It doesn’t seem to matter what chapter of world history our stories occupy or where we live on the planet. Every day the world over we are eye-witnesses to the never-ending abuse of and fight for power. Today’s “Breaking News” centers on Hamas terrorists’ brutal attack in Gaza against Israeli citizens that ignited fierce fighting and an escalating count of deaths and casualties of ordinary Israelite and Palestinian citizens. 

Back home, the US government is embroiled in another (thankfully non-violent) fight for power within one political party to secure the next Speakership for their candidate. 

But amid all this turbulence, we need to remind ourselves: This isn’t the whole story. Throughout history (and certainly in the Bible) we witness breathtaking examples of people using their power for enormous good, often at great cost to themselves. 

Admittedly, the human story is fraught with power struggles of one sort or another. But power in itself is neither good nor bad. The more pressing question is: How does one use their power?

Recently, I was a guest on Our Urban Voices podcast hosted by Professor and Pastor Alfonse Javed (someone you should know and a ministry to check out). He wanted our discussion to center on my book, Malestrom: How Jesus Dismantles Patriarchy and Redefines Manhood. 

“The malestrom is the particular ways in which the fall impacts the male of the human species—causing a man to lose himself, his identity and purpose as a man, and above all to lose sight of God’s original vision for his sons.” —Malestrom, (xxiv)

Malestrom features men in the Bible who lived in a world defined by patriarchy—including what it means to be a man. These men appear in biblical narratives featuring women I was researching and writing about in earlier books. I was intrigued. In today’s world three of them—Judah, Matthew, and erstwhile religious terrorist Saul of Tarsus—would be behind bars. But God was in all of their stories. That changed everything.

The men whose stories appear in Malestrom led me to reexamine patriarchy and its impact on men and boys in every culture and generation from Genesis to the present. Each of the men in Malestrom reached a pivotal moment where following God’s call required swimming against the patriarchy’s currents and shedding their culture’s patriarchal manhood constructs.

Rejecting patriarchy demands freed them to live before the face of God and to follow Jesus, who never conformed to patriarchal rules. The manhood they came to embody looked a lot like Jesus. Their stories give reason for hope in the darkest evil and in the most desperate times. 

Malestrom is good news for men and boys globally because the Bible—a story cast against a global darkness that still permeates today’s world—is great good news for men and for women. The dramatic changes in these men unleashed a new Jesus brand of power that fuels hope against the darkest evil and in the most desperate times—the kind of hope we need today.

Our Urban Voices #86: Malestrom Part 1—Jesus’ Model for Men is Countercultural

Our Urban Voices #87: Malestrom Part 2—Jesus’ Model for Men is Countercultural