Most Aren't Going to Like the Solution

Back to the drawing board

Every time I finish a book I’m reminded how difficult it is to pick what to work on next. I’ve been so focused on assurance for so long that changing gears and picking another topic to throw myself into has been a challenge.

However, looking back at the last couple of years’ worth of writing and podcasting, a clear picture has emerged regarding the most pressing need of our day.

The way I see it:

- The world won’t be fixed while the church is weak

- The church will be weak until it confronts casual Christianity

- Casual Christianity won’t be fixed until consensus-based leadership is done away with

- Consensus-based leadership in the church won’t go away until we reestablish gender roles and get rid of consensus-based leadership in the home

Basically, everything rests on a return to traditional, Biblical gender roles—not because they are some magic bullet, but because they are the most basic step in mankind’s faithfulness to God.

Before there were nations, Israel, or the church, there was one man and one woman who became one flesh. From there, Genesis is the long, sad story of familial missteps, but it is made right in the end by Joseph’s typological foreshadowing of Christ. If the type of Christ can heal family wounds, how much more can the real Christ?

As our churches and society decline, faithful obedience to God in the most fundamental elements of our humanity is the path to restoration.

I’ve put a decent amount of content out on masculinity and femininity over the years, but I’ll be putting even more emphasis on it in the coming weeks. It might even end up as a book. Why?

Because I believe the overwhelming majority of today’s teaching on the matter of men and women is not just unhelpful—it’s actively harmful.

As they say, the lie closest to the truth is the most dangerous. Most Christian material acknowledges that there are males and females, recognizes that God created the two to be different, and then, right before the most critical step on the journey—division of roles—changes the road signs to divert everybody to a smooth, easy path that keeps them from being what God intended.

What has passed for Biblical teaching on manhood, womanhood, and marriage for the last 60 years or so must be abandoned if we are going to keep this ship from sinking.

This isn’t just some nitpick, either.

The cost of our disobedience is enormous:

Homes that aren’t led by the father.
Youths who grow up without a path for what they’re supposed to become.
Churches that are quietly steered by the women’s caucus.
A culture governed by weaponized envy.
Cratering birth rates.
Staggering divorce, cohabitation, and illegitimate children rates.

It’s family, church, and civilizational suicide we’re talking about here. Beyond all of that, though, it’s just not working out. People will defend this setup to the death, despite the fact that no one is happy in it.

Women bear the exhausting weight of have-it-all feminism, as I noted in my piece on the Barbie movie a couple years ago. Men are given responsibility without authority, a combo that always sets up for failure. Mental health is a major issue we can’t seem to solve. Sexless marriages are on the rise. The fruit is rotten.

We rage against our telos and then wonder why we aren’t fulfilled.

To fix this, though, it’s going to require some uncomfortable conversations. We’re going to have to talk about submission without practicing death by a million caveats. We’re going to have to talk about headship without equating it to dictatorship. We’re going to have to talk about masculinity and femininity in a way that accounts for innate, hard-wired differences in design and purpose.

We’ll start next week with a look at the false dichotomies of male leadership. Be sure you’re subscribed by email (free!) and podcast (Church Reset on Apple, Spotify, YouTube) to follow along!

---

Notes

A brief note about subscriptions…

You may have noticed that, other than book giveaways, everything on this site is now FREE!

However, locking articles does drive more premium subscriptions, and the added income from those has been a tremendous boost to give my family a little more financial breathing room. In other words, giving everything away free does make it tougher to gain paying subscribers.

So, I want to thank all those who are premium subscribers for your invaluable support. And I want to encourage non-premium subscribers to consider upgrading. Having a steady growth of premium subscribers without using the paywall is a huge boost and helps me keep everything available free.

Thanks for subscribing, and for your consideration!