Introduction

I believe Chesterton said somewhere that civilizations collapse because they forget obvious things. This is a good book about obvious things, but obvious things that many young men in the Church have apparently not been taught or grasped. It was helpful for me in that I didn’t realize so many young men in the church haven’t been raised to live like mature Christians. So, if you didn’t have a good father, or a good church when you were growing up, or you didn’t grow up immersed in the Scriptures and applying the Scriptures, then this book is for you. It’s like Christianity 101 for young men. A great elementary education for “clueless bastards” as the authors would call them.

I believe this book would have had a greater impact both ecclesiastically and culturally, if it was released in 2016. Basically the entire church realm, especially reformed evangelicals, are slowly catching up to the cultural paradigm shift of 2015-2016. Stephen Wolfe’s book on Christian Nationalism is similar. I would have much more respect for both of these books if they were released 8 years ago. But it’s still a good book. Better to have a Christians eventually giving a sober orthodox take on what it is to be a man than a Jungian psychologist or lapsed Romanist provocateur journalist – however much those kinds of men are helpful, they are still also missing the mark in various ways. I believe Foster and Tennant rightly call these kinds of men Absaloms. Usurpers of the kingdom. And for good reasons. Many Christian leaders and fathers have failed young men, and so this creates a space for Absaloms to rise up. Foster and Tennant are rightly instructing men in the pure ways of The True King, The Son of David, Jesus, the Christ.

What’s the Plan?

Here’s a great passage from the book regarding planning and instruction. He is listing various issues that trip up men from executing their mission.

“The third assumption likely to trip you up is that your mission must involve a detailed map of your life from here on out. Many men fail to start simply because they equate certainty about what to do with competence of success. Then, since they lack that certainty, they assume they will fail and so do not try to start.

We have observed that clueless bastards, in particular, are desperate for a paint by number clarity about every step they should take. This is why most modern books on masculinity are arranged in exhaustive categories and excruciating detail, as if life can be successfully engineered if only you get granular enough about breaking the process down. You may have noticed that we did not write this book in such a way. That was a careful decision. Because your desire for a system is not a result of your father failing to teach you one. It is not a result of your father’s refusal to show you how to map out your life. Maps like this don’t exist. No man has one. The reason you still want one is because you never learned how to use the compass of wisdom to navigate without one.

Think about this. God gave Adam a specific goal, but He did not give him a specific path to get there. He did not provide a gantt chart or kanban board or timeline breakdown prepoluated with every step of the program. Rather, He gave Adam His word and His own image, so that he could learn to apply wisdom to his vocation and achieve his mission through trial and error.

This is important to reflect on. Because while a mission should be specific, it does not require you to map out each step for the next x years. A mission is not a map. It is more like a distant mountain top which you must figure out how to reach. This requires exploring the terrain to find a good route. And often it means using the compass of wisdom while the mountain is concealed from view.”

In the military, this is called commander’s intent. Oftentimes the details of mission planning go kaput, and so a rifle-man, a team leader, a squad leader, can look to his commander’s intent, and seek creative ways of reaching that goal. A commander entrusts those under him with the ability to make decisions on their own to achieve mission success.

I’ve witnessed young men get frustrated and critical with leaders for not giving them a paint by numbers approach to achieving a goal. So, this, along with the rest of the book contains good wisdom for clueless bastards to learn from, and hopefully become mature Christian men.