Morning Thanks--Church as social capital

It's not, well, shocking, not even terribly surprising; still it was a blessing to read it and it did make good sense sense. Goes like this.

Being a male, these days, isn't a joy ride. Today, like it or not, power is shared. Women bosses are in the ascendency, women's literature is touted, women's rights is the what's magic-markered on the protest sign, because women are empowered. Today, it's all about women. For a long, long time--as long as could be remembered--it's been all about men. No more.

A photographer named Eli Rezkallah created a series of ads, like the one at the top, that he called “In A Parallel Universe." He flipped ye olde gender roles in a fashion that makes most men wince. Here's another.





Generally speaking, I'd say, these silly creations are funny--if you're a woman. But men, I'm thinking, might not split a gut.

Not until 1972 (to some of us, that' s not long ago!), women were simply barred from voting in the local CRC. Only men. Much later, I served in all-male consistories where the mere thought of women in those chairs was anathema. Good men, fine Christian men, wouldn't hear of such a thing. Just about all of the Christian Reformed churches in the region still ordain only men for the offices of elder and deacon.

A century ago women's suffrage finally won the day in American life. It's fair to say that when the U. S. Constitution uses the word "man," it doesn't mean all of us--it means men.

Medical schools are full of women. Biden's cabinet is meant to "look more like America," a variety of races and equal gender positioning. Today, it's offensive for a bunch of men to tell women what they can and can't do with their bodies.

The old way is dead as a doornail. Men students drop out of college like flies. Women fill the spaces. That level of power shift has been tough on boys, on men. By studying male students in colleges and universities, Ilana M. Horwitz, an assistant professor of Jewish studies and sociology and Tulane University, has come up with a remarkable discovery that really isn't all that surprising.

Want to understand what pushes working-class males into staying in school and getting a degree (something that appears to make adult life easier for those who stay in)? Want to know what makes some men develop a moral compass and stay with it when it speaks to them about life and behavior?

The answer is church. Plain and simple. Church.

Practiced religion--not just "I'm very spiritual but I don't go to church"--doesn't do it. Practiced religion does.

Go on. Read it here.

Since the early 2000s, just as the kids in my study were entering adolescence," she writes, "there has been a drastic rise in the number of working-class men dying “deaths of despair” from opioids, alcohol poisoning and suicide."

The academic advantage of religious working-class children begins in middle and high school with the grades they earn. Among those raised in the working class, 21 percent of religious teenagers brought home report cards filled with A’s, compared with 9 percent of their less-religious peers. Grades are also the strongest predictor of getting into and completing college, and religious boys are more than twice as likely to earn grades that help them be competitive for college admissions and scholarships.

It was a special blessing to read all of this this morning, for which I'm thankful. I'd never quite thought of church-going in that way before--as providing what sociologists call "social capital." Makes good sense. Makes God-sense.