A Manly Idol

(Joe's Jottings from the April Newsletter)

In our February newsletter, I listed a set of quotes about men and the church from a book with the provocative title, Why Men Hate Going to Church by David Murrow and promised that the story would be continued. (This article was posted earlier on this blog). I have received several comments and responses and found our collective reaction to the article to be rather interesting.

What was surprising, and telling, to me was the basic acceptance of Murrow’s starting point— that men are underrepresented in churches and that this is connected to a lack of masculinity within the Christian church. Both the men and the women from whom I heard, readily affirmed the notion that Christianity, as it is most usually expressed and practiced, simply does not appeal to men as it does to women. Yet, when I look upon our congregation on any given Sunday, we seem to have a fair balance between men and women. We don't have a 1 to 1 ratio, but we do have a decent share of regularly attending men in this congregation. But even within these men, there seemed to be a recognition that the church was not a particularly masculine place. For these men, however, this lack of masculinity did not preclude their involvement with the church.

This has me wondering about the male population. What is it that makes some men interested in engaging with what is generally accepted, at least here, as a fairly non-masculine religion while others are not? Is this merely reflective of a spectrum of masculinity within males? (i.e. are the men in church less masculine than those who are not?—which Murrow does intimate on more than one occasion). I, for one, reject that claim and am offended that Murrow would hint at such a thing. But we still have to deal with the fact that even within our own ranks there is a recognition that church does not appeal to some men and that this is somehow connected to their masculinity.

Another thesis that Murrow puts forward is that some men have adopted masculinity, itself, as their religion. That is, that they find their identity and security in their masculinity and not in God. This seems to explain much, but is too simplistic to be of real value for our ministry. It’s easy to say that the men who are not interested in church are simply worshipping at the feet of an idol named Masculinity. But this would tempt us to either write these men off because of their own stubbornness or attempt to make the church into the temple of masculinity they unconsciously desire.

No, what we must do is remember that we are not only dealing with a demographic group, but with individual men. Husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons. Men who are in need of God’s saving grace in Jesus Christ, and who may also be in need of some help in sorting out what it means to be men in our society, because they don’t often receive such help elsewhere. We should seek to connect with men and to positively shape their masculinity not as something opposed to Christian faith, but as one of the gifts that God has given them, as something to be celebrated, but not worshipped. Let us begin, by simply being more mindful of the this group and the individual souls that make it up.

Blog Addendum:
I didn't have a lot of room to elaborate in the newsletter, but what I am trying to say is that our congregation does recognize an opportunity to do a better job of connecting with men. That is, we could strive to "be more masculine" if you want to speak of it in those terms. But what does that mean, exactly? I think that we would do well to be more mindful of ministering to the men in our midst, but this does not mean a one-size-fits-all approach. As for what that means in terms of our day-to-day life as a congregation? Well, I leave that to you to discuss...