I wonder, if we are serious about attracting men to church, if the solution is less to infantilize them by waving steaks and guns in front of their noses and more to challenge them by teaching the rich ideas and contentious debates from the Christian tradition. Clearly there’s no shortage of important questions to be debated. Is human nature as corrupt as Calvin claimed? Is the will as free as Wesley taught? Is God as transcendent as Aquinas believed? Are the Law and the Gospel as separate as Luther wanted them to be? Is Christ as fully present in the Eucharist as Iranaeus argued?
As Molly Worthen writes in Apostles of Reason: The Crisis of Authority in Modern American Evangelicalism, evangelicals “are the children of estranged parents — Pietism and Enlightenment — but behave like orphans.” The tradition is an awkward marriage of experiential knowledge and personal piety, resulting in the sort of emotionalism Wesley advocated, frequently to the denigration of almost everything else. Only in the evangelical sphere do we place such a high premium on things like “letting Jesus into your heart,” “seeking God’s will,” and the like.
https://christandpopculture.co....m/men-leaving-church
