“The state of human sexuality today is like a play in which the cast is in rebellion against the playwright and his story,” Joshua Harris writes. “Imagine the chaos,” he continues: “The actors hate him. They reject their roles and mock the script. To show their contempt, some refuse to read their lines. Other actors switch their roles and costumes to confuse the plot. Still others read their parts out of place, slur their lines, and lace them with obscenities.”[1]
This lively metaphor describes the confusion in our culture today about gender roles, which is a significant problem facing both the church and society. The seriousness of this issue demands that the church respond both faithfully and biblically to the chaos, and to stand as the pillar of truth and light in the midst of this present darkness.
What does it mean to be a man? This is a question that has been asked through the ages, but the answer to the question depends on who you ask. If you ask our culture, “What does it mean to be a man?” you will find the answer broadcasted on television shows and advertisements. James Dobson paints a picture of a commonly used scenario:
“The formula involves a beautiful woman (or a bevy of them) who is intelligent, sexy, admirable, and self-assured. She encounters a slob of a man, usually in bar, who is a braggadocio, ignorant, balding, and overweight. The stupid guy, as I will call him, quickly disgraces himself on screen, at which point the woman sneers or walks away.”[2]
These depictions teach us that to be a man is to be passive, immature, irresponsible, weak-willed, self-centered, and foolish. Is this really the image of manhood that we would like to convey to our young men?
Womanhood is likewise obscured and ridiculed in our culture today. What does it mean to be a woman? The film industry communicates to us through movies like Charlie’s Angels that to be a woman is to be aggressive and masculine, cold and calculating.[3] Popular culture would like us to believe that to be a woman is to be a sexualized object, whose only value is found in her outward appearance and sexuality. If you watch the television for a few minutes, observe the billboards on the highway, or briefly flip through a magazine, you will find that, all too often, the products that are being advertised are not being sold by the product’s own merit, but by the woman’s face and body. What a terrible message about womanhood to pass on to our daughters.
The devastating toll that these cultural images of manhood and womanhood take on individuals, marriages, families, and society is appalling. On the individual level, we can see the damage it has wrought in the lives of countless young girls who thought that they had to have sex with a boy to be wanted and beautiful, only to be abandoned by the very same irresponsible young man who left them wounded, impregnated and alone. These young, single mothers are then left with the difficult task of raising a child by themselves. As a result, thousands of children are being raised in broken homes, where they oftentimes do not receive the love, attention, and positive modeling of manhood and womanhood that they so desperately need. Consequently, they fall into the same ways of thinking as their parents before them, leading to the further degradation of families. By destroying individuals and families, the models of manhood and womanhood espoused by our culture threaten to undermine the foundation of our entire society.
The gender roles embraced by our culture are far removed from the Creator’s original intentions. God purposely created the different sexes, equal in value and dignity, but with unique roles to fill: “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”[4] God formed Adam from the dirt and then fashioned Eve from Adam’s side to be his helper. To the woman, God gave the privilege of child-bearing, a task for which women are uniquely suited. Dr. James Dobson writes
“The female temperament lends itself to nurturance, caring, sensitivity, tenderness, and compassion…the precise characteristics needed by their children during their developmental years…Men, on the other hand, have been designed for a different role. They value change, opportunity, risk, speculation, and adventure. They are designed to provide for their families physically and to protect them from harm and danger.”[5]
Each of the sexes was thoughtfully crafted by the Creator to become “one flesh” in marriage and to fulfill the mandate to “Be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth and subdue it.”[6]
The gender roles assigned in Genesis continue to have relevance today, despite what popular culture might say. Paul writes that the marriage relationship is a model of Christ’s relationship to the church. Husbands are to be “the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church” and “as the church is subject to Christ…the wives ought to be to their husbands.”[7] Within the context of this structure, men and woman have different roles: men are to love their wives with a sacrificial Christ-like love, and women are to respect and respond to their husband’s leadership, as to the Lord. These roles are essential because they contribute to the development of healthy marriages and families, and they glorify God by pointing to his greater salvific plan.
Clearly, would not be right for the church to simply go along with the cultural tide. But how should the church respond faithfully respond to this crisis? We must respond by exposing the culture’s conception of manhood and womanhood, and replacing it with that of the Creator. These efforts may start in the pulpit, but they must spill over into the home, for that is the central training ground for the next generation. Parents must learn to what extent they themselves have conformed to the culture’s definition of manhood and womanhood, and begin to reorient their lives around the biblical roles for men and women. They must actively protect their children from the harmful influences of the media by screening what they see and hear, and by training them to identify and reject the sexism in our society. By faithfully conforming to God’s design, the church will stand against, and provide an alternative to, the corruption of our sin-sick society.
Works Cited
Dobson, Dr. James C. Bringing Up Boys: Practical Advice and Encouragement for Those Shaping the next Generation of Men. Wheaton, IL.: Tyndale House Publishers, 2001.
Harris, Joshua. Boy Meets Girl: Say Hello to Courtship. Sisters, OR.: Multnomah Publishers, 2000.
New American Standard Bible. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1999.
[1] Harris, Boy Meets Girl, p. 109., [2] Dobson, Bringing Up Boys, pg. 163., [3] Ibid, pg. 165., [4] Genesis 1:27 (NASB),[5] Dobson, Bringing Up Boys, p. 27.,[6] Genesis 1:28 (NASB),[7] Ephesians 5:23-24 (NASB)
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