Hello my friends!

Today is Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week for many within the Christian faith. I just want to start by saying that I know this can be a very complicated time for many, especially those who have been wounded by the church and those who have no community at all.

We can feel the longing for Christian community and the desire to protect ourselves from Christian community at the same time. We can feel the desire to participate in worship services this Holy Week and we can feel the desire to do anything other than a worship service this week at the same time.

Your journey is unique and so is your pain and so is your healing. So, however you participate with this coming week, I want you to know it's okay to prioritize your healing and I hope this little corner of the internet provides you a sense of comfort, belonging, and hope along the way.

As I found myself reflecting on Jesus' ministry and the events around Holy Week, I couldn't help but think about the harmful narratives of masculinity I have been hearing so much of lately. So I'd like to reflect on that with you today.

But before we get started, here are some helpful resources on this topic.

​-Non-Toxic Masculinity: Recovering Healthy Male Sexuality by Zachary Wagner. Dismissals such as "boys will be boys" and "not all men" are ingrained in our world. And the purity culture of our youth sold the same excuses with a spiritual spin. Can we break the toxic cycle and recover a healthy identity for men? Reflecting on his own coming of age in the purity culture movement and ongoing recovery from sexual shame, Wagner confronts harmful teaching from the American church that has distorted desire, sex, relationships, and responsibility. For those―both men and women―who feel disillusioned and adrift, this book offers a renewed vision for Christian male sexuality founded in empathy and selflessness.

​-She Deserves Better: Raising Girls to Resist Toxic Teachings on Sex, Self, and Speaking Up by Sheila Wray Gregoire. From the authors of The Great Sex Rescue comes this evidence-based book grounded on surveys of over 28,000 women to offer moms a fresh, freeing, and biblically grounded message of sexuality and self-worth for their daughters that is less about the don'ts and more about the dos.

​-Why Social Media Algorithms Are Behind the Recent Rise in Misogyny by Katie Jgln. As one who does a lot of work online, I have seen a huge spike in misogynistic content. In searching out answers as to why, I found this article which is equally insightful as it is unsettling. It sheds light on the internet algorithms designed to prey on men, which naturally has a cultural impact on how we view women. I highly encourage reading this article.

​-What Does the Data Say About Why Boys and Men Are Struggling? by On The Media. In this podcast episode, correspondent Micah Loewinger speaks with Richard Reeves, a senior fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution and author of the new book, Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do About It. They talk about why it's important to have these conversations, why the problems besetting men and boys are affecting everyone, and how, in the absence of institutional solutions, reactionary and harmful online voices like Andrew Tate are stepping in to fill the void.

​-Why We Argue About The Same Things Over and Over by On The Media. I really found this episode so insightful. They interview political scientist Paul Fairie, who has devoted his Twitter account to investigating refrains like "nobody wants to work anymore" and "people are losing their sense of humor" to show that seemingly modern moral panics have been repeated in the American press every decade for over a century. He also shows the history of phrases like "men are becoming too feminine" in American history. It's so fascinating. With the help of voice actors, listen as they take a dive deep into the newspaper archives to demonstrate how little has changed in our political discourse.

-Note on my family leave: As you know, Rebecca is due any day now! As I write this, we are getting last minute preparations done for our baby's arrival! So I will be going on family leave when she comes for the next 4-5 weeks. But please know how important our community here is to me. I want to keep our conversations going! I have asked some people I deeply admire to write pieces for the weeks I am away. Folks like Katherine Stewart, Andrew Whitehead, Meredith Miller, Meghan Tschanz, and Ken Kuhn! So please stay tuned! Your prayers and continued support during this time means the world to me. Thank you all for being such an important part of my life.

Okay, onto today's content.

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Never Masculine Enough.

This newsletter is being sent to you on Palm Sunday. The day when Christians all over the world observe Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem hailed by those laying down their cloaks and waving palm branches while shouting “hosanna!” as Jesus rides into the city on a donkey. It has become one of the most profound and evocative scenes for me to imagine.

As I was writing on Palm Sunday earlier this month, I stumbled upon yet another viral meme talking about the “ideal man” with the Christian poster pleading with everyone to agree. The contrast just struck me.

The list describing the “ideal man” on the meme went like this:

-He has no female friends

-He doesn’t make eye contact with other women

-He is looking for marriage

-He can support an entire family on his own

-He only has friends who are just like him.

The list goes on about how the "ideal" man also needs to perform manual labor and be “romantically old fashioned.”

This viral meme has been among a slew of rising rhetoric over the last several years that all lament the loss of “manly men” and the need for them to “come back.” As the resources I provided above point out, this has been a constant lament throughout every American generation.

Some other voices are not as subtle as the meme above. I have seen tweets from social media influencers that claim to be “traditional Christians” tweeting things like “if your husband isn’t capable of violence, he’s your wife” and “if your husband does the dishes for you, he’s gay.” Many get a lot worse from there. They all paint the picture of the ongoing fear of losing "traditional gender roles" and a subsequent demand to enforce them.

Much of the doubling down on “traditional gender norms” we are seeing is due to the national conversation and political upheavals over human sexuality and LGBTQ+ inclusion. There is a great panic not only how a public conversation about gender and sexuality will impact our children, but also how it will impact our society as a whole.

Having concerns about this national conversation is valid. Human sexuality is a complex and complicated topic. We should be concerned that it is not only handled well, but with care and wisdom. However, this issue has lead many to not only double down on rigid gender norms and demand our culture to conform to them without question, but as you have seen, it has influenced so much of the anit-LGBTQ legislation and the erosion of women’s rights that is currently happening in our culture. This also coincides with efforts to sway men towards misogyny.

It is a reaction based in fear, not love.

I can personally tell you how ineffective and harmful this fear based reaction is. Growing up in evangelical Christian culture, my masculinity and sexuality were constantly questioned. I was a very emotionally sensitive little boy. I liked reading and music instead of sports. I really enjoyed playing outside in the dirt and I played “war” with the other kids, but I disliked fighting and hunting because I didn’t want to hurt anything.

As I grew, my lack of self esteem combined with my gentleness was seen as both weak and unmanly. I constantly heard phrases like “you’ve got to toughen up” and “this world is going to eat you alive.” I was often called “effeminate,” “girly,” and “a sissy.”

I didn’t date until I was a senior in high school and I constantly discovered rumors being spread by others questioning if I even liked girls at all.

These rumors followed me into college and even into the ministry. I found myself constantly trying to put on a tougher exterior and be more “aggressive” than I was ever comfortable with, never truly feeling like I was actually accepted as a “man.”

In college, the social disapproval of my “manhood” was so overwhelming that it made me seriously question my sexuality. Since I wasn’t accepted as a “man” by so many I respected and cared about, I constantly wondered throughout my college years if I might actually be gay.

I just want you to understand how horrible that was. In my church culture, I wasn’t accepted as an "ideal man," which I couldn’t talk about without appearing “overly emotional” and “weak” and I also couldn’t talk about the questions I had regarding my sexuality because of this treatment, because I knew that would absolutely not be tolerated. I was a straight white boy from Idaho, studying to be a pastor, and the Christians that were around me made me feel so unaccepted because I didn’t fit a certain “ideal” of masculinity. It was so lonely, isolating, and painful.

The collective fear towards the LGBTQ community and conversations about human sexuality from Christians around me led to their collective doubling down on their interpretation of gender roles towards people like myself, which, with the deepest possible irony, literally made me wonder if I belonged to the LGBTQ community, the very community they feared the most. It gave me a small dose of what actual LGBTQ people must face all the time.

As I stepped into a senior pastor role while still being single, the perpetual comments and rumors about my dating life and questions about my leadership abilities as a "single pastor" became unbearable.

This is despite the fact that I had all the appropriate degrees and certifications for ministry, I always worked hard, was an excellent marksman, loved fly fishing, and was an avid outdoorsman, complete with a beard and flannel shirts. These things didn’t seem to matter though so long as I was gentle, nonviolent, and single.

I kept looking for a model of masculinity that would point me in the right direction. Someone to help me becoming a "man."

I was always told about how Bible characters like king David and Samson were the model of “Christian manhood” and leadership. Movies like Braveheart, The Patriot, and anything with Arnold Schwarzenegger so admired by many Christians I knew added layers of expectations on me about what I needed to do to be a “man.” Never feeling like I fit any of these molds combined with the constant rumors and comments made me continuously question who I was and who I was meant to be.

I just knew I was never going to be masculine enough to fit in.

As I studied scripture along the way though, I soon asked myself a pivotal question. “Why wasn’t Jesus the picture of “Christian biblical manhood” I was given?” It’s a valid question, right? If we are followers of Jesus, why wasn’t he the man I was taught to look up to and emulate by the Christians around me? I have come to the conclusion that I think it is because not even Jesus would have been considered a “man” by the standards of masculinity I was being measured by.

Remember the standards on the viral meme and other tweets by traditional Christian influencers I mentioned above?

Now just imagine how Jesus would be treated by Christians like these today for doing things like washing people’s feet, weeping, being single, never having kids, preparing a meal, having female friends like Mary and Martha, hanging out with people who were so different from him, riding a donkey instead of a warhorse, loving and forgiving his enemies rather than fighting them, and telling people to turn the other cheek and to put their swords away.

Unfortunately, I believe he would also be called “a sissy” and constantly fielding rumors about his masculinity and sexuality. This is evident by our habit of imposing our perspectives of manhood onto Jesus to such an extent that we don’t have room to allow him to actually inform or correct our standards of masculinity, even when they are harmful. We love to point out how he flipped tables in the temple that one time, but not how he openly wept in front of people multiple times and constantly advocated nonviolence.

What Are We Actually Preserving?

In our culture today, the conversation around gender and sexuality is at the forefront and it indeed needs our careful concern and wise approach. As a husband to Rebecca and a father to both my son and my soon to arrive daughter, these conversations are at the forefront of my mind. Yet too much of the Christian conversation centers around “preserving biblical manhood/womanhood” while accusing the culture of leaving theses “values” behind.

As one who was constantly measured by those hyper strict reactionary standards and experienced the deep pain it caused me and others, I find a deep lack of self awareness in how our culture is being blamed for “abandoning” something that has been harming so many in the church for generations. Instead of reacting out of fear and blaming the culture for abandoning these standards, a more loving response would be to ask ourselves why so many feel like they have to abandon them in the first place.

If we Christians continue this horrible trend of just doubling down on hyper strict views of gender and sexuality out of fear, we will not only ostracize men who are genuinely asking questions about their identity because they just don’t know where they belong given the standards they are measured by, we might even drive them to find their sense of belonging through reactionary voices online, like Andrew Tate, and stoke the growing flames of misogyny in our country right now.

The reality is, so much of the rhetoric seen at the top of this newsletter does not promote “biblical manhood,” it promotes gender legalism. Whereby if someone, like myself, does not fit the mold of Christian masculinity or femininity exactly, they will have their identity and personhood relentlessly questioned and criticized until they either leave, get really good at wearing a mask, or worse.

We have a tremendous opportunity right now to soberly reflect on our standards of gender and sexuality as Christians and see where we are resorting to the kind of fear, legalism, and harm like I and many others have experienced. We have a tremendous opportunity to be a refuge for boys and men to authentically navigate the time we are in right now, rather than resort to extreme voices online.

If we take this opportunity with faithful intentionality, I believe we will approach the conversation surrounding gender and sexuality in our culture with much less suspicion and arrogance and a lot more humility and compassion. For we would come to realize how our gender legalism has contributed to the culture we have created today and truly revaluate what it is exactly we are trying to “preserve.”

Perhaps it should begin with the question, “what does it say about our standards of masculinity as Christians if Jesus himself wouldn’t even be masculine enough to fit them?”

Now I want to hear from you?

Did you find this helpful at all? Does your story resonate with mine in any way? I would love to hear from you.