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Today I got some listener mail from my appearance on @IssuesEtc to discuss my article about the "crisis of men" in the church. The mail specifically asked me to engage with @aaron_renn 's work, which I am happy to do since he's a friend! https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2020/september-web-only/single-women-manhood-church-growth-gender-ratios-church.html
SPecifically, the listener asked me to address this article by @aaron_renn on @_Theopolis : https://theopolisinstitute.com/conversations/the-manosphere-and-the-church/ and this Masculinist newsletter: https://www.aaronrenn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/The-Masculinist-45-Flattery-Will-Get-You-Everywhere.pdf
Let me make a brief summary of my thesis and @aaron_renn 's to clarify the debate.
I say: the male-minority status of the church is neither new nor unique to American Christianity, and therefore no amount of change to our gender-specific appeals will alter it.
I say: the male-minority status of the church is neither new nor unique to American Christianity, and therefore no amount of change to our gender-specific appeals will alter it.
What @aaron_renn says in the Theopolis piece is: the "manosphere" grew (numerically and in cultural footprint) by specifically recognizing and appealing to gender difference, and that while the manosphere was not good, there's a potential to Christianize some pieces of it.
In all friendliness, I would say Aaron is a bit coy on what effect he thinks this would have, but it's hard to read his piece and not conclude that he thinks that moving away from "feminized" rhetoric would lead to more effective evangelism among men.
His Masculinist newsletter clarifies a bit. While he doesn't go so far as to say that a shift in rhetoric would NOT create growth, he argues that this is not the main point: the main point is REGARDLESS of growth effects, church rhetoric around men and masculinity is bad.
It's bad because it (or I; unclear exactly who is being criticized here) treats men as means, not ends. He is worried that I did not actually engage with what churches actually teach or practice.
So let's start with a meta-debate.
@aaron_renn says I treat men as means not ends.
I disagree. I am criticizing the use of "men's ministry" and "men's outreach" and "masculine appeals" as a means to achieve the end of "church growth."
@aaron_renn says I treat men as means not ends.
I disagree. I am criticizing the use of "men's ministry" and "men's outreach" and "masculine appeals" as a means to achieve the end of "church growth."
I truly do not understand how you can read the article and think I'm arguing that men are just a means to the end of church growth, since my entire thesis is that in fact men are NOT a means to church growth.
My concluding argument, in fact, is that such gendered appeals make no sense at all, and instead we should ask ourselves what is actually driving secularism per se and tackle that, and the worship of work is a big part of that!
Having handled @aaron_renn 's meta critique, which seems like a pretty obvious misreading of my thesis, let me level my own:
The focus on the content of church programs is a product of a morally bankrupt and consumeristic approach to religion, and is in fact The Problem.
The focus on the content of church programs is a product of a morally bankrupt and consumeristic approach to religion, and is in fact The Problem.
Churches have convinced themselves that the path to health (growth in numbers OR depth of discipleship!) is ever-more-well-honed-programming. Better marketing. More exciting events. Increasing relevance.
Rightist/traditionalist versions of this trend are no better than other versions. Thinking that the barrier to evangelism is an insufficiently popular framing of the politics to divorce is no better than thinking it's an insufficiently popular framing of the politics of anything.
Furthermore, church content *just isn't very important* for the survival of churches.
I know this is anathema to people on all sides but y'all the growth and decline of churches (and the intensity of member commitment as measured by intergenerational transmission and attendance) simply isn't closely related to what you teach (with one exception I'll come to).
Here's the reality: every religious tradition is in decline except for those who are riding off half-hearted conversions of children born into other traditions and who themselves won't have very many children.
I say "half-hearted" not to imply "insincere" but to imply that the converts will not reproduce the pre-existing demographic realities of those congregations. Mormon converts don't have as many babies as those born Mormons, for example.
More broadly, the idea that church health depends on any particular faithfulness to the gospel would be weird given that non-Christian religions often experience very healthy communities and commitments!
The reason churches are in decline in America is not primarily that the churches changed, but that the culture changed.
Late industrialization with the rise of a consumer society, postponement of family, extension of adolescence, and state-led secularization of education and public spaces is simply hostile to religiosity in all its forms.
The forms of religiosity which can eke out a living in this millieu are often things Christians are gonna have a problem with (insert digression about "wokeness as religion" here but that's @DouthatNYT 's turf).
This is important, because it helps illuminate WHY 19th century churches saw men as such problems.
It's not that they were "Feminizing piety." It's that 19th century men had an extraordinarily precipitous decline in moral quality.
It's not that they were "Feminizing piety." It's that 19th century men had an extraordinarily precipitous decline in moral quality.
I know that will sound insane, but the history here is pretty clear.
Industrialization and urbanization led to an incredible rise in "vice." The rise of wage labor with few supporting social structures, the survival of more children beyond infancy....
Industrialization and urbanization led to an incredible rise in "vice." The rise of wage labor with few supporting social structures, the survival of more children beyond infancy....
.... the exploitation by early-capitalist state-supported oligarchs, the extraordinary cheapening of alcohol and the invention of cheap distillation, the squalor of early urban environments.... key to recognize that life expectancies *fell* in this period!
As societies got richer in the industrial revolution, humans *initially* got more malnourished and died more, and experienced a wave of misery and vice they had not in the past.
This is not to idealize pre-industrial societies. They had terrible problems too. But the "moral economy" of peasant societies, while brutish and violent in many regards, did nonetheless have relatively stable structures to organize and script behaviors.
Put bluntly, the church turn towards critique of masculinity in the 19th century was because masculinity as it came to be redefined in the 19th century was BAD.
We still have that version of masculinity to some extent. And it still is bad!
Industrialized masculinity is not even a vague approximation of masculinity as presented in the Bible.
Of course, femininity is out of sync too. But my contention, and the uniform contention of *all* Christian societies of the 19th century....
Of course, femininity is out of sync too. But my contention, and the uniform contention of *all* Christian societies of the 19th century....
Is that "what happened to men" in the 19th century was considerably harder to accommodate in the church than "what happened to women" because what happened to women was demeaning, but mostly something Christian moral norms could accommodate.
However, Christian moral norms absolutely could not accommodate factories where 11 year olds had their fingers sliced off in machines so older workers could take their paychecks to the pub and blow it on alcohol and go home and beat their wives.
That wasn't all 19th cetury men.
But y'all, the historic statistics on spousal deaths, alcohol consumption, and related issues for which we can reconstruct data *are absolutely insane*.
But y'all, the historic statistics on spousal deaths, alcohol consumption, and related issues for which we can reconstruct data *are absolutely insane*.
This is why even hard-drinking churches like Catholics and Lutherans, while opposed to prohibition, generally supported "moral reform" movements like temperance, and why these movements were often led by women.
TODAY, the situation is changing again. Modern ideas of femininity are changing. Perhaps in ways at odds with Christian morals. Masculinity is changing too. Maybe we'll find a way to make our peace with that.
But the end result is still gonna be 60/40 women/men unless and until at-home responsibilities for housework and childcare equilibrate between men and women.
Trying to achieve gender parity at church is a fool's errand, and is a part of the transformation of the church into a consumer capitalist society, a transformation we must fight tooth and nail.
I agree with @aaron_renn churches are often unfair to men. Contrasting Mother's Day and Father's Day sermons is always a darkly humorous game, and it's true this doesn't quite reflect reality.
But, if we want to talk about why women initiate 70% of divorces, seems relevant that women make up a huge majority of people murdered by their spouses, and of course of victims of spousal abuse. Men also cheat more.
"Uncomfortable facts" exist on all sides!
None are without sin!
And I agree, the weird "sinless mother" image we've created is not a great thing. It's also to be honest a disservice to women and mothers.
None are without sin!
And I agree, the weird "sinless mother" image we've created is not a great thing. It's also to be honest a disservice to women and mothers.
But the problem here isn't "feminization."
The problem is why on earth are you recognizing Mother's Day in church it's not a liturgical holiday.
The problem is why on earth are you recognizing Mother's Day in church it's not a liturgical holiday.
Purge your church of its mimicry of the consumer culture around you. You don't need the flag. July 4th is not on the church calendar. Thanksgiving is every day for a Christian. New Year's Day is the first Sunday of Advent.
My last bit about work is just one strand of this critique. But I think that the only path forward for the American church is to radically depart from cultural accommodationist approaches. Prophetic critique is the only option. Adopt it or watch your churches die.
*Paradoxically*, I expect some very progressive church bodies will thrive in this way, because they position themselves as radically opposed to a perceived dominant hierarchy of capitalist-patriarchy.
The extent to which this framing is true is debatable, but certainly many people feel that it is true.
Okay, that's all for this thread. Gotta go work now.
@threadreaderapp please
