Men and Their Religion: Honor, Hope, and Humor

by Donald Capps

Are men more or less religious than women, and in what way? In Men and Their Religion, Donald Capps brings to life men's engagement with religion and provides insights into the rapid rise of men's religious organizations such as Promise Keepers.

Capps says that men are just as religious as women, but in a different way. The religiousness of men is rooted in a deep sense of melancholy, a sense originating when they are small boys separating emotionally from their mothers. Fathers also play a part in the religious development of men. The Judaeo-Christian tradition, Capps argues, requires the sacrifice of father-son love because the Father God is a jealous God, allowing no rivals. So for boys, the hoped-for attachment to their fathers never happens.

As a result of this loss, the religion of men takes three the religion of honor, the religion of hope, and the religion of humor. Capps uses two case studies to show the ways in which men with religious melancholia may develop a compensating religion of honor on one hand and a religion of hope on the other. Finally, religious melancholy can be countered through humor, and Capps concludes that if men had their way there would be more humor in religion and humor would be recognized as religious.

Donald Capps is Professor of Pastoral Theology, Princeton Theological Seminary. His books include A Psychological Biography, Freud and Freudians on Religion, Men, Religion, and Melancholia, and Social Alleviating Anxiety in an Age of Self-promotion. He lives in Princeton, New Jersey.

Paperback

First published July 22, 2002

About the author

Donald Eric Capps was born in Omaha, NE, USA on January 30, 1939. After studying at Lewis & Clark College (B.A. 1960) and Yale Divinity School (B.D. 1963, S.T.M. 1965) and University of Chicago (M.A. 1966), he earned his Ph.D. also at the University of Chicago in 1970. His dissertation explored a psycho-historical analysis of the personality of the English theologian John Henry Cardinal Newman, and particularly his vocational struggles.
His academic career started as Instructor at the Department of Religious Studies at the Oregon State University during the Spring/Summer of 1969. He then became Instructor and Assistant Professor at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago between 1969 and 1974. Later, he was appointed Associate Professor at the Department of Religious Studies of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where he lectured between 1974 and 1976. Between 1976 and 1981 he was Associate Professor and then Professor at the Graduate Seminary of Phillips University.
In 1981 he joined the faculty of Princeton Theological Seminary, where he was appointed the William Harte Felmeth Professor of Pastoral Theology. In May 2009 he retired with the status of Professor emeritus[2] but remains lecturing as adjunct.[3] In 1989, the Uppsala University, Sweden awarded him a degree of Doctor honoris causa in Theology for his contributions to the Psychology of Religion.[4]
Other honors include the William F. Bier Award for contribution to Psychology of Religion, granted in 1995 by the Division 36 of the American Psychological Association; the Helen Flanders Dunbar Centennial Award, granted in 2002 by the Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital in New York; and the Joseph A. Sittler Award for Theological Leadership, granted in 2003 by Trinity Lutheran Seminary.
He was the book review editor for the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion between 1980 and 1983 and editor for the same journal between 1983 and 1988. Furthermore, between 1990 and 1992 he was the president of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion.
He is an ordained minister of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America since 1972. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_E...)