Depression: Do Real Men Cry?

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Welcome to Bible Bash, where we aim to equip the saints for the works of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask.

Listen and enjoy this installment of Iron Sharpening Iron, as Pastor Tim answers your sincere questions.

Here's Pastor Tim. On this episode of Bible Bash, we will be answering the question, Do real men cry?

Now, we used to live in the type of society that discouraged men from crying. In fact, I grew up in the type of society that did this very thing.

It had the audacity to attach social stigma to the idea of a man who has little to no control over his emotions, and this social stigma took the form of real men don't cry.

Now, part of the reason why this social stigma existed is because we used to live in the type of society that was able to differentiate male and female in a more comprehensive way than what we are able to do in the society we live in today.

We thought it necessary to encourage certain virtues in men, these virtues, some of which have been lost today, but virtues such as temperance or fortitude.

Now, temperance was the idea of moderation in action, thought, or feeling. A synonym for temperance is the idea of restraint.

Fortitude is the idea of mental strength or courage that allows someone to face danger or pain. We used to think it was necessary to encourage men to, as the

Bible says, to be strong, to be courageous, to act like men, and part of acting like men was to be characterized by temperance and fortitude.

Now, part of what's happened is that there's a variety of things that have happened in our society, which have basically caused us to reject this old stereotype, real men cry, to tear down that kind of fence, and then put up a new fence, which is essentially real men do, in fact, cry.

So what's happened is that feminism has pervaded our minds, and functionally we live in the kind of society now that can't tell the difference between a male and a woman, and that has led us essentially to reject all of the old gender stereotypes or generalizations.

So we used to have a category for a stereotype or generalization, and we understood stereotypes or generalizations to be matters of wisdom, like the book of Proverbs comes to us in generalizations.

We understood these stereotypes or generalizations to admit exceptions, but then to be generalizations that would help us to understand the nature of wisdom.

But then as feminism has taken hold of our mind, and we've rejected all of these gender differences and considered them social constructs, one of the things that's happened is we've rejected all gender stereotypes or gender generalizations, and so functionally we've rejected all wisdom.

And then finally, psychology has come along and taught us that it's harmful for us to suppress our emotions, and so one of the worst possible things you can do is to suppress who you actually are on the inside, or encourage other people to suppress their true and authentic self that is going to be found as a sinful heart manifests its desires in that kind of way.

And so what's happened is we've tore down this old fence, real men don't cry, which was a generalization that admitted exceptions, and then we've replaced it with a new fence, which is real men do in fact cry.

And as you look around in society, one of the things that you'll realize is that the standard male today is trained to have the emotional control of a five -year -old girl.

And so as you watch TV and movies and entertainment, you'll see men who frequently weep over the most trivial of circumstances and are reduced to tears frequently, and who seem to have the kind of emotional control that was characteristic of young female children of a past generation.

And so what do we do with this kind of thing? How do we think about these kinds of things that are happening to us?

What do we make of living in the type of society right now that is encouraging femininity in men and masculinity in women?

And how does that relate to this broader subject of do real men cry? Now, I think one of the things that we can acknowledge is that we can acknowledge that there were men who were trained in these old gender stereotypes that served a useful societal function of encouraging fortitude and strength and stability and temperance.

We can understand that there were men who took these old gender stereotypes or generalizations a bit too far.

So you can imagine a kind of scenario where a husband is looking at his wife, and his wife is just weeping and reduced to tears and crying.

And the man looks at her as if she's some alien from some sort of other planet, has no idea how to helpfully interact with her, and just looks at her and says, and then just walks off.

So we can imagine a distortion of these old stereotypes, and we can imagine a distortion of these old generalizations.

But one of the things that's happened is our society has taken distortions like that and then have used them in a wholesale way to basically attack the idea of masculinity in almost every way imaginable.

And the problem is that the broader evangelical world have functionally, over the past 10 to 15 years, been useful idiots to this project, not knowing that you have a society that is set on destroying any functional difference between male and female.

And then at a point of contention, do real men cry?

Our society has basically overturned that stereotype and embraced the new one, real men do in fact cry.

And our evangelical leaders have come along and basically in a thoughtless, in a simplistic, in a careless way, basically looked at this old stereotype or generalization, and then in a way that's kind of maddening or frustrating that our society is frequently tempted to do, basically pointed to exceptions to these stereotypes or generalizations and appealed to them as absolute proof that there is no such thing as a generalization or a stereotype.

I'm sure that many people have been in conversations before where this kind of game happens, to where you make a generalization, for example, men are stronger than women, and then you're trying to draw some conclusions from this generalization, men are stronger than women, only to have some genius come along and say to you, with all the profound wisdom they can muster, hey,

I know a woman who's really strong, who can beat up a lot of men. And so there is the type of person with the remarkable intellect that can come along and overturn all stereotypes and all generalizations with the airtight argument of the counterexample.

But one of the things that's happened is our broader evangelical world has functionally done this. And so at the very moment where these gender stereotypes are being attacked, our broader evangelical world has come along and basically pointed to examples in the

Scripture of individuals who were men and who did, in fact, cry.

So some of the examples given at this point would be Jesus. So Jesus weeps over the hardness of heart of Jerusalem.

Jesus, upon encountering Lazarus about to die, Jesus weeps over the death of Lazarus. And then in the sadness that Mary and Martha are experiencing at that point, knowing that in just a few moments

He's going to raise them from the dead. We're told in the Bible to rejoice at those who rejoice and to weep at those who weep. Paul cries at numerous points for the churches, over their hardness of heart at times, over his desire to be reunited with them.

Jeremiah was described as a weeping prophet. And so one of the things that's happened is we had a stereotype, we had a generalization that admitted exceptions, and then we have our genius evangelical leaders come along and basically overturn this generalization in a pretty comprehensive way, appealing to passages in the

Bible that would be considered exceptions. Now, as we interact with a subject like this and try to answer the question, do real men cry?

One of the things we want to do is we want to avoid two extremes. So there is the emotionless man who has taken this gender stereotype or generalization and has embraced it in a full, throttled kind of way such that he has no category for ever shedding a tear, and he has no ability to know how to comfort a woman who perhaps struggles with emotions in a bit of a different way than he does.

And so there is that kind of extreme, the emotionless man who has no place, who is basically taking these generalizations, real men don't cry, and turning them into absolute laws that admit no exceptions.

So there is that type of person which would be an extreme in one hand. But then the other extreme is to basically try to overturn that stereotype and cultivate the kind of emotional control in men to identify true masculinity in men as essentially having the emotional control of a five -year -old girl.

So there are two extremes here that we don't want to fall prey to. And the way to navigate this kind of discussion is just to relearn how to interact with generalizations or stereotypes.

It is quite possible that as a generalization, we used to live in the type of society that generalized and made a generalization and had a stereotype that real men don't cry, and that was a helpful and a productive thing for the formation of men's character that taught men to have control of their emotions, to have courage, to have strength, to have fortitude, to have temperance.

And those kind of things were there in the kind of society that we live in to train the type of man who is going to be able to face evil in the world, and there are very real evils in the world, such as World War I and World War II, to where you want to have the kind of man who can go into an exceedingly difficult situation and not be reduced to a blubbering mess of tears on the ground, who refuses to get up and move along.

And so, do real men cry? Well, if we're going to try to answer that kind of question, one of the things we need to acknowledge is that not all crying is the same.

There is a type of crying that results from a failure of masculinity, and there is a type of crying that is appropriate for the

Christian male that grieves the damaging effects of sin in the world, but does not do so in a way that is fundamentally destructive or crippling or leads to an abdication of his responsibilities in the world.

So not all crying is the same. There is, as I'm saying, this type of crying that results from a failure of masculinity.

There is a type of crying that a man can experience because he's in a tough situation and everyone's mean to him and life is hard and he doesn't know what to do.

And there's a type of crying that a man can, in a full -throttled way, embrace that results from a lack of courage or strength or temperance or fortitude.

And then there's a type of crying that a man can embrace because he actually loves other people more than he loves himself.

And when he sees the damaging effects of sin in the world, he grieves these damaging effects of sin.

When he sees his wife weeping and crying and discouraged, he's heartbroken for his wife and his impulse might not be just to look at her and say, okay, and walk off.

It may be to go up and hug her and to try to console her or to comfort her. And so, do real men cry?

Well, it's complicated. Real men are not going to cry because they have no courage or fortitude or temperance or strength.

But a man might cry because he loves other people more than he loves himself and he sees the damaging effects of sin in the world and he longs for the day where God will deliver these things.

This has been another installment of Iron Sharpening Iron. As always, if you would like to have your question included in one of these midweek episodes, email us at biblebashedpodcast at gmail .com.

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