274 Barbie & The Good Man

   (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “Barbie & The Good Man”, originally shared on August 30, 2023. It was the 274^th  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”.