The Crisis of Male Leadership

 

The following is the beginning of a speech delivered by the editor of Patriarch, Philip Lancaster, to the first "Back to Patriarchy" conference in May, 1996 in Springfield, Virginia, near Washington, D. C.  

Our declining civilization

We are gathered a mere 15 miles or so from the symbolic center of the greatest nation the world has ever known. A few minutes drive to the northeast would take us to the White House, the Capitol, the Supreme Court building, and the Pentagon, those outward manifestations of unprecedented political and military power. We would also encounter majestic monuments and museums, temple-like testimonies to unmatched achievements in the spheres of law and government, the sciences, and the arts. Truly, America is the greatest nation that God in his providence has ever placed upon the earth.

However, a trip today to these exhibitions of greatness should bring tears to the eyes of any man with even a remnant of Christian conscience and a faint recollection of America’s roots. For, of course, it was not human might and ingenuity that produced this nation; it was the hand of Almighty God working through men who feared the Lord and conformed their private lives and public institutions to his holy Word. America’s greatness must now be spoken of in the past tense: America was great, because America was good. She has ceased to be good, and so is no longer great. Her people no longer fear God nor conform their lives and institutions to his revealed will.

Francis Schaeffer spoke of our generation as living in "post-Christian America". This is certainly an accurate description. Better still is the description of Steven Wilkins in America, the First 350 Years. He suggests that we are in "post-America"! The nation we now inhabit does not even deserve the same designation as the one founded and given form in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries.

The church in decline

We could expand our view beyond the capital city and visit the churches of America today. Here, too, our hearts should cry out in grief. In the mainline denominations the virile faith and righteous life born of the Reformation has been replaced by frank unbelief and an actual promotion of wickedness. Even the evangelical churches, while paying lip service to Christ and his Word, have abandoned biblical doctrine and practice, accepting in its place a man-centered theology, a sentimentalized faith, a moralistic shadow of true righteousness, and a general spirit of conformity to the world. Surely Jesus must weep over his church in America.

I have drawn your attention to the decline of our nation and our churches not to suggest that in this declension lies the source of our problems. Nor would I suggest that working for the renewal of these institutions is the most important endeavor of those who would see God honored in our land once again. I present these things rather as symptoms of our deeper sickness. The root of our degradation and the hope of our restoration lies in another institution altogether: the family.

The home rules the nation

It is the home in which are determined the issues of the rise and fall of churches, nations, and civilizations. It is the decline of the family, and specifically the Christian family, which underlies the general decline we witness about us today. And it is only the restoration of the Christian home which holds any hope for the larger restoration of church and society. In this connection, hear the insight of Theodore Cuyler:

For one, I care little for the government which presides at Washington, in comparison with the government which rules the millions of American homes. No administration can seriously harm us if our home life is pure, frugal, and godly. No statesmanship or legislation can save us, if once our homes become the abode of profligacy.

The home rules the nation. If the home is demoralized, it will ruin it. The real seed corn whence our Republic sprang was the Christian households represented in the Mayflower, or the family altar of the Hollander and the Huguenot.

All the best characters, best legislation, best institutions, and best church life were cradled in those early homes. They were the taproot of the Republic, and of the American churches.

"The home rules the nation." Our national crisis is a consequence of the crisis of the home, and the crisis of the home is a crisis of male leadership. Men have abandoned their calling to be the spiritual leaders of their families, to be the builders of Christian character, the teachers of Christian doctrine, the models of Christ-like faith and virtue. They have abdicated their responsibility to be the guardians of that wellspring of Christian civilization: the Christian home. Because men have forsaken their families, we are losing a civilization.

"The home rules the nation." In light of this truth it can be said that we are gathered here to consider the most important work in America today: the restoration of the Christian family. Now listen closely and consider. I truly believe that there is in this room this morning more potential to renew our nation than in the combined work of the executives, legislators, judges, and generals who inhabit the marbled halls by the Potomac. If it is true that the home rules the nation—that the welfare of church, state, and larger society are determined by the welfare of the family—then national renewal can only begin with family renewal. And family renewal must begin with a restoration of family government, the recovery of the role of spiritual leadership by men in their homes.

You men represent, in God’s economy, more potential for the healing of our nation than the President, the Congress, and all the other public figures who grab headlines every day.

If you could see with eyes of faith, you would see that the angelic armies of the Almighty are not poised today to act in response to the deeds of our predominately godless lawmakers, nor of faithless and tradition-bound church leaders. No, I believe rather that the hosts of God hover near this room, armed with power from on high to change the course of history in response to the humble prayers and simple obedience of fathers like you. The future of America lies squarely on the shoulders of you men and others like you all around this land. What higher calling, what nobler mission than this?! Your task is nothing less than the restoration of our civilization, our nation, our churches—and it all rests on your actions in restoring your own homes.

Does the task seem too great? Think how Zerubbabel must have felt. A remnant of the people of God had returned to their land after 70 years of exile. They were trying to rebuild the temple that had been destroyed by the Babylonians. The work was hard, the hands few, the opposition great. What was the Lord’s message to the man in charge? "‘Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord Almighty" (Zech. 4:6). God’s work never depends on mere human power, fortitude, or numbers. It depends on the presence and power of his own Spirit. His Spirit working through a few obedient men will accomplish more than all the vaunted expressions of merely human power.

It may be that the decline of America has gone too far, that God will not now allow a restoration to our former greatness. That is up to him. Our mission is the same in any case: to restore our homes so that they become Bethels, houses of God. However depraved and mournful and anxious the peoples around us may yet become, our homes can be sanctuaries of righteousness and joy and peace. But the fact that you are here, the fact that the Lord has preserved a sizable remnant of men who are ready to take responsibility and reclaim spiritual leadership suggests to me that it may not be too late for America. Let’s do our part and see what God will do.

The solution: returning to patriarchy

The need of the hour is expressed in the title of this conference: Back to Patriarchy. Weldon Hardenbrook in Missing From Action: Vanishing Manhood in America explains the root meaning of the word:

The biblical term patriarchy is derived from two words in the Greek language--patria (taken from the word pater, "father"), which means "family"; and arche, which means "beginning," "first in origin," and "to rule." A patriarch is a family ruler. He is the man in charge.

What is needed today is nothing less that a return to patriarchy, a society led by strong, godly men. We need family leaders who will also become leaders in the churches and throughout every institution in the nation.

During the Colonial period America was a frankly patriarchal society. Men were the unquestioned leaders of their homes. Edmund S. Morgan in Virginians at Home writes:

In 1708 Ann Walker, an Anglican married to a Quaker, objected in court to having her children educated as Quakers, but the Court, while acknowledging her own freedom to worship as she chose, instructed her not to interfere in any way with the instruction of her children, even forbidding her to expound any part of the scriptures to the children without her husband's consent. Such complete support for the husband's authority is all the more remarkable in view of the fact that the Anglican Church was the established church of Virginia, to which all the members of the court doubtless belonged.

This total control of the home spilled over into male leadership in the church, the community, and in business and civil institutions. As Mary Ryan writes in Womanhood in America, "Only the patriarch of the family . . . could rise to leadership in political, cultural, and religious affairs."

Recent generations of men have retreated from their calling to be patriarchs, to provide the spiritual direction for home and society. In more recent times the male leadership role has been relegated merely to the spheres of politics and business. Men abandoned the truly formative institutions of civilization. They left the home, the education of children, and most of the work of the church to women, and they have neglected to infuse the political and commercial arenas with a biblically-defined moral direction.

Reinforcing the effects of their own abdication of responsibility, men have also had to contend with emasculation at the hands of destructive cultural forces.

Feminism hates men, and it especially hates men who act like men, men who take charge. Government undermines the male role of provider by taking on the care of children, the elderly, and the needy. Boys are feminized as they are shaped mostly by females in the home, the schools, and the churches. The masculine inclinations to lead, to protect, and to provide are thwarted by efforts to create the new "sensitive" (and sad to say, "feminized") man.

It is time for men to look back to the past so that they can look to the future with hope. They need to repent of generations of failed leadership and reject the feminizing pressures of today. They need to again accept the burden of godly leadership.

Patriarchs are men who walk with God, who fear the Lord and accept responsibility for leadership. God's chosen nation Israel was founded by the patriarchs. America was set on its blessed course by patriarchs. By God's grace we, too, can become patriarchs so that succeeding generations may live under a blessing instead of a curse.

If we are to return to the blessedness of patriarchy, how do we go about it? Where do we begin? We must not create some man-made system that exalts men, as if they have an inherent right to rule. We certainly must not mimic the silly antics recommended by Robert Bly in his book Iron John. He calls for men to rediscover the "mythopoetic" roots of masculinity through reenacting primitive male group rituals as they gather around campfires, beat drums, wear animal skins, and carry spears. We must also go beyond the Christian men’s movement which has men promise to stay married and stay home at night. To be fully Christian men, to be true patriarchs, we must begin with the original Patriarch, God the Father.

We return to patriarchy (1) by returning to God and submitting to our Lord Jesus. We return to patriarchy (2) by learning our roles from God the Father. We return to patriarchy (3) by accepting responsibility for our God-given duties. We return to patriarchy (4) by developing a multi-generational vision. Let’s explore these ideas in more depth.

(The content of the rest of the speech appears in the form of articles elsewhere on this Web site. See: "The Submissive Man," "What Every Family Needs From a Father," It's Your Homeschool," and "A Multi-generational Vision.")