Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 833 ｜ How Christianity Makes Men Better ｜ Guest： Nancy Pearcey (Part Two)

00:00:00.960 Christianity allows men to oppress women, or at least that's what we've heard. 0.98

00:00:06.540 But actually, it's Christianity that channels men's natural instincts to be used for good

00:00:13.900 and protective purposes rather than destructive purposes.

00:00:18.020 And it's actually the secular atheistic perspective that pushes male oppression and female inferiority.

00:00:25.600 And to prove that and explain it today is Professor Nancy Piercy.

00:00:30.880 She is the author of several books, including Total Truth, Love Thy Body, which I reference

00:00:35.840 all the time, and her latest book, The Toxic War on Masculinity. 1.00

00:00:41.000 This is part two of our two-part conversation about the body and gender and gender roles,

00:00:46.900 and specifically today on masculinity and the importance of biblical masculinity.

00:00:52.780 This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers.

00:00:55.960 Go to GoodRanchers.com.

00:00:57.400 Use code Allie at checkout. 1.00

00:00:58.640 That's GoodRanchers.com, code Allie.

00:01:10.140 You purport that biblical masculinity is really, I mean, as you just said, is really like the

00:01:16.520 distinction.

00:01:17.080 It's really the game changer.

00:01:18.620 You wrote for The Federalist that rejecting biblical masculinity turns men from protectors

00:01:25.160 to predators.

00:01:26.900 So tell us a little bit more about that.

00:01:29.900 Well, the title was chosen by the editors, from protector to predator.

00:01:35.600 That was their language.

00:01:37.560 But again, you know, one of the things that I bring to the table is I show you from even

00:01:42.500 non-Christian sources.

00:01:44.160 So this was a fascinating study.

00:01:46.840 It was done by a non-Christian historian, and he said, your view of God determines your

00:01:56.140 view of masculinity in a culture.

00:01:59.380 For example, he starts with polytheism.

00:02:02.320 So think of the ancient Greek cultures with the gods on Mount Olympus, or think of the Norse

00:02:08.180 gods.

00:02:08.700 He said, in a polytheistic culture, these are his words, the gods fought, they winched,

00:02:15.500 they parroted their power, and they exalted the military values.

00:02:20.400 You know, to be a man is to be a warrior.

00:02:22.620 Well, there's some truth to that.

00:02:24.160 Every culture has parts of God's truth, because they're made in God's image.

00:02:30.180 But it's incomplete.

00:02:31.240 So then he goes on, this non-Christian historian, goes on and says, what about monotheistic cultures?

00:02:37.680 Well, there's some forms of monotheism where God is so exalted and so transcendent that he

00:02:41.900 has no relationship with humans.

00:02:44.280 And he gives the example of Islam.

00:02:46.660 In Islam, God does not have his... 1.00

00:02:50.680 I read a book on the subject, and so I'll give you the exact words.

00:02:53.840 Allah does not condescend to have a relationship with mere mortals. 0.52

00:02:59.980 You know, the Judeo-Christian idea of a personal relationship with God is repugnant to Islam. 0.99

00:03:06.280 So in Islam, a man is a person exerting power and authority over. 0.85

00:03:12.760 Then the historian says, what about Judaism?

00:03:16.120 It's monotheistic as well, but it adds the dimension that God is in relationship with his

00:03:21.400 people.

00:03:21.720 He has a covenant relationship with his people.

00:03:24.660 So in Judaism, to be a man is to be a loving father.

00:03:29.360 And then the same secular historian says, then Jesus came and complexified the whole question.

00:03:37.400 This is so fascinating.

00:03:38.760 He says, Jesus introduced a new concept, servant leadership.

00:03:44.660 He said, there's no other religion where the God practices servant leadership.

00:03:49.560 I came not to be served, but to serve, Jesus says.

00:03:55.420 And this historian says, all of a sudden, virtues like love and gentleness and compassion became

00:04:04.180 masculine virtues.

00:04:05.960 In fact, the virtues we normally ascribe to women, he said, are now masculine virtues.

00:04:12.380 So it is Christianity that allows men to be full humans, you know, both sides, both tender

00:04:19.440 and tough, both courageous and caring.

00:04:22.500 Men made in God's image are able to be whole persons.

00:04:27.060 And it's fascinating when you read even non-Christians acknowledging that Christianity gives this rich, 0.81

00:04:32.740 full understanding of masculinity that you don't get anywhere else.

00:04:36.200 And looking back throughout history, this idea of female inferiority, even though we read that it's really 0.99

00:04:43.200 Christianity who authored that idea, that's really a press woman. 0.98

00:04:47.380 It was Paul, the Apostle Paul, who is this great misogynist.

00:04:51.160 And really, you know, all these secular philosophies have been trying to liberate women. 0.99

00:04:55.600 But if you go all the way back to the ancient scholars, if you look at some of the things that Socrates said,

00:05:01.000 that Aristotle said about women, I mean, they believed there was an innate inferiority to women. 1.00

00:05:07.260 And actually, Paul writing something in Ephesians 5, like,

00:05:11.080 wives submit to your husbands, but also husbands.

00:05:14.300 You better be ready to lay down your life for your wife. 0.89

00:05:18.780 And also writing in 1 Corinthians that, yes, the wife's body doesn't belong to her. 0.87

00:05:23.340 It belongs to her husband.

00:05:24.380 But husband, your body also belongs to your wife. 0.96

00:05:26.940 There was a radical equality of dignity, equality of worth, and a mutual submission that Christianity 0.62

00:05:33.660 brought to the table that would have really rocked the boat and revolutionized what the

00:05:40.820 ancient world, what the secular world thought about, you know, the equality of women when

00:05:46.540 it came to their value.

00:05:48.960 And really, like, we see that throughout history, even Darwin.

00:05:51.660 Like, Darwin really believed in the inferiority of women. 0.98

00:05:54.440 So the true history of the church, true the true church, not just nominal Christians oppressing

00:05:59.760 people in the name of Christianity, but the true church, true followers of Christ, have

00:06:03.880 been trying to champion the dignity of both men and women for a very long time, really since

00:06:10.960 our inception.

00:06:13.160 Yeah, well, you have two great points.

00:06:15.280 One is, we appreciate Christianity better when we put it in its historical context, because

00:06:23.220 the Greco-Roman world had a very low view of women. 1.00

00:06:27.360 You know, wives were for having legal heirs, and that's about it. 1.00

00:06:31.400 It was totally accepted for men to have sex with just about anyone else, you know, with 0.90

00:06:37.840 courtesans and mistresses and prostitutes and other men. 0.93

00:06:42.980 By the way, homosexuality was also widely accepted. 0.95

00:06:46.500 And slaves, the most frequent form of adultery was with a man's slaves, male and female, adult

00:06:55.260 and children, exactly.

00:06:57.120 Yeah, there's no sense that sex with children is a problem.

00:07:00.880 So yes, when Christianity showed up in the ancient world, it was dramatically revolutionary.

00:07:06.440 And one of the most important parts was what you just said, there was an equality between

00:07:12.320 men and women that was just unheard of in the ancient world.

00:07:17.300 And it took several centuries.

00:07:19.360 It took several centuries.

00:07:20.460 We have a quote from John of Kassassam, who's writing to Christian husbands in the fourth century, 0.91

00:07:29.660 still telling them, no, you cannot have sex with your slaves. 0.99

00:07:32.820 You know, this was not an easy thing for men to accept. 0.98

00:07:35.640 It was so ingrained that, well, you know, that sexual entitlement was very ingrained.

00:07:40.220 And so it was very new when Christianity said, no, it's ethic was not new for women because 1.00

00:07:46.960 women were expected to be sexually faithful. 1.00

00:07:49.380 But it was dramatically new for men to say, no, you have to have the same sexual ethic that

00:07:55.500 women have. 1.00

00:07:56.060 That was new.

00:07:58.640 And you also raised Darwinism to jump several centuries ahead.

00:08:05.620 Darwinism.

00:08:07.260 In my book, The Toxic One, Masculinity, I trace several stages in the development of a

00:08:15.360 more toxic understanding of masculinity.

00:08:18.660 You know, I just I really wanted to get to the bottom of it and say, you don't understand

00:08:23.020 a social trend unless you see where it came from and how it developed.

00:08:27.640 And so Darwinism was one important stage, because what you've already mentioned is Darwin

00:08:33.280 himself argued that women were inferior. 0.73

00:08:36.000 They were intellectually inferior. 0.79

00:08:37.500 And by the way, he said, oh, yes, they are more sensitive and intuitive.

00:08:42.020 But those are traits of the lower species.

00:08:45.220 So even women's strengths were seen as signs of her inferiority. 1.00

00:08:48.800 And Thomas Huxley, who was called Darwin's bulldog because he promoted Darwinism so fiercely,

00:08:55.760 said that because women's inferiority was a product of natural selection, it cannot be 0.99

00:09:02.600 fixed even by educational selection.

00:09:05.500 In other words, you can't educate women out of their inferiority. 1.00

00:09:08.740 But perhaps the person who was most expressive was Herbert Spencer.

00:09:13.420 He's the one who popularized Darwinism here in America.

00:09:17.420 And he wrote explicitly on the relationship between the sexes.

00:09:22.080 He said the men who came out on top in the struggle for survival would be the men who were

00:09:29.300 rough, ruthless, savage, barbarian, brutal, and even predatory.

00:09:36.080 And so he argued that this is the true nature of the masculine identity is the beast within.

00:09:47.600 Writers at the time used to talk about there's a thin veneer of civilization, but underneath

00:09:52.680 men really are savage barbarians.

00:09:55.600 This is when the Tarzan books became very popular, by the way, because the idea was, hey, he's

00:10:01.700 been he's been raised by the apes.

00:10:03.180 So he still has that inner wildness.

00:10:04.780 And at the end of the book, Tarzan says to Jane, I'm still a wild beast at heart.

00:10:12.060 So instead of urging men to live up to the image of God in them, our culture began to

00:10:20.120 urge men to live down to the beast within.

00:10:23.440 That was their true nature.

00:10:25.840 They were products of evolution, of genes and environment.

00:10:29.940 And the true self were the impulses of power and dominance.

00:10:34.120 Well, that was a huge part of the development of a very, I would say, toxic, secular script 1.00

00:10:40.420 for masculinity.

00:10:41.520 If you want to know where it's coming from, that would be a very important turning point.

00:10:45.500 Yeah, you know, it is interesting.

00:10:59.220 I see a lot in from secular progressives looking to the animal kingdom to justify certain kinds

00:11:05.560 of human behavior.

00:11:06.640 Well, you know, other species don't practice monogamy. 0.60

00:11:09.760 They don't practice sexual faithfulness.

00:11:11.920 I even saw a National Geographic video on Instagram the other day arguing that there's

00:11:18.760 a ton of homosexuality in the animal kingdom and that it's very normal. 0.99

00:11:22.940 It's interesting how now we are looking.

00:11:26.120 OK, so we've evolved, according to Darwin, to this place.

00:11:29.440 Now, instead of walking forward, you know, that typical picture of us basically evolving

00:11:33.460 from monkeys and then barbarians and then who we are today.

00:11:37.320 Now we've turned around and we're like, oh, how can we look to apes to inform and validate, 0.77

00:11:44.160 you know, what we want to do, our carnal desires, as if we should be looking to the chaos of the

00:11:50.180 animal kingdom to, you know, dictate how we lead our lives and form society today.

00:11:57.000 It's like, you know, Romans 1, worshipping the creature rather than the creator.

00:12:01.220 Oh, isn't it?

00:12:02.120 That's a very good connection.

00:12:03.780 Yeah, you're absolutely right.

00:12:04.760 And yeah, so we don't just treat Darwinism historically.

00:12:08.040 You know, he was writing in the late 19th century.

00:12:10.340 But today, social Darwinism, social Darwinism means applying Darwinism to society.

00:12:16.640 And that's still very big today.

00:12:18.540 It goes under the label of evolutionary psychology.

00:12:22.600 And they're doing exactly what you just said.

00:12:24.880 Evolutionary psychologists basically say we take our cues from the animal world.

00:12:29.760 So Time magazine had a cover story on saying that monogamy is not natural, since, you know,

00:12:37.340 monogamy is not that common in the animal world.

00:12:41.040 Therefore, monogamy is just not natural.

00:12:43.900 I think the title was Infidelity, It May Be In Our Genes.

00:12:48.000 And there was another psychologist, Stephen Pinker, who is at Harvard, wrote a book where he said, 0.75

00:12:56.160 if the goal is to get your genes into the next generation, then men should have sex with as many women as possible 1.00

00:13:02.920 to ensure that his genes get spread far and wide. 0.89

00:13:06.600 So evolution has selected for promiscuity, at least for men. 0.94

00:13:11.900 And by the way, which is which doesn't even make sense scientifically, because human children

00:13:16.920 take such a long period of development that if the if the father disappears, you know,

00:13:22.700 for his next sexual conquest and doesn't stick around to raise the child, he probably won't survive.

00:13:27.720 So evolution should select for faithful husbands and fathers. 0.94

00:13:31.920 But perhaps the most extreme example was Robert Wright wrote a book called The Moral Animal, 0.94

00:13:39.300 which was a bestseller in which he said, because of evolution, men are flesh-obsessed pigs, 0.99

00:13:48.360 oppressive, sex-obsessed pigs. 1.00

00:13:53.560 Teaching a man to have a good marriage is like teaching Vikings, you know, 1.00

00:13:58.500 handing them a booklet on how not to pillage.

00:14:00.860 I was like, what? 0.97

00:14:03.260 This is the message of evolution, that men are flesh-obsessed pigs who are like Vikings 0.99

00:14:07.860 who just want to pillage? 0.98

00:14:09.300 Like, if that were true, there would be no marriage.

00:14:12.660 For example, why would women marry a man like that?

00:14:15.560 And, you know, how could they stand to live with him?

00:14:18.640 By the way, Herbert Spencer answered that question, too.

00:14:21.780 He said, if evolution has selected for these brutal, savage, predatory men,

00:14:27.460 how do women get along with them? 1.00

00:14:29.120 Right.

00:14:29.920 And he answered, they have to develop the ability to please.

00:14:35.700 And it would also help if they learn to hide their resentment at such ill treatment.

00:14:42.580 So apparently that's the message of evolution, is that men are basically brutal beasts under the surface,

00:14:49.000 under the thin veneer of civilization.

00:14:50.820 And women's job is to placate and please them. 1.00

00:14:55.320 Wow.

00:14:55.960 Isn't that so interesting?

00:14:57.800 Yeah.

00:14:58.120 And so we need to be confident in bringing out a Christian view of masculinity in the public square, 0.58

00:15:02.660 because a Christian view gives men and women far more dignity and value than any secular worldview does.

00:15:08.800 Yes.

00:15:09.520 Yes.

00:15:09.720 I don't know if you have talked to Louise Perry.

00:15:13.220 Yes.

00:15:13.800 And she, I talked to her, too.

00:15:15.720 And, you know, she's a feminist who is not an evangelical, but she argues that the Christian

00:15:21.540 sexual ethic is better for women and children than really what secular feminism has been able to come up with. 1.00

00:15:30.940 And that's the thing, you know, that's the thing with progressivism is that they're constantly trying to tear down these boundaries,

00:15:38.640 these walls, these norms, without any thought to what a better alternative edifice could be.

00:15:45.620 It's only about tearing down norms and hoping that that leads to liberation when all these structures were actually put in place,

00:15:54.480 like the family, like marriage, like certain gender roles and differentiations for our good.

00:16:02.580 Yeah.

00:16:03.340 I thought it was very interesting that Louise Perry became more conservative.

00:16:07.880 Remember, her roots are very liberal, very leftist.

00:16:10.900 She wrote for the New Statesman, which is considered a very leftist publication.

00:16:15.940 And how did she become more conservative?

00:16:18.960 Because she began working at a rape shelter. 1.00

00:16:21.180 She began seeing that realistically, physically, men have more power, whether you want to acknowledge it or not.

00:16:31.940 You don't want to.

00:16:33.440 A woman should not end up in a tight spot. 1.00

00:16:37.280 Both of you half drunk.

00:16:39.160 He's going to be he's stronger than you.

00:16:41.280 Most men.

00:16:42.400 Here's how one person put it. 0.99

00:16:43.440 Most men could kill most women with their bare hands if they really wanted to. 0.51

00:16:47.420 And that's not the reverse.

00:16:48.620 So Louise Perry became more conservative because she realized a lot of those rules, like chivalry, for example, are in place to protect women. 1.00

00:16:59.680 Right.

00:16:59.700 And we're not acknowledging that men, if we don't acknowledge that men have greater physical strength, then we won't put the moral restraints up to keep them in line.

00:17:13.740 And I think that's for me, that's a very realistic approach to why the Christian ethic is so much better for society.

00:17:20.960 I have to tell you, Ali, I even became more conservative when I wrote my two chapters on domestic abuse.

00:17:27.600 I have a background, a history of being much more feminist in my younger years and which I write about in the book.

00:17:37.000 But I became more conservative writing the two chapters on domestic violence because I saw much more clearly that if we do not teach men to restrain their greater strength, then they can do more damage, which is what you said earlier in the program.

00:17:56.060 Men have more strength and therefore they can do more damage.

00:17:59.100 It's not that they're more evil, you know, than women. 1.00

00:18:01.440 It's just that they can do more damage because of their greatest strength.

00:18:04.500 And there's a very realistic reason why we have special rules for how men treat women and why the Bible is so real.

00:18:15.820 You know, it's real world.

00:18:18.080 You know, people think of the Bible sometimes as sort of airy, fairy, spiritual stuff.

00:18:21.460 No, this is very real world.

00:18:22.980 And, you know, hang around domestic violence shelters or like Louise Perry did, rape shelters, and you will start to change your understanding of male-female relationships and the incredible importance it is to address especially men because they have more physical strength.

00:18:39.840 And what Christianity offers that feminism doesn't because feminism may also say we need to restrain those. 1.00

00:18:59.340 We need to suppress those natural instincts of men.

00:19:02.580 But Christianity says we need to channel them, that these are characteristics that God gave men.

00:19:08.480 And he made them to be physically stronger.

00:19:10.440 That's a good thing.

00:19:11.940 That's a wonderful thing.

00:19:13.500 And that aggression that comes with that, that ability to dominate, that's actually, I mean, that's part of why we are safe in marriage.

00:19:21.980 That's why I'm safer in marriage than living by myself or being a single mom. 0.90

00:19:26.960 Because my husband has the ability to kill a predator.

00:19:30.040 Like, because my husband has the ability to physically defend us and do those things that it would be much more difficult for me to do.

00:19:39.340 So it's about channeling, as you've said, those strengths into an aggression that is, that fulfills its telos, that fulfills the purpose that God gave it, that provision and protection.

00:19:51.980 Yeah, and what I did in the book, I mean, people said, you know, people have asked me, what side are you on, you know, complementarian or egalitarian?

00:19:59.660 I said, you know, I actually don't even argue that because this is a very fact-based, fact-based book.

00:20:05.380 And what I do is I just look at the sociological data.

00:20:08.000 So I think it's chapter three.

00:20:12.100 Chapter three is just surveying Christian couples and how they live out their understanding of headship and submission, you know, in the real world, not just what they say, but how they actually live it out.

00:20:25.920 And, you know, the most widely quoted, the most frequently quoted passages, passage is Ephesians 5, you know, husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church.

00:20:38.500 All of these couples would quote Ephesians 5, not just the wives, but the part that addresses the husbands.

00:20:47.300 And so it was fascinating.

00:20:48.900 I was actually, I was actually taken aback.

00:20:51.220 I was surprised.

00:20:52.060 In fact, to put it bluntly, I was blown away by how positive Christian men showed up in these studies.

00:21:00.940 I would not have guessed it.

00:21:02.620 To tell you the truth, I would not.

00:21:04.340 I would not have guessed that Christian men would show up as being so loving and so respectful.

00:21:11.580 And I took about a dozen, I'm guessing, a dozen different studies by both psychologists and sociologists.

00:21:19.520 So there's quite a bit of data there.

00:21:23.820 And the Christian men test out amazingly loving and responsible and protective of their wives and children.

00:21:32.540 And you said, so they were asked, you know, well, what do you mean?

00:21:34.760 What do you think headship means then?

00:21:36.700 And, you know, not once did anyone say, well, it means I get my way.

00:21:39.620 You know, it means I'm the boss.

00:21:41.240 No, they all said, well, it means you have responsibility for the spiritual, physical, and emotional welfare of your family.

00:21:49.500 It's your job to make sure everyone in the family is thriving.

00:21:52.820 It's your job, especially, to make sure your wife is thriving, that she's doing well, that she's growing spiritually.

00:21:58.540 And that we get the family to church on Sundays.

00:22:02.900 That was often mentioned.

00:22:05.880 And that you lead Bible studies in prayer in your home.

00:22:09.840 I was astonished at how the research showed.

00:22:14.240 You can argue, you know, academically about what headship means and so on.

00:22:20.800 But I wanted to know, how do they really live it out?

00:22:24.100 You know, what are the social, the study show?

00:22:27.740 What are the studies show when they actually talk to Christian men and women?

00:22:31.140 And what was interesting, too, is that for the most part, if you have a really close relationship with your wife,

00:22:37.300 if you're not going to run into these really tough, you know, head-to-head conflicts, as one man put it, who was interviewed,

00:22:45.760 he said, well, if you and your wife are both led by the Holy Spirit, you know, and you're both praying regularly,

00:22:53.020 and, you know, you're both working to love and be sacrificial to one another,

00:22:59.160 you're probably not going to run into very many true, you know, conflicts, true conflicts that you cannot resolve.

00:23:07.600 Without somebody pulling rank.

00:23:09.140 In fact, one pastor said, if you have to pull rank, you know, in other words, if you have to say, hey, I'm the boss, so this is what happens.

00:23:16.800 He said, you probably have something wrong with your marriage.

00:23:19.540 You know, if you've gotten to that point, maybe there's something in your marriage that needs work.

00:23:24.620 So this is one of the parts of the book that I found really fascinating,

00:23:28.400 is that when you talk to Christian men and women on how they live out headship and submission, 0.99

00:23:33.580 it's far different from what the outside world thinks.

00:23:37.300 So different than the misconception that so many have.

00:23:52.520 Even I was surprised looking back at the Puritans. 1.00

00:23:55.260 You know, the Puritans are often seen as these very just restrictive, oppressive, restrictive people.

00:24:01.200 But when you look at what some of the Puritan scholars and pastors said about marriage, said about their wives,

00:24:07.420 how they just dignified their wives and appreciated their wives and relied on their wives' strength and their wives' wisdom and making decisions and being discerning.

00:24:16.360 Yes, of course, they believed, as we do, that the husband is the head of the wife.

00:24:20.720 And at the end of the day, those decisions that have to be made are going to be made, protection, provision, all of that.

00:24:27.000 But they talked very sweetly of marriage and women and that equality of dignity.

00:24:35.840 I won't read it all, but there's an article in Table Talk magazine that talks about this.

00:24:40.280 How did the Puritans understand marriage by Joel Becke?

00:24:44.920 And one of the Puritans that he quotes, he writes about marriage, a curious knot that God made in paradise, a true love knot more sweet than spice.

00:24:55.880 Just so many beautiful poetic declarations of marital love and women made by the Puritans and the appreciation of their wisdom.

00:25:03.680 I think people don't understand that.

00:25:06.300 And even some, you know, some Christians today who claim to be these, like, you know, patriarchists or whatever,

00:25:11.540 who seem to reinforce the idea that women are inferior and should just be totally quiet in all settings, 1.00

00:25:16.380 don't seem to understand that the history of the Christian church is not that.

00:25:20.100 It is upholding the dignity of women.

00:25:22.900 When I had my students read my manuscript in the classroom, I literally got students saying,

00:25:31.200 at a Christian university, I literally got students saying,

00:25:34.860 I have never heard anything positive about the Puritans until I read your book.

00:25:41.440 But yeah, I found that what you just said, I found very wonderful quotes expressing a tremendous love and affection between husband and wife.

00:25:51.480 And they did use the word equality.

00:25:54.620 One Puritan preacher, for example, said, okay, right.

00:25:57.540 In human culture and customs, there are differences between men and women.

00:26:02.180 He said, but spiritually, which is where it counts, there is no difference between men and women.

00:26:09.280 And he used the word equality when he wanted to express that, which is surprising.

00:26:15.840 One of my favorite historians actually was a feminist historian. 1.00

00:26:20.060 And she expressed the shock and surprise that women were acknowledged, like you said, women's wisdom was acknowledged.

00:26:30.660 And they had the right to, as she puts it, reprove.

00:26:33.940 They had the right to reprove their husbands.

00:26:36.620 And then she gave a couple of quotes from the Puritans where they said, yes, women have the wisdom to reprove the head of the home.

00:26:43.740 And here's another fact that takes people aback.

00:26:49.700 Puritans passed the first law ever in human history that we know of against wife beating.

00:26:57.360 1641, the Massachusetts Bay Colony passed a law against wife beating.

00:27:02.480 And it was quickly followed by a law against husband beating and a law against beating children and servants.

00:27:10.660 But that doesn't sound like our understanding of the Puritans.

00:27:14.360 They passed the first law against domestic violence.

00:27:18.520 And we need to revise our understanding of the Puritans because they are our heritage in many ways.

00:27:26.060 They were looking at men.

00:27:27.320 And by the way, the men that they were looking at were men who, before the Industrial Revolution, right?

00:27:32.460 So these were men who were working with their wives and children all day. 0.87

00:27:36.020 And they had to be gentle and patient.

00:27:38.640 They were on the family farm, the family business, the family industry.

00:27:42.520 And they're working with people they love and have a moral bond with.

00:27:45.820 So the ethos, the expectation of masculinity back in the colonial era was very much focused on caretaking and responsibility for the whole.

00:27:56.980 You know, not just look out for number one, you know, not just get ahead personally, like personal ambition.

00:28:02.680 But it was always tied to how are you doing this for your family and your community?

00:28:06.880 So, yeah, it's really interesting to start with the colonial era, which is what I do in my book, partly so that we have a baseline to see how concepts of masculinity then degraded from that point on.

00:28:22.620 The colonial era was very much a Christian understanding of manhood.

00:28:26.600 Even the concept of authority was different.

00:28:28.640 Nowadays, we think authority means, hey, I'm in charge.

00:28:31.260 You know, I get to do what I want.

00:28:32.260 Now, back then, authority meant the person in charge of the common good.

00:28:39.160 So I naturally look out for what's good to me.

00:28:41.780 You look out for what's good for you.

00:28:42.980 But who looks out for the common good, whether it's the marriage or the family, the church, the school, civil society?

00:28:50.000 Authority was an office.

00:28:51.920 And the person who held that office had the responsibility for the common good of the whole.

00:28:57.540 In fact, the favorite term back then was that he was to be disinterested, meaning that he was not supposed to look out for his own interests.

00:29:06.840 He was supposed to be the one who looked out for the interest of the whole.

00:29:10.700 And when my students read that, they say, well, if we had that notion of authority, I think I'd be happy with that.

00:29:17.080 If we still could revive that today.

00:29:18.960 Okay.

00:29:27.540 I love that.

00:29:32.060 I love that authority is the one being in charge of the common good.

00:29:37.360 I mean, who doesn't want to submit to that?

00:29:39.600 I mean, who as a woman wouldn't say, wow, it's a privilege to be a wife, to submit to the person who is in charge of the common good for myself and for my family?

00:29:51.080 And so I do think when we see authority as that, we see masculinity as that, when we see the husband as a reflection of Christ as the head of the church, that does, it changes everything.

00:30:03.000 It changes everything.

00:30:03.940 And Christians have been in the business of, through the power of the gospel, changing everything, changing cultures, infusing culture with a good view of men and women, of children, of slaves for a very long time. 0.59

00:30:17.160 And we should be carrying that torch, but sometimes it takes people reminding us that that is the church's legacy, that there is the power of the gospel.

00:30:25.540 And that's what you help us do in this book.

00:30:27.960 So is there anything else you want to say about this book and where people can find it and all that good stuff?

00:30:35.520 Yes.

00:30:36.420 You did say it's children, so that reminded me of the church.

00:30:38.920 There is this part on children, too, because, you know, Ali, Christianity has become like the wallpaper of Western culture. 0.93

00:30:46.420 We don't realize anymore how many of the things that are good about the West came from Christianity.

00:30:52.680 And children is one example.

00:30:55.000 In ancient Rome, children had no status.

00:30:57.680 They were considered non-persons.

00:31:01.340 It was common to beat them.

00:31:03.080 It was common to commit abortion and infanticide, and especially of baby girls.

00:31:08.920 It was very rare for a Roman family to have more than one daughter.

00:31:11.940 Any other daughters that were born, they would just put out exposure. 1.00

00:31:15.260 My students don't even know the word anymore.

00:31:18.360 It means exposure means they put the babies out into nature to be eaten by the wild beasts and so on. 0.98

00:31:24.080 And sometimes they were rescued by sex brothels, by the way, and brought up as sex slaves. 0.80

00:31:29.060 So there's a whole book on this that you probably enjoy reading sometime on how Christianity is what gave us the notion of the child as a special.

00:31:38.800 Yes, O.M. Backey, When Children Became People.

00:31:41.220 Yes.

00:31:41.800 Yes.

00:31:42.780 It's a great book.

00:31:43.400 Exactly.

00:31:44.440 And so in that context, we understand better what Jesus was doing when he said, you know, let the children come to me.

00:31:50.760 Because he was speaking at a culture where children were very much devalued.

00:31:55.960 And by the way, women were devalued as well, partly because they were attached to children. 1.00

00:32:01.220 Yes.

00:32:01.380 You know, they tended to have more emotional attachment.

00:32:03.700 If you're attached to something that's seen as having little value, that means, you know, you have little value because you're spending so much of your time and energy raising children.

00:32:13.180 And so the elevation of children also led to the elevation of women. 1.00

00:32:19.300 Anyway, yeah, we, we've, I talk about that in Love Their Body as well.

00:32:24.520 Yes.

00:32:24.720 But since you mentioned children, I just had to say.

00:32:26.940 That's such a good point.

00:32:27.860 It's, we have forgotten that so much of our Christian heritage is part of the West.

00:32:35.600 You know, even Richard Dawkins, just throwing this out, even Richard Dawkins, who, right, was one of the new atheists and who has been incredibly hostile to Christianity, is finally starting to say, actually, I kind of like Christian civilization.

00:32:50.800 He's beginning to realize how unique it is.

00:32:53.360 As we lose it, he's beginning to realize how unique Christian civilization is.

00:32:58.420 Now, you know, he doesn't want to know, he doesn't want the religion that caused it, that gave birth to that civilization, but he is beginning to realize Christian civilization is worth saving. 0.85

00:33:09.180 It is better for people.

00:33:11.240 It has led to freedom and dignity in a way that other religions have not.

00:33:16.060 And you asked where to get the book.

00:33:17.360 Well, where to get the book?

00:33:19.020 Do go to my website.

00:33:20.940 My publisher has helped me to redesign the website.

00:33:24.740 So it's fun and colorful now, nancypiercy.com.

00:33:28.620 And that way you can take a look at my other books as well, if you're interested.

00:33:31.980 But the book is certainly available at all the normal places that you like to shop, whether it's Amazon, christianbook.com, or hopefully you still have a brick and mortar store nearby.

00:33:42.900 So it's pretty much available everywhere.

00:33:45.360 Okay, amazing.

00:33:46.360 Well, thank you so much for this awesome conversation.

00:33:48.620 I appreciate it.

00:33:49.420 I really encourage people not just to get this book, but Love Thy Body, as I referenced so many times, Total Truth.

00:33:55.000 I just appreciate so much the insight, the apologetics, the history, the research that you bring to the table.

00:34:01.600 So thank you so much for taking the time to come on.

00:34:05.280 Well, thanks for having me.

00:34:06.560 It's always good to talk with you.

00:34:07.600 Thank you.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - July 05, 2023

Ep 833 ｜ How Christianity Makes Men Better ｜ Guest： Nancy Pearcey (Part Two)

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