THE TOXIC WAR ON MASCULINITY:
How Christianity Reconciles the Sexes
By Nancy R. Pearcy
Baker Publishing. 352 pages. £19.99
ISBN 978 0 801 075 735
Nancy Pearcy earned the accolade of ‘America’s pre-eminent evangelical Protestant intellectual’ from The Economist. Not bad for a former agnostic!
With a brace of books to her name, she is a fascinating woman. And this is a fascinating book. With its evident depth of research, drawing most importantly and most often on the Bible, but also commentaries, theologians and philosophers mixed in with comment on news pieces, social science, actual science (in particular neurochemistry), history, literature, films, Pearcy makes reference to everyone from C.S. Lewis to Playboy.
God-given timing
With a specific focus on American culture and history (but no less food for thought for those of us across the pond) it would be worth reading at any time. Post-Covid, with evident declining health of our young people, and shifting cultural sands, it feels God-given.
She takes us through how Christian men can shatter the stereotype of ‘toxic masculinity’ and provide a truly counter-cultural alternative using the Biblical model. Reflections on the Industrial Revolution through the lens of American history follow, leading up to the 19th-century movement around ‘muscular Christianity’, and then the 20th-century ‘disengaged dads’ that we so often see in secular presentations of fathers.
From the idea of the ‘noble savage’, to Homer Simpson, to rifles at church raffles, Pearcy has dug deep into both the Bible and when and how our society has strayed from its models, while keeping one foot in our present culture and her eyes on the future. Whether you have children (young or old!), or godchildren, or teach children, or lead a church, this book provides much to think about.
With a study guide at the end, this material could be truly transformative to do in a cell-group context, and it provides practical examples throughout the book as to how churches can help ‘good men behaving badly’. Pearcy comes back again and again to the difference between how society now portrays a ‘Real Man’ versus the Biblical model of a ‘Good Man’.
True masculinity
This is not about hiding weakness, being competitive, or getting either rich or laid (or both); she suggests that true masculinity is ‘fulfilled in the opportunity to serve and protect’. There is a huge need to provide role models and mentors, especially for the fatherless, and to encourage authentic male friendships, and intentionally teach about marriage and family from the pulpit. Not only about what is wrong, but about what is right, and about the joy that following the Biblical model brings.
Pearcy is not naïve – she has had to overcome her own history – and this book should perhaps come with a trigger warning for its descriptions of abuse. She is refreshingly clear about how to stand up, in a Biblical way, to those who abuse, and about the greater than average risk of ‘nominal’ church attenders using Scripture to justify their bad behaviour and even abuse. Sadly, many of us will now be only too aware of the potential for abuse of power and even of Scripture in our churches, and for some in their homes too.
As a mum of three sons, this is a book I suspect I will come back to again and again, to help me reconsider what the Bible says about masculinity. Most of all, Pearcy is clear that, despite our society’s increasing narrative of ‘toxic masculinity’, true masculinity is a gift from God. And that Jesus challenged the gender boundaries of His time – and we should feel empowered to do so too.
