I’m a sucker for war stories. Neither my father or I served in the military yet we shared a fondness for those old, mostly black and white World War II movies. If there was a good one on TV, there was a good chance we’d hunker down in the family room to watch it, no matter how late. There’s something in our collective male consciousness that I think is drawn to the idea of a brave soldier, and Hollywood knows just how lucrative this narrative is. A quick Google search shows that the top 10 most profitable war movies to date accounted for nearly 4 billion dollars in sales. Clearly I’m not the only sucker. 

But something changed near the end of my cross country bicycle ride in 2020. It was the last clear day before the smoke from the fires that raged up and down the West Coast reached the inland Northwest. I was riding across the Blackfoot Indian reservation from Browning to Choteau, Montana along the Rocky Mountain front when I passed a roadside monument; a sculpture made of random pieces of metal welded together to reveal an abstract but stunning picture of a giant Indian warrior on horseback. It was a convenient place to rest in a sea of rolling prairie that seemed to go on forever, so I stopped to rest and take it all in. 

Based on history and culture, you would assume that this monument represented men. So it got me thinking, why? Why are men taught to assume the role of the warrior? Why are we drawn instinctively to that image? Men are taught implicitly and explicitly that this is their identity. From early on, we’re told that we are the protectors, the providers, the defenders. We fight for what’s right, fall on our swords, take the hill, storm the castle, invade and conquer, fight and die. This is who we are; who God made us to be. I’m not so sure anymore.  

The rest of the day was reasonably quiet with little traffic or headwind, so I was able to reflect on that image and the ideas perpetuated by it. I came to the conclusion that while this notion – I call it the “Warrior Mythology,” is a formative story for men, isn’t’ the final word. Myths, in the sense in which I’m using them here are simply are the stories that shape us. They don’t have to be true, but they do have to contain truth. The most powerful myths speak to the deepest parts of our existence, to our deepest hopes and fears. In the healthiest sense, myths are aspirational narratives that speak to the best of who we want to become; fictionalized characters that are human enough so that we can identify with them, yet imbued with nearly divine qualities that point us towards something greater.

William Wallace (a.k.a. Braveheart)is a common warrior myth. He’s brave, women love him, the enemy fears him he’s got killer hair and looks damn good in a kilt. But rather than being aspirational, I think common warrior myths like this are actually a debilitating narrative for both men and women. These kind of stories exalt the twisted idea of masculine strength while simultaneously diminishing the inherent strength of women. Let’s be honest, how many times can the same ten guys lead the charge against the English army before they’re all slaughtered? Second, by diminishing women, it reduces them “damsels” that have to be rescued. Third, it substitutes the idea a protective role for a core identity. Fighting, protecting, defending and all the other stuff warriors do is not gender specific. If you’ve ever watched a youth soccer game or a parent night at the local high school, you can’t tell me that women aren’t equally protective. The label “momma bear” isn’t code for a benign cuddly forest creature. 

That last point is perhaps the most insidious problem here. Myths become toxic when they tell a story that diverges from deep and transcendent truth. The warrior myth is no exception to this rule. If our identity is “man-as-warrior”, then everything is a battle to be fought. It us-vs-them in everything we do; a zero-sum game of winners and losers. Anyone not on our side is the other, the enemy. The warrior mythology glorifies violence but not always true strength. And I think the most damming thing about this mythology is that it perpetuates a deep, systemic inequity between men and women. Men are the “knights in shinning armor” full of agency and the power to save the world while women are the “damsels in distress” perpetually in need of rescuing. The myth substitutes the temporary and very limited idea of rescuing someone with the hard but enduring work of true advocacy. 

The stories we hear as young boys have predisposed us to believe these myths. And not only that, their power often lead us to “read” these messages back into relationships, circumstances and even, in the case of Christians, Scripture itself. Men, how many times have we heard (and believed) statements like “men are supposed to lead,” or, “its the mans job to protect and provide for his family,” or, “the man is the head of the household.” These are heavy, myth-infused burdens and for so many years I did my best to carry them because I believed them to be true. When I got married I did my best to lead my wife until I realized that she’s a gifted leader in her own right. When it was time to have children, being the “head” that I was, I exerted my authority in ways that were often less than perfect and did more harm than good. As our kids grew, I leaned more and more on my wife; sharing the leadership burden more and more with the one person in the world capable of co-leading our family. Our kids are now in their late 20’s and mid thirties. We’ve got grandkids too and if you were to ask them who was the “head” of the Perez house, they would say, “mom and dad.” 

The point of all this is that the warrior mythology tells men that roles like protector, defender, provider are our core identity, when in actuality these are roles that we can and must assume when situations demand, but they do not and should not define us as men. Our myths tell us (men) that we should be brave warriors on horseback winning the battle by virtue of our inherent strength, courage and wisdom; we’re William Wallace in jeans and a sweatshirt. But the truth of the Gospel story suggests that we should be more like the horse; anonymous, disciplined, powerful and surrendered.