Abstract
The most comprehensive introduction to the author of this most interesting book is to be found in his Chapter 6, ‘Boys don’t cry: Jeremiah’ (pp. 113–30), though by the time readers reach this chapter they will have encountered some of the author’s deliberately placed ‘fragments of personal experience’ through his text thus far. A principle underpinning his writing throughout is that it is not possible to discuss masculinity ‘without being transparent about our personal lives, even at an academic level’ (p. 113). What would count as ‘an academic level’ (by way of contrast) may be reconstructed from the bibliography (pp. 207–15), further reading and resources (p. 216), and from the ‘Academic further reading’ (pp. 217–18), but the author concludes by listing other resources – on stereotypes, male suicide, depression, mental health, experiencing domestic abuse, inflicting sexual violence, male rape and sexual abuse, any or all of which may be intrinsic to ‘masculinity’. Bullying, intimidation and verbal abuse at work (as, for instance, in what passes for ‘government’) would undoubtedly be illuminating, as would the power structures of ecclesial organizations in which members of a hierarchy may be remarkably free of anything recognizable as accountability, so one may hope for a further publication on such matters.
That noted, the author’s present context and situation as a candidate for ordination in the Church of England provide him with material enough to probe an area of theology of which many of his readers may be unaware. Writers of ‘feminist theology’ are now familiar enough, not so writers examining ‘biblical masculinities’, let alone one with a book jacket bearing the image of a male model part-equipped for the violence of present-day battlefields. Perhaps this is a suitable metaphor for other contexts?
The book has a double focus, as it were, since on the one hand the author explores ‘Christian manhood’ through readings of eight characters in the Western Christian Bible, five of them from Hebrew Scripture, through Christian/male/‘scriptural’ eyes. This will be illuminating for those who find it inconceivable that anyone should or could find resources in the way the author so expertly critiques, with apt indications of the result – ‘Men are built better’, ‘Men on top’, ‘Violence is manly’, ‘Men know best’ – on Adam, Moses, David and Job respectively, and with ‘unmasculine’ Jeremiah. On the other hand, a significant question arises about what understanding of God is at stake in each case. This question comes to the fore especially in ‘Men are unbeatable: Jesus’ (pp. 131–59), which is not only a fast-track introduction to each of the ‘masculinities’ of the four canonical Gospels (a refreshing take on the texts, leading to ‘Jesus in drag’ and ‘Jesus and #MeToo’), but also edges the reader to have the confidence that ‘gender should not matter to us, because the way we act out our performative gender does not matter to God’ (p. 155).
Concluding chapters on the disciples and on Paul’s ‘mental well-being’, leading to a conclusion on ‘A manly God’, make the case for freedom from ‘toxic masculinity’. What Moore does not explicitly explore is how women too may be freed from such intoxication, since some may well be responsible for perpetrating it.