Is the Education at Moody Largely Feminine?

Our weapons are #2 pencils. Our battles are getting to class on time. Our challenges are following the meticulous instructions for the paper. Our stresses are wondering what they are serving in the SDR. Leadership is initiating whether we go to Starbucks or Seattle's Best.

We may want to be men but we must live like boys. History would mock us-it not be impressed at our masculinity. Consider the Bible for a moment:

• Samuel had to have courage to deliver the painful message to Eli despite his fear as a boy.
• David when a "youth" fought a lion and a bear. This, in a sense, was part of his normal occupation!
• Jeremiah was a 'youth' and God called him to preach a powerful and painful message that would earn him criticism and disdain.
• Solomon was young when he became king, and in his youthful insecurity he plead to God for wisdom. He calls himself a 'little child' (I Kg. 3:7) and to this young man, God gave him the weight of reigning the kingdom at the apex of its glory and expansion.
• The character of Jonathan that made him to become such a friend of David was perhaps his courageous initiation. What set Jonathan apart was that under the hope of the sovereign power of God, he scaled the Michmash cliffs and routed the Philistines.
• Josiah is 18 when he initiates the temple reconstruction and finds that book of the Law that brings revival to the nation.
• Jesus tells the "young man" to sell all he has. Young people do not need to be challenged to pious conformity to rules; they need the radical call of active obedience.

Weaknesses I see in my life as a Moody student:
1. Responsibility to lead. Not in class. Not among family. The life at Moody needs almost no [courageous] responsibility. Responsibility is not just following instructions. Notice in your classes: who leads in prayer first and who is leading in the small groups? The problem I see is not such much that the guys"just aren't doing it," but rather they do not see any substantial purpose and hence do not feel any responsibility.

2. Provide for and protect woman(1). This is possible, but the men at Moody are at a disadvantage. Firstly, providing for and protecting is a close-relational action. This responsability should be directed mainly towards a family or a wife. We have been cleanly removed from our families and the opportunity to love our mothers and sisters is only possible at long distances. Secondly, we are mostly single. Not only does this mean we lack something feminine to love, it also puts us at a weakness and at risk which means that we must in many ways put more distance between ourselves and the girls for our purity and safety. Families are provide wonderful reality/security for young men's passions. Young men need a fathers next to the single girls that they seek to protect, provide and love.

3. The chance to take dangerous risks: I say dangerous risks because a risk, to be a risk, takes a danger. One of the chief goals of this institution ( and rightly so) it to make this campus safe, pristine, and harmless. This, in some ways, leaves men unneeded, leaving them subconsciously thinking that they do not, and never will really have to protect woman from anything. Most of us will spend our lives in Christian "bubbles" anyway, so do Christian men ever need to think about being the protector? Not today-that is cave man thinking….

4. The practice of standing up for the right: On the campus, integrity is more compliance with rules than the call to stand for what is right. Both are good, but it is easier to comply with rules and call it integrity than to stand up against secular opposition, face opposition, and hold firm to the principals of integrity.

5. The responsibility to initiate: One of the greatest weakness in men today is the lack of initiation in the things that build and lead to the glory of God. Spiritual leadership is weakly developed in just sitting and receiving mild and boring lectures from a chair all day. Is writing a paper "initiation"? No, in the way that men need to learn to initiate as future men. Writing a paper is responding to a topic or an issue and does not really involve plunging ahead through murky waters with a strong reliance on the invisible God.

Boredom in the church is a real problem. The answer is not "well, it is the entertainment culture, you just need to learn to pay attention better!" Initiation takes creativity, wisdom, and a confidence in the stability of God that we are willing to do something "unstable" in ourselves. It takes hard thinking: "What will help this situation; how can we make this better? What are these people struggling with and how can I combat it?" The problem of boredom and dullness in our churches reflect the lack of charged masculine creativity and leadership.

Responses to the environment: How do young men respond to an environment like Moody? What happens when we are immersed in Moody education life as young, energetic men?

1. Let the masculine passion die: I see in many a dissipation of intensity and drive. Things are always casual and the guys often act passive and neutral.
2. Continual suppress and struggle against it: I see others who do not really know what to do. They are often trying to find something to really throw their lives after things like campus clubs, or church programs, music, programs, etc. However these things do not often satisfy the deep desires to really be victorious after something truly worthy of our pursuit.
3. Find an outlet by breaking standards: The drive to break the rules, cause pranks, and rebel against the system is a natural response of many of the men. Here their potential is misguided and misused. TV, video games, even sports provides a outlet, but these things seem so unconstructive for kingdom work.
4. Find outlet is true leadership and godliness: The hardest and best. Find a way to take risks, take initiative, be rebuked, learning by doing new things, and plunge our energies into the infinitely worthy cause of God's glory. While I am a long way off, this is my goal.

Footnotes:

1. From "There Really is a Difference" by John Piper. I am complimentarian in my understanding of God's design for gender, and do not want in any way to imply this means that woman are weak and fragile without the "protection" of men. Rather, I believe that this is one of the God-give (not us-earned) responsibilities that all men should (learn to) gladly bear.