[Vision2020] Christ Church Cult Castration Complex

[Art Deco]

  Christ and Pop Culture <http://www.christandpopculture.com/>

 Where The Christian Faith Meets The Common Knowledge of Our Age
   Sacred Space: Doug Wilson, the Church Is a Bride,
Bro<http://www.christandpopculture.com/asides/sacred-space-doug-wilson-the-church-is-a-bride-bro/>
By Brad Williams – April 20, 2012
 "If that sort of intimacy makes a man nervous, then he might have
forgotten that he is part of the bride of Christ."

*Every Friday in Sacred
Space<http://www.christandpopculture.com/asides/tag/sacred-space/>,
Brad Williams explores the place of popular culture in the local church.*

This is probably an example of Girlie Worship.

Some sections of the evangelical church are so fueled by testosterone right
now that I fear the bride of Christ might become a bearded lady. Hardly a
month goes by where high profile evangelical pastors extol the virtues of
manly combat in MMA or fail to miss an opportunity to make fun of girly
music leaders. This week is no exception. Doug Wilson decided to put out a
post titled “Your Worship Service Might Be Effeminate
If..<http://www.dougwils.com/Liturgical-Notes/your-worship-service-might-be-effeminate-if.html>“,
and then he went on to list a plethora of things that are neither feminine
nor unmanly. I find this list ridiculous, and I find the attitude behind it
laughable. How is it that a church culture with all-male leadership,
bearded awesomeness, and a general masculine flair still has room to lament
a sissified church culture? How much manliness does a church need?

To put my cards right out there on the table, I’m going to confess that I
am a thorough-going complementarian. I believe that the elders/pastors of
the local church should be filled only by qualified men. (I put that out
there so that I will have the opportunity to offend everyone in this
article.) However, I find the type of bravado put out there concerning the
new “manliness” by folks like Mark Driscoll and now Doug Wilson to be a
terrible hindrance to my cause, which I believe is very important.

First, let me point out that the church’s worship cannot be effeminate. Nor
should it be masculine. Nor should it be feminine. The worship service
should be designed to allow men and women to worship the Almighty as, well,
men and women. What the gathering of the church does is allow men and women
to express their adoration of God for His offering of His Son Jesus as a
propitiation for our sins. So the pastor, the music leaders, the responsive
reading guy, the prayers—these things are all done to remind us of the
glorious truths of the Bible, and people are free to respond to that
however they might best express themselves. That could include dancing
half-naked in front of the ark of God, or it could include a man getting
his ugly cry on because of the glory of God has broken his heart. Or, he
could stand at parade rest and sing lustily and make battle noises, I
guess. Either way, you ought to leave that dude alone, brother.

So technically, the worship of the church cannot be effeminate. Only
individual men can be effeminate. But what that exactly means is a bit of a
mystery to me. To avoid that, does it mean he has to grow a beard? Quit
wearing preppy cardigans? No gold bracelets? Wilson tries to help us spot
effeminate worship, but things like this only leave me more confused:

*Your music minister is more concerned that the choir trills their r’s
correctly than that they fill the sanctuary with loud sounds of battle*

*The worship music rides particular chord changes hard, with special
mention being given to the shift from E Minor to C Major*

I had no idea that music was supposed to sound like the sounds of battle!
I’m quite sure that Douglas Wilson has never seen a real battle, and if he
has, he is mad for thinking the screams of the dead and dying and bomb
blasts are what we are trying to accomplish in the ministry of music. And
key shifts are girly now? This is a shock to me as well. My favorite,
however, is this one: *This list is printed out and handed around at your
church, and at least three people are mortally offended. *Yeah, so if we
are offended by the list, then we may be effeminate.

This would be effeminate (no beard, short hair), but his eyes are piercing
my soul, so this is an example of Manly Worship.

Here’s what is so bad about the list, beside it being nearly
non-nonsensical:

First, worship cannot be effeminate, only men can.

Second, how shall we define effeminate worship? As awesome as kilts and
claymores are, they reveal more about Wilson’s fantasy life than they do
the proper conduct of a real man in worship.

Third, the list is probably offensive to women. I don’t want to speak for
them, but the list seems to indicate that feminine worship is undesirable.
It may be undesirable in a man, if we can figure out what that looks like
at church, but surely it is to be commended in women! Wilson’s manly dreams
for the church reach so high that he naturally assumes that women are happy
worshiping in masculine worship.

In the end, I’ll throw Wilson a bone. I don’t like “Jesus is my Girlfriend”
type songs either. It isn’t because they are too mushy; it’s because they
are generally lousy songs and theologically thread-bare. I’m not nervous
about intimacy with God, and I actually enjoy singing pretty songs to God
that demonstrate my desire to know Him more intimately. And if that sort of
intimacy makes a man nervous, then he might have forgotten that he is part
of the *bride* of Christ. That’s the same sort of nasty aloofness that
keeps men from kissing their sons and telling them that they love them.
It’s the same lie that makes men think it is unmanly to weep or confess
weakness.

If that’s the kind of culture Wilson wants to cultivate, count me out.

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 About the Author Brad Williams has had a life of adventure that is given
only to those who have no idea what they are doing. Out of high school, he
joined the Army National Guard and served for six years, during that time
he managed to get an English Lit. degree from the University of Alabama,
become a Christian, and log a ridiculous amount of hours on Final Fantasy.
After college, he moved to North Carolina where he got a Masters of
Divinity w/ Biblical Languages and met and married a girl too good for him.
He now lives in Alabama where he pastors a church and lives with his
long-suffering wife, two awesome children, two dogs, and a cat named Bugs.
He recently bought a small farm where he plans to raise goats and grow
watermelons. Above all, Brad hopes to live and to love in such a manner
that he will not be ashamed at the appearance of Jesus Christ on the Final
Day.
 13 Comments

   1.   Frank Turk
    Posted April 20, 2012 at 8:27 AM

   Oh Brad — when you said this, you should have re-written the whole essay:

   *“First, worship cannot be effeminate, only men can.”*

   Indeed. Who exactly is superintending worship, or administrating it, or *
   pastoring* it?

   This, I am afraid, is Doug’s point and ought to be someplace in yours.
    2.   Brad Williams <http://www.alienman.blogspot.com/>
    Posted April 20, 2012 at 8:51 AM

   If that was Doug’s point, he could have made it himself. Instead, he
   made a silly list that has little or nothing to do with being effeminate.
   What he has in mind for effeminate seems to be largely based on his
   personal construction of what a man should dress like, what songs a man
   should like, what he does with his hands in worship, and whether or not the
   singing sounds like people are being slain whilst bombs go off in the
   background. It’s ridiculous. But instead of saying it like that, I decided
   just to make fun of him.

   As you know, I live in a corner of the world where manliness is
   generally thought to be defined by one’s delight in NASCAR, college
   football, and a neatly trimmed mullet. The NASCAR is a little nuanced
   though. If you like Jeff Gordon instead of “Dale”, you are probably a
   sissy. Also, you would lose five man points from being born north of the
   Mason-Dixon.
    3.   Frank Turk
    Posted April 20, 2012 at 8:58 AM

   Suit yourself. I think you missed the point of Doug’s list pretty
   broadly.
    4.   JMC
    Posted April 20, 2012 at 9:13 AM

   First of all, I do want to say that Pastor Wilson has meant a lot to me
   in the past. Once upon a time I was just an evangelical kid trying to make
   sense of being an evangelical kid in a culture where the 2 options seemed
   to be “conform to the world” or “be a goofy fundamentalist reactionary.”
   Pastor Wilson has had some very helpful things to say as far as helping
   many American Christians find a reasoned, uncompromising voice, and I for
   one have benefited from many of those things. So props to him for that.

   That being said, I agree that his rhetoric here seems silly. In his
   mind, I think he is trying to encourage Christians to embrace a “happy
   warrior” mentality. I’m pretty sure he’s not reveling in the glories of
   actual armed conflict per se, but trying, by way of biblical analogy, to
   encourage Christians to embrace “the joy of the Lord” as their strength in
   the battles against principalities and powers.

   I think you are spot on that the rhetoric falls short in making light of
   “effeminate” traits. In recent years I have gained a deeper respect for and
   understanding of the power of the Incarnation. I find it gloriously ironic
   (and illuminating) that the Lord God of Angelic Armies of the OT
   accomplished His greatest victory in the form of an infant in a podunk town
   in the middle of nowhere. Just ponder what that means. Furthermore, I revel
   in the “Song of Mary”, the Magnificat, which should bring any man to tears
   when contemplated.

   It seems to me that the power of Christians resides not in matching the
   rhetoric of the world, but in embracing the power of the still small voice,
   the Word become helpless flesh. That, in my mind, is the powerful biblical
   analogy that our culture, and all cultures, needs.

   I could write so much more on this. Thanks for starting this
   conversation.
    5.   Erin Straza <http://www.fillingmypatchofsky.com/>
    Posted April 20, 2012 at 9:24 AM

   I honestly thought Wilson’s list was a joke. Kilts? Trilling Rs? Pink
   shirts? I have never seen this in any church service ever. Maybe he was
   trying to use humor to break down barriers. It was not helpful because I
   was so thrown off by the oddities of it. Perhaps Wilson could develop a
   description biblical worship (which would be, by nature, non-effeminate),
   with Scripture references and without the humor.
    6.   Brad Williams <http://www.alienman.blogspot.com/>
    Posted April 20, 2012 at 9:41 AM

   I think it was supposed to be funny, and I usually like funny. But this
   approach of making fun of men in a way that ostracizes men whose besetting
   sin is being effeminate, I don’t think you should make light of it. And by
   effeminate, I don’t mean metro-sexual dresser. I mean a man who struggles
   with same-sex attraction, which is really what 1 Cor. 6:9-10 is really
   talking about when the King James translates it ‘effeminate’. Effeminate,
   in the Bible, has nothing to do with trilling r’s or dress or pink shirts.
    7.   Rose Bexar <http://mffc.bravehost.com/>
    Posted April 20, 2012 at 11:05 AM

   Liking hymns on the bagpipe (as I do, and I’m very definitely female)
   doesn’t make one’s worship masculine; it probably just makes one a Scot.
   Something also tells me that Wilson’s never been in a choir, because
   otherwise he wouldn’t be picking on choristers who *encunciate clearly*.
   To put an analogy from 1 Cor. 14 into a slightly different context, what
   good’s a bugle if you can’t tell whether it’s playing Reveille or Taps?

   Part of the problem with that list, aside from the failure of the humor
   (cf. John Scalzi on the failure mode of ‘clever’), is that it conflates two
   different problems that can be but are not always co-morbid: churches going
   in for the hipster brand of artsy dreck and churches lacking the courage to
   stand against sin. Neither is an inherently gendered failure. In fact, I
   might be more likely to suspect the leadership of a self-conciously
   “masculine” church of failing to enforce truly Scriptural church discipline
   than I would the leadership of a church that’s all cotton candy.
   And a huge WORD on your last point, Brad. The “No chick flick moments”
   attitude is pernicious enough when dealing with one’s fellow humans; I
   can’t imagine what it does to one’s walk with God.
    8.   Amy
    Posted April 20, 2012 at 11:12 AM

   What guys like Driscoll and Wilson don’t quite understand is that the
   guy who can go into the worship service in his pink shirt and sing perfect
   key changes to the glory of God and feel perfectly comfortable doing it
   with no thought whatsoever to what the hairer fellows in the place think of
   him…well, this guy is the one who’s got it going on. I get that all this
   masculinity obsession comes from these guys growing up in churches where
   the men have no backbone. But just like the hokey fundamentalist that they
   love to ridicule, they combat it by having a knee jerk reaction to the
   other extreme. Some day the blogoshpere will be full of articles
   written by the children of the young reformed lamenting all the ways
   we’ve screwed up the church. Thank God for grace. We need to show it to
   others because we’ll definitely need it shown to us.
    9.   Dan Martin <http://nailtothedoor.com/>
    Posted April 20, 2012 at 11:32 AM

   Love the post! As a guy who has fathered three children and is still
   crazy for his wife, but has been known to wear a pink shirt with a purple
   tie to church, AMEN!
    10.   Daniel
    Posted April 20, 2012 at 12:55 PM

   Frankly, the fear of being accused of being “effeminate” (in society’s
   terms, not biblical ones) is one of the greatest fears in “manly”
   Christianity in the “manly” Evangelical Church. It is one more example of
   the Church confusing conservative culture (Republican politics, NASCAR,
   Football, God-bless-the-US-and-damn-the-defeatist-Jeremiahs, etc.) with
   Biblical values. And frankly, it smells not just a little of despising
   homosexuals. (By that I do not mean despising sin, which is biblical; I
   mean despising the sinner. That distinction is often lost in the heated
   “manly” rhetoric.)

   Biblical manhood had little parallel with either Metrosexual manhood or
   NASCAResque manhood. And it more often than not is at loggerheads with both
   the throne and the religious establishment, rather than acting as an
   enabler of either one.

   Wearing kilts? Pink shirts? Chord transitions, for heavens sake?! What a
   bunch of claptrap. Frankly, this is incredibly superficial.

   Talking about hell, the devil and sin is “manly”? It may be biblical, it
   may be vital–but somehow equating not having the correct percentages of
   sermons devoted to Satan as being “effeminate” sounds just plain silly.

   And “Jesus is my girlfriend songs”? Would someone please give me an
   example? I’ve heard this accusation before, but it never made sense to me.
   The only example that comes to my mind, that I have only heard on
   “Christian” radio and not in worship, was “Some Kind of Wonderful” adapted
   to be a Jesus song (by the original artist, but still quite cringeworthy.)
    11.   Seth T. Hahne <http://goodokbad.com/>
    Posted April 20, 2012 at 1:57 PM

   “Jesus is my girlfriend” songs are any worship song that could easily be
   sung in dulcet tones to your girlfriend while you slip off her bra. Example:

   In the secret, in the quiet place
   In the stillness you are there
   In the secret, in the quiet hour
   I wait only for you
   Cause I want to know you more

   I want to know you
   I want to hear your voice
   I want to know you more

   I want to touch you
   I want to see your face
   I want to know you more

   Sexy!
    12.   Daniel
    Posted April 20, 2012 at 3:58 PM

   @Seth–

   Hmmm…pretty tame compared to Song of Solomon…though some would argue
   that we’re in danger of role-reversal (being the bride vs. the bridegroom).
   Of course, in S of S, sometimes the roles seem a bit confused, too
   (paragraph headings do wonders.)

   The “sexiness” of that song wouldn’t really bother me too much…it’s a
   bit “lite”, but it really wouln’t bug me if I heard it in a worship
   service. Not every worship tune needs to be a theological treatise, any
   more than every meal has to be (or should be) packed with protein.

   Eros is also divine.
    13.   Seth T. Hahne <http://goodokbad.com/>
    Posted April 20, 2012 at 4:04 PM

   I wasn’t critiquing, just letting you know what people mean by “Jesus is
   my girlfriend” songs. The general critique runs that if a song could be
   sung to a girl you know, then maybe it’s not theologically turgid enough to
   be a valuable use of congregational praise time.

   Also, even under the most allegorical readings of SoS, the book is not
   viewed as an example of corporate worship, so doesn’t really apply here. I
   mean, unless you’re introducing a new interpretation, which is fair



-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com
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