“The situation is especially severe in black churches, whether established or storefront. Although the preachers are men, the congregations are overwhelmingly women. The absence of men has especially sad consequences for the black community.

The established churches have long made a parade of their concern for civil rights and for the plight of minorities. But there is one minority whose cause they quietly ignore: black men. The problem of criminality and drug abuse among inner-city black men is a problem of a distortion of masculinity. But the liberal churches have little to say about masculinity except to condemn it as an obstacle to women’s liberation. Churches that spend their energy hunting out and obliterating the last vestiges of patriarchy are in no position to help black men attain the status they so desperately need for their own good and the good of black women and children: that of patriarchs, responsible fathers who rule their families in justice and love.” (Leon Podles, The Church Impotent, 1999, p. xvi)