Young Men: You are Welcome Here!
“Invite the young men back. Say, literally, ‘You are welcome here. If no one else wants what you have to offer, we do. We want to call you to the highest purpose of your life. We want your time and energy and effort and your will - and your goodwill.’”
“You’re churches, for God’s sake! Quit fighting for social justice. Quit saving the bloody planet. Attend to some souls. That’s what you’re supposed to do. That’s your holy duty. Do it. Now. Before it’s too late. The hour is nigh.”
Dr. Jordan Peterson’s recent “Message to the Churches” caused quite a stir. And sometimes we need an outside voice to show us our blindspots.
So first of all, a disclaimer. I hate disclaimers, but the existence of three things make them necessary sometimes. First, simpletons don’t understand that quoting a person does not mean one believes or endorses everything that person has ever said. Prior to our present anti-intellectual and Idiocratic era, we all used to understand this. Second, manipulators will try to bully people into silence and control the Overton Window by means of passive-aggressive “cancellation” through guilt by association. And third (and this doesn’t seem to be a danger here): the threat of lawsuits and liability concerns.
So here is my disclaimer: by sharing with you Jordan Peterson’s message and looking at some of his ideas, I’m not endorsing everything that he has ever written or said. I’m not even endorsing every word in this video. I’m not approving higher criticism or Gnostic architypes used in the Jungian psychological paradigm. And neither is Gottesdienst, nor the LCMS, nor Lenovo (who made the laptop that I am writing this on), nor the city of Gretna, Louisiana, where my house it located.
The same goes for the Christian thinkers whom I’m also sharing: the Reformed Douglas Wilson and the Roman Catholic Anthony Esolen. By quoting these men, I am not repudiating the Real Presence in the Sacrament, nor am I endorsing the Bishop of Rome as the head of the church.
Oh, and batteries not included.
With that out of the way, I can now muse on Peterson’s thoughts.
First of all, he is not saying anything new. Our own LCMS thinker, Dr. Steven Hein, gave a presentation called “The Feminization of the Church” at the 2017 CCLE conference. This was a three-part lecture that looks at the problem that we have in the LCMS, and in the Western Church in general: of men dropping out, leaving us an imbalance of women to men, of effeminate worship and hymns that follow as a result, thus exacerbating the problem like feedback through a speaker. This is nothing new, as Dr. Hein traces this issue back a thousand years. You can listen here. This is a generational problem, and not just a quaint observance of past history. The evidence is overwhelming that when fathers drop out of the church, their children of both sexes overwhelmingly do as well. Conversely, if fathers remain faithful, their children will do so also in much higher percentages.
This is simply empirical confirmation of what Scripture teaches: God created an orderly, hierarchical universe, and God’s order of creation for mankind is patriarchal. We are hardwired to follow men: in social leadership roles, and in the chancel. And so the Church needs to recapture young men (who are currently socially marginalized by an emasculating culture) as they will become the fathers of the future. We need to be countercultural, as our current western worldview has been overtaken (in the last millennium, century, and decade) by feminization and feminism, by blurring sex roles and the idea of sex itself, by demonizing masculinity and manliness as “toxic", and by effeminate church leadership and worship. This virus infects churches, where girls and women are encouraged to publicly read the Scriptures, vest and serve at the altar, and even preach sermons - cleverly disguised as “children’s messages” as a Pharisaical “solution” to the “problem” that our “regressive” synod technically will not allow women preachers.
Even an outsider like Peterson sees how destructive this paradigm shift is.
I’m including a reaction video by the Reformed pastor Doug Wilson, who receives and interprets Peterson from a Christian (albeit not a Lutheran) perspective. And like Peterson’s voice, we do well to listen to Wilson’s.
Along these same lines, I recently read Dr. Anthony Esolen’s new book, No Apologies - which deals with this very topic. It is a quick read, but is brilliant. I’ve included a video of Dr. Esolen recapping some of the points in the book. I think our readers will find it thought-provocative.
So what should we confessional, traditionalist, and liturgical Lutherans take away from Peterson, Wilson, Esolen, Hein, and others? A couple years back, I wrote some reflections on this topic. I think this post has aged well. I also think that churches that have removed or clipped the wings of the liturgy have been part of the emasculation process that is generational and ecclesiastical suicide. Contemporary (sic) Worship and sappy, emotional Praise (sic) Songs are a big part of the problem. From its inception in the Garden of Eden, feminism has been a subversion of hierarchy and patriarchy. This is apparent from the biblical account of the Fall, as well as the pagan mythological retelling of the Fall in the story of Pandora’s Box. Emasculation is the gay-partner to the “democratization” of the church, introduced by the antichrist at Vatican II, and aped by gullible Lutherans who want to see “more people involved in the church” and for things to be “meaningful.” By taking this poisoned pawn, even many conservatives and liturgical types fell for the Satanic gambit.
We need to restore the imagery and the optics of men - especially pastors - taking the helm and providing manly leadership for our churches. Too many of our CoWo “church growth” types - often from a “certain generational demographic” - push the word “leadership” in a subversive way. Pastors, leadership means you take the wheel and be the shepherd that the Holy Spirit called you to be. Be a man. You should not have to study this in a book. Too often, what our LCMS moderates call “leadership” is just more fuel for the fire that is burning our own house down. I come from an IT background. I hold a Project Management Professional credential from the Project Management Institute: PMI (and I often wonder if the acronym “PLI” was chosen to glom off of them). Project management is a valuable skill set. But in leading the church, pastors need to be more than project managers. They are generals in the realm of spiritual warfare. They lead the same way Jesus leads: by means of the cross, by means of selfless service to those whom you are called to protect and serve, by being a man, by being a spiritual father, by putting your hat on your sword and leading the charge against the devil, and doing so with the masculinity with which God made you and endowed all pastors to bear in their bodies and souls.
I’ve been to my share of emasculated liturgies and non-liturgical services. They’re emotional, and the pastor behaves like a teenage girl with a case of puppy-love. It’s gross. Typically, these pastors are syrupy and saccharine and effeminate. Men will not follow such a general, especially not into the maw of the enemy. More likely, men will stay home rather than go and wave their hands around while the pastor gins up his emotions and shares his feelings.
These guys will not wear the uniform of the office. They will not rally the men and boys and dads and sons in the congregation to be the leaders that God calls them to be. They will not embrace their calling in the Church Militant. As often as not, they are surrounded by petite (although some are not so petite) women on the stage with them, swaying and making faces while the pastor emotes with tickly piano music in the background. And again, as often as not, these showmen are “soft” - making contorted soy-boy faces, feminine in appearance and mannerism, and exuding low testosterone. Of course, I’m going to get “love mail” for being the kid pointing out the king’s nakedness, but I don’t care. Just pull up some of these guys on YouTube, and you’ll see that I’m telling you the truth.
It is painful that these guys are LCMS. It is a saving grace that many of them bury that affiliation layers deep in their webpages, like a man whose grandfather was hanged as a horse thief doesn’t talk much about his family history. Many of these puffy, unmanly despisers of liturgy actually remove the name “Lutheran” from their churches. Well, thanks be to God for that!
And I’m going to tick off a few conservatives and liturgical types by endorsing what Dr. Esolen says about having boys and young men serve as acolytes. I’ve had this discussion many times, from the “they’re just lighting candles” argument, to the oft-played “adiaphora card,” - while some pastors are honest about how they just like having their daughters sitting with them during worship.
It is not a sin, per se, to have a girl “light candles” or even sit with dad in the chancel. But it is certainly not a “best practice.” There are unintended consequences. Part of being a good general is to think strategically and generationally. Young men who are invited to serve in the chancel with the pastor, or pastors, or pastor and deacon and subdeacon, or pastor and (male) elders, to join them in the sacristy to pray and vest, get a picture of the masculine and cruciform life of pastoral service: men who lay down their lives for their congregations. In the history of the church, altar boys have often grown up to become clergy. The church in her wisdom didn’t establish the ancient office of acolyte because the pastor was unable to just light the candles himself. This was a minor order that could lead a young man to consider taking holy orders, not unlike our “Junior Fireman” program in the fire company that I serve, which recruits teenage boys to join us at fires, uniformed, and offering help where they can, learning about the fire service in a hands-on way. Many of these young men do join the company as adult firefighters. This isn’t rocket science, guys!
Having male acolytes sends a message to the congregation and to young men that we are countercultural and we want masculine leadership in the chancel. We embrace tradition. We are not unisex or non-binary, but we celebrate both male and female in different spheres and roles. The alb worn by many acolytes, male and female, is actually a priestly garment worn during the celebration of Mass. It is inherently masculine. Putting girls and women in albs redefines the vestment as a unisex “robe.” It feminizes the masculine - especially when the acolyte is wearing glittery sandals with painted toenails. It makes it less attractive for a boy or young man to wear an alb.
Since all pastors are men, think back on your ten- or twelve- or fourteen-year-old self. Of course, you like girls, but would you really want to dress exactly like a little girl from the congregation, wearing the same “robe”, and sitting up front with her for your friends and family to see? Would you really want to join Boy Scouts if it had girls? (And of course, many conservatives actually like the new Boy Scouts because they want their daughters to participate in the program, without thinking about the unintended consequences for future generations). The more girls who serve as acolytes, the less engaged the young men will be. And the more women readers and greeters and ushers and elders there are in our churches, the more the men and their sons (and their daughters!) will be inclined to stay home and just check out of one more institution that has been infiltrated by the “long march through the institutions.” .
We would be wise to encourage boys and young men to join us in the chancel as we serve at the front line of battle (the altar, the font, and the pulpit), clad in the masculine uniform of the general and his staff. Men naturally gravitate toward such masculine fraternity, for the man and boy, in his inner being, whom God created and designed, was made to be a warrior, to make a difference in the world by means of action and strife, by thinking and designing, by building and executing. Dr. Esolen’s book demonstrates this clearly and beautifully.
Here is an article on this very topic by Fr. David Petersen. And yes, even the title “Father” for pastors is a salutary reminder of the inherent masculinity of the holy office.
We also need to encourage our young men to join us as we make our way back from Progressive to Classical Education. Most of my students - and most of my very best students - have been girls. And I love teaching them and watching them grow intellectually and spiritually. They are a delight. But we do need more boys and young men to see intellectual rigor as a manly endeavor (my class in the last school saw young men as slightly more than half of the class, I believe, for the first time). Male students have been so beaten down in public schools, medicated, told to sit still and color, and degraded with the neo-socialist, critical-theory woke agitprop of the “toxic masculinity” trope (as well as feminism and creepy, groomer “gender” ideology), that we have to win them back. I remember a line from the movie Gods and Generals in which an officer remarked that his men “fight by day and read Xenophon by night.” Those are the kinds of young men that church and society need today!
We need to bring back the idea of the heroic, adventuresome, even violent elements of the study of history, and the need for boys and young men to take the helm of society, as pastors, teachers, protectors, and leaders - and stop filling their ears and eyes with images that kick against the goads of the order of creation.
I recall a situation (not my congregation) many years ago in which a young woman, a confirmand, was pressured by her pastor to be a vested acolyte. It was a requirement for confirmation and first communion. She actually asked if she could serve on the altar guild instead - but was refused by her pastor, who intimated this to me and rolled his eyes as though I were an ally of this feminist claptrap.
We don’t have to be blown around by every wind of the world’s caprice. We have the wisdom of our ancestors as an anchor that will keep the ship from floating aimlessly at sea, tossed around by the storms of secular wokeism. Our Reformation forbears understood the value of holding to tradition in matters of worship (Article 24!). The liturgy retains its “edge,” and our traditional hymns are a balance between celebrating the church collectively in feminine imagery as the Bride of Christ, and the individual believer in masculine imagery as a baptized warrior. Hymnody of more recent centuries and decades, influenced by Pietism and feminization, have become the soft and wispy stuff of which no real man will willingly sing. It’s another reason to stay home, mow the grass, and drink beer while the wife and kids “do the little church thing.” We need to win our men back, and their families will follow.
Peterson is right. We need to sever our ties to the “social gospel” which today has received a facelift and is sold as “social justice.” Feminism is just one plank in the egalitarian and anti-patriarchal scaffold that we seem determined to die on. It’s time for our men - especially our pastors - to reclaim their masculinity, and in so doing, win back the future generations of both men and women who will either fall away from the church, or leave our confession in search of authenticity and ontological fidelity to God’s created order. Young men are looking for something different. And so are young women. So let’s give it to them! Let’s tell them that they are welcome here.
Another resource in reflecting upon this topic is LCMS pastor Jeff Hemmer’s work, Man Up!
Guys, it’s not just a great book title; it’s an imperative and an invitation!