Here We Go Again!

A friend of mine referred me to an article this afternoon that got my hackles up. It just goes to prove my point about the gong I've been bangin' about leadership in marriage and men taking seriously the God-given task of raising children - especially boys. The article is actually an excerpt from a blog and is published in the Christian Science Monitor.

The article is called The Coming Evangelical Collapse and was written by a guy named Michael Spencer. He maintains that within the next decade Evangelical Christianity will wither away and be relegated to a fringe group within a country that is secular and agnostic. While I'm not sure I agree with him on the doomsday scenario he paints for the future of American Christianity, Spencer seems to be observing a trend that I've been concerned about for a long time - the diluting of faith by a popular culture bent on tolerance.

Okay - I can dismiss this guy as a kook for saying that Christianity will all but go away before I retire to my condo and plaid golf pants. But here's where he pushed my button. When Spencer explains why he feels this is going to happen he has a laundry list of points. Number two on the list is where I start to feel my blood pressure going up:

We Evangelicals have failed to pass on to our young people an orthodox form of faith that can take root and survive the secular onslaught. Ironically, the billions of dollars we've spent on youth ministers, Christian music, publishing, and media has produced a culture of young Christians who know next to nothing about their own faith except how they feel about it. Our young people have deep beliefs about the culture war, but do not know why they should obey scripture, the essentials of theology, or the experience of spiritual discipline and community. Coming generations of Christians are going to be monumentally ignorant and unprepared for culture-wide pressures.

The thing that gets me all worked up about this point is that I believe he's right. I'm not sure our efforts have been abject failures. Still, I do believe there are many Christian fathers in our communities who would rather leave the job of training sons and daughters in the deepest values of our faith to the youth group leaders and Sunday school teachers. Unless we men step up to our positions as leaders in our homes and grapple with the tough moral issues that face our children today they WILL cave in to the pressures of the age of social tolerance. I understand this because I see this in the life of my teenage daughter who is a standout in her peer group because she's the only one among them who believes that a bisexual lifestyle is morally wrong. Has she merely chosen the wrong group of friends? I have a hard time thinking she has chosen poorly when most of them profess to be Christians! I'm thankful that my daughter and I have had the awkward and difficult discussions about these things so that she is ready to stand on her faith and her value system in the face of a culture diluted by tolerance.

Steve Farrar is the president of Strategic Living, based in Dallas Texas and the author of a great book called Point Man. He gives us men a great warning:

The enemy is no fool. He has a strategically designed game plan, a diabolical method he employs time and time again. When he wants to destroy a family, he focuses on the man. For if he can neutralize the man…he has neutralized the family. And the damage that takes place when a man’s family leadership is neutralized is beyond calculation.

The tolerance of today's popular culture isn't simply the evolutionary ebb and flow of society. This is a premeditated and tactical maneuver by the dark side. I believe it's time to call a spade a shovel and deal with it like the real men God intended us to be!

Our responsibility as fathers is to teach our children about what happened at the cross and the deep and meaningful love God has for us. We need to teach them awareness and recognition of spirits and the litmus test the Apostle John gives us for them in I John 4. Our children need to not only know the difference between right and wrong but need to be instilled with the courage of conviction to defend themselves among those who would make them look like fools for an outdated moral code.

My Bible is the Men's Study Bible by Zondervan. At the beginning of each book in my Bible is a small paragraph that sets the stage for the reading of that particular book. I noticed this week that just about every post-resurrection book in the New Testament is written to address false teachings. You have to wonder that if false teaching was such a problem in the generations of Christians immediately following the time Jesus Christ spent on earth, why would false teaching NOT be a problem in the 21st Century?

Gentleman, we need to wake up here. We have a job to do. If you're reading this post and you recognize the need to make some changes in your parenting but you're really not sure how to get from here to there, please let me know. There are resources and mentors available to help you along your journey.

This counts, guys. Thanks for listening to me rant.

Ego? Or Fear?

I had coffee a few weeks ago with my friend Ed.  He and I go all the way back to high school in 1981.  Great guy - Ed, but I never thought he'd end up a family ministries pastor at a church.  I'm very happy to have reconnected with him and we have some great discussions about our respective ministries.  One suggestion that Ed had for this blog is to pose some open ended questions.  You know - something to stimulate some comments and discussion.  Well Ed, this one's for you!

Lately, in my travels, I've noticed that the attitudes of men toward making changes in their marriages can be categorized three ways.  There are those who are willing to humble themselves and allow themselves to be stretched and challenged.  There are those who simply don't care.  The third category is those who seem to believe that none of this is their problem and if something needs to change, she better get to it.  It's this last category that has me scratching my head these last couple of weeks.

I think it's very possible that the arrogance and ego that these guys are displaying is actually a strong front for a lot of fear.  I believe that some men are afraid to be vulnerable, humble, and to have any chinks in their armor exposed.  I'm not sure where this fear comes from - it could be cultural.  After all, we live in a culture that demands independence and a resolute stance from our men.  We have to be all together - polished.  People are disappointed in us if we show signs of struggling with anything.  Maybe it's ethnic.  Here in the Dutch dominated West Michigan culture, there exists a certain arrogance among the men.  They're proud and they know what's what - even if they're full of crap.  It could be something else too.  But these are the things that come to mind.  

Whatever the case - ego or fear - culture, ethnicity, or whatever - it is clear to me that their relationships are less than ideal.  I've seen three cases in the last month where this attitude has driven marriages to the brink of failure.  What makes me curious is how this attitude makes a man blind to the crumbling of his marriage.  But, in time, when the man is sitting in his crappy one-bedroom apartment, the blinders come off and he suddenly wonders where his life went.  

So, here's the question for my good friend Ed - and for the rest of you:  If I'm right, and it's fear masquerading as arrogance, how can we help these guys over their fears and into a place where they can safely address the things that can bring joy and peace back to their marriages?  Whether it's Ed and his family ministry at his church, me in this ministry to Christian men, or Joe Smith who's wife tells him over morning coffee that the couple next door isn't doing very well and Bob refuses to go to counseling - how do we connect with these guys who have this tough outer wall of arrogance protecting their fears?  

If we could figure this out - what an impact we could have!

Let me know your thoughts.   I'm looking forward to hearing from you.

Thanks for stopping by.