Young men, you face challenges. That is nothing new. From the beginning of time, men have had battles to fight. Some have cowered in sloth. Some have fought valiantly. Though there are common themes in the war, each generational battle has had its unique variation on the themes. As with previous generations, you are being called to act like men, steeling yourselves for the battles in which God in his providence has placed you.

I have been a young man. Now I am older. I have raised four sons. I was not perfect. I made many mistakes. But I always did what I believed was right with the wisdom I had at the time. I hope you can say the same when you are older. I have been around the block a few times, you might say, and I have learned some wisdom along the way. I’m still learning. This series of letters aims to pass this wisdom on to you so that you will be better men than I am. The focus of these letters is masculinity, what it means to be a man in God’s world.

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Systemic racism. The phrase provokes all sorts of visceral responses on all sides of the race debates; fear, guilt, anger, and revulsion to name a few. The cultural narrative is easy to sell nowadays, and everyone from politicians to celebrities to Christians–individuals and entire denominations–are confessing our sin and pleading for forgiveness. Some people in our country have gone so far as to self-flagellate to atone for our cultural sin of systemic racism. Dan Cathy, CEO of Chick-Fil-A suggests that the way white people begin to atone for our sins is to shine the shoes of black people. In some Christians circles, prominent Christians such as Tim Keller have written about our sin of racism at the individual and corporate/institutional levels, and some Christians such as Alexander Jun (former moderator of the Presbyterian Church in America) and Jemar Tisby have gained notoriety by talking about these issues. The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary fired a few professors, and one of the issues was their criticism of the support of the Critical Race Theory at the seminary (a theory closely associated with the whole systemic racism issue). Christians are proudly standing with the Black Lives Matter movement, an organization that is blatantly anti-Christian.

What the culture outside of the Christian Faith does with this issue isn’t surprising to me in the least. My concern is how Christians have become enamored, guilt-ridden, evangelists for this “anti-systemic racism” gospel. Quite frankly, I’m left confused and more than a little frustrated because of the nebulousness of the whole matter.

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