BIRMINGHAM, Ala.—Upholding the biblical ideal of mature manhood is the best antidote to sexual abuse, said speakers at a Founders’ Ministries event preceding the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting.

“Our calling as men is to protect and to provide and to stand up against abuse,” said Josh Buice, pastor of Pray’s Mill Baptist Church in Douglasville, Ga., “and to believe in the dignity and value and the image-bearing picture we see not just in men, but also in women.”

Founders—a ministry that promotes church health and advocates Calvinistic doctrine—convened June 10 at The Westin Birmingham for a day-long conference on “mature manhood in an immature age.” The conference occurred in conjunction with the SBC annual meeting, where sexual abuse awareness and prevention were spotlighted.

Among Founders speakers, Buice pointed to Jesus as the ultimate example of manhood. Southern Baptist Theological Seminary professor Mark Coppenger noted common maxims on manhood that have been misappropriated, and Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary professor Owen Strachan called men to discipline themselves for godly living.

Preaching from Ephesians 5, Buice said God-ordained gender roles are the solution to sexual abuse.

A low view of women was common in first-century Ephesus, where temple prostitution and other forms of sexual immorality abounded, Buice said. Ephesus was a city “filled with abused women.”

To counter such a culture, Paul cited Jesus as the “prime example of mature manhood,” Buice said. Christ cared for his bride, the church, by dying for her in the physical realm and seeking to make her holy in the spiritual realm.

“Step out in front. Care for your wife,” Buice said to husbands. Risking safety and even life to protect a woman physically is “not male chauvinism. That’s not misogyny. That’s not sexism. That’s not macho male ego. That’s what you call male headship up on display in the context of marriage.”

Yet a husband’s care for his wife should extend beyond the physical realm, and beyond stereotypical notions of manhood, Buice said.

“You may hold a coral belt in Brazilian jujitsu and be able to bench press 300 pounds,” Buice said. “And you may be able to climb a high mountain, skin a deer and shoot class-three weapons like a champ. But if you don’t know how to care for your wife spiritually, you’re not a biblical, mature man.”

Coppenger, professor of Christian philosophy and ethics at Southern, said “there is a grain to creation. And when we act as though gender doesn’t matter, then we’re going cross grain and actually making fools of ourselves.” 

But in an effort to uphold the natural order of creation, Coppenger said, well-meaning believers sometimes misapply common maxims related to manhood. Among the misapplied maxims:

On a man’s deathbed, he won’t ever wish he spent more time at the office.

“I think more men ought to say, ‘I wish I’d spent more time at work,’” Coppenger said. Men have callings in life that include work outside the home, and they must pursue those callings. “There is something worthy outside, and you can overdo the inside” even though family is of great importance.

God first, family second, ministry and career third. 

While the maxim contains wisdom, Coppenger said, at times a wife or child may seek mistakenly to dissuade a man from accomplishing his God-given calling outside the home. In such instances, a family member’s desire should not trump God’s call.

Christians sometimes imply wrongly, “If you’re not [home], you’re slacking,” he said.

At times, God calls wives to support their husbands’ work at great cost, Coppenger said, as in the case of military and police wives, whose husbands are away from home for long periods of time.

“All of us ought to have the attitude that at a moment’s call, if God desires, we’re up and going,” Coppenger said. “And the wife should have the attitude, ‘You go. You get after it.’”

Men never should ignore their families, he said. Yet idolizing family is antithetical to godly masculinity.

“It seems like all the push is toward just making the man less of a man,” Coppenger said. “And so I’m doing some awkward pushing back.”

Strachan, associate professor of Christian theology at Midwestern, critiqued western culture’s view of manhood as “schizophrenic.” 

American culture “is not set up for the flourishing of women,” Strachan said. “American culture today tells us not to commit abuse, which is right. But it schizophrenically also tells us to do whatever we want sexually … That is a schizophrenic, double-minded culture that is not set up to bless and protect women. It says it is. But it is actually set up to destroy women.”

To withstand the cultural onslaught against women, Christians must “train men in the image of the warrior king, Christ Jesus,” Strachan said, noting Jesus was “so disciplined and so controlled.”

A key facet of male discipline is “to kill lust,” Strachan said. Men should not merely “bounce our eyes.” They should combat sexual immorality “at the level of desire” by confessing and repenting “the instant” sinful desire emerges.

Men also should discipline themselves “to win a woman’s heart” in marriage and pursue the biblical ideal of what it means to be a man. 

Among other truths Strachan said men must learn:

• Same-sex attraction is never a man’s identity.
• Identity and anatomy are one. The Bible knows nothing of transgenderism.
• Men may be called to marriage even if they don’t desire it during a particular phase of life.
• Even men called to singleness must allow God to change their ungodly desires.

“By the power of Christ’s atoning cross and empty tomb, we must embrace our God-given manhood,” Strachan said. “Manhood is not fundamentally defined by American culture or any culture … There are implications of it in any culture, and there are some wisdom issues in any culture.” But “the core of manhood” is “God-defined and God-given.”

About every other year, someone suggests conducting denominational meetings virtually. The idea is that the state or national convention meetings would go on as normal but that more people could vote, offer motions and other things that messengers do, while sitting at their computers. The expense of travel, numerous other national meetings that pastors find appealing and the small percentage of Southern Baptists that attend the meetings are behind the idea. The idea has not caught hold because of the complicated aspects of trying to do business and guarantee messenger rights when some or most of messengers are not actually in the room. One day, we may overcome some of these difficulties as technology develops. If we do, I still think the idea sounds better than it would actually be. Some of the main reasons for conducting large face-to-face meetings would be vacated if we opened the door to bathrobe messengers. Consider these.

If voting becomes as easy as a social media post, it could become as ill-considered or trivial. Messengers to the annual meetings are in some way immersed in what’s going on. We talk about our business over dinner, we have handouts in front of us, in some places (Birmingham comes to mind) cell coverage is so horrible that you can’t even distract yourself with business back home. A vote from your couch would rarely be as considered as one in the presence of your fellow messengers. Perhaps it would be like letting anyone with a Twitter account use the platform for voting for U.S. president. That’s how Bugs Bunny moves into the White House. 

Business is essential to the continued ministry of the SBC but it is not nearly the only crucial thing that happens. The reminder that we are joined in cooperation is only real when we are in the same place. It may be that only 10,000 of us make the trip each year, but that number would drop if we could do all our business online. Being in the hall and exhibit area with fellow Southern Baptists is decidedly not the same experience as talking online; it is more polite and more Christian. Only in person am I reminded that we have things in common that are more important than the opinions that divide us. A virtual convention would be a more fractious one.

On a related note, the most-impactful things that happen in our personal ministries are likely the time we spend with others around the table or standing in line. Fellowship with old and new friends from other time zones has always been huge at our meetings. Niche meetings and online discussions can’t replace it.

Side meetings matter. Alumni meetings, late night affinity fellowships, panel discussions on the issues of the day, commissioning events—all would have to happen in some other venue, at additional expense or not at all. I’m guessing some folks attend the convention meeting primarily for these side meetings. These have become more of a draw and more numerous in recent years. It’s pretty hard to get that benefit from a chatroom. 

In most places, particularly medium-sized cities like Birmingham, Nashville and Columbus, the local churches are excited to have 8,000 or so fellow Baptists descend on their “parish,” share the gospel and drop a few million dollars into the local economy. This encouragement can move the work of that state convention or association ahead by a year or more. 

Every year, we win a few friends among those who are not Baptists. The old jest says that a Southern Baptist comes to town with the 10 Commandments and a twenty-dollar bill, and leaves town having broken neither. I doubt either those things are true but we aren’t big business for the “sin” industries, and we aren’t extravagant. Nonetheless, we are mostly kind to hotel staff, convention center folks (who see and hear everything), cab drivers and restaurant staff. We aren’t obnoxious drunks or mindless of those who serve us. Local reporters learn terms like “voluntary cooperation” and notice that we aren’t fixated on Twitter wars when we actually get down to business. They may shake their heads to learn that truly smart and kindly people believe in the Resurrection, but they do learn it. This broad kind of civility and graciousness bears fruit.  

We also share the gospel. Each year, during Crossover events and during commerce with waiters and bus drivers, people profess Christ after a witness by a convention messenger. There will be thousands of people in heaven because Southern Baptists came to town. 

Travel is a pain, and it is often expensive. Some convention cities are more delightful than others. And we’ll likely never again see 40,000 messengers show up for a business meeting. But all our churches are qualified to send messengers, and each of those messengers will have a chance to participate if they come. Our annual meetings are much more than voting. We’ll lose most of that “much more” if we codify long-distance fellowship.