Saturday, October 22, 2005
Men And Women And Church
Seemed like everybody was talking about it somehow yesterday --
Boars Head Tavern was wondering about Christian dating - actually the lack thereof.
The Wall Street Journal and Common Grounds Online had unrelated pieces that sounded virtually the same. Both are talking about the predominance of females in churches, and what, if anything can be done about it.
Both issues are related in that both are based on the creeping influence of modern culture into the church. Dating is almost a lost art these days. I see this in the high school kids I work with, they just don't talk about dating, they don't even think in terms of couples. I'm going to be real interested in how this generation ends up marrying.
As the influence of psychology has grown, it has become a big deal in the church -- we no longer have a God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob, we have a God of "wholeness." I'm not surprised the men are staying away. Sorry ladies, but for the most part, we don't have a clue whether we are whole or not -- don't really want to know either.
In both cases, the biggest problem is that while gender stereotypes are supposedly disappearing,we are having a harder and harder time living together. We don't date, we don't do church together. Is it any wonder dating has been replaced with the "hook up" seems like there is nothing for the sexes to share but sex.
I think the more we start to define things in terms of gender, the greater this trend is going to be. I'll be the first to admit there are "guy" things and there are "girl" things -- I've been married too long not to have learned that lesson. But not everything has to be defined in those terms.
I took a class from a very prominent theologian one time -- I won't name names to protect the innocent. He was talking about penal substitution. One of the women in class started to challenge him, When she started losing the challenge her response was that his thinking was obviously influenced too much by his "maleness."
I leaped from my chair and started, uninvited, into an absolute diatribe. "How can there be male and female theology?" I asked, "do women have one God and men another? Truth is truth!" And so I went, the teacher had a huge grin on his face, until a female associate pastor (this was a Sunday School class) lead me by the arm from the class and told me I was being too "aggressive."
The woman's statement served only to divide the class. Now, instead of seeking together what we knew of God, we were divided into camps of aggressive uncompassionate males and sensitive caring females.
Some things are gender neutral and to be shared by us all -- if we don't figure that out soon, the "hook up" is all that will be left.
Boars Head Tavern was wondering about Christian dating - actually the lack thereof.
The Wall Street Journal and Common Grounds Online had unrelated pieces that sounded virtually the same. Both are talking about the predominance of females in churches, and what, if anything can be done about it.
Both issues are related in that both are based on the creeping influence of modern culture into the church. Dating is almost a lost art these days. I see this in the high school kids I work with, they just don't talk about dating, they don't even think in terms of couples. I'm going to be real interested in how this generation ends up marrying.
As the influence of psychology has grown, it has become a big deal in the church -- we no longer have a God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob, we have a God of "wholeness." I'm not surprised the men are staying away. Sorry ladies, but for the most part, we don't have a clue whether we are whole or not -- don't really want to know either.
In both cases, the biggest problem is that while gender stereotypes are supposedly disappearing,we are having a harder and harder time living together. We don't date, we don't do church together. Is it any wonder dating has been replaced with the "hook up" seems like there is nothing for the sexes to share but sex.
I think the more we start to define things in terms of gender, the greater this trend is going to be. I'll be the first to admit there are "guy" things and there are "girl" things -- I've been married too long not to have learned that lesson. But not everything has to be defined in those terms.
I took a class from a very prominent theologian one time -- I won't name names to protect the innocent. He was talking about penal substitution. One of the women in class started to challenge him, When she started losing the challenge her response was that his thinking was obviously influenced too much by his "maleness."
I leaped from my chair and started, uninvited, into an absolute diatribe. "How can there be male and female theology?" I asked, "do women have one God and men another? Truth is truth!" And so I went, the teacher had a huge grin on his face, until a female associate pastor (this was a Sunday School class) lead me by the arm from the class and told me I was being too "aggressive."
The woman's statement served only to divide the class. Now, instead of seeking together what we knew of God, we were divided into camps of aggressive uncompassionate males and sensitive caring females.
Some things are gender neutral and to be shared by us all -- if we don't figure that out soon, the "hook up" is all that will be left.
