Is the Biblical Manhood Industry a Scam?  ## Metadata - Author: [[YouTube]] - Full Title: Is the Biblical Manhood Industry a Scam? - Category: #articles - Document Tags: [[video-notes]] [[youtube]] - Summary: Is the Biblical Manhood Industry a Scam? - URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqodkHQ4a9c Karen SW PRI wrote a piece called the biblical manhood industry is a scam and it kind of relates to what we've been saying because if you go way down she talks about uh the Evangelical industrial complex a term coined by Sky jatani in 2012 that the driving economic power is the Christian publishing industry uh and the unintended consequence in this case is the endless PR proliferation of images of manhood and Womanhood that ever expand an appetite they cannot satisfy yet lead further and further away from the one and only one who can so he's talking she's talking about this same kind of industrial complex that has taken biblical manhood and biblical Womanhood and turned it into product and conferences uh and magazine articles and on and on and it's building ideas that aren't necessarily very biblically rooted they're more culturally rooted but we're so fond of the ideas that we don't care as much Kaitlin what' you think of her piece Kaitlin yeah I mean you're big on you're big on biblical manhood tell us what you thought no don't say that I I yeah I mean I think you're right there's a great connection between these which I think is not just that you know there is an Evangelical industrial complex I think it's also that there is both an issue where too many of us want to Outsource our discipleship or for pastors want to Outsource their pastoring to the person who's written the cool new book um and so instead of thinking very contextually and specifically like this person is coming with this question about how to live their life and it might involve important questions about their gender and what their gender means for their life instead of looking at the specifics of them and saying well I don't think you need to be so worried about if you're spending enough time with cars and outside whatever because you're caring for your family well and actually I think when you show up to Sunday school with kids that's really important that's masculine that's biblical manhood in an important way instead you just kind of instead of the complicated nature of asking about this person's specific life and what they might need to hear you go oh here's a book about biblical manhood that that ignores all cultural difference and complexity so I think that's a big problem too is when our our world is shaped by the publishing world we end up Outsourcing what really should be done in close relationship with complexity and context but the other thing I think these two articles both point to is that sometimes I think we misunderstand what people say they need or say they want with what they actually need or want so instead of saying hey you're expressing a desire for teaching about what it means to be a man or what it means to be a woman or you're expressing a desire for music that comes from your faith and expresses truths that you think are important I'm going to meet that actual need instead we say well actually when you say that what you want is a bunch of books about you know being a manly man and having the cars and the guns and the whatever I'm just going to give you what you say you want instead of saying what's underneath that desire you're expressing is a true human need that we should meet and actually I think the gospel meets that in a really important way but to do that is much harder it won't sell us many books to get to the like actual desire under the expressed desire is really challenging so instead we'll just go with well whatever you say you want must be good for you whatever you say you want to buy that must be what you really need instead of actually maybe your desires are deceiving you sometimes and actually maybe what you think you most deeply need you're wrong about I mean I was in a class at Duke a couple of years ago it was a it was actually a feminist Theory class we were reading all these books about desire and need and you know these larger philosophical topics that then inform all these specific questions of gender and sexuality and at one point someone in the class you know clearly thought they had sort of had an epiphany and went what if our most deeply held desires aren't actually the things that we know we want like what if our deeply held desires aren't transparent to us like what if there it's actually really hard to know what we most deeply want and I was sitting there being like Christianity like yes you are a fallen creature and your deeply held desires get Twisted by things outside of you and inside of you and actually discovering what is most truly that that need that you most deeply have like Augustine talks about our Restless Hearts Restless until we find God like not not having your desires be totally transparent to you is a perennial experience for fallen humans and a market meets that by saying what you think you want is what you want and we will give it to you what a pastor responds to that with is actually what you think you want might not be good for you but underneath the particulars of that is a real good desire that I want to find the true thing that will meet it the actual thing that will satisfy you not this substitute that will make you feel really good for a little while but doesn't last amen amen that but but what you're articulating Caitlyn is exactly the Paradox of American religion where we do have a First Amendment and there is a free market of religion when you have that the customer becomes king and so we create religious institutions where on the one hand we want to meet people's deeper you know god-given desires but they come at us with their instinctual desires and the market tells religious leaders give people what they want otherwise they won't fill the pews they won't fill the plate they won and so you're caught in this dilemma where the only way to have a sustainable religious institution is to give the people what they want when what they want isn't what they actually need so okay I have to bring dma I have to bring this up because and we need to wrap up Hollywood screenwriting coaches actually understand this because if you take a class on screenwriting one when you're doing character development one of the key points is they you have to go through a list and one of the things is okay what does the character want and now secondly what do they actually need MH and it's the gap between those two that creates some of the primary tension of the story as you send a character out into the world pursuing what they think they need to be happy and the Gap opens up between what they actually need and and it's become in fact one of the key u screenwriting teachers uh Robert mcke I think Robert mcke says one of the problems we have today in trying to create truly meaningful stories is that the realm of ideas and and morals that we agree on has shrunk down to a tiny tiny amount and it's made it very hard for screenwriters to come up with that felt need you know that like this is what people actually need about the only thing we agree on anymore is is some form of family people need some sort of family so the number like every Kids film is about someone pursuing one thing when what they really need is family what they really need is acceptance what they really need is you know so we've really we've lost any but just a couple of things that we've decided are Universal truths and those are the only things that we can tell stories that appeal to a broad audience anymore so there are people who get that and it's it it may be part of our Christian inheritance to say yeah that's what you want but that's not actually what's going to make you happy you know what's going to make you happy is much deeper and you're not consciously aware of it and Augustine would have said it's God and we have the only thing we can get close to that is belonging in family okay sky isn't this exactly what mature Christian leaders are supposed to be saying whether yeah but you got to make a living sky but like we I think may maybe I'm uh looking back on the past with rose colored glasses but it feels like there used to be more voices saying this kind of stuff and now it's gotten so small I mean I don't want to be too negative here but like this is what's infected our politics rather than giving people what they really need we're just giving people what they want and where are the political leaders to stand up and say I know you're wanting X but what we really need as a country what we really need as a civilization is y yeah or the pastors who are saying I know you really want this I know you want a hyped up fun engaging service with loud music and smoke cannons and lasers but what you really need is quiet and contemplation and self-reflection and I'm going to you know you're not rewarded for giving those things to people and they walk and they go to the one who will and where are like the Christian voices on radio and podcast and other places saying here's what the church needs that are that are actually gaining an audience rather than just oh regurgitating what people want to hear yeah I think that's the last part that'll get you they're not I while you were talking I was like I know them they're pastoring of small to mediumsized church that they're not writing books they're not you know yeah we have we have out there we have too hard of time thinking that it's okay to be unsuccessful yeah you know we just we measure like yeah but it's not working but Sky I'm doing that and it's not working MH so I need to change I remember after the bankruptcy of Veggie Tales and I was pitching ideas for new shows and suddenly all the ideas I pitched were go we getting um test marketed Focus grouped with the mothers of preschoolers and I was getting feedback like yeah that's not a felt need for moms of preschoolers they don't feel like preschoolers need to learn that lesson like oh I didn't know this is what we were doing now and that's what we were doing because that's how you run a business, Is the Biblical Manhood Industry a Scam?, YouTube, 01k9gf2fb8q4yrdvq8pyd4pzc2.