Is the Education at Bible College Effeminate?

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 Student Dining Room. Leadership is initiating whether we go to Starbucks or Seattle's Best.

Is this God’s call for men?

We want to be men but we live like boys. History mocks us and is not impressed by our masculinity. Consider the Bible for a moment:

  • Samuel had to deliver the painful message he received from God as a boy to Eli despite his fear (1 Sam 3).
  • When David was a "youth" he fought and killed a lion and a bear and his success prepared him for his victory over Goliath and future kingship (1 Sam 17:34).
  • Jeremiah was a 'youth' and God called him to preach a powerful message that would bring him criticism and disdain (Jeremiah 1:6).
  • Solomon was young when he became king, and in his youthful insecurity he pled to God for wisdom. He called himself a 'little child' and to this young man, God gave the weight of reigning over the kingdom at the apex of its glory and expansion (I Kg. 3:7).
  • One of the qualities of the character of Jonathan united him with David was his courageous initiation. What set Jonathan apart was his remarkable initiative that led him to scale the Michmash cliffs and route the entire Philistine army with his armor-bearer (1 Samuel 14).
  • Josiah was 18 when he initiated the temple reconstruction and discovered the book of the Law that brought revival to the nation (2 Kings 22:1).
  • Jesus calls 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 sacrificial and Jesus-focused obedience.
  • I John encourages the young men not because they are good students or scholars, but because they are fighters who overcome. (“Young men, because you have overcome the evil one.” I John 13-14)

Weaknesses I see in my life as a Bible School student:

1. No Responsibility to lead. Not in class. Not among family. Hardly among friends. The life at Bible Schoool 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 so 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 women1.This is possible, but the men at Moody are at a disadvantage. Firstly, providing for and protecting calls for a close-relational action. This responsibility 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 the sake of purity and integrity. Families provide wonderful reality/security for young men's passions. I have seen many young men reach out with an authentic desire to minister and love for “a sister in Christ” only to have the relationship end in disaster. In addition the Bible College campus removes 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?


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 forces of evil and the devil, face opposition, and never back down from a firm grasp of the sword of truth.

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 crippled by just sitting and listening to sleepy lectures from a chair all day. Is writing a paper "initiation"? Filling in the right bubbles on a Scantron? Memorizing Greek Vocabulary words? No, not in the way that men need to learn to initiate as future men in today’s world. Writing a paper to get a grade does not require the initiative of plunging ahead through murky waters of our world and fighting to bring God’s life in a place of chaos.

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!" One reason is that it is the very entertainment offerings of the church that are making people the most bored! Just as the best coal in the world will never fuel an airplane, neither will the best entertainment of the world will never quench a spiritual thirst. We don’t want to be entertained like children; we want to be commanded like men. We don’t want sugary soda; we want well-aged wine. We don’t want cheap amusements, we want costly joy. We don’t want plastic treasures, we want gold refined in the fire. We don’t want commendation of ourselves, we want conviction about the Gospel. We don’t want good excuses to avoid the fight; we want God’s weapons the enter the fight. We don’t want a better way to live in a world that is dying; we want a better way to die for a world that will be reborn.

When the men drift out of the church, bored and unfed the problem only intensifies. 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. The popular adjective for guys is that they are “nice” or “sweet”(ugh!).

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. It occurred to me that the model straight-A student I always found boring and passive, and the guys who were out doing pranks and tricks I often found interesting and challenging. But the tragedy is that often the miss-guided energy only undoes the man and he ends of worse in the end that in the beginning.

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

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-given (not men-earned) responsibilities that all men should (learn to) gladly bear in love.