JOSEPH GELFER

My article, Evangelical and Catholic Masculinities in Two Fatherhood Ministries is now published in the latest issue of Feminist Theology. Remember, if you don’t have an institutional subscription to this journal you can read my original non-peer reviewed version of the article as a pre-print right here (a slightly shorter but equally useful version). In the editorial Janet Wootten describes the article like this:

In what I found a deeply disturbing article, Joseph Gelfer considers the ways in which evangelical and Catholic theologies are developing ways of describing masculine roles, particularly within the family.

Gelfer looks at two ‘fatherhood ministries’: ‘Dad the Family Shepherd’, which is evangelical, and ‘Fathers for Good’ which is Catholic. Both have been developed to counter the perceived crisis of masculinity in the Church as evidenced by a decline in male attendance, and the feminization of the Church environment.

Both start from the headship or dominant role of the husband and father in the family, but try to model this in ways that are more socially acceptable today. Thus, ‘Dad the Family Shepherd’ is promoted in its eponymous website and in two books, Dad the Family Coach, and Dad the Family Counselor. The language is drawn from the sports field and care industries, but still embraces traditional masculinity. If ‘Dad’ is a shepherd, Gelfer points out, mum and the children are non-humans, sheep.

‘Fathers for Good’ puts forward a ‘softer’ and less traditional model of masculinity. This is also promoted through a website and series of books, this time looking at a variety of contexts for the exercise of the ‘gifts’ of fatherhood.

However, Gelfer in the end questions how far either of these ministries is actually about fatherhood, or how much we learn about their views on fathers, as opposed to their theologies of masculinity. He comes to the conclusion that they are really both about men, and fatherhood is co-opted into the process.

Needless to say, Feminist Theology publishes some interesting articles. This issue alone includes reflections on “the deployment of ritual magick and kabbalistic ritual” in Kate Bush’s album The Red Shoes (by Deborah Withers) and “a fleshy Christology” of “the fat Jesus” (by Lisa Isherwood).  For all you Men’s Rights Advocates fighting against the feminist conspiracy to exclude men, there’s even another man in this issue, with an article from Jacob Waschenfelder about Sallie McFague.

I’ve just signed a contributor agreement with SAGE Publications for the inclusion of my article “Evangelical and Catholic Masculinities in Two Fatherhood Ministries” in Feminist Theology. The agreement allows me to post as a pre-print the version of the article submitted to the journal, but not the accepted version after peer review and editing. So, if you’re interested in having a read (the final version of the article is very similar) you can find the article right here.

The original journal I submitted to (which I thought would welcome this article with open arms) rejected it without invitation to resubmit for being “anti-conservative and anti-faith”. Since when was it an academic crime to hold a political stance (and to communicate it in an allegedly liberal journal)? So much for the conservative complaint that the academy is a hotbed of liberalism! And anti-faith? Clearly not to Feminist Theology. Never mind, Feminist Theology is the better journal.

A nod to Nathan Hitchcock who spotted the story Contemporary Catholics Retool Rosary in the Wall Street Journal. The article is about Real Men Pray the Rosary, a Catholic organization out to reclaim manliness in using the rosary.

In Numen, Old Men I noted that the rosary was a crucial theme in the then-unidentified Catholic men’s movement. The rosary, and devotion to Mary, was one of a number of themes surrounding Catholic masculinity that I suggested results in it being somewhat “softer” than evangelical masculinity, or even slightly queer (inasmuch as troubling assumptions about gender).

Real Men Pray the Rosary muddies the waters of this distinction. From the start, their logo (above) is not very soft. In the article, David Calvillo, the organization’s founder notes, “‘I’m a child of the ’70s,” said the mustachioed 49-year-old lawyer, alluding to the raised-fist salute of that era’s Black Power movement. “I thought that would convey the right message.”‘ An allusion to Black Power is not very soft.

Nor is it soft to refer to the rosary as “a weapon of spiritual warfare” and to be a member of the Prayer Warriors: this kind of combative rhetoric has historically been more the domain of the evangelical men’s movement. Even the rosary itself is manned-up: the article refers to “football-shaped beads to encourage boys reluctant to sit through a litany of prayers” and “a rosary fashioned out of ball bearings”.

No doubt Catholics are trying to engage some of the momentum the evangelical men’s movement has achieved by appealing to stereotypically masculine signifiers (this has been happening since 1996 when the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops sought to recreate the success of Promise Keepers in a Catholic context, resulting in the National Fellowship of Catholic Men).

However, there are still aspects to Catholic masculinity such as confession, devotion and various aesthetics that set it aside from evangelical masculinity, which leaves efforts such as Real Men Pray the Rosary with something of an identity crisis. This is demonstrated nicely in the article with the following quote: “Every Tuesday and Thursday, Mr. Lerma, a 46-year-old who drives a pickup truck and favors camouflage gear, goes to a different house with an oversized rosary made of rose petals encased in acrylic”.

There ‘aint no rose petals in evangelical men’s ministry.

As of now, the Real Men Pray the Rosary Facebook page has 6,782 fans: something to watch out for.