In his recent book Why the Bible Began, Jacob L. Wright pointed out that in wisdom literature in southwestern Asia (and other places, for that matter) it was commonplace for the sage to refer to students as children, for the sage to be the father advising and admonishing the pupil as “my son”. It’s a small but significant detail to keep in mind when reading, say, Qoholet in Ecclesiastes issuing the following warning:
Ecclesiastes 12:12 RSV
My son, beware of anything beyond these. Of making
many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh.
So, let’s
suppose for sake of conversation Solomonic authorship is a given (even if it’s
not the advice still stands, though, and Martin
Shields referred to how in some rabbinical traditions it has been held that
Ecclesiastes was authored not by Solomon but Manasseh and that this could explain
the lack of reference to the Torah on the one hand and for the fact that there’s
never any tradition in Jewish interpretation indicating, as is strongly implied
by the text of Ecclesiastes, that the king who wrote the book abdicated the
throne).
Whoever
wrote Ecclesiastes the arning is, son, there is no end to making books and if
there is a take-away from such a warning it is most likely this, you don’t need
to buy one of those new-fangled books by megachurch preachers in the United
States telling you how to be a man.
Which
book might I be thinking of? Well, if
you’ve read Wenatchee The Hatchet any time between 2006 and 2024 you don’t have
to wonder too long.
Mark
Driscoll has, as he has put it, finally written that book on what it
means to be manly.
In a world that blurs the lines of masculinity, “Act
Like a Man” provides a rally cry to men everywhere to rise above the demonic
cultural confusion and embrace their God-given identity.
But why
does the world need Mark Driscoll’s book on how to Act Like a Man? Was Douglas Wilson’s Future Men not
good enough? Is the Bible itself not even good enough to instruct men in wisdom
and generosity that Mark Driscoll has to publish some new book? Surely if his
formative influence Douglas Wilson has made a cottage industry in the last
thirty some years of telling men how to be manly Mark Driscoll has nothing
significantly new to add, does he?
Driscoll
has been known to commend Wilson’s work in the past. In the semi-privacy of Midrash during the
Mars Hill years Driscoll conceded that Douglas Wilson had insane ideas about
the American Civil War and was overly fixated on facial hair as a proof of
manliness but that, otherwise, his views on men and sexuality were good.
You
could own your identity; worship your Father; learn your lessons; do your job;
create culture; build h/His kingdom; love your princess; leave your legacy; and
slay the dragon all without buying Mark Driscoll’s latest book. The probability
that Driscoll has recycled a variety of concepts Douglas Wilson was
promulgating as far back as 1995 is high.
https://dougwils.com/books-and-culture/s7-engaging-the-culture/recovering-the-masculine-mind.html
Wednesday, June 19, 2024 by Douglas Wilson
From the Credenda Archives (1995) VOLUME 7/NUMBER 5
…
Repentance must begin in each household, with husbands and
fathers turning from their effeminacy Tragically, much of our current folly is
effeminacy in
the name of Christ. Contrary to popular teaching on the Christian
home, a man’s duty is not to be a real sweet guy, well-liked by all at church.
Much of the effort being expended on masculine renewal today is nothing more
than a discipleship program for weenies—a pale copy of the secular men’s
movement of a few years back. In contrast, a husband must assume a mantle of
strength, and the demeanor of masculine leadership. And when men have assumed
godly responsibility within the home, they must then bring that representative
headship to bear outside the home. This is the real test.
A man who thinks he leads at home, but who has a failure of nerve as
the family’s ambassador will have no more cultural impact that
the average bossy college roommate.
In this way our repentance can spread first to the church, as it
is given and opportunity to receive, for the first time in generations, the
heads of covenant households in their official representative capacity. As the
church is reformed in this way, it will have its former and long-forgotten
strength restored. And then a biblical pattern will finally be displayed that
may be safely imitated in the civil realm. But until then, all attempts at
cultural reform are sweeping water uphill.
Who will dwell in prosperity in our land? Who will inherit the
earth? “The secret of the Lord is with those who fear Him, and
He will show them His covenant” (Ps. 25:14
).
But we do not yet fear Him, and He has not yet been pleased to grant to us the
great reformation of a covenant renewal. May God have mercy.
For those who never read William
Wallace II’s “Pussified Nation” he (Mark Driscoll) took aim at James Dobson
Focus on the Family type men.
https://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2014/07/pussified-nation-page-1.html
Driscoll
took in enough Wilson that he may have concluded that, as Wilson put it, “Much of the effort being expended on masculine renewal
today is nothing more than a discipleship program for weenies … . “
What Douglas Wilson described in 1995 as a discipleship program for
weenies was just five years later part of what Mark Driscoll declared (as
William Wallace II) was one of my symptoms of a pussified nation.
It
might be plausible to argue that Douglas Wilson had more influence in North
American culture via Mark Driscoll for years than he had through his own
activities. Driscoll, for his part, doesn’t reference Wilson so much now and Wilson
has not seen any reason to discuss Mark Driscoll’s activities in relationship
to John Lindell or the post-Mars Hill patronage and support Mark Driscoll
received from the recently resigned Robert Morris.
What
kind of stuff has Wilson seen fit to talk about?
Envy, Malice, Bitterness, & the Moscow Mood. And
the Jews
Posted on Wednesday, May 22, 2024 by Douglas Wilson
…
Shall we speak frankly, you and I?
As I survey the teeming mobs on the progressive left, I see an
army of fatherless girls, augmented by a feminized entourage of capons and beta
males, whose only real hope of getting laid is to throw a half brick at some
hapless Columbia bureaucrat. Feminist chicks really dig guys who can yell,
“From the river to the sea!” Some of these guys even know how to put up the
numerous tents that appeared so promptly and mysteriously. Surly feminists and
fatherless effeminate men are the cannon fodder of the progressive left.
But then as I look at the swelling ranks of the red-pilled on
the right, I see an army of boy soldiers, twelve-year-old orphans, straight out
of Somalia, and captained by fourteen-year-olds. This group is actually
masculine, and therefore actually dangerous. But however dangerous, they are
still fatherless. Their fathers either flaked on them, or just simply left, or
ignored their boys for the sake of a job that consumed them, or created the
generational gulf through platitudinous middle-class bromides offered in a way
that made Polonius look like a sage.
The end result of this is a high and unresolved tension that is
deep in the hearts of these hordes of abandoned young men. The tension is
created by a desperate need for fatherly direction coupled together with a
visceral distrust of anyone who looks like he might want to provide some
fatherly direction.
And what might be the cultural consequences of such father
hunger, such fatherlessness? The result of such an epidemic of fatherlessness
is that the land will be struck with a curse. And so, just look around at the
moonscape that our covenant cluelessness has created.
…
Somehow
despite the efforts of Team Wilson the capons and beta males are, if anything,
even more influential across the United States and Wilson has advised his
readers that if Biden wins via monkeyshines this year like he did in 2020 then
we’ll deserve whatever bad is coming our way.
Mark
Driscoll’s book, within the orbit of New Calvinism, was arguably superfluous
before he typed the first paragraphs.
That the cosmos itself could be construed as phallocentric is the kind
of thing Douglas Wilson shares as though it were compelling advice (and he’s
reading books by Francesca
Stavrakopoulou, maybe?)
https://dougwils.com/books-and-culture/s7-engaging-the-culture/what-is-a-man.html
What Is a Man?
Posted on Saturday, June 15, 2024 by Douglas Wilson
Remarks for Refresh Ministries/Boston 2024
…
[1 Corinthians 16:13 presented as the text for
discussion]
The one word translated here as “quit you like men” is andrizomai,
which means play the man. Be manly. Be virtuous—from the Latin vir,
which means man. But what does that mean? What does it
mean in these crazy and turbulent times? What does it mean in the year 2024?
Well, God’s Word is always sure, and so it means the same thing it always did.
The grass withers, and the demented people are gender dysphoric, but the Word
of God stands forever sure.
In responding to the question “what is a man?” my desire is for
this talk to touch on three basic realities. The first reality is the
androcentric nature of all human relationships. This is called by some “the
patriarchy,” the construct that our feminist age wants “to smash.” Tragically
for them, it turns out that it is not possible to smash the columns of
patriarchy without also toppling the entire edifice that these columns support.
That edifice would be our basic humanity, which means that their desire to
smash the patriarchy is part and parcel with their long-term strategy to usher
in the abolition of man. The second reality is related to this, and is summed
up by the inescapability of headship. God has embedded the hierarchy of
headship deep within our created nature, and consequently our options are not
male headship versus no male headship, but rather constructive male headship,
under the authority of Christ versus destructive male headship, under the
authority of demons and devils. Those are the two options.
…
In summary of all, do
not apologize for anything assigned to you by God through your chromosomes. The
cosmos is patriarchal, having been created by the Father through His Son and
Spirit, and so do not apologize any of that. Make peace with the fact that headship
is assigned to you, down in your bones it is assigned to you. You can mangle
it, but you cannot escape it. And last, grow up into the sacrificial
responsibility of masculinity, as shaped and defined by the five aspects of the
masculine mind. Lean into what God has given you.
…
So
after thirty some years we don’t have to wonder too much where Mark Driscoll
got a lot of his ideas about men, masculinity, household male headship and the
like. He was plain as day that Douglas
Wilson was a formative influence on him and now the brand has been refined to
the point where even if Wilson has published plenty of books on manliness
Driscoll has to have his manly book, too, whether either of them had any
demonstrable competency in the biblical literature or languages to do so or
not. There may be an unfortunate lesson about the legacy of self-ordained men
inspiring other self-ordained men to get into the manly racket.
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