February 21, 2022
I wrote an article not that long ago discussing whether Evangelical Christianity is a masculine lifestyle or not.
Essentially—no it isn’t. It’s patriarchal, but that doesn’t mean it’s masculine. Read the article here for the breakdown.
That being said, why are so many men drawn to Christianity?
Well, a Christian lifestyle promises many things that appeal to men who have more masculine energy or have more masculine personalities (which tends to be most men in the Church).
Here are some examples:
(Note: the behaviors and actions listed here are ones that involve masculine energy. That does not mean they are exclusively available to men. All humans, regardless of their sex or how they identify, contain varying amounts of both masculine and feminine energy. For more information about that, read this).
Leading a group or team
As I explored in the article I linked to above, 99% of men in the church don’t get to be the leader. Therefore, they are followers. However, that doesn’t mean they won’t seek out tiny roles around the church that allow them to taste the sweet, sweet sense of leadership.
I’ve noticed this most often comes in the form of “service” that involves manual labor. Get a bunch of church men together to build a fence, repair a roof, or paint a house and you’ll see the suppressed leadership of these guys come out in a very annoying way.
The problem is that many of these men haven’t embraced their suppressed desire for leadership in a very long time, so they all try to be in charge. I used to participate in events like this when I was younger and a Christian. Holy shit was it a cluster because none of these men wanted to miss out on their opportunity to lead a group of other men.
Debating and “saving” people from “wrong” points of view
This is a big one. There’s a lot of masculine energy tied up in having a battle of wits with someone else and winning. Of course, in this predominantly-male fantasy, the other person immediately admits they were wrong and instantly changes their point of view. But does this really ever happen? Hell no.
Teaching
This was a big thing at my old church. A lot of the men really liked being given “small groups” or Bible studies that they got to lead. If they couldn’t be in charge of the entire church, then damn it at least they got to be in charge of a small group of men, if only for one hour a week.
During that time, they got to teach. It’s a very masculine desire to share the knowledge, “wisdom,” and experience you’ve spent a lifetime gathering and disseminate it upon others who (ideally) hang on to your every word.
Going out and evangelizing
This is heavy shit for men because they feel like they are saving not only someone’s life, but their soul.
The desire to be the hero and save others is overflowing with masculine energy. It’s no wonder these themes are very much present and amplified in books and movies and video games that are primarily geared toward men.
Not only that, but deciding to dedicate a portion of your day to leaving the house (or your church) to evangelize on the street, pass out Bible tracts, or publicly pray for others makes many men feel like they’re doing something as opposed to passively sitting in church, singing praise and worship songs about surrender and grace.
I’ve written before about how the Perspectives class almost saved my faith. Perspectives is a Christian organization all about mission work and going out to the farthest flung corners of the earth to evangelize completely-unreached people groups. Looking back, one of the biggest reasons why this class resonated with me so strongly was because it really appealed to the masculine energy within me that had a desire to do something with my faith as opposed to just sitting around reading the Bible or praying.
They get to be the “spiritual head of the household.”
Leadership and respect is earned, but for the men who aren’t interested in honing themselves or putting in the hard work to earn the respect of others, being a Christian allows them to automatically assume the role of “spiritual head of the household.” As such, they get to be in charge of a woman who God supposedly designed specifically for him and who was taught from a young age to always be submissive to her husband no matter what.
I’ve written before about how simply being a man does not automatically mean you’re prepared to be the spiritual head of anything, or to even be ready for a long-term commitment or marriage. Men who think they can suddenly just do this and are “owed” love and respect lead to some very dangerous men indeed.
Conclusion
Even if you were a bad little Christian boy like me and failed to do pretty much everything on the list above, I’d be lying if I said these ideals didn’t stir something within me. For a good portion of my life, I admired men who leapt at these things and pulled them off, and I often visualized myself doing the same someday. I always thought that if I prayed a little harder or disciplined myself more, then I could rise to these masculine ideals that the Church and Christianity promised me.
Alas, it was not to be, because I ultimately began deconstructing my faith and eventually left my church and never looked back.