My son is nine years old, and this very week, he became a child of God! He came into our bedroom on Sunday night and told us, “I believe everything that God says. Should I tell Him that?” We were so excited. We walked him through the Gospel and, when it was clear to us that he understood his sin and Christ’s sacrifice for that sin, we prayed with him, and he has been vocal about his salvation all week.
As I watch my friends’ sons grow up through the difficult years of puberty or high school or their first few years of college, I realize that I’ve got just ten years ahead of me, ten years of adventure with my son before he heads out into the world on his own. I had read Robert Lewis‘ book Raising Knights and Princesses several years ago when my kids were far younger, but I found this book a bit more poignant and am happy to have come across it when I did!
Lewis’ key idea in this book is that a father’s role is to raise his son into godly adulthood and manliness, and that he can pattern his methods off those of the chivalrous knights of long ago. Why knights? Because they were men who had spent years in training to eventually be confirmed as strong and loyal men of integrity and character with “a will to obey, a work to do, and a woman to love” (79). Such knights were real men, and Lewis combines their history and training into a practical guide for fathers training their sons. He also employs this knightly role in his description of manhood, that a real man “rejects passivity, accepts responsibility, leads courageously, and accepts the greater reward…God’s reward.” (60).
This book has lots of great insights, and I am sure that I will need a refresher-read at some point down the road, but one of the things that I love is Lewis’ emphasis on ceremony. My wife and I are not the most sentimental people, so ceremony would definitely otherwise be a lost cause to us. Yet at the same time, I’m a man who loves a good story, and I can see how this emphasis on ceremony in a young man’s growth could leave impressions which would last a lifetime. While Lewis shares the details of many of his own father-son ceremonies, I especially like the additional ideas he shared in Chapter 9, especially “Surprises in the Woods” (129) and “Lights on the River” (131). These surprise meetings with godly, male mentors and the metaphorical nature of the journeys and challenges really juice my creativity. I hope I’m motivated enough in 7-8 years to produce something as memorable for my own son as these guys did for theirs.
Published in 1997, this book does at times come across as dated. I was intrigued by his mentioned of a 1994 publication I had recently finished, A Father’s Story by Lionel Dahmer, which attempts to trace the roots of Jeffry Dahmer’s descent into depravity through his father’s eyes. Robert Lewis summarizes the book as a perfect case of “parental neglect” (32), acknowledging Lionel’s painful self-exploration following his son’s conviction.
The age of this book actually sparked my interest in the hear-and-now in two particular ways. First, Lewis writes in Chapter 3 that “A cultural revolution has begun. What college students were to the ’60s, what women were to the ’70s, and what yuppies were to the ’80s, dads may be to the ’90s and beyond. Fathers are coming home” (37-38). I believe he had Promise Keepers in mind when he wrote these lines (and the entire book), yet I’m honestly not sure what ever happened with that movement or how the seeds it once sowed have matured.
What I do see today is a marginal recognition of the needs for strong fathers in the home. One striking example from 2020 stands out to me. In September, while watching an NFL game (something that’s already become way too politically charged!) while visiting my parents’ home, I saw a half-second shot of an African-American guy in a Google commercial wearing a shirt that said, “Black Dads Matter.” I don’t care to think about Google’s political stance, but that message was a breath of fresh air for me. Just seeing those three words made me smile, thinking that maybe there’s hope for this country yet.
Second, while reporting how the loss of in-home training from parents had impacted the behaviors of children outside the home, Lewis references a CBS Evening News report from 1987 that stated:
The seven major problems reported by schools in 1940 were: 1) Talking out of turn, 2) chewing gum, 3) making noise, 4) running in the halls, 5) cutting in line, 6) violating the dress code, and 7) littering.
Forty years later, the seven major problems reported by schools were (and are): 1) drug abuse, 2) alcohol abuse, 3) pregnancy, 4) suicide, 5) rape, 6) robbery, and 7) assault. (p.65-66)
What a change one generation makes! Now that we’re another forty years on from the subjects of that report, I wonder what (if anything) has changed? Perhaps in 2020, CBS would add “gender intolerance” or “racism” to the list as well, since they’d refuse to acknowledge “gender confusion” or “abortion” as problems. These studies magnify the sinfulness of our nation and world, and it makes me wonder who could imagine what American will look like in 2060!?
If Christian fathers can wake up, drop their devices, teach their sons to do the same, and bring Jesus back into the family, then maybe we’ll experience another revival of godliness and manhood here in America. I love TheArtofManliness.com, and even in that, founder Brett McCay emphasizes both spirituality and Fatherhood as ingredients to true manhood. I wish more Christian men would wake up to these needs, to become men of integrity with a desperate interest and investment in their sons’ growth, because America needs it now more than ever.
America needs real men. The Church needs real men. Our homes need real men. Our sons need real men. Fathers need to wake to these needs, and so I guess they all need to read books like this. I highly recommend it.
©2020 E.T.