Welcome to a forgotten corner of the ancient forest.
Anyone who has met Phil of Signposts , and more recently of GeekyInfo, could not accuse him of being on the girly side. He is not exactly petite or femine for that matter. It doesn't matter for him because he is a minister in his church. It is about the only post in the modern church that still has a serious masculine feel. The church of today is a feminine domain. The workers and employees are women, the congregation are women. The modern church reeks of estrogen. There is a small niche for quiet introspective men but they are more tolerated than embraced. Here are some interesting factoids, they are from an America study but they are probably just as applicable here.
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The typical U.S. congregation
draws an adult crowd that is 61 percent female, 39 percent male -- a gender
gap that shows up in all age categories. |
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On any given Sunday, there are 13 million more adult women than men in America's churches. |
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The majority of church employees are women. |
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According to a 1999 study by Christianity Today magazine, inner church leadership tends to be mostly female, even in churches that have male ordained leadership. |
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Ninety percent of boys raised in church will abandon it before their 18th birthday. |
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More than 90 percent of American men believe in God, and five out of six call themselves Christians. But only two out of six attend church on a given Sunday. |
David Murrow of Baylor University believes he knows why, he says
the modern church is too chatty, too touchy-feely and full of hokey rituals that don't affirm a guy's manhood. In short, the faith founded by one man 2,000 years ago needs a testosterone shot
Of course you could argue that this is precisely the role of the church. You could argue that the church is not so much about worship and more about the sugar coating that makes worship pallitable and the sugar is laced with estrogen. It is precisely why every self respecting testosterone filled adolescent male feels he must make the choice - desert the church or desert his masculinity. Most choose to desert the church.
This is a serious problem for the church and some radical thinkers have been proposing alternative models to spirituality that go to the core of being masculine. John Eldridge in his book Wild At Heart says
If Christian men are going to change from a pitiful, wimpy bunch of "really nice guys" to men who are made in the image of God, they must reexamine their preconceptions about who God is and recover their true "wild" hearts
John Hall and David Brown created Warrior Heart Ministries based on Eldredge's premise: that men were created to be wild, to take chances and to act when God calls them to act even as modern society calls them to be tame, predictable and reliable and to reason things out before acting on anything.
Part of the problem is that young men require "male-only" space. It can be found at the football club or in the surf but the Church rarely provides this. In its rush to embrace equality the Church has, from a male perspective, created an very unequal space. Instead of providing an environment where young men can learn to be male through guidence and modelling themselves on the strong adult men of the church all they can hope for is clones of their mothers treating them in the substantially the same way their mothers do. When you are 16, 17, 18 who wants that.
Is there a solution, well maybe, but the church as been dominated by women and feminine culture for so long it is difficult to see it happening quickly, if at all.
It may be, of course, that for most men the church is simply unnecessary, or at best, irrelevant. Spirituality is an extremely personal thing and exists entirely separately from the Church. To discover and practice their spirituality and worship men may simply not need the nurturing and support that the Church offers.
There are many jewels hidden amongst the leaves in this forgotten part of the ancient forest. Spend some time browsing and you are sure to find some. Click here or continue your search below
or read the most recent entries here.some people say what you're saying. then some people say the church is a chauvinistic institution that holds women under the control of men.
i can't figure out which side is right. it seems they both are.
Posted by: tammy at July 28, 2005 09:39 PMFor thousands of years men have made huge efforts to hold women down - 'barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen', is one of the more benevolent ways of putting it.
How come you don't know that women were also created to be wild, to take chances and to act when and where God called them too?
As I see it, it is this freedom and wildness that men universally have attempted to deny women - anyone who truly knows women would know the joy and excitement of women 'let out' of the home that men have imprisoned them in, to experience what they want to, when they want to and as long as they either want to, or can afford - women love to 'let their hair down' and go for it!
Why do you think that many women eg Emily Bronte, have such intensely passionate natures and such a drive for freedom from the shackles 'society' has bound them with - home, children, work, respectability - all at the same time - plus caring for the males of the household who have ensured that women understand and actually believe that sacrificing their own needs to their 'obligations and duties' to care for and ensure the welfare of everyone around them, is 'woman's purpose in life' ie we were created to serve their needs.
Do these men realise that every early embryo is female? A bit later in the embryo's development, certain hormones come into play to change the gender of the embryo if it is to be male, plus that it is the male's contribution that determines the sex of the baby -women can only produce XX sex chromosomes.
The most fundamental puzzle to me has always been - what is it about women that men are so afraid of that women have been and in many countries still are - held down by law from basic human rights and freedoms - eg attending university and practising in their chosen profession, forbidden contraception while being 'obliged' to allow their husbands conjugal rights which in some countries includes being infected with HIV by their faithless husbands,
and the simple freedom of being able to walk down a street alone in the dark - and to be free from unwanted sexual advances from strangers or men they know.
Women and children are the sacrifices by which men satisfy their own needs. Guys, wake up to yourselves - you obviously know nothing of the fighting spirit and toughness of every woman - and you probably could not handle what women have to deal with every day.
You poor female-dominated sods - grow up and stop fighting the more gentle and caring nature that is within you - why must all men be "Rambo" to 'prove' that they are 'men'. Dying for others or for a cause appears to be a concept foreign to some of you - it is a basic Christian tenet - and is also what 'mateship' is all about - why would such a person as Jesus who did this for us be seen as producing 'namby pamby' men?
Have you been to a war lately and seen how the chaplains do their job? Or have you felt the need for one if you have been in a battle?
Compassion, kindness and caring for others are not unmasculine qualities - it is these qualities that most women find most endearing in a man.
Or would you poor hard done by men rather live in a world devoid of these qualities because they are not 'masculine enough?'Would you like to live in a male only world? Why do you detest anything female? Or is it that you have created a culture where to be a 'man' you must be harsh and cruel, and 'macho'?
Wake up to the real world and stop fighting the softer side of you - if your friends make fun of you they are not true friends and you are better off without them.
Alter your mindset and question every aspect of life - take nothing for granted, and think things out for yourselves.
Along with everyone else in the world we are being fed propaganda - question everything you see, hear and read.
Jesus was a fighting man, for sure - for truth, compassion and justice - hundreds of human beings are killed every day fighting for these principles - it is not unmanly to join them in their battle for human rights. It's time to stop dividing the world into two sexes and to start fighting together for truth and freedom for all.
Stumble It!