A Book Review - The Manual. Getting Masculinity Right [Al Stewart, Matthias Media 2022]
This Sunday is Father’s Day, and I am grateful that we still have Mother’s and Father’s Day and they have not been homogenised into a Parent’s Day. It is good to acknowledge as a society that men and women have distinctive contributions to make in their marriages and families as men and women, not just generic persons, distinctive contributions recognized in distinctive terms like father/mother, husband/wife.
Gender is a contested area, and a confusing one for many in our society, particularly in relation to what it is to be a man and how to raise boys to become men. It is into this confusion that Al Stewart speaks in his new book The Manual. Getting Masculinity Right [Matthias Media 2022]. It is a timely book with a clear goal – to talk to men, Al writes, ‘about what it means to live a life that is spiritually healthy, filled with strength and power and purpose. I want to talk about what it is to ‘man up’.” p. 4.
Al has divided his book into two parts.
“In the first six chapters, I look at masculinity in our world – at the confusion in our society around what masculinity really is, at the devaluing of masculinity, and then at what our creator says about healthy masculinity.” Al looks at an ugly masculinity that abuses power, and also at current attacks on masculinity characterised under three headings – ‘All masculinity is toxic’, ‘Patriarchy is evil’, ‘Masculinity needs to be feminized’ - attacks that prevent true masculinity from flourishing and promote confusion. He follows that by working through Scripture to a definition of healthy masculinity – “a willingness to take responsibility and use the power you have to care for and nurture those around you” [p. 61], an attitude we see above all in our Lord Jesus. I found his observations insightful, his analysis grounded in Scripture, his interaction with psychologists [e.g. Steve Biddulph] working with boys and men well informed, and his personal example of dealing with temptation in his determination to work now at the future ‘you’ he wanted to be, brave and encouraging.
He follows that by working through Scripture to a definition of healthy masculinity – “a willingness to take responsibility and use the power you have to care for and nurture those around you”
In the second section, chapters 7-12, he looks at what it means to ‘man up’ in the relationships and stages of life men have as sons, friends, workmates, single men, husbands and fathers. These chapters can be read in any order and all were helpful. Three in particular gave me a lot to think about. In the chapter on friendship he points to the disturbing increase in loneliness in our society and its causes, the value of friendships, and also the cost of friendship in forgiveness and time [pp. 137-139]. The need for friends is a felt need expressed to me by many men, and so this is a valuable chapter, challenging us to pay the cost to make and maintain friendships. Then the chapters on being a husband and father also helped me reflect on how I was doing in both these areas, giving me time to measure my behaviour against clear biblical teaching and the wisdom Al has gained through reflecting on his own experience. In the chapter on being husbands there was helpful reflection on what headship does and does not mean, and how to be thoughtful in loving our wives. The chapter on being a father spoke of both the need for fathers in stable committed relationships [pp. 210-215] – a helpful reminder when often in the popular media fathers are portrayed as an unhelpful presence – and some good advice that I’d wished I’d read a lot earlier, while my children were still young. Many of us would resonate with the chapters introductory Alvin Toffler quote: “Parenthood remains the single greatest preserve of the amateur.” The chapter concludes with a single father writing of the challenges of that position, and on what kept him going through a time of turmoil.
Many of us would resonate with the chapters introductory Alvin Toffler quote: “Parenthood remains the single greatest preserve of the amateur.”
Our wives, children, church and society need men who are willing to follow Christ in taking responsibility to use the power we have to care for and nurture those around us, to live unselfish lives of love, and this book is a good and thoughtful encouragement to that calling. Read it, think about the kind of man you are and want to be, and then consider passing it on to others – as I already have to the elders.
