The Sunday News
LAST week we celebrated the fathers in our churches. When one looks at the issue of men in the church one can see that there are more women than men. When it comes even to the support of the church materially it is the women that are seen to be more active. The question is why it is so. What do we expect of the man and the woman in the house of God?
I have watched with interest our behaviour as men in the church. When it is a discussion on the soccer, cars and gadgets we are animated and passionate. But when we get into the sanctuary and worship, we then become straight-faced, serious and static. As the first hymn or chorus begins, some of us will stand and keep silent guard, staring mutely into space as the women beside us sing, cry and ululate! We do not dance except for the young boys.
We do not lift our hands, in short we are not expressive. Not to say we are not serious but simply not expressive. That’s men for you.
What is it with men and church? We men are famously outnumbered by these women. One survey suggests we make up only 39 percent of the worshippers in a typical congregation. This is not just because we die earlier and leave the pews filled with the sturdier gender. The percentages hold across the board, for every age category. It is also not because there are more women than men.
Even when we do show up for worship, we are often not particularly dramatic about it. Studies have shown that many men who call themselves Christian feel bored, alienated and disengaged from church. When we drag ourselves to church, researchers say, it is not for ourselves but to fulfil the obligations of our roles as son, husband, father or pastor.
Why are men and the church often at odds? Some researchers are persuaded that the antipathy of men to church resides at the hormonal level. They argue that men, loaded as they are with testosterone, have an inclination to impulsive, risk-taking, occasionally violent action — exactly the behaviour disallowed in the soft world of worship. Given this theory, what enticements can the wimpy church possibly offer us men when we compare it to the joys of hiding away in a male cave, stuffing our maws with pizza and beer as we watch DeMbare and Bossolona heading out after sundown to some declared masculine club or somewhat.
Others propose a more political and historical explanation, namely that centuries of male control of the church have yielded to an ineluctable force of feminisation. Pastel worship, passive and sentimental images of the Christian life, handholding around the communion table and hymns that coo about lover-boy Jesus who “walks with me and talks with me” have replaced stronger, more masculine themes. One man reported that the first thing he does when he walks into a church is to look at the decorations. One glance tells him all he needs to know about who is making the decisions.
Really? The feminine erosion of the church? As David Foster Wallace said in a different context, this is an idea “so stupid it practically drools.” Even sillier are the proposed masculine remedies. One website suggests “Ten Ways to Man Up Your Church,” beginning with obtaining “a manly pastor” who projects “a healthy masculinity.” This patently ignores strong women clergy, of course, but it also denigrates the capacity of men to recognise and respond to able leadership regardless of gender or stereotypes.
Still, the numbers do not lie. Men are staying away from church. The reasons are undoubtedly complex, but perhaps a clue can be found in a Christian group that attracts men and women in roughly equal numbers: Eastern Orthodoxy. A cynic might say that men are attracted to Orthodoxy because it is conservative, with an all-male clergy, many of them sporting beards. The finding of religion journalist Frederica Mathews-Green, however, is closer to the truth. She surveyed male adult converts and discovered that Orthodoxy’s main appeal is that it’s “challenging.” One convert said, “Orthodoxy is serious. It is difficult. It is demanding. It is about mercy, but it is also about overcoming myself.” Another said that he was sick of “bourgeois, feel-good American Christianity.”
Yes, some churchgoers are satisfied with feel-good Christianity, but I think many Christians — women and men — yearn for a more costly, demanding, life-changing discipleship. Perhaps women are more patient when they do not find it, or more discerning of the deeper cross-bearing opportunities that lie beneath the candied surface. When men discuss football it is because it is another disciplined and costly arena of life in which people sacrifice their bodies and their individual desires for a larger cause that matters to them, at least for the moment.
On the other hand scripture encourages women to use their talents in areas of church work which do not conflict with the headship principle or the public administration of the means of grace. As members of the priesthood of believers there is much for women to do in church. In Romans, chapter 16, the apostle Paul commends Phoebe to the Christians at Rome as a servant (diakonos) of the church at Cenchreae and sends greetings to women who had been of assistance to him. He mentions Priscilla and her husband Aquila as “fellow workers in Christ Jesus” (v3) and a certain Mary “who laboured much for us.” (v6) Further in his letter to the Philippians he urges the congregation to “help those women who laboured with me in the gospel,” (4: 2) We should not forget the many women who ministered to our Lord during his earthly ministry whose names are recorded in the Gospels. Women may, for example, lend their counsel in open congregational forums; teach parochial school, Sunday school, vacation Bible school; direct choirs; serve on committees in advisory capacities; assist the pastor and elders in calling on the sick and also assist in works of charity in the congregation and community.
Back to the issue of expression for men in the church, in recent years, many Christians have come to associate emotion with true worship. The more sentiment we feel toward God, and the more emotion we outwardly display, the more we have worshipped, so the thinking goes. This puts men in a tough spot.
If we judge worshippers by the amount of emotion they manifest, we have set up a situation where women will win and men will lose. Imagine yourself walking down Lobengula Street. You see a woman on the sidewalk dissolved in tears. You think to yourself, “Shame. I wonder what’s wrong.” Now imagine you see a man on the sidewalk weeping uncontrollably. You think to yourself, “Tjoo! Ziminyile shuwa.”
Society teaches men from a young age not to show emotion in public. Big boys don’t cry. And if they do, we punish them for it. I am not saying this is right — but it is the way things are. So, to truly worship as it is defined today a man must defy social convention. He must violate the man-code. A woman faces no similar social sanction. Would that be the reason there are so few of us in Church? God forbid. But you tell me — till next week Shalom!
