Frank

Greg,
I know you meant to tell a joke and to be funny. But I would testify that the various ways in which patriarchy brutalizes and desensitizes men towards not only towards women, but also towards other men, is no laughing matter. I think the mortal wounding of a woman’s or man’s soul “To keep white trash, negroes, and uppity women in their place” (as the old slogan goes), is far more deadly and terrible than any physical death inflicted by a murderer’s weapon. Let me explain.

Some years ago, I read a book on men and their relations with others that, besides the Scripture and egalitarian literature, finally convinced me how bad patriarchy really was for both men and women. I forget the author’s name at the moment, but in the book, THE MEN WE LONG TO BE: MOVING BEYOND MALE DOMINATION TO TRUE CHRISTIAN HUMANITY (Harper and Row, 1995), he argues very convincingly that the dominate manhood we see being reasserted by CBMW and other such groups is not only harmful and destructive in terms of women’s human worth as God’s image bearers, but also of men’s human worth as God’s image bearers.

Why? Because at heart, as the author so strongly argues throughout the book, patriarchy is both in conflict with and a denial of the new humanity taught and modeled by the Lord Jesus Christ who, though Lord of all, dominated neither men nor women, but so served and nurtured them as to enable them to realize, by God’s redemptive grace, their full potential as God’s image bearers. And he also argues that until men realize how harmful patriarchy is to themselves, as well as to the women they love and care about, then they will not be as ferverent and uncompromising in the fight against patriarchy as, new men in Christ, they should be.

And to drive home many of his points, the author uses not only the Scriptures, but the writings of the Early Church Fathers and the Reformers , along with the discoveries of modern psychology and social science. Of course, I don’t agree with everything he says; he’s far more lenient towards homosexuality than I would ever be, or that I think Scripture would permit. However, his expose and critique of what patriarchy really is and how it brutalizes and deforms men, especially men who wish to truly be like Christ, outweighs this flaw. And if you want a Christian man to read a book that will really open his eyes to what patriarchy is and how it deforms Christian men, and does not transform them, then have him read this book.