LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

There have been a number of articles in the last few days about "Christian Warfare"- the desire to reclaim a 'warrior' posture, the distaste of 'weenie' men, and some very aggressive posturing from the more extreme fundementalists.

Here is an overview of some Beliefnet articles:

Ear-Ripping-Off Battles With Satan: This preacher gets down and dirty (and pretty ugly) with his idea of spiritual warfare.

And what is spiritual warfare? That is when the powers of evil out of Satan, the devil, his camp, his command, come against the believer and society around the believer.

Why do we need warrior leaders now, particularly?

We’ve always needed them, and the Bible is full of warrior leaders—the biblical leaders who are on the side that is making a difference for God and His kingdom. I believe there needs to be a fresh view of that today, because so many have been lulled into the idea that if we leave the devil alone and leave the world alone and we stay in our churches and gated communities, everything will work out right. But that is not biblical. We need today to take a new look at the fact that we are in this warfare and that we must be prepared to engage it and to rise above it victoriously.

Give me an example of a biblical story that parallels the kind of struggle you believe we’re in now.

Jesus Christ is the best picture of the warrior leader.

Can you explain?

In the book, there is a section called "Jesus the Warrior Leader." He is a warrior leader because he is aggressively and intentionally going out to deliver those who have been captured, many of them hurt and abused by Satan himself. That’s what the Gospel is about—sharing the Gospel to rescue the captives and set them free. And he does that while applying principles of spiritual warfare. Military strategy is similar to what you see in spiritual warfare. In fact, the truth of it is that many of the military strategies that are being practiced today are taken in their original form right out of the scriptures. So it’s not a matter of just applying contemporary strategy today; we’re applying strategy today that you can see throughout the Bible.

Can you give some examples of that kind of strategy?

Yeah. Joshua and the Battle of Jericho. If you read that passage, you could probably parallel that with Fallujah and Iraq today—some of the things you see happening there on the ground in contemporary war fighting. In the story, they encircled the city. Well, that’s exactly what they did in Fallujah; they divided it up into components and then they made one unified effort to bring down the wall—of course, this was God doing it—and then they moved in and occupied the city and then moved out from there to other parts of the land.

But the spiritual analogy is clear too, that we must be willing to trust in the Lord, to lead us, to take advantage of the areas where Satan may seem to have the victory in our marriages, in our homes, with our children. We need to surround that with prayer, with the word of God, we need to use these tactics and strategies that are talked about in the Bible and also underlined in this book, and do that aggressively and intentionally.

One section of your book that startled me was the scratching, biting, ear-ripping-off war-fighting. Can you explain that?

I will not be surprised if we have some interesting reactions to it, and I think that’ll be healthy. The point of that story is that spiritual warfare can get every bit as bad. If you’re losing a battle with Satan, it ends up horrible. And I’m telling you, I don’t think there’s one description of warfare in that book that I haven’t seen that is every bit as bad as what happens to individuals in our church and out here in the highways and byways of life.

Seriously?

Seriously.

Yeah, they're serious, folks. We should pay attention, because they're going to see Satan everywhere, and start shooting.

Here's another related story:

Godly Men Shouldn't Be Weenies. Yeah, that's the actual title. Apparently, a kind and gentle Christ is a weenie, but a Braveheart Christ is not.

Go figure.

You write that Christianity as it currently exists has done some "terrible things" to men. What do you mean by that?

Christianity has basically communicated to men that the reason God put you on this earth is to be a good boy. Mind your manners, be a nice guy. That’s soul killing! It’s not true, and for a man to hear the message that the greatest achievement of his life is simply not rocking the boat, not offending anyone, not taking any risks but just being a genuinely swell guy--that kills him.

His nature is made for something much more dramatic. Here’s how you can tell: look at the games boys play or the films men love. Boys want risk, adventure, danger, exploration. Why do men love maps? Women don’t love maps.

Look at the films men love, whether it's Chariots of Fire, Schindler's List, The Shawshank Redemption, the Die Hard films, Indiana Jones, or James Bond. They all involve a challenge, a great battle, something to be won, some deep hardship to be faced and overcome. That’s the soul of a man. To tell him that you’re really not made for that, that what God really wants is for you to be an altar boy, kills a man. It takes all the passion out of life

Related to that, you argue that Christians misunderstand Christ.

Good grief, look at the images we’ve been given of Jesus Christ, particularly from our Sunday school years. The pictures of Jesus we were given--in fact, the only pictures of Jesus I have ever seen of Jesus in any church--are 'gentle Jesus, meek and mild.' He’s got a lamb on his shoulders. Or he’s sitting in a field with children on his knees, looking for all the world like Mr. Rogers with a beard! He’s the sweetest guy you could possibly meet. And men can’t relate to that, frankly.

You look at that guy and you say, "He’s a weenie!" This is not a man I would follow on the beaches of Normandy. This is not a man who would lead me in a protest against apartheid. This is not a man who would teach me how to romance a woman. I mean this guy can't even drive a car, I bet.

So we’ve really misunderstood who Christ is. We’ve emasculated Christ and we’ve emasculated men in the church.

It's a very inaccurate reading of Jesus. He’s called the Lion of Judah, for heaven’s sake. When he comes back, the scriptures describe him as riding a white horse with his robe dipped in blood! He is not sweet. He’s loving, but he is also fierce and immensely brave. I think he’s a whole lot more like Braveheart--William Wallace--than Mr. Rogers.