As I said at the beginning of this blog, Spiritual Warfare is a lost art. Pastors are either too naive to tackle it, or too sensational about it. This is a topic that's really been... burning within me as of late. This is something I really want to tackle. However, this is going to require much prayer and study, so forgive me if I don't jump on this topic right away.
As some will note, there are blogs that do worry me. Typically, these are folks who have a theology that:
A. Men have a period of extended adolescence. Said period is wrong/sinful/frowned on.
B. Men aren't committing to marriage, and are therefore sinning. Men should therefore stand in line and get a spouse lest he "deprive a wife of a husband."
C. Men should shoulder all of the responsibility/risk involved with marriage as he is head of house.
D. Men should quit complaining about these issues/"perceived" wrongs and "act like a man."
Marriage is indeed under attack, but I would argue that it suffers as much from its endorsers as it does from its detractors. Now. There's much good arguments for these. Some of these I've made and will repost here soon.
But these are not the only issues that men face. There's others that he faces in his church, such as:
A. Lack of a male rolemodel. I content that Jesus is the ultimate man, the last Adam, the final perfected blueprint of what a man should be. If a man is called to be more like His God, then emasculating him is not only unacceptable, but also crosses into the sacriligious and heretical. As Jada and I have indicated to each other many times, "The Lion of Judah is not tame... but he is good." This Lion roams about the pages of the New Testament as well as the Old, demanding that we step up and follow him. His command follow me, is not an optional, sweet platitude, but a terse command. Follow Me, and I'll make you fishers of men. That is... if you're man enough. If you're a man, you will set aside all other commitments and make them subservient to my will.
B. Lack of instruction in Spiritual Warfare. This again touches on something I've said earlier. There are no warriors to defend the community when the chips are down and the enemy is attacking.
C. The increase of the religion of the nice. War is ugly. Sometimes Jesus isn't that nice, sweet, cosmic boyfriend we sing about. So why in the name of all that is holy, do we profess to be part of a religion of nice? Jesus wouldn't say that. Jesus wouldn't do that. Jesus wouldn't carry a gun. Jesus wouldn't be judgmental. Hogwash. If Jesus showed up on the doorstep of our churches, we'd toss him out for being too unChristlike.
D. The expectation that a man's masculinity is checked at the door. You're going to sing something that sounds like Michael Bolton, hear about feelings and listen to a monologue that you're expected to take notes on, shake hands with people you have no intention of meeting with after service and will probably never see again. And worse, you don't do these things, you're a bad church goers. A bad Christian. Blue Haired ladies will frown and shake their finger at you. I know. I've been there. I've had those glares.
These are the views that the church has typically espoused for the past... say twenty years or so. (There's good scholarship that can show this going back further. For further study, I'm going to give a cheap and shameless plug for "Why Men Hate Going to Church" by David Murrow.)
And then there's society, which tends to espouse the view that men are nothing more than stupid oafs, searching for the next woman to bed, liars, cheaters, manipulators and abusers of all things feminine. Is it any wonder I don't watch TV anymore?
This is what a man faces, day in, day out. He has little hope that things will change. Why? Because society has marred his rightful place of headship, making him little more than a Jester, corporations have become little more than endorsed, legal slavery and his church has all but cast him out of the public square, telling him that he doesn't measure up. Is it any wonder that men are more likely to commit suicide than women?
The fact is, that men have a place given to Him by God as head of House. God has given him a purpose (to subdue the earth) without which a man dies. And God has given to him the one thing that matters more than anything else, something that all men should remember in these dark times. God created Man in the image of God. That image was never revoked, but it was marred. And this image can only be repaired and renewed by the Last Adam, who has given to men the responsibility of Following Christ and to worship him. That act of worship is service.
Man has a noble destiny. A great adventure and journey is set before him. The question is whether or not you will pick up your armor, your sword and begin to train. That's why the training grounds exist. That's why the church should exist.
But perhaps, I'm not making myself clear. For those who relate to stories, then the next post will be for you. I can only hope that I will be clear.
1 comment:
Thought-provoking! And I agree with you on most of it. I have a minor quibble about the phrase "subdue the earth", however. It allows too much of the presentday connotation of "exploit the earth." So maybe, "husband the earth" in the old-fashioned sense of husband: caring for, working with, drawing the harvest from.
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