Toxic Masculinity, You Mean Sin?

I remember a few years ago when the phrase toxic masculinity became all the rage. It was a new buzz word in popular culture. The phrase and the basic idea behind it had been around for quite a while before it became popularized. When I first heard the phrase I was intrigued and began to look into it. I have gone back and looked at it again in the last day or two since it popped up on my social media feeds and intrigued me yet again. Definitions of the phrase are slightly different depending on your source, but one description I found from urban dictionary of all places seemed to sum up what I was reading in other places. It states, “A social science term that describes narrow repressive type of ideas about the male gender role, that defines masculinity as exaggerated masculine traits like being violent, unemotional, sexually aggressive, and so forth. Also suggests that men who act too emotional or maybe aren’t violent enough or don’t do all of the things that “real men” do, can get their “man card” taken away.” I thought the man card line was a pretty funny thing to include.

As I continued to read several articles about toxic masculinity from the New York Times, Tolerance.org, The Atlantic, and some other outlets I found an interesting pattern. At its heart the idea of toxic masculinity isn’t a societal issue or an issue that society can really fix. It is at its heart a sin issue. I view the world through the lens of the Bible. I’m by no means perfect and have more faults than I can count, and I need to view my own life through the lens of the Bible better than I do, but I think it’s pretty clear that toxic masculinity is just men sinning. Toxic masculinity is associated with domestic violence, sexual promiscuity, gang violence, alcohol addiction, drug addiction, hyper competitiveness, out of control anger, incarceration, and some other traits I will discuss a little later in the post. All of those things are sinful. The answer to these problems among men won’t be found in the New York Times, Washington Post, The Atlantic, or the latest literature from the American Psychological Association. They will be found in the Bible. The Gospel is the answer to this. Men and women are seeking fulfillment and guidance from the wrong sources, and when you do that you will get broken people that express themselves in broken ways. This is a problem as old as time, and I promise another commercial, Ted Talk, or article from the latest societal expert won’t fix it. I remember working with teenagers as a youth pastor for almost two decades, and I constantly had to remind adults that when a teenager acted out in some of the ways that toxic masculinity describes we shouldn’t be surprised because they are lost from a Biblical perspective, and our job is to guide them to Christ. Even some of the teens that were Christians would still have bad moments and act out, but that was a much easier thing to deal with, and the worst problems were mostly with the boys. I did have some girls that acted in similar ways, but that was rare. I will never forget the group of girls that went across the street from the church to fight.

What does all this mean for toxic masculinity? It means that you won’t solve it apart from Christ. You can break what it means to be a man, but you won’t fix the toxic part. The solution to violence and all the other things are being looked for in the wrong places, and I fear many will continue down this road. The other side of the coin is what is a man supposed to be? Once again I go to the lens of the Bible. When I look at Scripture the Bible talks about men and women from the very beginning, and they are different. That difference is good. When God built the family he did so with two beings that had different strengths and weaknesses, and they were better together. Men and women are incredibly similar in most respects, but what I’ve found in my own marriage is that my wife makes me better because she sees things slightly different than I often see them. She processes information and emotions in a little different way, and that is good. The two of us are better together than we are apart, and this is true for men and women as a whole. Men and women are equally valuable as individuals and to society as a whole. There is a desire in some corners to do away with gender differences, and this is not a plan that will work out well. It also seems to be impossible. The Scandinavian countries have tried to create the most egalitarian societies in the world and what they have found is that no matter how much the playing field is leveled between the genders they still make different choices about careers and parenthood when left to their own devices.

Part of toxic masculinity talks about men putting forward strength, and it doesn’t do so in a flattering way. Strong men are considered toxic in some parts of our society. We need strong men and women. When I look at the Bible I see strong men being used by God. Moses put forth courage and strength when he went to Pharaoh and said let my people go. David had to be strong when walked into the valley of Elah to face Goliath. Joshua had to show confidence to the people when he marched them towards Jericho. Peter, in the Book of Acts, stood before the Jewish leaders that had just crucified Christ, and told them they had killed the Messiah. These guys could have had him killed too. Paul was stoned and left for dead and when he woke up he went back into the city and continued to tell people about Christ. The Bible shows me strong men of conviction that stood up for what they believed in. They exuded strength and calm under pressure. This type of strength isn’t bullying. That would be sin. It isn’t machismo. It’s leadership and standing up for what is right even when it’s not popular. It’s doing the right thing when it may cost you something.

Life is hard there is just no way around it, and we all have to stand up under pressure and do hard things. I have dealt with this personally. When my daughter was diagnosed with her genetic disorder my family was devastated. Praise God she is doing well. There are still challenges every day, but we make it work. During the early part of her illness I had to shoulder the load. I had to be strong for the rest of my family. I had to figure out how we would make things work. I spent a lot of time in prayer, but I had to at some point get up off my knees and live my faith, and that meant actually trusting God through the storms of life and moving forward. We need men and women to shoulder their load and be tough, and I had to put my emotions in check so I could take care of my family. Emotions aren’t something men should avoid, but they have their place. We have to control ourselves and be the masters of our emotions and not the other way around. Controlling your emotions and doing what you have to do is what every man should strive to do. Do you think Peter didn’t have fear when he stood up the Pharisees? I’m sure he did, but he controlled himself and shouldered his burden in that moment and did what was right.

Christ himself is a study in manhood and masculinity done right. Western culture has this picture of Jesus as the this meek mild guy telling everyone to love one another. He wouldn’t hurt a fly, and if that’s your view you should go read the New Testament. Jesus was a carpenter. He was a man that from a young age would have worked with his hands. He would have grow up relatively poor in Nazareth. It would have been a rough and tumble upbringing. Then we move to his adult life. He taught forgiveness and to love others, but he was a strong man that confronted sin and wrong. He challenged the religious leaders of the day. He called out their hypocrisy. He called them a brood of vipers and white washed tombs while they sat in the audience. He took out a cat of nine tails and cleared the Temple while flipping over tables. He did this because the poor were being taken advantage of. He then went willingly to the cross. The strength that took is beyond belief. He bore His cross because it was His job. Christ tells us pick up our cross and follow Him. That’s something to think about. Christ carried the weight of the world’s sin on his shoulders, and he’s telling us to carry our weight. He’s telling us to make the world better by the life we live, and the analogy he uses doesn’t paint a rosy picture. It paints a picture of difficulty and rising up under it. I’ve had to rise up under it and it’s not always pleasant.

The world around us is dark and sinful, and that means we need Godly men and women to stand up and call it out. We need men like the Woolsworth four during the civil rights movement. We need men like those that stormed the beaches of Normandy and Iwo Jima to stop fascism. Men like Lech Walesa that stood up to the communists in Poland while risking his life. He eventually saw them overthrown and became Polands democratically elected president. When strong men like Wang Yi that has been arrested over and over by the Chinese Communist Party for the sin of preaching the Gospel, and he refuses to bow to the pressure. That my friend is a man. We should never chide men for exuding strength as they did in the Bible and throughout history.

Our children need strong fathers that love and discipline them. Every study done shows that a strong father in the household leads to better outcomes for children. A good father teaches their children work ethic, morals, love, and discipline. I learned so much from my own father about those things. He took providing for our family seriously. He took protecting our family seriously. He was the one that stood in the gap for us. He was the leader of our family as the Bible teaches the father should be. We could stand more men like this. They will raise sons that will then do that for their families and in their communities.

Men aren’t toxic. Masculinity isn’t toxic. Sin is toxic. We don’t need people vilifying men. We need men to become Christians that follow the Bible’s recipe for manhood and masculinity. That will deal with the problem. If you look for a solution outside of that you will raise a generation of boys that will have no idea how to be men at all. People need to stop looking for solutions to a problem in a world that caused the problem in the first place.