great piece on anti-male churchianity

MarkyMark alerted me to a great blog out there, Faith and Society, that I'll probably be spending considerable time at in the near future. It's defunct now and has been for some time, but the writing is still available to be partaken of. In particular, this essay is one of the best I've read in a long time. It addresses a topic I happen to care a lot about, that being the waning influence of Christianity in society and how much that correlates with the increasing feminization (and its accompanying overreactions, pop psychology, etc.) of the modern American church as a whole. Anyone out there wondering why there's a supposed dearth in Christian men marrying, or even attending church for that matter? (I'm not totally convinced that's the case but I won't get into that here, maybe later.) That article would be a good starting point for understanding some of the reasons.

The guy also seems to have a great command of Scripture, at least well enough to support his arguments with plenty of verses. I'm not sure I agree with some of his points though--he seems to overcorrect, if you will, on some things, as if trying to counterbalance the opposing argument. I haven't looked up his verses though, so I can't yet say how much I agree with his exegesis. I intend to repost his essay in its entirety here later and add my comments throughout, but that won't happen tonight. But it's a great and interesting read, regardless of how much one happens to agree with his positions or the sometimes in-your-face way he lays them out.

As an intro of sorts, the author of the aforementioned gem quotes Elisabeth Eliot, a contemporary Evangelical author (and one I've actually heard of, so she must be at least somewhat prominent). His entire essay isn't a response to this quote in particular, but her words do capture what I think is a popular sentiment in a lot of churches these days:

“Everywhere my husband and I go we meet lovely Christian women, beautifully dressed, deeply spiritual, thoroughly feminine–and single. They long for marriage and children. But what is it with the men? Are they blind to feminine pulchritude, deaf to God’s call, numb to natural desire? . . . Where are the holy men of God willing to shoulder the full responsibility of manhood, to take the risks and make the sacrifices of courting and winning a wife, marrying her and fathering children in obedience to the command to be fruitful? While the Church has been blessed by men willing to remain single for the sake of the Kingdom (and I do not regard lightly such men who are seriously called), isn’t it obvious that God calls most men to marriage? By not marrying, those whom He calls are disobeying Him, and thus are denying the women He meant for them to marry the privileges of being wife and mother.”

Huh!? What a bunch of bullbleep that is! For one, that is not at all my experience in churches I've been to lately. I don't know if I'm just in some alternate reality that these authors and pontificators don't coexist in or what, but I don't know where they get that impression that there are just droves of women in churches waiting to get married to the first kinda-decent* dude that shows interest. I'll go as far as to say that the supposedly marriage-ready women (by age and stereotype, anyway) I've been around have been far more narcissistic and me-centered than their male counterparts. Young and single? Yes. Desiring marriage? Well, maybe in a few cases. Ready for marriage and seemingly solid wife material? Um...out of deference to people I would still consider friends, let me not answer that one directly. But you get the idea.

As for the shaming-esque, "it's all your fault" crap, what else is new? Any man who has been to church, say, a few times in the past several years, has probably heard similar tripe. Maybe it wasn't mean-spirited or direct like the lovely Mrs. Eliot's quip, but it's there. The assumption seems to be that men, by and large, and especially young, churched men (the declining few that there are), have the intelligence of apes and have to be goaded, shamed, prodded, or otherwise manipulated by society into fitting the mold others have made for them. Whatever. Wake up folks, it's not happening. And the entire church is suffering for it. And methinks the entire church will continue to suffer from the dearth of strong male leadership until something changes for the better.

"winning a wife..." Now could the issue here possibly, perhaps, just maybe, be that more men than one might suspect don't see it in terms of "winning" a wife in today's culture? This choice of words implies that a prospective wife is someone to be desired, to be "won," a reward for one's efforts. For a good, humble, Christian woman, this is certainly true and I can't imagine why any man would dispute the claim. Sure, they're out there, and any man would be crazy to not pursue a woman of those bonafide credentials. But, for a semi-churched, feminism-stained woman who's basically pursuing the same goals in the same way a man would go after them, this is...well, let's just say it's not the case. Is that necessarily fair to women who grew up under such influences? Nope, not at all. But it's reality and we deal with reality as it is, not as we think it ought to be or how we wish it to be. That being the case, many men are going to conclude that the total compromise required is a bum deal in most cases and, justifiably so, simply not put forth the effort to pursue such women. Who can blame them (us)?

"By not marrying, those whom He calls are disobeying Him, and thus are denying the women He meant for them to marry the privileges of being wife and mother." Wow. As the author points out, that's no small claim. She's invoking the Bible, the Kingdom, and God Himself in full support of her argument. She's effectively claiming to have knowledge of God's plan for others, to the point that she even says others must be rejecting His plan for themselves if they disagree with her. So she is in God's camp and therefore anyone who disagrees must not only be opposing her but also opposing God and even thwarting His plan. If you're going to claim the God of the universe is on your side in full force, especially in such strong terms, then you'd better be right. A bold statement indeed.

My comments above are merely a tiny chip off the iceberg compared to what the author puts forth in his much longer discussion. Rather than go into further detail here, I'll let you just go to the source and be enlightened by someone with far better theological command and writing skills than mine. Agree or disagree, I trust you won't be disappointed with the thought-provoking points he brings up. Enjoy!

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* The standards such dudes would be evaluated by deserve a discussion of their own. But have no fear, the essay addresses that topic at length.