Evangelical Men Demystified

Going by various ways of estimating the extent to which evangelical men who attend church regularly can be the best husbands and fathers, hugs, spending time with their children and taking part in their activities, keeping track of their kids' academic and emotional standing, sharing in the domestic chores and many more appear just further assertions of what cahnges a healthy protestant lifestyle among men can bring about.

This comes in serious and promoting deterrence of the evil portrayal of evangelical men being overtly patriarchal, primitive in outlook and approach, being control freaks demanding obedience from their family. Fresh evidences throw light on the largely positive aspects that an evangelical man is affectionate, actively and emotionally linked to his family. In comparison to wives of non–believers and irregular church attenders, the wives of evangelical husbands reported greater happiness and they were openly joyful about the expression of affection. The affectionate nature reports reduction in instances of domestic violence as well as the men were found to be understanding, encouraging, emotionally attentive and effective time managers.

These findings are attributed to W.Bradford Wilcox, a sociologist from the University of Virginia, and have been excerpted from his book – Soft Patriarchs, New Men: How Christianity Shapes Fathers and Husbands. He gathered and analyzed data from three data sets of The General Survey (1972–1998), The National Survey of Families and Households (1987–88 & 1992–94) and The Survey of Adults and Youth (1998–99). He substantiated the writings with articles from Christianity Today and the Christian Century.

He also reports that fathers in general are more involved today than ever before. For instance, in 1965, fathers spent only 2.8 hours a day with their children compared to the 3.8 hours a day that they spent in 1998. This increase in family time constitutes 65 percent of the amount of time that mothers spend with their children (compared to the 51 percent of a mother’s time that fathers spent with their children in 1965).

Fathers are also spending more time helping around the house –– about half as much as their wives: married men have increased their weekly hours of household labor by more than 100 percent (4.7 hours in 1965 compared to 10.4 hours in 1995). Evangelical fathers who attend church regularly tend to pay particular attention to the emotional dimension of family relationships.

Wilcox’s analysis indicates that evangelical Protestant fathers view marriage and parenthood as a sacred responsibility; thus, religious commitment is associated with a family–centered lifestyle. Clearly, Wilcox destroys the old idea that insensitive and authoritarian fathering is associated with evangelical Protestant men.