This is the heart of the matter. Too many people in our society do not understand masculinity and we all suffer for it. Without true masculinity, we cannot have true femininity either. Machismo has taken the place of masculinity in many of our minds. Teddy Roosevelt is an excellent example of masculinity: he was confident and strong, he had a passion for life, he did everything as excellently as he could, and he was not afraid to be a compassionate father. Machismo is afraid of not fitting a stereotype, of being seen as “weak.” Masculinity knows that living rightly, excellently and with passion is never weak–even when it is telling your children that you love them, playing games with them, crying with them.

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I was overly optimistic to say that an ecumenical statement would be difficult to achieve. It is, in fact, impossible to achieve in the current divided state of Christendom. The only options left are what Martin suggests with the Westminster Confession — an addendum addressing the current sexual heresies coursing through all the Christian communions.

But, still, it would be so helpful, if orthodox theologians in all the communions would begin to formulate what might pass for an ecumenical understanding of sexuality, based on the Scriptures and the worship of the Church for the past two millennia. With such source materials, surely this project could go forward.

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For me, it might be a section added to the Westminster Confession of Faith.

In both cases it would be a formal public statement from the church regarding such issues as the family, marriage, homosexuality, etc. It would strongly combat efforts from some quarters to redefine the Bible according to the agenda of certain groups such as homosexuals. It would also serve notice of strong church opposition to lawmakers who attempt to force the church to conform to increasingly perverse cultural trends.

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No one was more masculine than my father. And despite having no good male role models in his life, he was a great father.

Being a good father is not anything like being another mother. They are different roles.

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Masculinity and manhood are not bundles of good behavior either. Like femininity and womanhood, they’re bad ideas. They’re trivial, confusing, and corrupting ideas, and they displace much better ideas about temperament, skill, and virtue. Masculinity and femininity are attractive physical traits, like green eyes or dark skin or silky hair, but they are terrible ideas.

Good parents try to teach a wide range of skills in order to give their children the capacity to engage in diverse behavior and acquire emotional balance and versatility. What children like or dislike is far less important than what they can do and can’t do.

NJLawyer: Without getting paid about $100,000, nobody in reality tries to turn men into women. And no, I don’t care any more about your relationship with your mother than you do about the professor’s relationship with his father.

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When Arius challenged in Christology implicit in the New Testament and in the worship of the Church, the Church answered with a clear theological critique of Arianism, and a creedal statement of orthodox belief (i.e. the Nicene Creed).

Something similar is required today to answer the feminist deconstruction of Biblical anthropology implicit in the Bible and in the worship of the Church for the past 2000 years. Admitted, it will be more difficult to do this, given the fractured state of Christendom. Still, until this project goes forward, the Church is left to cherry-picking its way through fundamentally anti-Christian culture to articulate what it thinks a man is, what a woman is.

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We have three sons. A long time ago, I wrote a column in which I said, “Every boy needs a father to protect him from his mother.” We’ve found this to be true over the years.

This woman’s boys would not have played wild football on the lawn, would not have hiked in the snow without boots, always would have eaten balanced meals and never would have shot any sort of gun–including squirt guns; they would have spent their time inside reading and listening to classical music. And I probably would have (unsuccessfully) driven the Boy Scouts insane trying to micromanage Mother-sanctioned safety into all their endeavors.

Fortunately, my good man had other ideas. He led his sons out of their mother’s cocoon into a world of fix it, deal with it and have fun.

He also admonished me, “not to shield my sons from their father’s discipline.” If the punishment for not doing their chores was no dinner, so be it. This weaker parent had to hide in the bedroom rather than see those hungry faces.

They’re wonderful young men. And despite their mother’s efforts, the Boy Scouts made them all Eagles. They’re also excellent readers, good musicians and only the youngest one ever broke a bone–when the two older boys “accidentally” shoved him into the piano.

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