Is Political Correctness Killing Off Chivalry? Biblical Masculinity
We looked a couple days ago at Mark Driscoll and his take on modern masculinity.
It reminded me of an article I read a couple weeks ago, discussing the confusion of male chivalry in our contemporary society, with egalitarian political correctness.
Does a man open a door for a woman? Is this a gentlemanly gesture for a lady, or is this a condescending act of bygone times?
According to Debrett’s, the bible of etiquette, political correctness is slowly strangling chivalry.
Those little gestures, once considered old-fashioned good manners, have become confused with sexism. And as a result, many men worry about appearing overtly polite to women.
Jo Bryant, who edited the A-Z Of Modern Manners, said: ‘I think people are afraid to be chivalrous because they don’t want to appear sexist. Society has changed a lot in the past ten years and people genuinely aren’t sure what is appropriate and what is not.
The Christian Church is also struggling with an identity problem with masculinity. John Eldregde’s work attempts to offer a counter-weight to this emasculating shift in culture, and tries to re-invoke the “primal untamedness” of men. This is a similar project being carried out by Mark Driscoll, albeit with a much more extreme slant.
As is clear from the comments in the previous Mark Driscoll discussion, the “macho” image of masculinity is actually reactively making the same mistake as the egalitarian swing. Rather than “taming” men, they are caricaturing men; painting them as killing, carnivorous, dirty, and generally “wild” (at heart). What is needed is a balanced understanding of genuine and true masculinity.
Conveniently, Jesus of Nazareth just happens to be the man for the job. Jesus was not as he is caricatured, either; gentle, meek, and tender. Not only did Jesus overturn the tables in the temple, Jesus went as far as to call the most respected religious leaders of his day hypocrites and a brood of vipers! Jesus knows how to take care of business!
Before we embrace either (a) our culture’s tamed masculinity, or (b) the Christian bookstore’s Tarzan variety, let’s take a careful and calculating look at King Jesus, the man “who is the image of God” (2 Cor. 4:4).
-ACR
My name is Aaron Rathburn. I am a senior in philosophy at Calvin College, and formerly studied at Trinity School of Theology (Wales, UK). I am a husband, and father of two. This site is a collection of musings on theology, culture, and more. 
Here’s an interesting question: If there are more women than men in the Church why are there so few woman church leaders, even in churches that believe in women leadership?
Wow, that is a really good observation and question to ask, hehe.
I think Eldredge does do a pretty good job at bringing us back to the heart of it. Sometimes he does go overboard, and I sense this as I am not the most ‘outdoorsy’ type of person loving to hunt, etc. But the reality of what he hits at really speaks to my heart. I’d be interested to know of any other writers trying to gain a Biblical view of manhood.
I would say the exact same of Eldredge- I have enjoyed “Wild at Heart.” I was raised an urbanite, through and through. I have never been hunting, I didn’t play many sports, etc. I think Eldredge probably does have the right message, perhaps just with too many “outdoorsy” illustrations =).
Jenny Baker gave a brilliant talk on gender roles at Greenbelt this year. Her main point was that a lot of our perceived differences are due to cultural preconceptions and that we need to interpret the Bible carefully in light of cultural differences. When it boils down to it there are more similarities than differences. Being a psychology lecturer myself I felt she represented research fairly and as a Christian I felt she interpreted the Bible well. If you’re interested in this area I think it is well worth downloading her talk from the Greenbelt site.
Just to clarify Jenny Baker’s point was that perceived gender differences are mainly cultural and that actually there are less differences between the genders than we like to think.
Yeah, cultural influences on how we interpret the Bible is my biggest headache in theology/exegesis. Even up through the Patristic period of church history, all theology was developed through Platonic lenses, much of which we fully retain today.
Simon pointed out to me that Descartes tried to hole himself up in a room and read and interpret the Bible totally with a clean slate and “neutral” (something which is laughable to anyone outside modernity), to escape these cultural influences on interpretation.
At the very least, I believe enough in God’s sovereignty to give me comfort in his Church’s interpretations throughout the 2000 years, even though we go through times of tweaking and refinement
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