The Noted Absence of Masculine Christianity

Recently, Pastor Chase Davis wrote a series of articles (here, here, and here) on the need for a “right wing John Mark Comer.” Davis argues that Comer’s vision of spiritual formation connects with millions of modern people because it speaks to modern rootlessness and disenchantment, provides people with ritual and spiritual disciplines, and offers resources from Christian history for those who want to take their faith seriously. The problem, according to Davis, is that Comer’s vision is disembodied, sentimental, and de-masculinizing. In short, it’s spiritual formation in a therapeutic key, one that results in an enervating passivity. 

Consider something they might say, “We don’t need to try harder. We need to surrender deeper.” This kind of language is endemic in spiritual formation spaces. It sounds humble, but often functions as a dodge from repentance, mortification, and obedience. It recasts sanctification as a passive letting go, not an active fight.

Davis offers his own prescription for a “Right Wing John Mark Comer,” one that emphasizes duty over mere emotional experience and expression, agency over passivity, masculine strength over emotional flattening, and historical continuity over therapeutic novelty. But I want to extend Davis’s reflections in a different direction, and connect the dots between our view of spiritual formation, debates over worship music and style, and the controversies over Christian Nationalism (with some reflections on male friendship and youth sports thrown in for good measure). 

Comer’s Slide

Let’s begin with Comer’s recent recommendation of a book that he regards as the “biblical/exegetical knockout blow” to penal substitutionary atonement. Pop theologians have been declaring penal substitutionary atonement dead for as long as I’ve been alive, so Comer’s statement is nothing new. It does, however, vindicate Davis’s sense that Comer’s therapeutic vision of spiritual formation soft-sells sin. (A recent review of Comer’s latest book echoes this criticism). 

Comer, it seems, is sliding down the same well-worn slope as Brian McLaren and “Farewell” Rob Bell. The therapeutic gospel reframes sin as brokenness, and the angular parts of the Christian faith are pared down or buried. The sovereignty of God, penal substitutionary atonement, the exclusivity of Christ—all of these are “questioned,” “re-imagined,” or outright ignored. In fact, if my Deconstruction Train Schedule is up to date, Comer’s next stop ought to be questioning the doctrine of Hell.

Now, whenever conservative evangelicals are faced with a slide like Comer’s, they are more than ready to offer the necessary biblical and theological correctives. But I want to suggest that many of these same conservative evangelicals—the kind that believe that sin is fundamentally against a holy God, that Christ died to satisfy God’s wrath against sinners, that Christ alone saves, and Hell is real—actually have something very important in common with Comer.

The Problem of Absence

To understand precisely what, let me offer a basic claim: The problem with many theological paradigms is not what’s said, but what’s not said. It’s not the presence of certain truths or practices, but the absence of others. To illustrate, let me appear to change the subject and talk about worship music.

One of the longstanding criticisms of evangelical worship is that it is effeminate. We’re all familiar with the “Jesus-Is-My-Boyfriend” songs. More than that, even songs that may contain better lyrics still sometimes operate in the same emotional register—highly emotive and expressive, sentimental and breathy, with lots of longing, aching, and desperation expressed. 

Now, in response to such criticisms, many have pointed out that if you don’t like songs that express longing for God, take it up with the psalmist. The Psalms are filled with intense emotions, with longing for God, with tears poured out, hands clapping, and desperation expressed (not to mention repetitive choruses as in Psalm 136). And all that is very true.

But my longstanding contention is that the problem with evangelical worship is not the presence of the emotion, the longing, and the aching (in appropriate measure), but the absence of other crucial biblical elements, most notably, the martial notes of defiance, aggression, and imprecation that are scattered throughout the Bible. 

This is because the martial and masculine elements help to situate the softer and expressive ones (and vice versa). The same psalmist who prayed “My soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you” (Psalm 63:1) also prayed, “Blessed be the LORD, my rock, who trains my hands for war” (Psalm 144:1).

Consider our selective use of Psalm 139.

      O LORD, you have searched me and known me! 

            2       You know when I sit down and when I rise up; 

      you discern my thoughts from afar. 

            3       You search out my path and my lying down 

      and are acquainted with all my ways. 

            4       Even before a word is on my tongue, 

      behold, O LORD, you know it altogether. 

            5       You hem me in, behind and before, 

      and lay your hand upon me. 

            6       Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; 

      it is high; I cannot attain it. (139:1-6)

These sorts of truths are celebrated in evangelical circles. Portions of Psalm 139 regularly appear on Christian kitsch. “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well” (139:14). “How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I would count them, they are more than the sand. I awake, and I am still with you” (139:17-18). But how many evangelicals would include Psalm 139:19-22 on greeting cards or in their worship songs? 

             19      Oh that you would slay the wicked, O God! 

      O men of blood, depart from me! 

            20       They speak against you with malicious intent; 

      your enemies take your name in vain. 

            21       Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD? 

      And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? 

            22       I hate them with complete hatred; 

      I count them my enemies. 

Or take Psalm 149. I can easily imagine a modern songwriter adapting portions of Psalm 149 for evangelical worship. “Praise the Lord…Let Israel be glad in his Maker…For the Lord takes pleasure in his people; he adorns the humble with salvation…Let the godly exult in glory.” Until the middle of verse 6: 

Let the high praises of God be in their throats 

      and two-edged swords in their hands, 

            7       to execute vengeance on the nations 

      and punishments on the peoples, 

            8       to bind their kings with chains 

      and their nobles with fetters of iron, 

            9       to execute on them the judgment written! 

      This is honor for all his godly ones. 

                  Praise the LORD! 

The fact that, outside of small corners of the church that sing the whole counsel of God, few Christians can imagine singing about the honor of executing the Lord’s vengeance on his enemies is precisely my point. The issue is not what is present, but what is absent. It’s not what you can sing, but what you can’t (and never do) sing.

Moving out and applying this principle, we can reconsider Comer’s therapeutic vision of spiritual formation. The problem is not that he frames sin as brokenness and salvation as healing. The Bible does (at times) speak that way. The problem is the abandonment of sin as rebellion against a holy God and salvation as wrath-propitiation (And even if sin is acknowledged as worthy of eternal torment, it is a reluctant acknowledgment, with plenty of hemming and hawing. Angular truths are sidelined and de-emphasized (at least at first), until eventually they are abandoned altogether. So mark down the principle: the problem is not what’s present, but what’s absent.

The Trouble With Christian Nationalism

Which brings me to the trouble with Christian Nationalism. A fundamental dimension of all of the intra-Christian conflicts over “Christian Nationalism” is the legitimacy of corporate Christian agency. To be more precise, it is over corporate Christian agency, expressed in a masculine key, and applied to social life in this world.

Many are comfortable emphasizing Christian agency. Read your Bible. Pray without ceasing. Pursue personal holiness. Of course, obedience to such commands must flow from a living faith, but there are still evangelicals who have resisted the antinomian tendency to divorce justification from sanctification. There are still plenty of evangelicals who are comfortable issuing imperatives (even Comer would likely see his project as active in this sense; “practice the way of Jesus” through love and service to others, etc). 

Likewise, many evangelicals are more than ready to emphasize the corporate dimensions of the Christian faith. Don’t neglect meeting together (as long as the CDC says it’s okay). Word and sacrament with the gathered people of God. Moreover, there are plenty of evangelicals who lift up the banner of corporate Christian mission, whether in its cross-cultural and international dimension (missions) or its domestic church-planting dimension. These are exercises of a distinctively Christian corporate agency.

And others would still do so while striking a decidedly masculine note. “Don’t waste your life.” “Wage war on sin.” One of the reasons that John Piper resonated so strongly with the millennial generation is that biblical truth and calls to action that he issued were delivered with masculine conviction, rhetoric, and intensity. 

Thus, it’s possible to find various combinations of corporate Christian agency in a masculine key. But the kind of spiritual agency permitted is generally targeted at personal holiness, with some extension into private social relations (such as the family and the congregation). 

But remember the principle: the problem is not what’s present, but what’s absent. And what’s absent from many evangelical paradigms is a vision for corporate Christian agency, expressed in a masculine key, and directed to social and cultural life in this world. In other words, if you try to robustly use masculine agency, in groups, to exercise social or political power in this world for the glory of God and the good of your neighbors, expect to be kneecapped by other evangelicals.

Kneecaps and Propaganda

The kneecaps, of course, will vary. There is the therapeutic kneecap (“Exercising power is not the way of Jesus”). There is the pietistic kneecap (“My kingdom is not of this world”). There is the academic kneecap (“You’re not allowed to use the Christian tradition that way”). There is the Longhouse kneecap (“This sounds scary and I’m very concerned”). There is the pre-millennial kneecap (“We lose down here”). There is even a postmillennial knee-cap (“Christendom can only come from the bottom up; all top-down efforts are illegitimate”). 

The common thread in all of these is the attempt to check masculine corporate Christian social action (e.g. Christian Nationalism) with some form of what Michael Clary calls “loser theology.” All of them are, in some way, regime-friendly. This is because, as Jacques Ellul argued in his work on Propaganda, the system doesn’t primarily care what you think; it only cares how you act (or don’t act). The reasoning (or rationalizing) that a person uses to justify the (in)action is irrelevant; what matters is restraining corporate Christian agency, in a masculine key, as applied to social and cultural life in this world. The one thing that must not be done is Christendom. 

Of course, the exercise of corporate male agency in society is inevitable; nature can only be suppressed for so long before she takes her revenge. And so there are select outlets available, various pressure relief valves. One observation from ten years of coaching youth sports is that coaching youth sports functions as a pressure relief valve for the enervating egalitarianism of modern society. Youth sports (from travel baseball to high school football) is one of the last places that corporate masculine agency is permitted and given (almost) full rein. Fathers and sons, coaches as brothers-in-arms, working toward a common goal involving courage, ambition, strength, and excellence. But in itself, it poses no threat to the secular and egalitarian status quo. It’s regime-friendly, safely quarantined where it can’t do any damage, a pressure release for the Total State (unless, of course, it becomes a training and proving ground for virtues that will be exercised in the renewal and rebuilding of Christian civilization). 

The fact is that C.S. Lewis knew that society looks with suspicion on groups of friends (especially groups of male friends). 

It is therefore easy to see why Authority frowns on Friendship. Every real Friendship is a sort of secession, even a rebellion. It may be a rebellion of serious thinkers against accepted clap-trap or of faddists against accepted good sense; of real artists against popular ugliness or of charlatans against civilised taste; of good men against the badness of society or of bad men against its goodness. Whichever it is, it will be unwelcome to Top People. In each knot of Friends there is a sectional “public opinion” which fortifies its members against the public opinion of the community in general. Each therefore is a pocket of potential resistance. Men who have real Friends are less easy to manage or “get at”; harder for good Authorities to correct or for bad Authorities to corrupt. Hence if our masters, by force or by propaganda about “Togetherness” or by unobtrusively making privacy and unplanned leisure impossible, ever succeed in producing a world where all are Companions and none are Friends, they will have removed certain dangers, and will also have taken from us what is almost our strongest safeguard against complete servitude. (The Four Loves, p. 80)

Alastair Roberts has capably identified some of the distinctive features of male friendship and male groups. Whereas women tend to view friendships in terms of intimacy and emotional support, “Male groups have a greater tendency to socialize and bond around agency, ritual, competition, and external action. Men most particularly connect through shared action and competition.” The sparring, banter, jesting, and roughness that mark male groups are ways of testing the strength, honor, and fortitude of our fellows, to see whether they are reliable and trustworthy, or whether they will fold in a fight. Male groups tend to be broad (if sometimes shallow) and comfortable with hierarchy and status. As a result, male groups are power-generating and thus a potential threat to the status quo. 

In sum, the missing piece in many approaches to spiritual formation is an overt embrace of corporate Christian agency, expressed in a masculine key, and applied to social and cultural life in this world. Yes, personal holiness is non-negotiable. Bible reading, prayer, word, and sacrament with the gathered people of God—these are essential for forming Christian communities. As we’re fond of saying, worship is the heartbeat of Christian community. It pumps blood to every part of the body. Unless you apply a tourniquet to keep it from flowing to a limb. 

The temple of the Lord is at the center of the city of God, and from it flows the river of life to the rest of the city. Unless you dam it up, so that leaves of the tree of life designed to heal the nations withers.

So remove the tourniquet. Blow up the dam. Pursue the righteous exercise of spiritual, social, cultural, and political power and authority in this world. Start with yourself and work your way out, taking responsibility for what God puts before you. Have the courage to build and fight, for the glory of God and the good of the world.

Image Credit: Unsplash

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