Owen Strachan on men, temptation, and the Gospe l:
Arnold Schwarzenegger, father of a “love child ,” and Dominique Strauss-Kahn, long-time seducer and brutalizer of a hotel maid , join a long list of prominent modern men who have failed terribly as family men and leaders. If we started a list of such men, we would have a hard time stopping. Mansfield is right. Men are aggressive. Men are adventurous. Men find monogamy more challenging than women. When men act on their base instincts, channeling their aggression into fornication and marital affairs, they set women up for heartbreak and pain. As Kay Hymowitz has shown in her recent Manning Up (Basic, 2011) , in the new sexual economy, men are loosed from traditional cultural bonds, which only increases the risks for women, children, and society.
All of which leads Christian men, men captured by the gospel of Jesus Christ, to realize that this is an age of tremendous opportunity. Godly men have a remarkable chance in this day to show how the Holy Spirit transforms a man. When God gets a hold of a man, he doesn’t merely tinker with him, making him cuss less and smile more. When God saves a man, he looses him to destroy sin and bless his family, church, and society. Christian men are not normal men who sleep less on Sunday and wear Dockers with no creases. Christian men are transformed men, other-worldly men, residents of a new kingdom, servants of a great king, as Randy Stinson and Dan Dumas make clear in their insightful and challenging A Guide to Biblical Manhood (Southern Seminary, 2011).
Not every unsaved man will stray, and indeed, the media can make it seem as if every man is out to destroy the traditional family. These ideas are plainly not true. Many men, Christian or not, will not ruin their families. The point stands nonetheless. Godly men have a fantastic opportunity in a society rightly jaded by the failures of so-called “great men”–actors, athletes, politicians, celebrities–to demonstrate the transformative power of the gospel in a man’s life.
Dear Reader,
Can I be direct with you?
War abroad. Socialists on the rise. AI upending human life. Endless uproar online. The modern attention economy doesn’t want readers — it wants users enslaved to the tyranny of the present.
First Things is the antidote: literary excellence, timeless truths, and a fixed point of reference in a culture that has lost its bearings.
But we can’t do it without readers like you.
Our goal: Raise $150,000 by November 1 to sustain First Things in the year ahead.
Your gift anchors readers in the permanent things.
Make your Fall Campaign gift now using the button below.
If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact Giovanni Del Piero, Director of the Editor’s Circle, at gdelpiero@firstthings.com or 212-627-1985.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
The Church in the Age of Therapy
In 1966, Philip Rieff wrote in The Triumph of the Therapeutic that “Religious man was born to…
Canada’s Deadliest Blind Spot
On September 20, the Daily Mail ran a story with the provocative headline, “Our 83-year-old Christian grandmother…
The Faithful Joy of Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen
Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen seem to have had little in common. She favored rhinestones; he wore…
