Actually, the "Beautiful Girlhood" movement seems to be more about, as with the Bible described below, male anxiety. Indeed, as Talk To Action contributor Moiv seems rather slyly to imply, in "A Beautiful Girlhood Christmas", "Authentic girlhood" has, perhaps, little to do with the future sexuality of girls and a whole lot to do with male sexual anxiety. Are the "beautiful girlhood" and "Godmen" movements, and the "Authentic Manhood Bible", all rooted in a common cultural fear that American men are turning into wimps and sissies ? Can "manly" Bibles, "manly" Christian conferences, or the "Godly" task of training girls to be maximally submissive, non-threatening and hyper-feminine (in an idealized and sanitized fashion) women all serve to make men better, more responsible fathers - stiffen them up so to speak ?

One leading Christian Reconstructionist promoting "Beautiful Girlhood" thinks it's at base a male problem too - Doug Phillips blames the "fatherhood problem" on early feminists and 19th Century Unitarians, the Industrial Revolution, and a lack of Olde Tyme Religion. Other parties, such as the Southern Baptist Convention, seem to feel the problem of wussy, irresponsible American males can be combatted via special "manly" Bibles. Still others, such as Brad Stine's Godmen, think males can be properly juiced up by getting them together in packs, to act in especially "manly ways".

An Especially Manly Bible

The subtitle of this Bible - the "Authentic Manhood Bible" makes me wonder if, should I order one, it might arrive in the mail packaged with accompanying product solicitations for home shopping channel workout kits to plump up pectoral muscles and flatten abs, trial offers for the Men's Hair Club, and free samples of Viagra or testosterone pills.

But I'll offer up this contemporary American religio-cultural artifact with no more editorial comment whatsoever except to note that Bible publishing is a huge business and that there are hundreds of different "niche" Bibles. This is one, a Bible purporting to instruct men in 'authentic manhood' which, in strictly logical terms, would seem to mean that the publisher of the "Men's Fraternity Bible" feels that their product addresses a real need - by helping "inauthentic men" to be more authentically "manly".

I'll let the publisher, Southern Baptist Convention subsidiary Holman CSB speak, for its product :

The "Mens Fraternity Bible" offers a wealth of study material to help men discover and apply biblical principles of authentic manhood. Features nearly 100 pages of inspiring notes from popular Mens Fraternity video lessons: "The Quest for Authentic Manhood, Winning at Work and Home," and "The Great Adventure."

[ image, right: 'Boromir', character from the movie "The Return Of The King", being especially manly by blowing a horn - shortly before dying a manly death by getting shot full of about 100 Orc-arrows ]

I have to suppose that Holman CSB's "Authentic Manhood Bible" is targeted at the sort of men who feel the need to attend Christian comedian Brad Stine's "Godmen" conferences recently written about by Talk To Action contributor Bill Berkowitz, in Brad Stine's 'GodMen': Promise Keepers on steroids :

"God Men : Promise Keepers On Steroids"

Stine's "GodMen" conferences aim to get men to "act like men": According to OneNewsNow, "Stine argues that many men are tired of what he calls a 'sugar-coated and watered-down' Christianity. To counter that, he says, the one-day 'GodMen' events challenge men to embrace the full character of Christ. He cites the example of what he describes as the 'table-tipping Jesus.'"

"[That's] the strong Jesus that really deals with masculinity, [an aspect] that men are oftentimes not taught," Stine explained. "We're taught one side of Jesus. He was merciful and gracious and loving and sweet and kind -- and he was all those things, and we don't deny that; we need that desperately. But there was a table-tipping Jesus," he continues. "There was a time when the season was more aggressive and that you were allowed to be angry and sin not."

Paul Coughlin, the author of "No More Christian Nice Guy" and a keynote speaker at a GodMen event in Nashville, Tennessee last year said, "I believe that being a guy is a reason to be proud -- not a problem to be fixed. Unfortunately, most Christian men have been ordered to emulate 'Gentle Jesus Meek ands Mild,' a false caricature of Christ that has robbed the church of its vital masculine energy."

At TheNewsBeasts.com -- "News-Commentary-Research/From a Christian Perspective" -- David Dansker writes: "In response to the feminization of churches a new men's movement has been gaining brawn ... Founder Brad Stine explains that a goal of GodMen is to produce 'a man who believes in honesty and integrity and strength and leadership and the knight in shinning armor.'"

The Godmen have a Godmen blog by the way. It currently features a picture of an especially manly man blowing a war-horn. As Kurt Vonnegut might say...

So it goes.