Here’s one of my “book confessions”: In relationship guides with separate chapters addressed to men and women, I always read the men’s sections too. Like a teenager peeking in on someone’s diary, it has the forbidden-fruit quality of reading something that isn’t aimed at me. Beyond that, just as men are mystified by the ways of women, we women are also curious about the inner workings of men.
And so, once Nate Pyle’s new book, Man Enough: How Jesus Redefines Manhood, arrived on my doorstep, it went straight to the top of the teetering “to-read” pile on my nightstand.
The Indiana pastor addresses the current conception of masculinity in our church and culture, which expect men to prove themselves with strength, productivity, athleticism, and coolness. Pyle identifies the deep feelings of unworthiness that these standards produce in men, often seen in an aggressive competitiveness borne out of their fears of being seen as a “not-man.” Who can live up to our cultural idols of masculinity: the suave appeal of James Bond, the athletic prowess of NBA all-stars?
Pyle confesses that even though he’d lost weight, got a degree, and married a beautiful girl, he still felt his life cracking under this pressure to “man up.” In Man Enough, he recounts the journey through which he learned that the gospel assured him—and assures all of us—that in Christ we are enough.
Manhood, then, is not something to be proved or achieved: it is something to be affirmed as men pursue the example of Jesus, the perfect man. It’s a message Pyle wants every man, starting with his own son, to hear as they pursue courageous, vulnerable leadership.
We do damage if we focus too much on the hyper-masculine swashbuckling, horse-riding Jesus of Revelation or the hypo-masculine children-cuddling chick-gathering Jesus on the mountains outside Jerusalem. Jesus models manhood perfectly, says Pyle, because he modeled personhood perfectly. He demonstrated love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal. 5:22). He had the strength and agency to save the world, and yet also was the most relationally healthy person to have ever lived.
Rather than pursuing biblical masculinity in order to reach Christ, men should pursue Christ first and become the men God has already made them to be. This is Pyle’s banner, and it bears a striking resemblance to Hannah Anderson’s conclusion in Made for More. There, she invites women to recover their primary identity as being made in God’s image. More important than discerning what “women’s roles” are or aren’t, Anderson reminds us that we are first and foremost made in God’s image and, in partnership with men, tasked with caring for creation.
While Pyle honors gender distinctions, he attributes much of our polarization over gender roles to social norms adopted in post-industrial 20th-century America. (Anderson raises similar concerns.) Both believe that we have made too much of gender. In Richard Rohr’s words: “The category of human is deeper than any cultural definitions of male or female or gender. The category of pure holiness is broader than any male or female examples of the same; in fact, they start looking very similar toward the end.” That end, as Leslie Leyland Fields pointed out in the wake of Caitlyn Jenner’s gender reassignment surgery, is not manliness or womanliness, but godliness.
Interestingly, while Anderson appeals to women to find their identity in the imago dei (God’s image bearers), Pyle’s appeal to men is directed towards locating their identity in the imago Christi (the image of Christ). This distinction is not theologically significant in as much as Jesus himself “is the image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15) and “the exact imprint of his nature” (Heb 1:2); but it does raise questions about how much of Jesus’ manhood, as opposed to his personhood, we should emulate.
Pyle writes, “Jesus, as the one perfect person who fully embodied what it meant to be human and is the new Adam, is the definition of what it means to be a man. Everything else is false.” Could it be said, too, that “Jesus, as the one perfect person who fully embodied what it meant to be human, is the definition of what it means to be a woman?” That sentence leaves me a little squeamish: his maleness makes it difficult for me to see him as perfectly expressing femaleness.
While Jesus does fully reveal God’s character and perfectly models personhood, Jesus’ maleness speaks to the necessary boundaries of the Incarnation. Jesus had to be born in a particular place (Galilee, not Rome), at a particular time (then, not now), to a particular culture (Jewish, not Samoan), and in a particular gender (male, not female). The one who was Above All was constrained and contained in flesh. Yet even in his humble appearance as an Aramaic-speaking, Middle Eastern, carpenter-teacher man, he somehow imaged God for all humanity in all places at all times.
Beyond seeing Jesus’ masculinity, then, men and women look to Christ to be restored to their true humanity. Since Christ is the perfect image of God, and—whether male or female (Gal. 3:28)—we are united to him, in him we are restored to God’s image. This is the profound truth that both Pyle’s book (for men) and Anderson’s book (for women) point to. Perhaps it provides a helpful litmus test for believers who sit under the preaching of those who are of a different gender to us, or read books addressed to members of the other sex.
For if our theology is properly Christocentric, then our exhortations and encouragements should be true and helpful to men and women alike. I regularly teach at women’s conferences and aim to teach the Scriptures as faithfully as I can, using examples and emphases directed at women. However, I still hope that the truths we dig up from the Bible will be enlightening to the men doing technical support, even if it the illustrations might be a little foreign. If, on the other hand, what we teach about manhood and womanhood isn’t remotely applicable and useful to the other sex, perhaps it indicates that we are in danger of “going beyond what is written” (1 Cor. 4:6), and are emphasizing cultural values rather than Christlike ones.
Matthew Lee Anderson’s review of Made for More says, “Here is a book for women that has something to teach men." Likewise, Nish Weiseth’s review of Man Enough says, “This is a must read for both women and men in the church.” I agree, and so I’ll keep reading books on manhood where men encourage other men to pursue Christlikeness, for in following such examples, there lies a promise for me to pursue being the woman God made me to be, too.
Bronwyn Lea is a South-African born writer, speaker, and mom to three littles in California, where she laughs at bad puns, makes ice cream, and reads books by men and women alike. Find more of her words on Facebook and Twitter.
