Neal was here

Tuesday, August 22nd, 2006 at 3:42 pm
Posted in Editorials, Journal
80 views

There’s not enough man in Christianity today. It’s way too feminine for it’s own good. Observe this:

http://twotalentliving.com/

A great site, with great materials, and great resources (probably.. I failed to read much of it). But it’s so feminine. Girls, go enjoy the site. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work for me. Granted, it’s created and maintained by a woman, but it seems the standard often feels the same in many of our churches and the expectations placed on ‘men’ in church.

I’m not saying there aren’t real men in church; there are. I’m not saying that these values are bad; they’re quite good. I just am not a fan of the idea that to be a real Christian man, you must be this tame, mild toned, extremely passive individual.

Just for kicks, I ran a google search for images of Jesus – all boring! Jesus had his days of passive calm and sorrow, but he also had his days of laughter and anger and even got very aggressive from time to time, especially with the pharisees. I found a solitary picture of Jesus in any sort of excited or angry pose:

It’s a rarity, and I think I like that one. I think I could follow that guy. I also found this good one of him laughing:

The article that goes with it follows my point. I like what they say about Peter. There’s no way this guy would want to hang out with the pansy guy Jesus that gets portrayed a lot in paintings.

Clearly this is not a new idea; books, articles, sermons have all been written about it. Clearly we all know this. But apparently we from time to time need to be reminded that being a little aggressive and even loud is occassionaly a good thing.