Churchmen: Largely Domesticated and Sometimes Effeminate

So I just returned from worship at a church, the location of which is irrelevant. What is relevant, however, is this alarming trend that I see in churches that is distinct from Christianity in the past.

Much of what is seen today in churches is more about Churchianity than Christianity. It becomes rather nauseating. Now, I am a devout believer in the local church. I have shown by my words and actions nothing other than a PROFOUND commitment to the church as a primary expression of faith and the epicenter of God's work in the world-- so this has nothing to do with an anti-church rant.

Rather, it is the fact that (not all-- but 'possibly' your church too, before you let yourself off the hook too quickly) MANY churches today are primarily for women and many men are increasingly uncomfortable attending churches. Recently I heard that up to 75% of all attendees in the United Methodist Church are women. Can you imagine? A major denomination where only 1/4 of attendees is male-- when 50% of the population are men? Something's not right about that. And this isn't a slam on Methodism, as much as it is an illustration of my point. Nay, much the same could be said about many denominations and non-denominational churches in many areas.

My point is this: When the average man's man attends a local church, what they often find is a group of "largely domesticated and sometimes effeminate men" with whom they cannot relate. That's what I felt today. I sat there thinking, "Who ARE these people?" Men appeared WAY TOO "nice, polite, smiley, accommodating and, frankly, soft." I'm all for politeness, but this was too much. I'd rather see men who are generally strong, robust, direct, surefooted, level, candid... AND nice, polite, and accommodating. Can't we produce both in our churches?

I'm a huge supporter of women and their development and their great contributions to ministry. I love children and believe deeply in strong children's ministries, youth ministries, and family ministries. I love it all. But can we just learn to allow men to be men and help cultivate strong men in the church, instead of presenting mealy-mouthed weaklings and passive pushovers as the prototype of biblical manhood?

Likeability and Leadership

People don't follow people they don't like.

It amazes me how people miss this truism. Truism? Yeah, a truism... click here.

I coined that opening phrase after observing lots of leaders who just didn't seem to get it.

So let's get this point straight, once and for all-- explaining the truth in both negative and positive-statement forms:

• People don't follow people they don't like


• People generally follow people they do like

The answer isn't the Mr. Nice Guy Dale Carnegie Solution: to ditch your convictions and to become a spineless wimp who believes nothing, has no opinions, and who only wants acceptance. You know, the Chamber of Commerce Guy.

But being a person of conviction doesn't mean you need to earn a (D.D.) Doctorate of Disagreeability to "PROVE" just how much conviction you really have. Lots of leaders are so interested in COMPETENCE and IQ that they have no CHEMISTRY and EQ (emotional quotient). Good social skills are woefully lacking in many a leader and interpersonal interactions are half of our jobs as leaders.

I regularly work to evaluate my own likeability. Sure, people misread you and I sometimes-- but that's life. We can't lose sleep over those who might assign false motives to us or have some kind of an axe to grind. But we can work to make the most of every opportunity to be our best selves because that's the one that influences others.

'Truth' Briefly Introduced

What is truth? What constitutes truth? Are belief and truth the same thing? Does belief create truth? Does disbelief destroy truth? Begin thinking about truth in this brief introduction.

What Does It Mean To Become a Christian?

What Does It Mean to Become a Christian?

The Christian life, and Christianity is general, is largely misunderstood in American and perhaps other cultures. There are many reasons, I’m sure, but I’m certain that part of it is because of caricatures assigned to it by non-adherents, and it is also due to the failure of many who profess Christ to articulate their faith with clarity AND TO LIVE their faith with integrity.

So today, I’m asking the question… What is the Christian life?

I am a Christian. That means I believe in Jesus Christ. I follow Christ. I am wrapping my life and existence around the teachings of Jesus.

The Christian life is first and foremost about individual people who, in the warp and woof of life, have walked down the winnowing path of human existence and—through any number of experiences and events—come to a point in their thinking, where they realized that all was not well.

This comes in so many ways— like what?

But, at any rate, however it happens, this realization leads a person to a point where they feel drawn to God in an increasingly tangible way, and become more and more open to the possibility and—ultimately, the reality, that Jesus Christ is a living reality—an existential BEING who is capable of and interested in cultivating a relationship with each of us, and specifically ME—or, YOU, as the case may be.

And at some point, that person acknowledges the reality of God, and the truth of Christ, and commits his or her life to Jesus by surrendering to His authority.

This type of belief is sometimes called “saving faith.” It is called “Salvation” by Christians, because one is QUOTE, saved, from himself—saved from the ramifications of his or her decisions and actions that wounded their relationship to God and that violated God’s authority.

This belief is associated with a recognition of the fact that things in our lives didn’t go the way they ought to have gone—that we failed to be all we were created to be—that we often violated our consciences to recklessly pursue desires and directions that were fundamentally and diametrically opposed to that which is good. And this pursuit of vice ended up causing us to violate others, ourselves and most importantly, the God who created us in His image. And for that reason, because we have an obligation to him as our Maker—just as a child might be obligated to recognize the authority of his parent or parents, we must answer to Him for our disobedience and our loss or, perhaps better, the forfeiture of virtue.

This acknowledgment is essentially the recognition that, though we are persons of value, we are nonetheless soiled— that is, we are contaminated… and that the contamination we suffer and bear is the outcome of our own doing. And the recognition that, left unattended, that corruption will ultimately result in our undoing.

So a person in this condition calls out to God, silently or audibly—it matters not, and in the sanctuary of their hearts, their innermost beings, they admit to God that they are estranged from a right and harmonious and peaceful relationship with him—and that the reason for this is our own personal rebellion--- something that could and should be rightly called “sin” meaning, disobedience toward God.

This disobedience was against God and we know that is the case because we understand and FEEL guilty and culpable for violating our conscience and, wittingly or unwittingly, have also violated the standards God articulated in his love letter to humanity—which is what the Holy Bible actually is.

So the Holy Bible provides us with the written standard of what God desires and expects, and what is required for us to live in harmony with him… and, incidentally, with others.

So the attitude of a person wanting to repair his relationship with God confesses this reality of sin and the resultant loss of inner peace and asks God to forgive him or her. What this means is that, such a person feels sorrow, contrition, regret, disappointment and even guilt for past thoughts, attitudes, and actions, and then ASKS FOR and receives forgiveness from God.. and this then INITIATES a relationship with God through the person of Jesus Christ. And such a person considers Jesus his only hope for abundant living now and eternal life now and later.

And what that means is that a person who desires to be reconciled with God and to patch up his or her relationship with God and to enter into a real and actual relationship with the God of the Universe invites the one and only Son of God, Jesus Christ into his life and then begins a new life—ONE that seeks to cultivate a relationship with God.

That is what it means to become a Christian—being reconciled to God by Faith Alone through Christ Alone.

Wanna hear this in podcast form? Check it out:

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Why Did Jesus Come to Earth? Why Did God Enter Time?

Why Did Jesus Come To Earth?

It begins with the assumption that Jesus DID come to earth.

• Jesus is the most well-attested historical person from the ancient world. Historical knowledge and reference to him far exceeds that of any person of antiquity—this would include the likes of Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, Plato, Socrates, or anyone else a person could think of.

• When it comes to leaders of various faiths, so little is known about some religious leaders of the past that they are more legendary than historical. Not so with Jesus. In fact, to deny the existence or historicity of Christ is as intellectually dishonest as it would be to deny the holocaust—no self-respecting or legitimate person would be so brazen to do it.

So Jesus did, in fact, come to earth.

And if so… what did he come to do?

Well, the Bible teaches that Jesus was not only a regular human being coming to earth in order to restore social justice or to point to a particular deity. Indeed! No, rather Jesus came as a being who was a single person, but one with two natures—that is to say, Jesus was God Incarnate… God in the flesh. And this Jesus—the Christ (Jesus, the Messiah) was what Christians call the God-Man. He was AND IS a person, the only person, with a divine and a human nature. Fully man, fully God. Jesus was and IS God in the flesh.

One wonders, Why in the world would God come to earth? And it’s important to understand that Christianity does not teach that it was God the Father who came to earth, but that God—in His infinite and unknowable wisdom, existed eternally in the past as Father, Son and Spirit—and that these three persons COLLECTIVELY formed one God. I know, it’s hard to wrap your mind around… but Christianity and the Bible and ALL GREAT LEADERS OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH THROUGHOUT HISTORY who have held a biblical view on God, have taught that God existed in that Holy Tri-unity—the Holy Trinity, Father, Word or Son, and Spirit—a united and unified Spirit Being in three non-contradictory expressions, and that this God fashioned His eternal Son, often called the Second Person of the Trinity, into the likeness of a man—meaning, God the Son, who became the Person of Jesus Christ, took on flesh—a human body—and was implanted, mysteriously and supernaturally into the womb of the Virgin, Mary, and as the Holy Spirit “overshadowed” her—NOT IMPREGNATED HER, but as He caused her, non-sexually to conceive, this Mary became pregnant without the aid of man, and began to carry the God-Man, the Christ… the MESSIAH in her womb… and That Baby, secretly the God of the Universe in human form, the one and ONLY BEGOTTEN SON of God, was ultimately born and named Yeshua… Joshua the Messiah… or what the English speaking world knows as “Jesus Christ.”

Why did the Incarnation happen? Why did God become flesh? Why was there a theological need for God to enter time? Why did this being or personage need to be fully man? Why did he need to be fully God?

Oh, there’s so much to this… more will have to be said later, no doubt, but the primary answer lies in this:

Because the Bible says in Luke chapter 19 verse 10, that Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost…. And HE DID THIS because Jesus came to RECONCILE HUMANITY WITH GOD.

In an earlier podcast I mentioned that humanity was estranged from God and that this existential lostness and brokenness of relationship was caused by sin. Meaning, that in the Garden of Eden, humanity began in innocence… but then humanity corrupted themselves through, first, being deceived treacherously, and ultimately, in willful disobedience.

This event is called The Fall of Humanity or, sometimes, the Fall of Man. And The Fall meant that the original state of innocence was now violated and that all humanity would thereafter be estranged from God due to sin.

But God sent Jesus as a MEDIATOR who would resolve that broken relationship by restoring it. A mediator is one who represents all parties involved. And Jesus became the One Mediator between God and Humanity—representing God AS GOD and representing Man AS A MAN. Hence, the God-Man. And because He was fully God and fully Man, Jesus was the only person fit to become the Messiah.

So AS A MAN, Jesus offered Himself to God, on a cross, as a blood sacrifice REPLACING AND SUPPLANING ALL OTHER NECESSARY LIVING SACRIFICES TO GOD- ONCE AND FOR ALL—AND BECAUSE HE WAS A PERFECT MAN, He gave Himself as this offering FOR MAN… but because He was (and is) also God, this offering was accepted by God, because only God can forgive sin and save people from sin.

So, in a crude sense, Jesus came to save us from our sin— that is the CAUSE of Jesus’ coming, but the EFFECT of Jesus’ coming is reconciliation.

That Jesus, through his singular, unthinkable, unrepeatable, act of sacrifice, made the way for all people of all times and all places—to come to God and to receive forgiveness and to thereby restore their relationship with God in Christ alone through faith in Him alone.

And for a person to take advantage of that, an individual simply needs to place his or her faith in the finished work of Christ that he completed on the cross.

To learn more about that, specifically, and how to put all of this together in your own life, check out my May 10, 2008 podcast entitled “What Does It Mean To Become a Christian?”

http://freddycardoza.mypodcast.com/2008/05/What_Does_It_Mean_To_Become_a_Christian-107825.html