Quill and writing

The Contemporary Church is XX Chromosomal – i.e. Effeminate/Feminised

  • 17 December 2023

We should ever remember Henry Van Til’s comment that the culture is the Church’s ‘report card’ – i.e., a measure of how well the Church has been doing in its endeavour to be salt and light (Matt 5: 13-16). Undoubtedly, a key trend in in recent decades has been the gradual erosion of masculinity within the culture. Has this trend been evident within the Church? Consider,

  • While most senior pastors in the UK are men, the majority of attendees in a typical church are women.
  • Religion is perceived as irrelevant to the “real” world of business, politics and academia according to evangelical scholar Nancy Pearcey[i]. Pearcey said, “think: sitting in circles, sharing feelings, holding hands, singing softly, comforting members.” She notes the prevalence of touchy-feely sermons that stress emotions and inner spiritual experiences while neglecting the intellectual side of the faith.
  • According to studies, a significant percentage of married women attend without their husbands, while the men who do attend show less commitment, including less participation in Sunday School, small groups and service activities; men also report less practice of disciplines like tithing, Bible reading, evangelism and prayer.
  • Evidence of the feminization of the church is found in its music. Many praise songs refer to Jesus’ love, praising his beauty and tenderness, etc. This comports with the fact that many churches emphasize Jesus’ softer teachings, like his love and his desire to save, while ignoring the doctrines of sin, judgement and hell.
  • Pearcey says consider a typical youth pastor. “He’s really into relationships, very motivating, but is he teaching good apologetics? Is he teaching youth to use their minds and to understand deeper theological truths?” She adds, “We have to recover the notion that Christianity is true on all levels, not just for your emotional life or repairing relationships, as important as those things are. Men are more attracted to religion if it presented as a quest, an adventure, a heroic exploit,” Pearcey said. “What they need/want is something challenging, bracing, demanding.”

Now, if any of these observations are even partly true they substantiate my purpose in formulating these twenty-six indictments. The popular pietistic ‘Gospel’ is sadly deficient of a Biblical worldview. As with so many evils, it’s not so much what it does say that’s erroneous; rather it’s everything that it leaves out which makes it so toxically aberrant!

Let’s turn now and consider the famous speech given by King Henry the Fifth to muster his troops before the battle of Agincourt – sometimes called ‘The Feast of Crispin.’ Was there ever such a heart-stirring discourse? Why am I (actually) moved to tears every time I listen to it? Why does it resonate with teams of men poised for combat and induce an epic flow of testosterone through their limbs? Google the transcript as a pdf for yourself, read it through and watch a young Kenneth Branagh deliver with dynamic pathos on YouTube in HD! Here’s why the Holy Spirit endorses the episode:

  1. It commends virtue and honour: the king extols the cause – potentially ‘to do our country loss’. Such a cause far exceeds monetary gain – ‘I am not covetous for gold’ and has its treasure stored up in heaven – ‘such outward things dwell not in my desires’.
  2. It shunned carnal frailty: ‘he which hath no stomach to this fight, let him depart…; we would not die in that man’s company that fears his fellowship to die with us’
  3. It anticipates a glorious memory: ‘he’ll remember with advantages …this story which good men shall teach their sons.’
  4. It celebrates corporate heroism: ‘we few, we happy few, we band of brothers’
  5. It rejoices in practical repentance: ‘he today that sheds his blood with me, be he ne’er so vile shall be my brother.’
  6. It inspires godliness and self-mortification in others: ‘and gentlemen in England now a-bed shall think themselves accursed they were not here.’
  7. It prioritises right thinking: ‘all things are ready if our minds be so… perish the man who mind is backward now’
  8. It arouses confidence in God’s providence: ‘you and I alone, without more help, could fight this royal battle.’
  9. It perceives with the eye of faith the unseen hand of God and utters spontaneous prayerful intercession: ‘you know your places; God be with you all!’
  10. It humbly serves its Master and makes no earthly boast: ‘we are but warriors for the working day; our gayness and our gilt are all besmirched with rainy marching in the painful field.’
  11. It sees past temporal decay, delighting in inward sanctification: ‘time hath worn us into slovenry; but, by the mass, our hearts are in the trim.’
  12. It is patient in endurance, steadfast in hope, unyielding: ‘come no more for ransom, gentle herald: they shall have none but these my joints; which if they have as I will leave them, shall yield them little…’

Now, notice the resonance all of this finds with True Christianity:

  1. It commends self-sacrifice (Lk 9:24; Jn 12:24-25; Rom 12:1)
  2. It shuns cowardice and self-seeking (Matt 16:24-25; Heb 11:24-27; Phil 3:8)
  3. It sees with the eye of faith future rewards and glory (Rom 2:7; Heb 11:13; Is 53:11)
  4. It revels in the company of kindred spirits (Ps 133:1; Judges 5:2; Mal 3:16-18)
  5. It recognises true repentance in itself & others (Ps 51:1-4; 2Cor 7:9-10; Gen 50:18-21)
  6. It effuses practical godliness and service (2Cor 11:24-28; 2Sam 9:7; Jn 13:15; Ruth 2:11)
  7. It sets its mind fixedly on Scripture (Deut 6:6-9; Ps 1:2; Job 23:12; 2Cor 10:5)
  8. It commits itself wholly and happily to God’s providence (2Sam 16:6-8; Acts 20:23-24)
  9. It trusts God unswervingly & prays always (Job 13:15; Matt 26:39; 1Pet 5:6)
  10. It recognises that humble service to God is our duty (Lk 17:10; 1Pet 4:10; Lev 19:34)
  11. It distinguishes between outward decay & inward virtue (2Cor 4:16-18; Rom 8:18-21)
  12. It is patient in endurance, steadfast in hope, unyielding (Rom 12:12; Heb 12:3; Lk 9:62)

“And I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man” (1Tim 2:12)

[i] Total Truth: Liberating Christianity From Its Cultural Captivity (Crossway Books).

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