A vicar called Paul Eddy has argued, in the Oxford church newspaper, that carol services should be more manly. For there are many men who only get this annual glimpse of church, and they should be challenged in their assumption that religion is a soppy women-and-children thing. He suggests showing a clip from an action film, emphasizing the heroic nature of Jesus’s post-infant life, and keeping the sermon, and indeed the whole service, short.
I sympathise. Church attendance is disproportionately female (the official figure is 59 percent, but it can feel a bit higher). And church culture can feel pretty alienating to younger men. Vicars should bear this in mind all year round, and in particular cut down on soppy music.
But is Christmas a good time for the church to man up? The nativity story features a man, Joseph, whose male pride has been severely hurt, who shows insane trust in his wife’s story of where this baby comes from.
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