Gen Men: What the Men of Genesis Can Teach Us Today
Gen Men: What the Men of Genesis Can Teach Us Today, by D. Eric Schansberg, Resource Publications, 2025, 192 pages, paper, $24.00.
Anyone who spends time surfing social media will likely have encountered this sobering meme: “Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And weak men create hard times.” Generally attributed to G. Michael Hopf’s post-apocalyptic novel Those Who Remain, this provocative insight into the cycles of history highlights the central role that men play in the building, and tearing down, of civilization.
Many have noticed that the war on boys that has been raging for several decades has produced men who are weaker, more anxious, and more depressed, even as they are less assertive, less decisive, and less willing to make the sacrifices necessary to build strong families and hold down demanding careers. Some think the answer likes in the “manosphere,” but that only isolates men further, causing them to trade impotence for misogyny and to embrace a false vision of masculinity that disrupts society, weakens the family, and perverts God’s plan for the sons of Adam. Neither the inclusive, meek-and-mild Jesus of liberal theology nor the ultra-patriotic, Rambo-like Jesus of Christian nationalism is a proper role model for the twenty-first-century male seeking to reclaim his masculine job description as provider, protector, and procreator.
Rather than indulge in Jesus wars, the church would do well at this cultural moment to pause, look back, and consider the men whom God calls in the Bible’s first book. D. Eric Schansberg does just that in Gen Men: What the Men of Genesis Can Teach Us Today. By carefully assessing the strengths and weaknesses of Adam, Cain, Noah, Abraham, Lot, Isaac, Jacob, Esau, Joseph, and Judah, Schansberg, professor of Economics at Indiana University, offers timely advice for and a bracing challenge to men who have lost their sense of identity and calling.
At the core of Schansberg’s compelling analysis is his contention that men equally fall astray when they give in to violence or silence, to sins of commission or sins of omission. Readers today immediately recognize that Cain, the first murderer, erred by allowing anger and envy to push him to fratricide. But that act of primal violence, Schansberg reminds us, was preceded by an equally sinful act of radical passivity. Adam, Genesis 3:6 makes clear, was present when Eve, tempted by the serpent, ate of the forbidden fruit. And yet, the apathetic Adam neither intervened to stop her from breaking God’s command nor refrained from joining her in her tragic choice.
“Adam’s problem is passivity; Cain’s problem is activity. Adam’s failure is a ‘sin of omission’—a failure to do the right thing; Cain’s failure is a ‘sin of commission’—doing the wrong thing” (13). Both are sins, and both lead to bad consequences for family and for culture. And yet, Schansberg argues, the besetting sin of the modern Christian male tracks more closely with Adam than with Cain. “[I]f Adam represents men who want a relationship with God and Cain represents those who are not interested, perhaps the point is that silence, cowardice, and passivity are the temptations most relevant to Christian men—while indifference, pride, and violence are generally the greater concern for non-Christian men” (19).
Too often, we in the church harbor a negative view of holiness—one that is defined by a lack of bad habits—rather than a positive one that works actively to bring God’s kingdom to earth. We are content, Schansberg writes, to be Noah, when we should be striving to be Abraham. Yes, Noah showed faith in building the ark and saving his family, but why did he not intervene more forcefully in his pagan culture? Did he try to be salt and light in his world, or simply flee from it?
Obedience, Schansberg argues, “is not enough for greatness in the Kingdom. For those of us in the church today, do we reach the righteous standard of Noah—or far better, the Kingdom-heroic standard of Abraham?” (31). Does our obedience only manifest itself in refraining from drinking, smoking, pornography, and anger, commendable as that is, or does it participate in those vital words from the Lord’s Prayer: thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven?
Does that mean, then, that all Christian men need to be soldiers? Yes and no. Schansberg turns our attention to the episode in Genesis 14:13-16 when Abraham (still called Abram) brings his own personal army of 318 trained men to rescue his nephew Lot, even though Lot had made an unwise, and ultimately ungodly, decision to live among the people of Sodom. Rather than leave Lot to reap the consequences of his actions, as Noah might have done, Abram intervenes militarily—for the first and only time in Genesis.
“[Abram] is ready but not eager for battle; he is hoping for the best but ready for the worst. Despite having an impressive militia, no other military engagements are recorded, underlining that this is for justice rather than power, for grace rather than greed. He doesn’t take the land God has promised him, but waits for God’s timing and His will” (62). Abram uses his strength to save the prodigal Lot, but he does not use it to force God’s hand into giving him the Promised Land.
The church needs such men today: ones who are willing to act decisively when necessary and wait patiently when that is God’s will. Isaac has faith, and that is a good thing, but his refusal to see and accept that Jacob the momma’s boy, not Esau his beloved hunter, is meant to carry on the covenantal line promised to Abraham pushes Jacob and Rebekah into an act of deception that fragments his family.
Christ rebukes the Laodiceans for their lukewarmness, wishing they would be hot or cold (Revelation 3:15-16). Meditating on this verse alongside the moments in Genesis when the patriarchs fall into whirlwind-reaping apathy, Schansberg offers his own rebuke of the modern church. “Lukewarm often looks more respectable, but usually results in hypocrisy and devolves into other problems. Lukewarm avoids prospects for change. If you’re cold, you’re more likely to move toward the heat. It’s easier to restrain a fanatic than to resurrect a corpse. This speaks to the downsides of ‘cultural Christianity’” (98).
In no way does Schansberg advocate the kind of Darwinian aggressiveness promoted by the manosphere. Again and again, he demonstrates how the patriarchs resist descending into the might-makes-right culture of the pagan nations. Simeon and Levi forget this when they take extreme, Rambo-like revenge upon the Shechemites for the prince’s rape of their sister (Genesis 34). “The rape of Dinah was a serious crime, but the punishment is too strong and indiscriminate. We see good intentions with tremendous zeal, but wrong methods and ‘execution’—in a word, a poor semblance of justice” (135).
Schansberg offers numerous such insights into Genesis that are instructive for the modern displaced man. I close with one more that opened my eyes to a detail in Genesis I had not noticed before, one that helped me answer a question I have often wrestled with: why is Judah, rather than Joseph, chosen by God to carry on the covenantal bloodline?
Nowhere in Genesis do Adam, Cain, Noah, Abraham, Lot, Isaac, Jacob, or Joseph confess to and repent for their disobedience, murder, drunkenness, deception, avarice, favoritism, theft, or braggadocio. Such is not the case with Judah, when his two sins are exposed: not marrying his third son to his daughter-in-law Tamar in fulfillment of the law of levirate marriage; sleeping with a temple prostitute whom he does not know is Tamar and then threatening to kill Tamar when he learns that she is pregnant, but does not know he is the father (Genesis 38). When Tamar reveals that Judah is the father, he could have lied and had her killed. Instead, “Judah is convicted of his sin, noting Tamar’s greater ‘righteousness.’ In this, he becomes the Bible’s first ‘penitent’—apologizing and repenting for wronging her. For this, he is a hero in Judaism” (157).
Real men, whether today or in the days of the patriarchs, know how to apologize, to repent, and to take responsibility for their actions and the actions of those under their care and authority. Judah does exactly that, not only here, but in Genesis 44, when he offers himself as a slave in the place of Benjamin. It is this man whom God appointed to be the ancestor of Christ. May we men of the twenty-first century follow in his footsteps!
