March/April 2007 Issue

God’s Gift to Women

Chest-thumping bible thumpers

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Brute manliness is the new ideal in the Christian men’s movement. Even the Promise Keepers, focused 10 years ago on moral purity and fidelity, have a new slogan: “It’s not about learning how to be a nicer guy. It’s about becoming the powerful man God designed you to be.” Displaying the most testosterone is a start-up ministry called GodMen, which recently drew 200 men to its inaugural conference in Nashville with the declaration, “We don’t force men, Christian or otherwise, to wear ‘spiritual bras.'”

Within the many books aimed at the emerging movement (our favorite titles include You the Warrior Leader: Applying Military Strategy for Victorious Spiritual Warfare and No More Christian Nice Guy) we found these pearls.

“We don’t need a meeting of Really Nice Guys; we need a gathering of Really Dangerous Men…. If you are going to live in God’s kingdom, Jesus says, it’s going to take every ounce of passion and forcefulness you’ve got.”
–Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man’s Soul

“In order to become God’s gift to women, we must first become acquainted with a vision of true God-designed masculinity…a version of strength and confidence that makes mere muscle and a cocky mouth seem like a plastic Tonka toy next to a monster Chevy truck.”

–God’s Gift to Women: Discovering the Lost Greatness of Masculinity

“Christ did not come to make men more feminine. He came to restore them to real manhood…many of today’s top speakers encourage men to have a passionate relationship with Him…. Speaking as a man, the idea of having a passionate relationship with another man is just plain gross.”
–Why Men Hate Going to Church

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THE BIG PICTURE

You expect the big picture, and it's our job at Mother Jones to give it to you. And right now, so many of the troubles we face are the making not of a virus, but of the quest for profit, political or economic (and not just from the man in the White House who could have offered leadership and comfort but instead gave us bleach).

In "News Is Just Like Waste Management," we unpack what the coronavirus crisis has meant for journalism, including Mother Jones’, and how we can rise to the challenge. If you're able to, this is a critical moment to support our nonprofit journalism with a donation: We've scoured our budget and made the cuts we can without impairing our mission, and we hope to raise $400,000 from our community of online readers to help keep our big reporting projects going because this extraordinary pandemic-plus-election year is no time to pull back.

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