The Miserable Comforters of Men's Ministries

Anyone who has read the book of Job knows just how unprofitable his friends Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar were in his hour of need. Even though Job did nothing wrong to deserve his fate, his friends saw the situation differently. They insisted that Job must have sinned in some respect and that he needed to repent. After all, they reasoned, God brings favor to the righteous and punishes the wicked. At one point in exasperation, Job exclaims, "I have heard many such things: miserable comforters are ye all" (Job 16:2, KJV). God himself sets the record straight at the end and gives Job's friends the 6:00 AM wake-up call:

It came about after the LORD had spoken these words to Job, that the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “My wrath is kindled against you and against your two friends, because you have not spoken of Me what is right as My servant Job has. Now therefore, take for yourselves seven bulls and seven rams, and go to My servant Job, and offer up a burnt offering for yourselves, and My servant Job will pray for you. For I will accept him so that I may not do with you according to your folly, because you have not spoken of Me what is right, as My servant Job has." (Job 42:7-8, NASB)

The modern church doesn't have any characters like Eliphaz and his buddies, does it? To ask the question is to answer it.

I fear too many men's ministries are headed by "miserable comforters." They don't get it. Their theology is pat, simplistic, and lacking in serious reflection that comes from a concerted study of God's word and a modicum of spiritual growth. They falsely assume that the problems men face are largely self-inflicted. As Paul Coughlin has noted, women get "fellowship" groups while men get "accountability" groups. The "miserable comforters" will declare that if you only do "xyz" then God will resolve things. They don't want to listen. They want to discourse at length about their Mickey Mouse theodicy and assume that solves the problem. Sermonizing relieves them from understanding, compassion, and weeping with "those who weep" (Romans 12:15).

Here's a dangerous question to ask: What qualifies these people to minister? Are they ruling by decree? Or leading by example (1 Peter 5:1-3)? Really, let's think about it ...

1. Do they come from a tough background or where they raised in a supportive Christian home?

2. Have they ever experienced long periods of social isolation or alienation?

3. Have they ever struggled for a long time with sexual desire in the face of constant rejection from the opposite sex?

4. Have they ever lost their job, relationship, or something else comparable because of a personal failing?

5. Have they ever felt they were going nowhere with their life, being stuck in an unrewarding, dead-end situation?

6. Have they ever felt that their dreams have been dashed and that the doors have been slammed in their face?

7. Have they ever felt out of place in churches and among other believers?

8. Have they ever had to struggle with health problems at a young age?

9. Have they ever struggled with depression, serious backsliding, feelings of worthlessness, anger at God, feelings of being rejected by God?

10. Have they ever "hit bottom" with a serious challenge such as drug abuse, a prison sentence, contemplating suicide, etc.?

I suppose you or I could add to the list. I am not saying that men have to go through all of these things before they minister to others. On the other hand, if you see a pattern where self-proclaimed experts on "Biblical Manhood" act patronizing and condescending to men, and yet have never really struggled with the things many men struggle with, then take note. I fear that too many involved in "pastoring" or "ministering" to men grew up in the system, or were accepted early on because they "looked the part." Jesus, on the other hand, was "despised and rejected by men," "acquainted with suffering" and "tempted in all points" (Isaiah 53:3; Hebrew 4:15). Jesus understands what men go through. The others? I'm not so certain.

Jesus described his ministry this way: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He anointed Me to preach the Gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord" (Luke 4:18-19). But of the Pharisees he said, "They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on men's shoulders, but they themselves are unwilling to move them with so much as a finger" (Matthew 23:4).

Do you feel free from the spiritual bondage of sin, guilt, dread, emptiness, and/or despair? Or do you feel weighted down? It's one thing to demand that people be holy; it's quite another thing to show them how to be holy by example. Gentlemen, test the spirits (1 John 4:1). Get out the litmus strips and see if your leaders are authentic. Maybe God, in his mercy, can work through them even though their motives are less than honorable (Philippians 1:15-18). Maybe they are in an acceptable relationship with God, but I really think many of them have misunderstood their calling. Perhaps the best thing they can do to advance the cause of Christ is to sit down and shut up.

Holiday Weekend Links

I've got a long weekend because of the MLK holiday. So, here are some good links ...

1. A nice Tubecast of Paul Elam of Mensnewsdaily.com explaining who the MRAs (and MGTOWers) are and who they AREN'T ...



You can find the longer article here.

2. An excellent piece by Paul Coughlin. Considering my last post, its subject matter couldn't be more timely. (HT: Singlextianman).

Men and the Psalms of Disorientation

A notable contribution to the interpretation of the Psalms is that advanced by Walter Brueggemann. A well-known scholar in seminary circles, Brueggemann has taken a sociological approach to study of the Old Testament, which though not entirely without criticism, cannot be summarily dismissed either. While Brueggemann veers slightly towards liberation theology at times, his work should not be pigeonholed as such. I daresay evangelical scholars who are worth their salt acknowledge the contribution Brueggemann has made to the study of the Psalms. Pick up any academic work on the Psalms put out by Eerdmans, Baker, IVP, etc. and you'll probably find a hat tip to Brueggemann right along with Derek Kidner or Trempor Longman.

Brueggemann posits a threefold scheme to understanding the book of Psalms (or the Psalter, if you will): psalms of "orientation," "disorientation," and "new orientation." Psalms of orientation express sentiments of faith when all is right with the world. These are psalms of praise, psalms extolling the value of God's word, or psalms that assure the blessings of the righteousness and punishment of the wicked. Psalms of disorientation represent a crisis in faith. These psalms cry out in agony over sin, sickness, persecution, defeat, despair, etc. Many times these psalms are frank and brutally candid in their desperation. The often wonder aloud why God is taking so long to right a situation (Psalm 13) or they may express their desire for vengeance against a personal or national enemy (Psalm 109). Finally, the psalms of new orientation represent a restored sense of faith after a crises has passed. Psalms of thanksgiving, for example, can fall into this last category.

I want to focus on the psalms of disorientation. They remind me of Job's statement: "Therefore I will not restrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit, I will complain in the bitterness of my soul" (Job 7:11, NASB). Brueggemann has stated these psalms have a vital role to play in the lives not only of individual believers but of the Church as well. Modern Christians may be taken aback by some of these psalms, such as the imprecatory psalms (where curses are pronounced against enemies). I myself do not think we can easily adopt the sentiments of all these psalms in toto (Romans 12:14), but in many other ways, we cannot ignore the negative emotions expressed by believers of old in the Psalms.

Brueggemann warns that when the psalms of disorientation are absent from individual or corporate worship of the Church, two things happen. One, the believer has an inauthentic relationship with God, only telling God what the believer thinks God wants to hear and not what God sees in the heart anyway--the grief, frustration, anger, sorrow, fear, moments of doubt. The second danger is that churches become a mouthpiece for the status quo, blind and indifferent to the suffering and problems others face. The churches are too busy singing "happy, happy, joy, joy" when they should be mourning for others and mourning for their own sins and failures (Romans 12:15; Jeremiah 8:11). Brueggemann indicates that a body of believers who cling to the mode of orientation when times of disorientation are upon them have become inauthentic in their expressions of faith.

So, the ones who quote Proverbs 18:22 on marriage forget that the same author penned Ecclesiastes 7:26-28. The ones who quote Psalm 127:4-5 on children forget that the same author penned Ecclesiastes 4:1-3. The ones who focus on Psalm 9:11 and want to sing praises forget Psalm 137:3-4 where the author, witnessing the brutal subjection of the Jews by the Babylonians, doesn't have the gumption to sing any songs at that moment. I could go on and on. There is a time and place for everything (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8). The scriptures speak to the places where we are at in our lives. Our churches, unfortunately, all too often speak the same tired litany. They're stuck in Psalm 65:4 while Jeremiah 7:4-8 rings out from the streets.

What does this have to do with men? I think it is obvious. I have already written how social conservatives have betrayed men. I have already written how the things that people consider blessings can oftentimes only serve as a painful reminder to some men that things are not right. Religious leaders and so-called "men's ministries" would like men to stay in a hollow mode of orientation. They would deny us the language, the liturgy, or the venues to express our grief, our despair, our anger, our frustration, our sense of outrage against injustice. They tell us to "stop being bitter," "move on," "get over it," "stop whining," "man up," "stop being so self-centered," "stop blaming others," and on and on. Yet they would do well to hear what Brueggemann says:

It is a curious fact that the church has, by and large, continued to sing songs of orientation in a world increasingly experienced as disorientated. That may be laudatory. It could be that such relentlessness is an act of bold defiance in which these psalms of order and reliability are flung in the face of disorder. In that way, they insist that nothing shall separate us from the love of God ...

But at best, this is only partly true. It is my judgment that this action of the church is less an evangelical defiance guided by faith, and much more a frightened, numbed denial and deception that does not want to acknowledge or experience the disorientation of life. The reason for such relentless affirmation of orientation seems to come, not from faith, but from the wishful optimism of culture. Such a denial and cover-up, which I take it to be, is an odd inclination for passionate Bible users, given the large number of psalms that are songs of lament, protest, and complaint about the incoherence that is experienced in the world. At least it is clear that a church that goes on singing "happy songs" in the face of raw reality is doing something very different from what the Bible itself does. (The Message of the Psalms, pp. 51-52) [emphasis mine]

Men, like Hannah, are weeping in the "bitterness of soul" to God (1 Samuel 1:10), but our church leaders too often play the part of Eli and falsely accuse these men of impropriety (1 Samuel 1:13-15). And all too often, church leaders are impatient with those who are suffering, forgetting that the seasons of refreshing and renewal for an afflicted believer are in God's hands, and the issue cannot always be forced. Job and the author of Psalm 88 must wait in a disoriented faith until the Lord encounters them.

So, we see, dear readers, that the ones who often accuse men of spiritual immaturity may themselves be spiritually immature. The issue of how our churches, our popular culture, our society as a whole, and even women treat men is not going away and cannot be swept under the rug of a bogus ecclesiasticism. Men of faith who are concerned about these things are finding a way to talk about these things, the cavalier dismissal of the religious status quo notwithstanding. In the face of religious misandry, they can look with a vindicated conscience to the words from the Lord by the prophet Amos:

I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream! (Amos 5:21-24, NIV)

Gentlemen, let's take a cue from Amos. Let us never be shamed into silence. Let's roll.

More recommended reading:

"What Can Miserable Christians Sing?" (by Carl Trueman) (a fuller version of this piece was published in Themelios, February 2000)

Blaming the Barometers

I am linking back to a post by Single Christian Man and plugging him while I'm at it. From time to time, he offers his comments here. Though he doesn't agree with everything I say, I find him to be a straight shooter on a lot of points. Anyone who is concerned about the issues men face in churches (especially religious misandry) needs to be reading SCM's blog regularly.

SCM's post in question is a good take on how the churches are driving single men away even as they vilify them. I think these churches are blaming the barometers. With respect to the church atmosphere, the needle is clearly pointing to FEMINIZED.

Lauren Winner on Men

Well, dear readers, I've been very busy the last couple of weeks. I find myself somewhat annoyed, feeling the duty to address the anti-male nonsense that passes for religious journalism, and yet feeling too tired and preoccupied to hose the sheer volume of it off the sidewalk. A week or so ago, I read an article by Lauren Winner at Boundless.org which addresses the contemporary problem of men not being achievers like women are. You can read her article here and the reactions Boundless readers had to it here.

Now for some fiskin' ...

Lauren says ...

But when we talk about gender and leadership, we may have been leaving out one crucial fact of contemporary life: Regardless of what we say we think about women and leadership, when it comes to college-aged and 20-somethings, women are leading in all sorts of areas.

Let me offer two examples — one anecdotal and one backed up by hard research.

With all due respect, we've had more than enough of the anecdotal from women who write about the sexes, but anyway ...

The anecdotal example comes from just about every church I've visited in the last year. Ask church staff, especially staff in charge of young adult ministries, who steps up to the plate when something needs doing, and you are likely to get the answer, "women." ...

"What's going on here," one of my friends tells me, "is not just volunteering or service, but real lay leadership. I'm thrilled to have so many active, vibrant women working with me, but I do wonder why the guys are so slack — why men who regularly attend Sunday worship and come to all our single's group social events can never be counted on to help out with anything. And I probably perpetuate things, because now, when I really need something done, I often don't even think to ask any guys. I go to the women who I know can get things done."

No, I'll tell you "what's going here." A lot of churches in the Anglosphere are nothing more than social clubs for blue-haired ladies and their richer donors. There is no spiritual depth. The men who have a stake in institutionalized Christianity usually grew up in it. The men who haven't are probably not going to go for it, or if they do, they might find down the road that they have been taken for a ride. Here's what institutionalized Christianity thinks about socially marginalized men ...

"I have no sympathy for those pushing churches to cater to the unregenerate man as a way of drawing him in. The fact that a beer guzzling, Nascar watching, porn-viewing, minimum-wage earning loser thinks that church is not for him; well, he is right." -- Debbie Maken

Just substitute a few words with the phrases "tax collectors" and "sinners," and you'll understand my ire. But, hey, at least Debbie Maken is honest. Why would Joe Six-Pack darken the door of any place that treats him like a recovering child-molester, a useful idiot that pays and obeys, or scandalized object of pity (such as someone dying of AIDS). This is why books are being written by fellows like David Murrow and Paul Coughlin. 21st century Christendom in the West, liberal or conservative, is about as relevant as 1st century Judaism, Sudducean or Pharisaic.

Continuing on with Ms. Winner ...

"It's not just in the ranks of church volunteers that women are outshining men. According to a recent cover story in The Chronicle of Higher Education, women are outpacing men on college campuses, too. More women than men are attending college, and once they get there, women get better grades and devote more time to civic activities and serving in leadership positions in campus organizations. At graduation time, women also bring home more awards and honors than men.

"What are the guys doing while women are studying, running the sorority charity drive, leading a Bible study and heading up the school debate team? Playing Lost Planet and The Legend of Zelda. Seriously. According to the Chronicle article, that's one area in which male students do significantly best women: Men devote far more time than women to playing computer games. Men also exercise more and watch more TV, and are more likely to oversleep and miss class."

What's the problem, madam? Isn't this what you girls wanted? Higher education has been the hotbed of misandry and gynocentrism for the longest time. Women have had all sorts of entitlements and handouts from various social, educational, and legal institutions to engage them. Men haven't. Why would a man want to go into debt in the first place, just so he can sit in some English class and listen to some middle-age woman drone on about Margaret Atwood's book The Handmaid's Tale? When I was in college, I sat at the feet of "those oppressive white men" who were Ivy League-trained and read works written by "those oppressive white men." A lot has changed now and a college degree has, in many respects, become a joke. Young men know this.

Experts have been scratching their heads about this trend, but no one seems to have any solutions. Should colleges accept male students with lower GPAs, with the aim of having a student body that is roughly half men and half women? Should classroom standards be radically retooled and made more "boy friendly"? For example, should teachers accommodate students' differing learning styles by no longer asking them to sit still?

(Again, I'm not making this up. As strange as it may sound, a colleague recently suggested to me, in all seriousness, that the real problems begin in the fourth and fifth grade when boys were forced to "act like girls" by sitting still to learn.)

Sorry, Lauren, but I caught you. Nice rhetorical move on your part, but you've been outed. You are attempting to marginalize the concerns that others have about anti-male discrimination by characterizing these concerns as being "strange" etc.

Let me quote from the Catalog of Anti-Male Shaming Tactics:

Charge of Fanaticism (Code Brown) - The Brown Shirts Charge

Discussion: The target is accused of subscribing to an intolerant, extremist ideology or of being devoted to an ignorant viewpoint. Examples:

* "You're one of those right-wing wackos."
* "You're an extremist"
* "You sound like the KKK."
* "... more anti-feminist zaniness"

Response: One should remember that the truth is not decided by the number of people subscribing to it. Whether or not certain ideas are "out of the mainstream" is besides the point. A correct conclusion is also not necessarily reached by embracing some middle ground between two opposing viewpoints (i.e., the logical fallacy of "False Compromise").

Anyway, moving right along, Lauren says ...

I was discussing the college gender gap with a group of honors college students at a Christian college a few weeks ago (and, notably, this honors class had far more female students than males). The students agreed that student leaders on campus tended to be women, and that women applied themselves more enthusiastically to their studies.

"You know what's really lousy about this?" said one gal. "There's no one to date. I mean, I want to date someone who is my equal, who challenges me, and who likes to spend his time doing some of the same things I do. I want to date someone who values the same things I value."

Well, sweetheart, maybe the guys think you and your hobbies are boring, or maybe they think you are a bit of a control freak. I dunno. Why is "the problem" always with the men? Get over yourself, ladies. If you want to marry up and have a knight in shining armor, then "get back in the kitchen." Men want to marry women who are attractive and have a great personality. They don't necessarily need a rocket scientist, or even a liberal arts professor. They want a helpmeet, not a competitor that reminds them of their boss and every other unpleasant authority figure they've known in their lives ...

So maybe that's the way to get men to take their studies more seriously — by pointing out that if they don't, they'll have a hard time catching the eye of an accomplished and interesting woman.

I'm so scared. Pass me the game controller, dude.

Are the two trends — the slack computer-gaming of male college students, and the seeming dearth of male volunteer leaders at churches — related?

I'm guessing they are. After all, college is a formative period, and (as your parents are endlessly telling you) "the habits you establish now will be with you for a lifetime."

Yes, because we are all now weekend statisticians that confusion correlation with causality. You know, folks, articles like this are all too predictable. If men are disengaged, well, it must be their own fault. They must be, like um, playing too many video games or looking at porn, or something like that, don't cha know. They need to grow up, man up, and be "Real Men(tm)!"

What should the church's response to this be? Well, I hope it's two-fold: First, women should get some applause for the wise way they're stewarding time and all the contributions they make to church and civic life. At the same time, we all need to encourage even young boys to devote more time to civic engagement and less to computer gaming.

I've asked before. I'll ask it again: Why should men care about a society that doesn't care about them? Pass the game controller, dude.

What we should not do is buy into a discourse that pits men against women, takes competition for granted, and tacitly assumes that only one group — men or women, but never both — can excel in college or take responsibility in church life.

All too often, discussions of any kind of "gender gap" polarize conversation. That is, people respond to the news that women outnumber men in college classrooms with panic and decide they need to devote all their attention to helping men out.

Whistling past the graveyard, aren't we, Lauren? Now boys and girls, Ms. Winner has instructed us to not say anything about the 300-pound gorilla in room that's urinating on the carpet. Mind your manners, now. But seriously, she might as well tell us to not think about pink elephants. Lauren needs to stop trying dictate the terms of the debate. Her suggestion comes off naive at best and condescending at worst.

The discussion was polarized from the start!! The polarization started when some ideologues decided the "personal" was the "political." It has been the feminists and their lackeys in government, academia, media, etc. who have elevated women by keeping men down. Young men have no positive mentors in their lives because their fathers are removed by homewrecking mothers or Nanny State functionaries. Education has become a "hostile and intimidating environment" for male student and male teacher alike at the elementary, secondary, and postsecondary level. Women must take their share of the blame for this mess.

I believe Lauren Winner doesn't know any better. She has grown up in the wake of feminism and has spent her life in elite institutions where one can expect her gender to be coddled and pampered. She now teaches at one of those elite institutions. That doesn't make her a bad person (and I don't want to diminish her accomplishments), but I do believe her background poses some potential barriers to having a better understanding of the issues men face today. A lot of educated women have make their bed with the entitlements. Now they have to lie in it.

Menleavechurch.com

I have discovered menleavechurch.com and it makes me angry and sad. I am grieved not so much at the webmaster as I am at the people and institutions that made his slide towards atheism so much easier. I want to thank all the marriage mandators, the misandrists and woman-firsters in sheep's clothing, all the Christian women who have a prima donna attitude, spiritually complacent religious leaders, men with their heads stuck in the sand, sanctimonious believers, and institutionalized religion itself for turning yet another single man away from God. He is not the first man I've seen become a spiritual causality of organized religion's callous indifference or animosity towards men. I fear that he will not be the last.

When I first stumbled across his site, I thought I found another brother-in-arms in the fight against religious misandry. It's been a lonely trek for me in the blogosphere on this issue and the occasional companions have been few and far in between. All too often, others only partially address the subject. Other times, the discussion gets derailed by counterproductive proposals involving some form of macho Christianity or the such like. When it comes to expectations, one set of hoops for men to jump through like little puppy dogs is often exchanged for another set by those who claim to be sticking up for men. Regrettably, the damage has been done for the guy who runs menleavechurch.com.

It's been a depressing week for me and my discovery of menleavechurch.com is the icing on the cake. Let me take this opportunity to express my dismay at the folly and arrogance of other human beings. Have a good weekend, folks.