Somewhere Between Jesus & John Wayne, 2

Continued from "Somewhere between Jesus and John Wayne"

This post is a polemic -- an engagement in spiritual warfare that addresses a much-neglected issue in the Church.

Over 30 yrs ago, I worked for an independent Baptist pastor who wanted to start a school. I was the principal. One day, I approached him with a problem.

During recess, the boys liked to play baseball, and daily there were heated arguments over whether someone had touched base or not, whether a certain pitch was a strike, etc. The arguments had not consummated in physical blows, but it was only a matter of time.

The school was understaffed, and my duties kept me from supervising the games, although I could observe and hear through the window. To compound the problem, the pastor's 12-yr-old son was invariably one of the participants in these arguments.

It did not help that the pastor was an insufferable narcissist. He told me that I was to let the arguing continue, because he did not want his son to grow up to be a wimp.

I have recounted this story because I believe, to some degree or other, it expresses the view of many Christian men. They want enough of Christ to get them to heaven, but in other facets of their life, they want to be like John Wayne.

This, of course, comes -- at least in part -- from the liberal picture of Jesus as the effete, if not effeminate, Holy Victim. Mainstream churches have swallowed and perpetuated this distorted view of Christ's passion. Large parts of Evangelicaldom have followed suit.

In the early Church, however, Jesus was not seen as the Holy Victim, but as the Victorious King. Christians saw the cross as a tactical move leading to ultimate victory rather than as a defeat.

I think, perhaps, one of the clearest literary presentations of this fact is the death and resurrection of Aslan in C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. It shows that the forces of wickedness fell into a great and wise trap baited by the King, Himself.

The false view of Jesus leaves the modern Christian man between the devil and the deep blue. On the one hand, from boyhood he has heard the stories of Joshua, David, and the Mighty Men (including Benaiah), and these stories stir him.

On the other hand, his pastors and teachers tell him that these men and their deeds are from the OLD Testament. They tell him that he must follow the NEW Testament and strive to be like Jesus, whom they depict as the Holy Victim.

You may think that such pastors and teachers are your friends. But with friends like that, who needs enemas?

We have here a false view of Scripture as well as a false view of Jesus. As Gary North has pointed out, the Old Testament is not God's Word emeritus.

But those boys and men indoctrinated by these false teachings find themselves on the horns of a dilemma. Do they follow the false Christ of the false teaching and deny the manhood with which God has gifted them and to which He calls them? Or do they affirm their manhood and then look for an appropriate role model outside of Christianity altogether?

Sadly, too many try to take the middle ground and end up "somewhere between Jesus and John Wayne." Jesus, the true paradigm of manhood, has a sad message for those who deliberately choose the middle ground.

I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.

(Rev 3:15-16)

To be continued . . .