Highlights
Over the years, I’ve attended dozens of Christian conferences, many of which include both a “men’s session” and “women’s session.” The script is familiar. The men are ushered into an auditorium and greeted by a towering male figure—often an ex-athlete—who bellows a strange blend of scripture and right-wing politics.
I will never forget my freshman year of college, attending a conference with thousands of other students. When the room split for the men’s session, we were met by a heavyset former football star screaming at the top of his lungs for us to “man up.” Spit flew. His voice cracked. His face reddened. And I remember feeling vaguely embarrassed—was this what my faith had to say about being a man? And I was someone who played sports and loved the weight room. I could only imagine what my more artistically or intellectually inclined friends were thinking. The size of the speaker’s biceps were only outmatched by the poverty of his vocabulary.
Sadly, this was not an isolated experience. The same caricature has repeated itself in retreats, churches, and men’s conferences across the years. It’s not manhood—it’s cringy theater. It is Christian machismo. It leaves far too many men feeling alienated, ashamed, and fed-up with what appears to be an emotionally stunted, cult-like sham.
The Masculinity Myth
In his 1981 book, The Myth of Masculinity, Joseph Pleck disparaged precisely this version of masculinity, then continued to argue that the very concept of masculinity has a constricting, stress-inducing effect on men. According to Pleck, when a man fails to meet the culturally imposed criteria for “being a man,” he experiences shame, anxiety, and a persistent sense of inadequacy.
Pleck’s core claim is simple: most men in American society—perhaps in all of Western culture—measure themselves against a fictitious ideal, one so narrow and exalted that almost no one can reasonably attain it. The result? Many men view themselves as “unworthy, incomplete, and inferior.” Drawing on his own upbringing in the 1950s, Pleck pointed to cultural icons akin to John Wayne—symbols of post–World War II manhood. While such figures had traits worth admiring, Pleck argued they also modeled a kind of machismo: a hyper-dominant, aggressive, and emotionally detached version of masculinity. This model, he claimed, was not only damaging to women, children, and society at large, but most of all to men themselves. Traditional masculine norms, in his view, saddle men with a lifelong burden of fear that they will never be enough. And for that reason, Pleck concluded that masculinity is a harmful “myth” that society ought to discard. Pleck’s view, and those like it, have become highly influential within contemporary psychology, where masculinity is often portrayed less as a natural or positive reality and more as a problematic social construct.1
Two Extremes: Machismo or Myth?
While I ultimately disagree with Joseph Pleck’s conclusion, his critique speaks directly to my own experience, and it deserves special attention today. My experience of 21st-century Christian churches is that, when it comes to masculinity, they tend to oscillate between two extremes. On one end of the spectrum are churches in which gender difference is either ignored or outright denied (similar to Pleck). Unsurprisingly, these communities are often aging and shrinking. They offer little-to-no compelling vision of manhood, and almost nothing that inspires young men to stick around.
On the other end are churches that retain a robust view of sexual difference, but frequently lapse into the very form of puffed-up, cookie-cutter masculinity that Pleck critiques. At a time when masculinity is the subject of intense public debate, many people feel caught between two competing visions of manhood: that of my Christian speaker friend and that of Joseph Pleck. They must either (A) choose to live according to a toxic, machismo masculinity or, (B) admit that masculinity is a myth and has no bearing on one’s life. Pick your poison: machismo or myth.
Authentic masculinity is neither a myth nor machismo but the union of strength and love.
The tension between these two visions highlights the need for a different kind of man—one who embodies the genuine strengths often celebrated in Christian discussions of masculinity while avoiding the destructive machismo that Pleck rightly critiques. Such a man is neither domineering nor passive, neither sentimental nor harsh. Indeed, recent research from the Institute for Family Studies suggest that this is precisely the kind of man needed to build a flourishing family and successfully pass the faith on to the next generation.
A Tender Protector
Last February, IFS and the Wheatley Institute released a study showing that protectiveness positively correlated with spousal satisfaction, especially for wives. “In fact, wives who felt that it was ‘definitely true’ that their husbands are protective were 137% more likely to be very happy in their marriage than their peers who rated their husbands as less protective.” Specifically, wives who had confidence that their husband could keep them physically safe reported higher marital satisfaction. Most wives take comfort in knowing that their husband possesses both the disposition and the capacity to protect them should the need arise.
At first glance, findings like these might seem to vindicate a more rugged, traditionally masculine ideal. After all, when we think of a man capable of protecting his wife and family, the image that comes to mind is a strong, stoic soldier—physically formidable, high-testosterone, and aggressive. Such traits are certainly not without value. Yet they tell only part of the story.
The Christian tradition has not only celebrated the man who protects his family; it has also called him to lead his family spiritually. Remarkably, the social sciences have repeatedly affirmed the importance of this role. A substantial body of research spanning several decades indicates that fathers play a uniquely influential part in the transmission of faith from one generation to the next. One of the most rigorous examples is a four-decade longitudinal study published by Oxford University Press, Vern Bengston’s Families and Faith: How Religion is Passed Down Across Generations. Researchers followed 350 families and over 3,000 individuals across multiple generations, seeking to uncover the secret to successful religious transmission. The findings of the study showed that there is a stronger correlation between children and the faith practices of their fathers and grandfathers than mothers and grandmothers.
In other words, if a father is active and engaged with his children, they are far more likely to make his faith their own. Newer research from the last several years confirms the same pattern. Among the most recent is Communio’s Nationwide Study on Faith and Relationships (2023), which gathered data from 19,000 Christian families across denominational lines. The report’s conclusion is blunt:
The sharp and culturally disruptive decline in married fathers over the past 60 years appears to be driving the decline in active church participation on a societal level over the past 40 years.
While mothers certainly matter, the evidence consistently suggests that a father's example and engagement are especially powerful predictors of whether his children will continue practicing the faith as adults.
Fathers and Faith
Here, I would like to make a point about a father's influence on the faith life of his children. The research suggests that faith transmission depends on more than the visible witness of a faithful father. Certainly, it matters that a father prays, speaks about his faith, attends church, and leads his family in religious practice. But some of the most rigorous studies indicate that something more is at work. The fathers most likely to pass on the faith are not merely those who are religious; they are those who are both religious and deeply emotionally bonded to their children.
For example, Vern Bengtson's study points to two factors as pivotal for faith transmission: (1) emotional closeness between parents and children, and (2) parents who regularly affirm their children. The findings indicate that religious piety, while important, is insufficient on its own to ensure that faith is successfully transmitted across generations. Even if families do everything else right—setting a strong example, teaching their children sound doctrine, and cultivating religious practice—a lack of warmth in family culture can undermine all of those efforts. Within a section highlighting the consequences of distant fatherhood, Bengtson's study notes that respondents who described their relationship with their parents as “warm” were 27% more likely to remain faithful Christians as adults. In fact, the study describes parental warmth as “the pivotal factor in successful transmission” of the faith.
The fathers most effective at passing on faith are strong enough to protect their wives and humble enough to play with their kids and form emotional bonds with them.
In other words, a faithful but emotionally distant father is generally less effective than a faithful father who has cultivated a strong bond with his children. The new IFS/Communio report, Passing the Torch: How Faith Moves Across Generations, underscores this point. The study found that children who reported having a very good relationship with their father had 58% higher odds of attending church weekly, 45% higher odds of praying daily, 40% higher odds of reading sacred texts, 64% higher odds of reporting that religion was highly important to them, and 73% higher odds of believing in God. These findings suggest that fathers pass on the faith not only through instruction and example, but also through affection, trust, and relationship. This point is underscored by Vern Bengston’s landmark 2017 study in which he noted:
[F]or religious transmission, having a close bond with one’s father matters even more than a close relationship with one’s mother. Clearly, the quality of a child’s relationship with his or her father is important for the internalization of the parents’ religious traditions, beliefs, and practices. Emotional closeness with mothers remains important for religious inheritance but not to the same degree as it is for fathers.
To pass along faith to the next generation, we need to build Christian fathers who have secure bonds with their kids. Among the most damaging things that a father can do to his children is to be emotionally distant from them. Religious piety alone is not enough. Adults who describe their childhood homes as “warm” are 27% more likely to remain faithful Christians, according to Bengston’s findings.
The evidence points toward a vision of fatherhood that combines qualities our culture often treats as opposites. The fathers most effective at passing on faith are strong enough to protect their wives and humble enough to play with their kids, and to form emotional bonds with them. They possess conviction, courage, and steadiness, but they also make room for affection, conversation, and emotional intimacy. In this sense, authentic masculinity is neither a myth nor machismo but the union of strength and love.
Dr. John Bishop is a sought-after speaker and author of New Adam: God’s Plan for Men. He is also the Founder and Executive Director of Forge, an apostolate dedicated to strengthening families through the formation of men (myforge.org).
*Photo credit: Shutterstock
1. In his 2021 article published in the American Psychological Association’s journal Psychology of Men and Masculinities, Brian P. Cole notes that the majority of research conducted on male psychological traits implicitly treats those traits as negative.[1] Cole notes that in the 20-year history of perhaps the most globally influential psychological journal on masculinity, only 15% of the articles published took what he classified as a positive view of masculinity; the rest treated masculine traits as negative. Brian P. Cole, “Psychology of Men and Masculinities’ Focus on Positive Aspects of Men’s Functioning: A Content Analysis and Call to Action” Psychology of Men and Masculinities Volume 22, No. 1 (2021), 39-47.
