I recently read a post with the title, Rehabilitating Masculinity by Louis Markos at The Imaginative Conservative in which he reviews, “It’s Good to Be a Man: A Handbook for Godly Masculinity,” authors Michael Foster and Dominic Bnonn Tennant. Foster and Tennant make some broad (pardon the pun) accusations, but I have met some of these generalizations in the flesh,
Putting to one side the specific issue of female pastors, Foster and Tennant argue that when “women hold power in the church—whether officially or unofficially—two things tend to happen:
They strive to include anyone agreeable, regardless of error.
They strive to exclude anyone disagreeable, regardless of orthodoxy” (89).
By using their God-given feminine gift for peacemaking in the wrong way and the wrong place, these controlling women end up allowing heresy into the church. Why are they not prevented from doing so by men in the church? Because the men have been taught to suppress their masculine aggression and to seek out and defer to the validation of women.
To make matters worse, because these men “are ‘nice guys,’ and conditioned in using feminine tactics, they will seldom engage with masculine strategies like direct confrontation and factual refutation. Rather, they will turn to covert maneuvering and character assassination, trying to manipulate the offender into going away through subtle ostracization, turning others against him behind his back” (93).
We have all been repeatedly warned against toxic masculinity in church leaders. Foster and Tennant warn us against a toxic femininity that has browbeaten men into being ashamed of their masculinity and embracing androgyny. They warn us as well about the subtle ways in which churches teach men “to see themselves as androgynous spirits, trapped in bodies that, unlike women’s, have nasty, sinful urges” (86). This emasculation of men, when combined with society’s call to women to act like men in order to displace men in leadership roles, plays perfectly into Satan’s hands—for Satan enjoys nothing more than preventing us from fulfilling God’s mandate to be fruitful and multiply.
I can agree that there are a large number of male priests in the Episcopal organization who seem to have lost their chests, and an equally large number of female priests in that organization who seem to have grown theirs.
One problem with this set up is that it turns men away from the Church. I would like to see a survey of churches to see if male priesthood is associated with male participation.
One thing is clear, and that is whatever the Episcopal organization is doing, it ain't working.
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I believe the Greek Orthodox Church has good male participation.
ReplyDeleteYes, from what I have observed.
DeleteI can contribute to your survey with one data point. My husband will not attend any parish whose rector is a woman. He has hired women for positions in manufacturing management and has supported our daughters with advice as they have moved into management positions in secular settings, so he is anything but a misogynist. The Church is different; where it is female-led, it fairly quickly becomes not the Church.
ReplyDeleteWhen we stray from the apostolic faith in one department, the rest of the store is quick to follow.
DeleteI was Episcopalian when the first women were ordained. I read some "high church" critiques which insisted that if women were ordained, same-sex marriage would inevitably follow. My husband agreed with that assessment. I said, "Oh, nonsense." The critics, and my husband, were right.
Delete1977, the Philadelphia eleven! My dad said the same thing. He was always right.
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