Play the Man: Becoming the Man God Created You to Be by Mark Batterson runs 224 pages from Baker Books. It is built around seven virtues of manhood, and it is the book the four session group study is drawn from.
One correction first. An earlier version of this review called it a Christian parenting book. It is not. It is a book about manhood that contains a substantial argument about raising sons. Those are different things, and a man without kids should not be steered away from it.
Where the title comes from
Polycarp was a second century bishop, a disciple of the apostle John, burned at the stake in Smyrna around the age of eighty six. The account of his martyrdom records a voice from heaven telling him to be strong and play the man.
Batterson opens there and it sets the register for everything after. The book is not about being assertive at work. It is about whether you would hold under real pressure, and Polycarp is the standard he sets.
The seven virtues, and the rite of passage
Batterson’s argument is that manhood has been left undefined and therefore undeveloped, and that men drift because nothing has ever been asked of them. The seven virtues are his answer, covering courage, self mastery, and moral clarity among others.
The most talked about section is his case for a deliberate rite of passage for sons. He describes constructing one for his own boys. Readers divide sharply here. Some find it the missing piece they had been looking for. Others find it manufactured, a ceremony imposed where a relationship should be.
Both reactions are reasonable. Batterson is genuinely onto something about the absence of any marker between boyhood and manhood in our culture. Whether a planned ceremony fills that gap is a fair question and he does not really engage the objection.
The honest criticism
Batterson writes hot. The prose runs to declaration and momentum, and if that style grates on you it will grate for 224 pages. He is a preacher and it reads like preaching.
The historical and scientific illustrations come fast and are not always load bearing. Some are there for energy rather than argument.
Worth your time?
Yes, if you want something that raises the bar rather than lowering it, and you can take a heightened style. The Polycarp frame alone is worth the read.
Especially yes if you have sons and have not thought about how they will know when they have become men.
If your group wants to work through it together, there is a participant’s guide and DVD study, though the guide is not usable on its own.
An earlier version of this review described a reviewer’s bedtime conversation with his child and other team reactions. Those were invented and have been removed.