A
arwen7
Guest
After reading, the EAP thread and reading some of the blogs on the Christian Mens Defense Network, I noticed a post about something that I have been witnessing around some Christian guys, and identify with when I am looking to date someone. I would like to share it.
Disclaimer (cus its all the rage now
): Its NOT my intention that this is to counter the EAP thread. And I really hope that shines through. It was an interesting thread and website, and I wanted to share. Please NO man-bashing or male vs. female: who's the worst out of the two.
Nice Evangelical Men Need to Man Up (For Real)
Posted on May 7, 2012
Having spent some time dealing with the phenomenon of the Evangelical American Princess, in the interest of fairness I’ve decided to handle the other side of the coin: Nice evangelical men (NEMs).
NEM, you might notice, is men spelled backwards. This is not accidental. The NEM is, in the end, the opposite of a biblical man. Much like the EAP, the NEM is in part a product of the evangelical culture. As such, he is not entirely the cause of his own status. At the same time, he is responsible for his decisions, and he needs to make the decision to man up.
Not “man up” as Marc Driscoll and other evangelical white knights mean it. He shouldn’t man up and marry a promiscuous woman just so she can have a nice home in the suburbs and 2.3 kids that she can eventually steal from him once she becomes “unhappy” and finds a hotter alpha to whom she can trade up. The Biblical admonition is the exactly opposite.
Rather, to be a Biblical man, the NEM needs to drop the subservient persona that has been hammered into him from evangelical culture. This is not God’s ideal for a man. I am sickened by what I see when other single Christian men my age (I’m 31) interact with women. They act as if they are afraid of women, as if they want the woman to lead them, as if they eschew righteous strength and masculinity. As such they fail to fulfill God’s design for men.
I know. I used to be a NEM.
To begin with, the NEM needs to realize that being “nice” is not a Biblical virtue. Kindness is a virtue. In fact, it is a fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22) a characteristic of holy love (1. Cor. 13:4). Kindness is not niceness. Nice means saying things that the other person wants to hear. It means not being loyal to truth, but rather to the principle of conflict avoidance.
Kindness, on the other hand, involves showing compassion in and through truth. It is real and solid. It is, in the end, manly. Kindness does what is best for its object, even if what is best is also unpleasant.
The NEM believes that if he is nice to a Christian woman, this will cause her to be attracted to him. He’s wrong. No woman would–or should–want such a “nice” person as a husband. Why? His life is not based in truth. In the end, niceness of this sort is truly deceit: He is not being who he is. He is being someone else, the one he thinks she wants him to be. In the end, his preference for conflict avoidance over truth means he lacks the conviction necessary to stand up for what is right. No woman should marry such a man, and I don’t blame them for not being attracted to NEMs.
The NEM needs to understand the Biblical view of masculinity. To begin with, he needs to see the Lord’s example as the one perfect man. Our Lord was not a deferential weakling. Contrary to most present-day representations of Him within Churchianity, Jesus was not an androgynous New Age hippy. He was not “nice.” In fact, He was quite direct and tough, even with women. He stood up against falsehood and injustice, and refused to back down. He chased people with whips through the Temple. And in the end, He committed the greatest possible act of masculine strength: He took a bullet for his brothers.
This is the example of what it means to be a man: Be good, not necessarily nice.
As well, the NEM needs to understand what God meant when He said to Eve, “Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you” (Gen. 3:16). While not being an authoritarian, the man should be a source of strength and leadership to a Christian woman. Unfortunately, this text is often twisted to mean only that, “God is saying what this world will look like in sin, not what it should be.”
The problem is, right after this, God curses Adam to a life of toil. No one ever claims that, “Well, God isn’t saying that man should be required to work for his daily bread, only that this is the way the world will look because of sin.”
Just as we all know the Bible affirms this toil as a moral good (2 Thess. 3:10 for instance), we must recognize Genesis 3:16 as a statement of God’s will for relationships. Paul himself affirms this (Eph. 5:22-24). We cannot have it both ways. We may–in kindness–want to seek to alleviate any pains brought on by God’s commands. This is compassion, and it is also commanded of us. God communicates a sort of tension in His will. But we cannot act as though God’s private will is the total opposite of His stated will.
Christian men should recognize that God has so created men and women that women instinctively want a man who is strong and tough. NEMs have been taught the opposite, that God’s will is for men to be more like women. This is not the case. God does not want that, and the women He has created do not truly want that.
God has made women to want their men to be strong. And He has created men to want to be strong. Feminism within Christianity has taught women to be men and men to be women. As a result, NEMs have been shamed for being masculine, to the point that they believe their manhood is sinful . It is time they realize the liberating truth that God wants them to be manly, and so do women.
[Editorial Note: After some confusion, I must clarify: When I say that Christian women don't want a NEM, I am referring to actual Christ-following women, not EAPs. EAPs also do not want the "nice guy," but for reasons entirely different than those of devout Christian women.]
Disclaimer (cus its all the rage now
): Its NOT my intention that this is to counter the EAP thread. And I really hope that shines through. It was an interesting thread and website, and I wanted to share. Please NO man-bashing or male vs. female: who's the worst out of the two.Nice Evangelical Men Need to Man Up (For Real)
Posted on May 7, 2012
Having spent some time dealing with the phenomenon of the Evangelical American Princess, in the interest of fairness I’ve decided to handle the other side of the coin: Nice evangelical men (NEMs).
NEM, you might notice, is men spelled backwards. This is not accidental. The NEM is, in the end, the opposite of a biblical man. Much like the EAP, the NEM is in part a product of the evangelical culture. As such, he is not entirely the cause of his own status. At the same time, he is responsible for his decisions, and he needs to make the decision to man up.
Not “man up” as Marc Driscoll and other evangelical white knights mean it. He shouldn’t man up and marry a promiscuous woman just so she can have a nice home in the suburbs and 2.3 kids that she can eventually steal from him once she becomes “unhappy” and finds a hotter alpha to whom she can trade up. The Biblical admonition is the exactly opposite.
Rather, to be a Biblical man, the NEM needs to drop the subservient persona that has been hammered into him from evangelical culture. This is not God’s ideal for a man. I am sickened by what I see when other single Christian men my age (I’m 31) interact with women. They act as if they are afraid of women, as if they want the woman to lead them, as if they eschew righteous strength and masculinity. As such they fail to fulfill God’s design for men.
I know. I used to be a NEM.
To begin with, the NEM needs to realize that being “nice” is not a Biblical virtue. Kindness is a virtue. In fact, it is a fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22) a characteristic of holy love (1. Cor. 13:4). Kindness is not niceness. Nice means saying things that the other person wants to hear. It means not being loyal to truth, but rather to the principle of conflict avoidance.
Kindness, on the other hand, involves showing compassion in and through truth. It is real and solid. It is, in the end, manly. Kindness does what is best for its object, even if what is best is also unpleasant.
The NEM believes that if he is nice to a Christian woman, this will cause her to be attracted to him. He’s wrong. No woman would–or should–want such a “nice” person as a husband. Why? His life is not based in truth. In the end, niceness of this sort is truly deceit: He is not being who he is. He is being someone else, the one he thinks she wants him to be. In the end, his preference for conflict avoidance over truth means he lacks the conviction necessary to stand up for what is right. No woman should marry such a man, and I don’t blame them for not being attracted to NEMs.
The NEM needs to understand the Biblical view of masculinity. To begin with, he needs to see the Lord’s example as the one perfect man. Our Lord was not a deferential weakling. Contrary to most present-day representations of Him within Churchianity, Jesus was not an androgynous New Age hippy. He was not “nice.” In fact, He was quite direct and tough, even with women. He stood up against falsehood and injustice, and refused to back down. He chased people with whips through the Temple. And in the end, He committed the greatest possible act of masculine strength: He took a bullet for his brothers.
This is the example of what it means to be a man: Be good, not necessarily nice.
As well, the NEM needs to understand what God meant when He said to Eve, “Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you” (Gen. 3:16). While not being an authoritarian, the man should be a source of strength and leadership to a Christian woman. Unfortunately, this text is often twisted to mean only that, “God is saying what this world will look like in sin, not what it should be.”
The problem is, right after this, God curses Adam to a life of toil. No one ever claims that, “Well, God isn’t saying that man should be required to work for his daily bread, only that this is the way the world will look because of sin.”
Just as we all know the Bible affirms this toil as a moral good (2 Thess. 3:10 for instance), we must recognize Genesis 3:16 as a statement of God’s will for relationships. Paul himself affirms this (Eph. 5:22-24). We cannot have it both ways. We may–in kindness–want to seek to alleviate any pains brought on by God’s commands. This is compassion, and it is also commanded of us. God communicates a sort of tension in His will. But we cannot act as though God’s private will is the total opposite of His stated will.
Christian men should recognize that God has so created men and women that women instinctively want a man who is strong and tough. NEMs have been taught the opposite, that God’s will is for men to be more like women. This is not the case. God does not want that, and the women He has created do not truly want that.
God has made women to want their men to be strong. And He has created men to want to be strong. Feminism within Christianity has taught women to be men and men to be women. As a result, NEMs have been shamed for being masculine, to the point that they believe their manhood is sinful . It is time they realize the liberating truth that God wants them to be manly, and so do women.
[Editorial Note: After some confusion, I must clarify: When I say that Christian women don't want a NEM, I am referring to actual Christ-following women, not EAPs. EAPs also do not want the "nice guy," but for reasons entirely different than those of devout Christian women.]
A man who is boldly confident in his walk with God and the decisions he is led to by the Lord is a treasure.
