Man church; male culture; man time

Ben Myers dutifully calls our attention to the sub-Christian religious organization called Man Church. What makes Church a Man Church is that it's

church the way a man expects it to be done. No singing, short sermon, time to talk with other guys, no women present, and coffee and donuts. That's the way men want to do church. The topics of discussion will have a definite manly focus - being the best possible husband, father, employee, leader - being a real man. In fact, every aspect of Man Church is geared for men - not like any other church you have seen. This ain't your mama's church!

I remember when I was 8. I didn't like to go to children's choir; I couldn't sit still, and my mom had to make me invite three girls to my birthday party. I daresay this sounds like Boy Church, not Man Church.

A few months ago my younger son created an event he calls Man Time. In Man Time, he jumps on me and punches me as hard as his 4'6", 60lb. frame will allow. When I read Myers' post I asked my son, "Would you like to go to a Man Church?" "Oh, yeah," he replied. "And what makes a Church a Man Church?" I asked. "Wrestling each other to go first in the communion line." I'll bet they don't do that at Man Church. I'll bet they just give noogies when they pass the peace.

Myers bats them around with a choice quote from Karl Barth, thus challenging their manhood, I suppose. The Barth quotes also challenges what we Presbyterians call Circles and, come to think of it, the entire monastic tradition. (A topic for another post, perhaps.)

Related note: Adam Kotsko recently composed a far ranging blog post on male culture. You should read the whole thing, but this, I think, is the heart of it:

I’ve always been very impatient with the way that male-dominated groups have been built on a toxic combination of homoeroticism and homophobia, and in college, I think that my male friends could detect that and therefore didn’t try to involve me in the often fully nude homoerotic horseplay that took place in our gender-segregated dorms. A related factor is the way that it’s built on a desperation for women’s esteem combined with misogyny — and the misogyny is the controlling factor here, as the value of women’s esteem is determined by the “male gaze” (i.e., you want a “hot” girlfriend, but you don’t want to seem too deeply in love with or dependent on your girlfriend). In both cases, this inherent contradiction serves to keep young men in a constant state of fear — they can never be sure that they’re performing their gender correctly (and here I reveal that I think Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity applies most intuitively to the straight male experience), and they’re terrified of the mockery of their peers (mockery which is normally itself motivated by each peer’s own fear of mockery). This is how male culture can manipulate weak-willed men into doing things they’re not comfortable with.

Kotsko goes on to speculate that when male academics sharpen swords over Hegel, disdaining that personal experience stuff you find in feminist theology, it may be an extension of this dysfunctional male culture.

 What I'd like to say here is that I never think about myself qua some definition of manhood. It would never occur to me to case out a congregation thinking, "Does this house of worship affirm my manhood?" I church shop on the basis of good sermons, good music, and good people who will accept a family with an autistic child. This is Church the way I expect it, not as a man, but as a human being.

I'd be tempted to say that being 40 and happily married has taken all this performance anxiety off the table, but I suspect that there are plenty of 40-something dads at Man Church. Why don't I suffer from this anxious navel-gazing?

Maybe like Kotsko, my dad has something to do with it. He vacuumed, you know? He wasn't at all enlightened about race, but for a man his age he was a bit ahead of the curve on gender (in some respects, anyway). Most importantly, he liked being with the family more than he liked being at the bar or on the golf course.

I was blessed to have a best male friend like Lattie, and I miss him to this day, but Laura has always been my best friend. I'm happy to watch EastEnders and HGTV with her, and she watches Sunday Night Football with me. I'm happy to do most anything with her, and I suppose I learned this from my dad. I'm not averse to going out with the guys, and I go on retreat with other men, but not because I need to get away from her or women in general to worship. That would be sad. Quite sad.

I remember being a college undergraduate and the clash between the culture of my all-male dorm, which was harsh and admitted no show of weakness, and the culture of the college group I attended at the Presbyterian congregation a block from campus, which was tender. At the time, and even now, I didn't distinguish the cultures as male versus female. There were men at Church, and plenty of women coming and going in my dorm. The difference was Christian versus non-Christian. I had a lot of fun in the dorm, but I felt like I could be myself in college group.

Not surprisingly, the woman I married I met at church. From the moment I met Laura I was powerfully attracted to her, and what attracted me to her was the goodness I could see shining through her eyes. But if it weren't for the Church, who taught me what beauty, truth and goodness are, as well as faith, hope and love, I might have missed it. Our marriage is a microcosm of the Church (and please, don't take that the wrong way). What I mean is to second Barth's sentiment, that to wish to be without the opposite sex is really to wish to be without the Church. There's no such thing as Man Church.

A man discovers his true self much the same as a woman does, when he discovers that it is no longer he who lives, but Christ who lives in him (a Christ whose hypostatic union transcends gender). Man Church, and Driscoll's project as well, seems to want to baptize a toxic male subculture as normative, and shunt the gifts of Christ--faith, hope and love--off onto the ladies. It is a type of blood and soil theology. Thankfully, they don't have tanks.

Let me be clear. One reason why I don't think about myself qua gender is that whiteness and maleness is normative in our culture. I get that. I get that women may well case out a congregation based on whether or not their gender is affirmed there. "Does this congregation ordain women? Does this congregation's pastoral leadership use inclusive language?" These are important questions, and what I have said so far should in no way be taken as some kind of naivete about the role that gender, race and power play in congregational life. Afrocentric congregations and feminist ecclesias are important experiments in Christian life together that the Church's propensity to define greatness in worldly terms.

But come on. Men qua men are not disenfranchised in church or society. If the Church disapproves of a culture of towel snapping guys calling each other "faggot," and not merely because it's in bad taste, but because the Church is headed by the Christ who was "crucified as a weakling" (my NT professor's translation of 2 Corinthians 13:4), then the Church is really and truly affirming a Christian manhood--a Christian personhood.

Comments

[melissa f-b]

Do you think Adam was inferring that men are disenfranchised? I didn't get that from his post. Gender (and race) performance is complex in its display of power. I'm thinking of the under-employed Latino worker sexually harassing the white privileged woman on her morning run. No one is off the hook, but we do need to think about the ways we have learned to normalize "toxic male subculture" if there's any chance of helping to reshape the narrative. Not to mention that your liberation is bound up in mine.

[Marvin]

Gosh No. Not at all. It's the Driscoll and Man Church crowd which argues that men are disenfranchised. I was trying to draw a contrast between what I think are legitimate and illegitimate attempts to create forms of Christian community for people who have been excluded in the Church elsewhere. I'm sorry I didn't write more clearly.

Stuff like Man Church seems like an extreme overreaction to tentative steps toward gender equality in church and society. For these hyper-traditionalists, it's not good enough to restrict ordination to men and teach male headship in the home. In these churches a man's sanctification is tied up with his growing interest in MMA. The whole thing strikes me as childish and pathetic.