It's funny that in the first eight chapters of a book, you are with the author, agreeing with him, and BAM! He goes off the rails in chapter 9, and in my opinion, never recovers. Or at least, I spent the rest of the book carefully weighing every statement he made. Maybe it's just me. Anyhow, I want to hit some of the highlights from the rest of the book, and finalize what I thought about it.
You can go to my Twitter account and read the quoted tweets and thoughts that I had on the book.
Throughout the book, it seemed to me that the author really had something against meekness and humility. He constantly blasted these qualities as feminine and unmanly. Maybe he hasn't read that much of the Bible, I don't know. But Jesus and Moses are both highlighted as being EXTREMELY meek and humble men, who were very manly. Maybe the author doesn't really understand what true meekness and humility are.
In chapter 15, he mentioned how words like "relationship, passionate and intimacy" are overused and are words that make men uncomfortable. I agree. However, they should be used, and must be placed into proper context in our lessons, studies and sermons. We have a tendency to use words and terms (not just believers, but or society as a whole) without defining them and acknowledging what we are really talking about. This has to change. These words make people uncomfortable because they only think they know what it means. In reality, "That words does not mean what you think it means", Inigo Montoya was correct.
Music is decidedly feminine in the church, which is very true. Many of the songs we sing, not just the newer, more contemporary songs, but also many of the old hymns that many seem willing to die for are very feminine in nature.
...Christ has put down His sword and picked up a daisy. He is no longer a warrior, He is a lover. The very image of Christ taking up arms (as He does in Revelation 19) is simply unacceptable in a lot of churches today.
Praise music has accelerated this trend. Not only are the lyrics of many of these songs quite romantic, but they have the same breathless feel as top forty love songs. - page 139
Very few of the songs we sing in our services, whether new or old, invoke the warrior spirit. Yet, the life of the believer is a war, as the apostle Paul often reminded us.
One thing that I thought was peculiar, and it is probably due to my background, was that he stated that men are encouraged to be emotional in churches today. I've never seen that. In fact, the churches I grew up attending, and being trained in for the ministry encouraged the opposite. The only emotion that was OK to show was anger, and really that was only for those behind the pulpit. The rest of us were supposed to be Vulcans. No emotions. Emotions are bad. Evil. But, maybe that's just fundamentalism. Maybe all the evangelical churches are gushy emotion festivals.
Many other topics were addressed: the sharing phenomenon; dressing up for church; lack of vision, focus and purpose; expecting pastors to be personal chaplains; not allowing people to use their gifts to serve God; not intentionally identifying and training leaders; lack of discipleship; purposeless meetings; the dumbing down of church membership; pointless tasks; begging, pleading and guilt-tripping; prolonging the life of useless programs and ministries that have exceeded their shelf-life; more concerned about people's feelings rather than people bearing fruit; lack of strong pastoral leadership (not to be confused with dictatorship); less talking, more listening; etc.
Many of the issues are legitimate problems. Many of these things have always rankled me simply due to me being an introvert. I think one of the things we need to get back to is to stop encouraging people to be someone they are not, and start encouraging people to be who God created them to be. Stop forcing men to act like women. Stop forcing women to act like men. Stop forcing introverts to act like extroverts. God created each of us uniquely and specially. Be who God created you. Serve God with the gifts He gave you. That alone will be enough to revolutionize most of our churches.
We also must get back to the Word of God. Very few of our sermons, Sunday schools, and "Bible" studies have anything to do with the Bible. We've become so topically driven, that we have lost touch with Scripture. We don't need more flash and pizazz. We need God's Word. God's word must be paramount. Life lessons, personal illustrations, have no purpose apart from Scripture, and most of the time we are attempting to force Scripture to fit the model of our "life lessons".
There's a lot more that could be said about this book. He does have a lot of good suggestions. But, there's a lot of garbage here, too. In the end, I think his real call is for a return to Biblical manhood. Let's return to a study of the men of the Bible, and what God has to say about men. Another area that will help us is a return to the study of church history. Let's look at the great men of the ancient church, the Reformation, and the modern missionary movement and learn what made them great. And what made them men.
Thanks for reading.
Darth Baptist
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