(Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “Barbie & The Good Man”, originally shared on August 30, 2023. It was the 274th video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)
The movie “Barbie” has become a box-office
and cultural phenomenon, a milestone for gender relations and discussions about
patriarchy. The Christian faith had a block buster event as well, only it
didn’t make any money, it changed the world, and it happened 2,000 years ago.
Today, we’re going to find out what it is.
Sally and I
saw the movie “Barbie” last week on the day that it was announced that its 1.3
billion dollars in box office revenue had exceeded that of every other movie
released in 2023. It beat the reigning champ, “The Super Mario Bros. Movie”.
And neither movie, as one observer pointed out, featured a single superhero. 😊
“Barbie” is a
feminist, anti-patriarchy movie that is built on stereotypes.
I wasn’t sure
what to make of that until it occurred to me that “Barbie” deals with gender
roles as expressions of power. It is fundamentally a political movie.
The Christian
faith takes a wholly different approach to gender.
Christianity
deals with gender roles as expressions of faithlessness overcome by faith.
Human beings
were created for relationship.
We see, in Genesis
1:27,
27 So God created humankind in his image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
Whatever else
it means to be created in God’s image, God intended there to be a perfect
relationship between human beings and God and, as an expression of that
relationship, a perfect relationship between men and women.
Robots can’t
have organic relationships, only what we project onto them. They just do what
they are programmed to do.
God didn’t
create robots.
The “Chatty
Cathy” doll was released by Mattel the same year as Barbie (1959) and was also created
by Barbie’s “mom”, featured in the movie, Ruth Handler (and “dad” Elliot).
“Chatty Cathy” “said 11 things when you pulled a ring attached to a string on
the back of her neck, including “I love you”. Did Chatty Cathy love you? No. it
was just programed to say that. The rest was supplied by the user’s projection
and imagination.
We were
created for a real relationship, so God gave human beings a way to say “No” in
order for our “yes” to have meaning.
We said “No”,
and that’s how evil entered the world.
God created harmony but we went our own way. That’s
how evil continues to enter the world.
But God didn’t
give up on us. God continued to call people back to the relationship for which we
were created, even through our continuing rebellion.
Finally,
God came God’s self, not in wrath but as a suffering servant who died on the
cross as a means so that humanity might be reconciled to God. The relationship
was restored, not by our efforts. It came unearned by the grace of God.
In bringing
reconciliation between humanity and God, God also brings reconciliation between
men and women.
Paul writes,
in Galatians 3:28-29,
28 There is
no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer
male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if
you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the
promise.
The
relationship with God for which we were created comes as a gift. God’s promise
now comes to us by grace, through faith. The faith that was reconned to Abraham
as righteousness.
In a
review of Nancy R. Pearcey’s book The Toxic War on Masculinity: How
Christianity Reconciles the Sexes in “First Things” magazine (“Man Up”,
Aug. 4, 2023), Peter J. Leithart points out the difference between The Good Man
and The Real Man: “Good
Men are characterized by honor, duty, integrity, and a willingness to
sacrifice. They’re responsible and generous, and they provide and protect,
especially the weak. Real Men are tough, strong, aggressive, highly
competitive, unwilling to show weakness, unemotional, imposing, isolated, and
self-made. They grab all the guns, gold, and girls they can get, and don’t care
much who gets hurt in the process.”
What is
good can only come from outside of ourselves, or it has no meaning.
Christianity means that what is good comes to us as a gift from God. We act in
response to the gift of God’s grace on the cross. We live in accord with who we
are: a new Creation, born again. Who we are, as a product of Whose we are.
How does
Paul describe the characteristics of a Christian life? He writes in Galatians
5:22-23,
22 By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,
patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control.
There is no law against such things.
Mr.
Leithart says, in his review of Ms. Pearcey’s book, “Christianity
elevated formerly feminine traits like compassion, kindness, and gentleness as
virtues suitable to a genuine vir [ed. note: vir means man/hero/husband
in Latin]. Early Christians followed an un-Stoic Master who wept at the
tomb of a friend, a seemingly un-heroic Lord who submitted to death on a cross.
Still today, many Christian men are Good Men.”
Why not all? Partly because not all men who
identify as Christians have the same level of activity. The level of Church
activity directly influences the description of male churchgoers as a “Real
Man” or as a “Good Man”.
I recommend the whole review. You can find
it with this link: https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2023/08/man-up
We see in
Genesis 2:18,
Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should
be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.”
The
review points out that the word “helper” does not mean a secondary
relationship. The word “helper” means military ally and battle-mate.
For
example, just before the Civil War, 90% of Americans worked their own farms.
businesses or shops, “most of them family enterprises where husbands, wives,
and children worked together”.
Industrialization separated work and home. Fathers had their worlds and
mothers and children had theirs. Men became aliens in their own houses, and we
still must struggle against this dichotomy.
For
example, I once spoke with a member of a congregation I served about a
conversation he had had with his boss. He was a salesman, and he was offered a
promotion to a job that would pay him a lot more money but meant that he would
be gone from home for a lot more time.
He told
his boss that he didn’t want to be spending more time away from his family and
his boss countered, “But think about how much more good you could do for your
family with the money!” That’s the struggle.
Have you
ever seen the movie, “Bambi”? You
probably remember the trauma of Bambi and Bambi’s mom, but do you remember Bambi’s
father? We rarely see him. The father wasn’t around, except as an occasional
distant presence.
That was
not an unfamiliar model in the time after the Industrial Revolution among “Real
Men”.
That kind
of non-relationship does not have good outcomes. The presence of both parents
in a stable, loving family has a massive influence in positive outcomes for a
child or children in a family. And this is especially true for fathers and
sons.
The
concept of being a “baby momma” is not new to the world. But it has had
devastating results in every culture in which it became the norm. Everyone is
harmed.
Our new
lives as male and female point to the oneness with God and with one
another that God created us to live and that Jesus both described and embodied.
We see more and more militant models for men
in some church circles recently. I’m not sure they are coming from men who are
actually engaged in the spiritual life of their churches, however.
For example, I
recently read an interview with an editor of “Christianity Today” magazine, a
former church leader in the Baptist denomination, who said that pastors are
increasingly telling him that people are coming up to them, after even
parenthetically mentioning the Beatitudes (“Blessed are the…) section of Jesus’
“Sermon on the Mount”, in Matthew 5:1-12, and asking the pastors where
they got those “liberal talking points”. When the pastors would say that they were
literally quoting the words of Jesus Christ, the response is, “that doesn’t
work for me anymore. That’s weak.”
The article
didn’t say whether those exchanges were with men or women. So I ask, is that
the standard by which people are called to live the Christian life for men or
women?
Acting with
integrity according to the faith first given to the saints and apostles is a virtue.
Digging in your heels and acting in accord with the world is not. It is
destructive to the Christian faith.
I saw a meme
some time ago that showed a banner on which was printed, “Thousands of men will
die of stubbornness this year” and underneath it someone had spray-painted, “No
we won’t!”
We live
fundamentally reconciled lives through a common relationship with Jesus Christ
realized at the cross, the same faith given to Abraham that was reconned to him
as righteousness. We live, men and women, to serve one another in response to
what God has already done for us. Jesus said, in Matthew 20:25-28,
25 But Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the
rulers of the gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over
them. 26 It will not be so among you, but whoever
wishes to be great among you must be your servant, 27 and
whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave, 28 just
as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life a
ransom for many.”
We all live in
societies, and norms are established to make things work for all, even though
we see varying gender roles throughout the world. But these are not expressions
of God’s will. God doesn’t care about gender roles, per se. God cares only,
like God cares only about various systems of government, for what works best
for the people. Particularly when we can’t know what’s best for us or see it.
SPOILER ALERT:
The role of men in “Barbie” is uniformly an object of parody and ridicule. Men
have no power in “Barbieland”, but Ken discovers the Patriarchy in the “Real
World” and brings it back. Men in the “Real World” are either self-absorbed
“bros” or corporate nitwits. Barbie and her friends outwit the Kens and bring
back the power of the Barbies to “Barbieland”. And, finding no need for Ken, or
his feelings for her, Barbie bravely reinvents herself in the “Real World.”
SPOILER ALERT OVER 😊
Couples have
reportedly broken up over interpretations of what this means.
But then,
“Barbie” is about who gets the power and in “Barbieland” that’s a zero-sum
game; it’s a political movie.
And the movie
is called “Barbie”, not Ken.
We live in
contrast to the world, the un-repentant, un-regenerated world. We live in a world
in which we been reconciled to God and to one another in Jesus Christ crucified,
risen, and coming again, who is fully God and fully human being. We are, men
and women, drawn together in Him.
God’s love is
not a zero-sum game; it’s limitless for all.
We learn from
that restored relationship to love one another as He has loved us, sacrificially,
for one another, as Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 5:14-24,
14 And we urge you, brothers and sisters, to admonish the
idlers, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with all of
them. 15 See that none of you repays evil for evil,
but always seek to do good to one another and to all. 16 Rejoice
always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 give
thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for
you. 19 Do not quench the Spirit. 20 Do
not despise prophecies, 21 but test everything;
hold fast to what is good; 22 abstain from every
form of evil.
23 May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely, and
may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 The one who calls
you is faithful, and he will do this.
Comedian Gary
Shandling, reflecting on the words of Brooklyn Dodgers coach Leo Durocher,
“Nice guys finish last!”, said, “Nice guys finish first, and anyone who doesn’t
know that doesn’t know where the finish line is”.
