"masculine" Christianity

Brief excerpts from a lengthy essay on the pros and cons of this movement-- by Brandon O'Brien in Christianity Today...

The disparity in men's and women's attendance in American churches has made men the target of specialized ministry over the last two decades. Promise Keepers kicked off the men's movement in 1990 by challenging stadiums full of men and boys to fulfill their duties to God and their families. Today a growing body of literature is leveling its sights on the church, suggesting that men are uninvolved in church life because the church doesn't encourage authentic masculine participation.

The first writer to popularize this concern was John Eldredge, who, in his three-million-selling Wild at Heart (Thomas Nelson, 2001), lamented that the masculine spirit was at risk because "most men believe God put them on the earth to be good boys." The church's tendency to promote discipleship as merely becoming "nice guys" keeps men from embodying their God-given maleness.

O'Brien then cites: 1.) David Murrow, author of Why Men Hate Going to Church who founded "Church for Men"; comedian Brad Stine who was inspired by Murrow and began GodMen; and 3.) Paul Coughlin, author of No More Christian Nice Guy-- before responding:

I respect what these authors are trying to accomplish. They recognize that the Jesus of the Bible—unlike the Jesus of much contemporary Christian art and music—was not afraid to denounce, challenge, and offend....The movement's method of reclaiming the radical nature of the gospel, however, poses a genuine threat to Christian discipleship....

The masculinity movement's solution assumes that Jesus came to model genuine masculinity. The authors don't say so explicitly, but their rhetoric assumes manly instincts are inherently godly...Besides offering an extremely narrow view of masculinity, this framework totally excludes women from real discipleship. To begin with, it blames them for neutering the gospel...Perhaps worse, if Christ is the model of masculinity, then women can't imitate him. They can pursue him as the lover of their souls. They can imitate his devotion to the Father in their relationships with their husbands. But they can't become like him in any essential way....

Two letters in the next issue take some issue with O'Brien:

Roger Olson, a professor of theology at Baylor, agrees with his critique but complains about his "failure to say what it means to be masculine as a Christian". To be fair, I think O'Brien at least implicitly lays out some of that vision. But to Olson's point, it's always easier to critique than to put forward a positive vision of a complex topic.

A second letter writer, Mark Jalovick, pens praise for regular men who are too busy doing the right stuff to all excited about the debate. Again, the point is valid, but there is still an important discussion to have about the feminization of parts of the church.