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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: A church for men
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Garden Hermit:
Men are quite happy to discuss 'Morality' say for example in sport.
Should a football player 'dive' to get a penalty or a batsman 'walk' when he knows he's out but the umpire doesn't give it.
Men are passionate about the war in Iraq, and whether it was both 'immoral' and impractical.
In discussing 'Morality' we are coming close to the concept of 'God's will', aren't we ?
Most church services are 'boring' and the sermons never ever say anything to offend everyone, or even challenge them.
Pax et Bonum
Plenty of sermons don't shy away from offending or even condemning someone or some behaviour. Very few of them offend anyone present though. ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Carys
Ship's Celticist
# 78
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Posted
I was amused to note that tonight at our midweek service we had 7 men and 2 women (the priest and me, who served).
Carys
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O Lord, you have searched me and know me
You know when I sit and when I rise
Posts: 6896 | From: Bryste mwy na thebyg | Registered: May 2001
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
This is getting stupid. Why don't men go to church? Because they don't believe in all that crap. It has nothing to say to them. They simply don't need it.
If you're going to get them back, you've got to convince them that the church has something relevant to say to them. Something that's better for them than staying in bed or taking the kids to Little League or playing football on a Sunday morning. Something that's worth obeying all those "thou shalt not"s for.
Good luck with that.
The thing is, modern life has got so damn comfortable and easy that people don't feel any need to be Saved. Christianity is a religion that preaches a very desirable hope to the slaves, the downtrodden and the desperate - it preaches Salvation from these travails and offers a sense that In The End, everything will work out all right. For most Western man, things are perfectly OK right now, so they don't need that. Maybe in the West the message of hope to the downtrodden still reaches something in women that it doesn't in men - true equality has yet to come about, after all - but sooner or later women will be as economically and socially independent as men and then they won't feel the need to be Saved either.
Christianity is a religion for the weak, for those who cannot manage by themselves, for those who need help. And while women are allowed to need someone else in their lives, to be a "True Man" in the Western world is to be self-reliant. These two things are not compatible. And if your solution to that problem is to try to convince men that they're not self-reliant, you're just going to drive them further away.
After all, if you can't get a man to ask someone else for directions on a car journey, how are you going to get him to ask someone else for directions by which to live his entire life? He's fine. He knows exactly where he is. He doesn't.need.help.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
Oh am I supposed to go to church because I need saving? I've been going for all the wrong reasons, then. But if people really do think that, then I can see why there is a problem.
Maybe the working out of the Kingdom of God here and now on earth isn't attractive enough - if so, heaven knows what can make it so. (Apart from superficial solutions, I mean - and I bet many men, as champion bullshitters, can see through those.)
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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chorister:
Oh am I supposed to go to church because I need saving? I've been going for all the wrong reasons, then. But if people really do think that, then I can see why there is a problem.
I reckon more people throughout history have gone to church for that reason than for any other. The promise that justice will be done? The promise of paradise hereafter? Those are things worth following - and following rules for - if you're suffering from injustice and living through hell.
But seriously, why else would you want to go to church?
quote:
Maybe the working out of the Kingdom of God here and now on earth isn't attractive enough
What does that actually mean, anyway? Does it mean getting up early on Sundays to sing a bunch of boring old songs and listen to someone else prattle on for ages about how we should all be nice to one another? If so then no, it's not even slightly attractive.
quote:
if so, heaven knows what can make it so.
Hence the problem. The Church simply has nothing to offer to most men. Nothing they want, anyway.
[ 26. January 2011, 13:54: Message edited by: Marvin the Martian ]
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Unjust Stuart
Shipmate
# 13953
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Posted
quote:
If you want to persuade young men to come to church, perhaps you should first persuade young women to do so. (There is a tropism involved.)
Well it certainly worked in our church choir - half the young men ended up marrying half the girls. Add the bellringers into the mix and we had a veritable marriage bureau.
I wonder what the 'critical mass' is in order to make this scheme work?
All this is laudable, I'm sure, but it's hardly going to encourage the wife whose husband has been asked to join this hotbed of lavisciousness on the transparent excuse that "we need more men". Or the husband whose wife has been asked to "join the altos". Join the altos IN WHAT?
Sometimes a choir is just a choir.
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Forty years long was I grieved with this generation and said.
Posts: 281 | From: Hendon. Finchley. Around there. | Registered: Jul 2008
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Christianity is a religion for the weak, for those who cannot manage by themselves, for those who need help.
So that's why so many early Christians went to the lions and why there were more martyrs in the 20th Century than in the rest of history put together.
However, I agree that much in British church life panders to the weak - we get mamby pamby stuff about healing services and 'those in need' while many churches do little to address those who are currently strong about ethics in the workplace, ethical investment etc.
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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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John Holding
Coffee and Cognac
# 158
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Posted
I think Marvin is largely right.
Many men -- and many women -- and almost all people under the age of 25 simply cannot imagine why they would want to go to church. As a young atheist friend of mine says, the church only has answers to questions I'm not asking.
And the church hasn't, IME, even started asking how it can present its message -- whatever that message is -- to people who aren't aware of the concepts of sin or salvation or "the Kingdom".
I'd go so far as to say that those on the inside live in a world so removed from those on the outside that we're already in a dialogue of the deaf.
The norm today is not to go to church. And the fault lies with those in preceding generations (because it's taken a couple of generations to get where we are) who never gave their children a good reason to go to church. Because once a person stops going, s/he won't bring the children, who will grow up without any knowledge at all of what church is about or for. In England alone in the western world, it's possible for there to be a bit of a safety net.
In truth, what will bring those who don't now go to church into church is raw evangelisation -- not cute devices for luring back people who have a basic faith but are lazy or distracted -- but reasons that make sense in today's secular world to people who have neither prior knowledge or experience, many of whom simply don't care and don't see why they should be bothered, and many who likely also have an "anti" bias, based on what "everybody knows" about church, priests, preachers and christians.
Because "everybody knows" -- and frightening numbers of people, especially younger people -- know that the church is always against what they are for: the church is against fair treatment for gays and lesbians, the church believes in literalism and fundamentalism, clergy are all child abusers or embezzlers and so on. ANd if they know someone who isn't like that, why "s/he's the exception that proves the rule."
Fellowship and community can be one such reason, but -- again IME -- if that's both where the evangelisation starts and where it ends, in the end, the people who come for it will leave.
John
[ 26. January 2011, 19:28: Message edited by: John Holding ]
Posts: 5929 | From: Ottawa, Canada | Registered: May 2001
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Christianity is a religion for the weak, for those who cannot manage by themselves, for those who need help.
So that's why so many early Christians went to the lions and why there were more martyrs in the 20th Century than in the rest of history put together.
Yes, pretty much. The powerful ones were the ones with the lions. The powerless were the ones who got fed to them. Weak isn't the same as cowardly. If the martyrs had been in positions of power they wouldn't have been martyrs. They'd have been in charge.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
You seem to be conflating being powerful and being in a position of power.
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Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
But seriously, why else would you want to go to church?
Order and structure to life of following a particular religious path. I'm under no illusions that, if brought up in a different culture, that might well mean a different religion. The future - after death - has never bothered me, so it's got to be a reason for the here and now. I'm very fortunate in that I enjoy singing in the choir, which means my churchgoing is part of an all-embracing hobby as well as part of a faith journey through life. But would I still go to church if there was no choir? Actually, yes (even though it might be harder) because of the previously mentioned structure and shape to life. The church's year is part of a rhythm that makes sense to me.
Perhaps others find this structure and shape through other means? or maybe don't even like structure at all?
Interestingly, though, I'm struck by how much other religions are followed by so many men. Aggressively, maybe - so there may be issues with that - but, with the women expected to be docile followers, it's usually the men who make so much noise and take it so seriously.
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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
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Posted
Hasn't the church always contained many more females than men? There's plenty of evidence from the first few centuries that this was the case - and so perhaps the situation a few hundred years ago where robust argument attracted a more gender balanced congregation - was the high water mark rather than anything easily replicable.
I also note that many of the churches which do have reasonable numbers of men generally have them as part of a married couple.
Posts: 4035 | From: Berkshire | Registered: May 2007
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
Chris stiles asked quote:
Hasn't the church always contained many more females than men?
That's the question I would be interested in seeing the answer to as well!
Beyond any doubt, there is evidence that at certain times - and I suppose in certain places - this has been true. It's easy to link these unrelated points up to assume it has always been that way. But has it?
For a start, there are also times when there seem to have been more men around than women (for example when there was a push to get the church back on track that resulted in the establishment of the desert fathers and mothers. There seems to have been a preponderance of the former). There are also long periods of time for which we have no data at all. But might this not be because there was nothing to say? A major reason for that might be that church was not deemed a particularly sexed institution, at least so far as congregations went.
Moreover, as I said earlier, some churches don't have this imbalance at present.
It seems to me that another explanation worth considering would be that the church may have seen a preponderance of one sex at certain times, but not necessarily all the time. It may have fluctuated. To be honest, I have only suggested this scenario because, quite frankly, I don't think the data is adequate to support the assertion that "things have always been this way". It may be correct, but if it is, I would like to see the argument based on fact rather than assertion.
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chorister:
Perhaps others find this structure and shape through other means? or maybe don't even like structure at all?
Yes, very much so. People get structure from work, from friendships, from sports, from hobbies, from family life, etc. And all those things are more productive, or more fun, than church.
The set of people who would go to church just for the bit of extra structure in their lives is vanishingly small, I would say. For a start they'd have to have nothing better to structure their life around, and how many of the non-churched would say that?
quote:
Interestingly, though, I'm struck by how much other religions are followed by so many men. Aggressively, maybe - so there may be issues with that - but, with the women expected to be docile followers, it's usually the men who make so much noise and take it so seriously.
So maybe the question should be: what are those religions doing differently that attracts so many men to them? What are they saying that Christianity isn't, and conversely what are they not saying that Christianity is?
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
You seem to be conflating being powerful and being in a position of power.
Sounds fair enough to me.
Leo seemed to be conflating weakness with cowardice or indecision.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Anselmina
Ship's barmaid
# 3032
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Posted
I think John Holding's post above pretty much sums up the main challenge and difficulty of the church's modern-day mission.
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Posts: 10002 | From: Scotland the Brave | Registered: Jul 2002
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Desert Daughter
Shipmate
# 13635
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Posted
I mostly agree with Marvin. Modern churchdom is too touchy-feely. Too wooly. It drives out not only the males, but also the more gutsy, independent-minded females.
Interestingly, in groups of "strong" (ie healthy, educated, and in responsible positions) Christians -such as the 'Mouvement des Cadres Chrétiens' here in France- you find that in meetings the males are often in the majority.
I know I ride on stereotypes here, but I wished we had some more 'masculine' churches: Where the sermons were on issues of pro-actively dealing with life, where after-church coffee included beer (why not? ...OK, at least for us European Catholics... ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif) ) and open discussion on politics, society, and God.
The Jesuits got it right when they proposed different masses for different kinds of people.
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"Prayer is the rejection of concepts." (Evagrius Ponticus)
Posts: 733 | Registered: Apr 2008
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
In response to Marvin's points, which I think have some validity --
Of course church in the modern western world faces the problem of no longer being able to appeal to people's sense of desperation by promising them a reward in the afterlife. Nor do we have the deeply-ingrained sense of sin and guilt to which the church can offer a cure in the form of divine forgiveness (although I'm not sure why; it's not like we're any less sinful).
But that doesn't mean that comfortable modern people have no needs, only that the church needs to adjust its message to the needs people actually feel. Surely the need for meaning and a sense of purpose, not to mention the need for connection, both to other people and to something beyond oneself, are pressing and pervasive needs for most well-off Westerners (male and female)? Has the church nothing to say to the vague, nagging sense that getting up and going to work every day for forty years only to die at the end of it, is meaningless and without purpose?
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
A couple of thoughts arising out of recent posts:
In answer to Marvin - it's interesting that you see it as either / or, whereas I see it as both / and. If you are the sort of person who likes order and structure a lot, you seek it out in all these - in work, in hobbies, in religion, in life.
Also, in a traditional Anglican setting, you often get men who went to public school, where church attendance was part and parcel of life; also many in the choir who learnt to sing as young boys in a school or major church choir. Perhaps people who do like structure are attracted to churches with formal liturgy and ordered activities such as church choir, acolyte duties and bellringing.
In answer to stiles: you make an interesting point about men often being in married couples if there are a lot of them in church. That is certainly so in my church - I'd not divided up the men into married and unmarried, I'd just noticed there were a lot of them. And family men, currently we have many where dad and mum come together with the children, whereas in many churches perhaps dad stays home and they come with just mum.
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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
Of course church in the modern western world faces the problem of no longer being able to appeal to people's sense of desperation by promising them a reward in the afterlife. Nor do we have the deeply-ingrained sense of sin and guilt to which the church can offer a cure in the form of divine forgiveness (although I'm not sure why; it's not like we're any less sinful).
One of the by-products of the social rights movement was the idea that everyone is good, rather than the idea that everyone (or at least some people) is bad and sinful. It led to everyone thinking they're the bees knees regardless of what they do, and that in turn means a loss of the ingrained sense of sinfulness that you refer to.
In short, modern education is all about buiding up children's self-esteem. And then we wonder why they don't think they have anything wrong with them that needs forgiving?
quote:
But that doesn't mean that comfortable modern people have no needs, only that the church needs to adjust its message to the needs people actually feel. Surely the need for meaning and a sense of purpose, not to mention the need for connection, both to other people and to something beyond oneself, are pressing and pervasive needs for most well-off Westerners (male and female)?
I think that, whereas in the past it might have been a need for structure and purpose, the main need most modern people have is for affirmation. they don't want to be told to change, they just want someone to tell them that what they're doing is a-ok.
As for connections beyond oneself, people get those through friendship groups and clubs. "Church as a social club" is often derided, but maybe the problem referred to on this thread was caused by it ceasing to be true?
quote:
Has the church nothing to say to the vague, nagging sense that getting up and going to work every day for forty years only to die at the end of it, is meaningless and without purpose?
Not if people don't believe in the basic tenets of faith, no. Without that basic belief the church is just one more self-help group.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Invictus_88
Shipmate
# 15352
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Posted
Mass in the RCC seems to be closer to gender-balanced than reports here from services of other churches.
I think Marvin might be onto something here - although I believe he is mistaken in the matter of fact - in that modernist confusions have led to a rather namby pamby blur of shallow consolations and warm platitudes. It is not that Christianity is for weaklings, but that it is all-too-often presented weakly.
Posts: 206 | Registered: Dec 2009
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Invictus_88:
It is not that Christianity is for weaklings
I didn't say "weaklings", I said "the weak". As opposed to "the powerful". Meaning people who are downtrodden, oppressed and dominated by others. Nothing to do with individual physical or mental strength at all.
Ken got it.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Invictus_88:
Mass in the RCC seems to be closer to gender-balanced than reports here from services of other churches.
I think Marvin might be onto something here - although I believe he is mistaken in the matter of fact - in that modernist confusions have led to a rather namby pamby blur of shallow consolations and warm platitudes. It is not that Christianity is for weaklings, but that it is all-too-often presented weakly.
I think it's more (as another poster noted earlier) that we-- meaning all humans, not just moderns)-- have some really messed up ideas about power. We don't understand what it means to be powerful, because everything Jesus taught and lived about power is completely counter-intuitive to us-- the first shall be last, to save your life you must lose your life, etc. Walter Wink I think develops this well in his works.
It also comes down to your understanding of the incarnation. Do you understand Phil. 2:5-6 as "even though Jesus was in the form of God... he emptied himself" or do you understand it as "precisely because Jesus was in the form of God... he emptied himself". What does it mean to be "God"? To have the power of God? Does it mean being the biggest, strongest bad-a** on the block? Or does it means something quite different?
[ 28. January 2011, 14:43: Message edited by: cliffdweller ]
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Nicolemr
Shipmate
# 28
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Posted
quote:
Interestingly, though, I'm struck by how much other religions are followed by so many men. Aggressively, maybe - so there may be issues with that - but, with the women expected to be docile followers, it's usually the men who make so much noise and take it so
Do you actually have any evidence other than looking at the way things appear from the outside that other religious traditions attract more men than women? Because I was just wondering myself if this is a general thing, that maybe _in general_ women are more attracted to religion than men are. I can say this, a non-Christian looking at Christianity from the outside would probably not automatically see this sexual divide. A Non-Christian looking at Christianity would most likely more see it the way you are seeing other religions.
Remember, just because there's a hardcore militant wing of a religion, such as, for instance, Islamic terrorists, doesn't mean that mainstream mosques aren't filled with more women then men simply following the daily tenants. I have no idea if this is the case or not, but just looking at what we see presented in the media wouldn't tell us one way or another.
I'd really like some hard info on this, because I am really starting to wonder if in fact it's just simply that more women generally are interested in religion.
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On pilgrimage in the endless realms of Cyberia, currently traveling by ship. Now with live journal!
Posts: 11803 | From: New York City "The City Carries On" | Registered: May 2001
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
I would be interested to see more hard data on that too, nicolemrw. Certainly my impression of Islam from the outside is that there are either similar numbers or sometimes more men.
A couple of years ago we were invited to visit a madrassah in Oman. The main mosque in Muscat is in fact two mosques - they built separate ones for the men and women and the women's one is half the size. I was told the big one (men's) often overflows on big festivals.
But that is Hanbali Islam. How it works in other forms of Islam I don't know.
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
No I don't have hard evidence, it's based on impressions from news coverage (which I'm well aware may be biased). But the situation is often one of war or threat - I wonder whether some men need a bit of danger in order to think it's OK to be seen in church? I've heard from forces chaplains that services are more popular during war or threat of war.
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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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Alogon
Cabin boy emeritus
# 5513
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chorister:
I wonder whether some men need a bit of danger in order to think it's OK to be seen in church?
Probably, but historically one reason suggested for the predominance of women in church is that while they prayed, the men would stand guard outside, on the lookout for danger. This situation prevailed for awhile in Ireland, when Roman Catholic worship was proscribed; the need for quiet in such circumstances also explains "why Catholics can't sing" in the U.S. (where Irish is the ethnic and cultural heritage of parishes unless stated otherwise).
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Patriarchy (n.): A belief in original sin unaccompanied by a belief in God.
Posts: 7808 | From: West Chester PA | Registered: Feb 2004
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
quote:
[qb]Has the church nothing to say to the vague, nagging sense that getting up and going to work every day for forty years only to die at the end of it, is meaningless and without purpose?
Not if people don't believe in the basic tenets of faith, no. Without that basic belief the church is just one more self-help group.
Sorry, I'm confused -- who are the "people" you're referring to, who don't believe in the basic tenets of the faith? If you mean people already active in the church, then obviously if they don't believe what they're supposedly teaching, they won't have much to offer to others, male or female.
But if you mean the theoretical audience -- the people, male or female, who are not being drawn towards the church -- then you could make the exact same argument against your own theory that church offers a promise of salvation to the weak, the oppressed, and those with a sense of sin. It only offers salvation IF YOU BELIEVE what it teaches -- if you're oppressed and struggling, the promise of salvation in the afterlife means nothing if you don't believe it's true. Likewise, the promise that your life is meaningful because you were created by a loving God who has a place in His plan for you, is hardly meaningful if you don't believe it. But I think if you do believe it, it's very powerful, and has a great deal to say to the needs of modern society.
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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Anselmina
Ship's barmaid
# 3032
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Posted
Read a lovely little excerpt from one of Anthony Trollope's novels where the male characters are all giving their excuses for not attending the local church; as in it's not their usual habit and certainly not to go more than once if at all; and where the women are being chivvied into attendance whether they want to or not.
'Women seem to need more church than us,' observes one of the men. A view clearly not shared with at least one of the women characters!
The interesting thing was that it was perfectly acceptable for the men not to bother, whereas rather scandalous if the women didn't.
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Posts: 10002 | From: Scotland the Brave | Registered: Jul 2002
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
But if you mean the theoretical audience -- the people, male or female, who are not being drawn towards the church -- then you could make the exact same argument against your own theory that church offers a promise of salvation to the weak, the oppressed, and those with a sense of sin. It only offers salvation IF YOU BELIEVE what it teaches -- if you're oppressed and struggling, the promise of salvation in the afterlife means nothing if you don't believe it's true.
Part of my theory is the idea that weak and oppressed people who can concieve of no other way out of their downtrodden existence are more likely to cling to any hope for release. Belief itself is more likely when one is in that situation. If you desperately need a saviour, you'll reach out to any salvation that happens to present itself. If you're in that situation, you need to believe in some hope, some means of escape.
The comfortable and powerful don't have that need to believe - they don't have any major needs that belief can meet, there aren't any gaps in their lives for belief to fill. And there are a lot of comfortable and/or powerful people in the Western world today.
[ 29. January 2011, 10:52: Message edited by: Marvin the Martian ]
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
I went to a football match last night. And thought, not for the first time, that the demographics of football supporters are almost the exact opposite of the demographics of church attenders. At least they are in South East London. The missing demographic at our church is, roughly, white working-class men of working age - that is precisely the sort of people who most go to football matches.
The missing age group in church is from about 18 to 35. Maybe even 50. Football fans actually have a pretty smooth age distribution but I think young adults are probably slightly over-represented.
Men are over-represented among football supprters. I'd guess about four fifths of last night's crowd was male. About four fifths of our church congregation is female (a few years ago there were almost no men at all - more men have been coming since we have had women vicars - I infer no causality)
Black people are over-represented at church. Our church is about 90% black. The neighbourhood I live in is probably about 50% black, but most of our congregation live further away than me. Around 20% of the population of the boroughs from which our football team draws most of its support are black but the supporters are maybe 95% white. There are hundreds of black supporters at home matches, but not thousands. (This is not true for every football team in London - black people in south-east London or the East End often support Arsenal, rather than the immediately local teams. Possibly for good reason)
The class situation is more complicated. These days our smallish number of white church members tend to be either middle-class and university-educated, or else from the very poorest parts of society - there are homeless people, and alcoholics, and people in long-term psychiatric care. The middle is missing. This was not the case even twenty years ago, when the mainstay of the congregation was elderly women from what would once have been called the "respectable working classes" or possibly the lower middle classes. People with skilled jobs (or married to people with skilled jobs), often self-employed, earning a decent amount of money, but culturally working-class and unlikely to be university educated or to be anyone's boss or landlord. That description probably applies to most of our black members now, but not so many of the white ones. At football, on the other hand...
The other place I spend lots of time in company locally is the pub. That's an even more interesting crowd. It includes lots of football supporters, though its more ethnically diverse than the football crowd - lots of Irish and Jamaicans, which is typical of pubs in our area. And some of the men who go to our pub are in fact the husbands or boyfriends of some of the women who go to our church. Which leads to some conversations that sometimes end up with me knowing more about people's private business than maybe I ought to. People have different kinds of conversations in pubs than in church. And in my experience they are more likely to talk about personal problems or family trouble and such like emotional stuff in the pub than they are in church. Maybe its the beer, maybe they feel safer, or under less pressure to say the right thing, but you hear a lot of private details of people's lives in a pub that rarely get mentioned in church.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
So ... more beer and football in church, then?
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
So ... more beer and football in church, then?
That would work for Protestants. We have too many candle stands to make it safe.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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ThunderBunk
Stone cold idiot
# 15579
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Posted
my word, what a relentless shower of cliches!! Find me more than one man in a hundred who feels genuinely empowered in himself by all the social structures of power which are at best lent to him on the strict condition that he does not make a single solitary personal decision as to how or when to deploy them. They come with strict terms and conditions, which have to be followed on pain of painful and debilitating deprivation.
To me, the absence of men in church has a lot to do with the general state of masculinity: the current prevalent model has successfully encouraged to forget how to access most of their humanity. If it is preached at all well, the Christian invitation is to access our humanity more fully, which goes against this conditioning and scares people off.
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Currently mostly furious, and occasionally foolish. Normal service may resume eventually. Or it may not. And remember children, "feiern ist wichtig".
Foolish, potentially deranged witterings
Posts: 2208 | From: Norwich | Registered: Apr 2010
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anne
Shipmate
# 73
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by FooloftheShip:
To me, the absence of men in church has a lot to do with the general state of masculinity: the current prevalent model has successfully encouraged to forget how to access most of their humanity. If it is preached at all well, the Christian invitation is to access our humanity more fully, which goes against this conditioning and scares people off.
But this would only be the case if the low proportion of men to women in congregations was a new phenomenon. If the 'general state of masculinity' has deteriorated in some way, how do we explain that in general women have been over represented and men have been under represented in church congregations, in the UK at least, for many years, as has been described in other posts?
Just as it's a mistake to assume that the capacity of a church is a guide to the size of the congregation when it was built, it's probably a mistake to think that our nostalgic images of a golden age of pews filled with equal numbers of men and women ever reflected the truth.
anne
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‘I would have given the Church my head, my hand, my heart. She would not have them. She did not know what to do with them. She told me to go back and do crochet' Florence Nightingale
Posts: 338 | From: Devon | Registered: May 2001
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
Perhaps we need different types of church to connect with extraverts and introverts rather than with males and females (but which will result in more males attending by default). When a church changed from having a more introvert older vicar to a more extravert younger one, I noticed more younger males started to come along. Now is this due to the age, or the personality style of the vicar? I'm not sure - perhaps some of both?
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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
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Posted
Are you saying that more men are extrovert than women? I would have thought the opposite was true. Back when I had my horoscope read by the Myers Briggs coven, the only that rang true to me was the Extrovert/Introvery thing. If you were feeling tired would you renew your strength by seeing friends (Ex) or by doing something solitary (In)? All the complaints here about touchy-feely stuff would support the broad stereotype that men aren't into that sort of thing, don't want to discuss their inner feelings, and are happy bottling everything up. Classic Introvert, in my book.
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Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin
Posts: 8927 | From: In the pack | Registered: May 2001
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
All the complaints here about touchy-feely stuff would support the broad stereotype that men aren't into that sort of thing
The men I am talking about who go to the pub or the football are being a lot more extrovert and noisy than the ones who go to church. They talk to each other. They jump up and down. They shake hands and clap each other on the back and sometimes even hug or believe it or not kiss on the cheek (though that would be rare). They talk, They shout. They even sing. Mostly very badly.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
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Posted
The stereotype is that men will talk about things, but not feelings. The reverse for women. That makes the stereotypical man more Introvert than the stereotypical woman (as always, exceptions are plentiful).
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Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin
Posts: 8927 | From: In the pack | Registered: May 2001
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St. Punk the Pious
Biblical™ Punk
# 683
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
This is getting stupid. Why don't men go to church? Because they don't believe in all that crap. It has nothing to say to them. SNIP
But I think similar things could be said about women. I think most men would at least respect a church that taught the faith clearly and firmly rather than dancing around it with trivial sermons about everything else.
Also, like it or not, many men do not like being preached at by women, whether they admit it or not. And more and more of the clergy in many churches are women.
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The Society of St. Pius *
Wannabe Anglican, Reader
My reely gud book.
Posts: 4161 | From: Choral Evensong | Registered: Jul 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
This is getting stupid. Why don't men go to church? Because they don't believe in all that crap.
So if it's crap, you're saying that women just aren't smart enough to figure that out, and men are?
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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HughWillRidmee
Shipmate
# 15614
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Posted
I'm one of those men who doesn't go to church. To my surprise (though I'm unsure why I should be surprised by it) my advice to you is "Listen to Marvin". You may not like what he's saying but it makes a lot of sense.
Formerly churches/religions basically only had to compete with each other - it was largely a matter of taste/degree of religious preference rather than one of belief v. unbelief. Now much that was represented as fact is seen as silly and irrelevant.
In the past the churches told people what their needs were and then offered the solution. The combination of the advances of science, the spread of education, information availablity via the www and the adoption of similar sales tactics by organisations offering other products competing for the same income (starting with Pepsodent and including Listerine?) leaves christianity as a vulnerable brand.
Churches are selling a conceptual product in a material world. In the past it probably made sense to go along with the church as a form of insurance - it probably still does in less socially advanced parts of the world. Now, in the UK, unless it's part of your comfort zone the price isn't worth the candle. (sorry about that).
Most people will only buy a product that meets a perceived need - whether that need be real or not is irrelevant.
In other words you have to have a product that appeals to a market - Christianity is perceived as being rigid, old-fashioned and hierachical (Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today and forever, funny clothes and rituals, headlines and images screaming antedeluvian attitudes to LGBT, abortion, medical research etc.) and that has appeal to some - but probably a decreasing proportion of Brits and generally not, I suspect, to those who feel strong and secure in a world of change. At a tangent - perhaps that's why some people whose income/status/power depend upon religious foundations seem determined to maintain social inequality?
Frankly one could argue that, as a product, christianity has had it's heyday and is on the downward sales path to oblivion. Clearly that is not true in large parts of the world but the process has started. Does your soft drink have the same formula as thirty years ago? Is it offering the same message to justify your judgement of its worth? Perhaps Christianity's problem is that it has boxed itself into a rigidity of product that precludes the sort of responsiveness to customer needs that other brands have taken. How would you feel about dropping the Creeds, forgetting about original sin and transubstantation, accepting that gender variations are a product of millions of years of evolution, losing the resurrection, rejecting the virgin birth etc? And if christianity did all that - what would be its raison d'etre?
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The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things.. but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them...
W. K. Clifford, "The Ethics of Belief" (1877)
Posts: 894 | From: Middle England | Registered: Apr 2010
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
Churches are selling a conceptual product in a material world.
This is an odd statement to me, as culturally speaking, the world is less "material" than it's ever been. This is the information age, and people are derided precisely for NOT having physical interaction with one another, but interacting entirely in an immaterial medium. And the material world is denigrated with such malphemisms as "meatspace".
The churches are selling a conceptual idea in a virtual world, it would be better to say. In the material world, in middle class English-speaking Telluria, many people spend their time goofing on the Internet, watching TV, and playing video games.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Fineline
Shipmate
# 12143
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
All the complaints here about touchy-feely stuff would support the broad stereotype that men aren't into that sort of thing
The men I am talking about who go to the pub or the football are being a lot more extrovert and noisy than the ones who go to church. They talk to each other. They jump up and down. They shake hands and clap each other on the back and sometimes even hug or believe it or not kiss on the cheek (though that would be rare). They talk, They shout. They even sing. Mostly very badly.
But that isn't really 'touchy feely' in the same way that often happens in churches, is it? In a pub, it's more boisterous, more spontaneous, not all pious and sentimental. I see 'touchy feely' more as a sentimental thing, and involves being super sensitive to different people's sensibilities, but maybe I'm misunderstanding the expression. My sister stopped going to church as a teenager because it was too 'counsellor-like' - when our parents split up, people were always hugging her and asking if she was okay, and being all extra kind, and while she found it nice at first, she didn't want that continually happening. I went to a different sort of church where that didn't happen, so I guess it depends on the church too.
Posts: 2375 | From: England | Registered: Dec 2006
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Fineline:
My sister stopped going to church as a teenager because it was too 'counsellor-like' - when our parents split up, people were always hugging her and asking if she was okay, and being all extra kind, and while she found it nice at first, she didn't want that continually happening.
Similarly, of course, there are many people who have left churches because that DIDN'T happen -- they were going through a crisis and not enough people stepped forward to be obviously supportive and "touchy feely." Which just illustrates the difficulty churches have in trying to meet the needs of all sorts of different people, not just men and women.
As regards Marvin's points -- I think that's an irreconcilable difference between us then: if I'm reading you right, you genuinely believe modern people have no needs that can be met by Christianity, and that Christianity has nothing to offer and nothing to say in the modern world. Whereas I think Christianity still has quite a lot to offer, but since modern people may perceive their needs differently than people did in the past, churches need to adjust the way in which they proclaim the message. I think people are in as much need of a Savior as they ever were, but that they are aware of that need in different ways and would use different language to express it.
And then there's this ...
quote:
Originally posted by St. Punk the Pious:
Also, like it or not, many men do not like being preached at by women, whether they admit it or not. And more and more of the clergy in many churches are women.
How fortunate that all women always enjoy being preached at by men, so there's no need to adjust the way we do things.
The inherent sexism in this comment actually makes me want to do something I don't think I've ever done before, which is to use this ![[Projectile]](graemlins/puke2.gif) emoticon. However, since the ordination of women is a certified Dead Horse, I can't delve into the issue as I'd like to here. I just have to decide whether it's worth the effort of calling you to Hell or to Dead Horses to discuss it further, and if so, which.
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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Fineline
Shipmate
# 12143
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
Similarly, of course, there are many people who have left churches because that DIDN'T happen -- they were going through a crisis and not enough people stepped forward to be obviously supportive and "touchy feely."
Oh yes, definitely. I was illustrating my understanding of the term 'touchy feely' rather than saying that my sister's church was wrong to do this. And to be fair, she wanted this at first - she would share her feelings to get support. She wouldn't have liked my church, where people weren't touchy feely. It is impossible to be all things to all people. I'd say to some extent it's up to the individual to find a church which suits their personality and needs, rather than to criticise all the churches which don't, because different churches meet different people's needs.
It occurs to me that if there were several men who couldn't find a church to suit them but they wanted to worship, they could in theory set up their own worship - in someone's home or something.
Posts: 2375 | From: England | Registered: Dec 2006
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Makepiece
Shipmate
# 10454
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Posted
In destructive marriages or relationships social psychologists have often found something called the 'Demand/withdraw' cycle. This involves one partner placing demands on the other and that other partner then withdraws in response. This can become a downward spiral as the demanding party feels the need to demand even more following the withdrawal and so on...
Before moving on I should make it clear that it is possible for one party to withdraw in response to perceived demands.
It would be interesting to know (and I have absolutely no evidence) whether the Demand/Withdraw cycle can also have an effect on a larger social group. A set of people who share a common identity who subconsciously decide to withdraw. Of course at this level it would almost certainly be a perceived demand rather than an actual demand.
As a male I would apply the above theory to my own experience in the following way. Teen- I want to get drunk, have self indulgent sex and I want people to be intimidated by me. I perceive that I need to do these things in order to be safe and secure. I perceive the church as telling me that I need to place my self in an insecure situation by trusting in something that will cause me to be subjected to ridicule (the demand). In consequence I do not want to be associated with the church (the withdrawal). One day however I hear and understand the word of God and I realise that the reverse is true. It is 'society' demanding that I place myself in an insecure situation so that I can be used for it's own ends and that true security can be found in trusting in God's son. Of course I do not, or should not, respond to society's demands by withdrawing from society because removal of the source of my relational problems has begun.
[ 30. January 2011, 18:50: Message edited by: Makepiece ]
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Don't ask for whom the bell tolls...
Posts: 938 | From: Nottingham | Registered: Sep 2005
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
People certainly do withdraw from demands of the church - I've read on the ship many times that people feel jumped on if they do turn up and asked to do all sorts of jobs. Again this is not specific to men.
Marvin's notion that people don't come (or stop coming) because they don't believe is probably true. In which case we've probably got the message wrong. After all, people don't stop posting on the ship when they don't believe, they continue to post and feel able to declare that they don't believe or have trouble believing. Perhaps in too many churches people don't feel able to do this. And if you don't like pretending....
Maybe liberal churches, where it's OK to admit to such thoughts, aren't too good at advertising themselves?
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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
There isn't really a place in the liturgy for doubts, is there ? One recites the articles of faith. The church affirms the wonder and goodness of God, you don't sing songs about the problem of evil. The sermon might cover some of these things once in a while, but more often it will tell you about things that are wonderful - or ways to pull up your spiritual socks.
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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Horseman Bree
Shipmate
# 5290
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Posted
So maybe the churches need to find venues where people can express their doubts and worries, instead of just having places where the show at the front assumes that you don't have doubts or worries. An event where you are told to recite stuff you aren't sure of, that tells you to "have more faith" (how?) and that emphasises uniformity within the hive isn't necessarily worthwhile.
The "pub" (or whatever) venues sound like a pretty useful idea.
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It's Not That Simple
Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003
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