Outer Rim Territories

The Feminization of Christianity

I keep meaning to get around to reading a book I picked up last summer called "No More Christian Nice Guy" since last summer when the author was interviewed on Issues Etc.. The premise of the book is that the contextualization of Christianity to a feminine social setting has made Christianity unappealing to men. Consequently, men are abdicating their role in church, home, and world. A bold statement and one I should find the time to develop more. In the meantime, a few bloggers have given their takes and personal examples of this phenomena. I've highlighted some of the more interesting sections but I urge you to read as many as you can. It truly might make you rethink the whole "personal relationship with Jesus" mantra or at least see that it may be polarized to the female sex. GetReligion: June 10, 2006

Western Christianity has become part of the feminine world from which men feel they must distance themselves to attain masculinity. That is why men stay away from church, especially when they see that the men involved in church tend to be less masculine. The most religious denominations, those that have the most external display, have the worst reputation. Anglo-Catholics were lambasted in the Victorian press as unmanly because they devoted themselves to lace and plaster statues (in some cases, this criticism was justified). Psychological studies have detected a connection between femininity in men and interest in religion. There may even be a physical difference.

The gender gap is not a distinctly American one but it is a Christian one, according to Murrow. The theology and practices of Judaism, Buddhism and Islam offer "uniquely masculine" experiences for men, he said. "Every Muslim man knows that he is locked in a great battle between good and evil, and although that was a prevalent teaching in Christianity until about 100 years ago, today it's primarily about having a relationship with a man who loves you unconditionally," Murrow said. "And if that's the punch line of the Gospel, then you're going to have a lot more women than men taking you up on your offer because women are interested in a personal relationship with a man who loves you unconditionally. Men, generally, are not."

I know that a lot of Catholic guys I've talked to over the years have this sense that the Church either doesn't want to encourage or actually wants to discourage the kinds of things we bring to the Church as men, as part of our nature. The Church, to be blunt, wants emasculates. Or that, generally speaking, is how it has seemed to me -- and why Mel Gibson's Christ in "The Passion" was such an inspiration. That was the first time I really understood how manful it was -- that is, how fulfilling of his nature as a male -- for the Saviour to suffer and die as a willing victim.

Why aren't the men who run the Catholic church raging against the cruelty of priests who prey on kids? Why do so many good priests and Catholic laymen remain as docile as eunuchs despite it all? Do we think we're not going to have to answer to God for our moral cowardice? Within the church, there is a culture of what C.S. Lewis called "men without chests." Most of us go along to get along, shirking our duties as Christians and men to protect the weak and guard the integrity of the religious community.