Or read this extended article on Underacheiving Boys and the Masks Men Wear.
Or just Google something on the topic of the decline of men. There are plenty of hits.
What does it mean? Many authors have taken up the same lament. Men are no longer necessary to women, to procreation, to society... Men have used this marginalization as an excuse for remaining boys and adolescent boys at that... Masculinity has been reshaped by feminism so that men have become soft and weak... Male only areas are falling while female only areas are rising... This has also led to a crisis of fatherhood with perhaps a majority of children raised without a father figure...
I am amazed that in the Church there are those who continue cry out against the discrimination against women in those traditions that hold to the apostolic order and Scriptural presumption and do not ordain women. Look around. Women are hardly in danger. The workplace is full of them. Universities are full of them. Churches are disproportionately female in the pews on Sunday morning and in Bible studies and service programs during the week. We live in an age of the decline of the male and the whole of society as well as the family and the Church are suffering because we lack strong men, strong male role models, and strong roles for men in the media. We have not only feminized the church but we have feminized Jesus and worship as well.
I believe that we are nearly in a crisis situation. We have forsaken all complementary roles for some vacuous and illusive unisex dream in which men and women are the same. We live in a world in which differences between the sexes are minimized. We live at a time when men as men is not seen as something positive but as something negative. We have defined gender equality to mean that men need to be more like women and women need to be strong men. It is not only a crisis of men but a crisis of fatherhood.
Am I speaking for effect? Of course. But unless we awaken to this now, we will destroy another generation with our false values and role models that are not only anti-nature but anti-God. The truth is that women do not benefit from weak or adolescent men -- unless you consider it a benefit that woman now have roughly the same incidence of heart disease and stress related disorders as men. Without the complementarity of distinctly male and female identities, the home, the community, and the church is left broken and wounded.
In some cultures the decline has become epidemic. In Black American families, good male role models are in short supply, the vast majority of homes are led by single women, and a shocking percentage of men are incarcerated, missing, or dead. But this is not a problem for the few -- the problem belongs to all aspects of the American culture. At one point in America, virtually every child was given the gift of a married mother and father. Today, 40 percent of all Americans, 50 percent of Hispanics, and 70 percent of African Americans are born to single moms—and the consequences for those children are quite serious.
The West, in particular the United States (with the third highest divorce rate in the world) has been undergoing a crisis of manhood and fatherhood for decades, a crisis which appears to be deepening and the consequences of which we have only really begun to suffer. We cannot afford to be smug about this or dismiss the disastrous effects of a weak and damaged masculinity upon our families, communities, and churches. Women gain nothing from all the so-called advances of feminism if they are left alone to bear the full burdens of the workplace, home, community, and church.
3 comments:
You had me all the way up to your last sentence.
You say we are in a crisis of manhood and fatherhood and we can't afford to be dismiss the disastrous effects of this crisis, and I completely agree with that. But then you make the mistake all that Rosin (and Hymowitz and all the rest) make; you view the problem through feminism: "Women gain nothing from all the so-called advances of feminism if they are left alone to bear the full burdens of the workplace, home, community, and church."
That is what we lose after sixty years of militant feminism. We lose the ability to look at anything to do with men without viewing it solely through the prism of how it benefits or doesn't benefit women.
Rosin (and the rest) knows what the problem is: feminism. Feminism has torn men and women apart. It's a horrible lie and poison that destroys everyone. But it stings even worse when the problems it causes for men are only looked at because 'women gain nothing.'
I think you mistake my point in that sentence. I am not directing this to feminism but drawing attention to the women who might be tempted to write off what I have said because they do not see the personal cost to them in all of this. No, I was not looking at the whole thing through the eyes of feminism but not ignoring those who might. That was the point of the last sentence.
I agree with David, the last sentence does seem to distract from your message. More importantly, however, I find it interesting that in making your argument, you provided a host of problems, but not one proposed solution. The Church does lack male leadership, and both men and women are looking for leaders that provide solutions and point us back to Scripture. Your argument would have been strengthened by using scripture point us to "what do we do about it" or "what does scripture tell us about roles of men and women". Leadership starts with scripture, and the real problem in the church is that we have gotten away from that.
Elisha H
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