'Boys and young men are in crisis'

When delivering the 2025 Dimbleby Lecture this week, Former England Football manager Sir Gareth Southgate highlighted the dearth of male role models in contemporary society.

“We need leaders to set the right tone. To be the role models we want for our young men. We have to show young men that character is more important than status. That how you treat others is more important than how much money you make.”

Sir Gareth referred to the report Lost Boys, published by the Centre for Social Justice this month. The report relates with painful detail the impact on boys of the shortage of good role models and the proliferation of toxic ones. It is tragic that whenever the word masculinity is used in contemporary society it is qualified by the adjective, toxic!

'An epidemic of fatherlessness'

Chief Executive for the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) Andy Cook acknowledges these trends in his foreword to the report, but adds: “The deeper truth is that too many boys are growing up without the guidance, discipline, and purpose they need to thrive.”

Perhaps the most memorable soundbite of the report is:

“Children these days are more likely to have a smartphone than a father.”

The statistics are devastating: "2.5 million children in the UK have no father figure at home, representing one in five of all dependent children. Almost half of first-born children by age 14 do not live with both natural parents. For those born in 1970, this figure was just 21 percent.”

The report is clear: “Britain is suffering from an epidemic of fatherlessness.”

Decisive action is needed

Jawad Iqbal writing for The Spectator online commented on Sir Gareth’s speech: “He has now joined the long list of public figures to issue dire warnings about how the nation’s young are falling to pieces, victims of this or that – without actually offering up any real answers.”

It is important that this vital conversation takes place, but it is not enough to talk about alarming statistics without taking decisive action.

I write as a man who was born and grew up without a father-figure in my life - and as a pastor I have found that father-issues have been at the heart of so many pastoral challenges.

It is for this reason that I wrote the book: Good, Bad, No Dad? A Biblical Reflection on the Father Deficit in Contemporary Society (to be published by Grace Publications on 23rd April this year). This book tells my own story of fatherlessness and listens to the stories of others who have experienced a father deficit in their lives, tracing what the Bible has to say about fathers and the fatherhood of God. I also seek to address how the church can respond positively to the challenge of this deficit.

Becoming a Christian at 16 rescued me and introduced me to God as my Father. Finding role models in the church threw me a lifeline by giving me relational blueprints and support that were missing in my life.

The CSJ report says that: “Fatherless children are at the highest risk of persistent generational scarring.” And in my book I think further about the impact of this fatherlessness on men and women:

"It might be something of a generalisation to say that fatherless men and women might be looking for different things in longing for a father.

Fatherless men are looking for a hero, someone to look up to, someone who will champion and affirm them. Perhaps that is one of the reasons for the rise of the popularity of superheroes in an age of fatherlessness.

Fatherless women are looking for someone to look after them. Maybe that is why some women marry older men or go to church and view pastors as father figures. The common experience here is the search for reassurance. We all need significant figures in our lives. Losing a father leaves an indentation that it is hard to fill." (p.171)

The contemporary church has to take these issues seriously, so that it can act urgently and compassionately to offer the authenticity, wisdom and connection that can make the fatherless flourish.