Stinson at CCH Conference: Train Up Boys to Be Men

Randy Stinson, president of The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, delivered a pointed and much-needed message about the way contemporary parents are raising their sons in his address last weekend at the Connecting Church and Home Conference at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary: raise your boys to be men.  Below are some of Stinson’s quotes from his presentation in context. The entire may be viewed at  http://www.sbts.edu/resources/conferences/connecting-church-and-home-general-session-2/

 On taking pains to raise boys in a way that ensures they avoid pain: "We are raising our young boys to be way too soft, way too careful, as if the ultimate prize in our parenting of boys is to get them to 18 years old and say they never got hurt, nothing bad ever happened. They never experienced pain. They never experienced disappointment. They have just had a wonderfully smooth life. What you've done, you have handicapped that boy for the rest of his life," Stinson counseled. "He will be a weak, soft, ineffective man."

 On some contemporary praise music that speaks about Jesus as if he were the object of a love-struck middle school boy’s affections: "When we talk about the Christian life in terms of sensual, romantic language, why are we surprised when men don't get that and men are repulsed by that, they don't understand that?"

 On the sentimental renderings of our Lord that were popular in the Sunday school literature during the latter half of the 20^th century: "Part of the problem in our church today is that our men have this view of Jesus that comes from our Sunday school literature. Have you ever seen a picture of him in any of our Sunday school literature, any picture ever? His hair is perfectly flowing. His beard is very nice. His skin is smooth. There's no way he looked like that. He was the son of a carpenter, without any power tools, and he walked everywhere in the blistering sun."

On the typical local church men’s ministry: "You cannot just put a bunch of men together and assign them to a care group like some sort of E-Harmony for men and think that is going to solve and fix and help the masculine soul. We have modeled most of our men's ministries after our women's ministries -- get the men together, read a book together, hold their hands and pray together and talk about the worst sin that you ever did -- and that ain't happening. Men solve problems. They fix stuff. They get stuff done. When we give men such weak assignments -- we put them on the bereavement committee and the flower committee and the grounds committee and the fellowships committees -- give men a God-sized task that they know requires a man."

On the missiological fallout in the local church of raising boys that are soft: "We're telling our boys, 'Don't jump your bike. Don't climb that tree. Don't fall down, don't get hurt. And then when they are 18 or 17, pastors are calling out for the men in this church -- maybe even particularly the single men to take some risk: 'We are trying to reach this unreached people group. We don't know what's going to happen there and we need some of you that may not have families yet but some men with courage, with ambition, godly ambition, we need you to help.' You think that guy is raising his hand? You told him not to jump his bike, not to even climb a tree. You told him the worst thing in the world is don't get hurt. That's the main thing. He's not going anywhere, and he's not going to pursue your daughter, because he's weak and scared and has no godly ambition. When he gets knocked down he's not getting back up. He has no godly resilience."

Praise God for our president’s bold and clear-headed call for the raising up of godly and manly future men. One media outlet of a decidedly leftward tilt employed Dr. Stinson’s words as if to prove that he is radically out of step with the 21^st century feminized male temperament—the sort that spawned the category “metro-sexual.” Clearly, he is, and for this I am deeply grateful.