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"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"
1 posted on 10/23/2011 6:23:09 PM PDT by hiho hiho
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To: hiho hiho
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."

I notice the author doesn't try to refute the idea with facts or reasoning but with a typical leftist's response of "ur stoopid".

2 posted on 10/23/2011 6:30:29 PM PDT by jtal (Runnin' a World in Need with White Folks' Greed - since 1492)
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To: hiho hiho
In the American Catholic Church it started with Folk Masses.

Even when I was a kid I said ughh and complained...a lot...as an altar boy when I was assigned to serve at them.

3 posted on 10/23/2011 6:32:15 PM PDT by buccaneer81 (ECOMCON)
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To: hiho hiho
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.

What a bunch of dribble---according to a recent survey is where one should stop reading...

5 posted on 10/23/2011 6:39:23 PM PDT by fight_truth_decay
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To: hiho hiho
...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...

The feminizing of Christianity is part of the problem - the other part is the 'liberalization' of Christianity... Some churches feel like they're extensions of the democrat party...

6 posted on 10/23/2011 6:39:42 PM PDT by GOPJ (OWS - a scam to shift blame for unemployment and misery away from Obama..)
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To: hiho hiho

There is also sitting around listen to a pastor beggar the point. Forty minutes is plenty of time to deliver an effective sermon.

Singing “He walks with me” just ain’t the same as “Onward Christian Soldiers” or “The Olde Rugged Cross”.

Then listening to a preacher pretty much deliver a eulogy and say the deceased is going to hell because he didn’t attend that church.


7 posted on 10/23/2011 6:39:49 PM PDT by Hawk1976 (It is better to die in battle than it is to live as a slave.)
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To: hiho hiho
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.

What a bunch of dribble---according to a recent survey is where one should stop reading...

8 posted on 10/23/2011 6:40:08 PM PDT by fight_truth_decay
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To: hiho hiho

Secularism, Agnosticism. Priest’s and Bishops have had an effect as well.
There were more practicing people 100 years ago in the USof A and Europe than today.

The Church grew almost 7000 % in Africa and the South Pacific in the same period of time.


9 posted on 10/23/2011 6:42:17 PM PDT by reefdiver ("Let His day's be few And another takes His office")
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To: hiho hiho

Personally, the church the author describes is an unbiblical new age church and will never prosper under the hand of almighty God. The church as it should be is laid out in the Epistles of Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles and a female clergy is anathema and is antichrist.
I stick to the independent bible believing churchs and away from the dying and dead mainline cults and denominations.


10 posted on 10/23/2011 6:42:24 PM PDT by kindred ( Third party conservatism is on the rise, God bless the conservative tea party.)
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To: hiho hiho

I’ve never missed a single weekend mass since I was baptized. I’m just programmed to show up for mass but to be honest, when I was younger all i did was scan the congregation for hot chicks until my Mom told me to knock it off.


12 posted on 10/23/2011 6:44:20 PM PDT by max americana
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To: hiho hiho
Why do men stay away?

'cuz.

18 posted on 10/23/2011 6:49:39 PM PDT by the invisib1e hand (...then they came for the guitars, and we kicked their sorry faggot asses into the dust)
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To: hiho hiho
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."

No refutation, just invective. I don't know if I'd point fingers at women in particular, but the concept is sound. Until I got off my butt and actually read the Bible, I bought the lie of the touchy-feely Jesus as described in this article. When you read the Gospels, he's anything but touchy-feely. He's an extremely intelligent, very judgmental, argumentative guy who also happens to always be right (which really pisses off the Powers-That-Be).

That hippy, Bee-Gees look-alike is deathly dull. I like the guy I read about.

22 posted on 10/23/2011 6:58:34 PM PDT by Future Snake Eater (Don't stop. Keep moving!)
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To: hiho hiho
sick of "bourgeois, feel-good American Christianity

That about sums it up.

btw, what I find insulting is the notion that all men want to talk about is football.

23 posted on 10/23/2011 6:58:43 PM PDT by ichabod1 (Nuts; A house divided against itself cannot stand.)
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To: hiho hiho

Paragraphs 5 and 6 told me everything I need to know about this author, and this author’s agenda.

Game, set, match, trophy.

In 2 paragraphs.


27 posted on 10/23/2011 7:05:58 PM PDT by Don W (You can forget what you do for a living when your knees are in the breeze.)
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To: hiho hiho

The social justice message is driving us away.

Pray for America


31 posted on 10/23/2011 7:08:36 PM PDT by bray (Join the Cain Mutiny, tell the IRS 9-9-9!)
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To: hiho hiho
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.

The author has the answer, right in front of him, if he had the sense to read his own writing.

With the usual disclaimer of there being many exceptions: Men tend to be active. Women tend to be passive. Sitting in a pew listening to someone else talk, letting themselves be led by some arbitrarily appointed 'pastor', is perfectly suited to women. Not so much to men. Men seek purpose. In the real world and the world of work. Women seek nurturance. That's why so many develop crushes on their oh so unctuous and empathic pastors.

Men see their role as working hard in this world to support and take care of their families-- vocations for which the church has no respect. Any effort made to recognize the contributions of men boils down to lip service. Just be sure to make your pledge.

Bottom line, men don't go where they are not wanted, and let's be honest--churches don't really want men around. They lean toward women because they find women more malleable, less demanding of accountability, and more persuasible.

My former pastor, who had a ten person board of ministers, used to have about half and half men and women. By the time he retired, the Board was all women--except for the guy who pulled maintenance on the building. And the pastor seemed to like it that way just fine.

36 posted on 10/23/2011 7:13:32 PM PDT by hinckley buzzard
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To: hiho hiho

Fredrica Mathewes-Green may think that the appeal of the Orthodox church is that it’s challenging, but she’s also written that that challenge is what appeals to men; they make the move and haul their wives with them.

Really, who has curtains in church? (Not us Catholics.)


37 posted on 10/23/2011 7:13:38 PM PDT by heartwood
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To: hiho hiho

Personally, I quit going to church because 2 out of 3 sermons in almost every church I’ve ever been were variations on a theme: Why God wants you to write me a check. Why you’ll be bless if you tithe. Why you’ll be blessed if you write me a check above your tithe. Why tithing isn’t enough. God needs your dollars to spread his word, give more. Since I saw almost no change from church to church, I gave before I found a preacher who just said, “Stick’m up” on Sundays.

Wit aside, I’ve never attended a church who’s predominate theme wasn’t money money money.


46 posted on 10/23/2011 7:40:34 PM PDT by Melas (u)
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To: hiho hiho

If I may my Pastor Steve Smothermon of Legacy Church here in Albuquerque just did and excellent Sermon on why men don’t go and how the church has failed in reaching out to men and what God really expects of men who serve. The sermon which is part 9 (10/16/11) in a series called ‘We Are’ can be watched here in the Sermon Archives:

http://www.legacychurchnm.com/index.cfm/PageID/1589/index.html


47 posted on 10/23/2011 7:41:10 PM PDT by Kartographer (".. we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.")
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To: hiho hiho; All
I've got to be honest, some of the replies here, are kinda spooky.

When did Christianity become Muslim, ‘cause I'm reading alot of “everything wrong with the Church is women's fault”

Which leads me to ask do you really feel this way about your Mother? Your Wife? Your Daughter?

Does any man here actually consider that the feminizing of the Church began because women know that the Lord isn't against them?

Women were made as helpmate to Man. Not property, not Servants...Helpmates.

Men need to grow a pair, and actually start acting like Men, and not d#cks.

49 posted on 10/23/2011 7:43:33 PM PDT by Shadowstrike (Be polite, Be professional, but have a plan to kill everyone you meet.)
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To: hiho hiho

I think feminization steeped in libreralism has alienated men from their own communities. In the past such engagement offered at least the reward of feeling appreciated. I think that incentive is severely weakened among all community institutions and this is by design.


51 posted on 10/23/2011 7:52:35 PM PDT by Crucial
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