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Mr. Melvin Lars is a native of Bossier City/Shreveport, Louisiana; he received several undergraduate and graduate academic degrees from various universities; La. Tech. (BS) Univ. & Centenary (Admin. Cert.) College) in Louisiana, Texas (Tx. Southern (MA) Univ), Michigan (Eastern, Mi Univ, & Saginaw Valley St. Univ.) and has done extensive educational studies in Ohio (Youngstown (Supt., cert.)St Univ) and California (Los Angeles, (CA. cert) City College).
Lars is a certified Violence Prevention/Intervention Specialist, receiving his certification and training through the prestigious Harvard University, with Dr. Renee Prothro-Stith.
He is a licensed/ordained Elder/Minister in both the C.O.G.I.C. & C.M.E. Churches. He is the CEO/founder of Brighter Futures Inc; a Family Wellness, Violence Prevention/Intervention and Academic Enhancement and entertainment Company; an affiliate representative for the NFL ALLPRODADS Initiative. Former interim; Executive Director of Urban League of Greater Muskegon, Former NAACP President of Muskegon County; 2007–2012, employed as a consultant to the Michigan Department of Education as a Compliance Monitor for the (NCLB Highly Qualified) initiative for Highly Qualified Teachers and works collaboratively with Hall of Famer Jim Brown and his Amer-I-Can Program and is a ten-time published author of various books, and self-help and academic articles. He is married to Ann Lars and is the father of one adult son, Ernest. Here we talk about faith and masculinity in an uncensored and educational series.
When Lars and I discussed the traditional notions of the masculine, we talked for the beginning of the conversation at the ideas as presented and then interpreted in the Old Testament and the New Testament in Christianity. The notion of the stoic male was an important one for centuries and decades right into the present and continues to influence the ways in which men and boys see themselves and their proper role in societies and in families.
Lars stated, “I want to start with something that may offend men. I use the passage: ‘Man should love his wife as God loves the church.’ That trumps everything, when we talk about procreation, when we talk about how to treat our brother, and when we talk about the Golden Rule. Even though, one may not be married. One does understand. We are supposed to love our wives the way God loved the church. We know that God told Peter, ‘Upon this rock, I will build my church.'”
He talked about how this is not necessarily a physical rock spoken of by Peter but, rather, the nature of masculinity and a solid place and role for men to be able to affirm themselves and assure their contributing role to community and family, for example. He spoke of Man’s interpretation of God’s Word. Here we find the interesting setting for the nature of the relationship between the individual human interpretation of holy scripture and the eventual outcomes in the lives and identities of men, as one example.
“When we start to discuss Man’s interpretation of God’s Word, we should start with loving our wives as God loves the church,” Lars stated, “I would go back to the beginning, in Genesis it talks about how Man was created, God spoke the world into existence, It talks about God felt that Adam needed a help meet, he put Adam to sleep removed one of his ribs and fashioned a woman. We, as men, take the Bible and twist it. This assertion will anger many theologians, it angers Bible scholars and parishioners.”
That the individuals who consider themselves the experts on the Word of God amount to interpreters of said Word. Within that view or lens, we can see the critique of the particular reference of specific scriptures because of the problem of individual human limitations and the ways in which we as flawed creatures create interpretations making us vulnerable to influence whole generations of men who can act in unhealthy ways for not only themselves but also for the women and boys who interact with them.
The women deal with potentially domineering and overbearing men; the boys see and replicate or mimic the unhealthy male role models.
Lars continued, “When you cite specific scriptures, it is opened to individual interpretation. I will be honest with you, Scott. I am careful about citing specific scriptures. There are so many interpretations and as a result, people begin to argue about the Bible rather than discuss the Bible. When you start to pinpoint specific scripture, that is [Laughing] when the arguments start between people.”
He is one to make generalizations in order to not have a specific scripture or phrase, or word, in the statements about God’s Word beholden to misinterpretation or the limited interpretations of Man. Lars pointed to the fact that the Bible has been interpreted in several ways and came from decent but not perfect translations from other languages include Hebrew and other extant languages.
In the cases of personal experience, Lars related his educational experience in Spanish and French class in high school, where the languages do not perfectly translate the meaning behind the language in every case. It can, as you might imagine, produce problems for the specific interpretations of the scriptures within the context of the times or in the searching for the precise meaning of what God meant in his Word.
“I talk about the Bible in generalizations rather than through the citation of specific scriptures in order to engage individuals in a discussion rather than to attempt to show some misinformed expertise of God’s word,” Lars explained, “For example, I took French in high school, the mere structure of the language is drastically different from the English language, thus causing confusion and the mis prounciation of words, phrases and sentence structure. I took Spanish in high school as well and it presented the same frustrations and complications, I cannot speak it well at all. When you look at it, linguistically, it is different.”
These differences by analogy or methodological overlay imply the similar differences in the meanings with what the, for instance, Bible scholars, theologians, and preachers may state to their followers at any one moment in time. He made an astute point about belief and faith and the phrases many or most of us have heard at least once in our lives living in North America.
He stated, “You have the Bible scholars who shape it. They make the Bible say what they want the Bible to say to the congregation. This does not permit people the opportunity to think, nor to interpret it. Instead, people will say, ‘You have to have faith. You have to believe.’ I think that in and of itself is open to question simply because there is no defining, causation of complete understanding relative to; ‘faith’ and ‘belief.'”
This then leads the conversation into the common interpretations of the Bible within the North America context. Because there are outcomes in the stoic persona men take on, especially in the denial of their feelings; this denial gets seen as being a better and a stronger man than the ‘weaklings’ who express their emotions. HThis repression harms men of all backgrounds because this seems like a pathology of North American culture to me.
Lars affirmed, “Absolutely, my angle on this, Scott. I love the question. Although, you fashioned the question in the form of a statement. When you see men with these stoic attitude, and this pretentious since of being disconnected emotionally, I love to ask them a few simple questions; ‘If you feel that in order to display your prowess as a man, and that you should be stoic, and not show emotions; Why do you have that beer? Why do you have that whiskey? Why do you smoke the cigar? Why do you use tobacco?'”
These self-medicating actions of men shut them off their emotions and have them thinking of shutting down and cutting out their emotional lives makes them a better man in some way. However, it does not seem to be the case at all. Lars bluntly pointed out that if the men did not have these problems in repression of emotions then they would not need the whiskey and other substances for self-medication.
“Because, all of these foreign substances are used to replace something that is obviously missing in their lives. In essence, they are showing emotion. Even though, it may not show on the physical face, but inside, the emotions are racing out of control. There is a false persona. A false persona of not showing emotions, where the face appears emotionless — as if able to handle any difficulty,” Lars explained.
As the conversation came to a close, I focused on the impacts on boys and adolescent men who watch the adult men taking on this false persona. Lars was quite direct and blunt in the statement of the opinion that the boys and adolescent men are harmed, even more than the men who take on these false personas. Furthermore, the old men do not want to admit the potential damage they can cause the younger generations in their actions and behaviors in general.
Lars stated, “Any of us who are honest with ourselves understand that the loss of a loved one, the disappointment on the job or a sought-after career, even a young lady who we have interest in and who does not have interest in us can be devastating. As an example, if one is preparing for an exam, he spends three weeks burning the midnight oil studying for it. Then he barely has successful outcome if the outcome was successful.”
Emotions are real. They affect us all. The idea of sucking up emotions at a time of personal crisis. Or the notion of not showing emotions until the next time, what happens at the next time or prior to the next time? Black, White, Hispanic, and Indian/Indigenous men all suffer from this in North America only moderated in its flavor by sub-cultures. Lars talked about the things that the young men and boys are not left with someone to say, “Okay, let’s try it this way and do this to enhance what you did last time.”
It is difficult when the only thing the boys and young men hear is the following: “Go back and do it again, or you didn’t put in enough time.”But the young men want to be the boy or man the dad or guy next door is proud of knowing. It becomes the basis for young men facing their emotional pain and lives alone, which along with the lack of constructive encouragement causes, as Lars stated, an “inner destruction, which is unnecessary.”
Lars continued, “Men should be honest and say, ‘I am with you. I support you. I understand that you did what you thought was correct. Let me see if I can share something with you that may improve the process next time.'”
This lead into the media and the cultural representations of the hyper-masculine men including the Marvel comic movies, the tough Western cowboy, and the Hip-Hop and Rap thug, where women are subordinate and one-dimensional and the men are dominant and the heroes. He talked about this being “pseudo-crap.” It is an extension of this false representation and persona of the men in the world.
“[Laughing] Why is it a bunch of pseudo-crap? Because, if have your tough cowboys, and/or the tough thugs, what do they do? They use a foreign substance to gain ‘strength.’ I.e., alcohol, whiskey, cocaine, marijuana, etc. As much as I loved the Black Panther, he had to take a substance to materialize into this character,” Lars elaborated, “The Cowboys, you have to be this tough guy. You have to ask, ‘Barkeep, give me a whiskey’ [Laughing]. You got to have courage from the alcohol. Sylvester Stallone, you are eating raw eggs, which are supposed to enhance your strength and stamina.”
He continued to state, “[Laughing] It is all a bunch of pseudo-crap, Scott. Unfortunately, human beings, especially the male human being, are not confident in ourselves. Because you know your flaws and vulnerabilities. Whereby now, you have to put on this façade of perfection.”
The notion of having weaknesses and needing to improve, and have made mistakes and need to learn, become a huge admission in denial of this “façade of perfection.” Men, in a sense, do this to themselves, where they see themselves as having to dominate others. The message for men who take on this stoic male persona; those who misinterpret God’s Word in the Bible, and who need to upgrade and update their sense of masculine identity should look into the things they most do not want to do for the sake of themselves and those around them and the upcoming generations: admit mistakes, feel, and constructively engage with the emotional world before them and inside of them.
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Image Credits: Pixabay