Castrate, Then Bid Them Be Fruitful
A physician told my brother, a pastor, "I think I've concluded that your pastor-mask makes you incapable of expressing your true feelings. What do you think?"
I think this is part of being a man, not just a pastor. It's called the duty of maturity and manly self-control, now made more difficult than ever in the face of a society that wants to make us over into emotionally expressive women while the women become "strong" like men used to be. And what passes for Christianity—the encouragement of religious feeling (Schleiermacher's Gefühl or the soul-excitements sought in nearly every modern church, whatever its theology)—is at least partially responsible for this, particularly since the nineteenth century, when the "feminization of American culture" (Ann Douglas) began to take hold.
Men have had customary ways of dealing with their "true feelings," usually in the empathetic and protective company of other men, but the functionally man-hating spirit blocks as many ways of doing this as she can by making exclusively male groups and organizations politically incorrect or illegal. The doctor might be informed that where male pastors gather for prayer and mutual encouragement one has something different entirely, but once again, the advent of women pastors who insist on joining what was meant in the providence of God to be a fraternity wrecks this too, so now in many places pastoral men have nowhere to go for releases that are not only psychologically necessary, but placed in the divinely ordained economy of the Church for their spiritual well-being.
S. M. Hutchens is a senior editor and longtime writer for Touchstone.
Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more from the online archives
31.2—March/April 2018
The Transmission of Christianity Is Not a New Task by Nathanael Devlin
30.5—Sept/Oct 2017
on Costly Grace in Breece D'J Pancake's Flyover Country by Casey Chalk
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
