Unleashing Courageous Faith: The Hidden Power of a Man's Soul

In his recent book, "Unleashing Courageous Faith: The Hidden Power of a Man's Soul," Paul Coughlin challenges men to claim their God given strength (thumos) and to live it out. He does a great job of looking at the relationship between masculinity and faith. He creatively and helpfully works through issues surrounding this God given strength: how we find it, how we claim it, what kills it, how we feed it, how we use it, and the dark side of it. I enjoyed reading this book and I think it is a very helpful book. While Coughlin could not deal with every male personality type or every aspect of our God given strength, he does do a good job with the basics. I think this book would be great for a guys to study together. Then they could unpack some of the areas the Coughlin introduces, but does not have the pages to really discuss. All in all this is a very helpful book to help show that faith and masculinity are not mutually exclusive.

The church has emasculated men, teaching them "to go with the flow so much that they end up going down the drain of most anyone else's will," states Paul Coughlin. As a result, men's faith lacks the animating spirit that fights for what is right. Citing a recent survey which revealed that 90% of school students have witnessed an act of bullying, but only 11% have ever intervened; Coughlin argues that courage, since it is lacking in the fathers, is not being taught to their sons. He links this lack of courage to many failed marriages, as women discard husbands who lack the courage to relate on an honest emotional level. The book challenges the idea of letting God do it all, calling the "just pray about it" mindset "too much wimpy reliance on overspirituality." Coughlin is not dismissing the role of prayer; rather, he is pointing out that for too many in the church, it has become an excuse for cowardly inaction. Some churches I have attended preach such unquestioning submission that I can agree with Coughlin that church teaching can sap courage and strength from men. For men who have struggled with such teaching, this is a worthwhile book. Coughlin mixes humor with hard-hitting directness, encouraging men with examples of how to cultivate a muscular faith, and concludes the book with a twelve-lesson study guide.

Unleashing Courageous Faith: The Hidden Power of a Man's Soul This book will make you laugh out loud and it will make you think beyond your comfort zone. I hope this book will open the doors to great discussions everywhere as "iron sharpens iron" We need to take courage seriously to heart and put some bone into our spiritual spines for both men and women.

Paul Coughlin's latest work, Unleashing Courageous Faith, is targeted to men, but this female reader loved the book. The author does a great job explaining true masculinity from a biblical perspective. Men who apply his practical advice to developing "thumos" (God-given strength) in their own lives will make themselves irresistible to women. My husband is giving a copy of "Unleashing Courageous Faith" to one of his best buddies.

I just purchased six more copies of Unleashing Courageous Faith to give away - something I've never even thought of doing with a book before. The books does more than help men reconcile the struggle between their Christianity and their masculinity, it explains in painful detail why such a struggle exists, and most importantly, how to conquer the soul-crushing effects of hyper-spiritualism, spiritual abuse, materialism, cynicism and other dysfunctions that infect us both inside and outside the church. In so doing the book unlocks the keys to bold, engaged, purposeful, Christian living as a man - free from the theological nitpicky and inauthentic version of ourselves we often feel pressured to be by the "Official Script" of church culture. Unleashing Courageous Faith makes it clear that if you think success as a Christian man is defined as (a) not sinning and (b) telling people about Christ once in a while then you're missing the boat - you're missing what happens when you unleash the passion and courage it takes to link to transcendent causes - causes that require real-world, hands-on strength, conviction, character, and masculine courage. Unleashing Courageous Faith helps pinpoint many of the things that went wrong in the spiritual training of many men and paints a clear picture of what it looks like when you realize that you don't have to be a freak, a fanatic, or half woman to be a Christian man. Instead, you can be what you were meant to be - a lion housed in a man's body, a man of action and conviction - a man who operates where the rubber meets the road solving real world problems, making his Father proud, and unleashing his own soul.