You see it on TV. You hear it from comedians. You even read it in children’s books. Men are bad. Dads are dimwits. There’s a lot I like about the Berenstain Bears series or Richard Scarry’s Busytown. But these classics from my childhood sure hit different when I read them as a father, and the dads always come across as so dumb.
Nancy Pearcey gave me context for these portrayals in her new book, The Toxic War on Masculinity: How Christianity Reconciles the Sexes. The best-selling author of Love Thy Body, Pearcey writes less about recent culture wars and more about long-term transformations in Western society. For example, she says when we think about the traditional family, we’re not being traditional enough. We should be looking further back than the 1950s. As we do, we can see the contrasts between the biblical definition of a good man and the secular definition of a real man.
Pearcey writes, “Neither sex can fulfill its purpose by denigrating the other. Instead of accusing men of being toxic, a better strategy is to support their innate sense of what it means to be the Good Man.”
Pearcey joined me on Gospelbound to discuss these historical shifts and what Christians and churches today can do to encourage good, godly men.