By: Stephen McAlpine
Boys To Men?
The so-called whipping boys for our cultural sins these days are actual boys. We hear and read it all of the time. Boys are failing and men are wrong. So go the headlines. And there is much handwringing by the powers that be as they seek to address this.
Yet what if the solution is hidden in plain sight? For every forced “consent class” that young men have to attend to in a school, it would seem there is another solution running parallel, but unremarked upon by the culture. So far at least.
Yet the anecdotal evidence is lining up with the stats. Failing boys and wrong men are turning up at our churches in increasing numbers across the West. As Jesus said, he didn’t come for the well, but for the sick. Those are the types that need a doctor.
And everywhere in the West for the past two decades, men – young men in particular – have been told that they are not simply sick, but that they are the disease.
Now it’s true, there’s terrible porn and there’s violence and what not. But there is terrible suicide and deep addictions and a “checking out” lifestyle that has seen young women streak far ahead of young men in a Western culture that is protected from much of the historical harshness that required young men.
Besides all of that, I meet many great young men, both Christian and non-Christian who are bombarded with this “you’re the problem” message almost every day. It’s as if we no longer believe the psychological reality that words spoken over us shape us in ways that we cannot imagine.
And then we put a smartphone in their hands in a way we would not put a rifle in their hands, and they subsequently put that phone to their heads and pull the trigger.
Yet if the Quiet Revival is true, then it would appear some sort of tipping point has been reached. So many articles in every major newspaper about how men were the problem, and about why men had distinct advantages over women was written in the context of middle class, inner city lawyer-land. And very few solutions that actually work.
And if your mantra as a young man at school is that foundationally you are the problem, yet there is not grace or empowerment given to you other than to get in touch with more feminine qualities (whatever that actually means, given that gentleness etc is a fruit of the Spirit quality not a feminine one), then you might just start behaving according to typecast.
I remember being lectured about male privilege by a well educated young woman who had plenty going for her. I thought about her conversation as I lived my life in working class Perth watching blokes in hi-vis work gear drive middling to old cars to factories and production lines to sweat it out for average wages. Didn’t look all that privileged to me.
Now of course, both things can be true at the same time. But when it comes to privilege itself, there is a whole lot more going on than mere gender. So it’s intriguing to see that a cohort of young men who have long been told they are not only privileged for being male, but are problematic for, well for being male, has started turning up at church.
The Tide of Men
Just yesterday I had a conversation with a Christian leader in England whose husband pastors a church. And once again I heard the same story I’m hearing all over the West – a significant influx of young men into their church in the past few years from zero Christian background.
This quiet revival thing is a thing. The stats are linking up with the experiences. The experiences with the stats. And if the various tributaries start to flow into small rivers and then into water systems, this quiet revival may not remain so quiet.
There are many reasons for all of this, of course, not least of all the fact that the Holy Spirit – like the wind – blows where He wills. People are moving from death to life, darkness to light, not because of our programs or our agendas or our ways of structuring our churches, but because the Spirit is moving them.
Of course they need to hear the gospel and repent and believe. And that they are turning up to churches that teach the Bible, point to Jesus and offer a way of living that is in direct contrast to the world, is exciting to see.
I think about some of the tough young men with bad backgrounds who I know who became Christian 20 years ago. Their conversions broke long-term cycles of bad families, bad behaviour and bad outcomes. They now have families who are stable, jobs that are meaningful, and they live to serve others not themselves. It’s grassroots change.
Now of course I believe that top-down change is also important, and we see elite conversations about Christianity too. But the grassroots is equally important. And equally important for young men. It’s no secret that young men have been doing it worse than many other cohorts in recent years.
They’ve been going through major problems, yet the constant narrative is that they are the problem! So in The New York Times yesterday we get these two articles in the opinion pages next to each other:
And this one:
Perhaps those two opinion page writers could get together and compare notes. Figure out where it all started. But whatever the coming conversation in the media and among the secular players in the West in the coming decades, perhaps we are seeing this conversation being bypassed by young men who end up in our churches.
Perhaps we are seeing young men who end up having their lives, their goals, their desires turned around by the gospel which tells them that the problem is far deeper than The New York Times can diagnose, but that the solution is far better than The New York Times can offer.
Article supplied with thanks to Stephen McAlpine
About the Author: Stephen has been reading, writing and reflecting ever since he can remember. A former church pastor, he now trains church and ministry leaders, and in his writing dabbles in a number of fields, notably theology and culture.
Feature image: Photo by Matheus Ferrero on Unsplash
