Diary of a Wimpy Catholic
Long before Darren Aronofsky dreamed of casting Russell Crowe as Noah, I amused myself wondering how he would fare in the role of Jesus. Crowe is a Method actor whose ego was just then winning infamy for its Himalayan scope, so it seemed a dead cert that being addressed as “Rabbi” or “Master” by the crew and caterers would scramble his brains for life. Either Gawker would end up publishing videos where he demanded of hotel desk clerks, “WHO DO YOU SAY I AM?” Or else we’d read about how police picked him up for washing some grossed-out stranger’s feet. (“Okay, man, I’ll love one another as you have loved me. Just let me go, please?”)
This daydream came back to me this morning while reading Simcha Fisher’s debate with a reader on the essence of masculinity. In one of last week’s posts, she’d written that men should not hesitate to act on behalf of the unborn, since protection of the vulnerable is a distinctly masculine vocation. Her reader shoots back:
If an affinity for babies and not having sex is manliness or courage or masculinity then some anemic nerd virgin gamer who babysits his cousins on the weekend is literally more manly and masculine than Achilles or Alexander the Great or Gengis Khan, since they fornicated…. Actual manliness is unacceptable, so it has to be redefined as babysitting and not having sex. But described with real strong words.
Oh, yeah, tough guy? Retorts Simcha. Well, how about Jesus:
One of the main services that Christianity provided to the world (besides, you know,salvation) was to correct our model for femininity and masculinity, which got distorted almost as soon as the first man and woman were made. What needed correcting? Well, before Christ, the rest of the world was still laboring under the pagan delusion, the lapsarian distortion, that women are weak and that men are basically penises with swords. That’s what we revert to, when we listen to the distortions of sin.
And what was the correction that Christ give us? He gave us woman clothed with the sun, queen of the angels, crusher of serpents. And a savior who poured out His life, not as a symbol, but for real. Who made Himself powerless, immobile, transfixed on the cross, open to shame, to spitting, to insults and humiliation. When Jesus died on the cross, no one said, “Look at this display of strength!” They saw Him fall; they saw Him overpowered. They saw Him dead. Ecce homo.
What do we know about this model of masculinity? He chose to let it happen. He had strength, and He chose to put away His strength, His manhood (never mind His Godhood). He chose to reserve it until it could be used the right way. He didn’t come to make unmistakable display of His power and might. There are still millions who don’t see it! He came, instead, to strengthen us, to protect us, to empty Himself out so that we might have life.
This is the new model of manhood. This is the kind of strength we’re talking about when we hold up Christ as a model for men. We glory in the risen Christ, but it’s the crucifix that we hang in our homes and above the altar.
Though Simcha has mounted a splendid defense of her position, I’m not quite sure she’s succeeded in translating it into her reader’s language. In the name of good communication, I shall therefore endeavor to make like a great bugger and crybaby by slicing through this Gordian knot.
Genghis Khan and Alexander aren’t famous because they slept around. Lots of people do that. They’re famous because they led armies and built empires. In this, they had to draw on a quality that they had in common with Jesus: virtue. Virtue is a habitual disposition toward the good. Not so incidentally, virtue is also the Latin word for “manliness” or “courage.” It is, to apply Simcha’s reader’s description, a very strong word.
The Catholic Church recognizes four cardinal virtues: Prudence, Justice, Temperance, and Courage. As Aristotle explained centuries before Christ, the trick is drawing on the right ones at the right times and for the right reasons. Though it may not appear so, Jesus employed the same virtue at the pillar as Alexander employed at Gaugamela: patience. Knowing his job was to serve as the Pascal sacrifice, Jesus had to wait passively through all manner of pain and humiliation. Alexander, for his part, delayed his advance until the Persian cavalry and chariots had battered themselves to pieces against his lines. If he’d marched his troops straight in, they would have been mowed down, and — Who knows? — I could be blogging in Avestan on the Ahuramazda channel.
Courage (which, in its Greek form, andreia, also means “manliness”) describes a habitual mastery over fear. This can express itself in acts of physical daring, but not in anything so mindless as decking someone in a blind rage over an impertinent remark or bad driving. I should know – I’ve done this on a couple of occasions, and none of the court documents mentioned my virtue even once. Jesus, by contrast, demonstrated astonishing courage just by waking up and slipping on his seamless garment Thursday morning, knowing all the fun that Friday held for him.
But Jesus willed himself into passivity only when his mission demanded it. Throughout most of the Gospels, he embodies what the armed forces call command presence, swaggering into synagogues to declare the fulfillment of prophecies and delivering endless lectures, if not actual orders. It’s odd that we’ve lately been called on to become a “listening Church”: Jesus himself dominated every conversation he entered. It should not go unremarked that he submitted meekly when admiring women oiled him up with spikenard.
To unbelievers, especially the Pharisees, all of these quirks looked like the worst kind of arrogance. As believers, we know that Jesus was actually showing prudence by picking the right time to announce his divinity, and temperance when he allowed people to finish questions before answering them (not to mention when he resisted the urge to take the girls with their alabaster jars to the nearest upper room). As Pilate might have said, quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi – Jupiter has rights denied oxen. Man can’t always do what God can.
But I’d bet what got Simcha’s reader’s goat wasn’t anything Simcha actually said. More likely, her words summoned the specter of this scrupulous male feminist, who interrogates his conscience like the KGB for no other reason than that he enjoys grilling — a “conventionally masculine” hobby. The reader fears that the general culture is pulling a fast one, coaxing him to geld himself by blackmailing him with his sense of his own manhood.
Though I would stop short of agreeing that anyone wants to turn him – or me, or any guy – into a coloratura, there are some feminists who believe that gender is socially constructed, and therefore best de-constructed. For that very reason, “Real men do X” or “Man up and do Y” is the very last thing any of them would say, even half-stoned at three in the morning. Either exhortation can be unbelievably annoying – a shot below the belt, you should pardon the expression – but in culture-war terms, it’s friendly fire.
The variety of virtues, and the fact all of them contribute to a sense of being manly, can offer an ogre’s club to the conscience. Changing economic conditions, which reinforce cultural changes, have a way of re-prioritizing these virtues, blurring expectations and leaving everyone in shock. For example: nowadays, the manliest calling of all, breadwinning, is best filled by those who would rather sit on their asses than hunt ibex on the steppes. So-called soft skills – of which I have none – are in hot demand. How to adjust?
Beats me. But offhand I’d say everyone should focus, for the time being, on cultivating the virtue of patience. If expect too much, too quickly, we risk ending up like Russell Crowe trying to walk across Sydney Harbor.
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