The Masculinity Myth

Autonomy, Not Femininity, Is Emptying the Church of Men

Much has been said about the absence of men in the church, and one of the most common explanations offered is the feminization of worship.

I want to argue that while this diagnosis may address a symptom, it overlooks the disease. The problem is not primarily aesthetic, emotional, or stylistic, rather it is theological and cultural.

The church has not lost men because worship has become too feminine, but because we live in a culture shaped by submissionless individualism. We are forming people, men included, who have been taught to bow to nothing, answer to no one, and receive from no authority beyond the self.

What follows is an attempt to reframe the conversation. Until we address our resistance to submission, especially submission to Christ through His Word, His gathered worship, and His Lord’s Day, we will continue to misidentify both the problem and the cure.

Throughout the scriptures, God calls His people to be a submissive people. Submission to His Word, submission to His promises, submission to His appointed means, and submission to His gathered worship. In a sense, even faith itself is an act of submission, a receiving what is being given, not a taking what is owed.

I would argue that this is the real reason why the Lord’s Day feels increasingly offensive to our modern instincts. It demands interruption to our self-sufficiency, and the reception of something that comes from outside of us rather than the expression of what already resides within us. The problem is not that worship is insufficiently masculine; the problem is that it refuses to affirm our autonomy, and this is proven by the seeker-sensitive attitude of the church.

The gospel is the only thing that can confront this at the root.

Christ submitted Himself perfectly to the will of the Father, even unto death, so that rebels might be restored as sons. The cross does not flatter our strength like we want it to, but it instead exposes our need.

Men do not need a church that flatters their dominance or caters to their preferences. Which, ironically, is the very thing those who push against what they see as the feminization of the church are doing. They need a church that calls them to joyful submission to Christ. A submission that does not diminish them, but rightly orders them. A submission that forms true strength through humility, obedience, and trust.

Until the gospel reshapes our understanding of authority, worship, and the Lord’s Day, we will continue to misdiagnose the problem.