The Search for Sages
Lost Sons, Lone Cowboys, and the Need for Fathers
“For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers.”
1 Corinthians 4:15
Do We Have A ‘Man’ Problem?
It appears from what we are seeing in the last few years in terms of research and news media that we have a ‘man’ problem. Paul’s lament to the Corinthians has begun to feel less like an apostolic complaint and more like a diagnosis of the moment we are currently living in. Why does there seem to be a problem with manhood, either the expression of it, or the understanding of what it should look like? We have voices in abundance. We have teachers, influencers, podcasters, conference speakers, authors, men who can parse Greek verbs and men who can bench-press twice their body weight while quoting Zechariah.
This is modern Evangelical Christianity for men!
What we do not have in equal measure are fathers. By this I don’t mean biological fathers alone, but spiritual ones. Men who steady things, who stay, who invest slowly and personally in the formation of others.
A few years ago I read John Eldredge’s book Wild at Heart, which offered a framework for the development of men. A while later, he wrote a companion to this in Fathered by God which offers a lens through which this framework becomes a bit more explained. He describes a masculine journey that begins not with strength or conquest but with sonship. Over the years this has stuck with me, and if you’ve spoken to me in the last 10 years, likely you’ve heard me use some of these terms. Well might it appear that I coined them, but alas, the credit goes to Mr Eldredge! The older I get, and the more I understand what God is doing in and through me, the more I see these images that Eldredge gives as important to understand. I think there is a caution against trying to completely map this onto every culture, but the stages are definitely worth considering. I want to walk through his path of manhood, and perhaps continue the conversation not on how we can see a developed sense of Christian maleness, but to invite older Christian men to see the fatherly role as one that they will give their lives to.
Am I Delighted In?
The first stage of Eldredge’s proposed masculine journey is a strange one, as it’s not a step towards something, but rather a step of understanding ourselves. He calls this the Beloved Son stage. Before a man learns to fight, build, or lead, he must know he is loved. That he is wanted. That his existence is not an inconvenience. Eldredge argues that this stage is often “stolen,” and when it is, the rest of a man’s life becomes a prolonged attempt to recover what he never received.
Every boy carries a question that often follows us our entire lives.
“Am I delighted in?”
Not simply, am I tolerated? Or, am I provided for? But am I enjoyed? Am I a source of joy to my father? When that question goes unanswered, it does not disappear. It burrows internally. It reshapes ambition, relationships, and even spirituality.
The statistics surrounding father absence are imperfect and often politicised, but they remain difficult to ignore. The National Fatherhood Initiative reports that roughly one in four children in the United States grow up without a father in the home. Father absence is associated with elevated risks in poverty, educational attainment, and behavioural outcomes. Other summaries frequently cite disproportionately high rates of fatherlessness among youth incarceration populations. While no single statistic can explain an individual life, the broader pattern suggests that something foundational is missing for many young men. The recent study in the UK, Lost Boys, appears to confirm this.
When a boy does not know he is loved by a father, he does not become neutral. He becomes ‘hungry’. That hunger can express itself in achievement, aggression, violence, withdrawal, or performance. It can masquerade as confidence. It can also hide behind cynicism. But underneath it is often the same pain. At some stage in his life someone needed to say, “I delight in you,” of “I am proud of you,” and either did not say it or was not there to say it at all.
The strange rise of surrogate father figures online reveals this hunger in unexpected ways. Positively, YouTube channel called “Dad, How Do I?” gained widespread attention by offering basic guidance on household tasks. Millions watch. The comments section often read less like DIY appreciation and more like gratitude for fathering them. Similarly, social commentators have noted how figures like Jordan Peterson resonate deeply with young men precisely because they speak with clarity, structure, and a kind of paternal directness. One journalist even described Peterson as functioning as a “father figure” for many. Regardless of one’s evaluation of Peterson’s wider project, the phenomenon itself is telling. Young men are not only consuming content. They are searching for formation, and someone to form them. The dark side of this is that men are straying into caricatures of manhood like Andrew Tate, who in many ways embodies a hollowed chauvinistic caricature of ‘maleness.’
Rather than lament the path that many young men are taking the church should be uniquely equipped to answer that hunger. After all, the Gospel itself announces adoption, it is the story of the greatest man who has ever walked this earth. Yet we often settle for instruction or bonding when what is needed is fathering.
Why this is important, is because if we are to appropriately understand the development of male leadership in the church then we need to understand the formation of men. There is another conversation worth having about formation in women in our churches, but perhaps I’m not the best person to tackle that particular task!
The Eternal Cowboy and the Failure of Initiation
If the Beloved Son stage provides identity, Eldredge’s next stage, the Cowboy, provides testing. This is the season of risk, experimentation, and competence-building. A young man must discover whether he can carry weight. He must attempt difficult things and learn resilience. In healthy cultures, this stage is temporary and guided. Older men watch, encourage, correct, and eventually mark the transition into responsibility. Logs are chopped, balls are kicked, pranks are played. This is the carefree boundary testing of the cowboy. If you have seen Yellowstone, chances are you’ve bought a pair of boots, tried to lasso the dog and started buying Carhartt clothing to try to express this.
The problem in contemporary Western culture is not that men enter the Cowboy stage. It is that many never leave it! Eldredge notes that some men grow old but never move beyond this season of adventure and self-discovery. What was meant to be formative becomes indefinite. As the saying goes, men don’t grow up, we just get taller! Culturally, we have romanticised the lone cowboy, and the movies are there to back this up. The unattached man. The one who answers to no one and can leave at any time. Independence is marketed as freedom. Commitment feels like risking our independence rather than developing emotional strength. The result is a generation of men who are perpetually launching, but perhaps never launched. Careers are provisional. Relationships are provisional. Even church involvement is provisional.
The deeper issue is initiation, and Eldredge uses that term deliberately. Initiation is the bestowal of manhood by those who have earned it. It is not hazing or humiliation. It is recognition. In older societies, this process was explicit. In ours, it is often absent. Dr Anthony Bradley speaks of this in regard to the historic understanding of fraternities in the US, not a bunch of drunk college kids hazing one another, but emerging men learning discipline and fraternal responsibility. When initiation does not occur, the Cowboy question, “Do I have what it takes?” remains unresolved. A man continues testing himself long after the testing should have given way to responsibility. The experimentation becomes self-indulgence. The adventure becomes the avoidance of growing up. The cowboy, becomes one of Peter Pan’s lost boys.
As I sketched these notes, I began to see them resonate in a few places. One of which was in an article that Eddie LaRow has written perceptively about the modern myth of the lone cowboy and its corrosive effects. [Link] In his analysis, men have internalised a narrative of solitary heroism that leaves them isolated from community and counsel. They ride alone, and eventually, they drift alone. What looks like autonomy is often a refusal to be shaped. The church sometimes unwittingly reinforces this. We celebrate visible risk and dramatic stories while overlooking the patient ferment of long-term faithfulness. We platform charismatic individuals replete with chaos and energy, but neglect stability as ‘boring’. Yet the Cowboy stage cannot sustain a family, a church, or a community. Incidentally, as per Eldredge, it was never actually meant to.
Warriors Without Fathers
The Warrior stage follows the cowboy. In this stage strength is directed outward, and often towards others, but should be for a positive purpose. A man finds something worth defending. Discipline and protectiveness replaces wandering and restlessness. This is where our convictions are sharpened. In its healthiest form, this stage produces courage and sacrifice. A Warrior protects rather than dominates. He learns to wield power, not to hurt or harm, but to fight for something.
But when a Warrior emerges from an unhealed Beloved Son and an uninitiated Cowboy, he often fights for the wrong reasons. Eldredge observes that men who have not settled earlier questions can enter this stage insecure and uncertain. They may search for validation in conflict. They may attach their identity to winning rather than serving.
This dynamic can manifest in extreme ways, as seen in movements that recruit fatherless young men by offering belonging and purpose. If wise fathers do not gather and guide young warriors, less benevolent leaders will. More commonly, however, it shows up in subtler patterns. The man who turns every disagreement online into an ad hominem attack. The pastor who seems energised more by ‘opponents’ in the blogosphere (do we still use that word?) than by shepherding. The middle aged guy who fights ‘apologetically’ or starts a blog to keep a watchful eye on everyone’s theology!
Helpfully, Eldredge’s inclusion of the Lover stage alongside Warrior is important here. Without tenderness, appreciation of beauty, and emotional depth, Warrior energy hardens. And ossifies, and it then becomes brittle. A hardened man may impress from a distance, but he does not cultivate trust in those he is fighting for. In relation to leadership, many warriors find themselves at the front, but it is often the front of a battle. They are swing a sword rather than lovingly leading a people. And as they walk forward, no one follows. As a mentor of mine explains, if we are leading and no one is following, then we are simply going on a walk!
Of course, the church suffers when Warrior energy dominates without being tempered by love and wisdom. It becomes combative rather than nurturing. And young men watching learn that masculinity means the loudness of their voice rather than the depth of their character. I felt that we had perhaps left this type of leadership behind around a decade ago, but I now see shoots of re-emergence online, and I pray that we see that develop into Kingly leadership rather than an older Warrior stage. More on that in a minute…
When Leaders Remain Unfinished
This conversation becomes especially urgent when applied to leadership. Eldredge argues that leadership crises often stem from men being given power before they are prepared to carry it. An undeveloped man in authority eventually reveals his unfinished formation.
What is often labelled a “midlife crisis” may simply be unresolved development resurfacing. I am in this age bracket now, and need to be careful that I am leading in what Eldrege calls the King stage, rather than fighting battles with more authority, less energy, and perhaps a little bit of cynicism and spite. A man who never settled the Beloved Son stage or completed the Cowboy stage may reach a position of influence and use it to recover what he feels he missed. Attention, novelty, indulgence. The consequences can be devastating for families and churches alike.
Paul’s contrast that I referred to in the beginning remains instructive. “You have many guides, but not many fathers.” An instructor can deliver accurate theology and still leave people relationally unfathered. A father, by contrast, invests himself personally. Paul describes himself as exhorting believers like a father and nurturing them like a mother. His leadership is an embodied one, not merely information transfer.
One author notes that as much as we have designated a clatter of words in this sphere, like coach, director, mentor, guru, guide, and yet biblically the role of spiritual fatherhood transcends them all. It involves deep relational commitment aimed at maturity. That kind of investment cannot be outsourced to programs or courses. It requires proximity, time, and emotional presence.
Eldredge’s later stages in his framework, King and Sage, present a compelling vision of what mature masculinity might look like. And a gap we are seeing in evangelicalism today. The King uses authority to create space for others to flourish. He gathers younger men and calls them upward. The Sage, far from fading into irrelevance, becomes an elder at the gates, offering wisdom shaped by scars. Oh how we lack sages in our culture! Sages don’t get in the way for younger leaders, but through modelling and encouragement they nurture the next generations. Indeed, sages can be far more fruitful later in life than they ever were in younger years.
Our culture, however, has tended to sideline older men and idolise and celebrate youth. Of course, this has it’s place. But this vision of intentionally seeking to develop older and wiser men feels countercultural. Yet it is profoundly biblical. Titus 2 assumes a church where older men train younger men in sober-mindedness and steadiness. When that intergenerational chain breaks, both generations lose something essential.
Becoming Fathered and Fathering Others
If this diagnosis is accurate, the path forward cannot be a superficial one. We cannot program our way out of a formation crisis. There are no three step plans that will make this better. However, there are key areas that we can give thought to in whatever stage we are in.
First, the idea of the Beloved Son stage must be reclaimed. For Christians, this means moving adoption from an abstract doctrine to an identity in Christ. “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God.” (1 John 3:1) Many of us men affirm this theologically while living emotionally as orphans. Healing requires honesty before God. It may require counselling. It certainly requires surrender.
Second, younger men must actively seek fathers. Of course, out pride resists this. We think we need no one and know everything. But maturity often begins with asking for help. Asking an older man how he navigated failure. How he sustained a marriage. How he endured disappointment without bitterness. How he worked a job faithfully for decades. It also requires listening when the answers are unspectacular. And then trying to figure out what this looks like in my life.
Third, older men must resist the temptation to withdraw and simpy pass a baton. Retirement from employment does not mean retirement from influence. If you have endured, repented, forgiven, persevered, got knocked down and got back up, you carry wisdom that younger men desperately need. The Sage stage, in Eldredge’s language, may well be the season of greatest impact.
Finally, all of this must remain anchored in Christ. The masculine journey is not about developing images and models but about conformity to the Son. Jesus is the Beloved Son, secure in the Father’s delight. He confronts evil as Warrior. He reigns as King. He embodies Wisdom itself. Through union with him, believers are drawn into true sonship. (Romans 8:15-17)
The crisis we face is not primarily a shortage of strong men. It is a shortage of fathered men. Men who know they are loved. Men who have been initiated into responsibility. Men who use strength for the good of others rather than for self-validation. If the church is to recover its place in this, it must become more than a classroom or a place to wrestle and express dominance. It must become a household. Younger men must find fathers. Older men must become them. And the Gospel must be heard as invitation into a family where no son is forgotten and no stage of growth is left unfinished.