He can be sweet, bitter, nostalgic, or cynical, but he cannot figure out how to be a man. - Hanna Rosin

There has been significant attention in the media recently about changing roles between men and women; most notably in The Atlantic, Slate, and The New York Times (Interestingly each written by women). One of the major themes in this trend is the rise of two things: The Omega Male and women who don't need them.

The entire article in The Atlantic is worth a read, but a few paragraphs are especially insightful:

"As the traditional order has been upended, signs of the profound disruption have popped up in odd places. Japan is in a national panic over the rise of the “herbivores,” the cohort of young men who are rejecting the hard-drinking salaryman life of their fathers and are instead gardening, organizing dessert parties, acting cartoonishly feminine, and declining to have sex. The generational young-women counterparts are known in Japan as the “carnivores,” or sometimes the “hunters.”

"American pop culture keeps producing endless variations on the omega male, who ranks even below the beta in the wolf pack. This often-unemployed, romantically challenged loser can show up as a perpetual adolescent (in Judd Apatow’s Knocked Up or The 40-Year-Old Virgin), or a charmless misanthrope (in Noah Baumbach’s Greenberg), or a happy couch potato (in a Bud Light commercial). He can be sweet, bitter, nostalgic, or cynical, but he cannot figure out how to be a man [Emphasis mine]. “We call each other ‘man,’” says Ben Stiller’s character in Greenberg, “but it’s a joke. It’s like imitating other people.”

"At the same time, a new kind of alpha female has appeared, stirring up anxiety and, occasionally, fear. The cougar trope started out as a joke about desperate older women. Now it’s gone mainstream, even in Hollywood, home to the 50-something producer with a starlet on his arm. Susan Sarandon and Demi Moore have boy toys, and Aaron Johnson, the 19-year-old star of Kick-Ass, is a proud boy toy for a woman 24 years his senior. The New York Times columnist Gail Collins recently wrote that the cougar phenomenon is beginning to look like it’s not about desperate women at all but about “desperate young American men who are latching on to an older woman who’s a good earner.”

Here's the thing; you might be this guy. You might know one, or ten, of these guys. The Omega Male is not a rare phenomenon, which is why we need to be familiar with it and them.

The Complications of Roles

This is clearly a loaded subject; packed with a slew of issues like the following:

• Sociological: the well-documented prolonging of adolescence into emerging adulthood.
• Philosophical: according to the New York Times article, questions of self-understanding.
• Pop-Cultural: as the references in each article to movie and TV characters illustrate, the media that helped to create this phenomenon is selling it back to us and perpetuating it. I could've sworn there was a line in Fight Club about this.
• Economic: are cultures without America's vast economic luxury facing the same cultural issues? Are Belize, Rwanda, or Ecuador struggling with the same confusions?

The end result of all of it is wide-spread confusion over the roles of men and women, love and sex, relationship and friendship.

The Omega Male and the Church

What none of these articles have touched on is how this has invaded and effected the church.  Like any other social entity, the church tends to overemphasize certain things to the detriment of others. Beneath the din of culture war issues like abortion and gay marriage, we have to ask if the church has been faithful in teaching young people about proper roles for men and women. In the large segments of the church that clumsily "embraced the arts" in the last 7 years, did they spend as much time teaching those same artists what the Bible teaches about what a man is, what a woman is, and how they should interact in friendships and relationships?

The Omega Male and the gender role confusion associated with them are only recently being popularly analyzed and diagnosed, but by the time issues reach a popular level they are already ubiquitous. This would make it a good time for the church to ask how it can teach Omega Males to be men; to contend for the faith (Jude 3), to treat girls as sisters (1 Tim. 5:2), and to work hard like a farmer, sharing in suffering, competing by the rules like an athlete (2 Tim. 2:1-6)—all activities that Omegas aren't prone to do but about which the Bible is clear.

For further thought-provoking commentary on men, women, & relationships, I strongly suggest this video.

Valentine’s Day is often loved by women and loathed by men, who drop their cash on flowers, jewelry, candy, and cards. Perhaps comic Jay Leno expressed the male dilemma about Valentine’s Day best in one of his monologues: “Today is Valentine's Day—or, as men like to call it, Extortion Day!” Conversely, the hopelessly romantic at heart enjoy the opportunity that Valentine’s Day affords for thoughtful romance and unbridled passion.

Whether you love or hate Valentine’s Day, the fact is that it has evolved into an enormous holiday. The question remains, however, who is Valentine and how did he come to be associated with everything from the color red to some secret known only by a woman named Victoria?

Who Was Valentine?

While the details of his life are sketchy at best, Valentine was allegedly a Christian who was canonized by the Catholic Church as a saint. His name was common and is derived from the Latin word valens, meaning strong and powerful.

One legend claims that Emperor Claudius II (or Claudius the Goth) outlawed marriage because he decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families and he wanted to bolster the strength of his military. But a priest named Valentine secretly performed marriages, thereby defending romance and love.

Another legend claims that just prior to being beheaded, Valentine prayed over the daughter of his jailer. This led to the curing of her blindness and the conversion of her entire family, including her father, though he still put Valentine to death toward the end of the third century.

Further contributing to all of the confusion is the fact that there may have been as many as three Christians named Valentine who were all martyred, thereby making it seemingly impossible to know which stories are true and to which men they apply.

Legends and Feasts

Although the celebration of the life of Saint Valentine was not initially met with much fanfare, he eventually grew in popularity for a very practical reason. Around AD 498, Pope Gelasius chose February 14 as the day for commemorating Valentine’s life because that was the day he reportedly died as a Christian martyr around AD 270. That day proved to be serendipitous, as the medieval legend emerged that birds select their mates on February 14, thereby associating the day with romance and love. Also, Saint Valentine’s Day fell the day before the Hefner-esque Roman fertility feast of Lupercalia on February 15. Lupercalia was a drunken, naked crazy-fest not unlike modern-day Mardi Gras celebrations. Lupercalia was dedicated to the god of partying, Faunus, and was marked by the usual frat-boy nonsense of naked guys running through the streets while crowds danced and drank heavily, and young singles enjoyed “hooking up.”

Once Saint Valentine became connected with the debauchery of Lupercalia, his Christian influence on the holiday quickly waned; the two holidays essentially merged and the spirit of Lupercalia remained but was renamed Valentine’s Day. At this point, Valentine’s Day quickly grew in popularity. Its association with the color red may stem from the fact that the color red was chosen to commemorate the death of Valentine who died the bloody death of a martyr. Also, the association with the chubby, winged pseudo-angel Cupid, who is the mythical son of the Roman goddess of love, Venus, is a Lupercalia leftover from pagan mythology.

Be My Valentine

Perhaps the most common present-day tradition associated with Valentine’s Day is the giving of valentine cards. No one is certain how this tradition began. One legend reports that Valentine actually sent the first valentine. The story goes that while in prison awaiting his execution, he wrote a love letter to a woman and signed it, “From your Valentine.” Apparently the expression stuck and remains perennially popular.

By the Middle Ages, Valentine’s Day was widely celebrated. The first Valentine’s Day card was reportedly a poem sent by Charles, the Duke of Orleans, to his wife in 1415 while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London following his capture at the Battle of Agincourt. That card remains on display at the British Museum in London to this day. By 1450, to be someone’s valentine was synonymous with being his or her sweetheart. By 1533, a valentine was synonymous with a piece of paper folded as a romantic card. By 1610, valentine gifts were also commonly given to sweethearts.

By the mid-1700s, Valentine’s Day grew in popularity throughout Great Britain, and around that time Americans also began exchanging handmade valentine cards. By the 1840s, the commercial greeting card companies began mass-producing valentines marked by such girlie adornments as lace and ribbon. Today, an estimated one billion valentine cards are sent each year, making Valentine’s Day the second largest card-sending holiday of the year, following Christmas.

Sadly, the holiday in his name completely ignores our Christian brother Valentine. As a pastor, he likely would have been mortified at much of what is done in the name of love to commemorate the day his head was chopped off because of his love for Jesus.

Pastor Mark:

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The number of occurrences of sexual assaults is staggering. At least 1 in 4 women and 1 in 7 men are or will be victims of sexual assault in their lifetime. More staggering than the prevalence is the damage done to the victim. The effects are physical, social, emotional, psychological, and spiritual.

Sexual assault is not just rape by a stranger with a weapon. Most victims (approximately 80%) are assaulted by an acquaintance (relative, friend, dating partner, spouse, pastor, teacher, boss, coach, therapist, doctor, etc.). Sexual assault also includes attempted rape or any form of nonconsensual sexual contact.

This post is written to sexual assault victims, not about them.

What happened to you was not your fault. You are not to blame. You did not deserve it. You did not ask for this. You should not be silenced. Nobody had the right to violate you. You were supposed to be treated with dignity and respect. You are not damaged goods. You are not worthless. You do not have to pretend like nothing happened. Healing can happen, and there is hope.

While all of this is true, you may still feel the effects of the sexual assault—disgrace, a deep sense of defilement and filth that is encumbered with shame.

Disgrace vs. Grace

Disgrace is the opposite of grace. Grace is love that seeks you out even if you have nothing to give in return. Grace is being loved when you are or feel unlovable. Grace has the power to turn despair into hope. Grace listens, lifts up, cures, transforms, and heals.

Disgrace destroys, causes pain, deforms, and wounds. It alienates and isolates. Disgrace makes you feel worthless, rejected, unwanted, and repulsive, like a persona non grata (a "person without grace"). Disgrace silences and shuns. Your suffering of disgrace is only increased when others force your silence. The refusals of others to speak about sexual assault and listen to victims tell their story is a refusal to offer grace and healing.

One-Way Love

To your sense of disgrace, God gives grace. He restores, repairs, and re-creates. A good short definition of grace is "one-way, unconditional love" (Paul Zahl, Grace in Practice: A Theology of Everyday Life). This is the opposite of your experience of assault, which was "one-way violence."

One-way love does not avoid you but comes near you, not because you earned it but because you need it. It is the lasting transformation that takes place in human experience. One-way love is the change agent you need. You need something to change regarding the internal pain you are experiencing.

The experience of sexual assault frequently causes a victim to ask two questions: How can I be rid of my disgrace (2 Sam. 13:13)? How can I receive grace? The answer to both questions is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Redemption

The Bible begins with creation in harmony, unity, and peace, and it ends with a restored creation. In between these two "bookends" unfolds the drama of redemption. Salvation was needed because of the tragedy of human rebellion that resulted in disgrace and destruction. Because God is faithful and compassionate, he restores his fallen creation and responds with grace and redemption. This good news is fully expressed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and its scope is "as far as the curse is found." Jesus is the redemptive work of God in our own history, in our own human flesh.

Victims can more meaningfully celebrate the victorious resurrection of Christ when they can identify with the horrendous victimizing of the cross. Jesus was the recipient of violence that mirrors much of what victims experience (shame, humiliation, silence, betrayal, pain, mockery, travesty of justice, loneliness, etc.). His suffering and death were real and brutal, but there was a resurrection after Good Friday. The cross is both the consequence of evil and God's method of accomplishing redemption. Jesus' resurrection is proof that God is about redeeming, healing, and making all things new.

Justin and Lindsey Holcomb are working on a forthcoming Re:Lit book dealing with this topic.

Porn Again Christian

Pastor Mark Driscoll's frank discussion on pornography and masturbation is now available from Amazon. Find out more.

As part of the Trial series in which I recently preached through 1 Peter, one sermon in particular got a lot of traction both online and on the radio. The response to Marriage and Men from 1 Peter 3:7 has been very encouraging, and I want to sincerely thank those who took the time to listen to that sermon and pass it on to their friends. Since posting it we have had churches ask if they could replay it at their churches for men’s groups, Father’s Day, and so on. The request has been very humbling, as even an amazing church of 10,000 people is planning to show it for their Father’s Day services. So the guys in my Preaching and Theology Branch of Mars Hill Church have been kind enough to post the sermon online in a 720p video format for free download, in a higher resolution than our normal video files, for use by anyone who wants it.

Download “Marriage and Men” in the downloads section of this media page.

Trial Study Guide:

Get the companion study guide to Pastor Mark's latest sermon series in downloadable PDF form. Find out more.

When you work with guys who can sit in a room with five other guys and watch endless amounts of porn as if they were watching 24, then you know you don't have the average job. This is the case for guys serving in the military, especially in Afghanistan, Iraq, or out at sea.

In order for the average guy—who doesn't read Grudem's Systematic Theology—to pick up and read a book about Jesus, you need to punch him in his gut, metaphorically.

It was this mentality that led us here at Mars Hill Church to ship out 800 of Pastor Mark's books, including Porn Again Christian, to men serving in the military. The majority of these books are heading out to Jonah's, Abraham's, and Daniel's old stomping ground of Iraq. Others are going to aircraft carriers, guys who are stateside prepping for an upcoming deployment, and other US installations around the world.

Part of our mission with sending these books is not to have guys simply reading these as an end in themselves, but rather to get them into Scripture.

I wanted to thank those of you who are backing us and have decided to support these men with these books and the Vintage Jesus DVD curriculum. These tools will enable them to grow as the husbands, daddies, and warriors their Lord wants them to be. It will also help them speak into the lives of guys they are serving with who have a very twisted view of who Jesus Christ is and what it means to be a man.

What Troops are saying:

Matt, US Army Ranger in Iraq:
“I grabbed Porn Again Christian and never put it down. I needed that book, and most of the guys I work with need it as well. I think there is a tendency in our desensitized culture to think certain images or magazines are just part of what it means to be a man today.”

Roger, US Army Chaplain:
“The copies of Porn Again will be perfect for our soldiers. Porn Again is awesome because nobody talks about that stuff, at least not honestly (and frankly nobody talks about masturbation).”

John, US Navy:
“I read Porn Again in its entirety right after I got it. I wish I’d have had it before our ship pulled into Hong Kong, but there will be many more port calls during this cruise where several thousand sailors could benefit from having that booklet’s content on their hearts and minds.”

If you are interested in finding out more, email military@marshillchurch.org.

Porn-Again Christian:

You are part of a culture that spends more money each year on pornography than country music, rock music, jazz music, classical music, Broadway plays, and ballet combined. Find Out God's view.

And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. (Gen. 2:25)

Click to go to the Mars Hill Blog

In answering text message questions about sexuality as part of the Peasant Princess sermon series studying the Song of Songs, we have been a bit overwhelmed.

First, the online response has been shocking and we are grateful for all our Internet friends who have tripled traffic to the Mars Hill Church website (www.marshillchurch.org) and also pushed our iTunes podcast as high as #4 under Religion and Spirituality, just behind Oprah, Joel Osteen, and the LDS national conference.

Second, we have been overwhelmed with all of the questions we have received and are answering as many as we can on Sundays. Some of the questions are not best suited for a church service but do merit honest responses, therefore we will answer some of them in this month-long series of daily blogs in an effort to be of further help to Christians everywhere.

Sitting Down with J.I. Packer
Perhaps my favorite time in Orlando was spent in a small group with Dr. J. I. Packer. It is hard to overestimate Packer’s impact on evangelical Christianity. The graciousness he afforded me to sit on a couch and ask him questions for more than an hour was humbling and helpful. He is very clear minded at age eighty-two and he remains incredibly conversant, insightful, and witty. Impressively, his words are impeccably precise.

On Homosexuality
As we sat on the couch together, he explained that Anglicanism is patterned after the ancient Roman governmental system so that a bishop has jurisdiction over a geographic area. However, this long-established ecclesiological pattern has been breached because Anglicanism is suffering from “heretical bishops.” By “heretical bishops,” Packer was referring to those bishops who sanction homosexual activity. He explained that the “heretical bishops” won support for their position following much lobbying. This sadly required Bible-believing Anglican churches to come under the authority of other orthodox bishops outside of their geographic area rather than remain under “heretical bishops.”

Homosexuality: A Heretical Issue
When asked about calling those who support homosexuality and profess to be Christian “heretical,” Packer very carefully and insightfully explained what he meant. He began by saying that as Christians we are tempted to sin in many ways, including homosexuality. However, because God has saved us through Jesus and empowered us with the Holy Spirit, we are to practice ongoing repentance of sin and rejection of sinful desires. He explained in great detail that he perceives the approval of homosexuality to be “heretical” because it denies a fundamental aspect of the gospel—namely repentance. Packer explained how for six years he called his Anglican Diocese to repent of their sinful support of unrepentant homosexual activity, to no avail. Eventually, his own archbishop sought to pull his license (essentially his ordination or credentials) as a punitive measure. In the end, Packer, along with roughly thirty Anglican churches, came out from under their “heretical” leadership to form a new Anglican alliance.
Returning to the issue of denying a fundamental aspect of the gospel (repentance), he explained that 1 Corinthians 6:9–11 says,

"Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God."

Packer was clear that those who do not call Christians to repent of homosexual activity are, as Scripture says, “deceived.” He told me that the first of Martin Luther’s 95 Theses was that the whole of a Christian’s life is to be one of repentance of sin. Any Christian who does not practice and promote repentance is denying an aspect of the gospel of Jesus Christ. When I asked how the denial of repentance merited the label of “heretical,” Packer said, “ “‘Heresy’ ought to be used when an aspect of the gospel is being denied.” He further explained that because God through Paul warns the Corinthians that those who practice homosexuality unrepentantly will be damned to hell, “Souls are put at risk every time homosexuality is tolerated.”

Starting a New Religion?
In keeping with Packer’s line of reasoning, I asked him if those who are “heretical” in promoting homosexual activity while declaring themselves to be Christian are in effect promoting a new religion based upon a false gospel, like Mormonism and the Jehovah’s Witnesses. He said, “You could describe it that way and it’s what they are doing.”

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My Time on the Road
I recently spent a packed week preaching and teaching in London and Brighton, England, with Newfrontiers Network and other organizations. It was a grueling schedule, but Pastor Scott Thomas, who directs the Acts 29 Church Planting Network, and I learned a great deal and met some amazing people whom we thoroughly enjoyed.
On the way home we stopped over in Orlando, Florida, at the International Christian Retail Show. I did my first-ever book signing there, which was fun since Crossway Books was gracious enough to give away over two hundred copies of Vintage Jesus, which I penned with Dr. Gerry Breshears. We ran out of copies and I shook hands, prayed for people, and signed books for more than two hours.
I was also honored to speak on “A Passion for People” from Matthew 9:35–38 at the 70th anniversary banquet for Crossway. They also debuted the English Standard Version Study Bible due out in the fall. Jerry Bridges, Wayne Grudem, J. I. Packer, and Lane Dennis spoke at the event as well. In attendance were R. C. Sproul, Jack Graham, Roger Nicole, and others whom I had the honor of meeting. I was one of the only people in the room not in a suit, as I somehow missed the dress code, but everyone was gracious despite my black button-up shirt with skulls and crossbones and matching Affliction boots covered in serpents. The entire night was very moving, and the debut of the ESV Study Bible is incredibly exciting as it promises to be the most thorough and helpful study Bible ever produced.

More to Come...

Slaves, Women & Homosexuals: Exploring the Hermeneutics of Cultural Analysis. By William J. Webb. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2001. 301 pp. n.p.

INTRODUCTION

Sometimes I wonder if egalitarians hope to triumph in the debate on the role of women by publishing book after book on the subject. Each work propounds a new thesis which explains why the traditional interpretation is flawed. Complementarians could easily give in from sheer exhaustation, thinking that so many books written by such a diversity of different authors could scarcely be wrong. Further, it is difficult to keep writing books promoting the complementarian view. Our view of the biblical text has not changed dramatically in the last twenty five years. Should we continue to write books that essentially promote traditional interpretations? Is the goal of publishing to write what is true or what is new?

Supporters of gay clergy are impatient and want changes right now. They believe that traditionalists are too slow in responding to their appeals for justice and mercy. They do not intend to stop short of making as many changes as quickly as possible in every ecclesiastical setting that will hear them out and accept their views. Last week the goal of the gay advocates was to change the present policy of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) at its annual meeting in Chicago. By the time you read this article a decision will have been made.

In 1974, when I left the States to teach in "godless" France, the cultural revolution was a Left coast/San Fran' phenom', and America was still "Christian." When I returned in 1991, I was in for culture shock, but still never imagined what lay ahead.

One man warned us. In 1978, Pastor Charles Mcllhenny recorded his experiences after his church fired a homosexual organist (When the Wicked Seize a City). Church property was repeatedly vandalized and his family almost killed by a firebomb. "Law enforcement" never found the culprits. Mcllhenny used San Francisco as a striking example of what America might become. Are we "goin' to San Francisco?" as the 60s hit song asked?