That’s what I posted on X a few days ago, and it’s still going viral.
(By the way, the “biblical womanhood” industry is also a scam. But the situation that prompted my post, the firing of Aaron Ivey from his position of worship pastor at a Texas church over indecent texts with men, was yet another case of predatory sexual behavior by a pastor selling the message of “biblical manhood.”)
Note I didn’t say that “biblical manhood” (how that is defined is an open question, hence the quotation marks) is a scam. I said that the industry around it is a scam.
And by industry, I am referring to a definition like this one in the Cambridge Dictionary: “something that is produced or is available in large quantities and makes a lot of money.”
Of course, not everything that’s produced or available in large quantities and makes a lot of money is a scam. So why would I say that the particular industry around “biblical manhood” (as well as “biblical womanhood”) is a scam?
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First, because, as noted above, what constitutes “biblical manhood/womanhood” is not only not clearly defined, but its definition is highly contested. The term originated, after all, in order to make a boundary, strike a mark and create a brand as a reactionary move amid the culture wars. Furthermore, the tropes most commonly invoked within the discourse around “biblical manhood” distort (or even misrepresent) what the Bible teaches about virtue and character for men as well as women.
David wasn’t a warrior wearing armor; he was a shepherd with a slingshot guided by the Lord. Samson’s strength came not from bench presses and leg lifts, but from the Spirit of the Lord. Paul’s admonition in 1 Corinthians 16:13 to “act like men” means in the original Greek to be courageous, and it applies equally to men and women, just as all of the qualities of Christlike character do.
Second, just as women’s fashion magazines exist by creating needs and desires women wouldn’t have otherwise and then offering the “solutions” to these manufactured needs, Christian publications can also operate on similar capitalistic and consumeristic principles. Certain topics — those that get at our core identities and callings, in particular — are more prone to manipulation. This vulnerability derives from basic human nature, but when a spiritual or religious layer is added on top of those basic human needs, the potential for exploitation rises considerably.
Stereotypes around manhood and womanhood are rooted in both nature and culture. Like all stereotypes, they emerge out of something truthful. But the calling of the Christian transcends culture. The church is the last place where cultural stereotypes should be upheld as biblical truth. The worship leader who doesn’t like football shouldn’t feel out of place in the church because of that. The sales manager who is a godly husband, father and Bible teacher shouldn’t feel less manly because he doesn’t enjoy the outdoors. The IT guy who does most of the cooking is just as masculine as the one who doesn’t.
Steve Bezner, pastor of Houston Northwest Church, shared these examples with me in a recent conversation. He said that once he saw that machismo was being confused with spiritual maturity, it changed the way he taught and ministered to men in his congregation.
Rather than relying on the warrior as a metaphor for manhood, he said, he extols the character of Christ in all its complexity and finds the men in his church doing better as a result.
Certainly, the line between offering a creative work or product and becoming an industry can be fine. Lessons and sermons on character and godliness in all our roles are good and necessary. I think in particular of someone who is teaching principles of manhood to prison inmates or the fatherless and, in doing so, changing lives in important ways.
Moreover, the people who speak, write and teach these things are certainly worthy of their pay. The fact that something costs something doesn’t make it an industry.
But messages that gather into a storm of books, conferences, videos, courses, workbooks, workshops, websites, podcasts and statements are inarguably an industry. Furthermore, when the industry is fronted by celebrities and personalities (often the sock puppets of bigger names behind the curtain), the message risks being lost behind the messenger. And when the people behind the industry don’t live up to or even believe the message themselves, then it’s a scam. Even if the message is true. Like all machines, industries can eat people alive. And such machines distort or destroy the gospel message itself.
In my recent book, “The Evangelical Imagination,” I devote an entire chapter to the notion of “improvement,” showing how this early modern concept contributed to the rise of the self-help movement in the 19th century and has spilled over into Christian thinking and practice today.
Many of the publications centered on “biblical manhood” and “biblical womanhood” are just a continuation of this Victorian (and secular) movement.
Indeed, as Daniel Vaca shows in “Evangelicals Incorporated: Books and the Business of Religion in America,” over the course of the 20th century the publishing industry created a “commercial religion,” one in which publishers and booksellers create consumers’ desires along with the authors and celebrities constructed to fill those needs. What follows is a vicious cycle that cultivates the demand that perpetuates the supply.
Thus arose the “evangelical industrial complex,” a term coined by Skye Jethani in 2012. The phrase alludes to a similar one made famous by President Dwight Eisenhower in his 1961 speech warning of the unintended consequences of America’s unrestrained expansion of the military and its self-perpetuating arms industry: the military industrial complex.
Both the military industrial complex and the current-day evangelical version are driven by systemic economic forces, Jethani explains. In the case of the evangelical industrial complex, that driving economic power is the Christian publishing industry.
And the unintended consequence in this case is the endless proliferation of images of manhood (and womanhood) that ever expand an appetite they cannot satisfy yet lead further and further away from the one and only One who can.
This commentary, which was originally published by Religion News Service, does not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Roys Report.
Karen Swallow Prior, Ph. D., is a reader, writer, professor, and columnist at Religion News Service. She is the author of several best-selling books. Her most recent is The Evangelical Imagination: How Stories, Images, and Metaphors Created a Culture in Crisis. She lives in Virginia.
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27 Responses
“David wasn’t a warrior wearing armor; he was a shepherd with a slingshot guided by the Lord.”
Actually, he was a warrior AND a shepherd. He was both. It is precisely this either/or mentality that creates confusion.
He knew how to fight and surrounded himself with incredible warriors. Using a slingshot, he took down a giant. This indicates he knew his way around weaponry. It also indicates he was a warrior. He also knew how to wrestle with anything that attempted to attack his sheep.
A warrior.
Yes, as was Jael, who put a tent peg through a general’s temple. Courage is not gendered. Neither is the fruit of the Spirit.
I’m teaching Judges 4-5 to 4th and 5th graders tomorrow and will share this quote with them. Love it Courage is not gendered; neither is the fruit of the Spirit. Amen, Jennifer.
Just tell them Sisera woke up with a splitting headache.
Yes, the fruit of the spirit is definitely given to both men and women. Amen and amen.
David was not yet an experienced warrior familiar with armaments when he killed Goliath. He was a teenaged shepherd boy (thus the mockery by Goliath when David came out to meet him in the valley). When Saul tried to have David wear his armor, 1 Sam 17:39 says David tried it on and then refused to use it because he was not used to it (which could very well mean he wasn’t used to military gear).
Because of his success against Goliath, David was brought into the palace and became a leader in Saul’s army before Saul became jealous and started trying to kill him. But then later in life, when David desired to build a house for YHWH, he was not allowed to precisely because he had become a man of bloodshed.
But isn’t the point of the Christian walk is to become more like Christ. Rather than to quibble about when exactly David became a warrior.
Jane King,
Yes, you are right. We should not quibble about when David became a warrior. However, stating he was NOT a warrior is a lie.
Nobody makes themselves look better by posting on X.
It really says a lot when, extolling the virtues of Christ as means to character development is the novel approach in church.
Excellent point. Christianity is an individual process which joins together in effect in a group called the Church.
IMO The Biblical Manhood Industry is just another means that many Evangelicals use to lure more into their fold and keep them there. They can proof-text until the cows some home but it’s nothing more than an accommodation to the culture under the illusion of being ‘biblical’.
Don’t you think that there is a need for men to become men of God and women to be women of God? We are all, as of this day and age, people affected by a compromised culture which attacks real gender identification.
Of course but, KSP is talking about the industry around “Biblical Manhood” being a scam.
Thank you. I do most of the cooking at home, regularly help my young daughter brushing her hair and sometimes pick her up after her dance classes. I don’t feel less manly. I also love the outdoors and I am not a fan of football/soccer. I’ve always thought that catchy titles like “True biblical manhood” we’re just a a marketing thing.
Most of the guys I know who have fallen for the concept have awful characters and disqualified themselves for eldership because of this.
“seek good and not the evil . . . . hate evil and love the good.”
For when any one has already wished to devote himself to God’s service, this exhortation to hate evil is unnecessary; but when one is sunk still in his own vices, he has need of such a stimulant. The Prophet therefore does here reprove them; and though they flattered themselves, he yet shows that they were greatly addicted to their vices.
Calvin – Amos 5
Dr. Swallow has a point that needs to be said even if one might say it differently.
The whole Christian celebrity industry needs to be confronted too.
David is not a good example to follow for manhood. Look at his children.
King David was a man after God’s own heart:
Acts 13:22:
“After removing Saul, he made David their king. God testified concerning him: ‘I have found David son of Jesse, a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.”
David is an excellent example to follow. He ruled for 40 years and left his kingdom to Solomon, one of the wisest men who ever lived.
If you are looking for a perfect example of manhood, you will never find it. Perhaps the issue here is not manhood or womanhood at all: Perhaps the issue is America’s tendency to worship celebrities.
“If you are looking for a perfect example of manhood, you will never find it.”
What about the 1st four books of the New Testament? God sent us a perfect example of a man, and how we are to conduct ourselves.
I appreciate the thoughtfulness of the article!
The article’s fine and makes valid points, but does anyone else see the irony in calling out the Christian publishing industry as the driving force behind the evangelical industrial complex while promoting your own book?
Yes, I had the same thought as you …
Thank you, Dr. Prior!
My qualm with those who espouse biblical manhood is that I find their definition of the term very American and not very biblical. In America, there’s an overt demand that men never cry, that we never show weakness. Every decision you make has to prove that you’re in control of yourself and the people around you, but King David cried; he showed weakness… a lot. Here are just three examples:
– He wept over having to leave Jonathan (I Samuel 20:41);
– He wept over his family being taken captive by the Amalekites (I Samuel 30:4);
– He wept over Absalom’s death (2 Samuel 18:31-33)
Moreover, Jesus wept. Usually, only one instance is mentioned, when he weeps over Lazarus (John 11:35), but he also weeps over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41-44). If I were to imagine most Christian American men I know in the aforementioned passage, standing with Jesus as he weeps over Jerusalem, they would look at him with disdain and assert, “What are you crying for? Trust God!”
Both David and Jesus were men of emotional range who led lives that were pleasing to God, the former imperfectly and the latter perfectly. Regrettably, many of those who champion biblical manhood don’t seem to know what it is. The same man who wept over leaving his beloved friend killed 200 Philistines and brought their unmentionables to the king so that he could marry his daughter (I Samuel 18:27). Likewise, the same man who likened his desires for Jerusalem to that of a hen for her chicks (Luke 13:34), overthrew the tables of the money-changers in the temple (Matthew 21:12-13). What is biblical manhood? If you can’t look to the author and finisher of your faith, then to whom can you look?
David brought the foreskins of the Philistines to Saul as bride-price for Michal. If body parts aren’t unmentionable to the authors of the Bible, they certainly shouldn’t be for us.
In Regency and Victorian literature, “unmentionables” means men’s breeches – the article of clothing – not men’s foreskins.
I see the effort to rip the Apostle Paul out of his cultural and historic context continues. The attempts to reframe 1 Corinthians 16:13 as a 21st century inclusive rebuttal of toxic masculinity stretches hermeneutics to the breaking point. Andrizomai, Bauer, Arndt, Gingrich: conduct oneself in a manly or courageous way; “be a man!”; Of an old man whose hope in life has been renewed. Even of a woman who is girded and of manly appearance. Andrikos, Liddell and Scott: masculine, manly, the sweat of manly toil, like men to eat and drink, like a man. Various following entries: one must play the man, with a male voice, I could go on. Paul uses the word once. LXX uses the word 21 times per Strong’s concordance. The ASV keeps “quit you like men” and offers the following ASV references: 1Samuel 4:9; 2Samuel 10:12; Isaiah 46:8. Even the Vulgate says, “vigilate state in fide viriliter agite et confortamini.” The usage follows a cultural sexist stereotype that men MUST be brave and courageous. The First Century readers of the Roman world would have understood Paul to say, “we expect men to be brave and courageous, so must all of you.” That in no way detracts from the many women who are brave and courageous. Even the all-male Roman Legions (soldier-wise) feared and admired the fierce barbarian tribes led by women and their armies staffed with both female and male warriors. There’s no need to sanitize Paul, is there?
the “biblical manhood industry” is a fraud becouse it defines biblical manhood as a man who has zero love and compassion for the oppressed, downtrodden, poor, and abused. it worships success, money, and being a “protector” of only thier family and to heck with everyone else. God the father and Jesus christ are Love, compassion, sympathy, justice, wrath on evildoers. a TRUE Biblical man OR woman will have ALL these and more attributes. having zero love or compassion for victims, the oppressed, poor, homeless or immigrants are the attributes is SATANS man or woman, not Gods man or woman.