Exploring Masculine Christianity: Challenging Feminism and Embracing Responsibility

Introduction

Twenty-six weeks of weekly posting, and halfway through my first year of being Thirty. When I was younger, I always thought that those who were in their thirties just seemed to have it all figured out, and maybe everyone else in their thirties does. But I know I definitely do not. The older I get, the more questions I have, the more I realize how much I don’t know, and the more I want to learn about the things I don’t know. One of my favorite podcasters, Chris Williamson, has this mantra of “learning out loud,” which is an idea I can very much resonate with. As I continue to learn, I wrestle with new concepts and ideas, and I try to figure out how or if they apply to me and if they are grounded in the truth.

This week, I sat down and began reading a new book called “Masculine Christianity” by Zach M. Garris; as I read through this book, I found that many of the ideas that he introduced that I agree with his conclusions, but I often struggle with how he presents them. This is a book that many would call politically incorrect and offensive. It is a book that speaks outrightly against feminism and speaks of its corrosive effects on today’s culture as well as the modern church. As I’ve read this book, I have found myself offended in different areas. But then, the modern notion of being offended is an interesting thing to me. Many today seem to think that it is some form of evil to be offended, but if I am never offended, then I will never really learn anything because I don’t allow my previously held beliefs to be challenged.

This notion that no one should ever have to suffer being offended is truly silly. We have so little mental fortitude today that we have to have safe spaces created to make someone feel “safe” when they hear something that they may disagree with or make them feel uncomfortable. We are held hostage by someone’s subjective response to what they hear. We no longer believe in the classic adage, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” Today, there is a culture that seems to believe something more like “sticks and stones may break my bones, and your words will kill me.” We have so little mental fortitude that we all have to go to therapy for perceived offenses made by someone that we have never met.

So, let it be known when I write: my goal is never to offend. My goal is only that I honestly and truthfully exhort the things that I have observed, and then, through this public medium, I share my thoughts and observations, allowing them to be challenged even as I am challenged and often corrected. I do not hide my opinions, nor do I hide from the challenges others cast at the opinions I do share. I maintain the conviction I have previously shared that I want to be a man with strong convictions loosely held. What this means to me is that if you can present me with good evidence that my beliefs are wrong, then I will concede and adapt my beliefs accordingly. Often I will do this writhing and squirming because I naturally want to be right. But I would rather have my beliefs be based on uncomfortable truths than on pretty lies.

Masculine Christiainty

In this book, which I have not yet finished, Zachary M. Garris has a lot to say about feminism, a subject I have personally spent a lot of time trying to understand as it has increasingly become a movement of hatred and superiority with the #killallmen being something that has trended on the internet, or baby clothes that say “The future is female.” This is not a new hatred, only one that has come to the forefront of the movement. I am not writing anything that is a new observation; I am only writing it in my own words. For decades, men and women alike have written about the corrosive force that is feminism and its hatred for men but, even greater, its hatred for the family.

One of the founders of Feminism, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, had this to say about men during her women's suffrage convention in Washington DC

"The male element is a destructive force, stern, selfish, aggrandizing, loving war, violence, conquest, acquisition, breeding in the material and moral world alike discord, disorder, disease, and death."

This was a first-wave feminist. She is credited as one of its founders. My hope is to learn more about her story and understand what her childhood looked like. I suspect that she came from a broken home with an abusive father. I say this fully ignorant of her story. I am only observing the woman she was historically and the views she held.

As I read through this book, “Masculine Christianity,” Zach takes aim at men and their responsibility in the birth of this movement. I do not quote him directly as the point is explained over multiple pages, but in essence, his claim is that men are at fault for feminism. Just as Adam was held responsible for the sin of Eve in the garden, so too today, men are responsible for the continued proliferation of feminism. It is the result of lazy, apathetic men who refuse to lead their families and instead choose to pursue their personal desires and appetites and relinquish their God-given responsibility to lead. It is men who have abandoned responsibility in pursuit of selfish freedom rather than selfless sacrifice.

I have often thought of that moment in the Garden of Eden, in that fateful moment when Eve ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam was there with her, and he did nothing. He did not stand up and counsel his wife in the commands of the Lord, as was his duty to lead and protect her. But instead, he joined her in rebellion against God’s command. And when God calls on them to give an account for their rebellion, it is not Eve whom God called upon; it is Adam. God made Adam to lead his wife, but in that fateful moment, Adam chose to abdicate his role of leadership. It is not a popular notion today that men are supposed to take the lead and that men are supposed to be the head of the house, and yet if we wish to abide by the will of God and follow His design and mandates, then there is no escaping this fact.

The sad truth is that historically, many men have abused this calling, become tyrants of their house rather than sacrificial leaders who choose to die to themselves daily, as Christ demonstrated for us. Men are called to love their wives as Christ loved the church. Ephesians 5:25: The good man does not seek first what is good for him, but he seeks what is good for those whom he loves. The good man sees his desires and his wants as secondary to those of his wife and children.

But what of the unmarried man? This is a question I have asked myself as I am yet unmarried, and I want to strive to be a “good man” not according to the standard of the world but the standard of the Bible. I want to fulfill my calling in all seasons of life. So the question for me is, what is God’s expectation of the unmarried man? If I were to distill it down to a single phrase from all I have learned thus far, it would be this: “Take Responsibility.”

Learn to take responsibility for yourself, and learn to take full accountability for every word you speak and every action you take. Then, as you do that, learn to help others carry their cross. And then carry the cross abdicated and abandoned by others. This is what it means to care for the Widow and the Orphan; it is to carry the cross of those who can not yet carry it themselves or by themselves. It is to be the father to the fatherless. It is to be a provider to the widow. We are called to be like Christ, and we are called to emulate Him. This means we, too, must carry a cross that may not be rightly ours but one that we have willfully submitted to God, saying, “This one I will carry.”

Thank you for listening or reading to yet another entry into this public journal of mine. If you are willing, I would greatly appreciate it if you would subscribe or consider sharing with a friend.