THE THREE CULPRITS THAT NEUTRALIZES MEN
Feminism
During the 1970s, certain feminist strategists initiated the so-called “Girlhood Project” with the intent of effectively blurring, and even erasing, the distinction between males and females. According to author and social critic Barbara Defoe Whitehead, feminists called for “a new sexual standard based on traditional boyhood. In their plays and pur- suits, little girls were to be made more like boys. Among cultural elites, a traditionally feminine daughter became a mild social embarrassment, while a feisty tomboy daughter became a source of pride.”13 Now, men are afraid to raise boys.14 The “copy the boys” approach was applied to all of life: to sexuality, to speech, and even to body type, with the tomboy ideal of a wiry, athletic body. Along with this, naturally active and competitive boys were penalized for their boyish behavior, while girls were lauded for ruggedness and athletic prowess.
The effect today is a culture that celebrates a woman who has a body that is sculpted, by exercise and diet, to look like that of a man, and who talks like a man and acts like a man.
Amid this cultural inversion, a rugged, assertive, and disciplined man is deemed a threat. If a guy lifts his head to take charge in a mixed-gender situation, he is labeled as a chauvinist or a sexist pig. So a generation of men has been neutered and neutralized as to their natural ruggedness and will- ingness to undergo the disciplines that will turn them into real men. And Christian men are particularly susceptible to being cowed by the culture, because discipline for godliness demands a particular tough- ness and rugged individuality in a castrating, God-denying culture.
Entertainment
The second culprit in the neutralizing of men is the addiction to entertainment. A face lit by a luminous screen is a study in passivity. Fleeting images, intermingled with the thousand commercials and banner ads of an average week’s viewing, instill passiveness. There is no time for engagement or reflection, much less action. The viewer becomes a passive, munching, sipping drone (a male bee that has no sting and gathers no honey). There are guys, voyeurs, who have substituted viewing for doing and imagine that they have scored a touchdown or taken a hill by virtue of having watched it—passive living legends in their own inert minds.
Sexual voyeurism is a pathetic delusion because in it a man’s God-given testosterone (which is meant to infuse manliness) becomes a medium of enslavement and impotence. Sexual voyeurism steals a man’s virility and initiative. Godly discipline becomes a receding mirage for the voyeur. And this also applies to the millions in the thrall of the gaming world (addicted to games like Fortnite - internet games), which keeps men playing games into their thirties in their Star Wars pajamas—warriors in their imaginations.
Those enslaved by the world of entertainment will never attain manliness, a life disciplined for godliness—a life overseen, instructed, and energized by the Man of all men, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Legalism
Underlying much of the conscious rejection of spiritual discipline is the fear of legalism. For many, spiritual discipline means putting oneself back under the law with a series of Draconian rules that no one can live up to—and which spawn frustration and spiritual death.
But nothing could be further from the truth if you understand what discipline and legalism are. The difference is one of motiva tion: legalism is self-centered; discipline is God-centered.
The legalistic heart says, “I will do this thing to gain merit with God.” The disciplined heart says, “I will do this thing because I love God and want to please him.” There is an infinite difference between the motivation of legalism and discipline! Paul knew this implicitly and fought the legalists bareknuckled all the way across Asia Minor, never giving an inch. Now he shouts to us, “Train [discipline] yourself for godliness”! If we confuse legalism and discipline, we do so to our soul’s peril.
From the Book Disciplines of a Godly Man by R. Kent Hughes
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