Matt Morin has a good article on masculinity, misogyny, homoeroticism, embodiment, and mixed martial arts:
Before enrolling in divinity school, I was a cage fighter—not a full-time cage fighter, not a world-famous cage fighter, not even a person for whom cage fighting paid the bills, but a cage fighter nonetheless. Now, before I go any further, I need to be more careful with my vocabulary or else I’ll risk losing credibility. You see, real cage fighters don’t like to be referred to as such; we prefer the term mixed martial artist. And we prefer that our sport go by the name mixed martial arts or MMA instead of “cage fighting.” There is a long, sordid history behind the sport’s various name changes, and it has everything to do with public perception, influential politicians, and corporate cash (Amy Silverman, Phoenix New Times, February 12, 1998). (But then again, what doesn’t?) Given my history of participation in and love for the sport, my ears perked up last year when MMA arose as a topic of conversation in my theological ethics class.
During the course of our class discussion, one of my divinity school colleagues referred to a recent New York Times article that describes the way a number of churches throughout the United States are turning to mixed martial arts as a way to draw men into their buildings (R. M. Schneiderman, February 1, 2010). Some churches train fighters to compete, while an even greater number of churches host gatherings for men at live fights. On top of this, clothing companies such as Jesus Didn’t Tap and websites like AnointedFighter.com market themselves to a crowd of Christian fight fans—a crowd that might be called a niche if it weren’t already so big.
To some Christians, this new MMA movement represents an expression of real, natural, God-given masculinity. One captain for this team is Seattle megachurch pastor Mark Driscoll, who in the film Fighting Politics says, “I don’t think there is anything purer than two guys in a cage. [. . .] As a pastor and as a Bible teacher, I think that God made men masculine. [. . .] Men are made for combat, men are made for conflict, men are made for dominion. [. . .] That’s just the way men are made.”
July 18th, 2011 | 10:54 pm | #1
I read the article and some of the responses by Mr. Morin. I found it all stimulating, yet unpersuasive. The sport and spectacle of professional MMA is something that can so easily be embraced by even those who also embrace a peace ethic. There is nothing inherently inconsistent with an admiration and appreciation for MMA and an acceptance of a theologically grounded peace ethic. It all depends on the individuals who are fans and watch it.
A superficial analysis of the violence involved in it may provide reasons to discourage followers of Christ to participate in it as either practitioners or spectators. However, just think of a superficial analysis of the writings of C.S. Lewis or J.R.R. Tolkien that attempt to keep followers of Christ away from the true art they produced. Professional MMA may not be everybody’s cup of tea, but that’s because it’s more like “sake”!
July 19th, 2011 | 3:18 am | #2
I’d be willing to listen to Mark Driscoll on the issue of gender if he actually understood those he disagreed with. With him, if you don’t agree with the complementarian position, you must support marriages that inevitably end in constant animosity or divorce. I find his MMA “masculinity” analysis to be beyond reductive and almost stereotypical.
July 20th, 2011 | 12:35 pm | #3
After reading the article and listening to the video, it’s clear that Driscoll is not opposed to the church growth movement; he just has a diffefent method. The problem is that his method is incredibly worldly. The Gospel is about surrending one’s life to Christ. It is not about baptizing worldly ways in order to justify them. The lust for power and domination is a sinful twisting of man’s original and royal purpose. The way back into the Garden is through the Tree of Life: Jesus. Any other attempt is simply another Tower of Babel.
July 20th, 2011 | 2:22 pm | #4
Ortho:
Wisely said. Although I’m not too sure of the analogy of Jesus with the Tree of Life. Have to think a bit on that one. Otherwise, great comments Ortho.
July 20th, 2011 | 6:52 pm | #5
Hey Ortho,
Thinking about this just a bit. Why do we need to get back into the Garden?
July 20th, 2011 | 8:31 pm | #6
I’m using the Garden as a motif. It’s emblematic of a right relationship with God. We fell in a garden and Christ began to bear our sins, as it were, in a garden. Christ is the Tree of Life who heals the nations. We eat from that tree spiritually by faith and sacramentally in the Eucharist. We are, as Chesteron says, exiled kings and queens. We become kings, queens, and priests in the Kingdom by ruling and reigning with Christ during this time, which is the millenial reign of Christ.
July 21st, 2011 | 1:20 am | #7
“The problem is that his method is incredibly worldly.”
Right on. There are good arguments for the complementarian position, though I don’t hold it, but Driscoll’s are hardly satisfactory. He more or less hi-jacks the American male machismo and tries to filter it through the Bible.
July 21st, 2011 | 4:16 am | #8
The best men I’ve ever known never needed to prove they were men.
July 21st, 2011 | 4:32 am | #9
Orthodoxdj: excellent point.
July 21st, 2011 | 10:05 am | #10
Ortho,
I agree. In the Garden of Eden as mentioned in Gen. 2 & 3 man did have a right relationship with God. It was perfect and sinless. When you say ‘we’, I’m assuming you are using Adam as our representative head, who fell in disobedience in that Garden and thus we inherited that sin nature and are born in sin, all falling short of the glory of God. We thus all have a sin problem that only Christ can fix.
I’m not sure about Christ as the Tree of Life analogy however. Christ as the perfect Lamb of God, sacrificed for sin, Christ as Living Water, Christ as the Bread of Life, Christ as the Light of the World, etc., but I cannot find a Scripture reference for Christ as the Tree of Life. Perhaps you can point me to one?
July 21st, 2011 | 5:49 pm | #11
“When you say ‘we’, I’m assuming you are using Adam as our representative head….”
I don’t agree with that interpretation of Genesis. I don’t think the notion of male headship is present in the Garden.
July 21st, 2011 | 6:15 pm | #12
Hey Nikolai,
thanks for your comments, but my question actually was to Othodoxdj.
July 22nd, 2011 | 1:55 am | #13
I think there are reasons to conclude that Christ is the Tree of Life, but I do not have a verse that says “Jesus is the Tree of Life.” Then again, we don’t need a verse for every belief, right? If so, where’s the verse that tells me which books belong in the canon?
Revelation 22
Eden Restored
1 Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.
—————————–
Scripture continuously points to Christ as being our redeemer and healer, even our sustainer. The Tree of Life, too, uniquely sustained Adam and Eve, which is why I believe they were barred from the Garden. After all, if the Tree of Life could give them eternal life, living eternally in sin would be Hell. The Tree of Life (as shown in the above passage) heals the nations. That sounds like Christ. I also believe that the Tree of Life was essentially a sacrament. In the Eucharist Christ is sacramentally present in bread and wine. We follow Christ’s command to eat His flesh and drink His blood.
I suppose it could all be imagery, but the existence of sacraments leads me to conclude that while it is indeed imagery, it is also a reality, mysterious though it is.
July 22nd, 2011 | 8:29 am | #14
Thanks Ortho,
I guess I disagree about the metaphor, but I won’t quibble with the imagery, as it indeed speaks of a blessedness to those whose hope is Christ.
July 22nd, 2011 | 2:34 pm | #15
Without getting into the ‘correctness’ of whether or not Jesus is to be identified with the Tree of Life ( I’m with Steve, I find it a bit of a stretch, but certainly not enough to quarrel about) I would like to note that I believe it is more than mere happenstance (is there ever such a thing in God’s Universe?) that the Biblical account begins in a garden and ends in a city.
What’s the difference you ask? People. Cities are the places where great multitudes of people gather. The central story of Scripture is the story of the Creation, Fall, and Redemption of humankind by the atoning death of the incarnate God-man Jesus. Thus the New Heaven and the New Earth have at their heart — a great city, the New Jerusalem wherein the Christ is worshiped and glorified by a teeming multitude of saints who dwell in perfect and everlasting communion with the triune God. To be sure there is a garden in the city, but it is a very different kind of garden than is depicted in Genesis — it is a garden contained within a city…
I hope this does not seem too fanciful, but I think this places a profound emphasis on the human-centeredness of Christ’s mission of redemption. The effects of the atonement are universal across Creation, of course, but are almost in a way ancillary to the central work of restoring the fallen bearers of the imago dei. Thus to characterize Revelation 22 (as some Bibles would have it, I presume, (mine does not) as “Eden Restored” is in fact to somewhat mis-characterize (at least by my lights) what the actual text says — eg. the crystal river flows down a “street in the middle of the city”. It may seem a small point but to my mind it is a vital one. If the beatific vision were one of a great and grand grove or garden, teeming with natural life of every kind, then one could (rightly I think) argue that God’s intention in the atonement was an Edenic restoration of all creation including man. It seems to me rather, that the order is reversed — the atonement is for the restoration of humankind and all creation benefits (just as all creation groans and suffers under the effects of Adam’s Fall)…
July 23rd, 2011 | 10:03 pm | #16
David, I don’t find your thoughts and mine to be incompatible. Your point about the human-centeredness of Christ’s mission is well taken. Too many theological systems pit God vs man when in point of fact the Gospel is about God being FOR MAN. The fact that some will experience the second death is not evidence that God hates man. It is evidence of man ruining himself by not giving himself to God.
Thank you for your insight.
July 25th, 2011 | 11:45 am | #17
”
“Right on. There are good arguments for the complementarian position, though I don’t hold it, but Driscoll’s are hardly satisfactory. He more or less hi-jacks the American male machismo and tries to filter it through the Bible.”
Which America is that? In the America I live in young men openly push strollers beside their wives and Machisimo is far more highly strung in most countries then in America. Nothing wrong with that, quite the reverse. Nor does it make Americans unmanly. But those who talk of “American male machisimo” should read-Homer.
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