Welcome to the Breakpoint Podcast and our Q&A segment Ask the Colson Center.

I'm Shane Morris, host of the upstream podcast and one of the writers for Breakpoint.

I'm joined today by John Stone Street, president of the Colson Center and the host of Breakpoint.

And today we're answering your questions.

All of these were sparked by Breakpoint commentaries, short courses, articles, and the Colson Fellows program.

If you'd like to send us a question of your own, all you've got to do is email us at

Ask the Colson Center at colsoncenter.org.

John, the first one is, I love this question because it's one that I've thought a great deal about,

both as a man and as a father of two little boys. I wonder what exactly it

looks like to raise men in today's culture, beyond just the tenets of Christianity. What is manhood

for? What is masculinity for? Is it good to be created male? And do men have a role that is unique, a calling that's meaningful in today's world?

And that's pretty much what this listener wants to know.

They write in, an entire generation of men, now going on two generations, has been raised in a vapid and hollow culture offering little beyond distraction, entertainment, and temptation. We're often demonized

and emasculated, but worse, we become irrelevant and unnecessary to a society that has no great

task for us to accomplish and no preference on how we should live our lives. What advice would you

give to Christian men attempting to recapture a sense of vocation, duty, and purpose from such a void

and vacuity. What does the church need of us? What is its message to us? Where and what are we to fight?

Whom are we to protect? What are we for? There's a little more dangerous than masculine energy

unfocused and unchalleled into building and protecting civilization.

And I fear a great misdirection towards its intentional destruction if it isn't resolved in haste.

I can almost imagine Gandalf reading this question, you know, because of the, you know, the end of civilization is at hand, but the task is before us.

There's so much of it that in there.

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