Manning up: More men than women heading back to church

OPINION:

Newly released findings from Barna’s State of the Church initiative show that 43 percent of men are attending weekly church services versus 36 percent of women and that it’s the males in the Generation X and millennial age groups especially who are filling the pews.

This is good news. It means increasingly, more men are taking up the mantle and realizing their God-given responsibilities and embracing their Bible-based roles.

And in a country that derives its greatness from a concept of God-given — where rights and liberties to the individual are bestowed by God, not government — an uptick of men in church is just the sort of foundation America needs to continue in its path of exceptionalism. It’s impossible to have God-given rights and liberties if God is removed from that equation. In order to have God-given, the people must know God, embrace God, follow God, obey God. How better to know, embrace, follow and obey God than by attending church?

Moreover, as leaders of family — as duty-bound by God to provide for the family, starting with spiritual and including the material — men have a most compelling reason to return to church: It’s in large part where they learn to become godly men. And one of America’s big problems right now is the fact that men aren’t being men — that too many men abandon their family obligations, abandon their moral obligations, abandon all their responsibilities and instead stay glued to the TV set, playing video games, avoiding hard work, ignoring what God created them to do and be and achieve.

The culture for too many years has derided manhood.

The liberals and leftists for far too long have made masculinity a bad word.

The radical feminists have told that men aren’t necessary; the entertainment world has presented that men are feckless and foolish; the Marxists have intentionally set out to destroy traditional family and with it, traditional family roles, all with the end game of establishing government as the most important provider to citizens’ health and welfare and prosperity.

America has slowly, then not-so-slowly, trained the coming generations to believe that men were unnecessary; masculinity was hostile and violent; manhood was something to flee. And that went double for Christian men.

Now a reckoning of sorts has come.

The scales of society are being tipped back and the anti-man sentiment that has plagued for much too long is facing a backlash. It’s a backlash of the best kind, because it’s sending men back to church.

“For years, we’ve been told that men are leaving the church,” said Walker Wildmon, CEO of American Family Association Action, in a written statement. “Not anymore. The data proves that men, especially Gen-X and millennials, are leading their families back to church and reclaiming their role as spiritual leaders. This is not just a statistical shift. It’s a spiritual one.”

Yes. Because men who know their godly purpose are men who are equipped to become the strong leaders society and families need to withstand the pressures of evil. Men who stay married, who stay in the home, who stay committed to raising their children and who teach and lead their families to love God and follow God are men who form the building blocks of a successful society — who don’t let their little boys pretend to be little girls and go into female dressing rooms; who don’t raise their children to live off the taxpayer dime; who don’t allow their kids to scream insanities and throw bricks in the streets and call it a First Amendment freedom.

One of the strongest male images in American history is the illustration of George Washington on bended knee by his horse — praying.

If this is what the coming generations of men are seeking to emulate, then America’s on a solid course for success and freedom.

• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “God-Given Or Bust: Defeating Marxism and Saving America With Biblical Truths,” is available by clicking HERE.