Recently, I ran across an article that prompted me to say, “This author expresses my very sentiments about masculinity and femininity.”  “Endangered Words” by Diane Woerner is such an article. She writes about “the price we’re paying for vanishing masculinity and femininity.”  What a joy to find a relatively unknown author expressing so clearly and passionately the importance of masculinity and femininity.  Her words are a breath of fresh air for my male soul.  You can read them at www.salvomag.com. 

Woerner writes, “We live in a bizarre world where we’re told that we can choose whatever sexual identity we like…but behind this, there is the quiet but insistent message that classical masculinity is toxic and classical femininity is really masculinity restrained.”  She has come to believe that “few words are as maligned and yet as precious as masculinity and femininity…we are being deceived into thinking these words are ours to refashion however we will.”

Woerner write that she wants to shout from the mountaintops, “These words don’t belong to us!  They belong to our Creator!” But in our day these very words are “being dismantled.” “Human sexuality needs to be viewed with God at the center, not ourselves. How does God view sexuality, not how we would want to redefine it in our own terms.”  She expresses a profound truth in simple terms when she says, “men can actually be both masculine and feminine” – the same for women.  “Masculinity and femininity are essentially defined “by their roles or assignments.” Both find their “fullest sense” in each other.  

Going deeper, Woerner writes, “The Bible clearly describes Christ as masculine, [but] his church as feminine…God intends the proper relationship between human husbands and wives to serve as a visible representation of the divine/human relationship.”  She gives the following example: “Men are masculine in their relationship with their wives but feminine in their relationship with Christ.  Women are feminine in relationship to both their husbands and Christ, but masculine in their relationship with their young children.” 

Woerner’s hope is that her “thoughts and ideas might seep deeply into your mind and heart, not only to give you some defense against the lies, but also to provide a more solid grounding as you…accept your assignment as a man and woman and thereby discover the joy of becoming aligned with the amazing design of our wise and good Creator.”   

C.S. Lewis has reminded us that “gender is a reality and a more fundamental reality than sex.  Sex is, in fact, merely the adaptation to organic life of a fundamental polarity which divides all created beings.”  Gender, masculine and feminine, have a transcendent nature that points to God, who (as Leanne Payne wrote) is so masculine that we are all feminine in relation to Him.  

I intend to fight for the biblical validity of these words (masculine and feminine).  My masculine soul began to be renewed and restored when I first began to digest Payne’s teaching on the masculine soul.  

Two observations from Woerner’s article continue to motivate me to be a voice crying out in our dysfunctional culture wilderness.  The first is that every man has both masculine and feminine tendencies within himself.  While the masculine, being proactive is more prominent, each man also needs to learn how to respond (feminine) to the voice of God, that is, being tough and tender, or being a lion and lamb.  

Secondly, husbands and wives serve “as a visible representation of the divine/human relationship” (see Eph. 5:31-32).  Men, this is where the real spiritual work takes place.  May God help us to live out this relationship with our wives. 

An unattached male is a young man who is either single or divorced. With today’s focus usually on helping young women flourish, unattached males are not faring well in modern American culture.  David French in The Dispatch recently sounded the alarm about this segment of our population. Quoting Patrick T. Brown he noted, “The opioid epidemic is hammering single and divorced men. Over 35,000 prime-age single men died of drug-related causes in 2020, a 35% increase from ’19.”  

Further, French cited a Wall Street Journal article detailing the immense and increasing education gap between American men and women: “At the close of the 2020-21 academic year, women made up 59.5% of college students, an all-time high, and men 40.5%…U.S. colleges and universities had 1.5 million fewer students compared with five years ago, and men accounted for 71% of the decline.”  

Beyond disproportionately high opioid overdoses and declining college enrollment numbers, men commit suicide almost four times more often than women.  They’re also losing close friends at a higher rate than women.  In light of this, French asks whether “gender-specific cultural or policy changes” exist to “help repair the terrible (and often deadly) damage done to young men.”   

French wonders how we can help younger men find their way even as we intensely debate the question of what it means to be a man.  Remember that the American Psychological Association declared that “traditional masculinity ideology” marked by “stoicism, competitiveness, dominance, and aggression” is harmful to boys and men.  French uses this to make a case for the channeling of these tendencies in men as virtues. “Healthy masculinity,” French suggests, “seeks to channel these characteristics (which are often, but not exclusively, found in young men) towards virtue and away from vice.”  

Then French makes this observation – which I want to quote in full, because it is worth pondering as grown men wanting to influence the lives of younger men:  “…You’re not asking boys to reject their nature, nor are you asking them to indulge their impulses. Instead, the process of character formation shapes a young man from the inside out, to make the very best of who they are. And then, ideally, as a boy grows into a man, he connects his virtue to a sense of purpose – a calling into which he pours his energy and effort.”  

French makes a very telling comment when he observes that there are two jobs that only men can fill: “Only a man can be a husband. Only a man can be a father.  And those jobs have a purpose and meaning that transcends the purpose and meaning of virtually any profession or career…two of the most important purposes that any person can pursue are right there, in front of them, and theoretically available to the vast majority of America’s men.”

Men, that is the challenge: it is our task to raise up the next generation of young men who love God and desire to serve him.  We can’t leave it to the government, or to social engineers who keep their focus primarily on needs of young girls.  Yes, girls need help too.  But who is going to come to rescue of young men?  Don’t expect your wife or your mother to do that.  “YOU ARE THE MAN.”

I am past my prime.  But I write this blog to influence men younger than myself.  I cry out with the words of Psalm 78:18, “Even when I am old and gray, do not forsake me, O God, till I declare your power to the next generation, your might to all who are to come.”