Kathy Escobar has a good post, Ex-Good-Christian-Women,
in which she talks about the burden Christian women carry of having to
meet (presumably certain evangelical) expectations of what it means to
be a good Christian woman. Kathy then asks if men have similarly been
burdened by false ideas of good Christian manhood. In response to this
question, Michael Craft says the following (and I have edited what he
said in minor ways):
"Hmm…false idea of what it means to be a
Christian man. I'm going to have to blog about that. You hit a large
nerve on that one! I stopped going to men's meetings because I tired of
the Christian man ideal that would be taught. I never felt valued as a
man and went away feeling discouraged and condemned. Almost every men's
group I attended taught that you MUST be the spiritual leader in the
family (I believed in a shared responsibility). It always seemed to be
our fault in our marriages because we sucked at being a good enough
husband. If I would actually share something honestly about a problem I
was having, I would be treated like a child that needed disciplining. I
learned quickly NOT to EVER share AGAIN. Too many insecure pompous men
trying to show off their peacock feathers of macho spirituality with
their inane advice! In my ministry to recovering addicts, I come
alongside them in the ditch with them and relate to my fellow
strugglers. I don't give them the 'You must victorious, brother. You
must be an overcomer. You have to be the head and not the tail' garbage
that Ive heard over and over. I share my weaknesses and love them
through their situation. I refuse to act above others. I easily could
have been a addict if God hadn't intervened years ago. I know now that I
was going against the flow of popular Christian thought and paid a
heavy price. I'm out of the mainstream church and viewed as a rebel but
I see more of God out here in the wide spaces of the 'frontier' than in
the 'city' of the institutional church. Thank you once again my dear
friend and mentor in our wild living in the faith. You have once again
lifted a discouraged heart!"
I'm looking forward to Michael's post on this topic. Here's the web site for his ministry.