Death of the Gentlemen

It was Friday afternoon, and my wife sat across from me.  The soft brown of her eyes reflecting the light.  Her teeth white and straight.  Her smile accented by dimples, and her light complexion highlighted by freckles.  My steak was gone, and surprisingly so was most of my wife’s.  We pushed our plates to the side, and watched the people.  Most sat at their tables, eating and talking with occasional glances at the TV.  We guessed at their personal lives.  Were they married?  Did they have children?  What was their occupation?  Each guess backed by some piece of evidence.  Then our waiter brought us our check.  I paid, tipped, and stood to leave.  At the door my wife fumbled with her coat, caught in the sleeve  I paused for a moment, and helped her into her coat.  I was struck by this action, a little ashamed that my wife had to struggle before I offered to help.  I had always considered myself a gentlemen.  I opened doors for my wife, for my sister-in-laws, for my mother, and for strangers both women and men; but had this been a more civilized era, I fear I would not be considered a gentlemen.  Not only do I not help my wife with her coat, but I don’t pull out her chair when she sits.  When did men forget how to be gentlemen?  Until my wife went on a date with me, her door had never been opened.  Her situation is not unique.  Men simply don’t do these things anymore.  The answer I fear is in our culture.

Women are now our equals.  Not equal in the since of value, for the equality defined by our culture places no value on women.  It debases them through models with airbrushed perfection and figures having nothing to do with children.  It debases them with clothing meant for a profession respectable women ought not hold.  All of this is embraced by mothers teaching their daughters to catch the eye of boys not interested in becoming men.  When those boys and girls act like adults and bear the fruit of adulthood, a doctor shrugs and says, “There is a procedure for that.”  Women have gained equal rights and lost their value.

It was this ‘value’ that separated men and women.  Not separation in the negative connotation of the word but a separation of respect.  This is what brought the death of gentlemen.  The end of respect.  There were distinct differences between men and women that led to tacit respect.  When men met women they revered them.  They courted instead of ‘hooking-up’, and women relied on character instead of seduction.  All of this debasement has led to weak marriages with with weak men, weak women, and weak children.  It was the value of motherhood that raised boys to be men..  It was the character of a woman that made a boy become a man.  Mothers taught, wives tamed, and boys grew into men.  It was a symbiotic relationship, but value was sacrificed to artificial equality.  The gentlemen died with the ladies, and so did the family.  And so did a generation.

Freedom Divorced

     Funny how freedom cannot be spoken of freely.  It carries with it certain connotations and presuppositions.  Freedom is the rallying cry of America.  Freedom is the cry of those who arise against the light of Bible.  Freedom is the cry of those who overturn traditional morality.  The cry of freedom turns the defender into the persecutor.  To utter the word is to silence an argument.  Yet, Christians desire freedom more and understand it better than the world.  Why does a word synonymous with the faith we promote, silence us?  Freedom, I fear, has been abused and misunderstood.  It is now unrecognizable from its previous incarnation.

Freedom today lives to give individuals a pass where it once lived to give a right.  It gives a pass to would be men to forsake their children and wives.  It gives a pass to women to take what does not belong to them, the life of another.  It gives a pass to break the covenant of marriage for a night of pleasure.  It gives a pass to trample human sexuality, treating that which is sacred without reverence.  When freedom acts as a pass nothing can defend freedom.  We have stripped freedom of its coat, made it destitute by removing responsibility.  Now those children fortunate enough to gain life, live apart from a parent, severed by divorce, immaturity, or sexual preference.  We have divorced freedom from responsibility.

Christians continue to attempt to fix morality from the top down forsaking the Biblical principle of discipleship. Freedom has been separated from responsibility because the Church has forsaken its duty.  We must make disciples of all men.  Freedom does not come from the government.  It resides with the individual.  It flows from the individual to the family, from the family to the Church, and from the Church to the State.    When the Church once again breeds discipleship, freedom will once again be married to responsibility.

The Duty of Manhood

As I mixed the pie for “Man Sunday” (a day devoted to men cooking for the women with a sermon on Biblical manhood) at my church, I couldn’t help but wonder over the definition of manhood.  In a society where gender is seen purely as social constructs, defining manhood can become a quite a task, even a risk.  It will most likely end with the slanders of bigoted, sexist, or politically incorrect.  All words espoused by those in opposition of Christian values far too often.  Manhood is none of these.  It is a concept best defined by General Patton: “Battle is the most magnificent competition in which a human being can indulge. It brings out all that is best; it removes all that is base. All men are afraid in battle. The coward is the one who lets his fear overcome his sense of duty. Duty is the essence of manhood.”

Our country is currently engaged in a battle, and I’m not referring to the multiple wars in other countries.  I’m referring to the one taking place within our borders.  It is a war of ideas and philosophy.  It is a war between Secularists and Christians.  It is a war of morality.  No war is as important as the one for the hearts and minds of the people. For it is the hearts and minds which gave power to Hitler.  It is the hearts and minds which allowed the Bolshevik Revolution.  Whenever men forsake their duty, sin destroys.  Nowhere is the price of men forsaking their duty clearer than in the Garden of Eden.  Man, from the beginning, has been given the keys to safeguarding the Law.

Manhood is not a means of physical or emotional abuse.  It is not a means of “keeping a woman in her place.”  Manhood is a call to capture the hearts and minds of the family.  It is the call of Joshua: “as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”  When scripture records that God is in the midst of two or three, it is not to give comfort to small churches.  It is the number of a family.  When a family comes together—when a father disciples his wife and children, God is there.  Men, capture the hearts of your children.  Capture the hearts of your wives.  It is through them that Christ’s kingdom will increase and sin will decrease.  This is the duty of men.

Faith when Faced with Mortality

My nights were restless for the space of three days.  During this time I battled an oppression of the mind as I had never before.  On rare occasions, before my marriage, I had battled mild depression; but, this was entirely different.  At twenty-six still untouched by death my mind hurtled me toward thoughts of mortality.  I lost my wife, my brothers, my parents, essentially anyone with meaning to me faced disease and death.  These night terrors followed me through the days as well, and I begin to wonder why a sovereign God would allow such things.  Wasn’t He powerful enough to save everyone?  Couldn’t He have stopped sin from entering the world?  My belief, in who God is, answered back with an emphatic yes to both queries.  Then why does God allow the continuation of sin and its consequences?  I searched the writings of theologians and found only the answers I had previously heard.  The struggle continued until Sunday morning.  As I entered service I hoped for a divine revelation that would answer once and for all this profound question.  When service ended it was without divine revelation, but the uneasiness that had settled in my mind was healed.  The question remained but peace co-existed with it.  I continued my search for answers on Monday.  I looked both to scripture and theologians.  The answers were the same as my last search, but this time I found peace in them.  I knew He could have stopped sin, but I also understood that somewhere in the pain of our existence God was working a good unimaginable to me.  I knew this because the Bible told me this through the evil which befell Joseph but saved unknown thousands and most gloriously through the evil that befell the Son of Man.  It was on this Earth that God experienced the loss of a friend as Man.  It was on this Earth that God bore the sufferings due to us and poured out His blood for our eternal life.  This gift of love so overshadowed the evil of this world that my restless mind calmed and found solace in scripture:

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to [his] purpose. (Romans 8:28 KJV)

When the call came at three AM on Wednesday morning from the sobbing wife of my best friend I was prepared.  The few days of struggling with my faith in the midst of imagined pain had prepared me to deal with her tearful words: “He went into cardiac arrest.  It doesn’t look good.”  Both my wife and I fell to our knees.  We fell before Him because we knew all things work to a purpose we cannot understand, even death.  We prayed because we knew the hands that held my friend’s life were the same hands that made the lame walk, made the dumb speak, made the blind see, and made the dead rise.  They were the same hands that had bore the wages of sin and given hope of eternal life, and they were the hands that would comfort us if the unthinkable occurred.  By the grace of God my friend’s life was spared, and he is now walking down the halls of the hospital undergoing rehab.  I still have no divine revelations regarding the mysteries of God in the area of suffering and death, but I do know that without His hands there is no purpose to any of it.

My Intent

Within this blog I hope to reveal my thoughts, through the lens of a Christian Worldview, on everything from art to politics to daily life.  I hope you enjoy this journey as much as I will enjoy writing the posts.