The Demographics of Irrelevance

[bmarinov]

Not long ago my family and I attended a wedding. It was a wonderful Christian wedding, the bride is a daughter of a family in our church, the bridegroom is a committed Christian, young missionary in Eastern Europe. Both were homeschooled, both love the Lord, and the wedding ceremony was planned by them to be both a worship service to God and a witness to the unbelievers among those present. It was a delight to attend.

The receptions of such weddings are usually a very good opportunity for Christian fellowship. Many Christian families from different churches in the area, most of them homeschool families; parents can share their experience with other parents, and Christian homeschooled children can have company with others at their age in a safe environment. A blessing for the Christian parents, a blessing for the Christian children.

With one exception. (Having been born on the Balkans, I am faithful to my heritage to always find faults even in the rosiest pictures. My ingrained skepticism usually turns out to be right.) And the exception was in the “gender demographics” of the younger age groups under 30 years of age. In the group of more than 200 Christians we had there, the ratio of boys to girls in the age bracket 13–20 years old was approximately 1:1. Nothing unusual so far.

The unusual came when I looked at the age group of 25–30 years. Many young single women were present. Raised in Christian homes, homeschooled, committed to Christ, intelligent, educated, beautiful (youth is always beautiful), trained to be ideal helpers when they become wives and mothers. These are young ladies who in biblical times would have cost the prospective bridegrooms tons of money to take for wives. Women who know and understand Proverbs 31 and can apply it to make any man the happiest husband ever.

And no young single men at their age. Not a single one.

This is not an isolated case. I have been to many churches and conferences. In one or another degree I have seen the same phenomenon in most places: the disappearance of young men from the churches between ages 20 and 25. And don’t make the mistake of assuming this concerns only families whose children went to public school. I don’t even count those. I am talking predominantly about communities and churches of homeschooling families, or families whose children go to Christian schools. As long as the Christian boys stay at home with their parents—that means until the age of 18–20—they go to church; when they leave home, they leave the church as well.

If you think I am exaggerating, ask a young single Christian woman of age 25 and over about her chances to get married. Or ask a father of many daughters.

But then, why would a young man stay in the church? Is there a “male” message in our churches today? Is there a message that gives a young man a worthy cause to work for and to fight for? Why would he stay, to listen all his life to the same sermon over and over again, in many different versions of it? Come back every Sunday to learn—for the n-th time, over and over again—that God loves us? Shed tears over the same emotional stuff every week? Or hear that we live in the “last times” and therefore evil will expand and he can’t do anything to turn the tide? Or that his gifts mean nothing in these “last times,” all he is supposed to do is to “witness” to save a few souls from hell?

I concede, some young men find their meaning in life in “spiritual ministries” in the church—youth pastors, worship leaders, missionaries. But what about the others whose gifts are not necessarily related directly to “church business”? What message do the churches have for those with the gift to be bankers? “Praise God you make money to pay tithes”? What about truck drivers? “God put you there to evangelize at the truck stops”? Do the churches have a message for banking itself as a legitimate part of the kingdom of God? Or truck driving? Or fitness? Or business management?

There is no message for them. The church’s message concerns only the church and the limited scope of activities that the pastors have declared to be “spiritual.” Any young man with gifts outside the scope of these activities is left to feel a “second class” citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven. And guess what: Men are born with the impulse to be first class. This impulse is in the Y-chromosome. They will look for a cause, they will look for meaning in life, they will look for ideas, worldviews, professions, that give them the opportunity to have that meaningful first-class life.

In the world outside the church there are many opportunities to find meaningful life. Jobs, careers, political and social causes, sports, adventures, business opportunities—they all give a man an opportunity to prove himself, to have a sense of accomplishment, to achieve goals. Not long after a young man leaves his family he is drawn to them—and predictably. He is a man, for crying out loud, he has the drive, the inner energy to do something! Why would he want to stay in a church, passive, listening to the same sermon every Sunday that tells him that there is nothing he can do to change the world except snatch a few souls from hell? He is eager to go out there and prove himself in all those fields but then the church is silent about them, the preachers never preach about them and never explain the spiritual value of those jobs, sports, political and social causes, business, etc. in the Kingdom of God. There is no theology for political action, no theology for business action, no theology for social activity. What would a young man do then?

The silence and the refusal of the churches to preach and teach a comprehensive worldview creates a tension; and our young men resolve the tension by leaving the church and going to the world. It is not necessarily “backsliding,” it is not necessarily “apostasy.” It is a perfectly logical response to the deficiencies in our churches’ preaching and teaching.

This hasn’t always been the case. Two or three centuries ago our churches in this land had more young men than women. Some communities had to import French Huguenot or Swedish Lutheran brides for their sons. The churches had a relevant message that kept the young men in. America was postmillennial.The American church had a message of victory, a message that this country was a City on a Hill, and by its example God would change the world for Christ. Whether they were rafters and cowboys in the wilderness, or store clerks and builders in the cities of the East, Christian boys heard the same message from their preachers: “We are a nation created by God to be Christian and to exhibit God’s glory. We have a Manifest Destiny to create a godly society that will be admired and imitated by the nations of the world. Christ has established His Kingdom on this earth centuries ago, and everything you do—your job, your family, your entertainment even—is expanding the Kingdom of Christ on this earth.” Pastors preached the civil liberties of the Law of God and then donned the uniform to lead the boys in battle for those liberties. Men like Cotton Mather preached on political and economic issues (Fair Dealings Between Debtor and Creditor is one example); and the civil government was constantly under scrutiny and criticism from the pulpits. The churches did not wait for their boys to go out and find worthy causes. The churches led the boys in those worthy causes in their crusade to redeem the world for Christ. The choice for a young man in those days wasn’t “church vs. secular calling.” There was no “secular calling.” Everything was under the Lordship of Christ, and therefore every single aspect of the life of society was to be taught upon, preached upon, and discussed from the pulpits.

And young men stayed in the churches, and built Christian families, and expanded the Kingdom of God, and built the Christian culture that we today thank God for. And young Christian women did not stay single for a long time.

That should tell us how we can take our young men back. As long as we have a female church with a female message, our young men will prefer to stay away from it. You only get what you preach. The loss of our sons to the enemy is a curse, and it is our fault we have let our churches truncate the message to irrelevance. Today’s gender demographic in our churches is a product of today’s irrelevant message in the churches. You know a society by its men. If they are gone, then the society has ceased to be relevant to the real world. The demographics of irrelevance is God’s curse upon a generation that refused to hear the call of the victory of Christ’s Kingdom in history and on earth.

So next Sunday go to your church and look around. Do you see young unmarried women and no single young men? If you do, you should be alarmed. You should go to your pastor and confront him about his message. A society with no young men is a dead society, no matter what activities it has every Sunday.

[deanmay]

Very well said. Where are the young men?

In our culture- including many churches- young men are taught if they want to be truly significant they should join the military or police force. Instant hero status. Our churches are training missionaries for the wrong kingdom.

[shotgun]

I volunteer to accompany Mr. BMarinov to the next wedding he attends... lol

[bmarinov]

Just go to any Christian wedding, shotgun. If you are a single male between 20 and 30 years old, and you pretend to be sober, clean and committed to the Lord, you may get out of it engaged, if you are not careful.

[RustyCarr]

With all the darkness surrounding us today, you would think that the clergy would have all kinds of ammunition to expose that darkness, and a message that defines the roles of men, young and old.

But, that would stir up controversy. First, controversy over the competent pastor's description and warnings concerning the darkness, and second controversy over what men in the church ought to be doing about it.

In churches full of superficial undiscipled men controlled by emotional fearfull women, the young men move on where they can spread their wings. Problem is, they move on illequipped to spead their wings in righteousness and courage. The young men fall to temptation, and the older generation is helplesss to lead, since they, too, are undiscipled. "Same sermons week after week" applies very well, unfortunately for decades.

There must be coming a harvest very soon. In order to separate the wise and committed (the wheat) from the foolish and fearful (the tares), God is raising up an enemy to enslave us and control us and brainwash us into a spiritually false religious consensous that is complacent and only self seeking with only "self" safety and happiness the concern for the day. No need for God to be the center of one's life, just "Can't we all get along?" "Can't we all get along while debauchery destroys families and communities? While government dumbs down upcoming generations in the atrocious public schools?"

How do we shine a light on clergy and professionals in authority who have a form of godliness, but work for continued blindness and compliance for the masses?

It boils down to the Christian men and fathers. They have passed on iniquity for too many generations. Now, the men are blind and maliable to the feminized church. Men are not taught to love, lead, teach, and protect their families. Those men who see the mess surrounding us are told to sit down and shut up the minute we walk through the church doors. "Do not stir up the people, or confront the clergy." Seems we are at a time similar to Jesus's time when he went into the temple and upset the apple cart. It is a shame... It is a shame that clergy has gone along with the secularists for so many decades. Allowing fathers to send their offspring to atrocious public schools where unchurched peer pressure and socialist wolves await Christian lambs.

What good is God's Truth if it is not taught with power and conviction? To many generations have been left behind. They have recived the iniquity of their fathers... Ex 20:5,6KJV. Only a revival at the father's level will stop the decline of modern Christianity, Mal 4:6, but how do common fathers sweep aside the authoritarian misguided and prideful (insecure) clergy?

[shotgun]

Rusty...

Let's thank God for raising up an "enemy"...I'm getting bored.

[jewelsprout]

I just could not resist this one. After thinking about it, I suppose you COULD make the argument that American women are too masculine. I mean not the ones in church obviously, homeschooled blah blah, I'm sure they're angels. But us worldly ones...the ones thrown out to the streets to defend ourselves and make money for our children EQUALLY as a man...I suppose we've been kind of masculinized and in effect the men went Esau beserk rather than studied and became Jacob. I mean maybe we should take them, men, out of the military and encourage a little more reading and experimentation, science or Bible study. Maybe its not the feminization so much as its the wrong kind of male (Esau rather than Jacob) because the woman has become so male. I mean on tv, as Demar has pointed out, men are made out to be BOOBS. They're usually gruff Esau but yes also boobish. ANd funny, that a world survey was taken of women of which country's men were the best lovers and the American men were all around to be the most rough. In other words they weren't that desirable as they were TOO ROUGH MASCULINE vs. ROMANTIC MASCULINE as say a latin or something. Maybe in response to women being so agressive.... American men haven't gotten really rough. They've become too Esau when they were meant to become more Jacob.

What can the worldly woman do....I mean we have to get agressive as its SO TOUGH OUT THERE to get what you want. I'm telling you....I've read very intellectual men now..and I am convinced current system STINKS. It stinks for honesty, happiness, quality of life and godliness.

[wasajco]

Would have to agree about the lack of men. They do either become statist warriors, or leave the feminized church. We had a deacon that didn't even know what a pistol cartridges parts where, i.e. didn't know the bullet from the casing. The "Boy Scouts" actually stayed in hotels versus camping out. It made me sick. They where as pious as could be, but effeminate to the nth degree. And of course suffered from believing the government could do no wrong.

[gaveitup]

The title of this article says it all!

The Church of today hasn't any relevance!

It's nothing more than a business.

[tionico]

Two issues: the most obvious is on the mark. The church of North America has become very feminised. Yes, the pastors are to blame, largely. But that does not excuse the Fathers. t is written "FATHERS, teach your children..". Even if the pastor is a wimp, MEN, TEACH your children. Having strong support, encouragement, and equipping from the pulpit will help. The double abdication has multplied.

The second issue: yes, there ARE many unmarried women in their late twenties and beyond, and few godly MEN to marry them. But (and I am in the same camp as Shotgun) having myself managed to get past that age and not yet marry, I find an incredible uphill push. I have found it universally so that no one will even BEGIN considering a male, never married, past a certain age determined, on non-biblical bases, to be "unsuitable for MY daughter". WHATTT!!! Do you mean to tell me, Father of Thirty Year Old Daughters Not Yet Married, that you would oppose the marriage of your Precious (oh, she certainly IS, no question) to a man who fulfills all your qualifications, beyond your wildest dreams, in every category but that of age? So he'll die before her, most likely. That did not stop Rachel, Rebecca, Mary, and countless other Israelite women, now, did it? So," he's not likely to have much more than another forty years left", What? FORTY YEARS? That's a LONG TIME. And on what basis is this a problem? "They should be able to grow old together". Yes..... but what of it if he has a head start? "They won't be equally yoked" (I've actually had this one thrown in my face by a Father of Daughters....) On what biblical basis is this an impediment to marriage?

SO, those who are Fathers of Thirty Year Old Daughters Not Yet Married...... you need to seriously reassess your "age restrictioins". There are many strong, manly, godly, healthy men out there who would make excellent husbands for YOUR daughter..... who's only "disqualifier" is their age. Set that one aside, and marry your daughter to a godly man who will engender and raise in a godly manner many children, and love your daughter like the Queen she is. How often have I been taken as some manner of pervert for merely considering, or enquiring after, a woman well past "her prime" as a possibility, only to be rebuffed on the very same basis? And how many women have I known who, once married, were taken from their husbands and children at a young age, often younger than many who have not yet married? You do not know the times or seasons. No one does.). So, you complain about such a match being "not normal", and well you say. Face it, though, your daughter, having reached the ripe old age of twenty six and not yet given in marriage is ALREADY "not normal", so how can you balk at ANY match for her? "Not Normal" is already off the table, impossible. Why forestall further?

[jewelsprout]

I think because there is no woman home teaching children and no man home period (I'm talking a parent THERE at HOME when they are off school or even better home schooling them)....we are seeing an increase in homosexuality in men. I call them mencentrics and they have their female counterparts womancentric people. Yuck. We don't really understand or respect our differences anymore. Its gross. The bottom line as far as love and having available opposite sex love I have to say...is probably all a lack of prayer more than anything. Every bad thing in my life is a direct result of not being diligent to remain prayerful, patient and godly. James 4:2

Anywho, please be encouraged that STANDING PASSIONATELY for Biblical truths and against the tide of an ungodly society can actually GROW your church numbers. I can't remember if Chuck Baldwin is a dispensationalist (which I no longer am) or not but I know that he is passionate and what a church to stand behind him when he has really said some hard hitting things. I'm not talking about obvious stuff like don't be sexually immoral ....I'm talking he actually went up against our government, even the completely LOST IT Repulicans and the "Shhhhh" barely can say it...you know, the untouchable...CIA and military industrial complex. To question if they had our best interests really as Americans.

"When I criticized Bill Clinton for his Big-Government policies, I was
regarded as a hero among "conservative" Christians. But when I began
criticizing G.W. Bush for the very same reasons, I was vilified. When I was
standing for the Constitution and Bill of Rights in opposing Clinton, I was
a "true American patriot." But when I stood for the Constitution and Bill of
Rights in opposing Bush, I was called a "Bush-hater," traitor, and worse.

But during all of this, my church stood by me. In fact, the church grew!"
http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com/sermonvideo.php

We are the land of the free. We should be able to talk about this stuff to understand each other and to remain free.

[thirstyjon]

I am trying to think of something to add to this article, but all I can come up with is:

Woooohooooooo! Let's turn this church thing on it's ear and have a revival!

Exciting article. I am glad to see that I am not alone in my observations.