Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Saving men requires the leadership of laymen
Saving men requires the leadership of laymen
Apr 4, 2025 4:35 PM

Attempts to “save men” in the past, both for the church and from themselves, have often made things worse by making men more passive. It’s time for men in the pews to take control of their own healing.

Read More…

Progressives are finally waking up to the reality that men and boys are struggling in America. On January 27, Andrew Yang posted a Twitter thread observing that “there’s a crisis among American boys and men that is too often ignored and is definitely going unaddressed.” Citing much of the data that I provided in part 1 of this series, Yang goes on to say, “The sidelining of this many boys and men has massive social, political and economic consequences.” As a politician, he believes that there needs to be a “policy agenda” to address the crisis. However, if Christianity has historically failed at helping men and boys in sustainable ways, it is not entirely clear how government, given its history of failures, would perform any better. In part 2 of this series, I would like to expand on solutions offered by Leon Podles in his book Losing the Good Portion: Why Men Are Alienated from Christianity.

To cut to the chase, Podles concludes that “men value their independence and resent clerical domination. The movements that reach men are mostly lay-led and lay-governed. The clergy should treat men and women as responsible adults, capable of running their own affairs.” Clergy- and parachurch-ministry-led attempts to reconnect men usually fade over time because men often find these initiatives uninspiring, dull, and bromidic. Clergy’s control historically saw them pushing men in the direction of their personal preferences and priorities, with their “solutions” for men seeking direction often limited to church life and church missions. Podles notes that, back when evangelicals protested men’s participation in sports, pastors sought to direct men to more sedentary and scholarly pursuits like “walks in the country, visits to botanical gardens, and the reading of works of biography and history.”

Throughout church history, there has been a consistent backlash over clerical overreach, if not domination, as many men generally found clergy unsuitable role models. Barbara Welter notes that 19th-century New England businessmen had a particular disdain for clergy as “people halfway between women and men.” Pastors were more at home in Sunday school and libraries rather than political clubs and salons because “they were typically recruited from the ranks of weak, sickly boys with indoor tastes what stayed at home with their mothers and came to identify with the feminine world of religion,” Podles explains. Christianity was such a female-dominated space that leaders warned, according to William Jamieson, that clergy having such unsupervised access to women made women more vulnerable to abuse. Laymen were simply not around.

Since the earliest days of the church, men have formed their own associations and brotherhoods, known as confraternities, as alternatives to clergy-preferred options. Confraternities are lay-led groups of men supporting each other locally in their journey to live out their vocations in the various dimensions of their lives. Clergy were not particularly supportive of these efforts because they included social gatherings, banquets, and religious displays not under their direct supervision. During the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther denounced confraternities, and they disappeared in the Protestant world altogether. Canadian Catholic men had some success forming young men’s literary societies that included activities like tug of war, banjo clubs, free tobacco, billiards, and so on. Italian men had their fratelli and Spanish men had hermandadand the Cursillo. Protestants would later attempt to form brotherhoods around sports, missionary work and evangelism, fatherhood, fighting for social justice, therapeutic ministries, and the like, but again, they eventually faded.

Perhaps what is needed today is the reinvigoration of the lay-led confraternal spirit in local munities if we really want to intervene effectively in the crisis affecting men and boys. Podles explains why such groups are necessary: “Men suffer from the existential loneliness that is the lot of every human being, and more so because of their drive for independence. Men seek to e this loneliness in radeship of fraternal movements, of fascism, munism, of terrorist groups, or gangs, or war. Such ways are deceiving and destructive.” American boys are often taught that marriage or work will be a cure for their loneliness and alienation, but many men find out the hard way that one can be married, gainfully employed, and still incredibly lonely. Men need local, lay-led confraternities that resonate with their deepest longings and their desire munion with their fellows, formed by mon interests. They panions and friends “in the adventure of life and in the adventure that begins after this life,” concludes Podles.

Podles ends the book there and does not provide readers any sort of plan or the blueprint for what such confraternities would or should look like, which I believe is a brilliant decision. Paradigms and instructions given to men in the past have served only to dull local lay-led creativity in addressing men’s “existential loneliness.” Early morning Bible studies, workout and exercise groups, clergy-organized men’s groups, etc., all eventually fade. In today’s terms, if it has a website and a cookie-cutter program to be applied broadly, assume it will not last. Laymen in munities need to take more ownership of their lives without needing to be spoon-fed or controlled by clergy. Laymen have been made far too passive by ready-made “resources” to help address their needs instead of being empowered to do what works outside the clerical gaze. Fathers have been sidelined into apathy far too long by youth workers and parachurch ministries.

Treating men like responsible adults means allowing laymen to do whatever works for them according to their local customs and theological preferences. Jesuits like Patrick M. Arnold argue that masculine spirituality, at minimum, needs some blend petition, vulnerability, independence, initiation, adversity, responsibility, and accountability. Lutheran pastors like Jeffrey Hemmer stress that men need to sharpen each other in the drives they each have to “protect, provide, and procreate” and e to understand their manhood in terms of “harnessing the natural power a man possesses and using it for the good of others around him.” This type of formation will require direction by lay peers whom men love, admire, and respect.

In the end, what Podles is calling for is the laity to get out of the pews and start addressing issues in their munities. The men positioned to reverse the distressing rates of anxiety, depression, suicide, death by addiction, labor force disappearance, violence, and educational underachievement are not the ministry “professionals” but average guys who do not realize how much of an asset they are to munities. Sebastian Junger accurately frames the key questions men must ask themselves: “How do you e an adult in a society that doesn’t ask for sacrifice? How do you e a man in a world that doesn’t require courage?” Answering those questions for the 21st century will e from public policy agendas or celebrity pastors or parachurch ministries but will require the local leadership of the church’s laymen themselves.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
American Freedom: Is It Overrated?
We Americans will celebrate 238 years of freedom this Friday. In 1776, the 13 colonies unanimously declared: When in the Course of human events, it es necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare...
Audio & Video: Sirico on the Hobby Lobby Decision
Acton Institute President and Co-Founder Rev. Robert A. Sirico had a busy media day yesterday in the wake of the release of the Supreme Court’s decision in the Hobby Lobby vs. Sebelius case. using the audio player below, you can listen to an interview with Rev. Sirico on The Michael Berry Show on Houston’s 740 AM KTRH radio where the impact of the decision is examined. Additionally, beyond the jump I’ve embedded Rev. Sirico’s appearance on Bloomberg TV’sStreet Smart with...
What You Need To Know About ISIL In Iraq
has an excellent piece on Iraq’s ISIL and the political crisis there. Here are some of the most salient points. ISIL is Al Qaeda’s arm in Syria and Iraq.ISIL began as ISI or “Islamic State in Iraq” and was seeking to regain power for Sunni Muslims. “…“…after U.S. forces left in 2011 the Iraqi government failed to follow U.S. advice to take good care of the Sunni tribes, if only to keep the tribes from again supporting the Islamic terrorist...
Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places
In the latest video blog fromFor the Life of the World, Evan Koons reads abeautiful poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins over some striking visual imagery. Watch it below: Hopkins begins by highlighting the wondrous and mysterious pulse of nature, moving eventually to the acts of we “mortal things,” prone to appease the self, and bent on crying, “Whát I dó is me: for that I came.” But he doesn’t stop here, for surely man was neither created nor destined to...
China’s One-Child Policy Creates Human Trafficking Plights
China’s one-child policy and a cultural preference for boys means that the world’s most populous country has a severe shortage of women. That means a severe shortage of brides. And that means a human trafficking crisis. Kiab, a Vietnamese girl who had just turned 16, was told by her brother that he was taking her to a party. Instead, he sold her as a bride to a Chinese man. The ethnic Hmong teenager spent nearly a month in China until...
Net Neutrality and Religious Advocacy
Yesterday, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) held a Senate hearing on his proposed bill, the Online Competition and Consumer Choice Act of 2014. The bill, reading at just four pages, serves as a tool bat “paid prioritization” in the network traffic business in an effort to maintain petition in that market. This idea, known as net neutrality, as explained by Joe Carter, assumes “that a public information network should aspire to treat all content, sites, and platforms equally” as well as...
Political Contributions To The Real War On Women
Gender disparity in pay has been discussed ad nauseum, especially given that the facts are that women really don’t get paid less than men, taking into account real life circumstances. But are there factors that hold women back? Women still tend to choose lower-paying jobs, and are more likely to leave the job market than men. Less than 5 percent of our nation’s leading CEOs and corporate leaders are female. What’s behind this? Abby M. McCloskey, program director of economic...
The Root of All Freedoms: Kuyper on Freedom of Conscience
The Obama administration’s HHS mandate has led to significant backlash among religious groups, each claiming that certain provisions violate their religious beliefs and freedom of conscience. Yesterday’s Supreme Court rulingwas a victory for such groups, but other disputes are well underway, with many more e. Even among many of our fellow Christians, we see a concerted effort to chase religious belief out of the public square, confining such matters to Sunday mornings, where they can be kept behind closed doors....
Helping The Poor With, Of All Things, Cash
Christopher Blattman, an associate professor at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, thinks giving cash to the poor is a good idea. Not free meals, not tickets to redeem for food, but cash. And it just might work. Blattman writes in The New York Times of the experience of giving cash to the poor. The knee-jerk reaction to this idea is, “Well, they’re just gonna waste it.” But Blattman finds evidence to the contrary. Globally, cash is a major...
Hobby Lobby Reaction Speaks to Future of Religious Liberty
Regarding the Hobby Lobby decision and the Supreme Court, I believe the National Review editors summed it up best: “That this increase in freedom makes some people so very upset tells us more about them than about the Court’s ruling.” I address this rapid politicization and misunderstanding of religious liberty and natural rights in today’s mentary. The vitriolic reaction to the ruling is obviously not a good sign for religious liberty and we’re almost certainly going to continue down the...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved