JEFFREY WHITING writes:

Thank you for writing against egalitarianism and feminism in Christian churches when so few are willing to make any serious criticisms of it. 

And, thank you for providing a forum sympathetic to the difficulties of men in the modern world today. Your writing is a refreshing alternative to the wicked rhetoric that is common on so-called “men’s rights” sites. However, I must admit, my stamina and willingness to continue actively resisting these influences has sunk very low. I will never become an egalitarian or feminist, but I’m transitioning from resisting them to simply trying to avoid being destroyed by them. 

Let me explain: theologically, the Church has at least implicitly accepted feminism and defends it with vague statements in an attempt to reconcile what is essentially irreconcilable. All the kings horses and men sweat like Hercules to make the new ideas seem plausible and compatible with previous teaching, but with each new affirmation of feminism their words sound more and more desperate. (1) They are totally convinced the new orientations are acceptable and protest from skeptics is usually summarily dismissed or ridiculed as anti-intellectual or chauvinist. 

Therefore, because I don’t want to constantly be at odds with my coreligionists concerning feminism I’ve decided to leave the subject well enough alone. 

Interpersonally, from my experience mingling in Christian circles the situation isn’t much better. Excuse my use of psychological terms (for I can’t think of anything better at the moment), but affirmative, masculine behaviors are discouraged. I experienced this recently when trying to get to know a young lady a friend of mine introduced me to. I had (what seemed to be) a nice conversation with her and asked if I could call her. (2) My friend later criticized me for being too aggressive and frightening and that she didn’t want to bring her friends to parties at church to be “hit on.” She told me she wanted comfort and I disrupted that by “pouncing” on her friend. Maybe she is right. I don’t know what to think as I’m quite distressed by everything that happened. I met an attractive and pleasant woman and by expressing interest in her earned myself sharp criticism. This experience, and others like it suggest to me that acting according to my nature is a socially dangerous proposition among Christians. 

I’m beginning to believe all I can do at church is go to Mass, mind my own business and look for social connections elsewhere. If I’m too aggressive and intimidating I’d prefer to spare them the burden of my presence. 

I don’t know if you have anything to say about this, but after reading your past posts about feminism and Christianity and recent posts reminding us of its complacency I wanted to make a donation and vocalize my thoughts about it to you.

 (1) Notice how they scramble to explain the pope’s latest statements. This particular case is not extraordinary, it always happens when the pope says or does something that is at least agreeable to the spirit of the age they bend backwards to explain, clarify and rationalize something or the other that is at the very least imprudent for a pope to say or do.

 (2) The young lady accepted and asked me to get her number from our mutual friend. When I tried to do so the next day my friend informed she had been instructed not to give it out.

Laura writes:

Thank you for your donation and for your support.

First, I’d like to speculate on what happened during the social event at your church. It appears that your friend brought a woman who was not Catholic, or a Christian of any kind, to a church event. This may have been a woman who had never been in a church in her life. She may think of Christianity as a weird cult always proselytizing and seeking new members. When a single man approached her, she may have thought, “Oh, no. This is really happening. They are trying to suck me in.” I wouldn’t be offended. It may have had nothing to do with you.

 As for your points about feminism in the Church, you have every reason to be discouraged. The Church has been feminized. This means that it  is not only failing to attract many of the best men, but it is failing to realize its own militant dimension because of this effeminacy. The Church has for many reasons, arguably over the course of hundreds of years, rejected male spirituality. Feminine spirituality sets the tone.

I strongly recommend Leon J. Podles’ 1999 book The Church Impotent, if you have not already read it,  for a better understanding of the forces arrayed against you. As he correctly argues, Christianity has progressively abandoned the notion of spiritual warfare. I’d like to quote him at length here because what he says is excellent. Podles writes:

For all human beings, life is a struggle, but men know that it is their duty in a special way to be in the thick of that struggle, to confront the hard places in life and strive to know, in the fullest sense, what the mysteries of life and death are all about. Protestant Christianity in the historic churches has largely forgotten this. The tone of contemporary Catholicism, especially in America, too often is an irritating official optimism, in which administrative triumphs are trumpeted as if they were the Second Coming. In a recent celebration of Rome’s honoring of a major ecclesiastic, the secular reporter was somewhat bemused by the self-congratulatory tone of the proceedings. The tone was hardly based on reality; the local church entrusted to this ecclesiastic had suffered a massive decline in church attendance, confirmation, and general infidelity to Catholic teaching, as well as more than the usual share of scandals. Narcissism is a major vice of the Church and is even held up as an ideal; the community comes together to worship itself. Venus’s sign is a mirror. There has been little honest confrontation with the mystery of evil, and this lack of confrontation has led to a trivialization of Christianity that makes it especially unappealing to men who want to spend their lives not on verbal games and pleasant rituals but on the serious matters that can yield an insight into the meaning of existence. The work of God in the world is the most serious business that a man can devote himself to, because eternal matters of salvation and damnation hang upon it. But sin and damanation have disappeared in an ecclesiastical atmosphere of universalism and self-fulfillment.

Churches that can preach the gospel without the modifications that make it easy and bourgeois have a great advantage in reaching men. The rawer fundamentalist churches and the more traditional revivalist churches reach more men than liberal or latitudinarian churches. Unless the Church takes its own message seriously, as indeed a matter of uttermost importance, it cannot expect men to take it seriously either. (pp. 203-204)

A perfect example of this feminization is Jean-Pierre Cattenoz, the Archbishop of Avignon who recently said he is “prepared” to live in a Muslim France.

The spiritual warrior is dead. While the Church may not always explictly promote feminism, it sins by its silence in the face of the progressive assault against manhood, and against genuine womanhood. Ultimately only men can protect women from themselves.

What can you do? You have no choice. The fight is real. The ultimate enemy is not Muslims or hostile non-believers or mealy-mouthed Christians. You have no choice but to stay in the battle and do what you can. I know that sounds corny. But every man who fights for truth is a saint. Feminine spirituality is important. I am a woman, so obviously I think feminine spirituality is very important, but it is secondary. It cannot thrive without the protection of masculine spirituality, an entirely different force for good. Our world needs manly saints. It needs saints in the lost, heroic, sword-wielding meaning of the word.

                                                                                — Comments —

John E. writes:

Thanks to Jeffrey for his thoughts, and to Mrs. Wood for her response.

 As a convert, my greatest difficulty since becoming a Catholic can be similarly stated as Jeffrey’s, albeit with different circumstances surrounding the difficulty than Jeffrey’s, since I have been married for the majority of the time that I have been a Catholic. My loyalty to the Church and to the Pope is fierce, but only with difficulty is it wholehearted. As I believe the route to Heaven requires the whole of one’s being devoted to the service of God, and as the whole of my being as a man necessarily includes those qualities of masculine spirituality which especially delight in such service to woman as would offer protection, safety, and integral interest in her well-being; it is discouraging, if not deflating, to hear that many of the leaders in the Church characterize that same relationship rather in terms of man’s oppression of woman, such that these leaders apparently believe it is necessary for men to make amends, or pledge security, or pay tribute for the collective sins of men against women. We ought to defer, I hear them say, to the feminine genius, and thus guard against the fearsome disaster waiting to happen, which is masculinity. This is what I hear in place of a battle-cry, but it is the battle-cry that is so desperately needed in our day.

David C. writes:

I just wanted to offer some thoughts about Mr. Whiting’s experience with his friend and the young lady to whom she introduced him. I would resist the temptation to generalize your friend’s reaction — in other words, to construe it as evidence of an anti-masculine culture — and instead think about it as a particular situation, that is, a particular set of interactions between three particular people. No doubt the larger culture influenced, in some way, the interactions you described; however, you were not dealing with anything so massive and amorphous as the “larger culture” — you were dealing with two particular human beings who are determined by a much broader range of factors than the larger culture. In that regard, a few observations…

First, the young lady. Your friend suggested she (the young lady) was feeling vulnerable when you met her, perhaps having recently been hurt by a loved one or otherwise overwhelmed by the circumstances of her life. The first question that comes to mind is this — how much can you trust your friend’s testimony about the young lady? Your friend viewed the situation through her own filters. Is it possible that the young lady also enjoyed the conversation with you and wanted to get to know you more? Was she perhaps not feeling so fragile as her friend thought? How does your friend know the young lady did not want to take you up on your offer? I have met women who thought it was their job to decide what other people thought, felt, and needed, but who really didn’t have a clue. Women are usually more sensitive to social situations but not always — they, too, can be blinded by preconceptions. So it could be that your friend’s reaction said more about her than the young lady. It could be that your acquaintance would appreciate the opportunity to speak for herself.

On the other hand, let’s suppose your friend was right: your advance was more aggressive than your acquaintance could handle at the point when you met her. She really was feeling overwhelmed. She really did need a safe space. Okay — well — oops! You didn’t know. How could you have known? You seem like a sensitive, considerate man. I get the impression you would have given the woman space had you known that she needed it. Furthermore, your advance will not destroy this woman. It may have overwhelmed her for a few moments, but I am sure that she moved past it fairly quickly. You were not the major problem in her life — just a guy who liked her and wanted to spend more time with her. Surely this fact cannot upset her much — maybe she could not deal with it well at the time, but objectively speaking, your advance was not a bad thing. If she was terribly angered by the fact that a decent guy found himself attracted to her — well! That’s good to know! In that case, her problems run very deep indeed, and you would probably do better not to date her for now.

Finally,  your friend. I really have the impression, from your brief account, that your friend was responding to something within herself rather than something within the external circumstances she observed. The reason I have this impression is that her response to you was unreasonable and extreme. She overreacted. There was no need for her to become angry with you — for again, you did nothing wrong. Pulling you aside later, she might have said, “Jeffrey, can I speak with you a moment? I noticed that you were speaking with my friend, and she told me you asked for her number. I know you — you’re a decent guy and you didn’t mean to cause her any trouble. But I just wanted to let you know that she’s having a hard time right now and needs some space. Will you do that for her? Thank you, Jeffrey. I’ll let her know I talked to you so that she can see how considerate and understanding a man you really are. Maybe later, when she’s feeling better, she’ll want to get to know you more.” That’s the right action, Mr. Whiting. Your friend was off kilter.

My hunch — and it’s really just a hunch, because of course I don’t know — is that your friend may have had a difficult father. Just a guess — however, I have met such women in the past, and they often seemed to feel that men were dangerous, untrustworthy, irresponsible, and threatening. When they were girls, their fathers were powerful, authoritative, overwhelming figures in their lives — never forget the power a child gives his parents to define reality — and so they believe all men are big, powerful, threatening, dangerous, when in fact they are often just as powerful as we are. The young lady may not have felt threatened by you, but it sounds like your friend did. She railed on you — that is, she treated you like a menace, a powerful man who needed strong opposition. You were not the powerful man she thought you were. None of us are. You are a human being, you are a decent man, you are vulnerable. Your friend tried so hard to protect her friend from a danger that didn’t exist that she hurt you pretty badly. She thought you were powerful, but you are coming here to tell us you do not feel powerful at all, but hurt, and asking how you can protect yourself from this kind of hurt in the future.

Obviously, everything I’ve said about your friend is a guess — but it’s a guess I’d put a little money on, just given what you’ve shared with us. If I am right at all, then be gentle with your friend, more so than you usually would. Be compassionate with her — more so than you usually would. It sounds like she is afraid of you, even though she needn’t be. I would imagine that inside she feels scared, small, and lonely. If I am right about her, she will appreciate the sense that she is receiving your warm, compassionate, and gentle protection. She probably doesn’t think she’s ever been protected.

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