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“We have got to show our sons a new definition of manhood. Now the definition of manhood is already turning upside down. You’ve read about how the new economy is changing the roles of caregiver and wage-earner and throwing it up in the air. So our sons are going to have to find a new way of adapting to this—a new relationships with each other. I think we really have to show them and model for them how a real man is someone who trusts his sisters and respects them and wants to be on their team and stands up against the real bad guys who are the men who want to abuse the women. . . . . to seek out the heroines who are there who show real courage, who bring people together, and to nudge our sons to identify with those heroines and to say, ‘I want to be on their team.’ Because they’re going to be on their team.”

—Colin Stokes

Colin Stokes has tapped into a serious issue. False views of manhood start early and are often wrongly portrayed as an aspiration to pursue, a prize to win or a milestone down the road—not as the high identity and calling God invests in every man-child at birth and that trumps every other definition of what it means to be a man. And cultural changes are shaking up categories that seemed fixed for many in previous generations.

The church belongs in this important discussion—not to offer boys a kinder-gentler patriarchy that pales in comparison to other voices they’re hearing and doesn’t reflect the message of the Bible. 

We have something infinitely better to offer them—an identity and purpose that endures no matter what life throws at them.

What are we teaching young boys? How are we summoning them to embrace God’s indestructible, life-long, exalted calling on his sons—to bear his image and do his work in the world? 

The malestrom is the impact of the fall on men and boys that causes them to lose sight of God’s high calling on them as men and to settle for something far less.  Malestrom unpacks God’s unrivaled calling on men and boys. It features the stories of overlooked men in the Bible who courageously battle the malestrom and emerge to display a radical brand of manhood that reflects the “not-of-this world” Kingdom of Jesus. 

Continue this important discussion and take it deeper by reading Malestrom: Manhood Swept into the Currents of a Changing World  If for no other reason, do it for your sons, grandsons, brothers, nephews, and other boys in your life.