Many men
may not love church, but Orthodox men do. Frederica Matthewes-Green asks them
why.
In a time when churches of every description are faced
with Vanishing Male Syndrome, men are showing up at Eastern Orthodox churches
in numbers that, if not numerically impressive, are proportionately intriguing.
This may be the only church which attracts and holds men in numbers equal to
women. As Leon Podles wrote in his 1999 book, "The Church Impotent: The
Feminization of Christianity," "The Orthodox are the only Christians
who write basso profundo church music, or need to."
Rather than guess why this is, I emailed a hundred
Orthodox men, most of whom joined the Church as adults. What do they think
makes this church particularly attractive to men? Their responses, below, may
spark some ideas for leaders in other churches, who are looking for ways to
keep guys in the pews.
Challenges. The term most commonly cited by these men was
"challenging." Orthodoxy is "active and not passive."
"It's the only church where you are required to adapt to it, rather than
it adapting to you." "The longer you are in it, the more you realize
it demands of you."
The "sheer physicality of Orthodox worship"
is part of the appeal. Regular days of fasting from meat and dairy,
"standing for hours on end, performing prostrations, going without food
and water [before communion]...When you get to the end you feel that you've
faced down a challenge." "Orthodoxy appeals to a man's desire for
self-mastery through discipline."
"In Orthodoxy, the theme of spiritual warfare is
ubiquitous; saints, including female saints, are warriors. Warfare requires
courage, fortitude, and heroism. We are called to be 'strugglers' against sin,
to be 'athletes' as St. Paul says. And the prize is given to the victor. The
fact that you must 'struggle' during worship by standing up throughout long
services is itself a challenge men are willing to take up."
A recent convert summed up, "Orthodoxy is
serious. It is difficult. It is demanding. It is about mercy, but it's also
about overcoming oneself. I am challenged in a deep way, not to 'feel good
about myself' but to become holy. It is rigorous, and in that rigor I find
liberation. And you know, so does my wife."
Clear
Disciplines. Several mentioned
that they really appreciated having clarity about the content of these
challenges and what they were supposed to do. "Most guys feel a lot more
comfortable when they know what's expected of them." "Orthodoxy
presents a reasonable set of boundaries."
"It's easier for guys to express themselves in worship if there are
guidelines about how it's supposed to work—especially when those guidelines are
so simple and down-to-earth that you can just set out and start doing
something."
"The prayers the Church provides for us--morning
prayers, evening prayers, prayers before and after meals, and so on--give men a
way to engage in spirituality without feeling put on the spot, or worrying
about looking stupid because they don't know what to say."
They appreciate learning clear-cut physical actions
that are expected to form character and understanding. "People begin
learning immediately through ritual and symbolism, for example, by making the
sign of the cross. This regimen of discipline makes one mindful of one's
relation to the Trinity, to the Church, and to everyone he meets."
A Goal. Men also appreciate that this challenge has a goal:
union with God. One said that in a previous church "I didn't feel I was
getting anywhere in my spiritual life (or that there was anywhere to get to—I
was already there, right?) But something, who knew what, was missing. Isn't
there SOMETHING I should be doing, Lord?"
Orthodoxy preserves and transmits ancient Christian
wisdom about how to progress toward this union, which is called
"theosis." Every sacrament or spiritual exercise is designed to bring
the person, body and soul, further into continual awareness of the presence of
Christ within, and also within every other human being. As a cloth becomes saturated
with dye by osmosis, we are saturated with God by theosis.
A catechumen wrote that he was finding icons helpful
in resisting unwanted thoughts. "If you just close your eyes to some
visual temptation, there are plenty of stored images to cause problems. But if
you surround yourself with icons, you have a choice of whether to look at
something tempting or something holy."
A priest writes, "Men need a challenge, a goal,
perhaps an adventure—in primitive terms, a hunt. Western Christianity has lost
the ascetic, that is, the athletic aspect of Christian life. This was the
purpose of monasticism, which arose in the East largely as a men's movement.
Women entered monastic life as well, and our ancient hymns still speak of women
martyrs as showing 'manly courage.'"
No
Sentimentality. In "The Church
Impotent," cited above (and recommended by several of these men), Leon
Podles offers a theory about how Western Christian piety became feminized. In
the 12th-13th centuries a particularly tender, even erotic, strain of devotion
arose, one which invited the individual believer to picture himself or herself
(rather than the Church as a whole) as the Bride of Christ. "Bridal
Mysticism" was enthusiastically adopted by devout women, and left an
enduring stamp on Western Christianity. It understandably had less appeal for
guys. For centuries in the West, men who chose the ministry have been
stereotyped as effeminate. A life-long Orthodox layman says that, from the
outside, Western Christianity strikes him as "a love story written for
women by women."
The Eastern Church escaped Bridal Mysticism because
the great split between East and West had already taken place. The men who
wrote me expressed hearty dislike for what they perceive as a soft Western
Jesus. "American Christianity in the last two hundred years has been
feminized. It presents Jesus as a friend, a lover, someone who 'walks with me
and talks with me.' This is fine rapturous imagery for women who need a social
life. Or it depicts Jesus whipped, dead on the cross. Neither is the type of
Christ the typical male wants much to do with."
During worship, "men don't want to pray in the
Western fashion with hands clasped, lips pressed together, and a facial
expression of forced serenity." "It's guys holding hands with other
guys and singing campfire songs." "Lines about 'reaching out for His
embrace,' 'wanting to touch His face,' while being 'overwhelmed by the power of
His love'—those are difficult songs for one man to sing to another Man."
"A friend of mine told me that the first thing he
does when he walks into a church is to look at the curtains. That tells him who
is making the decisions in that church, and the type of Christian they want to
attract."
"Guys either want to be challenged to fight for a
glorious and honorable cause, and get filthy dirty in the process, or to loaf
in our recliners with plenty of beer, pizza, and football. But most churches
want us to behave like orderly gentlemen, keeping our hands and mouths nice and
clean."
One man said that worship at his Pentecostal church
had been "largely an emotional experience. Feelings. Tears. Repeated
rededication of one's life to Christ, in large emotional group settings.
Singing emotional songs, swaying hands aloft. Even Scripture reading was
supposed to produce an emotional experience. I am basically a do-er, I want to
do things, and not talk about or emote my way through them! As a business
person I knew that nothing in business comes without effort, energy, and
investment. Why would the spiritual life be any different?"
Another, who visited Catholic churches, says,
"They were conventional, easy, and modern, when my wife and I were looking
for something traditional, hard, and counter-cultural, something ancient and
martial." A catechumen says that at his non-denominational church "[w]orship
was shallow, haphazard, cobbled together from whatever was most current;
sometimes we'd stand, sometimes we'd sit, without much rhyme or reason to it. I
got to thinking about how a stronger grounding in tradition would help."
"It infuriated me on my last Ash Wednesday that
the priest delivered a homily about how the real meaning of Lent is to learn to
love ourselves more. It forced me to realize how completely sick I was of
bourgeois, feel-good American Christianity."
A convert priest says that men are drawn to the
dangerous element of Orthodoxy, which involves "the self-denial of a
warrior, the terrifying risk of loving one's enemies, the unknown frontiers to
which a commitment to humility might call us. Lose any of those dangerous
qualities and we become the 'JoAnn Fabric Store' of churches: nice colors and a
very subdued clientele."
"Men get pretty cynical when they sense someone's
attempting to manipulate their emotions, especially when it's in the name of
religion. They appreciate the objectivity of Orthodox worship. It's not aimed
at prompting religious feelings but at performing an objective duty."
Yet there is something in Orthodoxy that offers
"a deep masculine romance. Do you understand what I mean by that? Most
romance in our age is pink, but this is a romance of swords and
gallantry."
From a deacon: "Evangelical churches call men to
be passive and nice (think 'Mr. Rogers'). Orthodox churches call men to be
courageous and act (think 'Braveheart').
Jesus
Christ. What draws men to
Orthodoxy is not simply that it's challenging or mysterious. What draws them is
the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the center of everything the Church does or says.
In contrast to some other churches, "Orthodoxy
offers a robust Jesus" (and even a robust Virgin Mary, for that matter,
hailed in one hymn as "our Captain, Queen of War"). Several used the
term "martial" or referred to Orthodoxy as the "Marine
Corps" of Christianity. (The warfare is against self-destructive sin and
the unseen spiritual powers, not other people, of course.)
One contrasted this "robust" quality with
"the feminized pictures of Jesus I grew up with. I've never had a male
friend who would not have expended serious effort to avoid meeting someone who
looked like that." Though drawn to Jesus Christ as a teen, "I felt
ashamed of this attraction, as if it were something a red-blooded American boy
shouldn't take that seriously, almost akin to playing with dolls."
A priest writes: "Christ in Orthodoxy is a militant,
butt-kicking Jesus who takes Hell captive. Orthodox Jesus came to cast fire on
the earth. (Males can relate to butt-kicking and fire-casting.) In Holy Baptism
we pray for the newly-enlisted warriors of Christ, male and female, that they
may 'be kept ever warriors invincible.'"
After several years in Orthodoxy, one man found a
service of Christmas carols in a Protestant church "shocking, even
appalling." Compared to the Orthodox hymns of Christ's Nativity,
"'the little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay' has almost nothing to do with
the Eternal Logos entering inexorably, silently yet heroically, into the fabric
of created reality."
Continuity. Many intellectually-inclined Orthodox converts began
by reading Church history and the early Christian writers, and found it
increasingly compelling. Eventually they faced the question of which of the two
most ancient churches, the Roman Catholic or the Orthodox, makes the most
convincing claim of being the original Church of the Apostles.
A lifelong Orthodox says that what men like is
"stability: men find they can trust the Orthodox Church because of the
consistent and continuous tradition of faith it has maintained over the
centuries." A convert says, "The Orthodox Church offers what others
do not: continuity with the first followers of Christ." This is
continuity, not archeology; the early church still exists, and you can join it.
"What drew me was Christ's promises to the Church
about the gates of hell not prevailing, and the Holy Spirit leading into all
truth—and then seeing in Orthodoxy a unity of faith, worship, and doctrine with
continuity throughout history."
Another word for continuity is "tradition."
A catechumen writes that he had tried to learn everything necessary to
interpret Scripture correctly, including ancient languages. "I expected to
dig my way down to the foundation and confirm everything I'd been taught.
Instead, the further down I went, the weaker everything seemed. I realized I
had only acquired the ability to manipulate the Bible to say pretty much
anything I wanted it to. The only alternative to cynicism was tradition. If the
Bible was meant to say anything, it was meant to say it within a community,
with a tradition to guide the reading. In Orthodoxy I found what I was looking
for."
Men in
Balance. A priest writes:
"There are only two models for men: be 'manly' and strong, rude, crude,
macho, and probably abusive; or be sensitive, kind, repressed and wimpy. But in
Orthodoxy, masculine is held together with feminine; it's real and down to
earth, 'neither male nor female,' but Christ who 'unites things in heaven and
things on earth.'"
Another priest comments that, if one spouse is
originally more insistent about the family converting to Orthodoxy than the
other, "when both spouses are making confessions, over time they both
become deepened and neither one is as dominant in the spiritual
relationship."
Men in
Leadership. Like it or not, men
simply prefer to be led by men. In Orthodoxy, lay women do everything lay men
do, including preach, teach, and chair the parish council. But behind the
iconostasis, around the altar, it's all guys. One respondent summarized what
men like in Orthodoxy this way: "Beards!"
"It's the last place in the world men aren't told
they're evil simply for being men." Instead of negativity, they are
constantly surrounded by positive role models in the saints, in icons and in
the daily round of hymns and stories about saints' lives. This is another
concrete element that men appreciate—there are other real human beings to look
to, rather than a blur of ethereal terms. "The glory of God is a man fully
alive," said St. Irenaeus. One writer adds that "The best way to
attract a man to the Orthodox Church is to show him an Orthodox man."
But no secondary thing, no matter how good, can
supplant first place. "A dangerous life is not the goal. Christ is the
goal. A free spirit is not the goal. Christ is the goal. He is the towering
figure of history around whom all men and women will eventually gather, to whom
every knee will bow, and whom every tongue will confess."
Source: http://www.beliefnet.com/faiths/christianity/orthodox/2007/09/why-orthodox-men-love-church.aspx
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