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In his book The Church Impotent: The Feminization of Christianity [Dallas, Tex.: Spence Publishing, 1999], Leon J. Podles asks some insightful questions: Why is the Church filled mostly with women? Podles, a Catholic historian, explores reasons why the Christian Faith began to be feminized in the post-New Testament era then discusses the consequences of a religion that alienates men. Podles argues that the medieval emphasis on the "heart," on virginity as the highest spiritual goal, on bridal mysticism (marriage to Jesus), adoration of the Virgin Mary, and rejection of everything masculine has all distorted the original biblical revelation and led to trivialization and a dangerous weakening of the Church. He suggests it also contributes to the rampant homosexuality among priests, as he witnessed himself as a boy in Catholic schools. All of this is in contrast to biblical Hebraic Faith (Ancient Judaism), in which strong but caring patriarchs led the people of God. Podles sees similar patterns among conservative Protestants. For example, he believes the Promise Keepers mens' movement, begun in the United States, draws males into a feminized form of revivalist evangelicalism. Podles points out that American revival movements have traditionally contained a strong emphasis on "the heart" with emotional appeals to return to God. Not surprisingly, women were often the first to respond to such messages and in far larger numbers. This heart emphasis matches a statement by PK founder Bill McCartney that males "were created to be in a love affair with Jesus . . . ; Scripture tells us the only way to please God is to be passionately in love with Jesus Christ" [B. McCartney, Go the Distance: The Making of a Promise Keeper (Colorado Springs: Focus on the Family Publishing, 1996), p. 13]. [It needs to be said that in the Bible, the heart is the seat of the mind, rationality, imagination, conviction, and determined faith in God. It is not the organ of emotion, sentimentality or intuitiveness. Christianity is off the biblical track in the way it uses this word.] [Top]
Leon Podles's insights can be extended to other contemporary Protestant and Jewish, since feminizing forces are evident among them too. These are some of my personal observations:
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Similarly, liberal mainline Protestants tend to extol feminine virtues and disdain masculine ones.
[In contrast, women in the Bible aren't passive, emotional push-overs who submit to anything or everyone because they can't think or are emotionally handicapped. Of course, women throughout history who lived outside the sphere of Biblical Faith have been overly "feminized" and exploited as objects by tyrannical men contrary, I believe, to the Creator's intent and the teachings of both the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament.] The same phenomenon is occurring in liberal Jewish circles, and Jewish men are fleeing Feminized Judaism. A recent study notes that: "Women have been taking an increasingly more dominant role in Jewish rites. As a result, the phenomenon of 'Ima on the bima' (mom on the podium) has become the rule rather than the exception in liberal Jewish settings.
Conclusion Podles concludes with a warning that alienated men and suppressed (though God-given) masculinity will drive more and more men away from the biblical God into various forms of destructive nihilism, making them (in my words) enemies of instead of spiritual warriors for the Messianic Kingdom.
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