Richard Phillips discusses his excellent new book The Masculine Mandate with the team at Christ the Center. Phillips was motivated to write this book after reading Wild at Heart, the horrid, yet popular book by John Eldredge. Phillips observes that Eldredge got the primary text for men right, but took a wild interpretation that isn’t at all biblical.
Phillips identifies masculinity as being both working and keeping (nurturing), which emerge from the responsibilities he had in the garden of Eden. It’s not common to consider man as a nurturer, but that is a major part of what it means to be a man.
Phillips also suggests that many men are consumed with “man idols” that appear to be masculine, but need to be put in their place because they hinder the true responsibilities of men. He suggests many young men need to be admonished to grow up, put away their video games and begin to behave responsibility, and prepare themselves for marriage.
One of the most insightful comments was that the feminism movement in the church has largely been fueled by the movement of masculine abdication. Men have forgotten what it means to be a man in the church, and in the home, and women have responded with feminism.
This discussion is very invigorating, and at the end you will want to have this book ordered, as I did.
Faith by Hearing 