Real Life Sanctification: The Century-Old Dilemma of Guys and Sports

As I said a few days ago, I think that when we're talking about sanctification, the progressive growth in grace of the Christian, we need to start with the deeper, higher truths and then carefully but energetically proceed to the workings of everyday life. After all, it is in the cracks of life, the details, the nitty-gritty, that our sanctification is worked out. Much as we might think otherwise, our growth in grace centers not so much in Sunday School, but in how we apply the teachings of Sunday School (or preaching, or our theological reading) to everyday life. We spend way, way more time practically applying our views on sanctification than we do thinking about them.

Am I denigrating theology and the study of it? Not in the least. I'm merely trying to point out to an audience who shades reformed and theologically concerned that while we must richly feed ourselves rich Christian teaching, we must work very hard to break that teaching down and allow it to shape the hum and drum of daily living. Armed with such a mindset, we'll be far less quick to categorize thoughtful reflection on life as "legalism" and far quicker to examine our everyday decisions in the light of higher theology. So with all this said, what should we do about the problem--and I think it is one--of guys and sports? How are we to handle the sports culture and its effect on the church? How can we extricate even thoughtful Christian men (and women, to some extent, but the burden here is on men) from athletic idolatry?

We need first to square with this problem. For young men like myself, for the twenty- and thirtysomething age bracket, we've got to recognize that we grew up in an era in which sports and the celebration of sports figures exploded in the popular media. Boys like myself who grew up in the age of Jordan, Sampras, and Gretzky were exposed to nothing less than glorification of these athletes and many like them. In a society drifting from the port of Judeo-Christian belief and accompanying emphasis on traditional principles like masculine responsibility, traditional commitments to family, church, and society, and important pursuits, sports filled a waiting vacuum. It didn't rise out of nothing. No, it mixed with celebrity culture, entertainment frenzy, and image-driven personhood to shape the modern mind and life. Match these factors with an economy fairly bursting with life and you end up with the sociological marvel that is modern sport. No longer played merely for fun, mostly among friends, and without transcendence, athletics in the last thirty years have become, in the minds of many men, the highest end of life.

Perhaps someone out there scoffs at that rather bold assertion. Well, then, conduct this little experiment: go to a grammar school and ask the little boys what they want to be. Then get back to me. I'm pretty confident that you'll find that the psyche of these little boys has already absorbed on a breathtaking level the transcendence, the importance, of sport. For these boys, and for the men they become, there is almost nothing greater than leading one's team to glory, and than etching one's name in the record books while doing it. Were the Greek poet-historians alive today, they would not celebrate and eulogize the warrior, but the athlete. Of course, we don't need the Greeks--we've got Nike commercials to do this for us. Honestly, some of the most moving moments of my recent life have been had while watching commercials about silly little games and the people who play them. It's not that I wanted to feel moved by these paens to commercialism and the people who fuel it, it's that it's nearly impossible not to feel moved while Nike matches gorgeous slow motion shots with orchestral music. In these little 30-second spots, one discovers the story, the power, the pathos, of modern sport.

Okay, so what does all this mean for we who claim Christ? It means that, if we're men and thereby generally (not, of course, exclusively) inclined to competition and the pursuit of glory, then we're going to feel the pull of modern sports. Furthermore, it means that they're going to tempt us to sacrifice our families, our work, our societies, our sleep patterns, our bodies, our vacations, our conversations, for athletics. Can there be any positive value in sports for men? Surely. It can help men to bond, for example, and relax, and have fun, all things that are good within limits. But can sports get way out of hand for the average Christian guy? Can he--despite what he might think in his mind--fall prey to the cultural obsession with sports, and so compromise in varied ways his walk with Christ? I think that he can. I think that he, on a major scale, does.

I'm not presenting myself as immune to this problem. I'm not. I play basketball a couple of times a week and love it. But I often come home conflicted and sometimes bruised. I sometimes struggle to damp down my competitive streak when the game stops, and I'm aware that continual damage to my body will harm my ability to enjoy such blessings as grandchildren, Lord willing, in the future. So I don't have this all figured out, either in theory or in practice. However, I can see at the very least that I have caught the cultural bug. Left to my own devices, bereft of the Holy Spirit, I could easily go head-over-heels in pursuit of sports. This propensity allows me to see this tendency not only in myself but in other men of God. How many of us stay up too late to watch games, thereby compromising our care of our families? How many of us bruise our bodies week after week, thinking little about the unimportance of such activity (however much we might think differently in the moment) and its long-term effect? How many of us think about how much sports sap our care for our wife, our attention to our children, our hunger for the Word? I'm convinced that many of us struggle in these ways and many more, and that one of the single greatest temptations of your average Christian guy today is to properly balance athletics in a sports-obsessed world.

What do we need, then, if we can see that we are imbalanced? We need accountability. We need the church. We need people asking us hard questions and perhaps giving us direct rebuke for our bad habits. We need to talk about sports with other guys in our churches and to see if we share common struggles. Then, we need to take action. We need our pastors to remember that sanctification is almost never a 30,000 foot issue in the Scripture, but is routinely brought to the ground level of behavior. Therefore, we need pastors who keep in mind the fact that many men (and some women) are obsessed with sports, and need to extricate themselves from sin in this respect. We need to bring up our boys in homes where sports are nothing more than games, things that we can and may well engage in, but that are never, ever construed as being transcendently or even moderately important. They simply aren't. We need fathers to model such a mindset in their own lives by making lots and lots of small, hard choices--to turn the tv off, to resist glorifying an athlete merely for talent, to wax endlessly about mere games.

There is nothing wrong with enjoying sports. It can be a good gift of God. It can bring men together, it can create and deepen friendships, it can bring health to bodies. But we must never let the gift become transcendent. It is not. Instead, we must devote ourselves to God, to healthy fellowship in His church, to devoted care for our wives and children, and allow sports to rest in their proper place, alongside other diversions. We may enjoy them, but we must not let them master us, as they do so many other men. The good of so many around is at stake on issues just like this--men, how will we respond?

Wimps, Goofballs, and Thugs: Deconstructing Contemporary Masculine Stereotypes with Salvo Magazine

Note: this piece is cross-posted today at CBMW's GenderBlog.

A recent Salvo Magazine piece by S. T. Karnick, "Girly Men: The Media's Attack on Masculinity", lays out three stereotypical masculine images found in contemporary culture. Here's Karnick's distillation of the roles currently available to men in American society:

"(T)he war against boys seems to have created three main character patterns for the adult male of our time: sensitive guys who want to please women; weenies and dorks who want only to be left alone to drink beer and play video games with their dork buddies; and thugs who, in rebellion against their unnatural education, are perpetually concerned with proving their toughness through increasingly loutish behavior. There are, of course, examples of decent, positively masculine males in the culture, but they are becoming increasingly overwhelmed by the products of educational and cultural feminization."

Each of these characters depresses us, even as we realize that they are not fully imperfect. The sensitive man, after all, is something of a reaction to the cold, emotionless "Lone Ranger" type of man popularized by actors like John Wayne and Clint Eastwood. The sensitive man represents a cultural attempt, then, to correct John Wayne masculinity. Where his father or grandfather never wept, never talked much, never said "I love you", the sensitive male weeps readily, chatters away, and reassures anyone within earshot of his love. In seeking an emotionally alive masculinity the sensitive man seems to have sped past "properly balanced emotional life" and landed in the once-foreign land of "traditionally feminine ways of speaking and feeling". The Christian man stands ready to lend him his roadmap.

However off-base this quest may be, at least the sensitive man seeks to go somewhere. The same can not be said for our goofball. Like other useful items strewn around his room in his parent's home, he could not find a sense of self-control, of shame, if offered a cash reward for it. Where men used to define themselves by taking responsibility, by making money, seeking a wife, fathering children, and so on, various factors changed all this. The rise of collegiate culture unimpeded by institutional Christianity, the booming of anonymous cities that allowed for familial escape, and the rise of the playboy bachelor in the post-World War Two era mixed with the rebellious 1960s to explode responsible masculinity. With that, the man-child was born, and so too a major missiological challenge.

The third group--the thugs--represents a reaction against each of these stereotypes. More accurately, perhaps, this third group is a subgroup of the first. This type of man prizes action, not talk, unlike both the sensitive man and the goofball. This is the kind of man who exalts deeds, not words, who would rather talk with his fists than his mouth. Though all three of these perversions of true manhood have existed throughout human history, this type has caused the most damage, at least physically. Your conquerors, your tyrants, your bullies from high school? They fit here. Driven by pride, motivated by glory and the opinions of others, this group, when unrestrained, possesses the power to cause great harm to others.

If many contemporary men fall into these three rather frightening categories, how are local churches to respond? First, by affirming the element of goodness found in each type. Men of the Bible are by no means silent or unemotional. The father of the prodigal son, for example, weeps openly and deservedly when his son returns home (see Luke 15:11-32). Christ Himself wept when He heard of Lazarus's death (John 11:35). Christ was compassionate, tender, gentle, and merciful throughout the course of His ministry. So we ought to be a balance of strength and gentleness, not either/or. On the other hand, it's a bit difficult to find the goodness in the goofball, frankly. With that said, we can appreciate the way in which this type lives honestly and often happily, enjoying the arts, sports, music, and more. Perhaps this cultural pattern of manhood shows us that men do not need to be grim and dour to be truly masculine. As with sensitivity, we need to work hard to strike a balance here, but we can surely recognize that the Bible affirms a balanced, happy life--see Ecclesiastes for more on that. The Christian man ought to be responsible, but he ought also to be happy.

The thug, for his part, shows us that men were not meant to be wimps. We were meant to be strong, to the best of our capability, and to use that strength for the betterment of others. The patriarchs worked the land, and they worked it hard, in order to provide for their families. Death was a constant threat--to worship in Israel in many ages was to worship with a sword on the belt. Christ Himself stormed through the temple, turning over tables, scourging the wicked. In His second coming, He will arrive as the Warrior-King. Therefore, as men, we should realize that to be a man is to harness one's natural strength, energy, and agency for the betterment of others, namely, one's family, church, and brothers and sisters.

We see, then, that there is a fourth model: the redeemed leader, whose type we derive from the Bible. In a sense, this fourth model is a composite of the earlier three types--or rather, the three types are all realized in Christ, the God-man, whose model is elaborated in the Bible. We must not let our children learn what it is to be a man--or a woman, of course!--from MTV, or Hollywood, or the NBA. No, we must embody robust, godly masculinity in our churches. This starts with a pastor who embodies biblical manhood and who then teaches men to do the same. A full commitment must be made to teaching men the rudiments of biblical masculinity--Proverbs, the Gospels, 2 Timothy come to mind here.

Churches must thus teach men not to be feminine in matters of communication and emotion, not to shirk responsibility and maturity, not to mistreat and abuse others, but to emulate the Savior. When churches train men in this way, fathers will trains their sons, leading to sea changes in Christian culture. The pastor is important, but he trains only one family directly. Every Christian church, however, has many fathers, and it is up to them in an earthly sense to determine whether they will raise men of Christ or men of culture. It is not too much to say that all of the above, all of the preceding discussion, rises or falls with the simple matter of what a father teaches his family, what models he holds up before them, and how he lives out that teaching.

Will our boys be wimps, goofballs, thugs--or will they be a fourth type: Christian leaders according to the dictates of Scripture? The answer depends not on what the culture says, not on what it parades before us on television, but on the conception of man that we teach, that we exalt, and that we embody before the eyes that are always watching, the hearts that are always taking shape and form.

taking shape and form.

The Week-est Link, March 28. 2008: Blogging Tournaments, Disney World, Blog Gems, and Violence

1. Whew. It's been quite a week here at consumed. This little blog has seen a relative avalanche of comments due to some controverted content. I'm really thankful for those who have weighed in, and it was interesting to hear another side of the Billy Wolfe saga. Thanks again to everyone who wrote in. I don't have time to respond to comments, but I read every one of them, and I'm often pushed to think by them (as you can tell if you read my frequent follow-up posts).

2. Said at Southern has a terrific March Madness-like contest going on right now (replete with brackets and all!) that has the dual purpose of 1) finding out which SAS-related blog is the big dog on the block and 2) giving exposure to unknown bloggers and linking them to better-known bloggers. It's a terrific idea, though Tony Kummer and Timmy Brister are known for terrific ideas. The "Madness" is in its second round, and somehow, inconceivably, consumed made it to the second round. Sadly, folks, we're currently getting smashed. Oh well--I suppose this blog is something like NCAA cinderella Siena. At least, like them, we made it to the second round!

3. Together for the Gospel has multiple videos up from the 2006 conference. They will be well worth the time it takes to load and watch them. I was there to witness most of this content in person, and I can say that it made an impact on me. Less than three weeks to go 'til 08!

4. Slate ran a hilarious series exploring the weird sub-galaxy of Disney World this week. Not everything is nice (or rated PG), and I don't love the paranoid, mocking nature of some of the author's writing, but he also unearths some pretty realistic insights about this strange place. I don't know about you, but animatronic robots give me the absolute creeps.

5. Introducing a new feature on this blog: "Blog Gems". I want to bring to your attention worthy blogs that you may not have heard of. I'll do this on Fridays, and I'll generally only give you one link so as not to water this feature down. Today's Blog Gem: Redeeming History, a blog written by Trinity Evangelical Divinity School PhD Student Mark Rogers. This blog, written by a very sharp Historical Theology student, is devoted to spreading the riches of Christian history. It is well-written, well-researched, and spiritually profitable. Mark is a good friend and a future scholar, and I could not encourage you more to check out his young but very good blog. I may not have many readers or much "virtual clout", but many people have been very kind to me in giving my blog attention (Tony, Timmy, Justin Taylor), and I want to extend that kindness to others. Email me at owendstrachan [at] yahoo.com if you think you might qualify here.

6. Last words on the violence issue (I promise). Let's cut to the chase: I think it's rather foolish to think that one needs to watch shows devoted to acts of brutal, needless violence in order to train one's son to be a robustly masculine protector. We need not freak out about violence, but neither should we think that the worst iterations of it (i.e., meaningless, needless violence) serve as the best instructors of our children. That's just silly. If you want to cultivate a strong man, a good man, a man who knows his body and can use it for good, train him in biblical truth. Teach him. Show him how to use his body. Wrestle with him. Teach him about safe, bounded, harmless (relatively) violence. Allow him to participate in contact sports, albeit those (in my opinion) that do not glorify or rely on violence (e.g., basketball, baseball). In these ways and others, you will acquaint your son with his body, teach him to use it productively (an important word, no?), and ensure that he does not equate physicality with hurting people--which so many boys today, whether Christian or otherwise, do. This is productive training.

It is silly to think that we need to expose children to bloodsport to train them up. Simply put: we do not. Our children need not be awkward, unexposed to physical contact and play, but neither do they need to love violence and crave it to be robustly masculine men and protectors of others. Those who argue along these lines are overextending the bounds of credulity, in my humble opinion (though I appreciate my friend Reid's thoughtful piece on this subject, even if we do come to different conclusions).

My father never watched a brutal fighting match with me, but he trained me to be a protector. I never played football, or wrestled, or watched brutal combat fights (either real or otherwise), and I never relished violence. I wasn't a wuss, though; I loved sports, and I liked some degree of contact. My father oversaw all this, and he exuded a spirit of tenderness toward the women in his life, being primarily his wife and daughter. I never had any doubt that Dad would protect us to the death, and I don't have any doubt that I would do the same for my family. I am thankful that he did not think that I had to become hungry for brutality to develop this instinct. He didn't think that, and I didn't need it. I simply needed what we all need: an unapologetically masculine, physically capable, compassionate man in my life, showing me on a daily basis what it means to be a strong but restrained, able but careful, manly but gentle man of God.

That, and not any form of violence-glorifying media, is what we need more of. Not UFC, but good dads. Not TKOs, but good dads. Not wrestling that hurts, or football that brings concussions, or chest-beating fury, but good, godly, wise, masculine dads.

Further Thoughts on Guys, Fighting, and Needless Violence

There have been some great comments on recent posts. Thanks to all who have written in with thoughtful things to say. Even when folks have disagreed with me, they've been charitable and reasonable.

I'll focus today on how Christians might understand needless violence. With pursuits like football, or backyard boxing, or karate, how are we to think as Christians about these things? Let me first say that I don't think that there is an easy answer here. In other words, I am not assuming that I have everything figured out, and that in thinking about this topic, all gray areas have been peeled away and I am now in a position to clarify the black area and the white area regarding this topic. Simply put--I'm not. There is a significant amount of gray area relative to the topic of "needless violence". For example, I play pickup basketball. It is not as violent or physical as is football or boxing, but it does involve physical contact, and thus in playing it, I run a higher risk of injury than I do if I simply stay home and exercise. With all of us, then, there are areas that cannot easily be defined as right and wrong; we are in one in this discussion.

Having said all that, I'm still game to try and come up with a framework for thinking through these matters. I start, as I did yesterday, with noting that it is fundamentally a good thing for a man to prepare his body for defense of self and family. I am not a pacifist, and I do not think that the New Testament teaches pacifism, but readers should note that neither do I sneer at it. It is true (however much we might like it to be otherwise) that there is no explicit command (that I know of) in the NT that enjoins us to defend our families with violence. Indeed, there is much material that does call us to peace and non-violent response to provocation and even pain (Matthew 5-7, for instance). With that said, the Bible doesn't cover everything, and I think it's legitimate to defend oneself and one's family from attack. No, that's too weak. It's imperative that one do so. If self-defense, after all, is not explicitly commanded in the Word, neither is pacifistic response to attack. This is a gray area, and I think that we have freedom to defend ourselves and our families from attack.

It is important, then, that men take the time and effort to make their bodies ready for defense and also for utility around the home. I don't have a specific verse to point to here, but it's a shameful thing when an able-bodied, physically capable man allows his body to become weak and flabby due to gluttony, laziness, and irresponsibility. We may joke about it, but if our homes were attacked, if our wife's purse were snatched, if our families were threatened with violence, would we be able to respond? In my humble opinion, men should take care of their bodies, exercise regularly, and make themselves strong (to a reasonable extent, of course) for the purpose of protecting and caring for their families. Get a BowFlex, join a gym, run three times a week, do pushups--exercise doesn't have to be fancy or even that long to be profitable.

Moving on to the matter of needless violence, we're all going to have to use our minds on this one. We'll need to think hard about our involvement in pastimes that could hurt our bodies and damage our ability to physically care for our families. There's no code to refer to here, and the Bible has very little to say on this matter, directly. It is my own personal conviction that I will play sports that have a relatively low degree of contact and possibility of injury. I personally would not box with other men. Concussions can come fairly easily in boxing, and I could not justify such potential injury. I need to be able to use my mind for the rest of my life, and I cannot see how risking long-term injury for no purpose fits in with responsible Christian headship. I am able to get the exercise and exhaust the energy I have in far less dangerous pursuits. If I am involved in a football game, I will always advocate for touch or flag-football. It may be fun to tackle (though it's not for shrimps like me), but let's face it: most of us twentysomething guys are getting old, and we can easily get injured from tackle football. With something like karate, I'm fine with it, personally. I don't know a ton about it, but if one does karate carefully and for the purpose of self-defense, I think that's fine.

But with things like mixed martial-arts, we're in another category. Yes, the church needs more testosterone--that is true, and if you read this blog for more than a day, you'll see that I argue just that, if in a nuanced way (I hope). But we don't need to lift up bloodletting and physical pain and needless violence to encourage a culture of masculine leadership. If we do so, I think that we're making a mistake. The authors of the New Testament do not teach us that physical exercise is of huge value--they teach us that it is of little (1 Tim. 4:8). It is possible for us to be so captured by the idea of a masculine pastorate that we go well beyond the categories of the New Testament and make requirements of our leaders that it simply does not make. While encouraging men to take care of themselves, to seek to live long by eating well and exercising much for the benefit of others, and to be robustly, unapologetically masculine, we must be very careful not to exceed scripture and think that our pastors must be capable of beating people up. If that is the requirement, friends, I have clearly misperceived my call.

On the matter of what entertainment we watch, some commenters made good points. I can honestly say that I am probably not as careful on this point as I could be. We should be careful about reveling in violence. In a violence-saturated society, sometimes it's hard to see that we are doing so. I'm sure that I'm sometimes guilty of this, and those who have pointed out this potential hypocrisy in me and others have made a good and worthy point.

Thanks to all who wrote in. Let's continue this discussion in days to come.

Segregated Education: The New York Times Considers the Same-Sex Education Issue

I came across an interesting and lengthy piece by Elizabeth Weil in the New York Times which tackles the question of whether single-sex education is a beneficial and justifiable educational option. I worked for eighteen months on research for a book on manhood and thus found the article compelling. I'll give you a few key sections from it.

Here are the results from over 2,000 studies on whether same-sex schooling offers students a better education:

"In 2005, the United States Department of Education, along with the American Institute for Research, tried to weigh in, publishing a meta-analysis comparing single-sex and coed schooling. The authors started out with 2,221 citations on the subject that they then whittled down to 40 usable studies. Yet even those 40 studies did not yield strong results: 41 percent favored single-sex schools, 45 percent found no positive or negative effects for either single-sex or coed schools, 6 percent were mixed (meaning they found positive results for one gender but not the other) and 8 percent favored coed schools. This meta-analysis is part of a larger project by the Department of Education being led by Cornelius Riordan, a Providence College professor. He explained to me that such muddled findings are the norm for education research on school effects."

The students who most benefit from same-sex schools are generally disadvantaged:

"That certainly appears to be the case for single-sex schools. The data do not suggest that they’re clearly better for all kids. Nor do they suggest that they’re worse. The most concrete findings from the research on single-sex schools come from studies of Catholic schools, which have a long history of single-sex education, and suggest that while single-sex schools may not have much of an impact on the educational achievement of white, middle-class boys, they do measurably benefit poor and minority students. According to Riordan, disadvantaged students at single-sex schools have higher scores on standardized math, reading, science and civics tests than their counterparts in coed schools."

Some wonder if the same-sex education project doesn't compromise essential principles of American education:

"Given the myriad ways in which our schools are failing, it may be hard to remember that public schools were intended not only to instruct children in reading and math but also to teach them commonality, tolerance and what it means to be American. “When you segregate, by any means, you lose some of that,” says Richard Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation. “Even if one could prove that sending a kid off to his or her own school based on religion or race or ethnicity or gender did a little bit better job of raising the academic skills for workers in the economy, there’s also the issue of trying to create tolerant citizens in a democracy.”

I won't comment at length on the piece. There are far too many questions to consider for a blog of this length (and depth). I will say quickly that it is clear that Weil is skeptical (highly) about the effects of same-sex education. The piece is written from that slant. I would also say that it is not immediately clear to me that it has been proved that same-sex education is in fact better for boys and girls than coed education. The first quotation illustrates the difficult time researchers have had attempting to figure this question out. However, I can also say that I myself do not subscribe to a worldview in which my beliefs must be based in verifiable science. That is to say, I do not use the scientific method to determine what I believe. I do not need a study to make me believe everything I hold to be true. Some things I believe have been backed up by science and some have not. This does not cause me to lose much sleep because I know that science is itself imperfect, that research findings are no sure thing and are constantly disputed, and that even with its power to empirically substantiate or disprove science is not equipped to answer the larger metaphysical questions of life. While I am interested, then, in what studies have to say about varying forms of education, I do not feel the need to rely on them to make my own educational decisions.

Furthermore, it is interesting that even as Weil makes a case in this article for the lack of positive proof for theories of same-sex education, she manages to provide at least some empirical verification for this educational model. Did you catch that? Look at the first quotation--41 percent of studies favored the single-sex model while only 8 percent (!) favored the coed model. Yes, there is a large percentage of data that offers neither a negative or positive judgment on educational models, but we should not allow Weil to skim over the fact that the single-sex model achieved five times the level of educational satisfaction--or whatever the term is--that coed education did. Even as Weil's skill with the pen and ability to present two sides of a story seems to prove her side of the case, the data she cites point in exactly the opposite direction, though it requires further clarification.

It is interesting as well to note one liberal writer's political philosophy butt up against her philosophy of gender. Did you see that one? The third paragraph, that which closes the article, pushes us to remember that education is, after all, about teaching things like tolerance, and thus the implicit point made is that coed education is best. And yet just a few paragraphs earlier Weil has said, with uncharacteristic clarity, that single-sex education most benefits disadvantaged youth from minority backgrounds. This is a fascinating quagmire. A liberal view of social justice runs headlong into a liberal view of education, and the result is strewn all across one's web page. Where is Weil's heart for the disadvantaged? If single-sex education benefits the American disadvantaged, the group whose cause papers like the New York Times seek to champion, why would single-sex education not be embraced? Because of this: gender ideology runs very deep in Weil and in our society. Nothing is so sacred, it seems, as holding on to a view of gender--and, accordingly, of a coed classroom--that preserves feminist ideology. One is sad for the disadvantaged contingent who stand to benefit from single-sex classrooms. They are poised to reap great help from their schools, but may never receive it because of ideology that refuses the truth even when it stares it in the face.

Christians have a stake in this debate. The issues are many and difficult. Of course, many among us would question the underlying assumption of Weil's article, that the state should educate our children. Christians will go different routes on this question, but it can be hoped that we will train our children in such a way that they are allowed to succeed. For us, ideology will not--must not--trump truth. Though I cannot point definitively to a study that proves it, it seems clear to me that boys and girls will benefit hugely from being in environments that allow their particular traits to run free. I don't know about you, but I don't need a scientific study to tell me that, on average, boys are far more active than girls in school and require a good deal more attention than girls. I don't know why this is; I didn't make things this way. But my lack of knowledge does not refute my personal experience and the experience of countless others who educate and raise children according to biblical principles and a basic commitment to common sense. I don't by any means think that a coed classroom is evil, and I do not seek to demonize it, but neither do I think for a moment that the educational experience is not greatly improved by classrooms in which boys and girls do not worry about one another, make statements according to how the opposite sex will respond, and bother one another, all products of a coed classroom.

In a world that allows flawed ideology to drive its educational institutions, we Christians must educate our children well and commonsensically. More than this, though, we must stand beside our children and train them up in the faith, whether they are home-schooled or educated outside of the home. Whether they are in a coed classroom, a home-school basement, or a number of other environs, we must ensure that we do not cede theological, philosophical, and intellectual instruction of our children to the lost among us. The ideological battles over education discussed in this article may seem esoteric, but they have a clear and powerful impact on those who must bear their consequences: children.

When a Trailer Park is Just Right, Part Two: Responding to Thoughtful Comments on the Issue

I wasn't planning on writing more about this issue, but the comments from yesterday's post were so thoughtful that I thought it necessary to do so. To all who responded, I really appreciated your thoughtful comments. I'll interact with them briefly below in an edited form, and you (and others) can feel free to respond back.

Anonymous 1: "From a woman's perspective, I wouldn't care if we lived in a trailer, but I would feel very poor for the lack of my husband's time and energy at home if he was pouring himself into 2 jobs. I know provision is a big drive for men, but for women emotional security is more important than financial security. I don't care HOW we live, as long as it is together and the quality of our time together is real. When the focus becomes work for whatever reason, then the marriage relationship can so easily become a case of two ships passing in the night. I think the definition of provision needs to include spiritual and emotional provision, and centre less around money."

Anonymous friend, you make good points here. Please note that I would concur in not wanting to pit emotional security against financial security, and that I was not attempting to encourage men to do so. What you and I are saying is not unrelated. I think that you might have misread me such that you think that I am saying that a man should work as much as possible to provide as much possible because I understand this to be a man's role. This is not what I am saying. I am saying that I believe that Scripture calls a man to provide for his own. If he must tax himself to do so, then so be it. But I am nowhere encouraging men to work so much that they have little home life. No, a man should work hard such that his family has shelter and food and a certain level of comfort. These are the basic needs of life, and anyone who does not so provide for his family is worse than a pagan. (1 Tim. 5:8)

Depending on what a man does, this may mean some long hours, and that may in turn mean a loss of time with family. The basic needs of shelter and food are so significant to a biblical definition of manhood, though, that according to the Bible, this man is acting rightly, even if we can all agree that the situation is less than ideal. The "two jobs and a trailer" lifestyle is not the model, and I would hope that it would be the uncommon exception rather than the rule. It may, however, be necessary in some situations, and though that is regrettable on one level, the man who cares in such a way for his family is honoring God, though he must still strive with all his might to emotionally care for his family.

You and I have significant agreement which could be confused in this discussion. I actually explicitly encouraged men not to work in such a way that their home life was compromised. The ideal, as I can see it, is for a man to both provide well for his family and have significant time with them. A man should attain all the training he can, all the education he can, in order to fit himself for a vocation (or calling) that uses his God-given gifts and that enables him to meet his family's material needs while giving him much time to spend with them. He should then go out and work and meet his family's material needs but do so, ideally, in such a way that he can cherish, care for, and disciple his wife and raise his children in the fear and admonition of the Lord by means of a loving, gentle, courageous spirit.


Kyle E.: "How do you pursue your Ph.D. studies and uphold providing at the same time? I experience the tension between study and work right now too--I'm a 2nd year M.Div. at Trinity. Thanks!"

Kyle, how nice to get a comment from a fellow TEDS student. I appreciate it, and thanks for writing on this humble little slice of the web. The easy answer is this: there is no easy answer! For me, providing for my family to this point in my life has meant a pretty busy life. My MDiv at Southern Seminary was a whirlwind for my wife and me. We existed in that "non-ideal" realm I mentioned above. It was difficult, and there was no getting around that. At the same time, though, we did what we had to do. We needed to pay bills, put food on the table, and be able to save a bit for the future, and so I worked, and my wife worked, though she did so to supplement our income and not because she had to. I would have been happy for us to have less money and for her to be home, but she was fine with working at that time, and so she did.

Essentially, I worked seven days a week for a year and a half. Monday through Friday I had work and class (four of them, and I did the language-intensive track), Saturday I caught up on the homework I couldn't do most weeknights due to the need to spend time with my wife (and due also to my own exhaustion), and Sunday I did work in between church services. It was a blistering pace, and I thank the Lord that we are out of it. That's one of the realities of certain seasons of life like that which the MDiv brings for most of us seminarians--I don't really see any way to remove some level of difficulty and hardship. If you stretch it out, you're in school forever and you can't minister like you want to. If you speed it up, you put your family through the grinder (if, it could be hoped, for a brief time). I chose as the head of my home to go hard and fast through seminary, and though it was hard and less than ideal, I think it was the right choice.

My PhD and job are actually more manageable than my MDiv and job. I'm not sure that's normal, but that's how it worked out for us. Whatever taxing degree program one is in, though, one has to commit oneself as a man to working hard for the good of his family, to taking the load on his own shoulders, and not placing it on his wife's shoulders (particularly when kids enter the equation). For me and many friends I knew, that meant long nights, sleepy days, and less time than we would have liked with our dear families. In the end, though, one makes it out, and perhaps the next season is all the sweeter for what one has just come through. Maybe that is the Lord's gift to us.


Anon. 2: "I worked two full time jobs and lived in an apartment in an old building so that my wife could be a full time caregiver. If only she had considered me and her son to be more important than television and drugs, it might have been worth it."

Anonymous (number two), I am so sorry to hear this. I don't know if I know you, but this sounds like a heartbreaking situation. If you are a Christian, I can only say to you that your hard work was honorable to the Lord, and will be rewarded, I am sure, on the last day. If you are not a believer, I commend you for your commitment to your family, and would encourage you to consider another costly example of sacrificial love--the love of Christ. This love will save your soul even as it frees you to forgive those who have caused you great pain on this earth.

Thanks to the commenters. Please note that I do not present this matter as uncomplicated, as neat-and-clean. As the responders have noted, the duty of masculine provision will often involve seasons of difficulty and hardship. Sacrifices will perhaps be called for. God never promises us that doing the right thing means that our lives will be neat and clean. No, doing the right thing often means the opposite. Difficulty must not turn us away from truth, however. More than this, it must not turn us away from joyful service in God's name. Whatever comes, we must gloss all our work with the remembrance that what we do, we do for God. That may sometimes be our only reward, but that is all the reward we need, is it not?

When a Trailer Park is Just Right: On Manhood and the Duty to Provide

"A man who really gets Ephesians 5 is the kind of man who will be willing to work two jobs and live in a trailer to enable his wife to be the primary caregiver of his children."

This line comes from a recent blog post and CBMW journal contribution by Dr. Russ Moore. I appreciated Dr. Moore's post, entitled "Pastoral Leadership and the Gender Issue: What Does Courage Look Like?" Moore raised a number of good points in the brief post, but none affected me more than that made in the line quoted above. In our milieu, I would imagine that this comment would sound strange to many ears. Why on earth would anyone live in a trailer park if they don't (absolutely) have to? In a materialistic society (and a materialistic church, maybe?), there is perhaps no sharper ideological razor to be applied in making familial decisions than that of economic concerns. Ockham would (not) be proud.

What do I mean here? Simply this: many of us in American evangelicalism so prize material comfort that we will allow almost nothing to impede our pursuit of it. So, for example, when it comes down to determining such basic questions like where we will live and how we will live, we are often quite ready to sacrifice things like family time, home life, and discipleship with things like a nicer home, more cars, better accouterments. I am not against these things or a nice standard of living on their own terms, but I am against them when they compromise the quality of our family life. Somehow, we have allowed the culture to whisper into our ear and convince us that it is better to be wealthy--on whatever scale and by whatever measurement--than it is to be together. We don't realize in making this exchange that we have taken the culture and its ideals as our guide. Accordingly, we have left the Word and its wisdom behind. The Scripture teaches us that the things that truly matter cannot be measured in dollars and cents, even though many--the Proverbs famously groups the materialistic masses under the moniker "fool"--believe the opposite. They think, in their fallen condition, that it is actually better to have cars than laughs, toys than time, renovated bathrooms than healthy marriages. The result? Husbands and wives alike work themselves into the ground, and the children suffer and grow angry, and the family slowly falls apart, the cycle to be damningly repeated again a generation later.

It is in the backdrop of such tragedy that Dr. Moore makes his point, and that I concur. If we could accept a little less luxury, many of our families would know far more health than they do. If we would accept a lower standard of living, more of our mothers could mother, more of our children could flourish, and more of our churches could know a fresh level of quality by the investment of older women in the lives of young women. If we could reject the American "dream" of material prosperity and see a trailer-park or an apartment complex through gospel lenses, we would see that it is no horrible thing to live as poor people when we have a joyful, gospel-centered, God-glorifying family that pulses with love and hope. Nowhere do the biblical authors instruct us to see such circumstances as a curse. No, if God is the Lord of the home, and the husband and wife fill their roles, and the children obey their parents, then the family is rich, rich beyond the wildest dreams of the wealthy secularists up the street who has great wealth in the bank but tragically little in the heart.

Again, this is not to say that wealth is wrong. It is not, and some Christians have a great deal of it and do not allow it to compromise a healthy home. Sadly, though, many do allow earthly values to drive their decision-making and home life. This problem--and its solution--begins with the husband. If he will commit to taking on the burden of the family's finances, to providing for his home though it may cost him much, then he sets his family up to flourish. If he gives them a vision of life together that is not driven and dictated by the culture and its ideals, but a biblical vision that prizes the principles of God's Word as they relate to the home, then he charts for them a course of great blessing. With his family, he may know times of great hardship and trial. He will have difficult nights, and sleepless days. He will see others entertaining themselves more and exhausting themselves less, and he may even question the wisdom of his path. But he will turn over and over to God's Word and its vision for masculine leadership and provision, and he will know, if only by the mustard seed of faith, that if it must be, a trailer park is not only enough--it is just right.

The Goof on the Roof, and the State of Contemporary Masculinity

I was reading the Sunday edition of the Louisville Courier-Journal when I came across this news nugget in the sports pages (I googled it to find out more). Apparently, some guy in Baltimore (he doesn't deserve to be named here) camped out on the roof of a Baltimore bar as a publicity stunt until the Ravens, the city's football team, either broke their nine-game losing streak or fired their head coach. The stunt crashed when the ex-wife of the man called the police due to the man's failure to pay multiple years of child support.

So let's get this straight. This guy cares so much about the Ravens that he will sleep on the roof of a bar for weeks--in the bitter Baltimore winter--but he can't rouse himself over a multiple-year period to pay his child support? This is a situation for which no comment is worthy.

However, this is a blog, and I want to write, and you expect me to do so, and so I will. This little episode, I think, shows a great deal about the state of manhood in the current day. We have here a man so devoted to his sports team--his hobby--that he does not even support his child. This is an extreme situation, but does it not tell us something about men in the current day? We are so interested in games--the fixation of boys--that we neglect the things of men. This man is a particularly depressing spectacle, but he is one of many men in the current day who idolize games and pastimes and who neglect the basic duties of manhood, the responsibilities upon which love is held constant, children are cared for, and societies are built upon.

Not many Christian men will take their love of games to the extent that this man did. However, a story like this should cause men who very much enjoy sports--men like me--to take stock of the extent of their passion for games. It is not wrong to enjoy sports; sports can be a good gift to us if held in proper perspective; but we Christian men, who have families and churches and jobs, should take care that we do not allow sports to dominate our waking hours. We should make sure that our families come way before our pastimes. Most of us should probably turn the television off for a number of hours each week and dig in to the Word, play with our kids, and serve our churches. We cannot allow sports and games and hobbies to devour our lives, our homes, our families, as they do for so many men in America today. We have a family to lead, a wife to love, and a Lord, a Savior who gave His blood for a kingdom cause, to magnify.

The Often Destructive Nature of Masculine Competition

Those who study men know that they love to compete. In sports, relationships, cars, hair, jobs, clothes, accolades, books--you name it, men compete with one another to see who can become the most prestigious.

I found a great quotation on this phenomenon by a psychiatrist named Frank Pittman in his book Man Enough. Read it all, especially if you're a guy with competitive tendencies--you'll find that Pittman's words nail you where you're standing.

"The primary contest for grown men...is economic. Grown men are measured by the size of their net worth. And contending men, not content with merely making a living and having a life, want to improve their position in the pecking order by flashing a bigger checkbook. They can always try to steal money, or inherit it, or marry it, or win it, but most often they will try to make it through work. As long as they are working, they can feel themselves contending to finally, however belatedly, become a more alpha male in the pack.

Contenders like to believe their success is part of a contest against the other guys. Actually, of course, most work is an exercise in cooperation and teamwork, in which their competitiveness may serve them badly. I routinely see men who have failed at noncompetitive nurturing jobs, as teachers, coaches, or managers, because they found a competitive aspect they could run with and they let that overwhelm the job itself.

Contenders may just compete to see who can work longest or hardest, who can sacrifice the most. These guys stay up all night to best the competition, maybe to win the prize, maybe just to keep the competition from winning it. Those who really like to win can struggle with enthusiasm and optimism, and the game can be fun for them. But those who are desperate not to lose go through it with tortured anxiety, and with envy of whoever was relaxed and enthusiastic enough to win.

Workaholic Contenders may well love their work, but they may not love the rest of their life. They may not feel at home at home. They may find their wives and children to be distractions. Men sometimes try to convince themselves that they work so hard and make so much money for the sake of their wife and children. They can't admit to themselves that their work is just part of that old schoolyard competition with the other boys." (81-2)

Christians are redeemed, but we are not perfect. I have sadly seen alot of these competitive tendencies in the circles I've been in as a young man. Of course, to turn this on myself, I see the drive to compete--to ministerially compete, even--in myself. How many of us work late not to advance the kingdom, but to make a reputation for ourselves? How much of our attention to our papers and assignments is due to concern for working rightly before the Lord, and how much of it is due to our concern for prestige? How many of our life decisions are motivated by the desire to hold the trump card? We've got to answer these questions honestly.

When we answer them honestly, we Reformed types need to not simply shoo the spiritual ramifications away with some rejoinder like, "Well, all of life is a mix of good and bad, and our motives will never be pure, so let's just do what we do." It is of course true that we should not paralyze ourselves over our motives, but so too should we evaluate them and take action against sin when it clearly dominates our desires. If we see that competition is the main factor behind our decisions, the main influencer of our motives, and thus a huge part of our lives, then we must repent, and turn away from such action, and chart a new course for ourselves, one that does not lead us and our families to destruction.

On Spanglish, and Other Movies I Only Watch Because I'm Married

The title should clue you in as to why I would blog about a touchy-feely chick-flick like Spanglish. I have to admit that I was not exactly losing sleep in anticipation of watching this one. However, a certain Mrs. Strachan very much desired to watch it, and so, lo and behold, I am ready and available to comment on this surprising film.

Made in 2004 by director James Brooks and starring Adam Sandler, Tea Leoni, and Paz Vega, the film actually makes a number of noteworthy points. The film does so by offering the audience three-dimensional characters who each possess considerable flaws and strengths. The basic plot--a Mexican woman becomes the maid to a rich white couple--is less interesting than the characters themselves. Sandler is a talented but passive father and husband, Leoni is a narcissistic, image-obsessed wife and mom, and Vega is a traditional woman attempting to give her daughter a good life in the absence of a husband. I found the first two characters the most interesting as they reflect definite cultural realities in the current day. Sandler's character is vocationally a man but socially a boy. He possesses little strength and conviction by which to lead his household and is constantly escaping the home to blow off frustration built up by his high-strung wife, who is simply crying out (unconsciously) for her husband to lead and help her and speak hard truth to her. He fails to do so, meek and nice as he is, and she begins to cheat on him with another man, a man who is strong and confident. This is a great commentary on many men today who are so nice and meek that they have lost all conception of conviction and courage, not to mention leadership.

Leoni's character indicts American women who obsess over body image, social standing, and the approval of others. Essentially, Leoni's character is a study in what talented, strong women become when men do not lead them well and provide a good model of masculine initiative and strength. Such women become shrill and scattered, emotionally tenuous, and frustrated, albeit in a way that defies easy communication. The home looks broken to the movie's watcher, and some would conclude that both of the spouses are at fault, and there is truth to this assertion, but this is primarily an indictment of male passivity. When men abdicate their leadership role, women struggle. Placed in a role they intuitively know is not theirs (90% of Americans today still believe men to be the household head), women go back and forth between frustrated assertiveness and tearful defeat. They have no means of solving the problem on their own, because though they may well have problems of their own that contribute to their husband's passivity, they are not ultimately able to fix the problem. Only their husband can do this, and he can only do it if he realizes that according to the Bible he is to be a rock to his family, a pillar of strength, a model of leadership.

Spanglish, though it might disagree with me on the source of masculine strength, understands this point. It makes a powerful and nuanced statement in a culture awash with confusion over gender roles and basic questions of masculine and feminine identity. There are many funny scenes, nuanced characters, and good lines (and some objectionable content, so consider that), but nowhere does the film make a bigger impact than in its indictment of men for their passivity, their weakness, their boyishness, qualities which bring them--and their families--to their knees.