Abraham, Sodom and the Gospel of Jack Black

“liberalism,” def.: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, disapproves of your sexual proclivities.

It was no minor miracle.  Last night I persuaded my wife to watch Year One, a comedy starring Jack Black and Michael Cera.  In it two primitive tribesmen leave their village only to find themselves in the midst of biblical salvation history.   The poop jokes abounding throughout the film were, predictably, hilarious.  My wife’s reaction to the humor was, predictably, cool.  What the two of us could agree on in any case was Year One‘s utter disregard for the Genesis narrative.

In the movie the two protagonists run into Abraham, who is in the process of sacrificing Isaac.  Isaac is a mouthy, sex-crazed profligate, so it’s understandable why the father of all nations wants to slay the youngster.  When Black and Cera break up the would-be sacrifice, Abraham believes it to be divine intervention, and the two men are taken into the Hebrew clan.  Of course, the people of Abraham practice all manner of deviant behavior: his daughter is a lesbian, another son practices buggery.  A few scenes later Abraham gets it in his mind that he must circumcise every male among him, not so much for covenantal purposes as for a quasi-religious way to address sexual lust.  Throughout the visit to the proto-Israelite camp, Black and Cera endure Abraham’s diatribes against the people of Sodom.  The sexually depraved Sodomites are a people hideous to the prudish Abraham, and loathing for them drips from his mouth.

Casting the biblical patriarch as a sexually repressed sadist makes sense only in the gospel of Jack Black.  Denial of any personal liberty represents sin.  Numerous freaks lie along the path to wholeness, but the real problem are the puritanical.   Deliverance comes in the form of antiauthoritarian expression and the genuine friendship of those who condone one’s animalistic passions (which turns out to be the overtly didactic conclusion of Year One). 

The flick got me thinking about Abraham’s masculine identity, in any case.  If he didn’t establish his gendered self-identity as a pathologically aggressive killjoy, then how did he?  Of course, there is something to be said about his slippery personality when it came to interacting with pharoahs (Gen 12) and kings (Gen 20), not to mention his passive but self-serving attentiveness to his own wife (Gen 16).  More positively, he lives into his calling to be a blessing to the nations (Gen 12:2-3).  In stark contradition to Year One, Abraham is wholly on the side of Sodom.  He saves their people from wholesale defeat and slavery (Gen 14).  When the LORD intends to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, it is Abraham who comes to their rescue, interceding on their behalf (Gen 18).  That is to say, Abraham’s posture is not one of self-righteous condescension at all, but one of deep and abiding hospitality.

In the end, Abraham does far better than tolerate the Sodomites.  He intervenes for them who are so remote from the divine covenant.  That is a form of friendship quite impossible for Year One, caught in its haze of blasphemy and methane, to comprehend.

The Ultimate Men’s Summit, June 10-19

Later this month we’ll witness the most ambitious attempt so far to recapture the glory years of the mythopoetic men’s movement.  The Ultimate Men’s Summit, happening online from the 10th to the 19th, will showcase over 75 presenters and field questions via telecom.  The line-up is a veritable who’s who in men’s work: Sam Keen, Warren Farrell, Bert Hoff, Bill Kauth, Herb Goldberg and (“Leader of the Mythopoetic Men’s Movement”) Robert Bly.   I encourage you to sign up for the conference HERE.  Registration is free.

I’m looking forward to the event, though the limitations are quite apparent in my mind.  The cast is dominated by psychologists and self-help gurus.  While a couple of men’s rights people should shake things up, the therapeutic feel of the conference won’t invite too many critical questions.  The conference is being pulled together by Shift Network, an organization devoted to an “evolution of consciousness” that includes “open exchange,” “restorative cycles,” and “global spiritual pluralism.”  Therefore I can all but assure attendees that the New Age ethic of the organizers will make room for a wide array of perspectives, sexualities and social groups, though they will leave prowling on the perimeter the usual suspects: liberal feminists, conservative pundits and orthodox Christians.

Anonymous Editor Commenting on the Rev. John Wesley (1827)

His style was nervous, clear, and manly; his preaching was pathetic and persuasive; his Journals are artless and interesting; and his compositions and compilations to promote knowledge and piety, were almost innumerable.

Recovering Childhood in Worship: Two Male Leaders

Intriguing to note how male worship leaders in Evangelical Christian circles have started to lead congregations into times of childishness before God.  I don’t want to sound too biased against the trend by calling it “childish”; I simply mean that these leaders in their worship pursue a sense of renewed innocence, child-like dependence, and simple joy in the presence of God the Father.  Perhaps the phenomenon exceeds the male/female divide, but I see it led most often by male worshipers.  Let me offer two examples.

David Crowder became prominent in the late 1990s through affiliation with the Passion organization.  As one of the most creative songwriters among Evangelicals he implemented Casio keyboard loops, samples, and a keen sense for the catchier elements of independent rock.  He also worked the sound “La la la la la la” into a surprising number of songs.  What normally would have been associated with the Smurfs, Crowder was able to make into a chorus of abandonment before God.  Generally he places it at the end of a song, a kind of childish doxology of sorts, as in the concluding seconds of “O Praise Him,” or live, at the end of other songs, such as this one.  Crowder’s lyrics are relatively poignant for a modern worship writer, which may explain why he offsets the more substantial words with nonsensical sounds.  The former attunes the worshiper, the latter releases one into God’s presence.

Jason Upton, a charismatic worship leader known for a prophetic, almost militant style in the footsteps of Keith Green, has employed an even more diligent pursuit of renewed childhood.  When I saw him last in 2007, he was touring with an interesting blend of worship.  He sang some very aggressive and warlike songs.  Then, about half-way through, he described to the crowd that he had been sensing a need to “just be a child in God’s presence,” to cry out, “Abba, daddy, Father.”  Upton proceeded to lead a number of Sunday school songs and original ditties, including a song he wrote with his daughter about a dog hanging its head out of a moving car’s window.  Upton assured us that it was okay to let God give us a new innocence, that it didn’t please Him to be serious and morose all the time.

I can only offer a couple of suggestions as to what might be going on here.  Leaders like Crowder and Upton sense a need for abandonment before the Almighty.  They lead a kind of drama in worship that allows worshipers to re-chart their own value as a child, loved and protected by their Father (who probably must heal the damage done by earthly fathers).   The intensity of the worship environment needs a kind of release valve, a stepping back into the Garden of Eden (or playground), even if only for a song.  Crowder and Upton have a special ability to do this, I suspect, because they are men.  They themselves have an aura of masculine authority out of which they grant permission to others to be innocent babes again before God.  Secular rock stars have the ability to allow others to let their hair down, drink and debauch.  Male worship leaders use their charisma as entertainers to do something far more significant: identify others very overtly as children of God.

Praying to the Virgin… in a Manly Way

Even as a practicing Roman Catholic, David Calvillo had felt for years that praying the rosary was for old women.  But for men?  Manly men? 

Then, at a retreat, he went through the 59 beads (53 “Hail Marys” and six “Our Fathers”) with a large group of men.  It changed his attitude, and now he is trying to change other men’s minds about the vital importance of praying to the Virgin Mother. 

Calvillo, himself an accountant (and champion of his fantasy football league, he is quick to mention), encourages men to take up their rosary as part of the solid platform for being a godly man.  Praying to Mary, rather than being a capitulation to feminine power, is actually “a weapon of spiritual warfare” to help men overcome their temptations (Wall Street Journal, 2 Apr 2010, A5). 

Catholic men are taking notice, sometimes trading in their unused, feminine beads for newer, manlier ones.  One man has made a rosary out of ball bearings.  One manufacturer has come up with novelty designs for boys, including a rosary with football-shaped beads.  Calvillo, who himself has been known to use an iPhone rosary application, sells products and encourages this masculine subculture on his web site, RealMenPraytheRosary.org

Tall and Bearded: Augustine on the Resurrected Male Body

Early Christian theologians were concerned to maintain a real sense of continuity between this life and the next.  If the resurrection of the flesh meant that the male/female differentiation was erased, then it stood to reason that men and women should downplay their gendered characteristics here in their earthly life.  That was not an option for those trying to preserve a gendered hierarchy.  Patristics scholars have done work on what how the theological argument was addressed toward women.   I want to offer a few ideas on the resurrected male body in Augustine’s City of God.

Augustine of Hippo in the 5th century addressed the doctrine of the resurrection of the flesh, which was widely held in Christian communities but still considered scandalous by many.  In book 22 of City of God he addresses many of these objections and misconceptions, including the idea that the resurrection would mean an elimination of maleness and femaleness.  Not so, says the bishop.  They retain their bodies, including the genitals and basic bodily features.

One preserved feature of the male body is its size.  Augustine defends the resurrection of infants and children, claiming that God will fulfill their full bodily stature according to the “seminal principle” in them (22.13-15).  They will be raised in the full bloom of youth, around age thirty perhaps, after the model of Christ.  But does that imply that all be raised after the pattern of Christ in a very literal sense, viz., Jesus’ exact size?  Men and women would then all be the same height and weight.  Augustine does not allow this, claiming that the preservation of the fleshly material in the resurrection will not permit men with large mass to be raised without their full stature (22:14).  They will, presumably, be taller than women.  The sheer physical ratio is kept in the eschaton.

Beauty is also valued prized by Augustine, and he mentions male bodies as possessing this beauty in a very ornamental way.  Women’s bodies will be beautiful too, beautiful in a way that “excites praise” rather than lusts (22:17).  Their breasts and vaginas and wombs will be aesthetically pleasing in a pure way, not desired for pleasure or function.  Nevertheless, it seems that Augustine highlights even more strongly men’s bodies as those possessing beauty.  In particular, men are raised with their nipples and beards and rough skin (22.24).  Since these features do not serve any real function, thus unnecessary to the human constitution (as proved by the fact that women’s bodies are different), nipples and beards and rough skin are to be understood as ornamental, as beautiful adjuncts to the resurrection body. 

In short, the male body in Augustine’s vision of the resurrection holds onto key masculine features.  Whether the basic size of the male body or its decorative aspects, it is to be raised powerful and beautiful, and celebrated as distinctly male.

Choosing Tiger Woods’ New Image

Tiger Woods finally appeared last Friday to read a prepared statement.  In the formal apology, he confessed his “irresponsible and selfish behavior,” especially his affairs.  He had felt “entitled” to various “temptations,” but now Woods claimed that he has come to realize that he doesn’t “get to play by different rules.”

So true.   Tiger will no longer have the luxury of getting to carve his own path through the athletic world any more.  He’ll need to slip into one of the more tried and true paths for male celebrity athletes.  Let me start with three more conventional types.

Mr. Ferocious.  Tiger has never had a golden relationship with the media, and getting thrown under the bus by them since November hasn’t helped.  He could try to conjure up all that competitive rage and market it, much like he did on the recent cover of Vanity Fair.  Woods knows how to throw himself into golf.  He knows how to issue the icy glare.  Now simply make an industry out of it, like Barry Bonds or Ty Cobb.  A lot of us have hated to love Tiger; now make us love to hate you.

Mr. Damaged.  Woods spent a total of 45 days in rehab for undisclosed issues, though those certainly include sexual addiction.  Enough celebrities have gone through that process to add him to the long line of the self-abused.  He could come out from this as someone who, always a little red-eyed, has that look of “I know what hell is like, man, I’ve been there.”  John Mayer has taken this tormented path, however unconvincingly.  But Woods actually has reason to bemoan his own estate.  Most of his big contracts are history.  Elin appears ready to ditch him.  He has mortified his own flesh since this incident, and has even thrown in a little bit of martyr (“I just want to keep my private life private”) and family coverer (“[Elin] never hit me that night or any other night”).  Playing the sufferer won’t get him back the big contracts, but it seems to play out of Wood’s strengths. 

Mr. Upstanding.  I’m not talking about an untouchable image – that was the very thing that got him into trouble in the first place.  I’m talking about becoming the warm and amiable figures so abundant on the PGA tour in the first place.  Become a gentleman.  A back-slapping country club member.  The neighbor who lends you his mower.  This has been the bread and butter mold for everyone from Brett Favre to Jack Nicklaus.  People like to be around you.  Unfortunately, Tiger has been a recluse for so long, relatively uninterested in others.

That said, Woods has hinted at one other possibility which would be rather unconventional coming from his particular situation.  On to a novel #4…

Mr. Religious.  This one can be tricky, as most religious figures tend to be the A.C. Greens and the Tim Tebows of the sporting world, those who haven’t fallen from grace.  But Tiger might have enough notoriety to become the exception, to become the redeemed sinner – Buddhist style.  In a daring move, Woods told the press, “Part of following this path for me is Buddhism, which my mother taught me at a young age. People probably don’t realize it, but I was raised a Buddhist, and I actively practiced my faith from childhood until I drifted away from it in recent years.  Buddhism teaches that a craving for things outside ourselves causes an unhappy and pointless search for security.  It teaches me to stop following every impulse and to learn restraint. Obviously, I lost track of what I was taught.”  Spirituality would restore some countering “balance” to his professional life, claimed Woods.  We do not yet have any outspoken, restored Buddhists on the golf course.  Yet.

Take your pick, Tiger, and step up to the tee.

William Herschel on Talking One’s Son out of Industry and Integrity

Richard Holmes, in his fine book about the years following the British Enlightenment, Age of Wonder, describes a series of correspondence between the renowned astronomer William Herschel and his son, John (pp.387-390).  Even beneath his father’s enormous shadow, John had done pretty well for himself, becoming a Fellow at Cambridge University and achieving some advances in calculus that appeared to be supplanting Newtonian theory of fluxions. 

He wrote to his famous father in 1813, explaining that, out of a sense of obligation to acquire an independent livelihood, he would pursue either research in pure mathematics at Cambridge, or become a lawyer in London.  William Herschel took this news poorly, writing back that it would be “crooked, tortuous and precarious” to forsake the “superior” studies afforded John over his life.  Clearly these sciences were not nearly adventurous or practical enough in the mind of William. 

Surprisingly enough, William recommended in the place of mathematics or law a career in the Anglican priesthood.  This must have sounded ludicrous to John, as neither he nor his father had much interest in Christianity.  But according to William, “A clergyman… has time for the attainment of the more elegant branches of literature, for poetry, for music, for drawing, for natural history, for short and pleasant excursions of travelling, for being acquainted with the spirit of the law of his country, for history, for political economy, for mathematics, for astronomy, for metaphysics, and for being an author upon any one subject in which… [he is] qualified to excell.”

A bewildered John responded that he hardly believed any Anglican doctrine, but an inveterate William kept pushing.  Without concern for his son’s religious integrity, he again wrote, saying, “The most conscientious clergyman may preach a sermon full of sound morality, and no one will enquire into theological studies.” Unsurprisingly, John was horrified at this.  Was his father discouraging him from self-reliance in an occupation and encouraging him to live hypocritically? What manner of manhood was this?

Only after the threat of a total breach of relationship did William desist.  John did practice law in London after all, followed by a full Fellowship back in Cambridge.  But William would have the final victory, as John came back to the astronomical life in 1816, minding his father’s telescope. 

It hardly seems believable that a father would talk his son out of a life of industry and integrity, which were in other circles (and to this day are) marks of manhood.  For the new nobility of 19^th century Great Britain, however, industry and integrity were hardly virtues.  They were the explorers, the speculators, the scientists and professors.  Such men were above mere labor or repose, religion or morality.  They were reaching for the stars – and no self-respecting father of this caliber would have it otherwise for his son.

Christians Who Drink Beer

Historians will look back on the years 2000-20 someday and call it the Second Age of Muscular Christianity.  Quote me on it.  Let me unpack at least one aspect of this phenomenon: beer-drinking Christian men.

A decade ago a seminarian explained to me how there are three types of PKs (pastors’ kids) in the world: PK-A, the obedient child, PK-B, the outright rebellious child, and PK-C, the child who knows how to be rebellious but chooses to live mostly (mostly) within the bounds of the PK-A lifestyle, that is, Christians Who Drink Beer.  For him the mark of cultural engagement and anti-legalistic assertion involved whether or not one went to the pub.  The coincidence is almost too uncanny: the same rule is now applying to the other PKs, Promise Keepers.

Now in 2010 the pattern seems to true, especially for Protestant men.  Former “nice boys” and Promise Keepers attendees, they now look to buck the restraint associated with Victorian morality and fundamentalistic codes.  The new Muscular Christians are showing their rough side… by throwing down a couple of cold ones.  Preferably stouts.  For instance, hipster pastor Mark Driscoll writes in Radical Reformission how light beer is a sin – a claim that could be taken figuratively until one considers that he helps to sponsor a brewing club at Mars Hill Church in Seattle.   Meanwhile, John Eldredge, a light beer hater himself, encourages men to disregard legalistic conventions and follow their wild heart (or stomach?).  Attempts to follow this injunction in the beer department have led to some funny results.

Not that Muscular Christians encourage drunkenness.  They do not.  Rather, a more regal form of hold-your-liquor masculinity applies here.  Don’t drink too much.  And no matter how much beer you imbibe, don’t let it compromise your self-will.  Remember, we’re PK-Cs here.

One final example.  A friend who works for Campus Crusade in Utah tells me that drinking beer has become a standard way for Evangelical men to distinguish themselves from the Mormons.  The teetotalling LDS guys don’t dare assert themselves that way, and pretty much have the squeaky-clean masculine archetype all tied up.  Which leaves wide open a handy, malty lacuna for Protestants. 

Being set apart has never been such a happy ordeal.

Coming to Die Like a Man

Yesterday, November 29, marked the season of Advent, the Christian holiday in which one anticipates the coming of the Messiah.  Because it looks forward to Jesus Christ’s final coming to deliver the world and raise the dead, Advent calls for a time of lament, grief, prophecy, and hope.  Because Advent is able to remember the time leading up to the first appearance of the Messiah, it is also a season of memory, promise, and joy. 

For Christian tradition, the Christmas season does not begin until December 25.  Accordingly, my absolute favorite album for December is Behold the Lamb of God by Andrew Peterson.  Most of the songs on the album are Advent songs, recalling the (broken) covenants of the Old Testament, and how they converge in two insignificant Jews named Mary and Joseph, and ultimately in an impoverished little boy named Jesus.  The whole album is bookended with a wonderful chorus based out of Philippians 2:

Sing out with joy for the brave little boy
Who was God, but He made Himself nothing
Well, He gave up His pride and He came here to die like a man

God is brave! – when men are cowards.  God is humble! - when men have spurned the covenant with their pride.  The mystery of God’s incarnation in this man Jesus Christ blows apart every category, including what it means to act “like a man.”