Concordia TheoBLOGical Seminary

Months ago, I wrote about masculinity and femininity. Recently, I read an interview that ZENIT conducted with Anthony Esolen on the topic of “Finding the Masculine Genius.” There were a couple striking points that we, as Lutherans and for unknown reasons, have not discussed. The first addresses Esolen’s understanding of what the terms masculinity and manhood mean.

Q: In your recent articles you have discussed masculinity and manhood. How do you see your own understanding of these differ from the way others use these terms?

Esolen: When a virtue falls by the wayside, when it is no longer a lived reality recognized by a community in its manifold forms, we recall only a scrap of it here or there, or we can only imagine a gaudy caricature of it.

That, I think, is the case now for both manhood and womanhood.

Many millions of boys in America, for instance, are growing up in homes without fathers, so they find “fathers” of their own on the streets or in the diseased and silly fantasies of mass entertainment, musclemen who can take down a city, or charismatic gang leaders who move caches of drugs and make exciting things happen.

They miss the more subtle fortitude of moral vision and farsighted self-sacrifice. Male heroes in popular literature for boys, 80 or 90 years ago, might be all right with a gun or a sword, but they might also be bespectacled dons like Mr. Chips whose discipline was a form of love.

I see manhood as the drive to lead — to serve by leading, or to lead by following loyally the true leadership of one’s father or priest or captain.

The man exercises charity by training himself to be self-reliant in ordinary things, not out of pride, but out of a sincere desire to free others up for their own duties, and to free himself for things that are not ordinary.

The man also must refuse — this is a difficult form of self-sacrifice — to allow his feelings to turn him from duty, including his duty to learn the truth and to follow it.

A man loves his own family, but he also loves his family by refusing to subject the entire civil order to the welfare of his family; he understands that if he performs his duty, other families besides his own will profit by it.

A man must consider his life dispensable for the sake of those he leads; he must obey his legitimate superior; if and only if he does so will he become really necessary and really worthy of the obedience he claims, with scriptural authority that need not embarrass anyone.

The second addresses questions on what Jesus teaches about what it means to be a male and what masculinity means, needs, and does.

Q: What could men learn from Christ, the ultimate man, in terms of developing masculinity?

Esolen: The first thing they could learn is not to be embarrassed by their manhood. It is holy! It has been created by God, and for a reason.

Then they might notice that Jesus is not the cute boyfriend that many of our churches make him out to be, the one who never goes too far — forgive me if that is a little coarse.

Jesus loves women, as all good men must; Jesus obeys his mother at Cana; but Jesus does not hang around the skirts of women; he speaks gently, but as a man speaks gently, and when he rebukes, he rebukes forthrightly and clearly, as a man.

His closest comrades are men, though they are not necessarily the people he loves best in the world. He organizes them into a battalion of sacrifice.

He is remarkably sparing in his praise of them; certainly, as is the case with many good and wise men, he is much more desirous that they should come to know him than that they should feel comfortable about themselves.

From his apostles he seems to prefer the love that accompanies apprehension of the truth, rather than love born of his own affectionate actions toward them.

In fact, they respond to him as men often respond: They admire and follow with all the greater loyalty the man who rebukes them for, of all things, being frightened when it appears their ship will capsize in the stormy Sea of Galilee!

Men can learn from Jesus to seek the company of other men, at least in part for the sake of women, and certainly for the sake of the village, the nation, the Church and the world.

They can learn that there are two ways at least in which man is not meant to be alone: He needs the complementary virtues of woman, and he needs other men.

A soldier alone is no soldier.

I am dumbfounded why Lutherans haven’t spoken about this more clearly and more often. Lutheran theology is so earthy and dirt-level. If there was anyone who could be able to address these current issues, I would think that Lutherans are uniquely poised to do so. Perhaps, there is a richness to what Esolen posits that we desperately need to nurture young men in. But how to do this? The seminary is a great place to retreat and enjoy the company of other men who are searching and seeking to be formed into walking, talking icons of Christian masculinity. Come join us for the journey.