Why do men stay away?

Gathered around the coffeepot in a church fellowship hall on a fall Sunday, a gaggle of men are talking with animation and passion, joking and bragging in the way of males. The topic? Football, of course. "How 'bout them Devils! D'ya see that pick six in the third quarter? Amazing! Hey, Joe, sorry about your Dawgs! Maybe you'll get 'em next week, if they don't fire your coach first!" In a few minutes, many will wander into worship, the married ones joining their wives. As the first hymn begins, some of them will stand and keep silent guard, staring mutely into space as the women beside them sing.

What is it with men and church? We men are famously outnumbered, to be sure. According to a recent survey, we make up only 39 percent of the worshipers 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.

Even when we do show up for worship, we're often not particularly happy about it. This is not breaking news, of course. Study after study has shown that many men who name themselves as Christian feel bored, alienated and disengaged from church. When we drag ourselves to church, researchers say, it is not for ourselves but to fulfill the obligations of our roles as son, husband, father or pastor.

Why are men and the church often at odds? Sadly, many of the answers are as insulting as they are misguided. 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 a proclivity to impulsive, risk-taking, occasionally violent action—exactly the behavior 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 man cave, stuffing our maws with pizza and beer as we watch Da Bears and heading out after sundown to rip off a few wheel covers and rumble in the Wal-Mart parking lot?

Others propose a more political and historical explanation, namely that centuries of male control of the church have yielded to an ineluctable force of feminization. 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 curtains. One glance tells him all he needs to know about who's 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 recognize and respond to able leadership regardless of gender or stereotypes. I recently visited a church with a chest-thumping manly pastor. After worship, one man in the congregation confided, "I feel like I'm on the set of a Tarzan movie." As for "manning up" worship, I know that if my church begins handing out NASCAR jackets with the bulletins, I'm going to look for a different church—maybe one with lace curtains.

Still, the numbers don't 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 Mathewes-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 don't find it, or more discerning of the deeper cross-bearing opportunities that lie beneath the candied surface. Men take a walk or hang around the church coffeepot talking in jargon about football: 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. Near transcendence is preferable to no transcendence at all.

Amen.

Church is tremendously boring to a great many men. Some churches overcompensate for this by amplifying everything and kicking the terribly lame jams. Others are going with a "throwback" approach, but they wear it like a jersey. Nostalgia can't long hold in the absence of substantive change.

My personal theory is that education is the main difference between today and yesteryear. Everyone is more educated, from the janitors in the congregation on through to the farmers and the small businessmen. It's way harder to do that whole shepherd+flock metaphor when many of the erstwhile sheep are smarter and deeper thinkers than their shepherd.

It used to be the case that whatever the talent of the clergyman, his authority was all but unquestioned because he had superior training than the vast majority of his spiritual charges, which served to blunt dissent and to enlist the community into peer pressuring strays. That coercive authority is gone forever. Now it takes a talented clergyman to long hold together and spiritually and intellectually challenge a congregation—using persuasive authority. Most modern clergy are wholly or mostly untalented, and are incapable of keeping men engaged. Since women may be showing up anyways. keeping women interested with a softer approach amounts to harvesting the low hanging fruit.

Not BS.

What is there in a church service for men to do or care about?

Group singing? Yeah, that is what men like to do - NOT!

Listening to someone - often with little experience in life - talk about how to be a better person? Yeah, that is another thing a man wants to do.

Women go to church to socialize with other religious-type women. They talk, compare kids, talk, look at what each one is wearing, talk, get a break from their babies, talk...

That is hardly having backbone. That is what women LOVE to do. They do it in any setting possible. They go to church because, to them, it is FUN.

On the whole, I’d rather go jogging, ride a horse, shoot a gun, or just enjoy doing nothing. Like most men, I don’t want to get together and talk about each other. And I don’t want to listen to a sermon about being more caring, more sensitive, more gushy. I don’t need advice on life from someone who hasn’t lived it. I don’t want to watch a ‘worship leader’ perform, or cry over ‘sweet Jesus’.

Women hear a sermon on caring more and think, “Why doesn’t my husband care more about me?” Men hear it, and think, “When I get home, she’s going to nag me to care more about her.” And why would any man want to be in that spot?

I think the question of why more men don’t attend worship is more of a “western” trend in the U.S. and in Western Europe than it is world-wide.

In the rest of the world, the “third world” countries, being a Christian costs something - sometimes your freedom, your physical comfort - even your life.

There is no doubt that the liberal ideology that has permeated some Christian denominations has had a negative effect on the witness of the Church (both Protestant and Catholic) in our world.

Typically the more liberal the church in doctrine and in message, the less attendance by both men and women. The more Biblically sound the church - the more attendence of both men and women.

I would like to say that this was because people tend to respond to God’s real truth when they hear it. I would also like to attribute greater attendance and growth among conservative churches and denominations to their being more orthodox, teaching sound Biblical doctrine, living sincere (as opposed to hypocritical) Christian lives - but, unfortunately, that is not always the case.

It isn’t the worship style, or the language, the color of the carpets, the “chickafication” of the church, the inexperience of the pastor or priest - it isn’t because one church only sings traditional gospel songs/hymns or another does more contemporary music as the reason why some churches lack growth or experience explosive growth. I wish it were that easy to figure out.

Some of the largest churches where I live ask very little of their membership - in fact, the bigger they are, the easier it is to “hide” from others. Some of these mega-churches are “fuzzy” about adhereing to certain unpopular Christian doctrines - like salvation through Christ alone, the inerrancy of the Bible, unwavering rejection of abortion, homosexuality, sexual purity before marriage, heck - being married before couples live together!

Some of these mega-churches are very “market-driven” in how they present their church to the community (what “programs” the church will establish in order to attract non-church people). The so-called “seeker-sensitive” churches who attempt to conform their church to the culture around them.

These churches ofentimes thrive while other, more conservative churches seem to just struggle on or even lose more and more attendence.

The point is - growth doesn’t always mean that a church is doctrinally sound. Many of the churches (sometimes called cults) experience tremendous growth.

But, as I mentioned previously - this is mostly true of what is happening in western countries like the U.S. and western Europe. We often hear that Christianity is “losing” to other faiths, like Islam, or eastern religions - but just the opposite is true. Christianity is outgrowing all other faiths world-wide, but only in the third world countries or even in typically hostile countries like China. Eastern European countries have experience growth in Christianity as well.

Everyone has their own theories as to why Christianity is losing ground in America and western Europe, but I think what is obvious is that many people in our country do not feel the need for God. We pretty much have what we want when we want it (for the most part). There is little if any real “cost” of discipleship because our people won’t put up with very much interference or inconvenience in their lives or their familties lives.

Church attendence had better be convenient and as “cheap” as possible or it’s deemed too intrusive. Soundness of doctrine is not so important, but rather how much does a church want more and more of MY time and MY money?

Doctrinally sound, Biblical churches are seen as archaic, “out of touch” with the times, “narrow”, “bigoted”, - too hard.

After all, being Biblically sound or correct doesn’t guarantee that people will respond positively to you. Moses led by God’s power and command, yet many rejected his leadership and authority. Jesus Himself, from our typical view of “success” was a total failure in His ministry. He was rejected by most people toward the end of His earthly ministry - even His own disciples left Him when He was arrested and crucified (note it was the women that stuck with Him, at the cross - and, it was three women that found the empty tomb - it was also a woman who first saw Jesus resurrected). He was even betrayed by one of His disciples.

My point is that not everyone will “endure sound doctrine”. The Apostle Paul tells us that in the last times people will reject all Godly authority. All we can do is keep on telling the truth to whomever is willling to listen. We must leave the rest to God.

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