The Mighty Meekness of Masculinity: Part 3 - Overlap, Not Exclusion

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Last week we discussed the way in which male and female are similar, both are fundamentally image bears of God and thus equal indignity, nobility, value, and so forth. And this I said was the revolutionary idea introduced to the ancient world. That male and female are equal and have more in common than we have differences. And it's important to establish that truth before exploring what might be more controversial to our modern world. That male and female are also different, that there is an immutable difference to what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman. That is what the rest of the podcast series will be devoted to. More specifically what it means to be a man in all of his glory and responsibility. However, after some questions and conversations this week, I believe I need one more episode to further develop what I discussed last week. I promise we will get to the differences. That's the whole point of this series, so that's where it's been more of our time. But we need to be really, really careful how we define those differences. So if you will indulge me one more brief episode before we consider what the gender differences are, I want to make sure you hear me say what the differences are not. It might seem like I am qualifying myself to death here. But because gender is so culturally contentious, I actually do want to qualify myself a lot. I do want to be careful. I want to be nuanced and precise, so that nobody is hearing what I'm not saying. That's important to me, not to avoid controversy and criticism. I knew what I was getting into with this series. Instead, what I think the nuance and precision might demonstrate is perhaps the idea of a male-female distinction, isn't as controversial as we assume. This our aversion to gender differences is actually appropriate, because we might just be resisting cultural stereotypes, in which case our objections aren't actually against God's design, but against unbiblical caricatures of gender that we have socially constructed. Meaning maybe we're not disagreeing with what the Bible says about gender. We're disagreeing with what we have done to gender. In my experience, that's often the case. If you will recall last week, I suggested that the Christian concept of male and female can be viewed as a Venn diagram, so picture two overlapping circles, a male circle and a female circle that are overlapping, and they share more in common, while also retaining their own unique male-female spaces. I contrasted this with the ancient world, which was just one circle that was only male, and then in our modern world, gender is also just one circle occupied by both male and female without any distinction. In fact, there must be no distinctions, because distinctions imply inequality according to the predominant ideology of our time. We are left with a bland homogenous view of gender, where we are afraid to suggest what has always been obvious, and frankly is still obvious outside the Western context, which is men and women are different. But again, we must be really careful how we define those differences. So careful, in fact, that I'm using another episode just to say what I'm not saying before saying what I intend to say. So in the 1980s, a new theological term called complementarianism was popularized, and the idea was to hold the biblical balance that the sexes are both equal and different, precisely what I'm arguing for in the series. Centarianism was an attempt to recapture gender distinctions that feminism sought to erase, while also rejecting the gender hierarchy that feminism sought to protest. So gender compliments became the theological imagery. And this I would agree with. I could nitpick it a little bit. I actually prefer harmony more than compliments for a variety of reasons that we'll discuss, and also just feel like candidly we miss an incredible alliteration opportunity to contrast hierarchy with harmony, but I digress. I am fine with complementarian label. I'm a complementarian Protestant evangelical, if you want to call me that. As a complementarian, here is my insider critique of complementarianism. When you read the literature from the late 20th century, whether the popular level essays and books from folks like James Dobson and Focus on the Family, or the more scholarly theological works such as recovering biblical manhood and womanhood, that's kind of the definitive text of complementarianism, recovering biblical manhood and womanhood edited by John Piper and Wayne Grudem. Both the popular and the academic literature, I believe, share the same weakness. It seems they are more influenced by post-industrial gender norms and stereotypes than they're willing to met. I think there might be a little bit more of a 1950s post-World War II American culture gender stereotype influence than scripture and Christian tradition, meaning the theology is good, but when the theology gets fleshed out into anecdotes and applications, it seems to me, complementarianism can often replicate cultural stereotypes shaped by the Industrial Revolution that we're going to spend an entire podcast discussing. So back to our diagrams. The ancient world was one circle that was only male. The modern world is one circle that is male and female indistinguishable. I think complementarianism, if it's not careful, becomes one circle with a line right down the middle. God's image is cleanly divided in half. On one side, you have a bunch of cultural male stereotypes. On the other, you have cultural female stereotypes, and any form of crossover is viewed as a form of compromise. It's like on the male side, you have the rational, and on the female, you have emotional. On the male, you have assertive. On the female, you have responsive. On the male, you have provision, and on the female, you have affection. You get the point. Male and female exist as a cleanly divided binary of gender stereotypes. But my argument with the overlapping circles idea is that God's image revealed and male and female is not as clean as conservative evangelicals have made it out to be. There's just room for so much overlap. Yes, there are differences, and I promise we will get to the differences. But my point in this episode is to make sure we are not overstating and exaggerating those differences. Let me turn to scripture to show you what I mean. Let's start with biblical womanhood. What I'm trying to do here is show how the Bible does not fit neatly into cultural gender stereotypes here in America. We're going to start with biblical womanhood, and the go-to passage, of course, that comes to mind is Proverbs 31. But have you ever considered? Proverbs 31 in detail, because what emerges are characteristics that we culturally tend to associate with masculinity. Let me just read some highlights. Verse 13, "She seeks wool and flax and works with willing hands. She is like the ships of the merchant and she brings her food from afar. She rises while it is yet night and provides food for her household and portions for her maidens." So this is hard working tenacity and strength to provide for her family. I thought being the provider was only the male's role. Continue on, verse 16, "She considers a field and buys it, so she is an investor. With the fruit of her hand, she plants an entire vineyard, she is a farmer. She dresses herself with strength and makes her arms strong." So in both her countenance and literally her body, she is strong. She perceives that her merchandise is profitable. So she's a savvy entrepreneur, I guess, you could say. She opens her hands to the poor and reaches out her hands to the needy. So she's on the front lines fighting the cause of justice and mercy. Strength and dignity are her clothing and she laughs at the time to come. So this picture of steady strength and confident in the face of adversity and resolve, no matter what is on the horizon, laughing at whatever may come her way. I thought men were supposed to be that. This is the steady, confident pioneer leader type. Verse 26, "She opens her mouth with wisdom." I thought men were the wise one and women were the more emotional ones. Anyway, you get my point with what I'm trying to do here. The very go-to passage on womanhood, we literally call it the Proverbs 31 woman. But when you actually read and consider the description of the Proverbs 31 woman, it sounds like stereotypes we tend to describe to men in our culture. Okay, now let's turn to biblical masculinity. We don't have the equivalent of Proverbs 31 passage for manhood. But of course we do have Jesus, I think it's safe to rely upon Jesus as a paradigm. And Dane Orland wrote a fantastic book called "Gental and Lowly" that I recommend to you. And the premise of the book is built off this one fascinating observation that there's only one time when we are let in on the heart of Jesus. We know a lot about the words and the deeds of Jesus, but what about the heart of Jesus? What I will use is the heart to speak of our truest self, the way we would refer to as heart of hearts. So what is Jesus like in his heart of hearts? Here we only have one verse. Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laid in and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and lowly in heart. Is that not amazing? This is the sovereign omnipotent creator of heaven and earth, the eternal judge of the living and the dead. I think that qualifies as alpha male status. In fact, he is referred to as the alpha in the Omega. But when the alpha's heart is unveiled, we find gentle and lowly. Now we are going to return to that seeming paradox of strength that is gentle of glory that is lowly or as I entitled this series, mighty meekness. We will return to that seeming paradox which becomes our paradigm for masculinity. But for now I am just making the point that gentle and lowly, though furthest thing from what comes to mind when we think of stereotypical masculinity in our culture, is precisely how Jesus chooses to describe his very heart. And by the way, Jesus demanded similar hearts of his male disciples who would become his apostles. What kind of men did he expect the future leaders of the church to be? The poor and spirit. Not the stereotypical hotty men, the poor and spirit. Those who mourn, not the tough, rugged, stiff upper lit men, those who mourn, peacemakers. I thought men were troublemakers. No, he wants peacemakers. Those who are persecuted, who even pray for and bless their enemies. I thought men were fighters, warriors, defeat the enemy, not bless the enemy. Do you see what I mean in all this? I promise we are going to get to what it means to be a man according to God's design. But whatever it is, it clearly is not our culture stereotypical man. Even the Apostle Paul, a lot of critics of Christianity like to pit Jesus and Paul against each other. Jesus was the gentle, loving, bless your enemies, religious founder, but then Paul hijacked the Jesus movement into a more aggressive, militant, even misogynistic religion. But here's Paul's commandment, to men, the leaders of the church, clothe yourself with compassionate hearts, kindness, meekness, patience, and above all love. Or consider the nature of Paul's trash talking. That's what men do, right? They self-promote, they self-exalt, they talk trash. Here's Paul's trash talk. If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. And when Paul describes his own ministry, he says this. We did not seek glory from people, whether from you or from others. And then listen to this. Instead, we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children. Is there room in your vision of biblical masculinity for if I'm going to talk trash, I'm going to brag about my weakness. If you're going to experience me, you're going to experience me as gentle like a nursing mother taking care of her own children. Is there room in your vision of biblical masculinity for that? There is room for it in my gender, then diagram that you're getting really tired of me talking about. A promise will move. And by the way, spare me the Kamala Harris texts and jokes, that apparently shared this affinity for then diagrams. I promise I'm moving past my diagrams here, okay? But it illustrates an important point. Gender is not a clean binary with male stereotypes on one side and female stereotypes on the other. That's cultural gender, not biblical gender. And my concern for those of us in the conservative evangelical tradition is that in trying to defend God's design for gender, we might be overstating gender differences, exaggerating gender differences. We might be trying to recapture an American culture that was lost rather than Eden's culture that was lost. When complementarians use the language of recovering biblical manhood, we must make sure that what we are trying to recover is not post-war 1950s industrialized American culture manhood. Know what we seek to recover is Genesis 1 and 2. We're seeking to recover Eden's manhood. But what is that? We could talk all day. We could just keep doing episodes, qualifying about what God's design for masculinity isn't. But what is it? That's where we're heading next week. But as a preview of sorts, let me just suggest that you already know what it is. If indeed there is a glorious and deliable, undeniable God ordained, true, beautiful and good design for masculinity. That is foundational to God's created order. If that's true, then in a sense you don't have to define it. You'll just know it when you see it, when you encounter it, when you experience it. A good man is impossible to miss. It doesn't want to be noticed, but he is unmistakable. Sadly, in this fallen, cruel world of masculine failure, chances are you may not have many examples to turn to from your story. But if there is even just one, then you know exactly what I'm talking about. You know that there is almost nothing better in this world than a good man. That's not hyperbole. According to Genesis 1 and 2, there is nothing better in all of creation than a man who is as yacht to be. Next week I'm going to do my best to explain exactly what that is, what is the goodness that we experience in the presence of a good man. That's where we're heading, but for now enjoy your holiday weekend, actually I guess this is getting posted on Monday, so I hope you enjoyed your Fourth of July weekend and we'll be back next week for another episode of Every Square Inch. (upbeat music)