Today’s blog is sort of a book review/recommendation and reminder.
The book is Future Men, written by Doug Wilson, pastor of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho and editor of Credenda/Agenda magazine (you may find it interesting that their latest online issue is “On the Subject of Cheese”). Future Men is a must read for every father, every son, and every discipler of young men. It is also benefical for wives trying to understand their husbands and for mothers learning to raise sons.
Here is an excerpt from the back cover:
Future Men is a Christian guide to raising strong, masculine, virtuous sons, contrary to the effemininity and distorted masculinities of contemporary culture.
When Theodore Roosevelt taught Sunday school for a time, a boy showed up one Sunday with a black eye. He admitted he had been fighting and on a Sunday too. He told the future president that a bigger boy had been pinching his sister, and so he fought him. TR told him that he had done perfectly right and gave him a dollar. The stodgy vestrymen thought this was a bit much, and so they let their exuberant Sunday school teacher go. What a loss.
Unbelief cannot look past surfaces. Unbelief squashes; faith teaches. Faith takes a boy aside and tells him that this part of what he did was good, while that other part of what he did got in the way. “And this is how to do it better next time.”The title of chapter one is The Shape of Masculinity. In it Wilson describes five aspects of masculinity found throughout the Bible. In Scripture men are represented as lords, husbandmen, saviors, sages, and glory-bearers.
- Men were created to exercise dominion over the earth, so they are lords.
- Men were created not only to subdue the earth but to see it thrive and prosper. In this way they are husbandmen.
- Men also have a deep desire to deliver and protect, so they are saviors.
- Men are called to seek and follow wisdom; so they are to be sages.
- And men are distinctly recognized as the “image and glory of God” (1 Corinthians 11:7); so they are glory-bearers.
Putting this together, we should have a pretty good sense of where we are going. We should want our boys to be aggressive and adventurous. They are learning to be lords of the earth. We should want them to be patient and hard-working. They are learning husbandry. We should want them to hate evil and to have deep desire to fight it. They are learning what a weapon feels like in their hands. We should want boys to be eager to learn from the wise. They are learning to become wise themselves. We should want them to stand before God, in the worship of God, with head uncovered. They are the image and glory of God. (p.18)One of my favorite threads through the chapter is the intermittent lists of character traits to go with each aspect of masculinity. I think these are worth writing down and maybe even memorizing in order to always keep in mind where boyhood is aimed:
- adventurous
- visionary
- patient
- careful
- hard-working
- strong
- sacrificial
- courageous
- good
- teachable
- studious
- thoughtful
- representative
- responsible
- holy
