Perhaps you saw my comment last week on the Men Matter Facebook site in which I quoted radio commentator, Dennis Prager, who said, in reference to the horrific massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School: “The most important thing any society can accomplish is to build good men.”
Since then I notice a predictable extreme of opinions as to the solutions to these kinds of shootings in the US: those who believe eliminating firearms will solve these problems, and those who believe providing more firearms will solve these problems. Either choice might result in some benefit for one reason or another, but neither gets to the core of the problem. The core goes to the hearts of young men who long for significance and respect, but get rejection and complete meaninglessness.
On their journey to healthy manhood they experience a fatal failure to launch. The resulting crash takes increasing numbers of victims with them.
They demonstrate the truth of the African proverb, “The boys of the village must be initiated or they will burn down the village just to feel the heat.”
An article in USA Today expresses the same conviction: Guns don’t kill people— our sons do. Please take the time to read it.
Our hearts are torn apart when we see these kinds of crimes committed against innocent people by broken young men with nothing else to live for. Wiser, and more effectively applied, 
laws about the availability and use of firearms may help. Better care for, and protection from, those who have mental illnesses would no doubt have some positive benefit. But in the end, these tragedies are about the spiritual lostness of young men in American society.
The only genuine solution is to provide young men with a deep, lasting conviction that because God designed them on purpose, and with purpose, they have value that goes beyond destruction of others and themselves. Their lives can bring safety, encouragement and blessing to others, rather than mutual destruction.
It’s why we at Peregrine Ministries offer teenage boys and their fathers a spiritual initiation experience called Passage to Manhood. And it’s why we tell every male we can: “You matter, because you matter to God.”
My greatest joy in life is my family. I know, that sounds like the comment you’re supposed to make as a man and father. All I can say is I literally shake my head in wonder at the family I have: my wife Beryl; my daughter Barclay and son-in-law Vince, their four daughters, Bella, Brynn, Brooke and Blake; my son Alec, my son Conor and daughter-in-law Bonnie, their daughter Gemma and son Calvin. Every one of them is a genuine gift. Beyond that, I have a calling that I live out through Peregrine Ministries. It is to help men: Understand their identity in Christ, Embrace their role as men, and Live out their God-given calling in life. Bottom line is I’m convinced men matter and I want to help them live life on purpose.
Comments: 3
How can women support mens’ efforts to reach these lost boys? Perhaps by understanding our own self worth and insisting our families include strong husbands and fathers. Women can be part of the solution by valuing ourselves and not settling for mere male companionship, but rather by committing ourselves to healthy selves, healthy relationships and ultimately healthy marriages. What a challenge for both sexes. Next steps? Thanks, Craig, for the posting.
Thanks Craig for this challenging article. Unlike most days, today I felt compelled to make some time to share my opinion about this topic. I think you and Janet would agree that most people in America who believe in the existence of heaven, hell, Jesus Christ & the devil would agree that “sin” is the root of all human suffering dating back to the original sin and the fall. As a nation, we the people either voted to, or allowed prayer to Jesus to be taken out of the public schools so that no one group of people in our society (which is a melting pot of many races, cultures and religious beliefs) would be discriminated against. I understand the demands to make a “spiritually neutral” school environment for children of all faith backgrounds who attend the public school system. However, when America allowed for prayer to be taken out of the school system, we stripped it of all faiths in the process. By taking all spiritual education out of the public schools, we created an even larger problem by leaving a spiritual void or God vacuum. Over the past 50 years American parents have been teaching their children less and less about their faith. In my case, my parents taught me less about the teachings of the Bible than their parents taught them. I love my parents, but I am sober in my assessment of what they did and did not teach me. I suppose my parents were similar to many other parents in America in that they decided (whether the decision was made consciously or unconsciously) to dedicate more and more of their bandwidth and energy to “trying to achieve the elusive American dream.” As a result of focusing their personal mental and physical resources on the pursuit of money, possessions, status, they neglected their own spiritual health and education and neglected the spiritual health and education of their children.
Whatever small amounts of spiritual education the children were receiving from the public school system, was snuffed out when prayer (and the thought of one true God) was taken out of school. At that time parents did not recognize (or if they did recognize it, did nothing about) the critical need to “pick up the ball” and take more responsibility for the spiritual health and education of their children. Parents as a whole in our nation have been drifting further and further away from fostering spiritual disciplines in their own lives such as prayer, Bible study, service to others, sacrificial giving, church involvement, etc. This change is accelerating the decay of a parent’s foundational beliefs and knowledge about God which under girds their own personal identity that they are created children of God. This lack of connection with God’s word through Bible study and God’s spirit through prayer has now yielded two generations of children growing up into adulthood lacking a fundamental belief that they were created by God for a God ordained purpose. When a human lacks purpose, the natural bi-product is to lack hope. Today in our nation, we have parents AND grandparents who were not raised and not taught how important it is to build into their own lives the life giving truth that their identity comes from God. If the parents don’t know their identity comes from the fact that they were created by God for God, then how could they possibly TEACH / model it to their children?
They can’t!
Craig has chosen to commit his life to TEACH and plead with his generation to turn back to God. Craig I believe what you have dedicated your life to is so needed.
Christian parents should always be teaching their children that their children’s identity comes from the ABSOLUTE TRUTH that they were created BY GOD and thus had intrinsic value and purpose because of that very fact. However, the majority of parents and grandparents in our nation have themselves STOPPED BELIEVING this TRUTH. Even if they haven’t stopped believing it for themselves, they sure have STOPPED TEACHING THEIR CHILDREN THIS.
As adults, today we need to ask ourselves the following questions and seek answer to them;
#1 Do I personally believe that my INDIVIDUAL identity (and worth) is rooted in the idea that I am created by God (Jesus is a part of God)? If I do believe this, then the next question is;
#2 Do I personally believe that the primary purpose I was created for was to worship God above all created things (Jesus is a part of God)? If I do believe this, then the next question is;
#3 Do I personally believe I was created by God to be in relationship with God and to be in relationship with the rest of His creation (Jesus is a part of God)? If I do believe this, then the next question is;
#4-Will I build my life on this belief and will I teach the next generation this belief? We have a choice, what will we choose?
If we believe all of the above, then we will be compelled to TEACH THE NEXT GENERATION these beliefs, these truths, these ABSOLUTE TRUTHS!
Without absolute truths like these being the foundation of our lives supporting everything else we endeavor to build in this life, then what in their absence will we build the foundations of our lives on?
How much time and energy do I invest in pursuing endeavors such as growing my career or growing my bank account or attempting to bolster my image in the eyes of others to make me feel good about myself?
I humbly suggest to Janet and to all others that may read this, that all of us adults do some deep soul searching and ask ourselves, how much time, mental and physical energy do I honestly commit to strengthening my own knowledge, belief and implementation of God’s word in my life, strengthening my personal relationship with Jesus my savor and Lord, and then building into the next generation whether it be my own children, or other children in my life such as younger siblings, cousins, nephews, nieces, children of single parents who are within the sphere of my life?
I think you get my point. As you might expect this is also a challenge to myself to spend more time in prayer and in God’s word. May we all draw closer to the God of Heaven so our creator can transform our hearts, giving us clarity of purpose and strength to run the race ahead. That is my prayer for all of us.
Wow, Darin, your passion about this topic comes through pretty clearly. It IS ironic that our culture increasingly denies the importance of moral education, then increasingly tries to eliminate it entirely from our education system, and then wonders why we have so many young men who have lost their way and take their despair out on innocents around them. I’m grateful for those who insist on introducing moral values into school curricula.