Weak Men Are More Dangerous Than Strong Men

C.S. Lewis wrote about "men without chests." Men who had heads full of ideas and appetites driving their behavior, but nothing in between. No conviction. No backbone. No strength under control.

When I hear people talk about toxic masculinity today, I think they've got it backwards.

The threat to our culture isn't the strong man. It's the weak one.

The Real Danger

Think about the men who've carried out the most horrific acts of violence in recent years. School shootings. Mass casualty events. Domestic terrorism.

What's the profile? It's almost always the same.

The loner. The isolated guy. No friends. No family. No one speaking identity into his life. No father figure. No community. Just a man untethered from anything that would give him purpose or accountability.

And then one day, he snaps.

That's not strong masculinity gone wrong. That's the total absence of masculinity. That's what happens when a man has no chest.

My friend Terrance Williams put it this way: "Weak men have the ability to do more damage in society than the strong man. They're more of a threat because there's no identity, there's no confidence, there's no meekness, which is that controlled strength."

Meekness. There's a word we've forgotten. It doesn't mean weakness. It means power under control. A horse that's been broken. Strength that's been harnessed for purpose.

The dangerous man isn't the one with too much strength. It's the one with none.

The War on Masculinity Made Things Worse

Here's what's happened over the last few decades. We've waged a cultural war on masculinity itself. Not just on its abuses, but on the thing itself.

Strong male figures in movies gave way to soft, uncertain men who can't make decisions. Traditional roles got labeled as oppressive. Any celebration of distinctly masculine traits got tagged as toxic.

And what did we get for it?

More fatherless homes. More young men adrift. More isolation. More despair. More violence.

We told men that their instincts were the problem. That their drive to protect, provide, and lead was somehow dangerous. And then we acted surprised when they stopped doing any of it.

The guys who are sober but still feel lost, many of them are wrestling with this exact thing. They put down the substance, but they never picked up an identity. They don't know what it means to be a man because no one ever showed them.

Why Young Men Are Starving

You want to know why guys like Jordan Peterson and Andrew Tate have massive audiences of young men? It's not complicated.

These young men are starving. Starving for someone to speak identity and instruction into their lives.

Peterson went viral telling guys to make their beds and stand up straight. That's it. Basic life instruction. And young men in the comments were saying it saved their lives.

That tells you everything about the void we're dealing with.

When no one in your life has ever given you clear direction, when no father has ever told you what it means to be a man, when the culture keeps telling you that your masculine instincts are the problem, you'll take instruction from wherever you can get it.

Some of those sources are good. Some are garbage. But the hunger is real, and it's not going away.

If we as Kingdom men aren't filling that void, someone else will. And masculinity that isn't shaped by God becomes something else entirely. It becomes the very toxicity everyone claims to be worried about.

Godly Masculinity Is the Antidote

Here's what I want you to understand: true masculinity, Godly masculinity, is the antidote to the chaos we're seeing.

Not masculinity that dominates. Not masculinity that controls. Masculinity that serves. That protects. That sacrifices.

The Bible tells husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church. You know what that means? It means being willing to die for her. It means initiating reconciliation even when you're 99% right. It means laying down your life daily in service to your family.

That's not toxic. That's the cure.

When I think about what it means to be a man, I think about responsibility. Accountability. Showing up even when it's hard. Guarding and governing the people in my care.

The direction of the home flows through the man. That's not chauvinism. That's a mandate. And when that mandate gets abandoned, everything downstream suffers.

The Invitation

If you're a young man trying to figure out who you are, hear me on this: you were made for more than drifting.

You were made to build. To protect. To lead. To serve. To sacrifice.

The culture might tell you those instincts are the problem. They're not. They're the gift. They just need to be shaped by something bigger than yourself.

Find men who are doing it well. Men in solid marriages. Men who show up for their kids. Men who work hard and stay faithful. Latch onto them. Learn from them.

If you're trying to be the dad you never had, you don't have to figure it out alone. But you do have to be intentional. The default path leads nowhere good.

The world doesn't need fewer men. It needs better ones.

And that starts with you deciding what kind of man you're going to be.

This article is based on a conversation from the Rebuilding Life After Addiction podcast. Listen to the full episode here.