www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Books Leon J. Podles. The Church Impotent

I just finished this book. It's well researched (and cited), and is a history of the male-female imbalance in Western Christianity, which the author dates back to the 12th Century. He has little to say about Eastern Christianity, save to contrast it with the feminized Christianity of the West, but it's a fascinating read.

Highly recommended.

Haven't read the book so I can't comment on it.

But wouldn't it be good for the church to encompass all and thus be both masculine and feminine?

Indeed. Podles's thesis, which he supports quite well, is that the eroticization of mysticism in the West in the 12th Century made Christianity more appealing to women than men, and he shows that since that time, more women have been attending than men, something I had assumed was a recent phenomenon.