Monthly Archives: March 2011

Even your breakfast cereal can advocate narcissism.

I am currently working on an essay entitled Narcissism and the Church: How the age of entitlement has taken her captive which argues that narcissism has significantly affected the Western church and also how it is largely responsible for the decline of marriage, the decline of masculinity, and ultimately the decline of Church. These three elements are closely linked. As narcissism began to destroy masculinity, the decline of masculinity began to destroy marriage. The decline of marriage, in turn, began to destroy the Church. Christianity defines the people of God as a ‘Bride’ and Jesus Christ as the ‘Bridegroom’. The message of marriage is therefore deeply woven into the very fabric of the Church. As marriage goes in the church, so goes the church.

In the last few years I couldn’t help but notice the audacious growing presence of narcissistic icons, symbolism, and messages. Just minutes ago I saw one of Coca-Cola’s billboards which unashamedly declared their soda as “the one to drink on your way to the top.” Not even a century-old icon like Coca Cola can resist the cultural trends. I’ll be posting various images as I come across them with the intent that we might be reminded that this is not problem ‘out there’ but one within all of us.

Because being a mother and homemaker is for losers.

Here is a shot of a book I came across at the local library…

It reads:

(def.) a woman who 1. makes more money 2. has more power 3. gets the recognition she deserves 4. has the determination to go after her dreams and can do it with integrity.

This is not an obscure book mind you. It currently ranks 180,000 on Amazon.com.

Mere Churchianity: Finding your way back to Jesus-shaped spirituality

Michael Spencer; WaterBrook Press 2010

WorldCat•LibraryThing•Google Books•BookFinder

Very rarely do I come across a book that makes it into my top five. After reading this I knew I had another.

There is a sense of timelessness in what Michael Spencer wrote in this book. That is one of the most important things to me when it comes to selecting books to read and figuring out which ones are worth the time and which ones aren’t. Timeless books are the best and the most worthy of reading, in my opinion.

Mere Churchianity is a rare book in that it endeavors to stand up against the age-old problem of status-quo, institutional, falsely advertised Christianity (a.k.a. Churchianity).

For too long it has been overtly communicated and taught, more so by action than by words, that you must attend chapel every Sunday morning and pay the tithe if you are to be a good Christian. Or a holy Christian. Or a sanctified Christian. Or a real man for that matter.  But the indubitable reality of the New Testament, if we look at it honestly, is that this is simply wrong. They are traditions ingrained into many of us who grew up in the Western Church. There is in fact, as Spencer points out, no such thing as a “good Christian”. Such a concept is nothing more than a lie. Yet the evangelical world seems hang on to this idea like a cat on the edge of a table.

Church was never meant to be a business model, program, or even a non-profit organization. It was meant to be a Kingdom in the making. Christ’s command was clear: “You go make disciples, and I will build my church.”  Yet we have missed the real meaning of disciple-making and have exchanged it for the mass-produced Christianite who’s pigeoned-holed into a mass-produced Churchianity–the “church” we tried to build.

Michael writes, “The reason the church got distracted from Jesus-shaped Christianity was that discipleship got lost in the fog of church traditions, human rules, and religious culture.” (Spencer, 99)

This book is hands down a definitive, prophetic resource and call for those lost in the sea of western church traditions and those unwittingly working to maintain the status quo.

An essay, Where Have the Good Men Gone? by Kay Hymowitz, posted on the Wall Street Journal website has created quite a stir.

Although it is not clarified what her idea of a “good man” is, she provides an in-depth look at today’s young American male population. Much of the same things we have been hearing and seeing for some time.

It is indeed a real cry of this generation’s women: “Where are the good men?” What they mean by that of course is a topic for another discussion.

Kay points out some obvious traits of our male culture:

“At the same time, young men were tuning in to cable channels like Comedy Central, the Cartoon Network and Spike, whose shows reflected the adolescent male preferences of its targeted male audiences. They watched movies with overgrown boy actors like Steve Carell, Luke and Owen Wilson, Jim Carrey, Adam Sandler, Will Farrell and Seth Rogen, cheering their awesome car crashes, fart jokes, breast and crotch shots, beer pong competitions and other frat-boy pranks. Americans had always struck foreigners as youthful, even childlike, in their energy and optimism. But this was too much.”

The most pertinent point she brings up, in my opinion was how “It’s been an almost universal rule of civilization that girls became women simply by reaching physical maturity, but boys had to pass a test. They needed to demonstrate courage, physical prowess or mastery of the necessary skills.”

I couldn’t agree more. Boys had to pass a test.

Where is our test of courage? Our test of strength? The premise of the Bible on masculinity is that a man is called to an inner strength and valiance. Debates rage on about these issues. Perhaps its the fault of society, or the government, or the feminist movement for “busting our balls” and cutting us off at the knees of our masculinity. Indeed, it seems women who want to run the marriage and relationship show are everywhere these days. The Girl Scouts have long been teaching girls that they need to be strong and courageous. In one sense this appears to be a good thing. However in the long-term such values might not prove to be so beneficial. The side-effects of teaching girls that they can take the place of men prove devastating to relationships. They try to pursue marriage with a man they don’t need but want. Masculinity likes–needs–to be needed. Masculinity means to protect, provide, guide, guard, and fight for something noble. When masculinity is not needed, the masculine spirit is killed. We’ve raised and conditioned our girls to act like men for sake of proving that men aren’t all that necessary. We’ve raised our boys to rely on the protection, provision, and guidance of women. And so, we’ve successfully created a society where we have deemed masculinity no longer necessary. How do I know this? When the question “What does masculinity mean?” reaches the mainstream media and makes for New-York Times bestsellers, that’s when you know.

So what’s in store for us as a nation then? If we’re to take the Bible’s prophetic perspective, I believe it is this:

For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are his pleasant planting… (Isa 5:7)

for those who guide this people have been leading them astray, and those who are guided by them are swallowed up. Therefore the Lord does not rejoice over their young men, and has no compassion on their fatherless and widows; for everyone is godless and an evildoer, and every mouth speaks folly… (Isa 9:16-17)

Hear, O women, the word of the LORD, and let your ear receive the word of his mouth; teach to your daughters a lament, and each to her neighbor a dirge. For death has come up into our windows; it has entered our palaces, cutting off the children from the streets and the young men from the squares. Speak, “Thus declares the LORD: ‘The dead bodies of men shall fall like dung upon the open field, like sheaves after the reaper, and none shall gather them.’” (Jer 9:20-22)

These passages of judgment, aimed at the men for the lack of masculinity–their failure to guide–resulted in a pretty severe judgment. Of no small importance is the fact that these words were geared toward God’s own people. Because judgment begins with the people of God (1 Pet 4:17; Eze 9:6) what does this say about our Church? We can no longer blame society or culture for the fall of manhood. The pointing of the finger by the church in lieu of this crisis is one of the most hypocritical acts it does. It is also why it has set itself up for disaster. The truth is, we have only ourselves to blame. The culprit in this great decline of masculinity is the church. Judgment begins in the house of the Lord.

So what does this mean for us as a nation?

Unless the church repents, prepare for “dead bodies of men falling like dung upon the open field”, and for women everywhere to lament over them.

Except it seems that it’s already happening, isn’t it?