A return to biblical Christianity

books:


	• The Church Impotent: The Feminization of Christianity Leon J. Podles Spence Publishing Company, 1999 - 288 pages average customer review:based on 27 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A return to biblical Christianity

I found this book shortly after completing my MA in Biblical Studies. I was impressed by Leon Podles accademic competence, his brilliant insight, and logical train of thought. This book is a must read for all men in the Christian faith. Not only does it deal with a long running issue dating back to the Middle Ages, it also offers some brilliant insights into the male and female mind; a factor that proves critical in our method of approach to the Christian faith.

Leon Podles writes in a long over due attempt to re-balance the masculine side of Christianity, long since missing, but entirely present in the New Testament era. This book is a blessing to Christian men, I thoroughly recommend it.

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required reading

This book is invaluable in pointing out the ways the Christian churches, at least in the West, have, over the centuries, become feminized to the point that attendance is shockingly inbalanced in terms of gender. It is no secret that men are not nearly so attracted to a church as women, and this for a church whose head is male and whose early members were mostly male. It presuposes that there is an important difference between the male and the female. I only wish more space had been given over to what can be done about all this.

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Very thought provoking

I read this book several years ago, and am still digesting some of the author's ideas. There is much to ponder here, and a careful reading of it will throw much light on the ways in which the modern Church has been yanked off-balance by overemphasis on a feminine or bridal Christian mysticism. This bridal mysticism, which began to grow after the thirteenth century, focuses on Christ as Lover and tends to disregard the many images of Christ as Warrior, Priest and King. The author contends that to dwell excessively on Christ as Lover is to repel healthy men, and it is a reasonable conclusion.
The author also shows how men nurture, and how Christ, in His divine masculinity, nurtured and still does nurture, His Church. This nurturing is accomplished with the shedding of men's blood, as Christ shed His, and it stands in contrast with feminine nurturing, in which women feed others with our bodies and hands. I found this a very profound idea, and it made me view the relationship between Christ and His Church, as well as between men and women, in a different light. It gave me much more respect for men and their sacrifices than I had before.
I am not sure if his thesis can explain the absence of men from church life, but it seems reasonable that it must in part explain it. This book is worth reading for the detailed view it gives of the bridal mysticism in the Church, and for the other possible spiritualities available to men it suggests.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

After documenting the highly feminized state of Western Christianity, Dr. Podles identifies the masculine traits that once characterized the Christian life but are now commonly considered incompatible with it. In an original and challenging account, he traces this feminization to three contemporaneous medieval sources: the writings of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, the rise of scholasticism, and the expansion of female monasticism. He contends that though masculinity has been marginalized within Christianity, it cannot be expunged from human society. If detached from Christianity, it reappears as a substitute religion, with unwholesome and even horrific consequences. The church, too, is diminished by its emasculation. Its spirituality becomes individualistic and erotic, tending toward universalism and quietism. In his concluding assessment of the future of men in the church, Dr. Podles examines three aspects of Christianity-initiation, struggle, and fraternal love-through which its virility might be restored.

In the otherwise stale and overworked field of "gender studies," The Church Impotent is the only book to confront the lopsidedly feminine cast of modern Christianity with a profound analysis of its historical and sociological roots. Dr. Podles presents the fruit of his meticulous scholarship in a lucid and readable style thoroughly accessible to the non-specialist.

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