If This is What it Means to Be a Christian Man… August 30, 2011

If This is What it Means to Be a Christian Man…

By Hemant Mehta
August 30, 2011

… then I don’t think I qualify in either category.

I totes want to jump on that trampoline. What does that suggest…?

Anyway, if any man living near the Grapevine, Texas area can convince me why he should attend this conference, I’ll cover the registration costs for you. You just have to promise to write a guest post about what went down afterwards so we can all live vicariously through you 🙂

Let me know if you’re interested…

(via Christian Nightmares)

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  • Conspirator

    Would I have to box someone?  I totes don’t want to do that. 

  • “God is preparing you for what He has prepared for you.” Hours of preaching and that’s the line they decided to put in the promo?

  • Jason W.

    That “comedian” is both hilarious and not funny.

  • Anonymous

    I must have that trampoline.

  • Anonymous

    There is something to be said about the nice guy syndrome, but being bullied or becoming a bully has nothing do with experiencing or using your masculinity.

  • Gus Snarp

    I like reading the preacher’s bios. Both of them talk about “diverse culture”. Where diverse means any culture that worships our god in our way and thinks that manhood should be defined according to our narrow cultural norms that generally include some kind of violent activity.

    I think they’re just trying to say they’re cool with colored folks, but they’re kind of missing what “culture” and “diverse” really mean.

  • Rich Samuels

    I bet the Art of Manliness blog are totes thrilled to have their entire aesthetic ripped off (to the point where they’ve used the same source illustrations).

    See the last 11 seconds of the video and http://www.theartofmanliness.com

    I guess the graphic designer working on their behalf didn’t have divine inspiration.
    Edit (last bit of the video can be seen more clearly on this page:http://www.fellowshipchurch.com/mensconference

  • Brianskirk

    This is sad.  Another example of how the Church is promoting sexism and homophobia…and I say that as a Christian pastor. 

  • Beckyg

    What makes a man a man, is that he’s a thinking, reasoning being. Thinking and reasoning the antithesis of religion. Therefor, religion is the exact opposite of what it is to be a man.

  • Charlie

    Now that’s a Holy Ghost ass-kicking!

  • The opening sequence is a ripoff of the old Milwaukee’s Best commercials.  “The penalty for not living up to some douchbag’s idea of ‘manly’ is death.” 

    It really makes me sad to live in America, sometimes.

  • Potco

    I would volunteer but there is no way I could go without laughing my ass off at them.

  • Potco

    On the plus side, there is an awesome breakfast place right next to it though.

  • NorDog

    I guess Aristotle didn’t get  your memo.

  • I’d go, but I’m a girl. I think that’d be an interesting spin on it.

  • Rebecca Sparks

    He looked so happy… 

  • Charles Black

    The thing about religion is that being an a**ehole towards women is a requirement of religions such as Christianity, Judaism & Islam but us skeptics don’t have to take bulls**t from some imaginary sky daddy.

  • Jeff Johnson

    False machismo AND god? I almost wish I could go just to laugh at the morons.

  • I think we should all just have a round of applause for Mark Driscoll, the megachurch pastor who I have just decided is spearheading the movement for “manly Christian men ALL TEH TIMEZ”. He is, after all, the first pastor that I know of that hosted cage fighting matches for the male church members, and said some really crap stuff about “effeminate male worship leaders”.

    As a side note, I TOTALLY needed that “by the by, gender is a social construct” memo today, so I guess this is apt for that reason. 😛

  • Anonymous

    They would end up nailing me to a piece of wood.

  • hnwiuefnufh….gah! As a former Catholic, turned evangelical turned super liberal Catholic turned atheist  just…ugh. 

    I can see maybe saying hey, grow up, use your brain and think some deep thoughts. Maybe  that IS what they should be preaching..

    Also, I love tug-o-war! Does that make me a man?

  • Anonymous

    Doesn’t he?

  • Oh, if I only lived in Texas. What fun I would have. There’s just so much material in that promo video alone. I can’t bear to miss it. Thanks for ruining my day.

  • Ugh! And that’s said with real emphasis on the H, almost like how you pronounce Channukah.

    I say again, “UgH!” That’s really all there is for it there.

  • Was thinking the exact same thing. That masculinity has been boiled down to hating wimmens and teh gays is appalling.

  • all look at all the men lying to themselves, sad when you have to change who you are to fit the bill of your own beliefs.  I mean they ask them to have complete faith in the invisible guy in the sky and now to fit the mold of the ” mainly man” 

  • Classic Madison Avenue marketing strategy. First distract them with irrelevancy. Then deliver a message that claims nothing and makes no promises. Then hit them with the sales pitch.

    This ad will appeal to exactly the kind of people it’s intended to appeal to. Like the NASCAR edition of the bible.

    I’m terrified of trampolines.

  • Anonymous

    EXTREME CHRISTIANITY!!!!!  SUNDAY!!! SUNDAY!!! SUNDAY!!!!

  • Keith

    You will need to wrestle with the Lord!

  • Mark

    The trampoline scene is clearly a poke at Rob Bell who used the springs of a trampoline vs bricks in a wall in his first book, Velvet Elvis, to compare rigid faith vs flexible faith. 

  • Mark

    The trampoline scene is clearly a poke at Rob Bell who used the springs of a trampoline vs bricks in a wall in his first book, Velvet Elvis, to compare rigid faith vs flexible faith. 

  • Alexis

    But my daddy sez it’s not nice to hits 🙁

  • Never before have I seen such an outward display of unintentional homoeroticism.

  • Never before have I seen such an outward display of unintentional homoeroticism.

  • Anonymous

    My thoughts exactly. My sarcastic brain was screaming “Exactly the kind of deep thought I’d expect from the kind of guys who think “trampoline is for giiiiirls”

    I’d love to see them say that to these guys faces.

  • Pure insanity

  • Gus Snarp

    Aristotle was a product of his time. He also believed that everything in the world was made up of five basic elements. The conclusion reached by reason and thinking given the knowledge and evidence available to a great scholar of ancient Greece is far different from the conclusion reached given the evidence and knowledge now available, when a properly educated high school student knows more about the world around them than Aristotle ever could have.

  • Disillusioned Drew

    I know, right? Why they hatin’ on trampolines?

  • Kevin_Of_Bangor

    I’m sure a few of the men that do attended would love to nail you with their wood.

  • Bah. Same weekend as Oktoberfest in Fredricksburg AND the Bat Cruise with the Atheist Community of Austin. Maybe next year. I would need an accomplice who had been raised Christian though… I’m not too versed in all that nonsense.

  • Thanks for that information; I didn’t make the connection.

  • Anonymous

    It looks like he’s preparing them for a punch in the face.

  • Annie

    I wonder if they have A GIANT MUD PIT!!!

  • Ssmeier1

    Is there such thing as de-evolution, because I think I just witnessed it.

  • Annie

    Perhaps they consider themselves “diverse” because they allowed John Gray to be filmed in a pink shirt?

  • Doggy

    What does totes mean, am I missing out on something? V_V

  • Conspirator

    I have no idea.  Hemant used it, figured it was some kind of verb.  

  • B1ue1ady

    Lets beat each other up in a boxing ring for jesus!!!

  • Totally! 🙂

  • Jasen Tracy

    I live in the area, but you’d have to pay me alot more than the registration cost for me to go to that.

  • Jim Henline

    Hemant, your a math man, be careful straying into conjugation and alliteration, scares me.

  • Crux Australis

    What. A load. Of rubbish.

    And hey, what’s wrong with enjoying a good ol’ jump on a tramp?

  • Crux Australis

    What. A load. Of rubbish.

    And hey, what’s wrong with enjoying a good ol’ jump on a tramp?

  • NorDog

    But the charge was that thinking and reasoning are the antithesis of religion. 

    By that light, Aristotle could not think or reason. 

    Now, by your light, Aristotle was just not as, ah, well informed as the contemporary high school student.  A risable position to be sure.

  • I’d make a terrible Christian because I don’t want to go to a giant sausage fest.

  • Real men don’t have unabashed silly joy, stop that, stop it now!

  • THE RESURECTOR TAKES ON EL DIABLO IN A NO HOLDS BARRED CAGE MATCH, ONLY ON PAY-PER-VIEW!!!!

    ORDER NOW, ALTAR BOYS ARE STANDING BY!!!!!

  • Adverb, to be exact 🙂

  • Read that in Graham Chapman’s voice, and it becomes epic.

  • Thanks for the laugh: The only two men I personally know that rocks the manly manlihood-thing that hard happen to be happily and legally married to each other. They are atheists, intelligent and really nice people too, and there are probably other differences.
    Also the unfunny comedian leaves his tongue sticking out after yelling “faith”. I find that appropriate in the given context.

  • Gus Snarp

    I see your point with regard to religion being the antithesis of religion. I did not disprove it with my argument. A better argument would be that some people may think and reason in spite of religion, but that religion itself remains a hindrance to thought and reason. But no matter, it’s a very debatable point.

    But as to the notion that a high school student is better informed than Aristotle, that is not risible at all, it is a plain fact. Note that I say a properly educated high school student. So let’s set aside those who have not had access to proper education, or who have squandered it, and focus on those who have put in the time in the right school to learn what they ought. While Aristotle may have been a brilliant man, and knew a greater percentage of the totality of knowledge of his time, contributed to our modern understanding of the world, and certainly knew more about the history, geography, and politics of the Mediterranean area, given how the totality of human knowledge has expanded, he still knew next to nothing about science, about the breadth of the world, let alone the universe. Aristotle was deeply ignorant. That’s not his fault, nor is it an insult, but it is true.

  • Nordog

    We are in agreement that contemporary students have access to more facts.  But the original charge to which I was commenting was not about facts, but about reasoning and thinking, which are basically two words that refer to the same process.
     
    The charge is that this process in antithetical to religion.
     
    What is risable in that context is the implication that Aristotle would not have been religious if he simply had access the facts born of physical science that are readily accessible to today’s high school student.
     
    Having spent a number of years reading and studying Aristotle’s work (many years ago) I can say that he did make mistakes, but his reasoning is of some of the greatest ever made.
     
    Additionally, his understanding of the elements are probably the least of his problematic teachings.
     
    In any event, his Metaphysics does not come crashing down in toto simply because of latter scientific understanding.
     
    But Aristotle’s status is not really the bigger point.
     
    Rather, what should be noted is the hackneyed and demonstrably false claim that religious people are irrational by virtue of the fact that they hold a non-physical reality to be true.
     
    The history of man, right up to today, is full of examples of brilliant men who not only believed in a spiritual realm, but had rational explanantions as to why such a reality is plausible., if not actually proven by the lights of physical science.
     
    It’s entirely reasonable for an atheist to conclude that such arguments are uncompelling and claim them in error (reasonable, but not necessarily correct).
     
    But for atheists to claim conclusively that all metaphsical arguments are in fact demonstrably wrong is a step too far.
     
    And for atheists to claim that “smart” thinking and reasoning people must deny any supernatural state of being is simply fatuous.

    P.S.
    To see a really problematic teaching of Aristotle’s, check out his explanation of projectile motion.

  • Anonymous

    The race towards making Idiocracy a reality continues.

  • Gus Snarp

    When the comment thread gets to be this deeply indented, I know I’ve gone too far off topic, but I can’t resist, so I will offer you this: we should differentiate between religion and belief. Given inadequate knowledge of the world, reason can lead one to belief in a higher power. Given adequate knowledge, it should not. But in either case, religion, being an organized system of belief with leaders, rules, and holy books, is the antithesis of reason. It asks people to believe what is written, to accept the authority of the book or the leader and to follow the rules rather than to think for oneself. I’m certain you can find a handful of counter examples, but they are the exceptions that prove the rule. For the vast sweep of human history, virtually all religions have been figures of authority that discouraged seeking answers outside of their authority.

  • Nordog

    LOL!  Great point about the indentations.

    Let me just say that you couldn’t be more wrong that religion necessarily means shutting out reason or not having reason to begin with.

    Again, it’s just fatuous to think that brilliant religious men of history were simply benighted individuals not privy to what you know.

    Just exactly what is this knowledge of the world to which you refer that points conclusively, or even necessarily convincingly, the the non-existence of a higher power?

  • Karen

    The evangelical church (heck, all the churches) are bleeding men. Studies show that far more women attend regularly and male attendance is constantly going down.

    This is one of the reactions to that phenomenon. Make it macho, including some punching, boxing, screaming and tug-of-war (really?), and you’ll get guys to show up. 

    Pretty pathetic, as far as I’m concerned.

  • Id love to go if I dont have nursing clinicals that weekend.  Something about getting the opportunity to step into the ring to debate christian theology vs my skepticism  sounds kinda awesome to me 😀

  • Ab0830

    Explain to me
    why it is sexist to host a conference for men? (Fellowship hosts a women’s conference too…does that make it twice sexist?) And where’s the homophobia? Just
    curious. Because if you think that the dude jumping on the trampoline is gay,
    maybe that’s your issue. (James 4:1 – you can look it up)

    And…pastor…where
    do you get off ripping apart another church based on this blog? Shame on you. You think that’s going to bring lost people to Christ?

     

  • CSN

    My comment:  “I lol’d.  Awesome parody video!”

    But: “Comment Pending Approval!”Figures.