Chapter 1: Armies of Women
Despite the constant complaints of feminists about the patriarchal tendencies of Christianity, men are largely absent from the Christian churches of the modern Western world.
As it is in the twentieth century in America, so it was in the seventeenth: “Women proved superior in almost every external measure of religious life.” The pattern that was established then has continued to the present, through all changes in government and through the change from an agrarian to an industrial, urban economy.
There is something about Christianity, especially Western Christianity, that drives a wedge between the church and men who want to be masculine.
Chapter 2: Can a Man Be a Christian?
Philosophers and theologians seek for deeper explanations in the nature of religion or of man. Yet they often seem unaware that the lack of male religious observance, though widespread in Western Christianity, is not universal either in Christianity or religion in general. Their explanations go too far. If men are by nature non-religious, why do Islam and Judaism have predominantly male memberships and why have they for centuries evoked intense commitment from men? If Christianity in itself is obnoxious to men in some particular way, why was there little comment on the lack of men during its first millennium, and why do Orthodox churches seem to differ from Western ones in the proportion of male membership? What is it about the nature of men and of Western Christianity that has created such a tension in their relationship in the last millennium?
Chapter 3: What Is Masculinity?
The most striking feature of masculinity is its separation from the feminine, and it is this part of the developmental pattern that is usually thought of as uniquely masculine…. The male trajectory begins with the first gesture of separation from the mother. This need to differentiate sets the boy on a life-long path of, literally, proving himself. Yet this is only part of masculinity. Having achieved his first goal of separation, a man must then achieve a reunion and reconnection with the feminine, although one which is marked by his departure from it. The first union is sterile, and must be broken, so that this second, fruitful union may take place. This second union is achieved only through a man’s suffering the pain of separation and in his confrontation with death.
Chapter 4: God and Man in Judaism: Fathers and the Father-God
The writers of the Old Testament were aware of the paradoxes of masculinity. The male had to undergo a lonely journey away from home, into the desert and into death, so that he could find God. The detachment from ordinary family life was dangerous. A man had to be firmly attached to a family and had to expend all his energies in protecting and providing for his wife and children. Yet this emotional closeness created a danger that he would listen to his wife and children and neglect duties to God. Not tyranny, but uxoriousness, is the chief danger of patriarchy. As a father he had to love his children, but he had to be willing to sacrifice them. A father’s role is to separate his children from the safe maternal world and send them off to face the dangers of life. As an Israelite, a father had the additional burden that he may have had to sacrifice his love for his children to his greater duty to God. Then, as now, it was not easy to be a man.
Chapter 5: God and Man in Early Christianity: Sons in the Son
Christianity was the fulfillment of Judaism. The masculinity and the patriarchy that Judaism cultivated were fulfilled in the revelation of a tri-personal God who was both Father and Son. All human beings, male and female, were invited to share in the inner life of God, to receive the Spirit and to be conformed to the Son. The early Church knew that the vocation of the Christian was essentially masculine.
As long as Christians had to face sudden and horrible death for their faith, the essentially masculine nature of the Christian vocation was clear. The Christian, male and female, as we have seen, was a soldier and an athlete.
Chapter 6: The Foundations of Feminization
Men and women, as far as we can tell, participated equally in Christianity until about the thirteenth century. If anything, men were more prominent in the Church not only in clerical positions, which were restricted to men, but in religious life, which was open to both men and women. Only around the time of Bernard, Dominic, and Francis did general differences emerge, and these differences can be seen both in demographics and in the quality of spirituality. Because these changes occurred rapidly and only in the Latin church, innate or quasi-innate differences between the sexes cannot by themselves account for the increase in women’s interest in Christianity or the decrease in men’s interest. In fact, the medieval feminization of Christianity followed on three movements in the Church which had just begun at the time: the preaching of a new affective spirituality and bridal mysticism by Bernard of Clairvaux; a Frauenbewegung, a kind of women’s movement; and Scholasticism, a school of theology. This concurrence of trends caused the Western church to become a difficult place for men.
Chapter 7: Feminized Christianity
As men absented themselves from the Christian churches and found their spiritual sustenance elsewhere, the churches were left with congregations that were predominately feminine. Moreover, the Christian life itself was seen more and more as properly feminine; men had to become feminine in order to be good Christians: notwithstanding that the Christianity of the New Testament and patristic era saw the vocation of the Christian as masculine.
For men the consequences have been disastrous. Bridal language used to describe a Christian’s relationship with God has homosexual overtones to many men, unless they engage in mental gymnastics and try to think of themselves as women.
But few boys like to be named Sue. Since normal men reject both homosexuality and femininity as incompatible with masculinity for which they are always striving, bridal mysticism and the metaphors and attitudes to which it gave rise have placed a major obstacle to men’s participation in the Church. Even among fundamentalists who have a balance of men and women in their congregations, women, not men, have religious experiences. What is lacking in the West is a language of intimacy that expresses the closeness that men feel with men.
Chapter 8: Countercurrents
The feminization of the church has not gone uncontested. The distortions in spirituality and practice were glaringly obvious to both Catholics and Protestants. Both the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation included unsuccessful attempts to shake off the feminine piety of the Middle Ages, return to the spirituality of the New Testament and the Church Fathers, and give greater emphasis to the church militant. The Jesuits represented a new masculine emphasis in the Roman Catholic Church, a return to patristic ideas of the inner life as a spiritual combat. Luther reminded Christians that the chief foe was the devil, who was more and more seen as active in human agents, whether they were papists or witches. In North America, the Penitentes of the Southwest continued or revived Spanish practices to form a vigorous and enduring Christian masculinity; Protestants used revivalist techniques to attract men to a new birth and a final transformation.
Chapter 9: Masculinity as Religion: Transcendence and Nihilism
In nineteenth-century America men found their spiritual sustenance in fraternal movements. The thousands of Masonic temples and Knights of Pythias lodges and Independent Order of Odd Fellows halls that dot every American city and small town are relics of that movement. The fraternal orders had the primary purpose of conducting initiation rituals.
In some ways fraternalism, because it emphasized the necessity of dying to a lower state and being reborn to a higher one, was closer to the orthodox Christianity than was liberal Protestantism, which had largely lost its sense of the drama of sin and redemption…
This perverted masculinity appeals to men because it is not a total lie, but a partial truth close to the real truth. Jesus is the embodiment of perfect masculinity in that he descends into death and hell, there to confront and conquer them and to return to his bride, the Church, as King and Spouse. But if a man in his own power tries to descend into hell, he finds there only a defeat, and is taken captive by the powers of darkness he wishes to conquer.
Chapter 10: The Future of Men in the Church
Men do not go to church. They regard involvement in religion as unmasculine, and almost more than anything they want to be masculine. The basic ideology of masculinity is a given as long as men are born of women and societies face challenges.
The churches should follow the medical motto, primum non nocere, first of all, do not make matters worse. Feminism and homosexual propaganda dominate the liberal churches, and both drive men even further away.
Christianity has within it the resources that allow it to appeal to men, to show that not only will Christianity not undermine their masculinity, but it will also fulfill and perfect it.
Three masculine modes of living which can be studied to develop the practices and approaches that the church needs are initiation, the struggle, and brotherly love.
Men seek brotherly love at the workplace, in gangs, in fraternal organizations, in war, but rarely in church or anything to do with church. Although the New Testament is permeated by the brotherly love which men desire, a barrier prevents men from seeing it, and from seeing in Christ the Brother the meaning and fulfillment of the sacrifices that men make in order to become men.
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