yet finding ourselves unprepared, unequipped, and fearful of
that intimacy. The hurt is in our wanting relationships of genuine
equality and mutuality with women, yet finding ourselves crippled
by centuries of male sexism, and by our emotional dependencies
on the opposite sex. The hurt is in our discovery that we have
bought heavily into the message that our self-worth is directly
dependent upon our occupational success, and yet the idol of work
somehow does not deliver its promised salvation.
James B. Nelson, The Intimate Connection: Male Sexuality,
Masculine Spirituality, Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1988,
p.13. [113]
God created us in the divine image, and we returned
the favor, creating 'God' in our own. Traditional male-constructed
theism has perceived God as autonomous and unrelated. Transcendant.
Wholly other. Sovereign in 'his' absolute power. But there is
an irony to this theological creation. Male theologians uncritical
of patriarchal sexism, who themselves enjoyed and defended ecclesiastical
male power monopolies, erected theologies that located all legitimate
power in God and virtually none in humanity. God was imaged as
male, and that meant power, control, and the demand for obedience.
Many men are hungering for a fuller experience of God than this.
Perhaps intuitively we sense that such a God is a 'wounded father'
we carry inside us, an image of God distant, cold, controlling,
unavailable. We have had enough of separation. Yet healing that
wounded God image is complex. The image has served what we thought
was our self-interest. When God became male, males were divinized,
and patriarchy had cosmic blessing.
James B. Nelson, The Intimate Connection: Male Sexuality,
Masculine Spirituality, Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1988,
p.45. [162]
The Roman Stoics, who so influenced early Christianity,
prized a life devoid of passion. Some early Christian Stoics,
following their lead, wished that sexual intercourse (obviously
necessary for the continuation of the race) might be as passionless
as urinations. Medieval theologians were largely suspicious of
sexual pleasure because in orgasm people seemed to lose their
rationality, and to the medievalist, rationality was the key to
human dignity. The Protestant Reformers of the sixteenth century
abandoned the notion that celibacy was a higher virtue than married
love, but they could not quite believe that sexual pleasure was
good in its own right. It still remained God's enticement to procreation.
The nineteenth-century Victorians simply assumed that sexual pleasure
was animalistic. Each of these antipleasure chapters in the book
of church history was dominated by male thought.
James B. Nelson, The Intimate Connection: Male Sexuality,
Masculine Spirituality, Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1988,
p.58. [135]
The most delicate and important questions... were
about male sensibility when the child entered his world. I often
found that I was one of the few people, sometimes the only one,
to whom the man had spoken his feelings. He may not have done
this with the woman ('I never knew you thought that' was a common
interjection in the interviews), perhaps because she excluded
him, or did not expect it of him or was obviously much better
at such discussion herself. He hardly ever explored his private
response with male colleagues at work. Conversation there was
ritual, stylized, public - wages, sport, weather, holidays, politics,
the job in hand ('my mates just didn't want to know', 'Don't know
whether they were bored or embarrassed, may be just plain not
interested'). I doubt if that was wholly so. Women inherit a culture
which enables them to express intimate feelings. The mothers talk
openly, freely and at length, between themselves about the minutiae
and sensation of parenthood. Not every woman will use this chance,
but nevertheless it is there, and the mothers are far more practised,
skilled, and confident than the men in discussing and sharing
the delights and depressions of parenthood. This does not mean
that the fathers care or feel any less. They are anxious to express
fatherhood. But they often met dilemmas. One was their lack of
practice in articulating the gentler feelings, whether in word,
touch or action... The first-time father needed a new vocabulary
of expression if he was to attune his private with his public
self. Perhaps the mothers, sharing intimate life, had always known
this of him: voiceless love in the dark... The tap-roots of fatherhood
run deep. The image I take away is of men in tears at the birth,
and yet feeling they had to disguise them. The question I most
remember asking is 'When did you last cry?', knowing that so often
it would be countered with 'Not since I was a child myself.' To
release the full force of fatherhood will mean breaking the masculine
taboo on tenderness.
Brian Jackson, Fatherhood, London: George Allen and
Unwin, 1984. pp.134-135. [349]
[Boys tend to]... separate sexual feelings from emotional
attachment... Early in life boys have learned that sexual feelings
have their own independence. Not so for the girl, for whom the
explicitly sexual feelings were repressed in the early childhood
experience with her mother. As Lillian Rubin remarks, 'For a woman,
sex usually has meaning only in a relational context - perhaps
a clue to why so many girls never or rarely masturbate in adolescence
or early adulthood.'
James B. Nelson, The Intimate Connection: Male Sexuality,
Masculine Spirituality, Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1988,
p.78. [73]
Male preoccupation with sexuality is widely assumed
and has even been documented in various studies. Karen Shaner
reports, for example, that men between twelve and forty-five think
of sex an average of six times per hour. Between twelve and nineteen,
it is twenty times per hour, or every five minutes. Such content
of men's thoughts, as well as their frequency, is revealing. For
the most part, the mental images of heterosexual men include the
sexual 'conquest' of women and fantasies of being the warrior
and the victor... While we caution against the over-generalization
that all men are obsessed with predatory notions of sexuality,
studies such as this confirm what we have come to recognize as
normative for maleness in this culture - a mystique of masculinity
that fashions images of power and sexual dominance, again and
again, in the mind's eye. We believe the model of masculinity
and male sexuality that men have been socialized to adopt is a
violation of the biblical calling to live in justice-love and
right-relatedness.
Presbyterians and Human Sexuality 1991, Published
by the Office of the General Assembly Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.),
Lousiville, KY, p.37 [173]
In Genesis 3:16 the woman is being warned that she
will experience an unreciprocated longing for intimacy with the
man.
[The woman's] desire will be for her husband so as
to perpetuate the intimacy that had characterized their relationship
in paradise lost. But her nostalgia for the relation of love and
mutuality that existed between them before the fall, when they
both desired each other, will not be reciprocated by her husband.
Instead of meeting her desire, he will rule over her... [In short],
the woman wants a mate and she gets a master; she wants a lover
and she gets a lord; she wants a husband and she gets a hierarch.
Gilbert Bilezikian, Beyond Sex Roles: A Guide for
the Study of Female Roles in the Bible, Grand Rapids: Baker, 1985,
pp. 55 and 229. [111]
Man is the key to a happy family life because a woman
by nature is a responding creature. Some temperaments, of course,
respond more quickly than others, but all normal women are responders.
That is one of the secondary meanings of the word submission in
the Bible. God would not have commanded a woman to submit unless
he had instilled in her a psychic mechanism which would find it
comfortable to do so. The key to feminine response has only two
parts - love and leadership. I have never met a wife who did not
react positively to a husband who gave her love and leadership.
Deep within a woman lies a responding capability that makes her
vulnerable to that combination. It is so powerful, in fact, that
many respond when they are only given love. (This is less likely
when a woman is subjected only to leadership.) The combination
of love and leadership is unbeatable. An interesting facet of
that two-sided key is that most men must consciously work on one
or the other. The temperament which naturally exudes love must
consciously make an effort to exercise consistent leadership.
By contrast, the man gifted in leadership must concentrate upon
a regular display of love.
Tim LaHaye, Understanding the Male Temperament, Old
Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell company, 1977, p.178 [205]
In the last analysis a man can usually enforce his
wishes upon his wife. Even if he never lays a finger on her, he
will almost always be capable of bullying her to get what he wants...
We should simply face up to the fact, on the basis of Genesis
3:16 and empirical evidence, that the fall gives a man a certain
power over a woman which he can easily use at her expense. His
'strength' can be his wife's enslavement.
Anne Atkins, Split Image: Male and Female after God's
Likeness, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987, pp.168-169 [80]
Am I really all that which other men tell of? Or
am I only what I know of myself, restless and longing and sick,
like a bird in a cage, struggling for breath, as though hands
were compressing my throat, yearning for colours, for flowers,
for the voices of birds, thirsting for words of kindness, for
neighbourliness, trembling with anger at despotisms and petty
humiliation, powerlessly trembling for friends at an intimate
distance...? Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of
mine. Whoever I am, thou knowest, O God, I am thine.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, quoted in Presbyterians and
Human Sexuality 1991, Published by the Office of the General Assembly
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Lousiville, KY, p.36. [94]
.....
So, Jesus, what kind of man were you?
You were strong and tender, introvert and extravert,
and had an easy familiarity both with men and women (and with
children).
You knew who you were, so you didn't need anyone's
approval (except your Father's).
You knew what you were on this planet to do, and
you didn't hang around here after it was done.
You challenged people who were infected with their
own self-importance.
You were gentle with others who did not think of
themselves as important at all, whose self-esteem needed an injection
of love.
You had the strength to confront the Powers, and
they thought they 'did you in'. But such Life could never be extinguished.
You are alive in the world - your world - and in
the church - your church. You are still doing your Father's will
in the same way you did it in Judea and Galilee and Samaria (though
now unseen).
Jesus, help me to be the man of God I was destined
to be. Your Spirit is available to give me life, and truth, and
comfort, and love and power. As a modern male I need a special
dose of all of these.
I ask all of this for your glory. Amen.
A Benediction
May Jesus the Messiah, Son of a woman and Son of
God, who lived in the power of the Spirit and taught the truth
of God his Father and who died and rose again and ascended into
heaven and who is coming at the end of history to judge the living
and the dead; may Jesus the Lord and Christ empower you to do
in your world what he did in his. Amen.
CAPSULE 7: MALES AND FEMALES
In the Scriptures quietness and gentleness are emphasized
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.'
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' (Ephesians
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' (Galatians 3:28).
Men and women are different, physically and psychologically.
They have different bodies, minds, emotions, and roles. The 'brain
sex' literature tells us that the genetic difference in DNA between
men and women amounts to three percent: spread through every cell
of our bodies. That is, three percent of males makes them masculine,
and three percent of women makes them feminine - but we have 97%
in common. The challenge for men and women is to identify their
'manliness' and 'womanliness', and become a 'conscious man' and
a 'conscious woman'. Let us not be too embarrassed, too proud,
or too ashamed of our three percent!
Some writers talk about 'the two sides of love'.
The hard side of love models strength, toughness, winning in spite
of obstacles, 'sticking at it' until it's finished, or the battle's
won. (Movie stars like John Wayne, Clint Eastwood and Charles
Bronson have taught a generation of boys what it means to be a
man in this sense.) The soft side of love models nurturing qualities
such as tenderness, self-sacrifice, the willingness sometimes
to express emotion (eg. by crying) and display affection (eg.
by sensitive and appropriate touch, hugging etc.). Well-put-together
men display both sides of loving. Both 'Sensitive New Age Guys'
(SNAGs) and construction workers who wolf-whistle passing girls
can be true men, if they allow themselves to get in touch with
all aspects of their masculinity.
CAPSULE 8: PERSONALITY TYPES
Sometimes I will invite a counselee to sit at my
computer and figure out their 'personality type' according to
the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). This tests eight aspects
of all personalities, and their combinations into four pairs of
opposites. The eight traits are:
Extravert/Introvert: describing how we relate to
the world. Extraverts are energized by being with other people;
they tend to 'think aloud', and prefer talking to listening. Introverts
are energized by solitude (and are more likely to buy a telephone
answering machine!). They don't like crowds.
Sensor/Intuitive. This describes how we gather information.
Sensing types like facts and details, and perceive through the
five senses. Intuitive types tend to see the 'whole picture' and
are more imaginative.
Thinker/Feeler. Thinkers love being objective, and
may value logic over 'getting along with everyone'. Feelers tend
to value harmony over logic and take relationships more seriously.
(Two thirds of women are 'feelers'; two thirds of men are 'thinkers').
Judging/Perceiving. Judging types like to 'get things
done'; they plan and need to know where they're going. Perceptive
types enjoy the process of doing things, are more spontaneous,
and sometimes unsure about the decisions they've made.
(For an excellent introduction to the MBTI see Margaret
Dwyer's Wake Up the Sun: An Exploration of Personality Types and
Spiritual Growth, Thornbury, Melbourne: Desbooks (PO Box 51 Northcote,
Australia 3070), 1988).
Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the
ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and
the man became a living being. And the Lord God planted a garden
in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed...
The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to
till it and keep it. (Genesis 2:7,8,15)
`Any man who says he can read a woman like a book is probably
illiterate', says one gag.
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