If there is any word used to describe masculinity in our day, any adjective commonly used to modify it, it is almost invariably “toxic.” We hear almost nothing of positive masculinity or healthy masculinity. But we hear endlessly of its toxicity. It would not be wrong to conclude that society really has no vision for a masculinity that is noble and good (unless it is essentially indistinguishable from femininity). It would not be wrong to conclude that society considers masculinity one of the great problems that human progress must overcome.

Nancy Pearcey has many thoughts on this subject and her response is the cleverly titled The Toxic War on Masculinity. For her great concern is not the toxicity of masculinity itself, but the toxicity of the war against it.
It’s not like Pearcey is writing from some Utopia in which she has only ever seen positive examples of masculinity in action. To the contrary, she grew up in a home with a father who was cruel to his family. She was subjected to an extremely harmful form of masculinity that was abusive toward her and her siblings. It was largely because of the contrast between her dad in public (moral, upright, religious) and her dad in private (cruel, unjust, violent) that she abandoned her religious upbringing when she was a teen, turning instead of the writings of the feminist movement. It was only when she stumbled upon L’Abri and the ministry of Francis Schaeffer that she recommitted to the Christian faith and began the long process of healing.
Through Christian eyes, she was able to see the issues with the feminism that had once been attractive to her. And with those same Christian eyes she was able to see that abuse exists within the church and is sometimes even tolerated by it. But now she could look to Scripture to see that the problem is not with masculinity itself, but with its distorted forms. What God has created is good and must be celebrated. But it must also be fostered and protected, not allowed to be twisted and perverted.
Her book is an attempt to understand the God-given pattern for men and to define a truly healthy masculinity. But it goes beyond that to consider how Western culture lost its vision for a healthy masculinity and to propose how it can be recovered. Taking a “show, don’t tell” approach, she blends history and sociology with personal stories and outside examples. It makes for a powerful and compelling package.
In the book’s first part, she dispels some false assumptions to show that while most people believe that conservative Christian men are patriarchal and domineering, studies continue to disprove this. To the contrary, Christian men who are truly committed to their faith (in contrast to those who attend church merely out of tradition or for the sake of appearances) have very low rates of divorce and domestic violence. She takes this as proof that the Christian message has power to help men thrive as husbands and fathers.
In the second part, which constitutes the bulk of the book’s content, she examines notions of masculinity and how they have changed over time. She travels through major periods of history to show how society changed the ways men function in the world, workplace, church, and home. She explains how a biblical understanding of masculinity was slowly but surely replaced by a secular one.
In part three, she shows that many people who claim to be Christians, but who are only nominally so, exhibit some of the worst and most toxic behaviors of all. These nominal people skew the statistics to make people think Christianity itself produces a toxic form of masculinity when, in reality, that tends to be men who embrace terms like headship and submission, but who understand them through a secular lens of power and control. Then, at the end of it all, she suggests some ways forward—some solutions to the crisis of masculinity within the church.
It makes for a compelling book and one that serves its purpose. Well-researched and exhaustively documented, well-written and endorsed by a diverse collection of authors, I expect that it will be widely-read and that it will help spark many good conversations within the Christian world. Best of all, I hope it will help provide a positive, hopeful, biblical vision for masculinity.
Publishers are sometimes known to change the release dates for their books. I read The Toxic War on Masculinity with the understanding that it was to be released at the end of April. It wasn’t until I had read it and begun to write a review that I saw its release date had been changed to June. That means that the manuscript is still prone to change, and hence I have not quoted from it or interacted with it too deeply. So for the time being, I will leave you with this overview and hope that it interests you. And that perhaps it will convince you to pre-order the book so you can read it for yourself.
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I’m grateful to Zondervan Reflective for sponsoring the blog this week so they could tell you about a new book by Thaddeus Williams titled Revering God. It will help you marvel at your Maker.
Today’s Kindle deals include some older and newer titles.
(Yesterday on the blog: Bowed Down By What Makes Them Beautiful)

Joe Carter explains how to understand the debate about late-term abortion.

Todd Alexander tells why it is important to pay attention to what we sing. “Unfortunately, Christians often have to filter language even in church. How we worship God and what we say in our worship necessarily shapes our beliefs about God, just as what we believe about God informs how we worship Him.”

This is a simple but timely warning to watch out for the weeds.

Writing for Equip Indian Churches, Benjamin George describes God’s blueprint for a godly family.

Missionary.com has launched a great new website. One of the best features is the glossary which provides definitions for many key terms related to missions. You might also enjoy the trailer for the forthcoming Missionary documentary.

What does it take for us to consider a church a church? That’s the question behind this article. “What are the absolute, bare bones essentials for saying ‘here is a church’? What is the fundamental difference between a group of Christians meeting together and a specific church meeting? What must be present and without it we do not have a church? What can be missing, even if it means we aren’t ultimately healthy, and yet we can still say here is a church?”

God is the one who has called you to walk this path, and he is the one who has called you to walk it faithfully. Yet he has not judged you wrong or set you up for failure. 

A healthy body that houses a sick soul is not something to be coveted.
—Eric Alexander

A couple of weeks ago I was on live radio doing an interview about Seasons of Sorrow. The interview went well, I think, and I was able to speak about Nick, about the book, and about my hope that it will bless and serve others as they pass through their own seasons of grief and loss. As soon as I hung up, I sat down at my computer and saw that I had received an email to this effect: “I am listening to you on the radio. Lately many people are suddenly dying including young athletes on the field. Many doctors are coming out and realizing it is due to the Covid vaccine. Did Nick get the Covid vaccine or have to take it for school?” That was just one of many—many emails and Facebook comments and YouTube responses that have asked, suggested, or assumed the same.

I have no interest in debating vaccines or discussing what the medical consequences of taking one may be. That is a whole different subject and one poorly suited for this medium. But what I do have interest in is helping people understand how to serve families who are enduring the loss of a loved one. I want to speak on their behalf and say that very often pressing to know the cause of death or speculating about it is going to offend or hurt those who are grieving. Very seldom will it benefit them in any way.
Let’s establish two matters, one pertaining to your task and one to your rights.
Your task. Your task when you encounter an individual or family enduring a time of sorrow is to serve and bless them. This means it falls to you to do your utmost to be as helpful to them as possible and it falls to you to avoid doing or saying anything that might add to their pain. You are to help rather than hinder them in their grief.
Your right. You have no right to know how another person died. You may have some natural curiosity. You may have some natural fear. But you have no entitlement to that information. If it is not your loved one, then it is not your business. You can carry out your task of serving and blessing the family without knowing the details. And if you are not present in their lives, you can still pray faithfully and earnestly without knowing a single fact about it.
Of course there may be times the family chooses to make the cause of death public and there may be times when it is a matter of public record. But there are many other occasions when the family chooses not to reveal that information, and it’s usually safe to assume they have their reasons for doing so. This could be because the death involved suicide or a drug overdose and they feel a level of shame or regret; it could be that the death was especially traumatic and they are protecting one another by not recounting its details; it could simply be that they are private people and have chosen to keep that information personal rather than making it public. Or maybe they fear that the death would be “cheapened” if it was tied to a cause, agenda, or political issue.
Do you really want to ask a brother to tell about the day he saw his sister’s life ebb away before his eyes? Do you really consider it fair that you would ask a mother to recount how she found her son’s body after he took his life? Is it okay that your curiosity is now satisfied after pestering a heartbroken dad to divulge the most painful moments of his life? Of course not. Of course it isn’t.
When you feel that sense of curiosity, it is worth asking yourself: Why do you want to know how that person died? Is it to better serve the family? Is it to be more sympathetic or more helpful? If not that, then what is the purpose in asking? How will that knowledge better equip you to serve them? If it’s mere curiosity, you should save the family the sorrow of asking them to recount their most painful moment. You should especially save the family the pain of pressing deeper when it is clear they are not interested in divulging details. Let the family take the lead and ask no more than they are comfortable sharing.
As for us, the answer people are looking for is this: no. No, Nick’s death had nothing to do with a COVID-19 vaccine and this is easily proven by the date of his death: November 3, 2020. The first vaccine to receive Emergency Use Authorization from the FDA, Pfizer-BioNTech, was not approved until mid-December, with the other vaccines following in 2021. Hence, Nick was not vaccinated and could not have been. The answer has always been as simple as a Google search.
As I expressed a year ago, an autopsy determined that his cause of death was “presumed cardiac dysrhythmia of uncertain etiology.” In other words, for causes that remain unknown, Nick’s heart very suddenly and unexpectedly slipped into an unsustainable rhythm which in turn led to full cardiac arrest. This is a presumed diagnosis, which is the best that can be done in such cases. Subsequent genetic testing that was extremely thorough turned up no other significant leads. Hence, this is as much of a diagnosis as we are ever likely to have. We have learned over the past two years that this cause of death is neither unprecedented nor as rare as we might think. Even before there was a COVID-19 vaccine there were people whose hearts suddenly stopped—even people who were young and who otherwise appeared to be perfectly healthy. Such is life and death in a broken and fallen world.
And so I urge you, when God’s providence directs that you can be present in the aftermath of a great loss, that you refrain from pressing, refrain from insisting that you should know information that is otherwise not available to you. Your task is to love, to serve, to care, and to bless, and you can do all of this even when the cause of death remains unknown or uncertain.