It's Called "Muscular Christianity," Kurt

Schlichter is having some fun here.  That does NOT mean that he's not serious.  He is as serious as a heart attack and--by the way--utterly correct. 

As to "muscularity," it has nothing to do with the NYSlimes' frilly-pantsed snottery about Tim Tebow and "sports."  It has, instead, to do with the opposite of the feminization of Christianity.  See below for more.

...Now, let’s understand this basic concept – Jesus was not some sort of whiny wimp who refused to confront the establishment and took comfort in his own righteousness while leaving others to do the heavy lifting. Jesus made people angry, because that’s what happens when you defy bad people. Being a Christian does not mean that you have to shrug and let the likes of Hillary Clinton be elected so she and her minions can fire up her anti-faith pogrom against those of us who dare worship God and not the elite she represents. Maybe you didn’t notice, but they do not accept the concept that we have any legitimate interests or rights. They hate us. And, if we are weak and stupid enough to allow them to take power, they will act on their bigotry and prejudices. Baking cakes is only the start.

Resistance is not merely an option. It is a duty. And resistance to evil – because the desire to suppress our faith is evil – is not somehow unchristian because it can be aesthetically displeasing. Fighting back is not always pretty. Jesus cleared the temple of moneychangers. He made a mess and got people angry. He didn’t sit on the sidelines and write ponderous articles lambasting the people tossing over the tables because “We’re better than that.”...

Now, then, as to this 'muscular' thing, we find Dreher's essay of April....

...Here’s the thing: is there a connection between the feminization of Christianity and its decline? Does Nick Kristof really believe that what ails American Christianity is its view of God as a “stern father”? Has he really not read anything about Moralistic Therapeutic Deism? Even as far back as the mid-1960s, sociologist Philip Rieff observed that American Christianity was fast changing into a more feminine, therapeutic model, mirroring what was happening in the broader American culture....

Dreher quotes extensively from Leonard Podle's large work on the feminization of Christianity, but here's the money-quote:

A truly masculine spirituality must include struggle. Jesus struggled throughout his life, struggles that culminated in the agony, that is, in the struggle in the garden. In another garden sinful man had fled from the holiness of God and refused to struggle with the mystery of outraged holiness and love. In this garden, the Son confronted the Father and wrestled with his will. He ultimately submitted, as Mary did, but he submitted after a question, a plea: Let this cup pass from me. … Insofar as men are Christian, they must be agonic, that is, they must participate in the struggle against evil.

Our friend Dreher thinks Eastern Orthodoxy is the solution to this.  Well, not really.  A return to the practices of pre-1200AD Roman Catholicism would work, too.  It's muscular but properly feminist, too.

HT:  ColdFury