No More Christian Nice Guy
I caught a fascinating discussion with a Mr. Paul Coughlin and his new book, "No More Christian Nice Guy." He raised many important points about our modern evangelical Christian faith and the nature of man and husband.
No More Christian Nice Guy
The following is an exerpt from his website:You can live with purpose, meaning, integrity, honesty, love, and faith. It's time to be who you were meant to be. Paul Coughlin lived the nice guy lifestyle—until it blew up in his face. He wishes now it would have blown up sooner. Less damage would have been done. He calls himself a "former Christian nice guy," someone who hid behind popular Christianity with its incomplete and dangerous caricature of "gentle Jesus meek and mild." His book, No More Christian Nice Guy: When Being Nice—Instead of Good—Hurts Men, Women, and Children, exposes three common forces that encourage passivity in men: A cultural prejudice that shames men for being men. An incomplete portrayal of Jesus as passive and weak. Childhood difficulties that create a passive mindset that are brought into adult life, often undetected. These forces conspire against men and ruin their lives. The psychology of passivity leads to a life controlled by fear, which shuts down our emotions. When your life is controlled by fear, you can forget about obtaining a purpose-driven life and the abundant life Jesus has to offer. Fear saps you of emotional energy and power, the very qualities necessary for romantic love, successful careers, healthy parenting, and loving God and your neighbor as yourself. "Nice guys," he says, are often secretive and manipulative in order to avoid conflict. Christian nice guys are pleasant, not because they care about others, but because they want others to leave them alone. Nice guys are often fearful and selfish, he says. Our society mistakes niceness for goodness and kindness, and this is a big mistake, he says. Think of the nice people in your life? Do they do anything meaningful? They are far more interested in avoiding conflict than actually being good and helpful to others. And such people aren’t honest. When life has them down, they hide behind a deceptive smile.
His program went into greater detail. Listen to Pastor Todd's interview of Coughlin here and here. I preordered the book from Amazon. I think its was $12 and is shipping in a few weeks. The man pushed too many buttons to count during his discussion and so I couldn't resist. I found most arresting was the discussion of the visable image of Christ. We are used to seeing either a cude cuddly baby or an empty cross with a long haired, perfect complexion man flesh rising to the heavens. We seem to have forgotten the rugged image of Christ living and travelling city to city. One of the positive elements of "The Passion" film was the depiction of Christ performing carpentry and especially the real man approach to the Crucifixion. Too often it is depicted as if it was some simple effort to carry the foam replica cross through the city and up Golgotha. No, it wasn't that easy. We seem also to forget that Jesus wasn't always Mr. Passive Resistance or Gahdi-like. He spoke aggressively to those who spurned true belief like the Pharisees and Saducees. He didn't seem too passive or peace loving when the merchants and thieves used the temple as a marketplace. No, he was pretty raving angry and told them who was boss. His children had spurned and denied his teachings and so discpline was required like any good (but not too nice) father. Another arresting discussion was the place of Father's day versus Mother's day. You all know what I'm talking about. Father's Day (despite being a manufactured card holiday) serves in our churches to criticize and demean fathers where Mother's Day is used to inflate the maternal ego. This discussion bookends well with a discussion from earlier in the week in regards to the Crucifix or cross with corpse. For some reading follow this link: As we are taught in scripture, men are to be like Christ. In marriage, like Christ and the church. Pretty big shoes to fill, eh? (Impossible to fill!) God made men in his image. Lets not abuse his creation by making wimpy men who cannot even begin to fulfill the roles he has given to man and husband.
