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Christianity Today, March (Web-only), 2008 |

Theology in the News

Wanted: Young Men in the Church

Delayed marriage forecasts an impending crisis.

Collin Hansen | posted 3/07/2008 10:42AM

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Understanding this fact is the only hope for reaching a lost generation of young men. You see, everyone wars against the sinful tendency to shirk responsibility and accountability. As Hymowitz said, if you can, you will—unless you know the gospel freedom, that is. These men aren't so different from everyone else. They need the gospel to liberate them from themselves, so that they will seek first the kingdom, not the latest Will Ferrell movie. If we expect to see these men in our churches, perhaps we should begin by looking at ourselves to see whether we model the discipleship we profess. We do these men no favors if we transfer them from the kingdom of video games into the kingdom of conspicuous consumerism.

There is one more problem. Discussing the problem of men in the church necessarily stirs up questions about gender roles. Perhaps no theological debate in the church today incites such personal, emotion-wrought responses. That's because your views on male headship and egalitarian leadership are not incidental to Christian practice. Let me say this. There is a historical tendency for the church to become engulfed in a theological debate even as the culture whistles past. Today's church desperately needs biblical teaching on gender roles. But what will it gain the kingdom if one side wins the debate but we all forfeit the culture?

As much as we may wish it so, there is no apparent end in sight to the church's gender wars. In the meantime, you might look around for young men in your church. If you don't see them, where will you find them? When you find them, what will you tell them about this Jesus? Now that's a man who accomplished a great deal by his early 30s without getting married.

Verse for the Fortnight

"So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart."

Collin Hansen is a CT editor-at-large and author of Young, Restless, Reformed: A Journalist's Journey with the New Calvinists.

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Previous Theology in the News columns are available on our site.

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spurgeon

Posted: March 21, 2008 7:56 AM


It is important to have felloship with others Christians.Our God wants us to have that.

Rich	Posted: March 13, 2008 3:47 PM

The absence of manhood--or its delay--is certainly not the result of any one influence, nor is it the responsibility (or "fault") of Christian women. Christian leaders and conservative social observers have lamented the emasculation of American men for years, but we do not seem to be much closer to solving the problem. I think one of the best points in the article is that "there must be something different and demanding about the gospel if we expect these men to abandon their self-concerned lives." We have clearly expected to little, even as we have given too little as fathers in terms of modeling biblical masculinity. The result is epidemic. Thankfully, God has never failed to be in control and to provide hope through his church. Let Christian men stand up and embrace the "tender warrior" mentality that can turn this dynamic around.

SA pastor

Posted: March 11, 2008 11:15 AM

Exactly what "biblical teaching about gender roles" is espoused in this article? Both male headship and egalitarian leadership are mentioned. Is one biblical and one not? Are both biblical? In order to reach young men with the Christian message, is one essential and the other doomed to fail? My United Methodist Church has welcomed women as pastors for many decades, and strives to includ both women and men in local church leadership. Yet in recent years I have heard a great deal of blame assigned to women in general and clergywomen in particular for the absence of men in the local church. It's female leadership that drives, or keeps, them away. So if only women would stop leading, men would start? Then in that case the Roman Catholic churches ought to be bursting at the seams with men. They restrict the priesthood to men. How's that working? We all have much to do in relating men and women, young and old, to Christ. We need all of us.

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