Thanks Natalie

Thanks to Natalie who recently read and reviewed this article from UMNS about the church being too feminine I had to go out and read the article. I then went about reading the rest of my morning blogs (camps with wireless internet are the best!) only to find that Gavin had already made note of the same blog from Natalie and was now underway with his own critique.

I have long struggled with the issue of marginalized men, and the need to rectify the wrongs of our past as overbearing and unable to compromise limiting the powers of women. The flip side of that is that when women took the reins (men wouldn't give them up) men took flight and are still searching for an identity.

I took this up in part with Gavin, and hope that the dialogue will continue. What's more I hope that the two or three readers I have that Gavin doesn't will then have an opportunity to chime in, especially since a few of them are women in ministry whom I respect greatly.

So now for my response to Gavin's post.

Gavin,
So how do we hold an online debate. The article was not written by David Murrow - whom you quote, but Robin Russell, a woman.
She makes some very valid points and directs the church to be challenged. Murrow does seem to have some bigger bones to pick - albeit a little unneccesary.

"If church was a place where men could be real and not religious, you'd see a lot more of them," he concludes. (Murrow)

I would hope that it is, but unfortunately many of our churches forget the real and enter fantasy land during worship. (I'm guilty too)

But he really went off the deep end, and may have been done a severe injustice by Russell with this quote.


"Every Muslim man knows that he is locked in a great battle between good and evil," he recently told Religion News Service. But most Christians today see their faith more in terms of "having an unconditional love relationship" with Jesus, he said.

It isn't about the battle or the loving relationship, it is about how we carry those out. Islam does a very good job of laying out how to "work" in that battle, while the loving relationship is less often portrayed as "work", because we cannot earn our way into heaven, which Islam promotes.

Truth is, men in the church are on the decline and we have got to develop a reasoned understanding of why (especially difficult when men are hard pressed to identify feelings - on the whole, a generalization I know) to better incorporate both men and women's styles of worship in our services, and our outreach, and our studies.

Enough of my opening diatribe. Maybe I'll post on my blog for more input.

Peace,
DC