According to 2022 U.S. Census Bureau statistics, one in four American children currently live without a father in the home. These 18.3 million children also struggle with education, behavior, mental health (including much higher incidents of suicide), violence, teen pregnancy, and substance abuse.
For fatherless boys, the statistics are even worse, with only half as many graduating from high school and twice as many incarcerated by the age of 30.
If the lack of a father in the home is the root of so many of our societal issues, then why is there still such an obvious, all-out assault against strong male role models in America? Moreover, what can the church do to stop this attack on the God-ordained model for strong families?
Professor, speaker, and author Nancy Pearcey believes the battle plan begins with purposeful parenting of boys that does not deny their masculine nature or try to eradicate it – but instead, channels it in ways that are honorable and productive.
In a recent interview with The Stand, Pearcey discussed this and other timely topics from her latest book, The Toxic War on Masculinity: How Christianity Reconciles the Sexes.
The Stand: What prompted you to write this book?
Nancy Pearcey: I was stunned to see how acceptable it has become to attack men openly. The Washington Post ran an article titled “Why Can’t We Hate Men?” In some feminist circles, a popular hashtag is #KillAllMen. You can buy T-shirts that say, “So many men. So little ammunition.”
Books have appeared with titles like I Hate Men, No Good Men, and Are Men Necessary?
No wonder a survey found that almost half of American men (46%) agree with the statement, “These days society seems to punish men just for acting like men.”
I wrote The Toxic War on Masculinity partly to explain where this incredible hostility is coming from. We cannot effectively respond to a social trend unless we know how it started and how it developed.
TS: What is the Enemy’s endgame in this war on masculinity?
NP: Sadly, we are already seeing signs of the endgame: Men and boys are doing worse in many areas of life.
Boys are falling behind at all levels of education, from kindergarten through college. More women than men are graduating from college, graduate school, and even professional schools like law and medicine.
As adults, men are more likely than women to be addicted to drugs or alcohol, to be homeless, to commit suicide, to suffer mental illness. Some 90% of prison inmates are male.
Even men’s life expectancy has gone down in recent years, while women’s has remained the same. New Scientist [magazine] says, “Being male is now the single largest demographic factor for early death.”
TS: What role should Christian women play in this current cultural battle?
NP: Women can help by encouraging men to fulfill the high ideals that men already hold.
A few years ago, anthropologist David Gilmore conducted the first-ever cross-cultural study of concepts of masculinity. He found that virtually all cultures share a common ideal of what it means to be a good man. Whatever their differences, they all share the expectation that a man should perform what he calls the three P’s: protect, provide, and procreate – that is, raise a family.
Because men are made in God’s image, all around the globe, they seem to understand that their unique masculine strengths are given not to get whatever they want, but to support those they love.
Our goal should be to affirm and encourage men in recovering their innate sense of God’s original plan for manhood.
TS: Explain the subtitle of your book, How Christianity Reconciles the Sexes.
NP: Critics of Christianity claim the idea of male authority in the home turns men into chauvinistic, abusive patriarchs. The problem with these accusations is they ignore data from the social sciences. Studies have found that, compared to the average American family man, evangelical men are the most loving and engaged husbands. The wives were interviewed separately, and they were the most likely to report feeling loved and appreciated.
Evangelical men are the most engaged with their children, both in shared activities like sports and church youth group, and also in discipline – enforcing bedtimes or limits on screen time. Evangelical couples are the least likely to divorce, and surprisingly, they have the lowest rates of domestic violence of any major group in the U.S.
One of the nation’s top marriage researchers, sociologist Brad Wilcox from the University of Virginia, wrote an article in the New York Times, saying, “It turns out that the happiest of all wives in America are religious conservatives. Fully 73% of wives who hold conservative gender values and attend religious services regularly with their husbands have high-quality marriages.”
The bottom line is that Christians have a practical answer to reconciling the sexes – one that has stood up to rigorous empirical testing. We should be bold about bringing it into the public square as an evidence-based solution to the charge of toxic masculinity.
TS: How should the church approach this toxic war?
NP: Churches need to get the word out. Church leaders frequently tell us that Christians are just as likely to divorce as the rest of society. But that statistic is false.
Researchers went back to the data and divided evangelical men into two groups: those who attend church regularly versus those who are only nominal Christians. The differences between these groups are stunning. Nominal men’s wives report the lowest level of happiness. These men are the least engaged with their children. Nominal couples have the highest rates of divorce, even higher than secular men. And the real shocker – they report the highest rate of domestic abuse and violence than any group, even higher than secular couples.
In a Christianity Today article, Brad Wilcox summarized his findings: “The most violent husbands in America are nominal evangelical Protestants who attend church infrequently or not at all.”
It seems that nominal men hang around the fringes of the Christian world just enough to hear the language of headship and submission but not enough to learn the biblical meaning of those terms. They interpret the words through a grid of male superiority and entitlement that they have absorbed from the secular world.
This is the challenge to the churches: On one hand, they need to encourage and support committed Christian men in an age that is attacking masculinity. On the other hand, churches need to find effective ways to reach out to the men who are on the fringes.
(Digital Editor's Note: This article was published first in the October 2023 print edition of The Stand.)
