(An article entitled, “The Boys Are Not All Right” by Esther O’Reilly, an excellent writer for “Patheos” inspired my title, although I take a different approach.  You can check Esther’s article out at. https://www.patheos.com/blogs/youngfogey/2019/08/the-boys-are-not-all-right/)

1 John 2:14  I write to you, fathers, because you have known him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God lives in you, and you have overcome the evil one.

It was a deadly weekend in America. Twenty one people were murdered at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, eight in Ohio and what didn’t receive media coverage was that forty seven were wounded with four dead in the City of Chicago.  All of this carnage had two things in common guns and young men. Patrick Crusius the Texas shooter was twenty one, Connor Betts of Ohio was twenty four and I can promise you the Chicago shootings were carried out by young men.  

This begs the question, “are our boys alright?”  Warren Farrell, a former board member of the radical feminist National Organization for Women (NOW), and John Gray of, “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus,” fame, wrote a book recently entitled, “The Boy Crisis.”  In this important piece of writing they ask the question, “Why are we blind to the boy crisis?” 

By the way, Warren Farrell agreed to serve on the “Council for Women and Girls” in 2009 but asked if they would also establish a “Council for Men and Boys.”  He and others worked tirelessly to create such a counsel but suddenly the idea was nixed by the administration, saying “it would take away from resources needed for women and girls.”  “The Boy Crisis” explains how “boys are declining in a dramatic way in virtually every key metric.” 

• Worldwide, boys are 50 percent less likely than girls to meet basic proficiency standards in reading, math, and science. 
• The average sperm count of men in the U.S. drops 1.5 percent every year; one in five young men are not fertile. 
• The gap between male and female suicides has tripled in the United States since the Great Depression, with males historically higher than females
• Mass shootings, which are among the most horrific acts of destruction a person can commit, have tripled in the U.S. since 2011, and they’re almost all committed by males. 
• “In one generation, young men have gone from 61 percent of college degree recipients to a projected 39 percent; young women, from 39 percent to a projected 61 percent.”  
• “Prisons are the United States’ men’s centers.” 
• “Today, young men between twenty-five and thirty-one are 66 percent more likely than their female counterparts to be living with their parents.” 
• “Every day, 150 workers die from hazardous working conditions. And 92 percent are male.”

Most people want to make mass shootings all about politics, but good luck with that.  The El Paso shooter was an anti-immigration white Nationalist and the Dayton shooter was a pro-Satan Leftist.  It can’t be all about guns, mental illness, or racism either. Private citizens used to own machine guns in America, mental illness used to go untreated, and most lone male shooters mention despair and nihilism as a motive, not race.  Fine, pass stricter gun control laws. I don’t see why a person needs a gun that fires 30 high velocity rounds as fast as the gunman can squeeze the trigger to hunt deer; but as Tom Nichols wrote just today, “we’re just treading water until the next Timothy McVeigh type bombing or the next Elliot Rodgers plows his car into a crowd.”  Why are we so averse to having the conversation that begins with the question, “are our boys alright?” Thirty-six school shootings have been committed by those taking or withdrawing from psychiatric drugs.  I am not blaming the drugs, but simply saying that this statistic shouts, that our boys are not alright! 

I have two incredible daughters and two equally amazing granddaughters.  I am deeply invested in their encouragement and personal development.  My wife is a great leader in every sense of the word.  Furthermore, I believe we’re all better off that the voices of women has been turned up in the church, the community, and the workplace, but don’t throw the boy out with the bathwater.  Our boys need encouragement, empowerment, connection, and an ethic of personal responsibility. 

• If you’re a family or a couple, include a young man in your social life.

When I was twenty years old, an older couple in the church would have me over for bacon and eggs every week.  Twenty year old males love to eat bacon, my friend. They treated me like I was their guest of honor. After breakfast we would stand in the living room and they would pray over me with tears.  To make a long story short, I married their granddaughter. Merle and Glover Williams understood how to make a difference in the world. TRY NOT TO LET A YOUNG MAN BE A LONER. 

• Mentor a young man with a focus on personal responsibility.

Last year, Cheri and I attended a lecture at the Shubert Theatre in Boston by Dr. Jordan Peterson.  Over half of the audience in the sold out theatre was young men under twenty five, to hear an intellectual talk for nearly two hours about taking responsibility, walking up the hill with your cross like Jesus, and cleaning your room before you try to change the world.  Those guys treated him like a rock star. Most young men are starving for people that are willing to tell them how to live responsibly.

• Stop thinking young men just want to oppress and be sexual predators.

The narrative from certain corners of culture is that men in general are just an oppressive patriarchy looking to subjugate women, claim their superiority and carry on a rape culture.  I know dozens of young men and I can tell you this characterization is patently false. Most of the young men I know are eager to serve and want intimacy not just sex. I think a little encouragement for these guys could go a long way.

• Build healthy families and healthy churches.

The church and the family are the two structures built by God to shape the emotionality and the psychology of the young.  Find a church that believes that and lives it out. Find a church that honors Christ-like loving and living. By faith, Noah… in holy fear built an ark to save his family. Hebrews 11:7.  The local church is a manifestation of the ark in society; we’re not perfect but we’re the best thing afloat.  

• Be willing to have conversations about the “Boy Crisis.” 

When Warren Farrell challenged N.O.W with his research that showed men were needed in the family structure, he was removed from the board and had all his speaking engagements cancelled.  There’s a minority of people who don’t want to have the conversation, most of us just need to be reminded and that’s what I’m doing.