Customer Reviews

Soft Patriarchs, New Men: How Christianity Shapes Fathers and Husbands (Morality and Society Series)

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This book offers both a broad analysis of relevant data and nuanced conclusions about the socializing power of variant Christian and non-Christian worldviews on men/husbands/fathers. Simplistic characterizations of the text's careful analysis, like 'conservative Christians are more likely to beat their wives and kids than are the others', offer only an obfuscating wizardry. It's worth the read, and problematizes the easy caricatures of conservative Christianity that fill our pop culture.

This book brings some interesting distinctions to the utilitarian side of debates on religion, that is, to the evaluation of religions by their effects.

It is quite common to attribute macho attitudes to religious men, specially fundamentalist ones. Here the author makes a distinction, in the Evangelical field, between born-again Christians and those who are merely conservative and attend church because they expect themselves to do so.

The author claims conservative Christians make better fathers and husbands than mainline Christians and non-religious men. To support his claims he uses some statistical wizardry (really just hiding things). He finds in the process that conservative Christians are more likely to beat their wives and kids than are the others. Yet, in the end, he still claims conservative Christian men make better fathers and husbands. Right!