mgpcpastor's blog

Earlier this week I put up a post that took a tongue in cheek look at the issue of masculinity and the contemporary church.

Craig Schwartz posted an article on Sydney Anglicans entitled ‘The Christian and the Cage Fighter‘ which has drawn a lot of comment.

The theme has is also reported in the US media this week.
Flock Is Now a Fight Team in Some Ministries is a New York Times online article about “a small but growing number of evangelical churches that have embraced mixed martial arts — a sport with a reputation for violence and blood that combines kickboxing, wrestling and other fighting styles — to reach and convert young men, whose church attendance has been persistently low.”

Albert Mohler has an audio recording responding to the issue in which he states that: “Rather than reverting to a macho-centric, fight-club mentality, the Church must teach her young men to lead like her Savior does: with intentional, self-sacrifice, and aggressive love.”
At the Church Matters blog, Michael Mckinley, offers a complementary response that expresses these concerns:
Here are my concerns:
1. It’s derivative and unoriginal. It was lame when Billy Sunday was doing it 100 years ago.
2. It makes the gospel man-centered. Coming to Jesus isn’t a way for you to deal with your daddy issues. I get it, your dad didn’t hug you when you were little and you want to be a different kind of man. How about you go hug your kid then? Jesus didn’t come to help you get in touch with your inner MMA fighter.
3. Like it or not, the gospel is at least in part about weakness. It’s about the almighty becoming weak to save us. It’s about us being helpless and unable in our sins. There’s no way to Christ that doesn’t start with brokenness and an admission of impotence. Yes, Jesus is the strong man who binds the adversary, but he bound him by suffering, humiliation, and weakness.
4. It discourages and mocks godly men who aren’t macho. There is an undercurrent of disdain in all of this. Proponents of this testosterone Christianity can’t help but take shots at guys who wear pastels and drink cappuccino. You might not like guys with manicures, but there’s absolutely nothing morally wrong with it. A reserved, quiet, well-groomed man can be a good Christian. Believe it or not.

It is an indictment on the church that the sad caricature of manhood that is presented by two people beating each other in a cage could be confused with the real thing.
Clearly we need to refine and teach the truth more clearly.
Being a husband, father and friend won’t bring the same emotion that you will experience when the sweat that sprays of someone who’s just been punched lands all over you at a cage fight. But what positive purpose does that emotion achieve anyway?

Edit: The Masculine Mandate is a relevant book by Richard D. Phillips.