Posted on Thursday,

What I Learned from Dr. Pepper TEN About Manhood

My son is eight and a half and I am so proud of him (you will notice that the “half” part is very important to kids, but I find less important for adults! :). We have been having a lot of good conversations lately and its fun (and hard!) to see him grow up before my eyes. Recently, we have been laughing about a TV commercial we saw during the Sugar Bowl where the Oklahoma Sooners defeated the Alabama Crimson Tide 45 – 31 (Boomer Sooner!). I digress…If you haven’t seen this video yet, its worth a watch for a good laugh!

Yes, this is silly, but if you listen to some of the opening lines again, you will notice a very interesting phrase, “…a man just needs a place where he can be, wild and free…” Of course this commercial is a caricature, but it gets at a very important point–there aren’t many places where manhood is welcomed and celebrated in our culture. When was the last time you saw manhood celebrated? Granted, there have been men throughout history who have been abusive and not represented what God designed masculinity to be. However, the abuse of an ideal does not invalidate it. And we certainly should not abandon it; we should try to recover it. Affirming this does not and should not diminish the equal value and importance of women as co-image bearers.

I’m not the only one who has noticed. Here is the fascinating and unusual headline of a recent Wall Street Journal article: “Camille Paglia: A Feminist Defense of Masculine Virtues – The cultural critic on why ignoring the biological differences between men and women risks undermining Western civilization.”

‘What you’re seeing is how a civilization commits suicide,” says Camille Paglia. This self-described “notorious Amazon feminist” isn’t telling anyone to Lean In or asking Why Women Still Can’t Have It All. No, her indictment may be as surprising as it is wide-ranging: The military is out of fashion, Americans undervalue manual labor, schools neuter male students, opinion makers deny the biological differences between men and women…” (read the rest here and thoughtful commentary by John Stonestreet here).

How to Be a Real Man

In looking at today’s culture, one thing is crystal clear: manhood is in a state of confusion. Most men live lives of confusion, isolation, frustration, and quiet desperation. Time only intensifies these emotions. Our society offers little by way of encouragement for this generation of men. On the contrary, men get a healthy dose of ridicule before being dismissed as unnecessary. This sentiment is tragic in and of itself; but even more tragic when this same confusion, isolation, frustration, and quiet desperation is occurring among Christian men. Men are floundering today due to lack of vision—there is no compelling purpose in life.

This is the context in which I am raising my own son and trying to be a man myself. So what am I trying to teach him and live out? Truet Cathy, CEO and founder of Chick-Fil-A, once put it this way, “It’s better to build boys than mend men.” So how do we do that? As Christian men, our instruction manual is the Bible. The pages of Scripture reveal two prominent men: the first man, Adam, and the last Adam, Jesus Christ (Gen. 1–3; 1 Cor. 15:45–49). Adam lived life separated from God; Jesus Christ lived in union with God. As men, you and I will live in the shadow of one or the other. The following definition was derived by Robert Lewis from comparing and contrasting the lives of these two predominant men:

A real man rejects passivity, accepts responsibility, leads courageously, and expects God’s greater reward.

This is the vision a group of men and I try to live out as husbands and fathers. This is the vision I am (imperfectly) trying to teach and live out in front of my son. There are other great resources as well. And here is a 3-part series you can listen to which will help lay the biblical foundation for this vision. The bottom line is that we all need–and our culture needs–a place where we can be the men that God intended.

According to the ever authoritative WikiHow, “Manliness is something many aspire to, but few achieve.” Let’s work together to see if we can begin to change that. That’s bold vision…

Posted on Wednesday,

False ideas are the greatest obstacles to the reception of the gospel

“God usually exerts that power in connection with certain prior conditions of the human mind, and it should be ours to create, so far as we can, with the help of God, those favorable conditions for the reception of the gospel. False ideas are the greatest obstacles to the reception of the gospel. We may preach with all the fervor of a reformer and yet succeed only in winning a straggler here and there, if we permit the whole collective thought of the nation or of the world to be controlled by ideas which, by the resistless force of logic, prevent Christianity from being regarded as anything more than a harmless delusion.” – J. Gresham Machen

*Address delivered on September 20, 1912, at the opening of the 101st session of Princeton Theological Seminary.

Posted on Wednesday,

What is the Ultimate Measure of Successful Cultural Engagement?

If we live out every biblical command to be thoughtful, winsome, loving ambassadors of Jesus Christ will we change the world? Will everyone become a Christian? Not ultimately. Jesus taught that the wheat and the weeds will grow together until they are sorted out in the end (Matthew 13:24–30). So how do we know if we are being successful in our cultural engagement? Since the fullness of the kingdom of God awaits the second coming and ultimate reign of the Messiah, how we measure successful engagement in this present age is faithfulness, not utopia. We faithfully engage in the spheres of influence that God has providentially placed us within and leave the results to God.

Significant transformation in any given generation may or may not occur—the results are up to God—so our call is to be faithful to a theology of engagement as we make disciples of all the nations. God’s providential and redemptive plan marches onward, and we play a part in that. And as leaders, we need to cast this vision and equip the church to engage well, always mindful of Paul’s words: “Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve” (Colossians 3:23 – 24 NASB).

So as we think hard, love hard, dream hard, work hard, pray hard, and train hard, our ultimate goal is to be faithful. And just because our culture does not currently see things from God’s perspective, that doesn’t necessarily mean we have failed. But neither is it a reason to become complacent, throw in the towel, or disengage. All of us certainly have plenty of room to grow by God’s grace and enabled by his Spirit.

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Posted on Saturday,

Why the Church Needs Artists and Artists Need the Church

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Recently I came across a great post by my friend John Stonestreet at Breakpoint talking about the leading edge in cultural formation–the arts. It also talked about how churches can discourage Christians who are artists in their church (BTW – that is not a good thing).

Here is a partial (but very helpful) list:

First, they said, treat the arts as window dressing for the truth rather than the window into reality it’s intended to be. Second, embrace bad art just because it’s “Christian.” Third, value artists only for their artistic gifts, but not for the other contributions they can make as thinkers and servants with a unique perspective. Fourth, demand that artists only give answers in their work, but never raise questions. Fifth, never pay artists for their work—take advantage of them in ways we would never do with plumbers or accountants. And finally, only validate art that has a direct salvation application.

But equally important is for artists to learn that the goal of art (if Christianty is true) is not merely self-expression. Its about paraphrasing Reality.

Artist Makoto Fujimura argues that for the Christian, art must be more than self-expression. It must be communication, because as Christians we deal with objective reality. As one of my mentors once said, art’s job is primarily to “paraphrase reality.” I like that. We can present beauty without being trivial, evil without being gratuitous, and redemption without being hokey.

And the Christian artist is a communicator also because God created through communication—through His spoken word. The creative individual made in the image of the ultimate communicator must be one who communicates as well. Not just what we feel, but what is true and real. Art’s job is to paraphrase Reality. Now this doesn’t mean Christian art must be preachy or obvious, but it should make us think more deeply and better about life and the world.

Living out the Christian worldview means caring about ideas and the imagination. Its a both / and not an either / or.

Read the rest of the excellent commentary at Breakpoint

Read the article by Philip Ryken on the Arts

I also address the arts and the Christian worldview in my latest book.

Posted on Wednesday,

Same-Sex Marriage – How Should Christians Respond? (Video)

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Our culture is talking about Same-Sex Marriage. How should Christians respond?

*A quick note. Christians are not the ones who are driving this issue, but we do need to be prepared to have this conversation (1 Pet. 3:15). We are all broken and all of us are called to repent. The Gospel is good news for all of us, because we all need a Savior.