A Vanishing Masculinity

Where have all the cowboys gone?

It seems that in today's American culture men are more valued if they act less like men. We are encouraged to become "metro sexual" and carry "murses" than to exhibit the character traits given to us by God. Men are constantly under the pressures to speak less loudly, don't be such a presence, stop killing Bambi, be less competitive. Is this a fad or a quickly embraced pattern of being? Whatever it is, Christian men need to know that it flies in the face of not only what God wants for you but how He wired you.

Men and women are wired differently by [intelligent] design and thankfully so. The New Testament says that the two will become one upon marriage and that seems to indicate that one can't truly comprehend all that is the human experience without intimate knowledge of how the other sex lives. Not to say that a man is an incomplete person if unmarried, but that he'll only breathe a fraction of this life without being bonded to a suitable woman he can love, protect, and secure.

Ephesians 5:25, in one verse, says a great deal about true, Godly manhood. But there is more to it. Besides the example of manhood that are my family members, I have come to love a few movies that highlight the masculine qualities that are sorrowfully absent in much of America today.


The Patriot

The main character is a man named Benjamin Martin played by Mel Gibson. Martin is a widower, former military officer, and raising his four children in colonial America. The Revolutionary War is just months in the future and the tension is building. Should we learn to live under the crown? Should we stand and fight? Who will fight? All daunting decisions with grave consequences.

Martin loves his family too much to see them lose both parents and wants to avoid going to war because of it. However, when the reality of war has come and battles bring themselves onto his front field, he knows he can no longer stand idly by and watch other fathers, sons, brothers die for the freedom of his countrymen.

While war isn't always the answer, a man always fights for liberty from tyranny and justice under God. When the times comes to fight, a man takes up arms.


Walking Tall

This modernized re-telling of Buford Pusser's true story stars Dwayne Johnson, A.K.A The Rock, playing Chris Vaughn, ex-Special Forces. Chris comes home after being discharged to find that his once quiet and honest town has been turned into a den of vipers.

A crooked casino has opened in the shadow of a boarded up timber mill previously the main employer and staple of the small community.The filth from the dirty workings in the casino spread like a cancer onto the streets where drugs are sold to children while bought and paid-for law enforcement looks the other way. Chris is floored that no one has stood up to what everyone can plainly see is destroying their home. So, at great personal cost, he stands.

Alone.

A man is wired to be a leader whether it be at home, at work, or on the field of play. Men don't defer judgment or pussy-foot around by being passive aggressive. Men lead towards a better future. A safe neighborhood. A life lived for God and to see His kingdom grow.


National Treasure

This little beauty has a sequel about to be released and I'm really looking forward to it. Nicholas Cage plays the role of Ben Gates, an inquisitive thinker who as a boy, was told a great family secret concerning a treasure so grand that it was considered too massive for any one man to posses. It was fought over for centuries by many different armies.
Over time, the legend states that its location was hidden and the secret to its discovery was given to a select few who vowed to protect it. One of those sworn to protect it was Ben's grandfather who let him in on the first clue to finding the treasure if it still, indeed, existed.

Gates spent his entire academic life learning how to decipher riddles, solve puzzles, excavate and salvage, studying the history of this great Nation and the major players of her founding just to be able to one day be the one to find this lost national treasure. Venturing to far off lands, on frozen oceans, tunneling underground, stealing pieces of American History to look for more clues, it didn't matter. Benjamin Franklin Gates was going to find what had become his calling in life.

Men are adventurous. Men seek. Men follow the primal yearning of the heart to discover and chart a new course. Men throw away the map and cut out their own path. And men are not quenched after finding, rather seek out something new to explore. Don't subdue your God-given need to explore, discover and uncover.

I encourage you to rent one of these movies, or one of your own choosing, and bask in what little bastion of male pride there is left in America. Celebrate what makes you how God wanted you to be!

BE A MAN!