Berkowitz in current issue od Z Magazine - GodMen: Promise Keepers on Steroids 
 
Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2008 10:35:39 -0600 (CST)


_http://www.zcommunications.org/zmag/viewArticle/16719_
(http://www.zcommunications.org/zmag/viewArticle/16719)
Z Magazine -- March 2008
GodMen: Promise Keepers on Steroids
By Bill Berkowitz
(_http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/search/zmagarticles/billberkowitz_
(http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/search/zmagarticles/billberkowitz) )
Christian music brings in big-time  money. Likewise, the release and
subsequent box office successes of Mel Gibsonbs  The Passion of Christ, and
The
Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, has made
Hollywood sit
up and take notice. There are Christian dating services, Christian
investment companies, Christian real estate brokers, Christian MySpaces,
Christian
comicstrips, Christian bloggers, Christian comedians, and Christian  menbs
groups. So why not a Christian menbs group headed by a Christian  comedian?
Brad Stine is a such a  comedian. He heads GodMen, a Christian ministry that
encourages men to let their  manhood hang out. Stine is a Republican devoted
to stamping out bpolitical  correctnessb and he claims on his website that
heb
s bAmericabs favorite  conservative comedian.b In 2004 he performed for
bR:
the Party,b an event hosted  by Jenna and Barbara Bush during the Republican
National Convention in New York  City. That same year Stine told the Fox News
Channel that, bI use my time on  stage to say how great the country is as
opposed to saying how bad it is.b

According to  OneNewsNow, a news service sponsored by the American Family
Association, Stine,  who is an oft-featured speaker at Promise Keeper
conferences, bstates he is on a  bmissionb to free his fellow Christians
from bthe
chains of political  correctness.... In a country with guaranteed rights to
freedom of religion, its  citizens are constantly trying to make faith in
public
spheres illegal. I am  offended by that contradiction and want to talk about
it
as a comic.b
Stine founded GodMen in  2006 and has since held GodMen conferences in
Nashville and Franklin, Tennessee.  They are designed to be babsolutely
honest and
unconstrained in dealing with the  real and difficult issues men face daily
that are not being addressed in  church,b states their website. Issues,
according
to Stine, that would be less  likely to be addressed at a Promise Keepers
event. bWe are a little bit more raw  about how we approach some of these
subjects,b Stine explained.
Getting Men To  Act Like Men
According to OneNewsNow, bStine argues that  many men are tired of what he
calls a bsugar-coated and watered-downb  Christianity. To counter that, he
says, the GodMen events challenge men to  embrace the full character of
Christ. He
cites the example of what he describes  as the btable-tipping Jesusb.b
 b[Thatbs] the strong Jesus that really deals with masculinity, [an
aspect]
that  men are oftentimes not taught,b Stine explained. bWebre taught one
side
of  Jesus. He was merciful and gracious and loving and sweet and kindband he
was all  those things, and we donbt deny that; we need that desperately. But
there was a  table-tipping Jesus,b he continues. bThere was a time when
the
season was more  aggressive and that you were allowed to be angry and sin
not.b

Paul Coughlin, the  author of No More Christian Nice Guy and a keynote
speaker at a 2007  GodMen event in Nashville, Tennessee, said, bI believe
that being
a guy is a  reason to be proudbnot a problem to be fixed. Unfortunately,
most
Christian men  have been ordered to emulate bGentle Jesus Meek and Mild,b
a
false caricature of  Christ that has robbed the church of its vital masculine
energy.b
At TheNewsBeasts.com,  bNews-Commentary-Research/From a Christian
Perspective,
b David Dansker writes:  bIn response to the femini- zation of churches a
new menbs movement has been  gaining brawnb&. Founder Brad Stine explains
that a
goal of GodMen is to produce  ba man who believes in honesty and integrity
and strength and leadership and the  knight in shining armorb.b
GodMen is ba place  where men can discuss real issues such as passivity,
isolation, and pornography  bin a safe environment.b The events, which
include
worship, have powerful sound  systems and huge video screens showing he-man
videos like martial arts displays  and car chases.b
In a December 2006 piece commenting on the GodMen movement,  Dr. R. Albert
Mohler, Jr., the president of the Southern Baptist Theological  Seminarybthe
flagship school of the Southern Baptist Convention and one of the  largest
seminaries in the worldbwrote that, bThe Christian church is  experiencing
a crisis
with menb&. The church has been feminized in style and the  manly virtues are
depreciated. Christianityba faith predicated on truths for  which brave men
were willing to diebhas been transformed into a spirituality of  mere
feeling.b

While Mohler believes that bChristian men needb&a robust  and challenging
theology of manhood,b he is critical of the bprofanity-fest of  adolescent
immaturityb&. The movement is largely correct in its identification of
contemporary
Christianity as feminized and feminine. The problem is their  apparent
adoption of a cartoonish distortion of masculinity as the  answer.b
On Stinebs  new CD, Wussification, he states, bThe wussification of
America
is  killing us by teaching us to censor ourselves from what we believe.
Thatbs
why I  want to see political correctness die in my lifetime, but firstb&I
want
to watch  it suffer.b
Z
____________________________________

Bill  Berkowitz is a freelance writer covering  conservative  movements.

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