Fred Rogers or John Wayne: Models of Masculinity
Mr. Rogers Day https://bit.ly/3BfOpE9
Rev. Dr. Douglas Olds
20 March 2022
“Do not be
afraid; from now on you will be catching people.” — Luke 5:10
John Wayne and Fred (“Mister”) Rogers offer a contrast in twentieth century cultural masculinity. Virtus culturally embodies the Latin word for “man” (vir) so that classical virtues prioritized pagan ideals of masculinity: physical “strength, vigor, aptness, power, obstinacy, military talents, courage, valor, fortitude.”
As demonstrated by Piper (below), some Christians import secularism’s ideas of virtus revealed through masculine agon. Later, in Machiavelli, Nietzsche, and beyond, the taming of the supposed “ontology of chaos” by masculine force continued to be its ideal of gender character.
A trope is a common device to escape nuance and shoehorn cultural expression into a defined pattern. Piper relates the tropes of masculinity to the surrounding culture in a way that many Christians have idealized in John Wayne (Du Mez 2020). Yet as a representative fantasy of Hollywood, Wayne does not have anything approaching a primary claim to Biblical masculinity.
The masculine ideal can be encompassed within the character of chivalry, an outdated term that allows for its beneficial recapture and reapplication of meaning without the degeneration toward vulgarity to which more contemporary tropes are susceptible. “Chivalry” derives from the “religious, moral, and social code—the medieval knightly system of courage, honour, courtesy (especially that of a man towards women [and the striken]), justice, and a readiness to help the weak.”[1] None of this is meant to suggest that women are not also called to chivalry. This presentation proposes that men are more in immediate cultural need of its redirecting virtues and hermeneutics.
Chivalry’s etymology comes from the French word “chevalier” which itself involves working with horses. Gen. 1:26-28 puts a set of crucial questions before us: what is the relationship of a horseman—a chevalier--and his animal (Prov. 12:10)? How do dominion and subduing function in domesticating nature represented in a horse, and do the choices of techniques involved extend socially into the masculine virtues of chivalry? How do we envision or image the act of subduing, as in the taming, of a wild or recalcitrant horse? Does the image of breaking the horse come to mind, or the act of its gentling (Kurutz 2017)? If the latter, what is the implication for dominion and imaging masculinity? Would a chevalier exert his will over an animal by the direct application of violent force? And if not, would his experience of taming his service animal influence his social behavior—his chivalry
This aspect of God’s activity coheres with non-violent method heuristically recovered in the Genesis 1:1-4 Creation account. Should the surface of the “deep” in Gen. 1.2 rear up like a horse, God’s רוּחַ rûaḥ responds with a “gentling,” such as detailed by the patiency nuance of the “hovering” Spirit.[3] The images of ontology in Genesis 1 support any ideas of dominion over and subduing of nature in non-violent terms. As always, divine activity is a mirror of ontology that includes a karma-like justice where intentions in acts are returned in kind upon the agent (Gen. 9:6; Luke 6: 38c; Ps. 62:12). Living by violence (agon) involves dying by same (Matt. 26:52). And working toward shalom rewarded with the same.
A chevalier would be most effective handling his horse and in society working within such a shalom. “Gentling” a horse rather than “breaking” it would be the masculine pattern and virtue of chivalry. Like all redirection of agon, personal acts designed to break are themselves indicators of the cultural cycle of brokenness. The aging warrior David’s final prayer (Ps. 72: 20) reveals that he too comes to understand that dominion (Ps. 72:8) is directed toward wholeness in chivalrously meeting the needs of the weak (72: 12-14).
The
chivalrous person like Fred Rogers notices the presence of another where that
other could be missed, which is an act of insight and kindness. Chivalry
humanizes the social desert by hospitality, welcome, introductions, and modest
courtesy. Kingly and impartial priestly chivalry reveals masculinity’s stature
in spiritual knighthood accoutered in virtue and rooted in the unalloyed,
gentling, non-violent armor of God.
From
these considerations, it is clear that Fred Rogers rather than John Wayne
embodies the moral stature of chivalry. Rogers is gentle, patient, playful, and
courteous with the most vulnerable among us, enacting for their instruction
narratives of communal shalom. His mien is calm, his features symmetric
and ethics even-handed, his gaze respectful, and his words authentic and
guileless. Rogers recognizes in children their potential for greatness and
nobility. His chivalry is empowering, reticent, and dignifying.
By
contrast, Wayne performs the crude and beefy audacity (Ps. 19: 13; Matt.
23:12a) of an acquisitive, grasping, broken so breaking, militarized and
hierarchical society. His façade is dominated by a languorous and skewed smirk
that is undissolved by the acidic wake of the raging sword that dies by the
sword. Wayne simulates riskless courage from his perch on Hollywood film stages
to convey to a gullible audience that courage derives from his non-pareil
martial kit and character. The cherry on top of his confected persona is that
smirk hammered into a sneer by his squint.
His smirk contorts, like gnawing on a large bone, whenever his mouth
attempts articulation. Only ventured to crunch out the bone’s marrow in
intimidation and threats, speech is indeed odd and irksome inside the staged
peril and big-topped burlesques of counterfeit chaos. A quickly drawn and
employed firearm would instead claim the shooting gallery prize of a distressed
damsel. For many Christians, Wayne embodies the third-way pagan mythology of
domesticated stability wrought by agon. This syncretic mythology sells
big time in blockbusters of death-dealing showdowns structured as dramatic
comedy—where all’s well is the destined end for the bullet-broadcasting orgiast
and colonizing dragon (not lamb) within.
Culture
is what is cultivated. We emulate what we admire. If distressed by the
surroundings of selfish strife, we may model the virtues of selflessness:
courtesy, recollection, reverence, gratitude, patience, moral courage and
meekness, hospitality, and accountability to justice that lifts up the weak and
oppressed. Culture is changed by individuals. Chivalry seeks the processive and
motile dignity of alignment with the divine in its virtues and practices—to
pacify the self and to instill in those to whom it reaches out. Men heal
through Christ by cultivating chivalry’s virtues, attaining thereby the stature
of resolute Christian gallantry, without artifice, that diffuses conflict with
the conveyance of non-anxious, non-striving, and dignifying respect and
generosity. Such men may then travel outward to heal our culture and world. We
need not go along with the mania of crowds with its thirst for, and its
prestige accorded to, violence and strife. The gospel communicates through the
lives of all who align with Christ to bear the fruit of shalom in their
households and neighborhoods.
[1] Soanes, C., & Stevenson, A., eds. (2004). In Concise Oxford English Dictionary (11th ed.). Oxford University Press.
“Courtesy” involves social tact and empathy that appreciates another’s tendency to shame and embarrassment, especially those derived from feelings of weakness or inadequacy. Courtesy forgoes eliciting such indignities in the neighbor. Courtesy takes care to avoid unmannered audacity and conveying any judgmental attitude of or remark upon the neighbor’s social and personal weaknesses or lack of such (contingent) things that society valorizes as merited. Courtesy is thus a necessary and foundational norm and mirror for neighborliness (including evangelism) in which positive virtues of generosity operate to build and solidify. Courtesy is a primary virtue in chivalry not natural to the child or to a vulgar man and hence, like all virtues, must be cultivated in habits.
[2] The Fabian strategy turns the other cheek in military engagements, though these appear tactical rather than a strategic posture of non-violence where the enemy’s violence redounds upon itself. Fabian tactics call for antagonism’s harassment short of full-on violent aggression. God’s Aikido seems certain to involve no primary agency of antagonism.
[3] NRSV confusingly translates Gen. 1:2’s Piel participle of רחף as "swept" when lexicons translate the Piel of רחף as “quivering, meaning to hover with fluttering wings, characteristic flying behavior” (Koehler, Baumgartner, et al. 2000, 1220). While Piel Hebrew verbs were traditionally thought to intensify the Aktionsart of the Qal verbal stem, more modern linguistics find that the “Piel tends to signify causation with a patiency nuance” (Waltke and O’Connor 1990, 355).
[“Aktionsart. n. The feature of … language whereby the quasi-objective quality of the verbal action is indicated (duration, repetition, momentary occurrence, etc.), both morphologically by tense forms and lexico-syntactically according to contextual features. Some older grammars used the term synonymously with aspect. pl. Aktionsarten” (DeMoss 2001, 16).]
The Piel stem of רחף applied in Gen. 1.2 “represents God as the agent and the [wind] as having been caused to be put into the state of” trembling or fluttering” (Waltke and O’Connor 1990., 363). The English translation of “swept” neither adequately conveys the aspect of causative agency (medio-passivity of the divine verbal voice) nor the “patiency nuance” of the verbal aktionsart.
