As much as it may distress us, our boys are future men.
When Theodore Roosevelt taught Sunday school for a time, a boy showed up with a black eye. He admitted he had been fighting and on a Sunday too. He told the future President that a bigger boy had been pinching his sister, and so he fought him. TR told him he had done perfectly right and gave him a dollar. The stodgy vestryman thought this was a bit much, and so they let their exuberant Sunday school teacher go. What a loss.
Unbelief cannot look past surfaces. Unbelief squashes: faith teaches. Faith takes a boy aside and tells him that this part of what he did was good, while that other part got in the way. "And this is how to do it better next time."
As we look to Scripture for patterns of masculinity for our sons, we find them manifested perfectly in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the one who set the ultimate pattern for friendship, for courage, for faithfulness, and integrity.
The newest book in the Canon Press Family series is directed towards the parents of boys and young men. Mr. Wilson talks about masculine piety and the need to regain it. True masculinity may scare us, but the Church badly needs the strength that only true men can provide.
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