Kerby Anderson
The crisis of men and boys is well known and well documented. My radio interviews with Dr. Warren Farrell about his book, The Boy Crisis is but one example. Jordan Peterson has been speaking and writing about his concerns for many years. The latest warning comes from a David Brooks op-ed in the New York Times and the publication of a new book by Richard Reeves, Of Boys and Men.
For example, boys are struggling in the classroom. “American girls are 14 percentage points more likely to be ‘school ready’ than boys at age 5, controlling for parental characteristics.”
“Men are struggling in the workplace. One in three American men with only a high school diploma — 10 million men — is now out of the labor force.” And men are also struggling physically. They account for nearly three out of four “deaths of despair” (suicide and drug overdoses) in our country.
The new book by Richard Reeves provides more concerning documentation of a crisis of men and boys. One surprising finding was the boys are much more hindered by challenging environments like poverty or broken homes. He also explains that the many policies and programs designed to promote social mobility work for women, but not for men. For example, government programs like early childhood education produced significant gains for women but did not for men.
When we had a roundtable discussion of these issues, we concluded that these authors did a good job of identifying the problems but could not offer a solution to a society still searching for a “modern masculine ideal.” Therefore, pastors and men in the church need to provide a biblical foundation for manhood and must teach it to the boys and men in the church. We need a biblical answer to a major crisis in our culture.

Kerby Anderson
Twenty years ago, I did an interview with Bernard Goldberg on his book, Bias. I bring it up because his analysis has stood the test of time. At the time, he was the first media insider to reveal what many of us suspected about the background and attitudes of the people who determine what you read, see, and hear in the media. There were other studies (like the Lichter-Rothman studies) that also provided insight. But Bernard Goldberg’s book provided lots of information and an important perspective.
His perspective was helpful because it set aside the idea that media bias was part of some liberal conspiracy. He said: “There isn’t a well-orchestrated, vast left-wing conspiracy in America’s newsrooms.” Instead, he said that “the bitter truth” is worse. Essentially what we have in “the mainstream media” is a common worldview that is promoted in the newsrooms and promoted in the way news stories are covered.
Various studies of the media elite conclude that the people who determine what is newsworthy and how it is covered are very different from the rest of the American public. Let’s look at some examples.
Polling data of political parties shows that the United States is about evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats. But when you ask journalists to identify their political party, you only find that 4 percent of them identify themselves as Republican.
One study found that members of the media when compared to the public at large are less likely to get married and have children. They are less likely to own homes. And they are less likely to go to church or synagogue. How many of the journalists polled belonged to the American Legion or service organizations like the Rotary Club? The answer was zero.
Twenty years later, Bernard Goldberg’s book still reminds us that the media elite views the world differently than the average American.