a few good men

“Today, most men in their 20s hang out in a novel sort of limbo, a hybrid state of semi-hormonal adolescence and responsible self-reliance. This “pre-adulthood”…… doesn’t bring out the best in men,” writes Kay Hymowitz in Sunday’s Wall Street Journal.

Pre-adulthood as a new life stage isn’t limited to men, of course, and “extended adolescence” is not a brand-new phenomenon. But Ms. Hymowitz digs deeper than the usual laments over irresponsible Millennials.

For instance, it’s popular (and too simplistic) to bash men for how they’ve kept women from learning and earning. But the statistics for the next generation tell a different story. More women than men are graduating from college, and doing so with higher GPAs. More women go on to graduate school and in some cities they even make more money than their male peers.


However,  Hymowitz says this “rise of women” has also given a generation of men permission to act like boys.

“Today….with women moving ahead in our advanced economy, husbands and fathers are now optional, and the qualities of character men once needed to play their roles—fortitude, stoicism, courage, fidelity—are obsolete, even a little embarrassing,” she writes.

Why should they grow up? “No one needs them anyway. There’s nothing they have to do.”


The entire situation raises (at least) two questions for me:

First, are we as a society going to tell our women to dumb it down, sit down, and pipe down because if they live up to their potential it might emasculate men? Young women have realized most men in their 20s are unwilling to think about commitments like marriage; is limiting our own choices and achievements during that decade the only way to make them catch up?

If not, who’s going to model a better way? As Hymowitz notes, if women take the reins men tend to disappear or disengage. But just telling them to stand up and man up isn’t the solution—we need to redefine masculinity for a new generation. Feminists have looked to everyone from Virginia Woolf to Tina Fey; who can inspire today’s men?


“Today’s pre-adult male is like an actor in a drama in which he only knows what he shouldn’t say,” Hymowitz writes. I’d add that today’s pre-adult female is still figuring out how her femininity and sexuality should fit into the script. Both genders—an entire generation—need some cues. What’s our role in the solution?

church fatigue

I have a confession to make.

I’m tired of going to church.


After 34 years of weekly attendance I’m bored, bored with long sermons and the two uptempo/one slow song liturgy of our megachurch worship. I’m bored with gymnatoriums and rambling communion meditations and the tasteless cardboard bread pellets that follow. I’m bored with announcement times for ladies luncheons and small groups and choir sign-ups. I’m bored with the same cliched phrases in the same spoken prayers offered at the same routine times.

I’m bored.

I know all the reasons to attend church services. But honestly, most Sundays at noon I think about other ways I could have spent the morning. Reading the New York Times with a pot of coffee, or hiking through the woods, or enjoying restorative sleep, or putzing around my kitchen trying a new recipe—these all seem more fun, productive, and restful than spending several hours at church.


It’s not about being entertained. As Brett McCracken wrote in his great Wall Street Journal article last week, 70% of adults 18-22 aren’t leaving church because it’s not “cool” enough.

“As a twentysomething, I can say with confidence that when it comes to church, we don’t want cool as much as we want real,” he writes. “If we are interested in Christianity in any sort of serious way, it is not because it’s easy or trendy or popular. It’s because Jesus himself is appealing and what he says rings true.”

So I’m not looking for a slicker sermon series or a faux-hawked worship leader or designer coffee in the back lobby. And for those of you who are my parents (hi guys!), I’m not pulling an Anne Rice and rejecting the Church universal or leaving the faith. I’m not even having a crisis of faith.


I’m just bored.


Because I also believe you make a commitment to one local church and invest in community with those believers long-term, I’m not going to start shopping for a new church. Besides, all those churches would also have long sermons and rambling prayers and worship leaders in skinny jeans. That’s the problem.

I also believe the writer of Hebrews was wise when he cautioned, “Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another.” I just don’t find weekly church attendance that encouraging anymore. In addition to its predictability, I have plenty of friends who also attend church each weekend and then get drunk, live with their boyfriends, or swear the air blue. In the south, church attendance is traditional. It is a habit, and one that doesn’t in itself produce life change.


So I’m sincerely unsure of the solution. Church, with two songs/greeting/awkward handshakes/one song/communion/offering/sermon/two songs/dismissal, is how our culture does Christianity. And I’m ready for something else.

Can you relate? How do you deal with “church fatigue”?