Are Men Losing Their Religion?

A friend passed on to me another fascinating article from The Huffington Post, "The Vanishing American Religious Male," by Rabbi Scott Perlo. He speaks from his perspective as a rabbi concerned about the distance men hold from the Torah and Judaism, and their lack of participation. He notes “their great silence on issues of religious significance…"

Toward the end of the article I found these notable statements:

“Our culture is changing, feminism and gender theory have had an impact, and the men of my generation were raised with much greater emotional consciousness than those who came before us. Yet these cultural changes have not changed the pattern of men's disengagement from religion.”

“We Jews often wonder why the most famous of our prayers, the reading of the Shma, teaches, "ve'ahavta" -- and you will love, rather than "ve'he'emanta" -- and you will believe. It is because belief is not Judaism's fulcrum, but rather closeness. The secret to living a life of Torah is holding it close, and letting it give expression to our souls. We men need to ask ourselves why it feels so far away.”

My View

There are many layers to this phenomenon, I’m sure. Without taking the time to do any academic research or analysis, here’s my quick take on it:

1. Patriarchal society, in addition to suppressing women, has damaged men. We men are expected to be the perfect warrior with all the answers who can always do the job. Since few (if any) are that perfect warrior, we instead keep a quiet, low profile so that maybe no one will notice what we’re not.

2. I heard a fellow a couple of years back who was trying to get more men involved in the church. He seemed to be coming from an evangelical Christian background and said the problem was that a lot of church experience is geared toward things men are uncomfortable with, e.g. holding hands and singing kumbaya. He wanted to see room for more masculine expressions in worship. I disagreed with him about worship, but I had to admit that he had a point. Should we try to get men to be more into prayer and worship, or should we try to bring more masculine elements that men can relate to into the worship setting?

3. Years ago I noticed that just about the time we were seeing more women in pastoral roles we were also seeing a de-valuing of religion in society. So while we were celebrating the acceptance of women in leadership roles, society as a whole was assigning less value to church leadership.

The above are just some quick observations. Add to this, just last week I attended a seminar about taking patient's spiritual needs into account in the healthcare setting. The seminar was led by a physician at a large teaching hospital in my state. She made the statement that our society is becoming more religious/spiritual, not less. If that is true, and if men are more alientated from religion, what are the implications? I cannot claim to have any solutions. Does anyone out there have some other clues? What kind of spiritual practice is needed for men, and how do we get there?



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Marginal Stories in the Bible and the 70 Faces of Torah

The Old Testament scriptures hold numerous stories, some familiar, and some not so familiar. Usually what we do is to take well known biblical stories and make them fit our theology. Whenever we read those old stories, we bring our own experiences to our understanding of the story. There is a rabbinic tradition of the 70 faces of Torah (shiv’im panim la'Torah), meaning that its meaning may vary depending upon how we approach the passage. Our psychological or intellectual perspective will affect what “face” the Torah presents to us. Another view of that concept is that in an average lifespan of 70 years, each year of our life we will present a different face to the Torah, which is why the same passage may be understood in a different light at different times. Certainly at different stages of our lives, passages can take on new meanings.

This week I’ll look at a few of the "marginal" tales from scripture, and I'll try to give a different angle on some more familiar passages. I try to make stories real by accessing the poetic, emotional aspects of the stories, so what I present will not necessarily be orthodox or mainstream. Indeed, I am often attracted to those “marginal people” and marginal incidents in the Bible that orthodoxy tends to skip over.

In my postings this week you will find a couple of poems, some stories and meditations. These are not intended to be definitive, nor are they necessarily radical. They simply reflect where I happened to be at different times when contemplating the Old Testament stories.




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Who's Gonna Plow Shaphat's Field Now?

Here's another plowing story I had fun with after reading an Old Testament passage (1 Kings 19:16, 19-21).



Before we had Torah, the spirit of God ran wild upon the earth. It would drop down on someone and make them prophesy to the people, showing them the way, pointing to the light, etc. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it led to conflict, like when the spirit took hold of Elijah and he tried to shake the nation into righteousness. When King Ahab resisted, Elijah spoke a drought upon the earth, then called down fire from heaven. God’s power was made manifest, but that just led to more fighting and killing.

It was going to take more shaking than one man with the spirit of God could do, so one day Elijah headed out to the countryside to direct the wild spirit of God on another. He found Elisha out plowing his father’s field with 12 yoke of oxen. He must have been expecting lots of wheat that year. Then right there in the middle of the day, in the middle of the field, Elijah walked up to Elisha, son of Shaphat, and threw his cloak over the plowman. That was it – no more plowing for Elisha. He wanted to take care of things at home first, see to his mother and father. The old prophet said he could try that if he wanted but what was he going to do about that wild spirit that had just dropped on him? Elisha broke down his plow right then and there, killed his team of oxen, built a fire with his wooden farming tools, had a big community barbeque, and off he went to the city on the hill. The spirit of God was very dramatic in those days.

All of this was good for the nation of Israel, but poor Shaphat was left with a half-plowed field and a desperate need for some new farming equipment. After years of ups and downs, Israel settled down and built a temple so God could have a house and be less inclined to run wildly upon the earth. Nations and temples do not last, however, and things got wild again before the people finally set everything down in a book. Now we have Torah to guide us. We do not need so much drama, and everyone can tend his own field knowing that the spirit of God is alive and well, resting in the written word and enlivening the people whenever the scroll is opened.



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