Why are there so few men in church today? Go to the average church service in the UK and you will find that most of the worshippers are women. If you are a young – and especially single – man, it is liable to be a lonely experience.
Yet Christianity originated with a man who gathered around himself a group of other men. Most leaders of the Church throughout history have been men, most great theologians and preachers have been men. Revivals such as the Great Awakening and the 1904 Welsh revival began amongst men. Even today most theologians, preachers and church leaders are men. Men appear to be everywhere in church – except in the pews.
False Reasons
We are told that women are more spiritual than men and therefore more likely to be worshippers. If this were the reason, there would always have been an imbalance in worshippers, but there is no evidence that this is so.
Men appear to be everywhere in church – except in the pews.
Another reason given is that women live longer than men and as the church is an increasingly ageing body, the imbalance becomes more visible. But women have always lived longer than men without evidence of a sexual imbalance in church.
Background
To understand how today’s situation occurred, we have to go back 200 years to the Industrial Revolution. Prior to this, the home was not simply a place where people ‘lived’ as a passive activity when they were not doing other things. Rather the home was a small factory, a bustling hub of co-operative productivity. Weaving, for example, was done on home looms with all the family, including small children, performing some work related task.
With the Industrial Revolution, the family no longer functioned as a integrated unit. In an important sense men left the home and went to work an arduous 70-80 hour week in factories. This left their wives at home with the main child-raising responsibility, including their moral and spiritual formation. No longer were men functioning as the spiritual leaders of the family, instead they were spending most of their waking hours in an often harsh masculine environment.
A disconnect between men and the church began to develop, which had a significant impact. In 1904, religious writer Richard Mudie-Smith conducted a census of Church of England attendance in London and found that 84,602 women were present compared with just 46,343 men – almost a two-to-one ratio. In this atmosphere, femininity was seen as a positive whilst masculine tendencies were to be avoided. This gradually shaped the tone of the church’s teaching and worship.
The feminisation of the church is about much more than female bishops or referring to God as ‘She’.
With the 1960s sexual revolution, the feminisation of the church received a massive boost. This exacerbated the disconnect between men and the church in a number of ways. The feminisation of the church is about much more than female bishops or referring to God as ‘She’.
Emotions
God is of course tender and loving, caring and merciful. However, feminisation has led to an increasingly imbalanced emotional interpretation of Christian teaching, leaving many men thinking the Christian life is too touchy-feely.
It may surprise some, but men do have emotions: it is part of our God-given make-up – and, after all, Jesus wept. But emotions are not the core of the Christian life. Too often men encounter a sentimentalised concept of God, a being who is described as ‘loving’ rather than ‘just’, ‘tender’ rather than ‘righteous’. The stress on emotion leads to sermons emphasising acceptance, comfort and reassurance while being short on sin, repentance and the challenges of the Christian life.
As for ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’, forget it.
Emotions prevail in modern worship music, which often consists of constantly repeated, simplistic, sentimental theology. Luther’s ‘A Mighty Fortress is Our God’ would be unlikely to have a chance of being published today. The Wesley brothers would be advised to stop wasting their time writing long, complex and challenging hymns. As for ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’, forget it.
Men are left with the impression that Jesus is our personal therapist who exists to comfort and help us through the rough patches of life. Men need to be challenged before they respond. They need to hear that he is Lord of all and is coming back to the sound of trumpets to defeat evil and reclaim his own, and men had better get on board with that. If you want to stir men, they need to hear words such as ‘duty’, ‘mission’, ‘action’ and ‘truth’.
Relationships
Men and women have different ways of connecting, and the current church favours the women’s way, small intimate groups for sharing biblical understanding and personal experience. Women meet for coffee to talk about feelings and relationships; they discuss their emotions and their problems.
Relationships are important, but for men there must be a direction, a mission.
Men don’t. Men, in general, don’t get together to share their feelings and cry on each other’s shoulders. Men get together to do things, to get on with a project, to share a hobby or to participate in sport. This should lend itself to the life in the church which is meant to be a community on a massive mission, to change the world (Matt 28:18-20).
The twelve disciples, a mixture of working men and intellectuals, of Jewish zealots and Roman collaborators, married and single, would never have got on with each other under normal circumstances. But Jesus chose precisely this band and gave them the greatest mission of all. And they were willing to spend their lives on it, and even die for it. Relationships are important, but for men there must be a direction, a mission.
Holiness
We are taught that holiness is quiet, passive and mild, a kind of baptised neo-Gandhi-ism. But Jesus made a whip and cleared the money changers from the Temple. He took on the religious establishment, and spoke up boldly. Holiness, as we see it in Jesus, is not only dying for a cause, it is standing up and living for one.
Holiness, as we see it in Jesus, is not only dying for a cause, it is standing up and living for one.
Holiness is not just about not sinning and having a regular devotional quiet time. It is also about standing for the faith and opposing wrong, it is about advancing the kingdom, it is about proclaiming the claim of Christ to all the world.
The Bible is crammed with stories and teaching which reaches men. It speaks of and urges true masculinity. Not the wimpish ‘masculinity’ of the liberal church or the toxic masculinity of an Andrew Tate, but true God-honouring masculinity which seeks out challenges for Christ and his kingdom.
If we teach this, the church will once again reach men.
The Rev. Dr Campbell Campbell-Jack is a retired Church of Scotland minister; now a member of the Free Church of Scotland. Check out his many incisive articles on his blog, A Grain of Sand.