In Search of Christian Manliness

Several threads in recent news have woven together to create one great tug! Let’s revisit what it means to be a Christian man in an age of uni-sex metro mono culture where man strength, those qualities tempered by the virtues, makes for chivalrous fathers, priests, and gentlemen.

Today the Catholic aggregate news service, Aleteia, featured a story about AM radio jockey Matt Walsh whose article response to the Cyrus-Thicke VMA performance has gone viral.

What motivated you to write your piece, “Dear son, don’t let Robin Thicke be a lesson to you,” and what was the primary message you wished to convey?

Ostensibly, I was motivated by the overwhelming reaction to Miley Cyrus and the glaring failure of many in mass media and social media to even mention Thicke’s role in the whole debacle. But, more pertinently, I like to take advantage of any opportunity to discuss true, natural, Christian masculinity. One of the gravest sins of our culture is our perversion of “manliness.” We have a failure of leadership in our society, and that mostly stems from the fact that we are not raising our boys and teaching them what it means to be a man. Instead, they’re left to ape and emulate the poisonous absurdities they see on TV and hear in pop music.

http://www.aleteia.org/en/op-ed/interview/interview-with-matt-walsh-about-recent-blog-post-3723002

Another thread blends itself into the weave. The attack on authentic manliness via pornography

In our culture, porn makes the man. So argues Robert Jensen in Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity. Jensen’s treatise begins with a simple demand: “Be a man.” It ends with a defiant response: “I chose to struggle to be a human being.” The journey from masculinity to humanity is found in the candid and intelligent exploration of porn’s devastating role in defining masculinity.

Robert Jensen is a professor journalism/media at the University of Texas at Austin College of Communication. He identifies as a Christian Radical. Interesting echoes of Humanae Vitae and the Theology of the Body seem to come through feminist pathways. Have we run full circle?

An interesting trend this —

http://www.artofmanliness.com/
http://www.mkpchicago.org/
http://www.practicalmanliness.com/

As we pray for authentic vocations we must first pray for authentic men. And that means a renewal and recommitting to core values of what it means to be a noble and just man ready to live out the gifts of the Holy Spirit with zeal, fortitude, and a willingness to suffer for the beloved.

Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created. And You shall renew the face of the earth.

O, God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of the faithful, grant that by the same Holy Spirit we may be truly wise and ever enjoy His consolations, Through Christ Our Lord, Amen.