Men's ministries are initiatives that respond to a perceived feminization of the church and which seek to encourage men back into the church by creating masculine spaces and forms of worship. This is largely achieved by appealing to what men's ministries perceive to be appropriate signifiers for masculinity, which include sporting, military and mythopoetic images, and a particular understanding of servant leadership within the home. This paper extends previous analyses by demonstrating how men's ministries also appeal to hunting and meat consumption as signifiers for masculinity, which results in a way of engaging the non-masculine world in a violent and sexualized manner.
When we think of the Christian men's movement we tend to think of Promise Keepers, but the Christian men's movement comprises various streams following different ideologies, theologies, and denominations. In this paper, the Catholic men's movement is highlighted. In particular, the paper shows how Catholic writers have been involved in the general Christian men's movement (suggesting interaction between the different streams), how Promise Keepers provided an organizational model for the Catholic men's movement, and how Catholic masculine performances repeat and differ from those of the wider Christian men's movement.
In men’s ministries it is possible to distinguish between evangelical and Catholic masculinities: the former being more traditional, the latter somewhat ‘softer.’ This paper pursues these differing masculine performances within a discourse of fatherhood in two fatherhood ministries: Dad the Family Shepherd and Fathers for Good. On the whole, the fatherhood ministries repeat the evangelical and Catholic masculinities of regular men’s ministries via the treatment of male headship, the politics of gender and sexuality, and the use of sport as a signifier for masculinity.
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