The Feminization Of Christianity

I read a very interesting book by Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen called "Fathers and Sons: The Search For The New Masculinity." In it, she talks about the changing face of Christianity in America. This is, in short, her assessment...

During the early American frontier days, men and women worked side by side to tame the wild. They did this out of necessity. It wasn't reasonable to have an able bodied person dusting trinkets in study, so women and men did hard labor. There was some division of labor, based usually around child care, but other than that, labor was labor and everyone helped.

Furthermore, children grew up with the prescence of both parents, being influenced by both parents and having role models for each sex.

Finally, men were considered the leader of the home - as proven in that child care booklets and pamphlets of the time were always addressed to the fathers, not mothers.

Then, the Industrial Revolution happened. Business was hard and traits associated with Christianity - such as love, mercy, patience - came into conflict with the reality in which most men lived. Thus, religion became more and more the sphere of the woman as men, in all honesty, were unable to live lives of internal tensions of value. As this trend continued though, men began to incorporate within themselves the values of the business world and thus Christianity was seen as "sissy." The lilly white paintings of a milk toast Jesus are the relics of these days.

Van Leeuwen tells the story of a professor at a Christian college who asked her to come speak to his class. Prior to the class she was to speak, the professor handed out a survey. The survey consisted of a list of personality characteristics and the students were required to choose whether the characteristic was more masculine or more feminine, in their opinion of course. The trick was, though, that he mixed the "fruits of the Spirit" into the list. The results were this -

All of the fruits of the Spirit were characterized as feminine - and when the professor broke down the results by sex, over 90% of the men said that ALL of the fruits of the Spirit were feminine!

Now I suppose there are many things to be said about all of this, and we can talk about it. But, I would like to suggest that it is the context that books like "Wild at Heart" are produced.

There's quite a lot to unpack there, but I want to suggest that Eldredge's book is so popular because he's speaking to a need that Christian men feel (at least a lot of them). They apparently feel like they're being feminized - or emasculated. The problem is that Eldredge wants to take values such as violence and ascribe it (1st) to men only and not women and then (2nd) to the Kingdom.

Not ok by me. And I'm sure he doesn't care who I am, but I'll tell you...it is NOT ok by me.

posted by Headless-in-GR @ 9/24/2004 03:28:00 PM