Christianity in North America

The Church’s Missing Men

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For all intents and purposes, the Christian Church in America is not growing. George Barna’s organization has been on top of this plateau for years, so the numbers are easily verifiable. There are some that might even argue that the Church is slipping because the number of unchurched adults is up from 21% in 1991 to 34% today. Men comprise 55% of the unchurched, a number that is made worse when we consider that men are less than 50% of the population (49.2% according to Census estimates.) Worse yet, only 38% of those who claim to be “born again Christians” are men .

These are disturbing numbers and demand some analysis. Why is the Church so disproportionately female? I believe that a partial answer to this is that most men are overwhelmed by the demands currently being placed on them by our culture in general, and Christian churches and parachurch organizations specifically.

To start, men are getting many messages from their churches (and parachurch organizations) that simply do not line up with realistic expectations of home, family, and work. It would be no stretch of the imagination to think that the average Christian man is asked to…

1. Be the primary—and optimally sole—breadwinner

2. Set aside time for marriage enrichment (planned dates, marriage enrichment classes, and couple getaways)

3. Set aside important daily growth and development time with his children (often extending to homeschooling)

4. Perform other husband-related duties at home

5. Be part of a coed Bible study or small group with his wife

6. Be part of a men’s Bible study or small group

7. Maintain a community presence by being actively involved in his local government or community affairs

8. Maintain a daily Bible reading/study time

9. Devote a meaningful amount of time to prayer and meditation

10. Volunteer at his church

I’m certain most people reading this will agree that this list of 10 accurately reflects the reality portrayed to Christian men as being the “godly ideal.” A culling of the present message of family-oriented Christian ministries from radio, TV, Christian bestselling family-oriented books, and pulpit messages will find these ideals repeatedly reinforced, often with the not-so-hidden message being, “If you do not do all these things—and do them well—you are not fulfilling your role as a Christian man.”

But when we consider the ways in which the Church and families are operating in this country, is this a realistic expectation?

Depending on which survey you read, the average American is spending between 47 and 49 hours a week at work. Of those varying figures, there is one agreement: Americans work more hours every year. As companies further downsize and ask more of their workers, this trend shows no sign of letting up.

There is also countercultural pressure from within churches and parachurch organizations (such as Focus on the Family) to give their imprimatur to households in which the father works outside the home as the sole breadwinner while the mother stays at home with the children, preferably homeschooling. ( And though I cannot find exact figures to support this assertion numerically, my personal experience of more than a quarter century in the Church has been that this is true—and growing more widely accepted as the norm.)

Given these two factors, it can be projected that the average Christian father will spend more and more time working, with less time devoted to family life (or any of the other nine items on the list.) This situation is simply not being addressed by church groups, even as the picture of what constitutes a “good, Christian father” is continually expanded to include more “must do’s.”

What comes of this contradicting message is that the other items on the list suffer—often greatly. Since the 1990’s, the emphasis has been on marriage and family time, and for the most part, Christian men have responded to this favorably. Faced with the fact that Christians, even those claiming to be “born again,” are divorcing at rates equal to their secular counterparts, churches and parachurch organizations have gone into overdrive preaching the message of hearth and home. No sane person would argue against this need.

But something has to give, and I believe that it is the spiritual life of men that is in decline. The move of churches away from traditionally teaching through the pulpit and adult Sunday School classes, instead preferring small home group teaching (often led by less experienced leaders), means that men are getting their Christian Education from less reliable and less focused sources. Small groups often trade off teaching and study with relationship building. While making stronger relational ties is an admirable goal, the horizontal cannot supplant the vertical. Yet increasingly, this is the case.

Forced to carve time for more outward, visible proofs of Christian devotion (those most rewarded by Christian society currently), private Bible study and prayer time are becoming luxuries to many Christian men. For all we are asked to do, though, how can fifteen minutes a day in private prayer and Bible study ever hope to ground us deep in the Lord, able to meet the day’s demands? There simply is no possibility that an overcoming Church, grounded in spiritually vital men, will arise in our lifetimes if this is the extent of our personal devotion. What rushes in to fill the vacuum left behind by the loss of a powerful, manly Christianity with teeth is a gentle, emotional, feminized version that men find lacking. Faced with this standard, men become disenchanted. Well-described in the phenomenally popular Wild at Heart book that is the backbone of nearly every Christian men’s group, the resulting spiritual malaise becomes an increasing source of an angst that seemingly has few answers. John Eldredge claims a solution in his book, but his response—go hunt bear with nothing but a pointy stick—ultimately misses the fact that men are not communing with God in any helpful amount because they are being torn in too many directions.

None of this is lost on men. As they find themselves rushing to pursue every “all-important” Christian requirement placed on them, God Himself becomes an option. Can anything but burnout result? Men outside the church see this burden—who can escape its omnipresence—and decide they don’t need to stack their days with any more requirements, so they take a pass. Or in the cases where they do attempt to “walk the Christian walk,” they find a To-do list, eventually fail at meeting the list’s demands, and drift away.

In the midst of all this activity, the vital relationship with Christ is being eroded. Devoid of the deep, abiding presence of the Spirit, Christianity instead becomes a series of manmade attempts to live and minister. Failure is assured. No wonder that many men find more reassurance in the glow of the television tube. At least it makes no demands and does not judge when nothing more can be given.

In the future, I hope to devote a closer look to what I believe is the only real solution to this problem: rethinking how Christians work. With work occupying so much of our daily existence, is there any question that something will suffer from our increasingly vanishing free time? Unless the church and parachurch are actively working to help men come to grips with their employment strain, they should not continue to tie heavy burdens around men’s neck, burdens they cannot adequately fulfill.

For now, though, the call to churches and parachurch organizations is to understand that too much is being asked and no means is given to ease the strain. At a time when everyone feels harried by life’s “necessities,” it is no surprise that men have weighed the current message of the Church and found it wanting.

Update! A 4/20/05 follow-up to this issue is available: Another Look at the Church’s Missing Men.

Doubt: The New Faith?

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There’s a new phenomenon sweeping the Church in America, the Gospel of Doubt. Questioning the veracity of the Bible, questioning whether doctrine has any worth today, and questioning the need to live out the traditional bedrock assumptions of the Faith have all become standard fare for today’s Christians.

In what has become almost a fad among the spiritually trendy, Doubt has become the new Faith. The heroes of the faith today are not those who stand firm in the midst of trials, but those who quiver with doubt that anything good can come out of tough times. Job’s cry of faith, “I know that my Redeemer lives,” has been replaced with “There is a chance my Redeemer may actually not live.”

We are watching a revisioning of what is worthy of admiration occur in just a decade. Those who routinely express their doubts are now considered the most spiritually mature, the most worthy of imitation. This trend is so new that the language of doubt is still wet on the page, but look for more nominally Christian books discussing it to show up on the shelves of your local bookstores soon.

Postmodernism is partly to blame for this trend. The rejection of assurance in a relativistic age makes heroes of self-proclaimed seekers and villains of those who advocate any kind of certainty. But did our Lord hold up doubt as something to admire? His words say otherwise:

Then [Jesus] said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”
—John 20:27 NIV

Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!” Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”
—Matthew 14:30-31 NIV

Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”
—Matthew 21:21-22 NIV

The New Testament has other admonitions:

For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”
—Romans 1:17 NIV

Without weakening in his faith, [Abraham] faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.
—Romans 4:19-21 NIV

But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved.
—Hebrews 10:39 NIV

If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord…
—James 1:5-7 NIV

Clearly, we do understand that people who are unquestionably Christians do doubt from time to time. But we should never make an altar to doubt. Doubt is the shadow of faith and is, therefore, a pale reflection of the truth. We need to resist it, not make it a virtue lest we find ourselves to be a powerless Church. We must remember that it was in Jesus’ own hometown that we see the fruition of doubt:

He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. And he was amazed at their lack of faith.
—Mark 6:5-6 NIV

We should not be surprised, though, at this elevation of doubt over faith. It is the sign of the times and will persist till He comes again, for the Lord Himself warns:

However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”
—Luke 18:8b NIV

If we Christians make doubt the new faith, the answer to Jesus’ question is sadly obvious.

Little Heaven, Little Hell

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I have come to the conclusion that the we are rapidly losing sight of both Heaven and Hell in today’s Christian theology.

Hell is being preached as being separated from God (which it surely is), but with no mention of any kind of eternal punishment—no torment, no fire, no weeping and gnashing of teeth. Our message to the lost concerning Hell is just one big shrug: Since people are separated from God in the here in now, why should separation from God in the future be all that bad?

We are doing a massive disservice to people with our theology of a little Hell.

Likewise, Heaven is no longer held out as being all that wonderful. We talk about being in God’s presence forever, but since the average person experiences so little of His presence in daily existence, how much of a draw is Heaven really? I sometimes wonder if the promise of a great day at an amusement park holds more hope for many than does Heaven.

We are cheating people with our little Heaven.

Why are so many churches, pastors, and teachers so afraid to talk about a BIG Heaven and a BIG Hell? We’re all going to spend so much time in one place or another that, in light of eternity, our lives right now will not even be a nanosecond in comparison. A big Heaven and big Hell was the crux of most of the preaching before the 20th century, but now in today’s rush to be self-sufficient, we don’t need to talk about either place. We cheat Hell with therapy and our money can buy us Heaven. At least we think so.

How we believe about Heaven and Hell influences every aspect of our lives. In the “olden days” you had preachers who understood the depths of both Heaven and Hell, and to save just one person from the latter would have walked over burning coals and broken glass. That depth of understanding changed how ministry was done and it drove some of the greatest growth in the Church.

Last time I heard anything of any importance about either Heaven or Hell? I can’t even remember. I can’t believe it has gotten this bad.

We need to recover the powerful reality of Heaven and of Hell in our preaching and teaching. We need to believe about them in proportion to God’s view of them and why they exist. Anything less is a travesty.