Book Review: ‘The Man You’re Made* To Be’ by Martin Saunders

Man, this took me ages to get to, but it was well worth it!

Martin has written a blinder of a book for lads.

Unlike most ‘how to be a godly man’ style books, The Man You’re Made* To Be has taken the spotlight off of us and put it back onto God as the one who made us. He starts off with this,

‘I should probably get this out of the way now because otherwise it’s just going to get awkward. I believe that you didn’t happen by accident. I believe that you were made. Handmade actually, on purpose, by a Creator. A God who made you as his child, whom he loves just like a really great father loves his son or daughter. Except much better than that.’ (xv)

The focus, therefore, isn’t ‘11 ways to do man-stuff properly’, but 11 ways to grow into all that God has designed you to be. Fantastic!

Because Martin keeps going back to this God as our creator, everything just feels more grounded. When he talks about role models, for instance, he doesn’t just find a few godly men to point to. Instead he goes right back to the source and points to Jesus himself (chapter 3). In this chapter, Martin draws out the Jesus of justice, strength, conviction, forgiveness, and compassion, and rather than just saying ‘be like Him’ (which he does do), Martin encourages us to know Him. Frankly, I’d be very happy to stick this into a non-Christian’s hand.

I’m going to highlight briefly a couple of juicy areas that I think Martin tackles particularly well:

Fatherhood

As you can imagine in a book like this, fatherhood comes up a fair few times, as it should. But for many people fatherhood is a toxic issue that triggers so many ill, confused feelings. Martin doesn’t shy away from talking about the immenseness of having a Father in heaven, but treats that with the sensitivity it needs. He says,

‘If you are a man who doesn’t know or have contact with his father then I’m sorry. I’m also aware that all this talk of God as a father who lives you can feel a bit uncomfortable or even painful. I believe, though, that God’s version of fatherhood is so many times better than ours that it is barely recognisable even from the closest and kindest father-son relationship. And whatever yours is like, I promise that the offer to know and root your identity in him is cast-iron. He will never let you down, even if your real father has.’ (34).

Sex

I thoroughly enjoyed Martin’s chapter on sex (go figure). He manages to bluntly talk about hormones, pornography, and the pervasive sexualisation of culture, without going unnecessarily OTT, or awkwardly dancing around the issues either. In a straight-forward, frank, and realistic tone, Martin opens dark taboos up in a helpful and wise way. He exposes, for example, the most insidious lie of pornography which tells us ‘this is what sex should be like’, and contrasts it against God’s design,

‘The truth is that sex is incredibly meaningful, and I believe that the biggest reason why is that it’s holy. It’s not just a physical action but it’s also a spiritual experience, designed by God as a gift to us.’ (80)

Women

Unlike a lot of books of this kind, Martin doesn’t use women as a functional tool for us to work out our manhood in conflict with. Women are far too easily objectified in Christian culture as dangerous distractions that a godly man must constantly fight off with spears and axes. However, for Martin, women are clearly created equal by God. They are our sisters in Christ and our partners on our journeys of faith.

Martin tracks the West’s history of male dominance and looks at ways we can crawl out of that context into something so much better. He helps us to consider the attitudes of our hearts towards women and realign our lifestyles to treat them with genuine respect. He says,

‘It’s one thing to agree intellectually with the idea that men aren’t better than women. It’s quite another to put that into practice. There are so many subtle ways that gender imbalance has wormed its way into our culture; disarming all those bombs means having our eyes wide open to every form of them’ (145)

So why read it?

Here’s a few reasons…

• It tracks a form of manhood that lives in the Bible and can exist today.
• It’s funny, poignant, easy to read, and packs a punch – right to the gut of what so many lads are dealing with.
• It isn’t afraid to challenge accepted ideas of what everyone says is ok – but does so without being preachy or legalistic.
• It looks honestly at things like mental health, self-harm, and suicide.
• It also considers things like screen time and cyber bullying.
• It has more pop-culture references than you can swing a Kardashian at.
• It points back to spiritual disciplines like prayer.
• It isn’t scared to tell us to exercise our self-control muscle.
• It encourages us to connect up with others and build supportive relationships.
• It gives us some solid titles and content for a teaching series: purpose, identity, Jesus, emotions, sex, temptation, friendship, technology, women, and materialism. I want the workbook next, Martin.
• It uses the word ‘bants’.
• It makes a HUGE deal of Jesus.
• it keeps bringing us back to God our creator.
• It ends with ‘I love you, man.’

Masculinity has become so toxic and confused, that even broaching this topic is brave, but Martin – somehow – has tracked a path through a healthy version of manhood which doesn’t just flat out reject the unique aspects of what being a man means.

It’s not a deep systematic theological treatise – but it’s not meant to be. It absolutely hits the target it’s aiming at and will be a helpful resource for my young people. Frankly, it was helpful for me too!

The Man You’re Made* To Be is the book I’ve been waiting to give to lads for years. I was sent a free copy (thanks), but I’m buying a bunch for my youth club.

Cheers Martin – you’re a legend.