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April 20, 2004
Men and Christianity
Someone blogged this when it appeared...maybe Relapsed Catholic, but someone else sent it to me today, so....here it is.
If the Church wants to recover its losses, we’ve got to draw the knuckle draggers back to church. Masculine men are pretty easy. Toss in reason, competition, initiation, struggle, fun and a problem to spiritually throttle, and we’ll be there like stink on a monkey. Blow off, suppress, and spiritually emasculate the environment of these holy testicular necessities and your church, as far as men go, will be more empty than an Oktoberfest in Hialeah.My ClashPoint is this: if concerned conservative Christians want to improve our nation biblically, then the Church has got to eliminate its effeminate drift and re-establish a masculine base. Our times demand strong men: the Church must produce them, not repel them. The Church needs men, who start a ministry, start a business; get involved in politics, the arts and education, and who are not afraid of the secular thugs and pimps who try to keep Christians marginalized in a religious ghetto.
I hasten to add, from an historical perspective that this is not a new concern. The greater affinity of women for organized Christianity, at least in the West, has been noted by observers and insiders almost from the beginning. In this country, thoughts similar to those expressed here were widespread in American Protestantism, leading to, among other things, a movement for "Muscular Christianity" and, eventually, the YMCA.
Posted by Amy Welborn | Permalink
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Comments
Peace, Amy.
If someone found a way to lasso men in, not only would they be bucking the trend in Christianity, but in every major and middling world religion. There was a U of Washington study done a few years ago that found that women worldwide always bettered men in religious commitment, no matter what religion was studied. No difference was found in faiths with exclusive male leadership, either. I would speculate that "feminine drift" in Christianity is an urban legend. If anything, we're seeing more polarization between the sexes and approaches to each within the faith.
Posted by: Todd at Apr 20, 2004 8:46:04 AM
It was, from what I can discern, a feature of Italian Catholicism since at least the 19th century (and likewise in other Romance-language countries as well); the men were starting to enmesh themselves in various revolutionary movements. Which, come to think of it, means it should be no surprise that the feminist movements sprang up in the 19th century as well....
Posted by: Charles M. de Nunzio at Apr 20, 2004 8:48:00 AM
Yes, Amy, this has always been a factor historically. In fact though, male participation has been much greater in the US than in European countries. There has to be acknowledged though the trend for even those areas that would normally be seen as in the pipeline to the masculine priesthood a usurption by the feminine without too much thought to how this would effect the already eroding presence of men connected to the altar. Funny, but the one area that doesn't seem too important to women is that of "usherettes"! Passing the basket still seems to be something the men don't mind doing. I guess it's one of the dirty jobs left ... and somebody has to do it!
Posted by: chris K at Apr 20, 2004 8:52:39 AM
But why? To say that the church is feminized dosen't answer why the men allowed it to get feminized by default. Were the men, except for John, absent at the foot of the cross BECAUSE women were there?
Posted by: caroline at Apr 20, 2004 9:06:26 AM
I second Mr. de Nunzio's remarks about Italian Catholicism. My reading of California and Mexican history confirms that men began falling away from Spanish Catholicism -- in the New World, at any rate -- as a result of Enlightenment/Masonic fervor in the 18th nd 19th centuries. By the time of the Mexican revolution, religion was widely considered the domain of women, children, and feeble-minded men inclined to superstition.
Clearly bringing men back to the Church will require more than merely turning back the clock to the 1950s. Better aim for the 13th century or thereabouts.
Posted by: Jeff Culbreath at Apr 20, 2004 9:11:07 AM
On this issue, see *The Church Impotent* by Leon Podles (2001: Spenser Publishing)
Posted by: William Tighe at Apr 20, 2004 9:11:11 AM
This article is claptrap--Promise Keepers on steroids.
I wonder if Mr. Giles' brigade of Christian soldiers--not that I'm interested in joining--has room for a church-going man who enjoys:
the company and conversation of women, baseball, the poetry of William Butler Yeats, the sensuous, even sinful, pleasures of a cigarette after a good meal and you-know-what, a good drink or two or three, ruminating on the tragedy of "Long Day's Journey Into Night,'' talking to small children, finding mischievous humor when so-called Christian bookstores fail to stock "The Book of Common Prayer,'' watching almost any Humphrey Bogart movie, defending his center-left politics, playing catch with his son, making his daughters' boyfriends squirm just a little yet who declines to audition as a breast-beating patriarch--though his wife would certainly offer a dissenting opinion.
He doesn't own a firearm, paintball gun or spear for that matter. He enjoys John Wayne, but not in the pulpit.
As to those "Nancy boys," I would not like Mr. Giles' chances in a brawl with one of my favorite priests--a Mr. Peepers type who is an ex-Marine.
Posted by: Whitcomb at Apr 20, 2004 9:18:21 AM
I want to second the comment above about "usherettes." I've only had one woman complain about the lack of female ushers and that was a girl I was quasi-dating at the time, so that might have just been flirting. (I'm an usher at my church.)
I've also had women tell me that they're quite happy leaving ushering to men. And the few times we've asked women to usher we've gotten turned down.
So, I guess what I want to know is: why? Any thoughts?
Posted by: Paul Smith at Apr 20, 2004 9:30:36 AM
I attend two parishes that are rather on different ends of the spectrum. Both involve women as ushers. I really fail to see the big deal, and to call the staid ladies in suits pushing the collection basket down the pew "usherettes" is stupid.
Posted by: amy at Apr 20, 2004 9:30:45 AM
While dining at a small, nearly empty restaurant in Vatican City a couple of weeks ago, my husband I could not help but overhear a conversation between two Vatican journalists (they were talking rather loudly). I learned that one of the main concerns of the Church is the inroads that Christian fundamentalists are making in Latin America - PRIMARILY because they are attracting MEN. Apparently the Fund. Christinans are very active in drug/alcohol rehabilitation and reach many nominally Catholic men that way.
My personal observation is that men tend to want/need rigidity, rules, and maybe even a sense of doing "battle" with the secular culture - they want religion to be tougher, more challenging. I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with that - their needs have to be addressed too.
Posted by: Anastasia at Apr 20, 2004 9:54:37 AM
I've often wondered at the terms 'religious ghetto' or 'Catholic ghetto.' "Keeping Christians marginalized in a religious ghetto"? I wonder how the author must view St. Therese and Her Little Way. What a damn fool she was.
In 10+ years of college and post-graduate education, and >10 years in corporate America, I have seen with my own eyes where the ghetto actually is. The impoverished spirituality, a shallowness so profound that it can be gauged in Angstroms, views of life as a bazaar - the search for titillation and appeal...
I will take the lives of my grandparents, quiet lives spent devoted to each other, developing from year to year the holiness of the Sacrament of Matrimony. One could easily deride their lifelong geographic confinement on a midwestern farm as living in a ghetto, yet their apparent lack of worldly ambition was in reality a much greater ambition for the love that God gave to them as a vocation.
So, if you don't mind, I'll turn off the TV and cancel my newspaper subscriptions, love my wife, raise my children, and labor for both their benefits without losing too much sleep over the ghetto in which my family lives.
MKasper
P.S. Amy, I hope you understand that my comments are not directed at you.
Posted by: Mark Kasper at Apr 20, 2004 10:15:45 AM
I think this topic was discussed not too long ago on G. Popcak's weblog, he called it the Mercedes Principle. It reminds me of St. Ignatius Loyola. A military man, reading the lives of the saints and realizing that trying to be saintly is not for the wimps. This is where we need good Catholic psychology b/c Catholic practice can seem rigid or obsessive-compulsive to J. Public. I am not fearful of not being holy, it is more that God desires me to be holy, and I desire to be holy b/c He wants me to be holy and knows this is the greatest thing for me.
I think sometimes many saints are portrayed as wimps. I good example is the stereotypical St. Francis of Assisi. But his life was anything but wimpy.
Posted by: Jared at Apr 20, 2004 10:28:16 AM
Muscular Christians usually tended to be theologically unsound. I'm thinking of people like Thomas Arnold, Charles Kingsley, Episcopal Bishop William Lawrence of Massachusetts, and so on.
Bishop Paul Moore of New York represented the end of the line of the liberal muscular Christian tradition.
Its really hard for me to think of the Inkling crowd, the Tractarians, and the 19th century Catholic revivalists as muscular Christians - Archbishop Ullathorne and Cardinal Manning being distinguished exceptions.
Posted by: Patrick Rothwell at Apr 20, 2004 11:05:29 AM
While my first reaction is to send this guy a Precious Moments figurine accompanied by a lovely floral card...
I actually think this is basically one of the better (practical) arguments against women's ordination.
Posted by: Cheryl at Apr 20, 2004 11:14:41 AM
Anastasia: My personal observation is that men tend to want/need rigidity, rules, and maybe even a sense of doing "battle" with the secular culture - they want religion to be tougher, more challenging. I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with that - their needs have to be addressed too.
Hear, hear. I've been saying that for a while. Mel Gibson's Jesus is the manly Jesus -- the Jesus I never, ever hear preached and presented at mass. I am so sick of the Dr. Phil Jesus that we constantly, constantly, constantly get that I could scream.
Posted by: Rod Dreher at Apr 20, 2004 11:16:39 AM
Support your local Knights of Columbus chapter..even better, if you are a man, become a member!
Form a men's group at your parish. Do good works and have fun. Help perform repairs at the parish, help with parish school projects, go on male golf outings or to sporting events as a group bus trip, etc.
Build brotherhood and fraternity among men. The group of men will lead, and from that group will come your male leaders.
This is not a male superiority argument..its about getting a segment of traditionally uninvolved Catholics and gettign them involved.
Posted by: JohnB. at Apr 20, 2004 11:25:07 AM
Rod,
I know what you mean. Case in point:
Palm Sunday,St. Suzanna's in Rome - the English speaking church: The very pleasant Paulist father gave a sermon on how it was WOMEN who stuck it out with Christ through His Passion, while the MEN ran away. How there is strength in enduring, hoping, praying. Fair enough and a good point. I kept waiting for him to talk about how the MEN redeemed themselves and went on to risk life and limb preaching the Good News in hostile territory, undertaking dangerous journeys and how they suffered violent deaths. That is a different kind of courage, but no less praiseworthy. Why can't both "male" and "female" virtues be acknowledged, encouraged, celebrated? Isn't there a place for all at God's table? I couldn't help but wonder how I would react as a man to such favoritism.
Children have a much better chance at developing their faith when their fathers practice it too. My father and uncles LOVED The Passion primarily because of the way Jesus is played.
Posted by: Anastasia at Apr 20, 2004 11:32:58 AM
Have you ever actually listened to Dr. Phil, Rod? Ever though he got his start on Oprah and deals with "women's problems" on his own show, I'd actually describe him as more of a manly, straight-talker type myself. A few Dr. Phil-type priests (orthodox, of course!) might not be such a bad thing ;-)
Our young pastor, Father John, is very orthodox, a great homilist, and, believe it or not, definitely a "guy's guy'" as well. He loves sports and started a parish softball team a couple of years ago. This Easter FOUR of his players were received into the Church. Now that's a record to brag about, if you ask me. Of course, these poor guys had to sit through RCIA sessions led by our well-meaning female DRE, who tends to focus too much on hand-holding, feelings-sharing, etc.
The softball converts muddled through, in spite of our touchy-feely RCIA program. But I believe it was our pastor who got them into the pews and I have no doubt he'll keep them there.
Posted by: Cheryl at Apr 20, 2004 11:44:30 AM
My language is not that of Mr. Giles, but as someone involved in men's ministry in my parish, I share many of his concerns. Contemporary Christianity often fails to call us to the kind of radical discipleship that could speak to a man's heart.
But I would also say that a man who follows Jesus in the path of discipleship is as likely to have his notions of masculinity challenged as he is to have them confirmed. Too many men are still boys, obsessed with the playground pecking order, with playing and watching games, and with purchasing larger and larger toys. But there is men's work that needs to be done and we need to get about doing it.
Posted by: Peter Nixon at Apr 20, 2004 11:48:11 AM
For an example of an approach that has worked, consider Cursillo. After the war years (especially after the chaos of the Spanish Civil War) lay men had largely dissappeard from Catholic life in Spain. Cursillo grew out of Catholic Action and the 1948 national pilgrimage to Santiago Compostela, and was originally aimed on Mallorca at men. Many Cursillo communities still run separate men's and women's weekends. (I have seen both co-ed and separate weekends work well.) But even on co-ed weekends, discussion tables are separated by gender.
One of the problems that Cursillo has had, especially in this country, is its identification with the general run of 60's/70's renewal and charismatic groups. It's not that those groups are necessarily wrong, but Cursillo is actually rather different, and there has been a lot of work on getting the movement back to its original, largely Ignatian roots. While I am no longer active in the movement itself (in my area, Cursillo is largely a Spanish language movement only in the Catholic Church), when I was on teams and on a diocesan Secretariat, I witnessed the effectiveness of this movement on bringing just the kind of men that some of you are taling about back to Christ and his Church, but in a more authenticly Catholic and counter-cultural fashion than PK.
Posted by: Claude Muncey at Apr 20, 2004 11:51:21 AM
I agree with Anastasia’s comments. Recently someone recommended to me the book called “Wild at Heart” by John Eldredge (a Protestant). In it, he made the point that men want a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue. I have to agree with him.
One of the reasons I am a supporter of the Tridentine Latin Mass is that it seems to attract men more because of its strong adherence to a set of rubrics. If one has ever attended a military banquet, or even a dinner at a lodge, one will probably see that men do like a certain formalism and set of rules that should not be breached.
Further, the old liturgy seems to take a more confrontational approach to the world at large rather than acquiescing to it. Too often in the new liturgy the ambience seems to be that of a group hug. And that is not going to attract men.
As the world and the Church come more into conflict then perhaps we will see a greater involvement of men. As long as members of the church seem to be merely accommodating the world and not confronting it men will probably not be too attracted to it.
And when I spoke of a “battle” I don’t mean some macho caricature. Poets, artists, architects, and others are needed just as much as anyone in the fight against a rampant secularism.
Posted by: Brennan Doherty at Apr 20, 2004 11:55:19 AM
Lose the fathers, lose the sons. And eventually, the daughters, too. My wife cites her late father's example as ensuring she'd be a self-identified, if nominal, Catholic during her undergrad years. I wasn't raised Catholic, but when my dad stopped caring about getting up on Sunday, so did I. It was my brother's conversion to evangelical Christianity that made me think there might be something to all this Jesus business.
I think a good deal of it can be plausibly laid at the feet of modern American Catholic worship styles, from the sign on the lawn to the bowdlerized song lyrics. This summer, the New Oxford Review will be publishing an essay about the hurdles men go through in modern Catholic worship, and the turnoffs involved.
Some of it is also a trend across society--but that's hardly an excuse for the Church to sit on its fanny. The Great Commission doesn't have gender exceptions or "Sorry, Jesus, but societal trends made it tougher" ripcord. It took the better part of a generation for society to realize the common sense dictum that a father is not some dispensible extra irrelevant to the raising of children. Will it take the Church another generation to realize the same about the need to bring men back into the fold?
Posted by: Dale Price at Apr 20, 2004 12:36:43 PM
I'm with Brennan. Men love ceremony, honor, nobility, gestures - namely the rigor of sacraments and devotion.
I know that for me, the turning point in my faith as a teenager had everything to do with this. I went to benediction. For the first time, I saw incense, beautiful vestments, a monstrance and priests who, beneath it all, were manly. They wore their collars and cassocks in public. They weren't afraid to be Christ's men. That meant a lot to me. It gave me something worth holding on to.
Posted by: Steve Skojec at Apr 20, 2004 12:39:09 PM
Of course, there can be a world of difference between "masculine" and "macho." Whenever I see those waves and waves of Muslim men prostrating themselves in the Middle East I am always struck by the absence of women who of course are expected to worship separately. And I've always loved how Jesus was not afraid to show his tender side -- his longing to gather Jerusalem to himself as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings is about as tender as can be.
There's such a thing as a healthy "feminism" just as there can be a destructive "masculinity." Christ seems to have embodied the best of both.
Posted by: Christine at Apr 20, 2004 12:56:42 PM
An excellent topic!
Our too-soft society is becoming thoroughly feminized, and it stands to reason that the Church is following suit. The problem is much larger and more pervasive than most people realize or will admit.
I think the best thing a man can do to fight this (providing he still has his identity in tact) is to set a strong masculine example for his sons and bring them up with a clear understanding of what it means to be a man.
Posted by: Poppi at Apr 20, 2004 1:12:01 PM
