The Toxic War on Masculinity & Unity In God's Image
Man, life sure can be messy sometimes. I often think that if I follow God's instruction, my life will surely be filled with abundant blessings and minimal mess. In this thinking, I reveal my own ignorance and lack of wisdom. Before I sat down to write this week’s post, I was reading the introduction to the book of Job and the story of a righteous man who ended up suffering greatly, and no amount of logic could explain his suffering. It is frustrating that sometimes we will have no answer on this earth for why things happen the way they do in life.
My chief prayer in this season of life is that I may grow in wisdom and knowledge. I find myself in a place where I love to learn and study a wide variety of subjects, and so I find myself in a place where I am growing in knowledge (the things I know), but just because I am growing in the things I know it does not necessarily mean that I am growing in wisdom. I have heard it said like this.
“Wisdom is knowledge applied”
I aim to grow my knowledge to learn how and where to apply it to my life. So that I don’t live a life where I know much but do nothing with the things I am learning. There is a running joke among some of my friends. This joke was born from a moment when I said something to a friend along the lines of “I’ll be praying for your conviction.” It was intended as a joke, as she had been unable to attend church due to personal circumstances. Through a series of events, this became an inside joke where we would repeat the line, “I’ll pray for your conviction.”
As I meditate on this joke, I pray for conviction for myself: that I may have a spirit of conviction that when I do or say something wrong, I may feel conviction for it and that I can grow from that conviction and become better. I pray this also applies to my thinking when I learn new things through the podcasts I listen to or the books that I read so that I may take the knowledge of those things and apply them to myself. Another thing I have heard that I want to apply is this.
“I want to be someone with strong convictions loosely held”
As anyone who knows me will say, I am someone with strong convictions, convictions that I will and have often voiced those convictions in ignorance of how they may be perceived and received. With these strong convictions, it can be and is easy to become defensive when someone challenges those beliefs and even more so when someone challenges and proves me wrong.
What I learned this week
As I shared in previous writing, I have been wrestling with the question, what does it mean to be a good man? How do I know if I am a good man? What does it mean to be a Biblically Masculine man? With all these questions in mind, when I saw Lila Rose had done a podcast asking questions on Manhood, I was instantly intrigued.
Lila interviews an author whose work I have previously read. Nancy R. Pearcy, author of the book “Love Thy Body,” speaks in this podcast about her newest book, “The Toxic War on Masculinity,” with a fantastic subtitle, “How Christianity Reconciles The Sexes.” As I listened to this podcast, I found it incredibly intriguing, so much so that I instantly went and bought Nancy’s book. Hearing these two godly women discuss this subject was both encouraging and convicting. And soon, I would find the same to be true of the book.
The Toxic War on Masculinity
I have about an hour and a half left of this fourteen-and-a-half-hour audiobook. Going into this book, I wanted to hear how today’s society is one that is intentionally denigrating men and telling them they are the root cause of society’s problems. This book does this, but I wasn’t expecting to feel a lot of personal conviction on many of my strongly held convictions being challenged as unbiblical.
I recently finished another book called “Nation of Victims” by Ramaswamy Vivek
In this book, Vivek does a fantastic job of detailing how a victim mindset can be incredibly seductive, and as I read Nancy’s book on Masculinity, I had to realize within myself there was a place in my heart that wanted to be told that many of my convictions and beliefs were warranted. I had to look in the mirror and ask how does this apply to me.
This is something that is known as “confirmation bias.” We all have a desire to have someone affirm our beliefs. This is why it is often so appealing to tell someone of all our woes, but when they provide insight into our errors, we distance ourselves from them as it is by our fallen nature unappealing to have someone challenge our preexisting beliefs. As I continued reading Nancy’s book on Masculinity, I was continually challenged to reconsider my beliefs and biases. As I read the book, I frequently had to pause it, sit in silence, and ponder these convictions. I won’t detail all of these new-found convictions today as I continue to wrestle through them and consider how I can grow from them.
As I mentioned above, I love the subtitle of this book, “How Christianity Reconciles The Sexes,” because there is a cultural tension that exists between the sexes today. And Nancy does an impeccable job of giving a history lesson of its origin. A tension that began with the fall, when man and woman rebelled against God and thus became separated from Him. But also became separated from one another in a way that has created a battle between the sexes, a battle where man blamed woman and woman blamed man. I don’t know if, historically, the tension has existed to the degree that it does today, but if our marriage rates and divorce statistics are to be believed, then it hasn’t been this bad in “recorded history.”
As I’ve been meditating on this, I have asked the question, “What can I do?” The reality is that this tension will exist until the end of time; it began with the fall, and it will be with us until all things are made right once more when Jesus returns. But that does not give license for me to throw up my hands and give up and not try to make things better. I don’t know what exactly that means for me, but a part of that is to talk about it, be willing to have a hard conversation, take the lead and admit when I am wrong, and be willing to listen even when I don’t think I am.
Many conversations today surround an “epidemic of loneliness” and how we are the most connected generation in human history and yet the loneliest. God said at the beginning, “It is not good for Man to be alone.” In context, God referred to Adam as having no helpmate or one to co-labor with. I also don’t think this is meant as a call to EVERYONE to get married, as Paul writes that some are not called to marriage and that this is a good thing. But I think that for most people, we are still being called to the first great commission from God to be fruitful and multiply and to subdue the earth.
And many satanic messages today are speaking against this commission from God. Many young people today are being brainwashed to believe that there are too many people on the planet or that we as a species are a cancer to the planet. And if that tactic doesn’t work, then they are convinced that this world is too wicked and evil to bring a child into it. And if that still doesn’t work, the devil does everything he can to corrupt and pervert God’s design. Children who are raised in a home by a loving mother and father who are committed to one another and who love and serve God because those children are the single greatest threat to the kingdom of darkness.
In this book, Nancy writes the following:
“There are some characteristics of God that men can best learn from women, just as there are some characteristics of God that women can best learn from men”
As I read this, I had to relisten to it a dozen times over and then write it down as I spent time just thinking through this idea. Nancy follows this idea up with a quote from Darrell Miller, who writes in “Nurturing the Nations,” (a book now on my reading list)
“When we believe that the man is superior to the woman, then we deny learning the characteristics of God that are most fully manifest in women.”
And the reverse is true as well. Both these quotes deeply resonated with me. There is an incredible lesson for me to learn in the patient love of a mother with her screaming child. I have watched my sister patiently love her screaming 18-month-old daughter long after my patience would have run dry. I have seen the same from my Mother as well. The capacity to love and nurture children and people when they are often the least loveable is truly a manifestation of God’s character in women. So, too, the natural instinct of men to willingly lay down their lives in defense of others is a manifestation of God’s character, as seen perfectly in Jesus Christ.
Men and women are each bearers of God’s image. Separated, we naturally only reflect a part of His character, but united, we become capable of more fully reflecting God in this world.
In my mind, I imagine it like this: when separated, men look into a rippling pond and can see a fuzzy reflection of God’s image, and so do women. But when they are united, the water calms, and as they stand together looking in, they can see God’s reflection more clearly and more fully, each bringing a piece/peace to the turbulent waters.
