Dangerous Good: The Coming Revolution of Men Who Care came out from NavPress in July 2018. It runs 224 pages. Kenny Luck founded Every Man Ministries and has served as men’s pastor at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, so he has spent a long time in a room with men who are struggling and not saying so.
The argument
Luck’s title is doing real work, so it is worth unpacking. His complaint is that the culture offers men two options and both are broken. You can be dangerous and destructive, which gets attention and wrecks people. Or you can be safe and harmless, which offends nobody and changes nothing. Most Christian men, he says, have picked the second and called it godliness.
His third option is a man who is genuinely dangerous, but dangerous to the right things. Dangerous to apathy, to injustice, to his own comfort, to the quiet cruelty that goes unchallenged because nobody wants a scene. Jesus is his model, and specifically the Jesus who turned over tables rather than the sanded down one who only ever smiled.
The book works through themes like integrity, courage, dignity, and responsibility, with the material driven by Scripture throughout. Luck is aiming at younger men in particular, and he says so; the book is explicitly addressed to the generation of men now in their twenties and thirties.
Style
Luck writes hot. Short punchy sentences, a lot of momentum, plenty of direct address. It reads like a talk more than an essay, which makes sense given his background. If you like that, the book moves fast and you will finish it. If you prefer a careful measured argument, the energy may wear on you before the end.
He is also a storyteller, and the stories from years of men’s ministry are the strongest material in the book. They are specific and they are not flattering to anyone, including him.
Where to push back
Books built on a call to action can leave you fired up and unclear on Monday. Luck is better at the diagnosis and the vision than at the plan. If you want a step by step program, this is not it, and you would be better served pairing it with something more structured.
The generational framing also cuts both ways. Aiming at millennial men makes the book vivid, but some of the cultural references will date faster than the argument underneath them.
Who it is for
Men’s groups that want something with heat rather than another gentle study. Younger men in particular. Anyone who has settled into being agreeable and suspects that is not actually the same thing as being good.
Less useful for a man already burnt out and running on obligation. He does not need to be pushed harder right now.
Bottom line
A strong, energetic call with a genuinely good central idea. Great for a group. Pair it with something practical so the fire has somewhere to go.
Find Dangerous Good on Amazon.