Growing Pairs
No, that’s not a typo. Yes, it’s about a common vulgar expression. No, I don’t think it’s funny. Yes, I’m about to rant and be all offended and stuff. Here’s an example of what I’m going on about today, a comment from a popular blog where some preachers apparently hang out (pun intended):
These preachers need to “grow a pair” and let the donors know how much of “God’s money” they are taking for themselves and their wives and family’s salaries... I would be more concerned about “pairless” preachers not divulging how they are siphoning off funds given “to God” for their own family and branding.Now I agree that if a church must have a paid professional preacher, said pro should divulge the handling of finances that the people are told are for “God’s work”. But can’t even the most infantile believer find a better way to talk about courage? What ever happened to the gender-neutral word “guts”? Oh that’s right, it’s evil because it’s gender-neutral, and women can tecnhically have “guts”, so we gotta make courage a stricly male attribute by mapping it to male anatomy.
This is very common and growing (another pun intended) in popularity. Every good human quality is now described in male-centric terms. People are insulted by such expressions as “girly men”, “you throw like a girl”, “scream like a little girl”, “chickified”, “pantywaist”, “effeminate”, and “soft”, but praised in terms like “having a pair”, “man up”, “wear the pants” and so on. One expects this from secular culture, that evil thing “pairless” men bow to. But the standard for believers should be higher than that, and the standard for Christian leaders higher still.
Some of them, when confronted with this, will say among themselves, “Ok, we need to clean up our talk when the ladies are around.” How insulting! The ladies are treated like children whose tender ears must be protected from the big bad world. Instead, how about showing real courage by standing up to the potty-mouthed men and telling them YOU don’t want to hear it either? Why would any believer, but especially one claiming leadership, not mind hearing this sort of talk? It was Paul who said “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen” (Eph. 4:29), and “Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving” (Eph. 5:4).
When will today’s believers, and especially Christian leaders, develop the GUTS to stop “bowing to culture”? Where is the line drawn between relevance and bowing? Are we supposed to be doing the spiritual limbo (“how low can you go”), or aiming for the best and most noble? Are we descending into the sewers of the world to lift people up, or to wallow there with them?