Whatever Happened to Manhood?

Apr 27, 2018 by

by Louis Markos, The Imaginative Conservative:

The war against boys has been going on for several decades now, and it is beginning to bear its bitter fruit. Fewer and fewer young men are willing to stand up and be leaders, to take responsibility for their actions and those of others, to be the spiritual heads of their families and the role models of their communities. They prefer to remain adolescents forever: not men, but guys or dudes or “bros.”

The deck has been strongly stacked against them. Even as schools have beaten the fight out of their male charges, television sitcoms have trained the fathers of these emasculated boys to view themselves as comic figures with no real authority. Their job is to drink beer, watch sports, and horse around with their buddies, while their wives do the real work of holding the home together. They’re nice guys, good for a laugh, but they are not to be taken seriously.

One would have expected a concerted outcry from the church followed by a flood of books, seminars, and workshops calling on men to shake off these stereotypes and become again the men God created them to be. But that has not happened. There was, of course, Promise Keepers, and thank God for that group, but its influence has dwindled. Focus on the Family and the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood have ministered powerfully in this area, as have the filmmakers who gave us Fireproof and Courageous, but their work has not been taken up by the church and society as a whole.

It was, therefore, with a great sigh of relief that I discovered Wayne Braudrick’s Whatever Happened to Manhood: A Return to Biblical Manhood. Finally, someone was speaking out clearly and boldly about this issue. In the midst of a billion dollar self-help industry, someone had written a book with the sole purpose of helping men be men. Not helping them to get rich, or win friends and influence people, or find their best life now—just to be the men God created them to be.

Read here

 

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