Dear friends,

If you’ve recently found yourself asking, “What the heck is going on with men today?!”, you are not alone. Our most recent Good Faith conversation tackles that very question, and I’d like to invite you to listen in.

I was joined by my founding friend David French, who has been reflecting deeply on the dislocation so many men — especially young men — are experiencing. This crisis — and it is a crisis – has too often been flattened into simplistic narratives like It’s the manosphere’s fault! The world is too woke! Bring back the factory jobs!

If only things were that simple. 

Early in our chat, David pointed out something startling: on the surface, men still dominate the top ranks of power, from board rooms to Washington. But just below that surface, the story shifts. Across the broader landscape, when we consider educational achievement, mental health, and economic stability, men are struggling. Badly.

Today, women are outpacing men at every stage of education. More women are enrolling in college, graduate school, and beyond. Meanwhile, men are dropping out, literally and figuratively. Mental health data tells its own grim story: suicide, depression, deaths of despair – they’re all disproportionately male. The data on loneliness is equally stark. A quarter of men with only a high school education report having no close friends. Zero. That number has ballooned in just a generation.

What is happening?

David and I explore one particularly revealing shift: the demise of “osmosis masculinity.” In generations past, a man could grow into a sense of identity and value almost by default — through work, physical labor, or the inherited structures that come from life lived in deep community. These defaults have evaporated and a broad swath of American men are bearing the cost. 

We also talk about how the culture at large has responded to this vacuum, especially figures like Jordan Peterson, with whom David recently had a now-viral conversation. Peterson’s brand of self-help infused with myth and moral seriousness is controversial, sometimes misguided, and also very clued into something that both David and I find deeply troubling. What is the kernel of truth in Peterson’s thinking that serious Christians should carry forward?

I encourage you to tune into this new episode from our Good Faith podcast. After all, as followers of Jesus, we should be troubled when anyone is hurting, much less an entire category of people. This is not just a political or sociological problem. It’s a spiritual one and it merits our focused attention.

Here’s the link to the episode: listen in.

As always, thank you for being part of these important conversations together.

Warmly,
Curtis