What should Christian masculinity look like? This book explains

I didn’t come to this book looking for answers. If I’m honest, I am tired of conversations around masculinity, its precepts and all its focus on the manosphere. The cluster of noise around virtue signalling podcasts, performance, the constant need for men to prove something has made strength somewhat of a spectacle. 

In a space where discipline begins to become an identity, it all begins to feel like theatre after a while. Men of Virtue (Baker Publishing Group) by Zachary Wagner is refreshing. In all of my years working with men and masculinity, I have never considered manhood from a biblical perspective before and nor have I seen it explored and extrapolated in such an accessible way.

When Wagner starts talking about virtue, not achievement, not status, not even influence, I found myself pausing. His central claim sounds well known on the surface: that a man should be shaped by the virtues of love, patience, kindness, self-control. We’ve heard this in both Christian and faith-based spaces. It’s plastered all over scripture. It’s shown to us in Sunday school. We watch it in the Passion of the Christ, or even the Prince of Egypt. It’s the kind of thing you nod at, expect and, unfortunately, move past. But this book makes you do one thing as you read: you sit with the virtues. It’s important, because if that’s the standard, then most of what we call masculinity today, especially this out of whack, rigid kind that thrives online, starts to look like a distraction. It’s not entirely wrong, but deeply incomplete. A house built on visible traits without invisible foundations.

Wagner explores the virtues through the masculine pursuit of joy rather than the fleeting feeling of happiness, the virtue of love as a way of living well with self and others; peace, patience, kindness, goodness and faithfulness, as core values for navigating the world when the world gets hard to manage. He also explores the power of gentleness through the power to bless others, as well as becoming aware of what it means to harm others. This leads to the virtue of self-control, where he presents a clear contrast of the teachings of Jesus and writings of Paul in comparison to the Stoics, a philosophical branch which in recent times has dominated the conversation of men’s personal development as a way of living without  the context of the love, sacrifice and integrity of Jesus. 

In The Abolition of Man (William Collins), C. S. Lewis warns about: “men without chests”. Lewis describes a world that trains the mind and indulges the appetites but neglects the formation of the heart the “chest,” where rightly ordered loves, courage, and moral instinct reside. If we continue this way, and navigate certain aspects of the manosphere, we end up  with clever men who can argue anything, and passionate men who can desire everything but very few who can stand for something with integrity. Wagner doesn’t shout this. He doesn’t need to. The argument works more like a slow undoing. You begin to realise that much of modern masculinity is built on reaction: reaction to  feminism, to passivity, to fatherlessness, to cultural confusion. And reaction, even when justified, is a poor architect. It builds men who are defined by what they are against, not what they are becoming.

That’s where this book quietly reframes everything. It asks a harder question: not what kind of man do you present, but what kind of man are you when no one is watching? The question itself lingers because it exposes something uncomfortable: virtue cannot be performed. It can’t be optimised, monetised, or broadcast in the same way. You  can’t fake patience over time. You can’t shortcut gentleness, and you can’t manufacture self-control under pressure. 

It asks a harder question: not what kind of man do you present, but what kind of man are you when no one is watching? 

You either are becoming these things, or you aren’t – and that’s where the book stopped feeling theoretical, but highly practical. Moreover, it became personal. As someone who thinks deeply about men, mental health, faith, and formation, I found myself reflecting less on the “state of masculinity” and more on my own interior life. My own inconsistencies. The gap between what I say and who I am when I’m tired, triggered, or unseen.

Wagner’s work doesn’t fill that gap for you. It simply refuses to let you ignore it. If I have a tension with the book, it’s this: at times, I wanted more flesh on the bones. What does this look like in the mess of relationships, ambition, desire, leadership? What does a UK perspective look like? How does virtue hold under real pressure, financial stress, sexual tension, disappointment, success? But maybe that frustration says more about me, the world than the book.

What the book lacks for in framework – a method I believe men prefer when it comes to learning new concepts – the uncomfortable invitation Men of Virtue makes up for is clear instruction for character formation. It doesn’t give you a new model of masculinity to perform. It calls you to a slower, deeper work, formation over image, substance over signal, character over culture. No hype. No algorithm. No applause. Just the quiet, demanding work of becoming a  man of virtue. And if I’m honest, that might be the hardest path of all.

Men of Virtue: How the Fruit of the Spirit Forms Male Character in the Modern World (Baker Publishing Group) by Zachary Wagner is out now