While there’s a fair amount of rubbish said and done under the banner of recovering true manliness, I do throw my lot in with those who are deeply concerned about the feminisation of the church. While the gospel aims at restoring humanity in the image of God, too often the church has colluded with our society’s distortions of gender roles. Women ‘elders’ is more like the tip of this particular iceberg, a manifestation of our culture’s crisis in masculinity rather than a cause.

Hence why I found this article an interesting read. No doubt it only reflects part of the picture, and doesn’t really have a clue about what really needs to be done (what can I say, it’s the Daily Mail!). But interesting nonetheless, and food for thought for those who choose hymns and songs for use in corporate worship.

By the way, the answer to this problem isn’t gratuitous illustrations about sports, hunting, and cars, or public displays of laddishness and public schoolboy humour from Christian leaders. We must let Christ in his life and teaching, and perhaps supremely in his death, determine our concept of masculinity and shape our practice of headship. That means we must sing of and to the real Christ of the scriptures, our victor, our captain, our Lord, our brother, our King and our husband.