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Why do men stay away?
Christian Century ^ | October 20, 2011 | Thomas G. Long

Posted on 10/23/2011 6:23:05 PM PDT by hiho hiho

Gathered around the coffeepot in a church fellowship hall on a fall Sunday, a gaggle of men are talking with animation and passion, joking and bragging in the way of males. The topic? Football, of course. "How 'bout them Devils! D'ya see that pick six in the third quarter? Amazing! Hey, Joe, sorry about your Dawgs! Maybe you'll get 'em next week, if they don't fire your coach first!" In a few minutes, many will wander into worship, the married ones joining their wives. As the first hymn begins, some of them will stand and keep silent guard, staring mutely into space as the women beside them sing.

What is it with men and church? We men are famously outnumbered, to be sure. According to a recent survey, we make up only 39 percent of the worshipers in a typical congregation. This is not just because we die earlier and leave the pews filled with the sturdier gender. The percentages hold across the board, for every age category.

Even when we do show up for worship, we're often not particularly happy about it. This is not breaking news, of course. Study after study has shown that many men who name themselves as Christian feel bored, alienated and disengaged from church. When we drag ourselves to church, researchers say, it is not for ourselves but to fulfill the obligations of our roles as son, husband, father or pastor.

Why are men and the church often at odds? Sadly, many of the answers are as insulting as they are misguided. Some researchers are persuaded that the antipathy of men to church resides at the hormonal level. They argue that men, loaded as they are with testosterone, have a proclivity to impulsive, risk-taking, occasionally violent action—exactly the behavior disallowed in the soft world of worship. Given this theory, what enticements can the wimpy church possibly offer us men when we compare it to the joys of hiding away in a man cave, stuffing our maws with pizza and beer as we watch Da Bears and heading out after sundown to rip off a few wheel covers and rumble in the Wal-Mart parking lot?

Others propose a more political and historical explanation, namely that centuries of male control of the church have yielded to an ineluctable force of feminization. Pastel worship, passive and sentimental images of the Christian life, handholding around the communion table and hymns that coo about lover-boy Jesus who "walks with me and talks with me" have replaced stronger, more masculine themes. One man reported that the first thing he does when he walks into a church is to look at the curtains. One glance tells him all he needs to know about who's making the decisions.

Really? The feminine erosion of the church? As David Foster Wallace said in a different context, this is an idea "so stupid it practically drools." Even sillier are the proposed masculine remedies. One website suggests "Ten Ways to Man Up Your Church," beginning with obtaining "a manly pastor" who projects "a healthy masculinity." This patently ignores strong women clergy, of course, but it also denigrates the capacity of men to recognize and respond to able leadership regardless of gender or stereotypes. I recently visited a church with a chest-thumping manly pastor. After worship, one man in the congregation confided, "I feel like I'm on the set of a Tarzan movie." As for "manning up" worship, I know that if my church begins handing out NASCAR jackets with the bulletins, I'm going to look for a different church—maybe one with lace curtains.

Still, the numbers don't lie. Men are staying away from church. The reasons are undoubtedly complex, but perhaps a clue can be found in a Christian group that attracts men and women in roughly equal numbers: Eastern Orthodoxy. A cynic might say that men are attracted to Orthodoxy because it is conservative, with an all-male clergy, many of them sporting beards. The finding of religion journalist Frederica Mathewes-Green, however, is closer to the truth. She surveyed male adult converts and discovered that Orthodoxy's main appeal is that it's "challenging." One convert said, "Orthodoxy is serious. It is difficult. It is demanding. It is about mercy, but it is also about overcoming myself." Another said that he was sick of "bourgeois, feel-good American Christianity."

Yes, some churchgoers are satisfied with feel-good Christianity, but I think many Christians—women and men—yearn for a more costly, demanding, life-changing discipleship. Perhaps women are more patient when they don't find it, or more discerning of the deeper cross-bearing opportunities that lie beneath the candied surface. Men take a walk or hang around the church coffeepot talking in jargon about football: another disciplined and costly arena of life in which people sacrifice their bodies and their individual desires for a larger cause that matters to them, at least for the moment. Near transcendence is preferable to no transcendence at all.


TOPICS: Orthodox Christian; Religion & Culture; Worship
KEYWORDS: divorceindustry; fatherless; feminism; men; menandthechurch; romanticism
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To: hiho hiho

These men need to read the Bible and find out who and why Christ selected apostles and disciples.

Men are the mainstay of any church. Please pray for them and encourage them to follow after the example of Christ, the apostlels and the first 72 disciples.


101 posted on 10/24/2011 8:04:12 AM PDT by Salvation ("With God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26)
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To: Cronos

We need to get back to a clear division between men and woman like in Poland. The androgyny comes from Marxism and the underlying principle of Marxism is to eliminate all differences between the sexes—to eliminate the natural family. Eliminate the differences of the sexes and homosexual marriage is next. Boys today are given the concept that women are the same as men in all media and schools on purpose and it confuses them while forming sexual identity. There is a big difference and it should be learned early with respect for that difference and a role. Our media also sexualizes children which reduces them to animals...which destroys morality in the young and makes them see people as sex objects which undermines mature Christianity. Marxist ideology has to be excised.

The concept of “father” is given to children in the natural family and without a father figure in young childhood, the concept of a Christian God becomes less likely. Marriage needs to be put on firmer ground also...no fault divorce comes right from Lenin....to undermine relationships when they hit rocky times. Daycares have to be eliminated and the natural family has to take charge of the formative years in raising children and preschools (after three) should only have children away from the mother for no more than 3 hours a few times a week. Parents have to take back the education of their children—the early years where worldview if first established. Lincoln hardly set a foot in “schools” as did most independent, brilliant thinkers of their time.

Today’s schools are government indoctrination centers to deChristianize. We need local control of schools with NO government involved in curricula, etc.


102 posted on 10/24/2011 10:36:30 AM PDT by savagesusie
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To: Future Snake Eater
How about Surfer Jesus?


103 posted on 10/24/2011 1:47:57 PM PDT by ichabod1 (Nuts; A house divided against itself cannot stand.)
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To: buccaneer81

You were being indoctrinated, FRiend. No doubt, that crap ran all the tough guys away, think of how many fled the church, and like good communists the defenders blamed what had gone on before instead of what they were doing RIGHT NOW and so perhaps everything went to hell when the faggot priests started reinterpreting Vatican II in their image.


104 posted on 10/24/2011 2:17:14 PM PDT by ichabod1 (Nuts; A house divided against itself cannot stand.)
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To: Jonty30

Yeah, you may be right, but I’ve noticed with this sort of article that the subject of football is always introduced. Every “make church more he-manly” has something about football. SCREW football, I could give a flip about it. I don’t know why it upsets me - and it isn’t that I don’t LIKE football, I actually know quite a bit about it, but I’m not INTO it at this time in my life.

I’m not explaining this well. It’s like writing men off as only being interested in a stupid sport or something.


105 posted on 10/24/2011 2:26:44 PM PDT by ichabod1 (Nuts; A house divided against itself cannot stand.)
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To: buffaloguy

you know what?

That actually is a darn good idea.


106 posted on 10/24/2011 8:31:36 PM PDT by Shadowstrike (Be polite, Be professional, but have a plan to kill everyone you meet.)
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To: Mr Rogers
What is there in a church service for men to do or care about?

Uh, the obvious answer would be the Lord. Just guessing

Maybe you wife is nagging you, because you would rather go jogging, ride a horse, shoot a gun, or just enjoy doing nothing. Was this the reason you got married? To be alone? Or was it just for safe, free sex?

Why would a man want to be put in that spot? I'd have to say that a man puts himself in that spot. Church is supposed to be about coming together as a family, as a "body" to learn about God and the Lord. Yes, women do talk to each other, and about a multitude of subjects, and maybe it's that way because their husbands, seem to have to same idea as you do. That they would rather do nothing at all than discuss anything with their spouse.

I've seen grown men cry over the Superbowl, but you have a problem with caring in a church? I'm really feeling sorry for Mrs. Rogers now.

107 posted on 10/24/2011 8:44:49 PM PDT by Shadowstrike (Be polite, Be professional, but have a plan to kill everyone you meet.)
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To: Shadowstrike

“What is there in a church service for men to do or care about? / Uh, the obvious answer would be the Lord. Just guessing”

I hate to break it to you, but the Lord is at work in a Christian’s life 24/7. Sitting passively listening to someone urge you to be more like a woman is NOT a part of serving God.

“Maybe you wife is nagging you, because you would rather go jogging, ride a horse, shoot a gun, or just enjoy doing nothing. Was this the reason you got married? To be alone? Or was it just for safe, free sex?”

Are you an idiot? I think 24 years of marriage indicates I’ve been in it for something other than “safe, free sex?”

You apparently have a very odd idea of marriage, and how people spend their day. I spend a lot of time with my family. But no, I do not want their companionship 24 hours every day. Only a very weird person would crave that.

Nor do I go to church to be with my family. There is, after all, almost no interaction with my family at church.

Again, church is largely a passive event. You sit, you join in group singing, and you listen to someone talking at you.

If that is what you consider quality time with your family, perhaps you need to rethink your family life. If you have one. You write like someone who does not.

“Yes, women do talk to each other, and about a multitude of subjects, and maybe it’s that way because their husbands, seem to have to same idea as you do.”

You have a real problem with men.

Here is a news flash - women like talking FAR more than men do. But I just drove my wife home from work, and we just spent 30 minutes talking to each other. Of course, in church, we do not talk to each other. We are either passively listening, or she is seeking out women to gab with.

“I’ve seen grown men cry over the Superbowl, but you have a problem with caring in a church? I’m really feeling sorry for Mrs. Rogers now.”

Don’t waste your pity. Frankly, you need to meet some men and learn something about them.

No, I don’t go to church to cry. I don’t cry in public. And no, I don’t watch the Superbowl, either. Maybe that is because we don’t have our TV hooked up. Maybe that is also why we have time to talk to each other.

But church? You want men to go to church and get teary eyed over “sweet baby Jesus”?

Well, here is a hint: Jesus doesn’t want it. Jesus isn’t some pansy. You might try reading the Gospels, and meeting a Jesus who is absent from many church services.

You are a great example of why men avoid church like the plague. It is a feminizing, near homosexual passive experience, meant to turn men into women. Many preachers preach sermons full of horse poop, because they have never lived. And the service is designed to take away initiative, punish real thought, and numb men into pathetic dykes with balls instead of being the men God calls to action.


108 posted on 10/24/2011 9:10:27 PM PDT by Mr Rogers ("they found themselves made strangers in their own country")
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To: Mr Rogers; Shadowstrike
"Many preachers preach sermons full of horse poop, because they have never lived. And the service is designed to take away initiative, punish real thought, and numb men into pathetic dykes with balls instead of being the men God calls to action."

I hate to say it but I do agree with some of what you're saying here.I haven't been to any church for a long time and I wonder wether thinking the taking of initiative,the punishing of real thought or just the plain numbing effect is something I use as a reason for holding at arm's length what being a man of action might entail.Maybe up-ending tables?

109 posted on 10/24/2011 9:47:55 PM PDT by mitch5501 (My guitar wants to kill your momma!)
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To: mitch5501

The glimpses we have of the New Testament church indicates a much more participatory meeting than the typical SBC one. The evening services we have are, to my way of thinking, much better than the morning service. It is basically a Bible study led by the pastor, but allowing folks to comment & to ask questions and share their experiences.

I did a bit of test & acquisition work for the US Air Force before I retired. I’d go to meetings at Lockheed where engineers would be discussing stuff. And yes, although it was my work and important to me, listening to someone drone for an hour is painful.


110 posted on 10/24/2011 10:00:16 PM PDT by Mr Rogers ("they found themselves made strangers in their own country")
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To: Mr Rogers

To answer your question.
Yes, I do have a family, No, I don’t have a problem with men. Not real ones at least.

And Church is for Fellowship in the Lord, learning about the Lord, talking (that thing you seem to despise so much) to the Lord.

But, you do really seem to have a problem with women...

News flash, God made woman and He considered it good.

Maybe the Church would be changed, IF you, as the ball busting man you want us to believe you are, were to actually go to Church, and Speak (there’s that word again) with your Pastor about having a active role in the worship service.

And no, I’m neither an idiot , nor am I weird. My family is interested in each others lives. It sounds to me, that you simply wish to be Lord and Master of yours, looking down your nose at the “woman” in your life, and call Jesus (the ways He’s being taught at most Churches now) a WUSS!

As the Head of the House (or do you prefer Master?) of your house, it is your DUTY as a Husband, and Father (I’m assuming that you are), TO go to Church, and LEAD by example. All I see/hear you doing is tearing down, instead of helping build up.

Don’t like the way things are? CHANGE them.

A real man would.


111 posted on 10/24/2011 10:31:14 PM PDT by Shadowstrike (Be polite, Be professional, but have a plan to kill everyone you meet.)
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To: VermiciousKnid
You are quite right about the Catholic Church. It has its faults, but it has stood like a rock in a stormy sea since its founding. To me, I look at the sham Henry VIII created, the Church of England, and I observe the irrelevancy, degeneracy, and utter uselessness into which it has fallen! No wonder the worldwide Anglican community is in such turmoil! The real heart of the Anglican Church isn't the atrophied husk found in the UK. Instead, it lies in the vibrant stalk growing in Africa (Nigeria, I believe).

Likewise, the American equivalent, the Episcopal Church is undergoing exactly such a schism as the Anglican. This has led to court fights as to who owns the church property if the church pulls out of the ECUS fold. The cynical side if me says “follow the money”. Do that and you find there's LOTS of money involved for some folks who spend a lot of time appearing “holier than thou”.

The wife's son and daughter in law are practicing Catholics. The son converted to his wife's religion. They say a lot of good about the church, but there are a lot of criticisms. We're like minded conservatives in our extended family and all of us are upset by the liberal cancer that seems to have infected everything — including all the churches.

Thank you for your support. I've always said that I will stand with the rest of my contemporaries when judgment day comes. I freely admit that I have sinned in my life, but overall I have tried to live it in as principled and moral a way as I could. I do accept Jesus as Lord and Savior.

So many of my contemporaries think they will never have to face a final reckoning. You're wrong and when they go down the ranks making the cull, there are going to be a lot of surprised, arrogant, once all-powerful men and women go down. I believe God will keep me at his side.

112 posted on 10/25/2011 1:58:12 AM PDT by MasterGunner01 (To err is human; to forgive is not our policy. -- SEAL Team SIX)
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To: Shadowstrike; TankerKC

I don’t have a problem with women. I do have a problem with women who want men to be interchangeable with them. I do have a problem with women who think their characteristics are better than those given men by God.

From your home page:

“Proud to be human companion to six canine children, and two feline children.”

That speaks volumes. Cats and dogs are not children. And as I suspected, no men. I’ve been a Christian for 40 years, and a husband for 24. I’ve got three children, all human. Three grandchildren. Three DOGS. Two HORSES. 5 animals, to go with the family, not to replace having one.

“And Church is for Fellowship in the Lord, learning about the Lord, talking (that thing you seem to despise so much) to the Lord.”

I don’t despise talking, but like most men (and unlike many women...or is it womyn?), it isn’t my life.

Have you ever heard of having a “Quiet Time” with the Lord? Me too.

Have you ever heard of having a quiet time with women? Me neither...and I’ve never been tempted to say to God, “Just give it a rest!”

“It sounds to me, that you simply wish to be Lord and Master of yours, looking down your nose at the “woman” in your life, and call Jesus (the ways He’s being taught at most Churches now) a WUSS!”

Nope. I’ve never had a desire to look down on my wife. But the Jesus taught in many churches today IS a wussie! And a pansy. And a faggot, most likely. Long hair, wears a dress, and gushes with sentimentality. Has nothing to do with the God revealed in the Gospels, and wouldn’t THINK of disturbing people by returning with a sword, ready to destroy those who oppose Him. That would be so...so...judgmental! Indeed, the Jesus of the Modern Church would probably rather come again and...talk. Talk about how men should act more like women...

“Maybe the Church would be changed, IF you, as the ball busting man you want us to believe you are, were to actually go to Church, and Speak (there’s that word again) with your Pastor about having a active role in the worship service.”

I don’t WANT a role in the service as it exists. I don’t want to lead the singing. And I frankly don’t think most “worship services” have much, if anything, to do with worshiping God. Nor with serving Him.

“As the Head of the House (or do you prefer Master?) of your house, it is your DUTY as a Husband, and Father (I’m assuming that you are), TO go to Church, and LEAD by example. All I see/hear you doing is tearing down, instead of helping build up.”

There you go again, pretending I’m trying to dominate my wife. Bold talk for a “human companion” with 6 canine kids, and two feline kids! But I also refuse to be dominated BY my wife. Or by womyn.

And I’ve been going to church for about 40 years. But I’m not going to pretend that “church” is very attractive to men. That is the problem. The typical Protestant service is designed to appeal to women, and then complains that men don’t want to attend. Can’t speak about Catholics, although I’ve never met a Catholic Priest who complained “Why aren’t there more women who want to come to Mass? All I’ve go tis men, men, men!”

“News flash, God made woman and He considered it good.”

Actually, the scriptures stop saying “And God saw that it was good” in Chapter 1. Woman was created in Chapter 2. Just saying...

And there God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” And a good woman is a tremendous helper to a man, but not a replacement for man - any more than a dog or cat is a replacement for a child!

It may be the problem is that society has rejected men as the head of the household, and largely handed that role to women. I can’t solve that problem - only reject it in my life.


113 posted on 10/25/2011 2:32:54 AM PDT by Mr Rogers ("they found themselves made strangers in their own country")
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To: hiho hiho

As an Orthodox Christian, I always find these sort of articles quite interesting but wholly unrelated to my own Church experiences. A “big change” in the Divine Liturgy means that a Litany can be said in English instead of Greek or Slavonic. Men still run the Liturgy, read the gospel, and only clergymen distribute the Eucharist.

And I prefer our Troparian which often recall a Saint who suffered greatly at the hands of the Pagans but remained a witness for Christ. Nothing “touchy-feely” about it, just a reminder of the sort of challenges that others have taken up before you.


114 posted on 10/25/2011 5:59:31 AM PDT by FormerLib (Sacrificing our land and our blood cannot buy protection from jihad.-Bishop Artemije of Kosovo)
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To: Mr Rogers

Gee, I didn’t know I had to list my human children and my husband on my FR home page. Guess I missed the memo. I’m not that keen on advertizing my ENTIRE life for all to see.

All I hear from you is a bunch of hypocrisy, and a cry baby attitude.

Women have ruined the church...Yet, I’ve yet to see one word from you that would make it any different.

Church is too feminine...Yet, I’ve yet to see one word from you how to change that.

Church is isn’t manly enough...Once again, no comment from you on ways to make it different.

Wah-Wah-Wah:

I’m not going to go after every point in your little speech here, frankly I ain’t that interested.

I also looked at YOUR page for the record. Retired Military, let me guess an Officer? That’s what you sound like, one who is used to giving orders, but coming up with very little in the solution department.

And maybe, just maybe that the women had to take over as head of house... ‘cause I sure as hell haven’t seen many men doing the job.


115 posted on 10/25/2011 7:07:11 PM PDT by Shadowstrike (Be polite, Be professional, but have a plan to kill everyone you meet.)
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To: Shadowstrike

“And maybe, just maybe that the women had to take over as head of house... ‘cause I sure as hell haven’t seen many men doing the job.”

Speaks volumes about you & your life.

As does, “Proud to be human companion to six canine children, and two feline children.”

Womyn! Who needs them, or wants them?

“Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.” 1 Tim 2


116 posted on 10/25/2011 7:41:14 PM PDT by Mr Rogers ("they found themselves made strangers in their own country")
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To: Mr Rogers

Actually, no it does not speak volumes about my life, it speaks volumes about your life.

As for my love of Gods creation, His animals, I make no excuses for having a heart, something you obviously do not.

I really do pity you.

And, I’ll actually pray for you. Anyone with this much contempt for not only women, but also Gods animals needs all the prayers they can get.


117 posted on 10/25/2011 11:13:07 PM PDT by Shadowstrike (Be polite, Be professional, but have a plan to kill everyone you meet.)
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To: Mr Rogers
“Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.” 1 Tim 2

And, if you actually attended Church, you might learn that the verse above doesn't mean what you think it does. For if it did, God Himself would not have given me my own voice, my own thoughts. Just thought you should know that.

118 posted on 10/25/2011 11:17:11 PM PDT by Shadowstrike (Be polite, Be professional, but have a plan to kill everyone you meet.)
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To: Shadowstrike

And if you had bothered to READ my replies on this thread, you would know I’ve been going to church for 40 years...

But the verse I quoted DOES apply to women teaching men in the church - something many churches allow, but that contradicts what scripture says.

But then, scripture isn’t something most modern churches care about...


119 posted on 10/26/2011 5:50:01 AM PDT by Mr Rogers ("they found themselves made strangers in their own country")
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To: Shadowstrike; Mr Rogers
Do not make this thread "about" individual Freepers. That is also a form of "making it personal."

Discuss the issues all you want, but do not make it personal.

120 posted on 10/26/2011 7:42:47 AM PDT by Religion Moderator
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