I live in an area that is renowned for hunting. People come
from cities like Pittsburgh and Cleveland, from Eastern Ohio and from
Southwestern Pennsylvania to come and hunt deer, bear, turkey, coyote, bobcat
and other small game. I watch the men arrive on the big hunting weekends.
They're often away from their wives and you can see that many of them are
acting foolish as a result.
Loading up on cigars and beer, I remember well many
years ago watching a group of them bursting from a local store, full of energy,
dressed in camouflage. One guy was lighting up a cigar and another had a
pornographic magazine under his arm. They were being 'men' because they were
out on a 'manly' hunting trip. In reality they were behaving as boys, little
boys let loose who managed to slip away from their wives. I think about this as
I've watched the pickup truck craze and the fad of the 'man-cave'.
I work in people's homes and what I see are men that are
beaten down by feminism, men who try to act like John Wayne in their mannerisms
but in fact are like Sen. John Iselin in The Manchurian Candidate, manipulated
wimps who are dominated by their wives. Their egalitarian marriages are in fact
matriarchal, led by their wives and these men are afraid to make even the
simplest decisions without getting approval.
Not all cases are that extreme, nor is this a universal occurrence
and yet I run into it a lot and I can think of several men I know who lay it on
particularly thick, playing the 'manly man' when they're out and about and yet
I know better. I've been in their homes and I hear how their wives talk to them
even when someone (an outsider) is standing right there. I cringe, imagining
what is said and in what tone when no one is around.
It's these sorts that feel the need to express their
masculinity by driving the big pick-up trucks and letting everyone know that
their 'big hunters'. There's nothing wrong with hunting but I do get disgusted
by the glorification of it and the way some men use it as a means to express
how manly they are. Gun culture plays a big part in this with all the t-shirts
and bumper stickers letting you know that they'll 'take you out' if you mess
with them. The spirit of Lamech lives on it would seem.
Of course I've always laughed during bear season. At times
I've gone to the 'check station' in a nearby town. I used to take the kids when
they were younger. We see plenty of bear around as it is and I've had multiple
encounters with them out in the woods but at the check station the hunters are
bringing in their kills to have them weighed. There are some big black bears in
Pennsylvania and it's not uncommon for guys to shoot one that is more than
400lbs. There are even some 700-800lb. specimens out there but they are of
course less common.
Anyway, there are lots of bears in the 200lb and under range.
Invariably if you stand at the check station you'll see some guy pull in with a
big pickup truck and jump out, eager to check his bear. And yet some of them
are well under 100lbs. Some are the size of dogs, weighing only 50-75lbs,
little more than cubs. My kids were always shocked and little horrified at the
sight of these and indeed many onlookers shake their heads when they see these
adolescents and cubs brought in. What would inspire a person to shoot a bear
that size? The hunter always claims that they looked bigger in the scope or
something to that effect. Maybe. But often I think it's a case of the guy just
desperately wanting to say he shot a bear.
The size and weight will undoubtedly grow with the telling. But that doesn't
matter because on Monday morning he can go back to the office, shop, store or
whatever and say, "I shot a bear," which is another way of
proclaiming – I'm a big hunter. I'm a man.
Well, maybe so, maybe not. Providing necessary meat for one's
family is a noble enough thing to be sure but virtually no one hunting today is
really doing that, actual subsistence hunting. There are some, small numbers of
poor families that really are relying on that meat. But in most instances it's
a rich man's game. From the cost of the rifle, ammunition and gear, to the cost
of a weekend up in the forest-gamelands area, the cost of gas, meals,
maintaining a hunting camp, to the costs of having the deer processed.... very
few do the butchering themselves.... getting your deer ends up costing hundreds
of dollars. It's not an economical way of getting meat, although the meat is of
course very good or at least can be. I realise for many it's not about the cost
but the experience. I know a few older guys that have been doing it all their
lives and for them it's as much about their fathers and grandfathers as it is
anything else. But I can also say with confidence that for not a few of the hunters
that come up to our area, it's about manliness and an attempt to express it.
They want to kill something. Can you blame them? Men have been emasculated and
yet what does our society watch on television all day... violence, killing, men
being the baddest, toughest and meanest around. They garner fear and earn
respect through their prowess. Apart from the police or military there's no way
to express it apart from trucks, guns, hunting and frequenting Cabella's or
Field and Stream stores where you can dream about it, brag and tell stories and
buy really expensive gadgets to support the practice... and show everyone how
serious you are. I suppose others find the same kind of rush by fighting in
bars and bedding as many women as they can.
But I have strayed. This discussion can get easily
sidetracked and I don't want to be misunderstood. Manliness is to be pursued
and we need it desperately, even in the Church. For the Church has not guarded
itself properly and has fallen prey to feminism and as a consequence has
embraced a bad form of masculinity. The Promise Keepers fad attempted to
address this in the 1990's but it was just that... a fad. And combined with
antics like pastors riding motorcycles onto stage and that sort of thing, it
too succumbed to a lame and silly understanding of masculinity. We don't need
gimmicks or para-church movements. We don't need to cultivate the warrior ethos
or engage in 'man' activities as a form of escapism or in an attempt to
convince everyone that we're tough guys.
The older generation seemed to be at more peace with this.
There were plenty of guys who worked in offices and shops, who didn't have
particularly physical jobs, who weren't engaged in bloodsport and yet were
honourable and masculine. They led their families and earned the respect of
their wives and children. But perhaps they were at peace because they weren't
being challenged by the spectre of feminism. Given that the Church, even the
conservative wings of the Church have to some degree capitulated to this
monster, this rebellion against the God-ordained order then it shouldn't
surprise us that men are in crisis. Young men in particular are being beaten
down and in many cases their family dynamics haven't been very helpful in
fostering a right view of masculinity and maturity. Once the subject of
mockery, the contemporary stay-at-home dad phenomenon isn't going to help
either. Let's work on addressing these issues as opposed to running to the
warrior example as a means of redress. Any fool, any reprobate can kill
someone. Any trained monkey can put on a uniform a play the zombie killer.
That's not manliness. That's not character. In fact in many cases it's the
abandonment of character, a surrendering of the will to become little more than
a cog in the great collective machine. Sure it's dressed up in forms of virtue
and the language or honour... but these concepts are not being defined
according to Scripture. It's worldliness masquerading as something noble. In
other words it's a lie.
Biblical manliness is instead rooted in a character that humbly
defies the world, that's willing to follow the true path even though the world
rages against him and would destroy him. He will not yield but keeps his eye on
the City whose foundations are built by God. His meekness and humility are
expressions of strength, of trust in God and His promises and of course in the
Christ as saviour, mediator and yes, judge. It is this mindset, this saving
faith that affords the man the strength and desire, yea the drive to serve His
God and obey Him and as such he leads his family and sacrificially loves them.
If we could get our young men to understand this, to catch this... then they will advance into manhood and in
fact would zealously pursue it.
We needn't encourage them to become hunter-warriors or even
'killers' in terms of success in the business world. In fact we're told the
world will hate us and we're called to suffer and I believe that in most cases
faithful Christians will not do well in terms of money and success. The Middle
Class dream is a lie and built on lies and deeply rooted in anti-Christian
thought.
The world will almost invariably view us as losers. Christ
and the Apostles certainly were. The heroes of Hebrews 11 certainly were. So we
need to take that into the equation. It need not be an instance of
de-motivation in terms of pursuing a path in life but at the same time let's
avoid letting the world define these questions for us. At the end of the day I
don't care what my sons do in terms of careers or how 'successful' they are. I
want them to be Christians and to live lives that are obedient and bring glory
to God. I am quite content for them to occupy low-wage jobs if they're content
with their work and live godly lives. The respectability that comes with middle
class life and cultural conformity and the security that money brings come with
dangerous strings attached... strings that can choke and kill.