Order of Man - DOUGLAS WILSON ｜ Bold Men. Hard Truths. No Apologies.

00:00:00.000 Men, I got to ask you, is there a clear and deliberate agenda against men and maybe even

00:00:06.200 boys in culture today? Or is it simply a byproduct of the relative ease of modern times? I've got a

00:00:14.500 great guest for you today. His name is Pastor Douglas Wilson. Many of you have read his works,

00:00:19.060 but he makes the case that it's a combination of both and more accurately than modern times,

00:00:26.080 the result of quote unquote wealthy times. And if that's the case, what should men do for

00:00:31.700 ourselves and for the future of our children in this world? Today, Doug and I talk about

00:00:38.000 rebuilding strength and order in our lives and instilling it in our boys. How exactly men can

00:00:44.940 step up against the lunacy and degeneracy we see in modern culture? Why men make inferior women

00:00:51.200 and vice versa? Why reality calls for us as men to reckon with the dangerous times in which we live

00:00:58.400 and ultimately why masculinity cannot and should not be legislated away.

00:01:04.980 You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly chart your

00:01:09.840 own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time. Every time you are not easily

00:01:15.820 deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This is who you are. This is

00:01:23.140 who you will become at the end of the day. And after all is said and done, you can call yourself

00:01:28.540 a man. Men, welcome to the Order of Man podcast. I've had a lot of good conversations over the past

00:01:35.060 couple of weeks with guys who have been listening for nine plus years and guys who have been listening

00:01:39.160 for nine plus weeks. And regardless of where on that spectrum you fall, we want to welcome you to

00:01:46.160 the Order of Man podcast and what we're all about. My goal is to give you all the tools and conversations

00:01:50.420 you need to thrive as a man. There's a lot of podcasts out there. When I started this thing 10

00:01:55.280 years ago, which is crazy, a decade ago. Some people say like an OG. I think there were other people,

00:02:03.060 maybe Joe Rogan and a dozen other people doing this when I started in 2015. But here we are 10 years

00:02:11.140 later, still going strong. But guys, my goal is to give you all of the tools, the resources,

00:02:18.460 the conversations, the connections that you need to thrive as a man to be a man, to step up as a man,

00:02:25.560 to be a father, husband, business owner, and community leader. And that's exactly what we're doing

00:02:29.740 inside of the Order of Man podcast. Before we get started, just want to mention, if you're talking

00:02:35.380 about being a man, there's a quote, and I can't recite it right off hand, but it's something along

00:02:40.280 the lines of man is a tool-wielding animal. With tools, he is everything. Without tools, he is nothing.

00:02:48.660 And that's why I want to talk about a tool that every man needs in his arsenal, and that's a knife.

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00:03:02.140 They make knives, sharpened metal objects, 100% made and sourced in America. They just released,

00:03:10.220 again, another batch of their V24 knife. It's the double blade knife. It's based on a hat tip to the

00:03:17.860 V42, which was used in not only World War I, but World War II. And if you're looking for a double

00:03:26.180 sided blade, maybe even a good EDC everyday carry, look no further than the V24 with Montana Knife

00:03:34.800 Company, all sourced and made in America. Check them out at montananifecompany.com and use the code

00:03:42.000 order a man to save a few bucks when you do. All right, guys, with all of that said, let me

00:03:48.020 introduce you to my guest. His name is Douglas Wilson, Pastor Douglas Wilson. He is an author,

00:03:52.880 he's a theologian, a cultural commentator, and the senior minister at Christ Church in Moscow,

00:03:59.980 Idaho. But Doug has shaped a movement that spans a classical Christian school, a liberal arts college,

00:04:08.220 and also a publishing ministry. He's written over 40 books, including one of my favorites,

00:04:15.120 Future Men. If you have not read that book, you should read that book, Future Men. He founded

00:04:20.040 institutions like Logo School and Canon Press, and he really sparked national dialogue and debate,

00:04:28.980 whether that was through his defense of Christian education or his debates and collision with

00:04:34.280 Christopher Hitchens and a devout atheist or his bold cultural convictions. But Doug is also the

00:04:40.700 host of Man Rampart, a Canon Plus original series, which just released season seven. So check it out,

00:04:47.140 guys. Doug, it's great to see you. Thanks for joining me on the podcast today. Great to be with

00:04:52.640 you. Yeah, I've been a, I've been a longtime fan. I've, I've read some of your works and I know you've

00:04:57.520 got the Man Rampant series. I think you're on season seven now to see some of the trailers that have

00:05:02.300 come out for that. Obviously, you and I are very much aligned in having powerful conversations with

00:05:07.340 men who are doing big things. Right. Yes. Yeah. You know, I want to talk with, I want to lead this

00:05:14.540 conversation off by asking you about, generally what I see your work as is overcoming a softness

00:05:22.520 in culture and society that seems to be running wild at this point. And I'm very curious when it comes

00:05:29.460 to masculinity and manliness, do you think that this is just a byproduct of modern times? Or do

00:05:38.160 you feel like there's a clear and deliberate assault or attack, if you will, against manliness and

00:05:43.920 masculinity? Well, I think both, both are the case. And I wouldn't say modern times. I would say

00:05:52.060 wealthy times. This is, this is something that always happens when, when a society grows wealthy,

00:06:04.640 when they grow rich. It, it is easier to be lazy than to be hard or to work, work hard. And when you

00:06:13.460 have an abundance of resources, as it says in the book of Deuteronomy, Jesuit waxed fat and kicked.

00:06:22.380 So what happens is, is, uh, in order to be a pioneer, if you're settling the West or, you know,

00:06:30.120 you're out there with your wife and a log cabin and a cow, um, you've got to work like a dog,

00:06:36.260 uh, all through the summer and fall in order to survive the winter, right? You've, you've got to be

00:06:44.140 hard in order to live. And once a society has become prosperous, um, it is easy to become unfaithful

00:06:54.680 and that unfaithfulness doesn't have immediate dire consequences. There are dire consequences,

00:07:01.300 but they're, but they're on a long fuse. So the, the Puritan cotton mather once said that faithfulness

00:07:09.000 begat prosperity and the daughter devoured the mother, right? So faithfulness, hard work,

00:07:16.440 doing it right creates wealth and then wealth devours the mother Jesuit waxes fat and kicked.

00:07:23.980 And that's, that's warned against also in Deuteronomy eight. When you come into the land

00:07:28.760 and you have all these blessings, these houses that you didn't build and the wells you didn't

00:07:33.360 dig and the orchards you didn't plant, then you're going to forget the Lord, your God. Um, and,

00:07:39.020 and once you forget the Lord, your God, you give yourself over to self-indulgence and that self-indulgence

00:07:46.200 generates softness. Now that's one thing. The other side of it, you asked about, uh, us being

00:07:52.120 manipulated in this direction. Uh, soft, softness creates an opportunity for the manipulators.

00:08:00.020 They can, um, people, a, uh, an innervated population, a soft population, uh, is much more easily

00:08:08.900 manipulated than independent thinkers who make their own way and pay their own way.

00:08:18.220 Yeah. So I imagine then if we, if we're living in this wealthy, in this soft world, then there's

00:08:24.400 those bad actors who are then saying there's an opportunity to exploit, to amass power, wealth,

00:08:29.340 abundance, and prosperity on the backs of other people. Right. There's still some hard people

00:08:33.780 around, but they're hard and cruel. Okay. Um, they're, they're hard and cruel and they take

00:08:40.640 every opportunity they can get to, um, squeeze people dry. So as, as you're saying that, then

00:08:49.380 what comes to mind, and I don't want to put words in your mouth, are you advocating then that we as

00:08:53.220 men learn how to be not only righteous, but also hard at the same time? Because I think you do need

00:08:58.460 both. That is correct. Uh, the only answer to hard and cruel men is hard and godly men.

00:09:07.400 That's the, that's the only answer in the gun control debate. The answer to a bad guy with a gun

00:09:13.820 is a good guy with a gun, right? That's the, you, you can't. Well, I think, I think the answer that

00:09:20.520 may be, and I don't agree with this by the way, but I think the counter argument to that is nobody

00:09:25.560 with guns. Right. Yeah. And then that is refuted by the bumper sticker, which is when guns are

00:09:32.520 outlawed, only outlaws have guns. Right. When you, when you dis, disarm the populace, the only people

00:09:40.560 you disarm are the law abiding ones. Right. So you have good men, bad men, they all have guns.

00:09:46.560 And then the magistrate says, okay, everybody turn in your guns. Well, who, who might do that?

00:09:54.020 Right. Not, not the outlaws, not the criminals, all the bank robbers don't get together and say,

00:09:59.980 oh man, did you see what the governor just said? Um, we better, we better turn in our guns and we're

00:10:04.980 going to have to use our fingers in our pockets for the next heist. The outlaws don't, the outlaws

00:10:10.980 don't do that. And so consequently, uh, you have to have the kind of men who think things through.

00:10:18.480 And so when they, when the authorities make their official pronouncement, we've determined thus and

00:10:26.320 such. And it's a, it's a silly, uh, uh, manifestly silly proposal. Uh, men who think for themselves

00:10:34.060 and who know that they have a responsibility to protect their families period, um, are going to say

00:10:40.380 that's, that's nonsense. So you, you should remember when, uh, you're, you're in a dire

00:10:45.600 situation, some intruder is broken into your house and every second counts. Remember that the

00:10:53.220 police are minutes away. Yeah. But every second counts. Sure. Yeah. And, and your training and

00:11:01.420 proficiency and your willingness to do what needs to be done. You know, I, I think as you're talking

00:11:07.460 about this, um, it, it comes to mind the, the hard times create strong men, strong men create good

00:11:15.200 times. You've heard that I'm sure. Yes. And now you're talking about the same principle, but now

00:11:19.580 we're talking about it thousands of years old. I'm sure these concepts are as old as man himself,

00:11:25.400 that it's the, it's the hard times that create strength in people because to your point, we have

00:11:31.820 to rise and overcome it. What is the alternative to slither away and die? Most, maybe most people

00:11:37.700 will do that, but a large percentage of people are not willing to do that. When, when, uh, we are

00:11:43.140 confronted with tumult and we do live in tumultuous times, uh, the call for Christian men should be to

00:11:50.920 rise up and meet the occasion. Uh, God didn't put you, you weren't born in this generation by accident.

00:11:58.880 You were put here by God for a purpose. And that purpose is not to be craven or cowardly. That

00:12:06.780 purpose is to stand up, grow a backbone and whatever the threat is, the man of the house

00:12:13.880 needs to step in between that threat and his people. All right. So if there's any distance at

00:12:23.300 all between the, between the intruder, the threat, the, um, uh, the cruel one and your wife and your

00:12:30.620 children, the man of the house is the one who needs to step in between. He needs to be the shield.

00:12:36.800 He needs to be the fortress. He needs to be the wall. And, uh, that that's the charge that God gives

00:12:43.240 to Adam in the garden. He, he gives him the garden and Adam's charge was to tend, uh, tend and protect

00:12:51.480 basically. Uh, he was to be the guardian of the garden and he was to tend the garden. And every

00:12:57.600 man who has a family has a garden and you are to tend it. You are to take care of it, provide for it,

00:13:05.080 provide and protect. That's the, that's our aboriginal. That's our primeval charge. That's what

00:13:11.360 men are for. When you talk about Christian men rising up, I think there's, I don't know if it's

00:13:21.300 a growing sentiment, but there seems to be a pervasive sentiment that Christianity and men,

00:13:28.420 I would say maybe weakness even have some are, are synonymous in a way. It seems like in modern

00:13:35.300 times, I'm not saying that it should be that way. I'm saying that in many ways it's perceived that way.

00:13:40.040 There seems to be, uh, a weakness in men, a softness that I don't think Christianity calls

00:13:48.640 for, but I'm wondering if it gets misinterpreted. And then we find a bunch of weak men who aren't

00:13:53.380 willing to be bold and courageous and step up in the way they're commanded to. Right. Um, there's a,

00:14:00.060 there's a very interesting historical reason, uh, for this that's outlined by, um, uh, a gentleman

00:14:06.840 named Leon Podlas in a magnificent book called the church impotent, uh, the church impotent.

00:14:13.220 And this goes back to Bernard of Clairvaux, a medieval churchman. And what he did was initially

00:14:20.560 innocent. It, uh, but it had long-term consequences. Uh, one of the things that a, uh, the average Bible

00:14:29.180 reader will soon recognize is that the church is described in scripture in feminine terms.

00:14:35.960 The church is the mother of us all in Galatians. The church is the bride of Christ in.

00:14:42.240 Bride of Christ. Right.

00:14:43.740 In Ephesians five. Now that works when you are understanding the church as a corporate entity,

00:14:50.560 the whole, the whole thing. Right. So when the, when the congregation assembles,

00:14:55.900 it makes sense to think of the church as the bride and Christ as the bridegroom. That's,

00:15:01.080 that is fully scriptural. What Bernard of Clairvaux did in his devotional works was he

00:15:07.800 individualized it. So there's a difference between corporate worship and your individual quiet time,

00:15:13.960 your individual personal devotions. And what Bernard of Clairvaux attempted to do was to take that

00:15:19.460 corporate reality and individualize it. Well, the, the, the problem is if you're a single man,

00:15:27.760 a solitary man having your devotions and you're trying to compose yourself for your devotions

00:15:33.600 as a bride preparing for her wedding, that one of two things is going to be the case.

00:15:39.720 Either you're going to be no good at it, right? It's just alien to you. You don't know how to think

00:15:45.980 you don't. And, and, and so consequently, if you think that that's what piety is,

00:15:50.160 then you give up, you give up on it. You're rejecting, you walk away from the church.

00:15:56.280 Or the other problem is a man composes himself that way and he finds that he is good at it,

00:16:02.380 which is effeminate or, you know, he's starting to look pretty gay. Okay. So, um, what happened was

00:16:11.280 as a result of this devotional tradition descending from Bernard, Bernard of Clairvaux in the West,

00:16:17.880 uh, it became the case, it, this, it developed that, uh, the church became something for women and

00:16:26.960 children. Okay. Men were, uh, men in their masculinity were, found themselves increasingly not

00:16:36.040 welcome. Okay. Everything, the, the music was, became soupier and soupier. Uh, the, the preaching

00:16:45.340 became more and more emotional, uh, sentimental, uh, sentimentally driven, which is what a lot of

00:16:52.500 Victorian Christianity, uh, did. It became, um, uh, kittens and flowers and bouquets and, uh, and men

00:17:02.240 just didn't, good grief. Who needs, who needs this, but this is not a function of religion per se. Now

00:17:10.740 I'm, I'm a thoroughgoing Protestant. I'm not saying anything about truth claims here, but religion in

00:17:17.220 the world, Islam is masculine. Uh, Judaism is masculine. Eastern Orthodoxy is masculine, but the,

00:17:26.560 the Western church, Roman Catholic and Protestantism have, have all been greatly affected by this, uh,

00:17:33.660 devotional tradition that, that individualized, uh, a, a, um, a response of the creature to God

00:17:43.300 that had to act or, or speak or think in feminine terms. And we need to recover, uh, a corporate sense

00:17:53.040 for the church where the Bible requires that the feminine church, the bride be led by men only.

00:18:01.420 Okay. That's the, and this is why it's, uh, when you see this egalitarian move in many, uh,

00:18:08.500 evangelical or quasi evangelical churches to have women up front or women preachers, what you're doing

00:18:14.520 is you're, you're, uh, bringing disaster upon disaster. The problem was that we were already too

00:18:21.260 feminine in our posture and demeanor. And now they're making it more so. Um, and there's just no

00:18:29.240 way, uh, for the church to recover the tough mindedness and then the actual physical toughness

00:18:36.280 that is necessary to go through a time of hostility and persecution and so on. So we have to read our

00:18:44.500 Bibles again, we have to read our history books. We have to study how this came about and just

00:18:50.380 unapologetically say that the church in order to be in order to recover the masculine posture that we

00:18:58.680 need in our culture, the church needs to become an obedient bride. And as an obedient bride, we have

00:19:06.400 to do what the Bible says, right? And here's the irony. The church is most feminine when her

00:19:13.820 leadership is restricted to men only because that's what the Bible says to do. We're being,

00:19:19.020 we're being a submissive church. We're doing what Jesus says. Um, when, when women lead in worship,

00:19:25.780 we are being an uppity wife. We're being an uppity bride. Uh, the, the church of Christ becomes bridezilla.

00:19:34.460 That, yeah, that's, I'm, but I, I'm wondering why this concept of, of corporatism,

00:19:40.460 like you're talking about would inherently make it more masculine. Is it because it's no longer,

00:19:46.520 excuse me, no longer subjective, uh, or as, and more objective towards the word of, of God through

00:19:53.820 the Bible versus making it more individualized is more relative, right? And people begin to

00:19:59.720 interpret what works for them based on their level of happiness, for example. Correct. Men tend to be

00:20:07.140 more analytic. Uh, and of course I, I realized I'm not sure what state you're in, but what I'm about

00:20:14.740 to say might be illegal, but men tend to be more analytical. They're more logo centric. They're more

00:20:22.580 word oriented. Uh, women are more intuitive. They're more, uh, relational, uh, in their dealings.

00:20:30.420 They're more, um, emotionally attuned. And if you have feminine leadership, you're going to get more

00:20:37.060 of that. If you have male leadership, which is what the Bible requires, if you have male leadership

00:20:43.700 in the church, and furthermore, the males who are doing it are not males who are trying to act like

00:20:50.660 women. Okay. So what happened, what has happened is this under the influence of all these historical

00:20:58.140 forces? Yeah. Let's say you have a sweet little boy growing up in the church who loves Jesus. And he

00:21:05.320 is a sweet little boy, kind of bookish. And his whole life, the old ladies of the church have been

00:21:10.980 pinching his cheeks and telling him he ought to think about seminary. He's such a godly, godly little

00:21:16.860 boy. So what happens is he grows up and he goes into the ministry. And so you have, uh, the pulpit

00:21:23.560 filled with a bunch of beta males whose idea of what a successful relational pastor is, is shaped by

00:21:32.940 women. Okay. Now, no matter how you do it, uh, men, even beta men are not going to be good at it.

00:21:42.680 The, when all is said and done, there's still a guy and somebody is going to come along and say,

00:21:48.340 if all the things we value in our leadership are things like sensitivity and attuned to people's

00:21:56.040 feelings. And, um, as opposed to a masculine approach, which is, I want a man to get up into

00:22:02.340 the pulpit and I want him to tell me what the Bible says as though I, or he had never been born.

00:22:09.480 You know, what, what does the Bible say? All right. That's, that's sort of an objective,

00:22:14.920 uh, declaration. That's a masculine vocation. Men are good at that. Okay. When they learn how to do

00:22:23.760 it, men are good at that kind of thing. And when they try to relate to everybody and are sensitive

00:22:29.340 to everybody, uh, they're just not good at it. And then someone's going to say, uh, well, man,

00:22:35.880 if we value this, all this sentiment, sentimentality and, and sensitivity, why don't we call in the people

00:22:42.540 who are good at it? And so the pressure is on to call women pastors. Why? If we, uh, the reason

00:22:50.940 we're struggling with women pastors in the church today is because we've been trying to have men be

00:22:56.520 women pastors for a number of decades now. And, and the women are finally saying, Oh, come on, let,

00:23:03.060 let us do it. And I would say, no, we've been trying to do the wrong thing. We've been trying to

00:23:09.640 accomplish the wrong thing. We, we live in such perilous times that the pulpit is a place that

00:23:16.880 ought to take high courage to occupy, right? If, if, if it doesn't take courage to get into the pulpit

00:23:26.860 and declare the word of God to a wicked and perverse generation, what good is it?

00:23:32.780 Yeah. I was talking, I was having a conversation with somebody very close to me, um, just the other

00:23:38.980 day. And what she had said is that we've created this, this society and I'm paraphrasing here, but

00:23:45.020 the society where, um, we're trying to make, uh, women, little men and men, big women. And maybe another

00:23:53.780 way of saying that is men are going to make inferior women the same way women are going to make inferior

00:24:00.940 men. But this egalitarianism, like you're talking about doesn't really honor or recognize the

00:24:08.400 traditional roles based on biological makeup. And it makes everybody worse. Right. Instead of making

00:24:15.220 everybody better, which is what they state is the goal. Why, why on earth would you want to take a

00:24:19.760 first rate woman and turn her into a third rate man? Right. Right. That's where's the, where's the

00:24:27.240 upside on that? No. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's an interesting point. So how do, how do we then as

00:24:33.920 men reclaim the narrative? And I'm not just talking about in the church. Cause I think you're right. I

00:24:38.520 think I saw a statistic or something that, um, Eastern Orthodoxy is the, is the largest growing,

00:24:45.780 uh, religion or denomination for young men. And I think it's precisely because what you're saying

00:24:52.260 is men are attracted to direction, discipline, boldness, clarity, conviction. And I think that's

00:25:00.380 what that church represents largely. But how do we, as men reclaim it, not only in the church,

00:25:06.900 but culturally as well? Yeah. So the, the thing that is attractive about East Eastern Orthodoxy to

00:25:13.980 young men is precisely this, the adherence of it, particularly the leadership, they all wake up in

00:25:20.120 the morning, knowing what they think, right? They, they, they don't need to put a finger in the wind

00:25:27.320 to determine what we're going to say today. And, uh, now I'm, again, I'm a Protestant. I don't agree

00:25:34.340 with Eastern Orthodoxy, but Eastern Orthodoxy avowed and declared as though it were the truth is going to

00:25:41.820 be more attractive to many men than some murmured, whispered Protestantism that might be technically

00:25:48.660 correct. Right. Um, uh, we, we need Protestant leaders. We need Christian leaders. We need pastors

00:25:57.320 who are also willing to get up in the morning, already knowing what they think without having

00:26:03.920 taken a survey, without having taken a poll, they know what they think because they read their Bibles.

00:26:11.660 Well, and I would also say, and without consulting others, and I'm not saying that we should not be

00:26:16.080 open in certain contexts to feedback and ideas, but too often it seems like to me that we as men

00:26:22.620 will make decisions based on how other people will respond, not based on principle and what we believe.

00:26:30.020 Uh, correct. So, um, there's a difference. So this is another feature of our effeminate age and the

00:26:36.700 effeminate church. Um, uh, a, a biblical preacher is someone who is going to preach for decision.

00:26:45.440 He, he wants to present the objective truth to the listener and call for him to decide,

00:26:51.960 do you want to follow Christ or not? Do you want to submit to this doctrinal teaching or not?

00:26:57.920 He's calling for a decision. The, the modern way is to preach for consensus.

00:27:03.540 They're not preaching for decision. They're preaching for consensus. And because they're

00:27:09.280 preaching for consensus, inevitably it deteriorates to a lowest common denominator affair. All right.

00:27:17.100 What can we all agree on after which we will give each other the group hug? Well, the, the group hug

00:27:23.720 is not what we should be after. What we should be after is the truth, the truth at all costs. By all

00:27:30.320 means speak the truth in love by all means, be as kind as you can be when you proclaim the truth,

00:27:34.720 but whatever you do, proclaim the truth. I reminded, I can't remember the phenomenon, but, uh,

00:27:42.740 when you talked about the lowest common denominator, a silly example I once heard is going to a family

00:27:49.100 or neighborhood barbecue and everybody wants to cook some burgers or hot dogs or steaks or whatever

00:27:53.980 it might be. But then there's one vegan in the group. And because they don't want to be a hassle,

00:27:59.980 the host doesn't want to put that vegan out of the way or whatever it might be. Then they change the

00:28:04.640 entire meal. And all of a sudden you're not cooking hamburgers and hot dogs. You're cooking tofu patties

00:28:10.260 and, uh, you know, grilling cauliflower on the grill, uh, because to pander to the one person who

00:28:18.540 decides they want to, in this case, ruin it for everybody. That's exactly the problem because,

00:28:24.820 uh, preaching for consensus, striving for consensus that way means that those who believe the most

00:28:32.120 must give way to those who believe the least.

00:28:36.940 Hmm. How does a man practice boldness and assertiveness? Because there is, there is a,

00:28:43.260 I mean, this is the reality. So many men, grown men have grown up with, for example, single mothers,

00:28:48.900 um, being raised by single mothers, but also being in schools and being primarily taught by,

00:28:54.820 by women. Um, and so there, there tends to be more of an effeminate learning going on in their

00:29:01.860 formative years. Uh, how does a man who wants to step up and be more bold and courageous and assertive

00:29:08.660 begin to do that? And how does he do that in practice? That's a great question. I think you put

00:29:14.160 your finger on a real sore spot in our generation. Um, the Bible teaches that are one of the fundamental

00:29:21.940 ways that we learn is by imitation. And, uh, I've had a wonderful father and I can't begin to recount

00:29:32.480 all the ways in which I learned things that I can't remember how I learned them that are down in

00:29:39.160 my bones because I saw my dad when I was five or when I was seven. And I remember certain memorable

00:29:45.640 lessons that I learned from him, but I'm sure it was, it was a constant nonstop affair, right? I was

00:29:51.440 just watching my dad. The Bible, uh, Ephesians 5.1 says, therefore, dearly loved children, be imitators

00:29:57.940 of God. Children are imitators. Okay. Paul tells the Corinthians to imitate him as he imitates Christ.

00:30:05.500 So our principal way of learning these things is by imitation. Now, some of your, um, uh, viewers

00:30:14.040 and perhaps a lot of them are in precisely the position that you described. They were, they grew

00:30:19.740 up with a single mom, uh, you know, she was a single mom. I was personally too. My mom, bless her heart,

00:30:26.280 raised me primarily on her own. So I'm, I'm, I'm in the same boat. Yeah. Dad was long gone. And so

00:30:32.640 what do you, what do you do? Well, my, my father, uh, grew up in an intact home. He had a mom and a dad,

00:30:39.160 but he became a Christian at the Naval Academy. So he became a Christian after he was an adult.

00:30:45.700 And how do I do this? You know, I don't know. How do I be a Christian man? Because he was the first

00:30:53.840 one in his family to, uh, to call on Christ and he was away from home. He'd already left home when he,

00:30:59.920 when he did that. And what he did was he began reading biographies. He, so there are, um, and

00:31:09.020 particularly missionary biographies in his case, there are many wonderful examples of stalwart Christian

00:31:17.000 men down through the history of the church. We've got 2000 years of martyrs, witnesses,

00:31:24.780 preachers, missionaries, and many wonderful biographies have been written of them. Uh, so

00:31:31.860 my dad said, I don't know how to be a Christian man and I've not grown up around Christian men.

00:31:37.460 So I'm going to start reading biographies, missionary biographies. And, uh, and whatever it was he did

00:31:45.400 was really something because by the time I swam into consciousness, by the time I was aware of my

00:31:50.860 surroundings, uh, my dad was the, the epitome of what a Christian man ought to be. And he, he would

00:31:58.640 have told you, man, I didn't have that background. I didn't have that growing up. I, I didn't know.

00:32:04.180 Well, what you did, what you don't know, you can resolve to come to know, right? And a biography is not,

00:32:12.220 uh, uh, is not quite as good as growing up with a, uh, a solid dad in the home. It's not quite as

00:32:19.780 good, but it's way, way better than nothing. Men, I'm going to take a quick break from the

00:32:25.900 conversation with pastor Doug. Uh, you know, guys, look in a world that pushes isolation and it really

00:32:32.140 rewards surface level connection. There are too many men who walk alone. They're disconnected.

00:32:38.060 Uh, they're discouraged and directionalist, but men were never meant to fight their battles in

00:32:44.340 silence. And some of you are, uh, brotherhood is more than camaraderie. It's a lifeline. If you will,

00:32:51.600 it's a tribe of men who will challenge you, they'll sharpen you and they'll call you to more. And

00:32:57.500 without it, I think we drift without good men in your corner. We drift, but with it, we grow

00:33:04.180 and we're, we have direction and clarity and real brotherhood holds you accountable. Um,

00:33:10.840 it reminds you of your purpose. It doesn't let you stay stuck in mediocrity. And that's exactly what

00:33:16.780 the iron council provides. It's not just a community. Everybody has a community these days.

00:33:22.300 It's a battle tested brotherhood of men. We're all committed to, uh, building discipline and strength

00:33:27.980 and leadership. But inside of it, you'll find structured accountability. You'll find a framework

00:33:34.040 for growth and men who call you out and call you up. I had a good conversation before we even started

00:33:40.840 this podcast with a good friend of mine who called me up. Uh, so if you're ready to stop going at it

00:33:46.740 alone, if you want to step into a challenge and you want to build the kind of life that you,

00:33:51.540 I quite literally believe that you were meant to build, then this is where it begins. Check it out.

00:33:56.660 It's at the iron council.com, the iron council.com. And you're going to learn about what we do.

00:34:04.500 We've got, uh, uh, 1100 men in the iron council and we're all building, growing, developing and,

00:34:11.160 um, building out our lives together. Again, it's the iron council.com. We're going to close it up

00:34:18.560 tonight at 11 59 PM Eastern time, 11 59 PM Eastern time. So you've got a little bit of time

00:34:26.580 to sign up. Make sure you do at the iron council.com. Check it out. But for now, let's get back to it

00:34:33.420 with Doug Wilson. Yeah. You know, when you were saying that it also reminded me of the, one of

00:34:41.500 the quotes that I love is, is, uh, and I think it's in future men, if boys don't learn men won't know.

00:34:46.740 Yeah. And I'm confronted with so many men who say to themselves, you know, I didn't have a dad when I

00:34:52.000 was growing up. How do I now become a man? And the answer is, well, you, you are, you are in a

00:34:57.780 position where you can be a clean slate and you can learn the things that you wish you would have

00:35:02.520 learned when you were a kid. And the only difference now is that you actually have control

00:35:06.300 over it. But you know, what is also interesting to me is the women that I know who are single

00:35:11.780 mothers personally, and many of the women who might listen to this podcast as well. Um, I think

00:35:18.760 you culture and society might make you believe that they don't want this, but I found the opposite

00:35:25.860 to be true. I found that the majority of single mothers actually want this for their boys. They

00:35:32.280 want their boys to be around good and strong and righteous, bold men. They know that they can't do

00:35:39.400 it entirely on their own. And they wrestle mentally and emotionally with the idea that they need to

00:35:46.440 figure out a way to help their boys become men. Right. Now there's, I should insert something.

00:35:52.080 I think you're exactly right. Um, but I will, I'll assert another, uh, variable in this. And this is

00:35:59.260 the case if, uh, if you've got a single mom at church and she's wanting her boy to, you know, play ball

00:36:05.080 with the other boys who have dads around and she wants, she wants her boy to see what godly masculinity

00:36:11.060 looks like. That's, that's very much a good instinct. And it's very often the case. Um, but let's say

00:36:18.500 you've got a typical, uh, married couple and they start having kids and they both grew up in this sort

00:36:25.140 of quasi soft culture of ours. Um, there are going to be two things going on. She, the mom is going to

00:36:33.460 have a deep creational need for her husband to be a man's man. She has a deep, a deep creational need

00:36:43.440 for him to wear the pants, for him to be hard for the family, to be a protector and so on. She has a

00:36:51.520 creational need for that. But women like, just like men are part of a fallen race. They are sinners too.

00:36:59.200 Right. And one of the things that we learned from, uh, Genesis three, when the curse is pronounced

00:37:05.800 on the woman, it says your desire shall be for your husband, but he will rule over you. Okay. Uh, that's

00:37:13.560 in Genesis three. The only time that Hebrew construction occurs elsewhere in the Bible is in the next

00:37:20.520 chapter, uh, when the curse is being pronounced on Cain, uh, or not the curse, but when a warning is being

00:37:27.480 given to Cain, uh, sin is crouching at the door, it's desires for you, but you must master it. It's

00:37:33.300 the same construction. So a woman has a desire for mastery over her husband, which sets up tension

00:37:41.660 and competition and the temptation to be unsubmissive and so on. So a godly woman, a woman who wants to

00:37:48.640 walk with God needs to be aware of these two elements in her being. There's the creational element

00:37:55.100 that wants her husband to be firm, wants her husband to lead, wants her husband to act like

00:38:00.740 he's the head. And then there's an element in her that wants him to lead the way she thinks he ought

00:38:06.760 to go. Right. Right. I want, I want you to lead, but make sure you do it right. You know, do it this

00:38:13.980 way. I want you to lead. I want you to be the leader, but make sure you do it the, the, according to the

00:38:20.420 plan I have in mind. Um, and this, this has a, um, this sets up attention and sometimes bumps and,

00:38:27.180 and scrapes between the husband and the wife. Uh, but it, it translates into how you bring up boys.

00:38:34.420 How, uh, how high should a dad throw his toddler in the air? Okay. How high should he do that? Well,

00:38:44.020 not as high as he wants to, but higher than she wants, right? That's fair. Yeah. Higher than she

00:38:52.040 wants. How, how high up the tree does dad let his 10 year old boy climb? The answer is higher than mom

00:39:00.540 wants. Okay. Higher, higher than mom wants, and perhaps a little less, uh, up there than the boy

00:39:07.460 wants, right? You don't want to spend all your time going to the ER, but, uh, there is such a

00:39:13.900 thing as crazy reckless that dads have to teach, uh, their, their boys to be prudential as well as

00:39:21.860 risk takers. So, uh, if you wrap your boys in bubble wrap so that nobody, uh, you know, if they're

00:39:30.360 12 years old and they're still sitting on a car seat with a bike helmet on, um, something has gone

00:39:36.080 desperately, terribly wrong. And what you're doing is you're inflicting wounds on that boy that won't

00:39:42.240 bleed until he's grown. Well, it's, it's, I mean, I, I would agree with you and it's interesting.

00:39:49.520 That word choice is interesting because most people would say and actually believe that they're doing

00:39:57.140 it to keep from inflicting harm upon their children to keep them safe, but they're actually creating the

00:40:03.900 opposite, not in a physical sense necessarily, at least now, but a mental and emotional sense

00:40:09.800 specifically down the road. Yeah. They're creating a, they're creating a void. They're creating an ache

00:40:16.200 and emptiness in that child that they, they don't know what they're for. God made men to take risks,

00:40:25.960 right? We're supposed to be risk takers. Uh, now we're not supposed to be crazy nuts in our risk

00:40:32.600 taking. Uh, there's a, there's a recklessness that would also be sinful, but, uh, nothing was ever

00:40:39.620 accomplished by men who refused to take risks. Who's going to, who's going to explore, who's going to

00:40:46.580 find new lands, who's going to hunt, who's going, you know, who's going to fight the wars. Uh, there is no way

00:40:54.380 to make this, um, to wish into existence, a cozy, safe nest, right? Tolstoy, not Tolstoy, Trotsky once

00:41:06.440 said, um, you may not be interested in war, but war is interested, interested in you. Uh, we live in a

00:41:14.040 dangerous world and that dangerous world has to be reckoned with. Uh, we, we can't wish it away.

00:41:22.100 And, uh, the wife may earnestly wish that her husband not have to go to war, not have to go out

00:41:29.900 to defend the family, not have to risk anything in order. But there's, there's one thing worse

00:41:35.940 than having a husband, uh, losing a husband in defense of his family. And that's having a husband

00:41:43.400 who won't do it. Yeah. Well, and, and obviously also the, um, the inherent dangers

00:41:51.660 that come with that. You know, I've, I've, I know of people who, for example, the wife will say,

00:41:56.900 well, I don't want you husband to have a gun in the house. And to me, I'm thinking, you know,

00:42:01.680 first there needs to be some education and then there needs to be an executive decision. You don't

00:42:06.180 want him to have a gun in the house until an intruder breaks in and he's willing to take care of the

00:42:10.560 threat. Then, then I imagine you really wouldn't complain much about it. That is absolutely,

00:42:16.000 absolutely, uh, absolutely correct. And, and the things that you, uh, you want to, uh, do is say,

00:42:23.880 look, hon, here are some basic prudential measures that I'm, I'm willing to have a gun safe,

00:42:29.980 right? I'm, I'm willing to, I'm willing to do, I don't want to leave a loaded gun on the coffee table

00:42:35.460 for our three-year-old boy to find. Um, yeah, I'm with you on that, but this, the world is a hard and

00:42:43.880 cruel place and men have to act in accordance with that.

00:42:51.600 I think to go back to the way that we started this conversation with the relative softness of

00:42:56.740 society and, and the abundance, you know, yes, we do live in a harsh world, but we also live in a

00:43:01.880 very abundant, prosperous world, access to medical care and access to creature comforts and technology

00:43:08.500 and all of these things have, I think the argument is, and I don't, I don't know, I don't know that

00:43:16.600 I'm saying this right, but that is, it has rendered risk less necessary. You know, there, there's not as

00:43:23.960 much risk for me to be in a physical altercation or have to fight for my life. Like there may have

00:43:29.700 been 500 years ago. Um, the saber tooth tiger is not going to eat me. Uh, so I'm safe there. Um,

00:43:37.380 even, even financial risk is lower than it's ever been. You know, we have social security and

00:43:42.080 disability benefits and unemployment benefits and welfare provisions where, Hey, if I lose my job,

00:43:47.540 I'm going to be okay. Like I'm going to be taken care of. And that risk is mitigated in some way.

00:43:52.320 I'm not, I think that's why people are maybe less inclined to take the risks that they otherwise

00:43:58.500 would maybe even a century ago. Right. Well, it actually divides up because we are,

00:44:05.600 uh, we are a pampered and coddled generation. I, uh, other people from other ages looking at

00:44:13.680 the things we have refrigeration, hot and cold running water, antibiotics, uh, you know, all the,

00:44:21.520 all these things. Uh, if you've got a 1998, uh, Toyota camera, um, Nebuchadnezzar would give up half

00:44:30.740 of his kingdom to have one of those. Right. Right. Um, and we, we are unimaginably wealthy and we,

00:44:38.580 and, and we are pampered and, and so consequently it's possible for people to coast and survive

00:44:47.240 without ever learning how to take risks or they, they, um, and, and that is to their detriment

00:44:54.460 because what's happening is they're forfeiting a crucial element in character formation. But then

00:45:02.320 there's, there are others who, um, and this is quite striking to me where, uh, a lot of, uh, extreme

00:45:10.740 sports have developed as a reaction demonstrating that we have a basic need to take risks. So when

00:45:21.380 you, when you see somebody rock climbing or extreme mountain biking, or some of the crazy things that

00:45:29.560 people do with parasailing and, uh, you know, uh, some of the, some of these extreme sports are

00:45:36.460 testament to the fact that God doesn't want us to spend our lives sitting on the sofa, watching,

00:45:43.900 uh, a Netflix series. That's not how we're supposed to spend our lives.

00:45:50.620 I imagine too, I would say this probably more about boys than, than girls, that they're at some

00:45:58.820 point, if they're not allowed to risk and take these, not, not reckless risks, but prudent risks.

00:46:07.340 That they will then eventually rebel because it's so innate in them and they'll rebel and end up

00:46:14.300 doing something that maybe is reckless unless they're giving, given somewhat of a lead or rope

00:46:20.300 to be able to enjoy within certain parameters. You know, I, for example, with my kids, I want them to

00:46:26.140 take risks. I don't want them to die, but I would like them to take risks. And it's my job to figure out

00:46:31.820 where that line is of safety versus risk-taking adventure learning. Like you said, I hadn't

00:46:39.740 thought about that, but character development is another big one that comes with taking those risks

00:46:43.500 as well. Yeah. You want physical safety, but you also want emotional safety throughout the rest of

00:46:49.260 their life. Emotional security. Um, and you've reminded me of, uh, uh, my, my son and my grandson,

00:46:57.260 my son's family, uh, a few, a number of years ago lived downtown Moscow and they were a block away from

00:47:04.540 the hospital and they were hanging around in the living room. And my grandson was jumping off of

00:47:10.380 the couch and got up on the arm of the couch and was jumping off the couch. And my son was there and,

00:47:17.100 uh, my grandson said he, his next for my next trick, he wanted to do a flip. He wanted to do a flip off of

00:47:24.460 the couch. And my son said, no, I don't, uh, let's not do that. And, uh, well, I really want to, but

00:47:31.900 let's, let's not do that. You might get hurt. And my grandson said, but the hospital's right there.

00:47:40.060 That's funny. Yeah. Um, so that's the spirit you want. Even when you tap on the brakes, which a good,

00:47:48.060 good and God, Godly father will tap on the brakes. Um, it, there's no way to make the learning of

00:47:56.220 taking risks comfortable. The whole, the whole point of it is to be uncomfortable. And, and,

00:48:04.220 and the whole point is to learn where that zone is, where that sweet spot is, where you're stretched

00:48:11.420 beyond what you thought you could do, but you're not stretched so far that you're out of your mind.

00:48:18.460 Why do you think, well, first, let me ask you this. Do you believe that that at some point,

00:48:23.260 whether it's a moment or gradually over time dies in men? And if that's the case, why does it die

00:48:30.140 in men? Why does that happen? Because I think we do become more domicile, more obedient, more civil,

00:48:37.660 less risk-taking. Is it just hormonal and biological, or is there something else at play here?

00:48:44.060 No, I think, I think there are biological shifts that take place. Uh, the softness in men is not just a

00:48:50.940 psychological softness. It, it becomes a physical thing. It becomes an emotional thing. And then,

00:48:57.420 um, you've got the additional factor of drugs where in the government schools, they don't know how to

00:49:04.860 discipline boys. And so consequently they diagnosed them as having, uh, ADHD and, you know, all the,

00:49:13.820 all the things. And the school has a sign outside that says drug free zone, which we ought to say,

00:49:20.220 yeah, right. Uh, drug free zone, unless administered by the school nurse, which is happening to a third of

00:49:26.620 your boys or, you know, whatever it is. Uh, so what we do is we hit boys on the head with a chemical rock

00:49:33.580 in order to keep them docile because, uh, now, uh, teaching junior high boys, for example,

00:49:41.100 can be like trying to train orangutans. Uh, and it's, it's, uh, nightmarish.

00:49:47.180 Yeah. It's a, it's a real thing, but we've been doing this for thousands of years. I, it's not like

00:49:53.860 we don't know how, uh, it's that in our soft generation, we've given up and we'd rather take

00:50:00.300 the easy way out rather than disciplining boys and teaching them what their, their toughness is for,

00:50:07.260 what their, what their angsty activity is for, instead of directing it in a profitable direction,

00:50:14.860 uh, we have decided to render it inert. Okay. So, uh, another way of coming at this

00:50:22.620 is that I, I think that it is absolutely, this is an inescapable concept in every society,

00:50:29.420 everywhere, men, men are dominant. Okay. Men will be dominant. You can't make them not dominant.

00:50:37.580 You can't pass a law that, uh, makes men not dominant. Feminism.

00:50:43.700 I mean, you can't legislate biology. You can't legislate it. Right. Feminism is like trying to

00:50:48.820 have Congress decree that triangles will have four sides. Uh, it's not going to happen,

00:50:54.700 but there, this is a fallen world and it's possible for men to be dominant in a constructive way.

00:51:02.600 And it's possible for men to be dominant in a destructive way. Okay. But, but they're going to

00:51:09.560 be dominant somehow, some way. And what feminism has done is that it has outlawed constructive

00:51:16.920 dominance, right? You, you may not have constructive dominance. You may not have dominance within the

00:51:24.180 law. So it goes back to the principle when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns. When

00:51:31.060 constructive dominant males are outlawed, the only thing you're going to get is destructive

00:51:37.640 male dominance, right? That's the only thing you're going to get. And some of what you get

00:51:42.720 is going to be gang bangers and the, the kinds of people that Trump is trying to deport. You're

00:51:48.920 going to get that kind of thing, or you're going to get effeminate, soft beta males who are destructively

00:51:56.320 dominant. Their, their wimpiness dominates the home, right? Their abdication dominates. If the

00:52:04.660 husband just ups and runs away, deserts his family, that empty chair at the dinner table dominates,

00:52:11.280 right? That's present. That's a, that's, that's palpable. Right. So consequently, you can't pass a law

00:52:18.040 that says men will no longer have an important role. Back in the seventies, the feminists had a

00:52:23.960 saying that said, a woman needs a man, like a fish needs a bicycle. Well, it turns out that that's not

00:52:30.680 true, right? Women need men. Daughters need men. Sons need men. And our society has chased men away,

00:52:43.140 pelting them with rocks, calling them names. And now you're starting to see think pieces appear.

00:52:48.560 Where have all the men gone? Where are all the good? Where are all the good? We said you didn't want

00:52:55.360 us. Yeah. Oh, please come, please come back. Well, um, you know, nothing doing, just nothing doing.

00:53:03.960 Here's a, uh, and here's another way of, uh, I don't think they're going to come back apart from

00:53:09.020 a radical cultural repentance. Okay. So if here's another way of looking at male female dynamics and all of

00:53:18.120 this, um, uh, and this is something I learned from George Gilder and his book, uh, men in marriage,

00:53:24.920 but given the fact of male dominance, uh, you have to also take into effect, take into account

00:53:32.100 the difference between a man's sexual cycle and a woman's sexual cycle. A man's sexual cycle

00:53:39.600 goes from arousal to climax. A woman's sexual cycle goes from arousal to when the kid graduates from

00:53:47.060 college. Okay. She has a long-term nesting sexual cycle. And for, and for her, it's all relational,

00:53:56.500 all sexual, the whole thing ties together. Now, those are two very different sexual cycles. And

00:54:03.280 I'm right here. I'm talking about selfish and I'm not talking about people who are submitted to the

00:54:08.680 scriptures. I'm just talking about the way men think the way women think independent of scriptural

00:54:15.100 instruction. Okay. Um, not because I want us to live that way, but because I want the scriptural

00:54:20.860 instruction to actually deal with men as they are and women as they are. Right. So if, if you have a,

00:54:28.820 um, a society where the women subordinate their sexual cycle to the men's, what you have is a boatload

00:54:36.940 of Vikings, what you have is a motorcycle gang, right? Um, uh, the boatload of Vikings is give,

00:54:45.280 they give themselves over to the dominant male characteristic of rape and pillage, you know,

00:54:50.740 onto the next, onto the next village. You're saying what's that left, left unchecked by, by their female

00:54:57.360 counterparts. That's right. Because the woman's sexual cycle is subordinated to theirs. Uh, women are

00:55:02.580 always available down the road, just do what you want to do. Uh, and so what you have is a freebooting

00:55:09.260 piratical lifestyle. Um, when it goes the other way, when men subordinate their sexual cycle to the

00:55:16.540 woman's, what you have is civilization, towns, cities, uh, great accompli, you know, all of a sudden

00:55:25.180 civilization happens. But here's the thing, what, what would induce men to give up their life of

00:55:32.040 freebooting piracy in order to come settle down, commit themselves to one woman and be a farmer,

00:55:39.620 right? Sexual opportunity, sexual, well, it's sexual opportunity and predictability, but there's

00:55:46.000 sexual opportunity in the piratical lifestyle too. It's just more risky and that's that sort of thing.

00:55:52.560 Uh, so the, I'm postulating an imaginary deal with struck. Look, men, if you come, if you, if you come

00:56:01.080 and settle down, commit yourself to one woman, take care of her and take care of your offspring. If you

00:56:06.580 do that, the end result of which is civilization, we will let you be in charge. Interesting. Okay. Um,

00:56:15.640 you can be the head of the home. We will honor and respect you as the head of the home. Uh, you can be,

00:56:21.200 uh, leaders and shakers and movers that we, we want, uh, in order to induce you to be here and stay,

00:56:28.720 we understand that it's going to have to be patriarchal. Okay. It's going to have to be

00:56:34.480 patriarchal. Now, what feminism did was it outlawed any expression of patriarchy. You, you can't,

00:56:43.160 you can't even talk that way, right? If you're the CEO of a major corporation,

00:56:47.860 you could be a millionaire and the CEO top of your game. If you say something like,

00:56:52.660 I think women should be at home making biscuits, something outrageous like that. Your career is

00:56:59.180 over, right? That, that sort of thing is policed and it's policed, uh, vigorously, which means that,

00:57:08.080 uh, feminists welched on the deal. Okay. They, they welched on the deal and we started to get

00:57:16.820 the pirates showing up again. We start, we've got crime ridden inner cities. We've, what's happening

00:57:24.100 there? The men are going back to the lifestyle of Vikings. Why, why wouldn't they? Right now,

00:57:31.200 of course, interesting. Of course we would say as Christians, I don't want ultimately men subordinating

00:57:39.080 their sexual cycle to the woman's or the other way. I want them both to subordinate their sexual

00:57:43.940 cycles to the authority of Christ. Right. But what, what Christ tells us is that, uh, the husband is

00:57:52.120 the head of his, head of his wife. The family is a patriarchal unit and it cannot be healthy

00:57:58.120 otherwise. Right. There's no way to have a well-ordered home where mom is doing it alone

00:58:06.300 or mom is, uh, wearing the pants and dictating to her husband the way it's going to go. There's

00:58:12.940 simply no way to have that turnout, uh, in a way that's not ugly. When, when you're talking about

00:58:22.820 the, you, you, you imagine this, this deal that was struck, uh, I don't think, are you,

00:58:29.440 I don't think you're saying it's a cultural deal. You're saying it's a biological deal that

00:58:33.200 was struck, correct? Or did I misunderstand? Yeah, no, you're understanding me correctly. This is,

00:58:37.640 this is a, and it's when you're not in the grip of an ideology like feminism, this is a deal that

00:58:44.560 everybody understands in their bones. Everybody just got it. Everybody just gets it. Right. Um,

00:58:51.080 and they, and they're going to continue, they're going to just get it instinctively. They're going

00:58:54.980 to know, of course we want the men around. And of course the men are going to want to be men

00:58:58.900 and the women want the men to be men. And that, all that, uh, natural revelation that we have in our

00:59:05.680 bones, in our creational being is then reinforced when the people, uh, believe in Christ and they start

00:59:12.680 reading their Bibles and they say, Oh yeah, it's here too. You know, this, this is, this is God's

00:59:18.360 pattern. This is God's plan. God established Adam and Eve in the garden. And Adam was the protector

00:59:25.600 and the provider. And then all the way through the old Testament and down through the new,

00:59:30.360 you have male responsibility and male leadership. And then you have the apostle Paul insisting on it.

00:59:36.820 He doesn't permit a woman to teach or have authority over men in the church. You, uh, it's just very,

00:59:42.800 very clear. It's clear through natural revelation and it's clear through special revelation that,

00:59:49.360 uh, we need a patriarchal society in order to bless the women. Right. Um, because I'm glad you said

00:59:58.360 that because that is, that is the point. I think that a lot of people get wrong when they start to

01:00:02.580 have a pessimistic view of the things that you're sharing now. I don't think they understand what

01:00:08.480 you just said that righteous men, which I tried to be, have a innate, innate desire to serve women.

01:00:16.740 That is protect, provide, preserve. That's, that's service. It's not at their expense. It's at their

01:00:22.640 benefit. Right. There's a difference. The way I put it, this is there's a difference, uh, between a man

01:00:29.120 being hard for the woman and a man being hard on the woman. Right. Uh, his hardship, his toughness

01:00:38.640 is to be a gift to her. Right. So when she sees her husband's toughness, she, it should make her feel

01:00:47.220 warm all over. Right. Um, it says, and actually, uh, in Ephesians five, it says, uh, a husband is to

01:00:56.160 nourish and cherish his wife. And one of the words there is Thalpo. The Greek word is to keep warm,

01:01:02.560 right? Um, a, a woman is to be fed and protected. She should feel secured, but the only, in this world,

01:01:11.660 the only way she can feel secure is if he is tough. Right. So let me, you know, before they're,

01:01:19.840 let's say they're before they're married and it's, they're at an event and, uh, they're engaged and

01:01:26.080 he says, I need, I need to walk you to your car. Right. Well, it's, it's after dark. I'm not going

01:01:32.920 to, you know, you know, you can't go out there alone. I'm going to walk you to your car. Even

01:01:36.740 if the crime rate is low, that's a good thing to do. Right. Because what he's doing is he's

01:01:42.460 signaling to her that I intend to, uh, love you as Christ loved the church and gave himself

01:01:49.920 up for it. Right. So if the two of them are worthy of protecting too, this is a woman that's worthy of

01:01:56.620 being protected. That's right. She, he's placing a value on, on her. And that's the sort of thing

01:02:03.620 when men start abdicating, when men run away, when men abandon their post, it's the women that get it

01:02:10.200 in the teeth. The, the women are the ones who are, uh, really worked over by this. It's so interesting.

01:02:17.620 I had a, an author on his name's Orion Terriban. He wrote a book called the value of others. And one

01:02:23.960 of the assertions that he makes is that women are the gatekeepers of sexual opportunity and men are

01:02:29.820 the gatekeepers of commitment. And as I was thinking about what he said and what you've said, there's a

01:02:34.480 lot of alignment in that. Um, you talk about her sexual cycle that is gatekeeping sexual

01:02:40.120 opportunity. Uh, the men being the gatekeeper of commitment means, Hey, I'm willing to protect

01:02:46.640 you. I'm willing to provide for you. Um, I'm willing to lead. I'm willing to be tough and hard

01:02:51.880 and take on all the, um, what's the quote, the real man gains renown by standing between his family

01:02:58.680 and destruction, absorbing the blows of fate with equanimity. I'm willing to do that, but I need to

01:03:04.160 know that there's commitment here, that you're worth being the kind of person that I want to do that for.

01:03:09.260 And you're what you just quoted there reminds me of my definition of masculinity is masculinity is

01:03:16.340 the glad assumption of sacrificial responsibility. That's what it is. Say that again. Uh, masculinity

01:03:23.440 is the glad assumption of sacrificial responsibility. And I think that aligns perfectly with what you just

01:03:32.180 quoted and with men as the gatekeepers of commitment, women as the gatekeepers of sexual

01:03:37.660 opportunity. It, that all aligns those, those things map onto each other perfectly.

01:03:43.360 Yeah. Well, I know you've got, uh, your new, we're going to shift gears here a little bit. I want to

01:03:48.680 give the opportunity to tell these guys a little bit more about the work that you're doing. You have

01:03:53.200 the man rampant series. I think you're on season seven, if I remember correctly. And you've got a lot

01:03:58.000 of other work, including books that multiple books that I've read personally. Will you let the guys know

01:04:02.720 where to find out about man rampant and then also, um, any other information they want to hear about?

01:04:08.020 Sure. Sure. The best, but we've got sort of a one-stop place. Um, and that would be my blog.

01:04:13.180 So blog and may blog is the name of it. And the address is dougwills.com. So if you go to dougwills.com

01:04:20.780 on the front page there, if you just open up the front page, there's a portal to pretty much

01:04:25.820 everything I'm involved with. New St. Andrews college, Logos school, ACCS, Canon plus, uh,

01:04:32.140 Canon plus, Canon press plus, um, is where the man rampant series is, is housed. Um, and so all the

01:04:40.960 stuff that I do is pretty much there. Great. Well, we'll sync everything up. I'm honored to be able

01:04:47.100 to have this conversation. I've been following your work for a long time. I've read some of your

01:04:51.040 works and to be able to have this conversation means a lot to me. And I hope it serves the guys.

01:04:55.320 I know it will. Um, I really believe that the work that you're doing to call men up to be strong and

01:05:00.220 righteous and bold and courageous is something that definitely, definitely we need more of. So I

01:05:04.780 appreciate what you do for work and how you're impacting culture. Thank you. And I appreciate the

01:05:09.340 opportunity to be with you. Thank you.

01:05:10.960 Men. There you go. My conversation with Douglas Wilson. I hope you enjoyed that one. I've been

01:05:17.300 looking forward to this for years. I've read some of his books, future men being one of them,

01:05:22.260 his team reached out and asked if they could have a conversation with us. And of course I said, yes.

01:05:26.680 So make sure you check out, uh, Doug Wilson, pastor, Doug Wilson, look at what he's doing with his books.

01:05:33.340 Look at what he's doing with man rampant. And I think you will attest to the power, whether you're a

01:05:39.160 Christian or not the power that he speaks with the conviction that he has and his ability to take

01:05:44.940 these concepts and deliver them in ways that you and I as men can receive them. And most importantly,

01:05:51.040 implement them guys, check out Doug Wilson. Also make sure you check out the iron council. We're closed

01:05:58.240 up, but you can get on the waiting list at order man.com slash iron council. And of course,

01:06:03.280 my good friends over at Montana knife company. If you end up buying a knife, use the code order of

01:06:09.240 man. Not only does it tell them that you found us here, it saves you some money. So it's a win,

01:06:15.160 win, win over at Montana knife company.com. Use the code order of man. All right, guys,

01:06:21.360 we'll be back on Friday until then go out there, take action and become the man you are meant to be.

01:06:26.140 Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life and be

01:06:34.300 more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order at order of man.com.

Order of Man - July 01, 2025

DOUGLAS WILSON ｜ Bold Men. Hard Truths. No Apologies.

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