Sam Rayburn, as the Speaker of the House of Representatives, was one of the most powerful politicians in America for decades. Yet, when Speaker Rayburn recounted the most influential moments in his life, he noted a railroad station in East Texas. According to Lyndon Johnson’s biographer, Robert Caro (1983), young Sam recalled this moment, “at every crisis in his life” (p. 309).

The day he most referred to was when his dad drove him to the station to send off to college. Although his father was a poor farmer, he placed twenty-five dollars into young Sam’s hand. Caro (1983) noted that, “Sam never forgot that; he talked about that $25 for the rest of his life.” Then his father grasped his hands and spoke the words he would remember forever, “Sam, be a man (p. 309)!”

Isn’t it interesting that we instinctively know what he meant when he challenged his son to, “be a man.” It meant the same as the words penned almost two-thousand years ago, by Paul the apostle, “Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong” (I Cor. 16:13, NASB).

Be a man. Three words that drip with courage, stamina, and dogged determination. It evokes images of the soldier braving enemy fire to rescue his buddy, or firefighter whose hair wilts from heat as he searches a house for a lost child. It speaks of instilling confidence in a crying child to get back up on the bicycle and try again, or a strong but affirming embrace to a daughter who has been hurt.

Unfortunately, the term “manly” evokes other images in many of today’s young people who have never had the benefit of mentorship by a man of strong Christian principles. Many boys have been abandoned to aimlessly figure out manhood for themselves. This has left many lethargic and unambitious about much of anything but video games. Sociologists are now calling this generation, “lost boys.”

Dr. Leonard Sax (2009) wrote a landmark book detailing five major factors that have contributed toward this malaise. According to his research, these have led to this crisis – changes in school, video games, overly prescribed meds, endocrine disruptors, and loss of positive role models.

From the 1990s forward, neuroscientists have performed fMRI on hundreds of brains from age four to twenty-two. The studies reveal many aspects of male brain development that lags behind the female, such as language centers, visual skills, and empathy. The male brain develops faster in spatial perception, object recognition, and other areas that stimulate aggression.

Most of those lagging areas level out among the genders at puberty. Unfortunately, those areas that develop early for the male are not areas conducive to schooling. A Stanford study found that both males and females early form likes and dislikes. If school is a negative experience for boys early on, it tends to be a filter that affects their attitudes toward school later as well. Is it any wonder that college enrollment for men dropped from 70% in 1949 to just 36% in 2020 (NCES, May 2022).

What was once seen as manly attributes are often discouraged in boys, especially in school. For example, boys struggle with sitting still and focusing for long stretches of time. If you put little boys in the back yard with a bunch of sticks, they’ll naturally pretend to have guns and start shooting at one another. If you hand an eight-year-old boy a cardboard box with no directions, most won’t use it to clean up the playground. He’ll use it to slide down the stairs or build a rocket ship. Hand little boys a case of video games and they’ll gravitate to the ones that have the most aggression and/or competition associated with them.

Most men are aggressive. If they’re not, they have likely been acculturated to American feminization that has emasculated them with a constant mantra of being “toxic.”

Let me quickly note that my father returned home as a full blown alcoholic from three-years of Army service as a forward observer in the European theatre fighting Nazis during WWII. Upon going to the VA Hospital to address his alcoholism, he came out a drug addict as well. In my early childhood, I experienced a broken home, absent father, and being raised primarily by my mother. So, I have first-hand experience of the profound impact of a godly mother raising a son.

However, my mother had the wisdom to know that it takes a man to raise a boy. Left to themselves little boys naturally create clubs for boys only, young men join fraternities, and older ones join clubs and lodges. Men don’t join these groups to demean women. There is something in their DNA, figuratively speaking, that motivates them to seek other men for validation and to help them find their places in the community of manhood. Knights want to sit at the round table, warriors in the council of elders. Ancient Greeks want to go through rites of passage at Mt. Ida. Young Hebrew males want a patriarch to lay hands on their heads and bless them. This goes well beyond American acculturation. These instincts are trans-cultural and trans-generational.

Because it takes a man to raise a boy, my mother wisely made sure I was in church every time the door was opened. A deacon and a pastor at First Baptist Church in Bastrop, TX provided me with fatherhood while raising their own children. They took me fishing and showed me how to bait a hook. They taught me the skills that every boy needed to know—how to whittle, spit, and ride a bike. On occasion, they would attend father-son activities for church or soapbox races at Cub Scout meetings. Imprinted on my childhood brain were the values of character, determination, self-sacrifice, loyalty, and duty.

As a result, any deficiency created by my absent father was in large part restored by two godly men. They showed me the model of manhood and took time out from their busy schedule and family to fill a hole in my life that needed to be filled by an integritous Christian man.

It is important for the Christian community to have strong and godly women who can be examples of character and leadership. It is equally important to have a community of strong and godly men.

This is important because absent fathers are epidemic in America. The marriage rate consistently dropped from 8.2 per 1,000 in 2000 to 6.4 in 2020. This is the lowest since records began tracking in 1900 (NCHS, 2020). Although the number of divorces have declined from 2000 to 2020 from 4.0 to 2.7 per 1000, this is offset by the reduction in marriages from 8.2 to 5.1 and indicates the growing number of couples cohabiting (NCHS, 2020). According to the U.S. Census Bureau (2021), in 2019 there was an estimated 18.3 million cohabitating couples. In 2020, married couples with children under 18 made up 57.8% of the nation’s households, down from 60% in the 1980 Census. Although births dropped from 4.1 million in 2009 to 3.7 in 2019, 1.6 million of those were to unmarried women (NCHS, 2020). Strikingly, the 2020 Census states that of children under the age of 18, 23.8 million are living in households with a father, but 17.5 million are living without one (Census, Tables). With almost 75% of all children under 18 living in households without a father, imagine the sociological toll about to be unleashed upon the nation.

But, does fatherlessness correlate to sociological issues, particularly in young men? Correlations are difficult to establish on a macroeconomic scale. And, correlations are not causations. Not all categories of crime increased over the last 50-years. For example, murder rates are down from the 1970s, as are juvenile incarcerations, and arrests for lesser crimes. Some would explain the conflicting data, however, in the nonstop campaign to eliminate “toxic masculinity,” which has resulted in the emasculation of young men. Rather than trying to train young men how to direct their aggressive impulses, modern American culture has worked tirelessly to quash it altogether.

During the same span of time, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (2022), the incarceration rates for males have increased from 1970 where there were 161 per 100k to 844 in 2020, a 424% rate increase. Sexual assault from 1975 to 2018 increased 213%. Assault went up 60.5%. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (2022) showed the rate of unemployment increased 1.1%. Though the data is mixed, certain trend-lines can be readily fixed to show evolving issues coincide with the increase of fatherlessness.

I regularly meet men who have a deep need for validation, unsure as to whether or not they measure up. Almost without exception, they tell tales of absent fathers. As such, many lack the skills of fatherhood to provide spiritual, intellectual, and emotional guidance for their children. Often, these men perpetuate the absenteeism of fatherhood by burying themselves in work, sports, or entertainment.

It is our challenge in the upcoming year to continue to provide healthy structure and care for all of those with absent or derelict fathers. So, what are some of the concrete steps we can take?

Robert Bly’s (2004) book, Iron John, may have correctly diagnosed that the modern age has emasculated men. We may indeed have this primitive pent up impulse to conquer our environment. However, the resulting psychotherapy of going into the wilderness, beating drums, and letting out primal screams is hardly the rite of passage for which our young men are looking.

Instead, it may be more sensible to adhere to Robert Lewis’ (2011) book, Raising a Modern-Day Knight. He noted profound results in the boys being raised by his group of friends after they decided to focus their attention around three core concepts—a vision for manhood, a code of conduct, and a transcendental cause.

The Christian message readily provides a unified focus of these concepts. The vision for manhood is to be like Jesus Christ. The code of conduct is found in the Bible. Jesus claimed that the transcendental cause is “… If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it (Luke 9:23,24).”

SOURCES:

Bly, R. (2004). Iron John: A book about men. Da Capo Press: Boston, MA.

Bureau of Justice Statistics. (2022). https://bjs.ojp.gov/

Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2022). https://www.bls.gov/

Caro, R. (1983). The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power. Vintage: New York, NY.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (March 22, 2012). National Health Statistics Report (NHSR). https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/nhsr.htm

Lewis, R. (2011). Raising a Modern-Day Knight: A Father’s Role in Guiding His Son to Authentic Manhood. Tyndale House Publishers.

National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES). (May, 2022). College Enrollment Rates. Annual Reports and Information Staff (Annual Reports). https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cpb

National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). (2020). NCSH Health E-Stats. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/index.htm

Sax, L. (2009). Boys adrift: The five factors driving the growing epidemic of unmotivated boys and underachieving young men. Basic Books: New York, NY.

U.S. Census Bureau. (2021). American Community Survey. https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs