Cultural Liberalness
Evangelicalism long ago separated cultural issues from doctrinal ones. You will read many today saying that they are doctrinally conservative and socially or culturally liberal. If doctrines are primary, culture became all secondary.
Most evangelical churches now rely on pragmatic means for numerical church growth. Especially young people want to fit into the world. They don’t wish to stick out. Their parents and grandparents would like them happy and staying, so they’re willing to compromise to keep everyone together.
Same Sex Marriage and Peripheral Issues
I question the idea of ranking doctrines, but through history true believers did not treat cultural matters as peripheral or non-essential. One particular cultural practice, same sex marriage, never mentioned as a primary or major issue, men who rank doctrines now elevate to that status. Some have referenced 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 as a biblical basis.
9 Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, 10 Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.
They point out “abusers of themselves with mankind,” who “shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” This raises it to a gospel issue, which they say is primary. Yet, what about the previous word, “effeminate”?
Personal Holiness and Practical Theology
Through history, saints call such doctrine or practice, “personal holiness.” William Perkins, a late 16th and early 17th century theologian, wrote extensively on Christian ethics. In his commentary on scripture and moral treatises, such as A Golden Chain and The Whole Treatise of the Cases of Conscience, Perkins interpreted malakos (effeminate) in 1 Corinthians 6 as referring to men who indulged in sensuality, luxury, or behaviors that compromised their God-given roles as men.
Men called writings about culture, “practical theology.” Seventeenth century preacher, Richard Baxter, in his Christian Directory and referring to effeminacy in 1 Corinthians 6:9 cautioned against behaviors that made men “soft” or indulgent, such as excessive attention to appearance or pleasure-seeking, which he saw as effeminate in the cultural context of the time. Other seventeenth century Bible teachers such as John Owen, John Flavel, and Thomas Watson considered effeminate behavior as contrary to God’s design and rejected softness for men.
English pastor, John Gill, in the 18th century rooted effeminacy in the patriarchal norms of both the biblical text and his own time, where behaviors or appearances that deviated from traditional masculinity (e.g., adopting feminine dress, mannerisms, or roles) were seen as dishonorable or sinful. He addressed a man adopting feminine roles or appearances, which he saw as dishonorable. Even though the last few decades saw the sharp rise of effeminate men, evangelicals will infrequently to never bring that up as an issue at all, let alone a primary one.
Effeminate Versus Same Sex Marriage
I write on this one point, not so much to address the subject of effeminate men. but how that secondary issues are selective or subjective. Evangelicals and even fundamentalists might point to 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 and single out homosexuality, and, therefore, same sex marriage as a taboo action to the status of a primary doctrine. However, they will not mention the word right before it, “effeminate.” God rejects all the behavior Paul lists in these verses, not just the one that in particular offends a traditional evangelical church and its leadership.
American culture of the nineteenth century rejected certain cultural practices, would not practice them, and also would not affiliate or fellowship with anyone who did. They practiced cultural separation over worldliness.
Mixed Swimming and Previous Standards of Modesty
Standards of modesty were significantly different in the 19th century United States compared to today, with expectations for women to dress in ways that covered most of their bodies. However, there were instances and places where women’s attire would divert from the societal norm. As a whole, the culture rejected a woman showing her body parts, and the exception was brothels or houses of prostitution.
I spring forward to what churches called “mixed swimming” when I was a youth. Men and women would not swim together, because of the skimpiness of the dress for a woman’s swimsuit. This was not something that I recognized as a young child, but when I got closer to my teenaged years, it was obvious to me when I saw young women in the water and in their swimsuits. No one would ever see this in the 19th century in civil society, and Christians opposed it based on biblical teaching. The capitulation of churches started with separate men’s and women’s swim times.
Be Not Conformed to This World
Why is something akin to public nudity accepted as a secondary issue in churches? I’m asking you the reader to consider what I’m writing. The Apostle Paul commanded in Romans 12:2, “Be not conformed to this world.” “Effeminate” conforms to this world. Immodesty to the extent of something considered nudity by all Christians in the 19th century and previously also conforms to this world. Same sex marriage conforms to this world. Is disobeying the command in Romans 12:2 a secondary issue? Why?
I heard a mainstream evangelical, someone further to the left on the spectrum of evangelicalism, say that the Bible isn’t about you. He said the Bible is about Jesus Christ. I believe he was combatting the overly therapeutic and self-help nature, which characterized much of evangelicalism. Scripture is about God. What does He want? What God did not permit Christians in the culture previous to the 20th century (probably the late 20th century), He would not suddenly permit it and consider it a secondary issue in order to permit it.
Same sex marriage itself proceeded out of a pattern of capitulation that started with other capitulation on biblical doctrine and practice. When churches and related institutions changed, they didn’t explain how that they’d been wrong before. They just changed and then developed a system of ranking doctrines to justify the acceptance of what they once rejected in the culture.
Considering what you wrote, I agree with you, and would add that the problem is likely true regeneration. Holiness cannot exist without it. As subsequent generations of Christians are born into former believing families, who grow up in a separated Christian world, and who may never truly experience themselves the new birth by the power of the Gospel, but by their customs and habits, believe they are of the testimony of Christ, by degrees, will seek out or allow the reduction of holiness in their lives and their Churches, because the engine that fuels holy separated living, the Lord Jesus Christ by the presence of the Holy Ghost in the heart of a believer, is not present, and therefore, those in this condition cannot perform that which the Spirit supplies the believer, namely the power to overcome sin. The compounding difficulties of attempting to live the Christian life without the Spirit mount, and as the pressure builds, their options become recognizing their lost hypocritical state or pragmatically releasing the tension by reducing what the Bible requires for a Christian to be considered “faithful,” and so slide into the category of “apostasy,” growing up fully with the fruitful wheat of the Lord’s field, only to never materialize spiritual fruits, even though they are fully formed and by all outward appearances and confessions of faith, should be producing fruits.
On another note.
I know your purpose for writing is to point out the subjective nature of Evangelicals and their ranking of doctrines/biblical issues, and not specifically effeminacy, but your citations of Perkins, Baxter, and Gill, and their descriptions of “effeminate” qualities reminded me of a description by Plutarch, the Roman Historian, and his writings of the life of Philopoemen, a Greek General from Megalopolis, that I recently listened to. I thought you might find the description of Philopoemen’s manliness interesting as a contrast:
“…For from his very boyhood he was fond of a soldier’s life, and readily learned the lessons which were useful for this, such as those in heavy-armed fighting and horsemanship. He was also thought to be a good wrestler, but when some of his friends and directors urged him to take up athletics, he asked them if athletics would not be injurious to his military training. They told him (and it was the truth) that the habit of body and mode of life for athlete and soldier were totally different, and particularly that their diet and training were not the same, since the one required much sleep, continuous surfeit of food, and fixed periods of activity and repose, in order to preserve or improve their condition, which the slightest influence or the least departure from routine is apt to change for the worse; whereas the soldier ought to be conversant with all sorts of irregularity and all sorts of inequality, and above all should accustom himself to endure lack of food easily, and as easily lack of sleep. On hearing this, Philopoemen… shunned athletics himself and derided them… [and] …when he had leisure, he would give his body hard exercise in hunting, thus rendering it agile and at the same time sturdy, or in cultivating the soil. For he had a fine farm twenty furlongs from the city. To this he would go every day after dinner or after supper, and would throw himself down upon an ordinary pallet-bed, like anyone of his labourers, to sleep for the night. Then, early in the morning, he would rise and go to work along with his vine-dressers or his herdsmen, after which he would go back again to the city and busy himself about public matters with his friends or with the magistrates. …his own property he sought to increase by agriculture, which is the justest way to make money. Nor did he practise agriculture merely as a side issue, but he held that the man who purposed to keep his hands from the property of others ought by all means to have property of his own. He also listened to the discourses and applied himself to the writings of philosophers — not all of them, but those whom he thought helpful to him in his progress towards virtue. …thinking that literature was conducive to action, unless it were prosecuted merely to while away the time and afford themes for fruitless small talk.”
Plutarch wrote in the early 2nd Century A.D., not long after Paul wrote to Timothy “endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ” (2 Tim. 2:3), and his description of Philopoemen is probably close to the idea of soldiering Paul had in mind, and is arguably, a good antithesis to biblical ideas of “effeminacy.”
Thanks! That was good!