3.21.2007 | GodMen

I caught a snippet of GodMen this morning on the tube; my first reaction was, "oh crap, another Robert Bly-drum-beating escape mechanism for men who can't cope."

But I was curious, and found the website GodMen - When Faith Gets Dangerous. GodMen appears to be a hormonal reaction to the tameness and white-breadness that is church in America these days. Too many sappy praise songs; too much "love this, love that." And far too little of the fire and brimstone that is also part of who Jesus Christ was, and is.

Jesus, while incarnate, was a man. He ate; he drank wine; he defecated, sweat, and probably didn't smell too good. He probably had pimples when he was an adolescent, and likely had all of the normal urges that are the glory and the shame of our human species. Jesus, of course, unlike the rest of us, was able to restrain those urges.

Jesus was, as the dogma goes, fully human. He tasted everything, including, most importantly, death on the cross. And he faced it like a man among men. This appears to be what GodMen is all about.

Jesus may have been tender and mild, but he wasn't some first century mama's boy. He was a man who did not tolerate sin. He promised judgment against those who don't repent. And he was not above taking the lash to those who desecrated his Father's house.

Today's church, at least many of them, have lost sight of this masculine Jesus, and have subsituted a namby-pamby savior who is no role model for men. A feminized Christ who would never threaten anyone with hellfire.

This notion is enough to drive us all out of church. And this, maybe, is what GodMen is about -- having us remember why we joined in the first place: because of a man named Jesus who took a bullet (ok, a cross) in our stead.