Male Problem is a Church Problem<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Tim Krueger is on staff at CBE. He came to love Scripture and culture while growing up in the Philippines, where his parents served as missionaries. He\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/08\/04\/male-problem-is-a-church-problem\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Male Problem is a Church Problem\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Tim Krueger is on staff at CBE. He came to love Scripture and culture while growing up in the Philippines, where his parents served as missionaries. He\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/08\/04\/male-problem-is-a-church-problem\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-08-04T15:10:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-08-03T00:37:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/08\/04\/male-problem-is-a-church-problem\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/08\/04\/male-problem-is-a-church-problem\/\",\"name\":\"Male Problem is a Church Problem\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-08-04T15:10:37+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-08-03T00:37:41+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\"},\"description\":\"Tim Krueger is on staff at CBE. He came to love Scripture and culture while growing up in the Philippines, where his parents served as missionaries. He\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/08\/04\/male-problem-is-a-church-problem\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/08\/04\/male-problem-is-a-church-problem\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/08\/04\/male-problem-is-a-church-problem\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Male Problem is a Church Problem\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\",\"name\":\"Jesus Creed\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith in the 21st century\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\",\"name\":\"Scot McKnight\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight is a recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. McKnight, author of more than fifty books, is the Professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary in Lombard, IL.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/author\/scotmcknight\/\"}]}<\/script>\n","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Male Problem is a Church Problem","description":"Tim Krueger is on staff at CBE. He came to love Scripture and culture while growing up in the Philippines, where his parents served as missionaries. He","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/08\/04\/male-problem-is-a-church-problem\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Male Problem is a Church Problem","og_description":"Tim Krueger is on staff at CBE. He came to love Scripture and culture while growing up in the Philippines, where his parents served as missionaries. He","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/08\/04\/male-problem-is-a-church-problem\/","og_site_name":"Jesus Creed","article_published_time":"2012-08-04T15:10:37+00:00","article_modified_time":"2012-08-03T00:37:41+00:00","author":"Scot McKnight","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Scot McKnight","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/08\/04\/male-problem-is-a-church-problem\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/08\/04\/male-problem-is-a-church-problem\/","name":"Male Problem is a Church Problem","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website"},"datePublished":"2012-08-04T15:10:37+00:00","dateModified":"2012-08-03T00:37:41+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252"},"description":"Tim Krueger is on staff at CBE. He came to love Scripture and culture while growing up in the Philippines, where his parents served as missionaries. He","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/08\/04\/male-problem-is-a-church-problem\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/08\/04\/male-problem-is-a-church-problem\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/08\/04\/male-problem-is-a-church-problem\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Male Problem is a Church Problem"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/","name":"Jesus Creed","description":"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith in the 21st century","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252","name":"Scot McKnight","description":"Scot McKnight is a recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. McKnight, author of more than fifty books, is the Professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary in Lombard, IL.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/author\/scotmcknight\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/197"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31006\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}

{"id":31006,"date":"2012-08-04T10:10:37","date_gmt":"2012-08-04T15:10:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?p=31006"},"modified":"2012-08-02T19:37:41","modified_gmt":"2012-08-03T00:37:41","slug":"male-problem-is-a-church-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/08\/04\/male-problem-is-a-church-problem\/","title":{"rendered":"Male Problem is a Church Problem"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Tim Krueger is on staff at CBE<\/strong><\/a>. He came to love Scripture and culture while growing up in the Philippines, where his parents served as missionaries. He graduated from Bethel University, and enjoys tropical weather, sports, learning new things, and spending time with his wife, Naomi.<\/p>\n

* \u00a0 \u00a0 * \u00a0 \u00a0 * \u00a0 \u00a0 * \u00a0 \u00a0 *<\/p>\n

New York Times<\/em>\u00a0columnist\u00a0David Brooks<\/a>\u00a0spoke last year at the Aspen Ideas Festival<\/a>\u00a0about the narcissism of American culture in a talk called\u00a0 \u201cThe Modesty Manifesto.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0Lamenting the loss of humility in American culture, he points out a number of social trends. For instance, our math scores have been steadily declining in relation to the rest of the world. Yet, we are persistent in\u00a0believing<\/em>\u00a0we are the best.<\/p>\n

In another striking example, executives in the \u201ccomputer industry\u201d (not sure what that means, exactly) were given a test that asked questions about their own profession. They were also asked how well they thought they did. They believed they got 95% of the questions correct. In fact, they answered 20% of the questions correctly. We\u2019re performing worse than ever, but we\u2019re more and more confident in our own infallibility.<\/p>\n

Brooks also mentions that this tendency exhibits much more strongly in men. That\u2019s why men are also twice as likely to drown (apparently by getting drunk, then going for a swim). Maybe this is just the way men are, and maybe it\u2019s not. That\u2019s a question for another time. For now, let\u2019s just look at some implications. Does this matter for the church? What about for men and women?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Christianity ought to model an alternative to the world\u2019s obsession with self. Yet, the male-only leadership of many churches and Christian homes does the opposite, providing a breeding ground for these very same problems.<\/p>\n

Non-religious audiences recognize that Christianity has historically had something healing to say about pride and humility. Indeed, Brooks praises\u00a0CS Lewis\u2019 thoughts on humility<\/a>. This has changed in contemporary society, in part because the church has plunged into the same behavior as everyone else. One area this holds true is the insistence by many churches that male-only leadership is God\u2019s ideal.<\/p>\n

If there is one lesson to be learned from current social trends, it is that more voices are better than one\u2014or in church terms, a body is better than a single organ. Yet, many churches are led exclusively by one gender, and it\u2019s the gender most vulnerable to (at least some of) these disturbing patterns. And it goes beyond the local church. Seminaries and Christian families are often exclusively male-led. This should not be. Men and women both bring a lot of qualities as leaders. But just like I don\u2019t trust myself to always be right, I don\u2019t trust men alone (or women alone, for that matter) to do what\u2019s right. We need balance.<\/p>\n

Brooks states that we used to believe we needed people with different opinions to temper our passions, rein in our extremes, and minimize our follies. Of course, for most of our history, this did not extend across the gender divide, though the Bible clearly indicates that it should. Joint leadership of men and women in the church and home would go a long way toward cultivating an ethos of mutuality in the church and in our culture. Maybe I\u2019m just enamored with my own ideas, but mutual leadership is, I believe, indispensable to a biblical alternative to the prevailing culture of self.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"