Hrmmm… this might explain why Jack Bauer still hasn’t bit on my Sunday morning invitations. That, or the fact that he’s fictional.

Wouldn’t it be much simpler to realize that what makes Joe Six Pack want to drink beer and watch UFC isn’t that he’s male but that he’s Joe Six Pack? The problem with gender roles is that they’re frequently exclusive (if you aren’t Mark Driscoll’s idea of a manly man, that’s a value judgment on your masculinity), and frequently oppressive, both to members of the gender, as well as to those not of the gender. If we can find a way to discuss gender roles that don’t make some men feel like less of a man if they don’t measure up, and don’t make women feel less like valued members of the community (and don’t completely exclude all the people who feel neither male nor female), then maybe the idea has value. But it seems to me that the church has much better ways of making Joe Six Pack feel welcome and like he has a place and a role without having to re-institute a harmful set of ideas that we’ve only just barely begun to escape from.
I seriously doubt G-d defines me with regard to my “plumbing”. I see no particular reason why I should define myself that way or permit anyone else to define me that way.

Er, I looked up agenic in the Oxford English Dictionary. But it wasn’t there. So I’m not really sure I know what he’s saying…

Two issues I am immediately observing, (1) Driscoll is using unnecessary harsh language, perhaps in an effort to create purposeful controversy. This alone is annoying, and that’s coming from me, someone who owns many guns, smokes cigars and practiced martial arts (i.e. not Driscoll’s idea of “chickified” guy); when Driscoll is using this language, he is not saying what Beck thinks he is hearing, rather Driscoll is using this language to imply that such people are impotent, weak and useless Christians, if they are lucky to be Christians at all.
The second (2) issue is that Beck recognizes that this is a marketing effort (reference to NASCAR). Driscoll has clearly identified a market segment which his message appeals to, and that is the message used to grow his church. That is not wrong…it’s smart, and it apparently works since Mars Hill has been growing very fast. We cannot deny that the message (especially the elitism of Calvinist theology) resonates with certain personalities, such as Driscoll’s, so we need to learn to live with it, unfortunately.

jhimm – well said.
and Beck echoes my points.
“But when “real guy” creeps into misogyny, with men asserting power over women through the euphemism of “leadership”, I’m in strong moral disagreement.”
I don’t care if Mark wants to make his church more “masculine” in the way he defines masculine. The problem I have is that he does it at the expense of others – men who don’t “fit” his ideal and most especially women. I think a church can take steps not to alienate “joe six pack” (whoever the hell that’s supposed to be anyway) without simultaneously alienating everyone else. And I am frickin SICK of the argument that he must be doing something right because he has a mega church. That’s not even clever. I can give you TONS of examples of large groups of people who are doing many many EVIL things.
While I agree with many of Beck’s thoughtful comments, for the record, I think Mark is disturbed, possibly sexually deviant and a complete ass – and if THAT’s what it means to be an uneducated man in America – I personally have no problem keeping them marginalized. But I would argue that you don’t have to be a mysogynistic deviant ass hole to be a NASCAR fan, and I think most NASCAR fans would agree with me.
Finally, I must say that as a woman, I’m growing weary of the word “chickified” being used at all – but especially that it’s used as some sort of slam on a man’s “manhood”. Grow up.

Why do I get the suspicion that Driscoll is actually gay and trying to hide it?

Wow! Where is the postmodernity and post-structuralism? First things first. Let’s explore some terms.
Sex is a biologically determined category. There are only two sexes in humans, which seperate into the dichotony of male and female. Things aren’t so easily to classify when it comes to gender.
Gender is a socially constructed role/expression. Gender is much more fluid than sex. There are many different genders. In fact one could say that there are as many genders as there are people. Therefore gender can’t be broken down into a simple dichotomy beween “real men” and “chicks.” No such dichotomy exists.
Mark Driscoll’s categories are way too simple to be effective or realistic. Where would a hyper-patriarchal male pastor fit? Where would a knitting male theologian fit? Where would a moose-hunting conservative Republican woman fit? Where would a gay NASCAR fan fit? Where would a lesbian stay-at-home-mom fit? Where would a pretty heterosexual female cheerleader fit? Where would a transitioning male-to-female transgender jazz singer fit? Human diversity is just too great for there to be only two types of people: “real men” and “chicks.” Our Western minds want clear categories and neat boxes. But that just ain’t reality.
Let me add some links to muddy the waters even more:
Boi or grrl? Pop Culture Redefining Gender
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9556134
Rethinking Gender: A growing number of Americans are taking their private struggles with their identities into the public realm. How those who believe they were born with the wrong bodies are forcing us to re-examine what it means to be male and female.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/34772
Gender Performativity is a term created by Judith Butler in her 1990 book “Gender Trouble.” In it, Butler characterizes gender as the effect of reiterated acting, one that produces the effect of a static or normal gender while obscuring the contradiction and instability of any single person’s gender act. This effect produces what we can consider to be ‘true gender’, a narrative that is sustained by “the tacit collective agreement to perform, produce, and sustain discrete and polar genders as cultural fictions is obscured by the credibility of those productions – and the punishments that attend not agreeing to believe in them.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_performativity

For the record, I also find Driscoll very disturbing. My post was an attempt to approach him from a fresh and unconventional angle. To give him give credit where I could, to sweep past trivial issues others snag on, so that a tighter and brighter light could be focused on the truly important issue: View of women. The issue isn’t about men or “real men” at all. The issue is about gender relations in the Kingdom of God.
In my post and comment here, I don’t care if NASCAR is male or female, educated or uneducated, heterosexual or homosexual. I don’t care if knitting is “dude” or “chickified.” It’s all ashes in my book. The only real issue is power and how we deploy it (or die to it) in the Kingdom of God.

Postmodern and post-structuralism aside (since this will sound to some like that but is not), gender is different than sex due to its psycho-social construction. Since it is this, anyone can assert a different gender construction from within a existing frame that is at odds with another frame (see David Martin’s definition of this picked up by Charles Taylor). Thus, Driscoll asserts his own construction of gender in a way that is offensive to many. I frankly have no over-arching issue with that. People are free to be misogynistic and loaded with machismo as they wish. I can stay away from those constructions and find comfort in other social frames more like “me.”
Where Driscoll crosses boundaries is that he uses a very unsophisticated biblical legitimation for that socially constructed identity. What is important here is that the social construction of gender identity in the ancient near east that absolutely placed women in a lower social strata in terms of social and political influence among other things. Men had to go to war and work the fields, etc such is the nature of agrarian life. But Driscoll wants this image of the man tow work in a social frame that increasingly eschews it save for increasingly sectarian cleavages from the norm.
The issue is that he makes this kind of social construction of gender a core value in his understanding and communication of the Gospel. When we make any such social constructions non-negotiable foundations to the Gospel it creates divergences from the actual function of the Gospel and the role that Christians ought to play in its communication. The Gospel is not about gender construction, it is about soul re-construction through works enacted by faith – something made effectual to ultimate salvation by God’s grace. Thus, Driscoll erects a barrier to this central role for Christians with his stammering through often strange notions of Jesus’ gender and bizarrely misplaced renderings of the apocalyptic in terms of gender construction in the frame of the secularized West.

Scripture needs to be our guiding factor and final word in everything.
With that being said, roles for males and females are clearly laid out in scripture and as long as we adhere to those guidelines then the rest is an issue of confidence
1 Peter 3:1-7
Genesis 1-3
etc.
the fact is scripture doesn’t lay out what kind of men and women we are to be, but merely that we follow the way he programmed us to be.
all the extra stuff is up to the individual.
Mark likes UFC and red meat-and there’s nothing wrong with it
there are men who like wheat grass and art-and there’s still nothing wrong with it
there are women who love cooking and cleaning
and REALLY, there is nothing wrong with it
and there are women who love riding dirt bikes and getting tattoo’s and its ok
i hold to no rule that scripture does not put on us and i think to do so is doing exactly what Christ came to put to death.

For what it’s worth, I think Beck intended to use the word “agentic”, not “agenic.” Gender studies often point to masculine roles being more agentic, as in the sense of agency, action, compared to more communal female roles.

I think it’s probably also important to remember one thing.
I am convinced that Mark often chooses his language very carefully with the intent to cause, at the very least “conversation” about what he has said. There is an element of hyperbole in almost everything that he writes and says. I’ll not ascribe motive to that, but it’s clear that it works to cause, again at the very least “conversation” about the issues he raises.

Drew wrote: “What is important here is that the social construction of gender identity in the ancient near east that absolutely placed women in a lower social strata in terms of social and political influence among other things.”
Which then makes it even more interesting to pursue the biblical feminine/child metaphors for Christian discipleship. For Jesus to promote women and children’s roles as models of Christian behavior suggests he was going well beyond gender and attacking some of the most fundamental class distinctions in the society.

You would probably enjoy reading “Wild at Heart” by John Eldredge. It was an excellent read about the essence of man. There is a follow up by his wife Staci called “Captivating” about the essence of woman. I haven’t sunk my teeth into her book yet, but many of our friends have also read his and loved it. Very insightful, and freeing to the men who have read it. My husband loved it.

1. Charles – you’re not the only one who feels that way
2. Mark is not scheming in what he says – to provoke or any such thoughtful thing – he speaks WITHOUT thinking…that’s why it’s so telling and disturbing.
3. drew – exactly. every man has a right to be a jack ass and I have the right to tell him he’s one – but I get concerned when his oppression wounds people and when he uses the Bible to justify his views.
4. the Eldredges? really? this post prompted an ad for the Eldredges?