<<Email by Gary North>>
March 3, 2007
Dear Subscriber:
I have just read an article summarizing a study of
church attendance in Switzerland. The data are old: 1994.
The trends recorded are not startling, but the
statistics are.
If both father and mother attend regularly, 33
percent of their children will end up as regular
churchgoers, and 41 percent will end up attending
irregularly. Only a quarter of their children
will end up not practicing at all. If the father
is irregular and mother regular, only 3 percent
of the children will subsequently become regulars
themselves, while a further 59 percent will
become irregulars. Thirty-eight percent will be
lost.
If the father is non-practicing and mother
regular, only 2 percent of children will become
regular worshippers, and 37 percent will attend
irregularly. Over 60 percent of their children
will be lost completely to the church.
Let us look at the figures the other way round.
What happens if the father is regular but the
mother irregular or non-practicing?
Extraordinarily, the percentage of children
becoming regular goes up from 33 percent to 38
percent with the irregular mother and to 44
percent with the non-practicing, as if loyalty to
father's commitment grows in proportion to
mother's laxity, indifference, or hostility.
http://snipurl.com/fathersattendance
Whether these data apply to other Western countries is
speculative. But the general trend elsewhere is clear.
Where women dominate churches, attendance steadily falls.
Mainline Protestant denominations are shrinking for
numerous reasons, but the feminization of both the liturgy
and leadership should be at the top of the list until
proven differently.
The kind of impotent Christianity that was sketched in
"Life With Father," both in the novel and on-screen, should
have been a yellow alert flag in the 1940s. Instead, it
was received warmly. It remains the longest-running non-
musical play in Broadway history. The ditzy mother who
believed in baptismal regeneration was the Christian. The
wealthy father wasn't. The children went along for the
ride -- literally in the closing scene of the movie.
When women marry non-Christians, they are basically
consigning their children to hell. They don't consider
this when they marry. Non-Christian men get what they want
when they marry Christians. In contrast, Christian women
undermine their nurturing role in the most horrendous way
imaginable. They are the big losers. So are their
children. So is the church.
Churches condone this by not imposing ecclesiastical
sanctions against members who marry non-Christians.
At the end of the article is a link to an article by
Roman Catholic scholar Leon Podles. It is a brief summary
of his book, "The Church Impotent: The Feminization of
Christianity." I read the book five years ago and was
persuaded -- also horrified. This is not a new problem.
He says it goes back to the 13th century.
When Christianity is seen primarily as a religion of
the heart and hearth, it becomes feminized: nurturing and
child-centered. When it is seen as a religion of cultural
reconstruction, it imposes risks outside the home. It then
must balance feminism with masculinity.
Conclusion: pietism is inherently feminist.
Yet there is a compensating factor. When women
recognize that their nurturing is threatened by cultural
trends, they can be drawn away from the hearth and into the
public square. When men refuse to get involved in cultural
and political resistance, some women move into the vacuum.
Think of Phyllis Schlafly and Beverley LaHaye. Think of
Margaret Thatcher.
Women on the Left have been trying to change society
ever since the mid-nineteenth century, but rarely since the
close of the era of abolitionism have these women been
closely associated with confessional Christianity.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Annie Bessant, and Breatrice Webb
were hostile to the church.
Preachers who preach to please women at the expense of
ignoring masculine concerns are undermining the church's
inheritance in the widest sense. They must begin to preach
to the men who are not there if they ever expect men to
show up later on.
Sincerely,
Gary North
Linear Mode
