Where are the men in Church?

Where are the men in Church?

It’s a question that comes up about every six months or so and it was the Washington Post that brought it up this time: “Where are all the churchgoing men?”

The good folks at Get Religion look at this latest article and previous attempts to address the question, including a mention of Lee Podles’ book “The Church Impotent: The Feminization of Christianity”.

The common theme is that in most churches there is an imbalance in the ratio of men to women in the pews, and the more liberal the denomination, the more tilted toward women it becomes. One of the theories is that much mainline religion, especially mainline Christianity, has become feminized and stripped of its masculine components. Podles traces this decline back to the Medieval rise of courtly romance and the rise of devotion to Mary, while many others look to the rise of feminism in the Sixties. At the other end of the extreme is Islam, perhaps the most masculine of religions, but not in a good way. It’s masculine in the way that biker gangs are masculine.

What struck me most in the Get Religion entry was a quote from David Murrow, who wrote “Why Men Hate Going to Church”.

Men being asked to be brides of Christ

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