In a very belated response to an earlier post by the erudite Vox Inferus, I want to posit a provocative contemplation of masculinity: the masculinity of Christ. Someone very close to me is studying what it means to be a man, as a follower of Christ and as an American in the early 21st century, and so I have begun to muse on what the person of Jesus---the "perfect man"---teaches us about gender roles. My provocative assertion is that, while Jesus showed us an example of perfect masculinity (strength, determination, self-control, spiritual and physical overcoming), he also shows us what in his day and ours would be considered...a feminine side. I think this is best exemplified in his nurturing and healing acts and character, his kindness, gentleness, and his submissiveness. I believe there is a reason God was incarnated as a male human being, that he is referred to as the "perfect man," the "second Adam," and the "bridegroom" of the Church. But because the mission of his life precluded a sexual family life, and indeed sexuality altogether, there is a certain...I won't say "ambiguity," but..."universality"...of his gender roles. I believe such universality would be central to his reaching the other roughly 50% of the human population---the fairer sex. If Christian men must hold up Christ as an example of masculinity, perhaps Christian women must also look to him for an expression of their ideal femininity. (I believe the Roman Catholic Church has found a way to circumvent this, with the development of an adoration of Christ's human mother Mary, the Queen of Heaven; she, however, has no claim to divinity, which presents a problem to most non-Catholics in this respect.)
One can argue historical revision on the part of Christ's early followers, in regards to the tacit nature of Jesus' sexuality and family life, but Christ has been consistently held up as "asexual" (for lack of a better term) by official interpretations of Christianity for two thousand years, and I personally hold rigidly with these pronouncements. But I find such extra-scriptural and extra-theological notions to be furthermore beyond the scope of this post, as I am really more concerned here with the thinking on Christ's gender roles expressed in Christian iconography (i.e., how we "imagine" Christ) through the ages. There are historical reasons for Jesus being perpetually imagined with long, flowing hair, but these artistic representations really have more to do with the customs contemporary to the artists themselves than they do with the historical reality of Jesus' physical appearance. (He probably had very curly hair worn at some medium length.) The popular image of a long-haired Christ, however, has not changed in our day, despite customs changing radically since the Middle Ages. He is also represented consistently as being very slender and waif-like, hung on the Cross, though he must have historically possessed a more muscular physique to have carried such a burden. The Catholic Church especially seems to hold with this iconography, as their crucifix uniformly exhibits an almost-feminine body attached to the Cross. Now, again, I am not making any references here to "sexual" identity, as most ancient and medieval depictions of the feminine would include curves---breasts and hips. I am only referring to the imagining of gender---dominance and submission...traits I believe Christ exemplified simultaneously and perfectly. And so, though our traditional notions of gender identity sharply divide along these lines, it seems to me that a genuine attempt to model one's masculinity on Christ must also include His traditionally-feminine submissiveness, and a reciprocal relationship for women imitating Christlike femininity. This post is not meant to offend, nor to merely provoke; it is only a response to the searches of others to find a Christian alternative to the metrosexualization of male identity in our contemporary society. While Jesus shows us perfect masculinity, he must also be an ideal exemplar to his female followers, and his male disciples should truthfully take this "feminine side" into account.
