The Question of Biblical Manliness

Some Kind of Christian recently posted a really interesting article about men and Bible. This is my response to his post. :)


"I really like this post! It hits on something I lament about constantly in this culture: the inability for Americans to distinguish "civic religion" as you call it from real Christianity.

So what is a Biblical man? Hmmm...

The first problem I have is with the phrase “Biblical man”. The Bible is--despite the large amount of “main male characters”--actually gender neutral on spiritual lessons. The lessons God teaches men in the Bible are just as applicable to women. This is part of the charm of the Bible--that anyone from any walk of life can read it and learn something about God and how he works.

I think what’s really being asked here is “What is Christian manliness?” How can a man retain or enhance his manliness while at the same time still following Christ? The problem with these kinds of questions is they are so seeped in our cultural that it is difficult to get a true Biblical answer.

There are only two instances that I can think of off the top of my head that deal with men specifically: one is married men and the other is men in church leadership positions. Married men are to love their wives as Christ loves the church and men in leadership are held to a much higher standard than the rest of the congregation. While being married is a goal, it is not nessicary for manliness. (And Paul even encourages men who can to remain single.) We are all to mature in Christ, but that doesn’t mean we’re all gonna be church leaders some day. So even in these two things we can’t really apply them to every man.

I don’t know how to describe it exactly but there’s been a blurring of the lines in what feminine and manliness means in our culture. Men don’t know what it means to be manly because the women they look to to define that term don’t even known. So of course men will ask “What makes me a man?” (Other than the obvious male parts of the human body.)

The matter is further worsened by the fact that conservative Christianity is trying to use an idealized 1950s definition of manliness. Which for all it’s apparent perfection just deepens the confusion and causes people to ask “Well, why should we act that way? Is that even Biblical?”

In response to these types of questions you get sermons like Driscoll’s. Because the question is cultural in nature, there is no real way to answer Biblically. So rather than try, they go to long lengths to justify why they use this ‘50s idealized model of manliness. They can only do it by pulling from non-Biblical sources.

I think the real question ought to be “What makes a Biblical Christian?” Of course, that kind of question requires actual thinking about one’s faith and why we believe what we do, which makes a lot of people uncomfortable. They don’t want to know why they believe, they just want someone to tell them it’s the right thing to believe. :-/"