A 1991 radio appearance launched the evangelical men’s movement

Evidence

Dalbey took up the challenge, but securing a publisher was no easy task. In 1987, when he was shopping his manuscript, “the unique needs of men had not yet appeared on the church’s radar screen.” Editors at Word Publishing were intrigued enough to bring him to Dallas so that he could explain in person why men would be interested in such a book, and Dalbey succeeded in convincing them to take a gamble on the project. Initially spreading through word of mouth, the book eventually ended up in the hands of Shirley Dobson, who brought it to her husband James, who then invited Dalbey on his Focus on the Family radio show. His 1991 appearance sparked a listener response that ranked in the top 10 percent of the program’s history, Dalbey later recalled. By then, evangelical men across the country were awakening to the problem of masculinity. — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 366

Categorization

• CANDY: The detail that a single Focus on the Family radio spot drew a top-10-percent listener response is a fun, quotable marker of how fast the genre ignited.