Does Christianity have a nice guy problem?

The good folks at the Art of Manliness have begun a series on a subject near to my heart, Christianity's manhood problem. Christian churches attract more women than men and the men they do attract often seem less that manly. It's not necessarily a new issue and some might argue that it's not even a problem. Since at least the 19th century there have been churches that attracted more women than men and some of these churches were at the forefront of the movement to abolish slavery in the US and the movement to allow women to vote everywhere in the west. You could easily turn the problem around and ask not what is wrong with churches but what is wrong with the men who go to them?

I think the question should be, "Why don't men see anything in Christianity for them?" That's a question that could go either way. We might conclude that something is wrong with men that they cannot accept the message. Alternatively, we might conclude that there is something wrong with the message.

In line with the latter possibility, I wonder if the message of Christianity hasn't become what Dr. Robert A Glover calls a covert contract with life. A covert contract is an imagined deal. It's not a contract at all in that only one party knows about it. Give-to-get is a good example of a covert contract. I do something nice for someone and expect that they will return the favour. I don't actually mention this to them. You can see how that might not work out. A covert contract with life would be to generalize this and to believe that the world is set up such that things will ultimately work out well for nice guys.

A bit of interesting background, Dr. Glover used to be the pastor to a Baptist congregation. He became aware of the nice-guy syndrome when he saw it in himself. Ultimately he left the ministry and practices no faith today. He has occasionally expressed admiration for the new age, sex-and-God views of David Deida. He probably doesn't sound like a good example for any Christian man to follow.

I'd argue, however, that his book No More Mr. Nice Guy is one of the best books about manhood currently available. And much of Christian moral teaching does seem to offer exactly the sort of covert contract that Glover rightly describes as crazy. "Join our community and follow the rules and you'll be happy." For a lot of people this works out pretty well. I've seen people who had chaotic lives benefit from joining a church. On the other hand, I've seen a lot of lonely, miserable young men in Christian churches unable to connect with women. And I've heard a lot of women complain about the mopey weak men who pursue them. Is there something fundamentally wrong with modern Christianity? I think there is.

The big challenge, and something I'll explore in coming posts, is Saint Paul. He often says things that sound like nice-guy thinking: "be all things to all people" and "put others needs before your own".  The way to redeem St. Paul is, in a sense, straightforward: to argue that this isn't a covert contract but a very overt covenant with God.

I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

And that is right but it's something that is easy to forget. It's particularly easy to forget in the face of the challenges of the community. The community necessarily needs to make rules to accommodate all its members and to help everyone get along when there isn't complete agreement on what is acceptable praxis. It's easy to mix up these rules with the will of God; it's God's will that the community live in love but not necessarily his will that a certain rule about what happens when one person's ox gets gored be applied for all time in all situations.

More to come ...