The Death of Christian Britain

— The Death of Christian Britain —
exaggerated the masculinity of David, ‘the kingly man of war’, and ‘the
soldier-stories of the Bible – full of life and adventure’. 113 Indeed, from the
1880s to the 1930s there was an almost obsessive focus on David in evangelical
literature for boys, quite relegating Christ.
However, exploration of the role of femininity in piety was never far
from the surface in most evangelical literature about men. Religious stories
explored the discourse on the feminised nature of the born-again man. In
Sydney Watson’s Disloyal of 1891, Frank Holson was converted by the
Christian love of his wife, and became ‘a constant source of wonder to all
who knew him’: ‘His friends in his own wide circle talked of him pityingly
behind his back. The blasé men, the thoughtless women tapped
their foreheads significantly when his name or his piety was quoted, and
said “Poor Halson! he’s clean gone, don’t-cher know!”’ Frank was
oblivious, having no thought but ‘to glorify God among his fellow-men’:
‘His Christianity was a real, robust life; there was nothing namby-pamby
about it; while a more humble-minded, meek follower of Christ could not
be found.’ 114 Another story of 1896 told of men who refused to help look
after their babies – men who ‘would yet never relieve their poor wife of a
bit of her load when they go out for the day’, and would not be seen
carrying a child. It featured one father whose sense of good outweighed
his concern for manly image, carrying his child and suffering being called
‘a dry nurse’ by his mates. 115 Sexual impurity was delicately tackled.
To become a Christian, a mother told her son in one story of 1890, a boy
had to restrain his urges, his body having ‘doors on all sides leading to
your inner man’. God’s command through life ‘will come to you, sharp,
stern, and imperative, “Shut the door!” and only your instant, prompt
obedience will save your soul from being sullied.’ 116 Stories returned repeatedly
to warning the Christian boy that he would suffer by ‘not following
the crowd’ and would be jeered at for his total abstinence. In short, the
true Christian man had to show a restraint which others might take as
effeminacy. His main sacrifice would be having to endure the ridicule of
his own sex.
EVANGELICAL NARRATIVES ON MEN IN
THE SECULAR PRESS
Victorian and Edwardian secular fiction fed off the moral polarities between
men and women. Moral description was the very basis of social description.
117 On the dark side, the drunken, gambling, dissolute wife-beater of
the ‘slums’ was one of the most familiar characters of British public
consciousness, whilst just as familiar was the comic ‘toff’ – the gentleman
of independent means who spent his life in leisure. Both of these were
important objects for discursive disapproval in the religious and secular
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