Most Aren't Going to Like the Solution
Back to the drawing board
Every time I finish a book I’m reminded how difficult it is to pick what to work on next. I’ve been so focused on assurance for so long that changing gears and picking another topic to throw myself into has been a challenge.
However, looking back at the last couple of years’ worth of writing and podcasting, a clear picture has emerged regarding the most pressing need of our day.
The way I see it:
- The world won’t be fixed while the church is weak
- The church will be weak until it confronts casual Christianity
- Casual Christianity won’t be fixed until consensus-based leadership is done away with
Basically, everything rests on a return to traditional, Biblical gender roles—not because they are some magic bullet, but because they are the most basic step in mankind’s faithfulness to God.
Before there were nations, Israel, or the church, there was one man and one woman who became one flesh. From there, Genesis is the long, sad story of familial missteps, but it is made right in the end by Joseph’s typological foreshadowing of Christ. If the type of Christ can heal family wounds, how much more can the real Christ?
As our churches and society decline, faithful obedience to God in the most fundamental elements of our humanity is the path to restoration.
I’ve put a decent amount of content out on masculinity and femininity over the years, but I’ll be putting even more emphasis on it in the coming weeks. It might even end up as a book. Why?
Because I believe the overwhelming majority of today’s teaching on the matter of men and women is not just unhelpful—it’s actively harmful.
As they say, the lie closest to the truth is the most dangerous. Most Christian material acknowledges that there are males and females, recognizes that God created the two to be different, and then, right before the most critical step on the journey—division of roles—changes the road signs to divert everybody to a smooth, easy path that keeps them from being what God intended.
What has passed for Biblical teaching on manhood, womanhood, and marriage for the last 60 years or so must be abandoned if we are going to keep this ship from sinking.
This isn’t just some nitpick, either.
The cost of our disobedience is enormous:
Homes that aren’t led by the father.
Youths who grow up without a path for what they’re supposed to become.
Churches that are quietly steered by the women’s caucus.
A culture governed by weaponized envy.
Cratering birth rates.
Staggering divorce, cohabitation, and illegitimate children rates.
It’s family, church, and civilizational suicide we’re talking about here. Beyond all of that, though, it’s just not working out. People will defend this setup to the death, despite the fact that no one is happy in it.
Women bear the exhausting weight of have-it-all feminism, as I noted in my piece on the Barbie movie a couple years ago. Men are given responsibility without authority, a combo that always sets up for failure. Mental health is a major issue we can’t seem to solve. Sexless marriages are on the rise. The fruit is rotten.
We rage against our telos and then wonder why we aren’t fulfilled.
To fix this, though, it’s going to require some uncomfortable conversations. We’re going to have to talk about submission without practicing death by a million caveats. We’re going to have to talk about headship without equating it to dictatorship. We’re going to have to talk about masculinity and femininity in a way that accounts for innate, hard-wired differences in design and purpose.
We’ll start next week with a look at the false dichotomies of male leadership. Be sure you’re subscribed by email (free!) and podcast (Church Reset on Apple, Spotify, YouTube) to follow along!
Notes
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We need to get a lot of things redefined. It’s seriously becoming so so toxic.
Simply defining submission as it ought to be, loyalty, which men are also supposed to do, we would solve a lot of problems.
Simply bringing to light everything said to women is also said to men would solve a lot of problems.
Simply remembering Yah’s covenant is with all people and men aren’t the favored ones, but men and women recieve the promise would solve a lot of problems.
I don’t get it.
But, I’m glad a man is speaking up, cuz lord knows the men in these mindsets aren’t going to hear a word from the women with megaphones.
I’ve been in church music for over 40 years and watch the seeker-sensitive, purpose driven, CCM set fire to the American church. I remember in the early 1990’s trying to sound the alarm at churches where I served about what was happening as the church threw opened their doors and said “what do YOU want church to be?” (Rick Warren did this exact things in starting Saddleback.). We let the world dictate to churches what they should be and look 30+ years later what has happened. I’ve watched the hub of life (God) be broken so every spoke of the wheel gets fractured until the wheel almost becomes useless.
We have become “entertain me!” churches. I remember one interview I had in the late 1990’s that wanted videos of my past children’s choir program so they could judge the type of programs I did. Needless to say, I didn’t have any. It used to be what you faith was and your belief about God, the Bible and Jesus were paramount. That changed. Even after all these years, I still hear people say “well, if the music changed people will come.” No. Yes, you can have large churches, but look at the attendance statistics. Look at the Bible illiteracy rate we have now. Look at how many people worship at the altar of sports now. And don’t get me even started on churches closing there doors for (some) over a year while Satan danced with glee. It was almost like we did the story of Job again. “God, those people don’t really worship you. They don’t really want to grow in this faith you say they need to have or the acceptance of this Son you say you have. Let me show you.” Look what happened……..
Can the ship be turned around? Only by a God given miracle. I personally believe that God has said “okay, you want to run MY church your way?” Have at it. As the Bible says, there is a remnant. It gets smaller by the day. I tell people to stay away from the denominational churches. Look for a church that preaches, teaches and lives by the Bible. That is going to draw a big X on most churches. It is sad. My church music ministry has watch that hub of the wheel get a tiny crack and become more fractured year by year. We have lost 2 (or 3) generations to our lack of being faithful to the Word. (Where do you think Millennials and Snowflakes came from?”). My heart hurts for our youth who we have failed.
God is faithful and Sovereign and He will triumph in the end by the return of His Son, Jesus Christ, to establish His Kingdom. Getting to that day will grow darker and darker as the wheat is separated from the chaff.