The Church’s job, if you will, is the preach the gospel, and those churches that do so, are doing just fine. The churches that do not preach the gospel, veering off into the cultural fads of the day like feminism, are quick to dry up and fall of the vine.

Contrary to many comments of this blog, there is a large and thriving conservative cultural and religious movement, and many conservative girls therein.

The trouble, though, is not just with the more feminized mainline churches. It’s also with church in general, today. Even the dean of the main Southern Baptist seminary has said many times that he blames the decline of marriage on men — something that only a man who is deeply ignorant of the cultural and legal changes that have, regardless of what the bible may say, radically swung all power in relationships and marriages toward women and away from men. Many of these guys are so steeped in chivalry that they refuse to see the real issue as to why men have backed away from the churches, and why they are backing away from marrying women.

The churches spout on and on about “servant leadership” and stuff like that, but never really address the core issue: women are not behaving like they were 50 years ago, women are not interested in submitting to their husbands as their heads (even if it’s a servant headship or whatever you want to call it), and de facto the entire culture and legal system backs women up on this 100%. No wonder after hearing a few harangues about this in church, so many men simply shrug, leave the building, and never return. The church is simply out of touch with the concerns of men, and sees relationships between men and women through a lens that does not apply to today’s environment.

Women, for their part, remain fed at church, because the message they hear (it’s men’s fault for the current problems, it’s a failure of men to lead properly, etc.) is completely consistent with the dominant cultural message of de facto feminism: anything that you don’t like, as a woman, is almost certainly the fault of men. The basis of the message in the churches is different, but the conclusion is remarkably harmonious with that of feminism, and the two reinforce each other quite well.

Again, as has been noted on this blog and elsewhere quite a bit, the conservatives (and conservative Christians too) have been the unwitting allies of the feminists for quite some time now, due to misplaced ideas about chivalry, on the one hand, and preaching that fails to take into account the de facto cultural reality “out there”, even when it pertains to christian men and women.

I don’t expect that the male flight from the churches will end anytime soon. The male leadership of these churches, as it is, is packed with guys who can’t seem to do anything other than blame men. Good work, guys — soon there’ll be NO men in the pews.

As for “faithful core,” almost everyone claims to be that faithful core…

BTW, I’d never heard of the term “ba’al t’shuvah”. Have you ever thought about that yourself, Lukobe?

Long after our demented culture is gone, the church will remain, and biblical teachings will remain the same.

There are those who come to Orthodoxy from other branches, people known as “ba’al t’shuvah”. I’m not ready to do that yet, but I sure admire those who do.