I recently finished a book about the political rise of the evangelical right, Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation by Kristin Kobes Du Mez.
At one point it mentioned a different book, The Man Nobody Knew by Bruce Fairchild Barton.
I remembered someone reading a passage from it in a Sunday school class long ago. The book title had stuck with me and I thought about reading it, though I never got around to it.
It was only a short passage, the point of which was that in paintings Jesus is often shown looking very weak and sickly, but someone working as a carpenter would not be like that.
What was not obvious from that brief passage was that Barton was an advertising executive and the book was about how Jesus was the ultimate businessman, building a world-class organization from the bottom up with a small group of handpicked men.
I feel like that may have been some projection.
Barton was not alone in projecting. White evangelicals had their own form of masculinity modeled on the one who came not to bring peace, but a sword. Clearing-out-the-temple Jesus is more their guy. The perfect embodiment is John Wayne as the rugged hero.
If that ideal included the patriotic military service and loyal protector that Wayne portrayed, but in real life he had multiple marriages and affairs and avoided military service so he would not have to risk his career... apparently it was the image that was important.
It was also a bit weird to me that they focused on obedience under a hierarchy but idolized MacArthur. Truman outranked MacArthur; defying direct orders should have been bad.
At one point it would seem like the stunning hypocrisy now has been there all along. I could certainly take some time to go off on dominator culture again.
The thing that is most clear, though, is that they don't know him. How could they when they so strenuously avoid listening?
There is a level at which I think there is a good idea in there. If I am going to start a business, thinking about how Jesus would do it could be valuable. It would be important to me to be honest and ethical in my dealings and treat people well. If you are going to be a soldier or a husband or an architect, how would He do it?
If you find that there is a job that you don't think you can do or a role that you don't think you can take on and still do things in a Christ-like manner, that could be good reason to change directions.
To do that, you would still need to be listening instead of projecting.
When clearing out the temple he did apparently drive out the herd animals, who would be used to being driven. He did overturn tables. However, it is also important to note that when there are caged doves who would probably be injured under that kind of treatment, that instead of flipping or driving he told the people who had the doves to take them hence.
It is important to note that one who had power to destroy only demonstrated it on a fig tree that already had something wrong with it.
It is important to note that he washed the feet of those hand-picked men as sign to show them to serve each other.
It is important to note that he fed people without worrying if they deserved it.
There is so much care and consideration and love shown over and over again that only extreme ignorance could find anything else more important.
If in that understanding you cannot find that it works with being masculine, then there is either something wrong with masculinity or with your understanding of it. That is worth some pondering.
I would say that to know him is to love him, even if it seemed trite, but apparently there is room to know and reject as well.
I feel completely confident in saying that there is only misery in that.
