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| Toward a Girlie Gospel First, let me beg of the sisterhood that y’all slide the cursor off the “Create Mail” icon for just a sec and let me explain. This issue of Homiletics is the “Christmas” issue, that is, the November-December issue when we’re preaching Advent and all its related themes. But I’m writing this and you’re reading it in late September when the issue arrives on your desk. So it is no news to you that we’re right in the middle of political mating season and there’s a lot of puffery, buffoonery and name-calling going on these days. It’s an American tradition. Perhaps it was Vice President Dick Cheney and Teresa Heinz, wife of the Democratic nominee, John Kerry, who inaugurated the season with some untimely outbursts. Cheney advised Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Ver) on the floor of the staid chambers of the Senate to do something to himself that is anatomically impossible. Teresa Heinz, objecting to what she perceived to be a stupid question from a reporter — gasp! — told him to “shove it.” Perhaps the most fun recently has been in Sacramento where the Terminator Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger has been trying to get his budget passed by a Democratically-controlled legislature. When it failed to pass in July, he blamed the defeat on “girlie men” who lacked the guts to do the heavy lifting. Clearly, Arnold is from Mars; the legislature is not. As if on cue, Democrats immediately began to protest, whine and nag, thereby perpetuating the “girlie” metaphor. They are rightly fearful of the feminization of the Democratic party and the masculinization of the Republican bloc. Women tend to vote the Democratic ticket more than men, and then there was that photo of Kerry in a bunny suit at Cape Canaveral. Sports Illustrated published a poll in which a sizable plurality of voters considered George Bush more athletic than John Kerry. One could argue that we have here a cultural subconscious craving for Archie Bunker’s era when “girls were girls and men were men.” Never before have gender issues been so much front page fodder as today. And it’s spilling over into the church. Franco Zeffirelli’s Jesus is a girlie Jesus; Mel Gibson’s Jesus is a manly man. Take your pick. Now, John Eldredge, author of Wild At Heart, appears on the cover of a widely-read Christian magazine and the subhead reads: “John Eldredge thinks too many men have become timid and docile — and he’s not going to take it anymore.” Now wait just a minute while I put down my mocha latte. My question is: Do we really need to have a testosterone gospel? Do we need more macho, macho men, wounded in spirit, out to make the world safe for Wal-Mart? Hasn’t muscular Christianity done enough as it is? The irony is that Eldredge’s Ransomed Heart ministry, and Coach Bill McCartney’s Promise Keepers (and you won’t hear me knocking either one of these — I think they’ve done and are doing some good stuff) are girlie ministries. Ransomed Heart? Promise Keepers? Men bonding with other men? Group hugs? Tears and confessional confabs? I mean, come on! So are we going to opt for a girlie, or a burly gospel? The term “girlie” itself is not perceived by all as pejorative. A female acquaintance of mine was describing her children to me, saying that the one daughter was a “girlie girl,” while the other daughter was not. What she meant was that the girlie daughter, age 6, was totally into femininity — hair appearance, frilly dresses, makeup and the like, while the other daughter was — well — normal, a mix of rough and tumble and quiet sensibilities. A burly gospel? I don’t know if you can find it in the New Testament. If we were to use the Ah-nuld’s definition of girlie, you’ve got to admit that the Beatitudes, for example, are totally girlie. You’ve got your meek, your poor in spirit, your peacemakers, etc. Love your neighbor as yourself. Girlie. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul. Girlie. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another. Girlie. Totally. If any one would follow me and be my disciple, he must first deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. Okay. Burly. But, bottom line, this is silly. Men don’t need to be wild men, and women don’t need to be girlie girls. In a community of faith in which there is “no male or female” we’re called to be faithful followers, whatever our gender. Lord knows, we’ve got enough to do in the vineyard of the Lord than to worry about being too “timid or docile” or too aggressive and wild. Granted, although the leadership of the church has historically been, and continues to be, strongly masculine, the pews are occupied by women. The feminization of the church is problematic, not because women shouldn’t be in the pews, but because the absence of males vitiates the strength and ministry of the church. But this is not a gender issue; it’s a discipleship issue. As G.K. Chesterton observed, it’s not that Christianity has been tried and found wanting; it’s that Christianity has not been tried. We need more men to embrace the claims of faith, but to make that happen, we don’t need to appeal to their Neanderthal nature, but rather set before them the challenge of inheriting the earth as the meek, of hungering and thirsting after righteousness. Civil discourse seems to be a thing of the past. We live now in a culture of hate and debate. The person who shouts longest, loudest and last is the winner. We can do without this in the church. It’s distracting. Let’s call people to Christ. Period. When we do, we’ll have a church full of girlie and burly Christians, and that’s a good thing.
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