Manliness

“When Joab saw that the front of the battle was against him before and behind… he said (to Abishai his brother), ‘Be of good courage, and let us play the men for our people, and for the cities of our God: and the Lord do that which seems good to Him.’”  –II Samuel 10:9-12

“Be on watch, stand fast in the faith, acquit yourselves like men, be strong.”  –I Corinthians 16:13

“If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating…

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run –
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man my son!”  

– Excerpt from the poem “If” by Rudyard Kipling

I was half-awake and half-listening to an ABC news program that followed up the usual national weather and sports items of the day with trivia about some of the major entertainment personalities.  All of a sudden, the insipid stuff they were discussing jarred me out of my half-consciousness.  They were ooohing, ahhhing and drooling over a prominent Hollywood couple that had just had a baby and hadn’t tied the knot yet, but claimed they were in love and thinking about doing it.  And I thought — What a ridiculous bunch of nonsense!

Then instantly I felt sorry for the young men of this day and time.  Where are male role-models like those that I had when I was a child and an impressionable, young boy?  How can society expect boys to become men who act in a morally and socially responsible way when all they see demonstrated and praised is infidelity and irresponsibility?

In recent months, we have been inundated with unmanly, wimpy excuses and denials from former senators and football coaches for their exposed sexual indulgences.  Lack of manliness is one of the oldest failures recorded in the Bible.  Cain was the first: He killed his brother and then whined because the punishment of having to work for a living was too harsh, simply more than he wanted to endure.  Cain demonstrated no repentance, just self-pity.

Lack of manliness is not only in the world, it’s in the church.  It is not uncommon for Christians to excuse and minimize the wrong-doing relatives or close friends because, “They’re family!”  The Moslems, whom we believe have lower spiritual revelation, have a far higher ethic.  Where are men who can stand up straight, admit to wrongs committed and then quit it?  When Britain’s Lord Profumo’s part in the Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies spy scandal was exposed, he finally came forward and admitted, “I have made a terrible fool of myself.”  Where are men willing like Profumo to publicly acknowledge their failings and then show the good taste to exit the public scene to do charitable work that contributes to the betterment of society?  Where are those men today?

Let me be clear here.  We’re not talking about saints; we’re talking about men and manliness within the earth.  Joab was no saint, but he was a man.  Manliness is not about muscles and testosterone.  It’s about character, conviction, courage and commitment.

A few years ago a visitor from Australia who had known my parents as a young woman in Glasgow, Scotland, told me how her husband’s life had been revolutionized by a sermon my father preached based on the scripture, “Quit you like men; be strong.”  It was during WWII, and her husband had been serving as a minister in a denomination with whose teaching he could no longer agree.  The message gave him the spiritual courage of his convictions.  He resigned from his pulpit, entered the Armed Forces of Australia, served with distinction and chose to lead a meaningful and fulfilling life when the war ended.  That is manliness; that is godliness; that is playing the man.

By John G. Cathcart
www.wme.org