Well, Todd Bentley of Lakeland sure seems to have found his inner pro wrestler. I can very easily see him in a Pay-per-View with the Gobbledy Gooker on Wrestlecrap…

I would add just a bit of commentary on reasons a culture looks down at stay-at-home dads (which I do two days a week). There are lax and sinful men everywhere who leach off women and take advantage of them. And, our Western culture wants to blur roles in order to blur gender lines. (this may be hyperbole but it works itself out whether it is intended or not; I live in Portland, OR where this is self-evident which brings up another discussion: Is there a different approach for the urban man vs the rural man?) So I don’t think the stereotype when used as a tool to discover a man’s intention is necessarily bad. When it is used as absolute dogma to keep men out of God’s kingdom or to discriminate based on the means of work then there is a problem. If there is a model for manhood it is Paul’s charge to husbands to love their wives like Christ loves the Church. This will cost a man his life! And it usually means men to stop making excuses and find some work to support his family. Or it may mean taking on some nurturing roles so that he’ll learn to not be a “son of #!&*! Because men who love their wives (families) like Christ loves the Church will lay down his life and provide for them by meeting their basic needs and by teaching and training them with compassion and love.

Though much has been made and taken away about Eldredge’s books, he at least is addressing the aforementioned problem: Men as leaches and blurring gender. I think Eldredge’s view of manhood is similar to that of Lewis’: “We men may often make very bad priests. That is because we are insufficiently masculine. It is no cure to call in those who are not masculine at all. A given man may make a very bad husband; you cannot mend matters by trying to reverse the roles. He may make a bad male partner in a dance. The cure for that is that men should more diligently attend dancing classes, not that the ballroom should henceforward ignore distinctions of sex and treat all dancers as neuter. That would, of course, be eminently sensible, civilized, and enlightened, but, once more, “not near so much like a Ball.” -from God in the Dock, Priestesses in the Church?

I “assume” Eldredge’s call to masculinity by “manly” practices is for the end and not the means. I think where Eldredge falls short is not talking about how to produce manly compassion and gentleness. I love the discussion though.

No, not theology held by Idiot A or Idiot B, although that’s not unrelated, but theology based on the premise that the world is full of people who believe cockamaney nonsense because they don’t accept the gospel and are therefore……