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00:10:38.460uh brian this concept of like the disembodiment that goes on in the church i think it's a good
00:10:47.160point i think jace is right but i want to get your take why do you think a why is it a problem
00:10:51.860and why is it so destructive to men yeah it is a huge problem and and i think in the cold open
00:10:57.860we talked about we hinted at a few reasons but it definitely has to do with pietism and the
00:11:03.920direction we've gone in this like gospel centrality movement, um, where we have so
00:11:09.280steered away from, um, in actually embodied Christianity where everything difficult or
00:11:17.300every call to repentance and certainly every call to think every call to things like, um,
00:11:21.980I don't know, self-discipline over the body.
00:11:24.360It sounds like legalism as you're speaking legalism as you're, as the words are coming
00:11:28.680hand of your mouth. I feel icky. Like you're like, I'm being controlled. So, and it's just funny,
00:11:36.240like how obvious it is looking back over all of it. Um, just how dumb that is. Yeah. It's like
00:11:42.420such an obvious denial of God's authority in creation. He made the body. Do you think that
00:11:50.500he wanted it to be fat and frail and ineffective? Like, do you think the body has anything to do
00:11:57.100with i don't know our ability to do our god-given duties and the spiritual and the earthly plan and
00:12:01.360the answers are obvious like of course it does yeah i'm curious too on the evolutionary front
00:12:06.260um it gets into this some in the book but just there's this weird thing that happens i know
00:12:11.880you've done a lot on evolution talked about it where the body is turned into just like a basic
00:12:17.380like bestial sex object yeah so it's not like people don't care about the body today yeah but
00:12:23.760certainly they don't care about the nature god gave it right we tend to explain away the body
00:12:29.500or we've been taught to by our materialist public school upbringing at least i certainly was in the
00:12:34.860government schools um to view the body as just there's nothing that's actually um authoritative
00:12:41.600about its nature it just is it there's no ought and you can't derive a moral ought from a mere
00:12:50.040fact of nature in that materialist worldview because a moral ought comes from intention it
00:12:56.700comes from design it comes from a law giver so just you could even say well the fact that the
00:13:01.380body functions in a certain way and it's optimal in another way there's no deeper lesson there
00:13:06.100that just is something that's true and and so you could even you see how many directions that
00:13:11.340could go wrong like okay so the the body has sexual urges maybe we that well we that just is
00:13:18.140Like we can do whatever we want with those.
00:13:19.820There's no moral element to that whatsoever.
00:13:58.700But I was thinking, too, about all the pastors today.
00:14:01.700And I want you to talk about this, but the number of pastors, they get really uncomfortable when you start saying things like you should lift.
00:14:37.560It's like a feedback loop that is mutually self reinforcing where physical strength in men tends to make them more right wing and conservative because it makes them healthy and it gives them testosterone, which it sounds like we're joking.
00:26:27.660He was part of like, he got out because of Trump from prison,
00:26:30.820which it was really sad, but he's, he's a very thoughtful guy.
00:26:33.760I don't know if he's a Christian or not or whatever.
00:26:35.480So he doesn't get everything right probably, but he,
00:26:37.760He's there are examples of guys who are not like this caricature, but you're right that if we don't get these things correct ourselves, like if the church doesn't get them, if fathers, especially when it comes to when it comes to these things, really, it's not first the pastor's job.
00:26:55.120it's first the father's job of training his sons in these things when the fathers and the pastors
00:27:01.280fail and the other institutions fail you will have guys step in who they'll tell the truth about
00:27:06.880things no one else is but they'll also offer you the worst possible solutions yeah well i was even
00:27:12.560thinking about our boys they just had like their ftx event yeah and that's a really good example
00:27:17.220of like doing hard things like i don't know if your son did but both of mine had like blisters
00:27:21.740on their feet like gruesome blisters yeah they're proud of them though they're proud of them yeah
00:27:26.900um it goes back to the leon potals like a man without scars is no man at all yep yep um so
00:27:32.280talk a little bit i think about like the teddy roosevelt quote the strenuous life yeah um it's
00:27:38.100funny to me even thomas watson who's a puritan and they're not normally thought of as like
00:27:43.680manosphere gurus yeah but thomas watson said many men dig their graves with their teeth oh yeah
00:27:49.700Yeah. Right. So why is it important that we have a strenuous life set up before our boys? And then
00:27:55.820how do you sort of do that in, in your, in, especially your older boys in their life? How
00:28:00.100do you include them in some of these things? I mean, you have to set the example as a father
00:28:03.340because it really does start there with fathers. It's one of the reasons I went on the cut,
00:28:06.900not jokes aside, was just looking and realizing I've gotten really busy at work. I've been,
00:28:12.940you know, burning the candle at both ends, letting the physical slide too much. And then
00:28:18.720i've got my boys and they're looking up to you and they're working out and they're starting because
00:28:23.300in our community like it's normal they're they're learning how to lift weights and things like that
00:28:27.080and i lifted weight it wasn't that i didn't do anything but i i looked ahead and went
00:28:31.720if i don't change anything what is going to happen in five years in 10 years am i going to be
00:28:37.840a model for my sons when they're turning 18 20 no they're going to do a movie it's going to be
00:28:42.380called the whale and we're going to be starring in it and it's going to be me and you dude and
00:28:47.540there won't even need to be a fat suit. No, it'll be a hundred percent. I do my own stunts.
00:28:54.140So it's like, it's gotta be modeled by fathers. Fathers need to get this, you know, a handle on
00:28:59.480it. Um, but we just have to be willing to use authority to conform those under our charge
00:29:07.300to a godly standard and make sure that that standard is holistic and includes both spiritual,
00:29:11.780mental, the soul and the body. And then recognizing that as fathers, as pastors, as
00:29:17.580leaders in whatever sphere you're in, you have authority of discipline. And authority of
00:29:22.800discipline is always the authority to see that those under your charge are conformed to some
00:29:28.560standard. So you actually have to use that authority by saying you've strayed from it,
00:29:34.500son, or man in the church, or whoever's under your charge. And here's what it would look like
00:29:38.940to conform to the standard here are the steps between where you are and where you need to be
00:29:43.980go take them and then here is accountability and discipline and chastening and all those things
00:29:48.920everything you need to get there it's really not complicated no it just you have to start and then
00:29:55.000you have to be disciplined and carrying out the task so your boys they're working out with you
00:29:59.300yeah i built a home gym for this reason like uh you could spend there's no scantily clad women
00:30:05.040there. It would, first of all, by the time you end up buying gym memberships for like seven
00:30:10.000children and yourself and your wife, you're spending like, I don't know, $8,000 a month.
00:30:14.300So I was like, I'll build a home gym. I'll give up one garage bay. And, um, I put a lot of work,
00:30:20.560a lot of work, a lot of research, like late nights, putting stuff together with my boys.
00:30:25.400They work out there. They have a schedule. They have standards. They're trying to hit
00:30:29.600with the Titus two program we have at school with the other boys are too. Yeah. Like, you know,
00:30:33.680body weight multiplier of deadlift of squat of bench press of these things um we make them do it
00:30:39.980when they don't want to and most of the time though now they have got it it's like oh this
00:30:45.360is fun i like this yeah there's a point i've noticed with the boys where they actually
00:30:49.500they're one to it yeah you know my 16 year old is this way dude he's intense he's like hey we're
00:30:56.760going on ftx it's like a brutal like three day physical thing he's like but i still have to get
00:31:01.180my three workouts in. So I'm going to work all day the other days of the week and then be up at
00:31:06.720two 30 and for the field training exercise every night, getting woken up by flash bangs. And yeah.
00:31:12.240And I asked him, I was like, what was the hardest part about FTX? And he's like, I couldn't get my
00:31:15.860workouts. And I was like, okay, like what a beast, a little bit convicted. He is truly a hard man,
00:31:24.240but I think it's good. It was because they were older boys. And then like, even, you know,
00:31:30.220pastor sin, he's, he's actually lifting and competing and stuff and saying, Hey, like we've
00:31:36.240all had to do, do I want to be the example to my boys of the fat dad? Yeah. Who has to joke around
00:31:43.080about it to make up for it? Cause you're really insecure. Right. Do you want to be the guy that
00:31:47.080in your group of like, when all the men in your circle, your peers are lifting, controlling what
00:31:53.960they eat, it's contagious. You don't want to be that last fatty who can't huff his way around the
00:32:01.040track a couple of times in less than, you know, 20 minutes in an Uber. Because then you get a
00:32:06.040call sign from the other boys and it's not flattering. No, it's like Baskin Robbins or,
00:32:10.860you know, like pudding. I don't know. Hey, pudding, come on over. And you don't want to
00:32:16.520be called pudding by another man. No, you don't. Yeah. Yeah. I'm curious. Part of it in reform
00:32:21.780circles that I've thought through is that we have this vibe of like cigars and feasting.
00:32:26.680I'm glad you brought that up. Um, and look, I like a good cigar. Yeah. I like a glass of
00:32:32.120bourbon every now and then. All those have gotten older. It's much more difficult to,
00:32:37.180for the body to process those things. Uh, but do you think that was kind of a problem? That
00:32:42.100sort of vibe of like guys were like ridiculously fat and it was because like, no, we should be
00:32:48.700feasting yeah we have an we have an imbalance in this area i think in the reformed world we reacted
00:32:55.260the the like yrr young restless reform movement reacted to a lot of the pietism yeah this happens
00:33:00.960in waves muscular christianity was this it was responding to feminization loss of masculinity
00:33:06.420with let's work out let's be strong yrr is the same thing so but then they they go hey but like
00:33:13.660let's be like edgy masculine which is going to be tattoos rock music bourbon kind of all of the
00:33:19.840taboos anytime you make something taboo and say you know real men don't do the taboo well you
00:33:25.720remember like it was the era where guys were like reading fight club yeah yeah or watching the movie
00:33:31.120and then it was like yeah we need to like get super into ufc yeah we're gonna start like chain
00:33:37.700smoking listening to heavy metal and yeah or then it was rap like kind of cringe but it was
00:33:45.120reactionary and what we've ended up kind of embracing i think is this idea that's common
00:33:51.520in our culture that like most meals should be a feast you know where it's like oh four times a
00:33:56.980day the mom should be setting a table that's like hard not to eat 2700 calories at dinner every
00:34:02.620night and actually no like should we have dessert on the table every night probably not you should
00:34:09.480you like in our home we have a weekly sunday night mom mom and now even the kids the girls and
00:34:16.680they like to participate like help make a a dessert for the week and we have it on sunday
00:34:22.080night and we have a reasonable amount of it and then we put it away or we you know we eat it all
00:34:29.180on sunday and then and that's it yeah it's not every night if you are 30 body fat as a man
00:34:36.480and you're still having twice or three times a week cocktails and drinks and bourbon and stuff
00:34:41.840like my brother in christ trade it out for some creatine and like water i don't know man like
00:34:49.480get hydrated go for a walk get an under the desk treadmill you got to be step counting yeah right
00:34:54.980Devin step counting. Well, I do think part of it is the way society has changed that we have to
00:35:01.280adjust to. Like we live very sedentary lives. I've often wondered this, like when, when I'll go
00:35:06.500hunting and you know, I don't know, you do easily 20 to 30,000 steps a day for like a week and you
00:35:14.700get back and you've lost like at least 10 pounds. Well, you didn't have to work out. You didn't have
00:35:20.760to think about a step counter but life has changed yep and so we have to adjust to that
00:35:25.920yeah i even think fathers like i've had this conversation with my wife where it's like hey
00:35:30.380i need to lose some weight yep even like let's not have chips in the pantry yeah because everybody
00:35:35.820snacks on let's not have the little amazing delicacies it's a pretzel with peanut butter
00:35:41.240inside you're kidding me do you get a costco bin of that well so i convinced myself i was like i
00:35:47.060can still have them but i will just weigh them and then i weighed like four of them and it was
00:35:52.760like that is your limit and i was like yeah it's not to say i was eating more than four previously
00:35:57.160here's four handfuls when you discover that the average serving size of anything like that
00:36:03.900popcorn chips whatever is 28 grams or 30 grams those are the two standard serving sizes ask me
00:36:10.240how i know and then you start weighing those things and you go that's 28 grams well like
00:36:16.800every morning i was making a latte with um raw milk like a full that's raw milk it's got to be
00:36:23.300healthy and then to sweeten it i would use like i don't know four to six tablespoons of maple syrup
00:36:28.600and i added it up and i was like this is like a 450 calorie latte and that's pretty mild actually
00:36:35.140compared to what some people are doing thousand calorie yeah oh man it's painful and then you
00:36:41.040look back and you go why wasn't everybody fat you know 40 40 years ago and everyone wants to be
00:36:46.160like oh it's the seed oils it's all the other stuff i'm not saying it has nothing to do with
00:36:49.120it obesogenic environment hyper palatable foods um absolute skyrocketing sedentary lifestyle and
00:36:57.620then we have just learned to treat ourselves three to five times a day treat yourself that was not
00:37:02.940normal yeah it wasn't normal you go like oh in europe they you know they're all not fat it's
00:37:08.880because the seed oils and whatnot i'm like okay i don't think there's nothing to do with any of
00:37:12.360that at all but you know what else they're doing eating smaller portions of things and walking
00:37:17.420well we we went to like czech republic and austria and i was shocked because you'd get like
00:37:23.860go to a restaurant you'd get like the main dish and it would be like beef that was like this big
00:37:28.820and you're like when is the main dish that was all your meal and i was like oh and yeah all the
00:37:35.900all the like our tour guides would be like oh we're just gonna walk over to see this one place
00:37:39.500i was like how far is it they're like a walking distance yeah and then i like i put it in my phone
00:37:44.540and it's like five miles away it's five miles away and i was like don't they is there an uber
00:37:48.740and they look at you like you're crazy so a lot of walking way smaller portions in all my years
00:37:57.180of work travel, Europe was the one trip I took where I lost, I lost like seven and a
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00:41:32.460This is something I've come in contact with recently in my own life is you have to regularly embrace just saying, I have to embrace the hard thing because it's good for me.
00:46:29.700but this idea that like if you don't if you don't unlock from work like
00:46:39.060after hour 40 every week that's a new thing i mean i've seen it in counseling even with men
00:46:46.720where they're like they they work they're 38 yeah uh-huh and then they're like i'm done
00:46:52.300you know i'm not working more i need to be with my family and usually what we tell them is like
00:46:58.920uh you need to be grinding you you like especially and a guy needs to know which ditch he falls into
00:47:05.340some guys will like run themselves yes that's true but way more than that i've found do not
00:47:10.280have that their problem is actually that they're not taking seriously enough their their masculine
00:47:15.340duty to self-mastery and to be poured out for their people what it looks like as a man as a
00:47:20.480father to provide is going to be really hard work and you should be tired and like you should
00:47:29.840you should have to plan ahead for those seasons of rest and times of rest because you've actually
00:47:35.260poured out and i i have i mean we've we've both seen it we've talked about it before where you
00:47:41.380you do you get a guy and you're like hey man what's up with the three hobbies your family
00:47:47.720is not doing well your wife is struggling to buy groceries because the budget's not big enough
00:47:52.900yeah and you're content with your current income and it's not the hey this guy's been working
00:48:01.600really hard and he's doing everything he can with what god's given him it's just a hard season
00:48:04.620and he hasn't been able to provide maybe on this level he wants to yet but he's really trying i
00:48:09.740mean guys who are not really trying and who are like 40 000 a year should be enough she needs to
00:48:15.640scrimp more she needs to clip more coupons and i'm like actually well do you remember how you
00:48:19.640need to get a second job do you remember how mad people would get when dave ramsey was like you
00:48:24.160don't make enough money yeah and like his whatever boomer stuff aside with dave he's right about that
00:48:30.020a lot of the time because guys would be like i'm a teacher i make 35 grand a year we're having tough
00:48:34.200time paying off debt and i'm like you work the equivalent of about 28 hours a week averaged
00:48:39.080across the year my guy you got root you got to pull your plates got to be bigger like have you
00:48:43.600ever worked fewer than two jobs in your adult life i don't think i have no i've never worked
00:48:48.520i think i have three current like depending on how you break them down at least three yeah right
00:48:53.940now and seven kids and it's not again not tooting hey look at us this is that we're just no but
00:49:01.460really like that's normal well it's okay coming full circle like that's why you have to care for
00:49:07.140your body because you can't do that no if your body is morbidly you got a shape frail whatever
00:49:15.160you have to master yourself so that you can do the sprint stop sprint stop sprint walk like
00:49:19.380that's how life is and if your idea of life is that it should be comfortable and i should be
00:49:24.620feasting a lot of the time i should be like bourboning and feasting and all this all the
00:49:30.940time and hanging out with my friends like five times a week and you want to live like the elites
00:49:35.900and Pride and Prejudice. Yeah. No, no, no, no. Like my guy, we're not landed gentry.
00:49:41.080Unfortunately, we're not landed gentry. We are not yet. Yeah. Like, I mean,
00:49:46.240working on it in Utah. Landed gentry is like someone with a quarter acre.
00:49:55.520It is so expensive. Well, Brian, it's been a good episode. Appreciate all of our Patreon
00:49:59.880supporters. Yeah, we do. We've got after hours coming up. Yep. So if you're not yet a supporter
00:50:04.540join now you can catch the best show on planet earth i guess that's what people are saying i'm
00:50:10.400not saying it the people are saying it i don't say but people tell me this all the time say it
00:50:14.140all the time yeah brian i mean wow wow i tell you you tell me back and forth it's like on and on it
00:50:21.360goes yeah we're gonna talk about uh we're gonna talk a little about about zach garris and yeah
00:50:25.340it's been it's going on really currently as we record this but but it's like a long-standing
00:50:29.560issue with denominations yeah yeah so we'll talk about zach garris denominations um what our
00:50:35.500thoughts are on some of that yeah it's going to be a great time and enjoy this episode uh you get
00:50:40.500an interview with chase davis it's gonna be great check out check out the interview and check out i
00:50:43.940mean we got a bunch of books this summer yep at new christian press as well the productive household
00:50:48.220out of madden killing lust ben garrett um the longhouse book is probably at the point this
00:50:53.780comes out there might even be a pre-order open yeah um so make sure you check that out uh that's
00:50:58.260one of the things we've been locked in for three months doing uh you know every single one of us
00:51:02.820under the desk treadmill 30 000 steps a day writing the book like yeah all of us equally
00:51:07.240everybody and uh so check those out too i think you walk enough for all of us i feel like it
00:51:13.720i won't show you my average step count right now for the week because what is it it's over 25
00:51:21.30025 steps 25 steps 25 000 whoa per day yeah that's my week that's my running weekly
00:51:28.180average right now. Wow. Because I'm on a cup and I like to eat still. So you gotta,
00:51:34.540something's gotta get, you gotta, you gotta mix it up, step off, you know? Very good. Anyway.
00:51:42.700Welcome to this episode of the King's Hall podcast. I'm your host, Eric Kahn,
00:51:47.140joined today by Chase Davis, pastor Chase Davis. Chase, thanks so much for joining us for this
00:51:53.140episode. Eric, it's great to be here. Thank you so much for having me on. Yeah, absolutely. I'm
00:51:57.600excited for your new book, which we're going to be talking about in today's episode. This just
00:52:03.080came out from Founders. Of course, I got to, I was privileged. I got to read an early version,
00:52:07.860give an endorsement. So that's really encouraging to see this coming out. There's been some
00:52:12.940interesting reception as you guys have launched on social media, but I guess just start me off,
00:52:18.860talk about the book, Offensive Christianity. What gave you the idea for this?
00:52:24.060Well, I've been thinking about and writing on formation, which is typically a lib-coded topic for how I've been mature, how Christians mature in godliness and righteousness and obedience.
00:52:36.160And I've been thinking about that for a long time.
00:52:38.380The topic of masculinity and manhood is not something that hasn't been touched before.
00:52:42.980There's lots of literature that's been written in the last 30, 50 years, especially as the evangelical church has become more effeminate, more feminized.
00:52:51.740And lots of people have offered different diagnosis of why that is.
00:52:56.300Mine is unique in that I'm offering it in more of a biological category, that we're missing nature and what men were designed for, how they were made to be strong, how they were made to assert themselves, made for combat, made for fitness, made for strength, made for vitality.
00:53:12.040And that natural design by God, that good creation by God informs how men should operate in the world.
00:53:18.160And for too many men, what they experience when they go to church is really the opposite.
00:53:22.740They experience kind of a culture where, you know, the pastor speaks in very soft and nuanced tones.
00:53:28.880The worship is designed to evoke the feels, whatever that means for people, and kind of comfort them and soothe them.
00:53:36.940And I think a lot of this is just misunderstanding God's design for men biologically.
00:53:41.920And so what I'm trying to do in the book is encourage Christian men to really understand God's good design for them.
00:53:47.400and then act in accordance with nature, according to God's word, of course.
01:02:23.340We can talk about our Christian history, Western civilization.
01:02:27.720See, these men did not read these passages in Scripture where Jesus said to turn the other cheek and conclude, therefore, we cannot stand up for our own rights.
01:02:35.580Therefore, we cannot fight the British.
01:02:37.080Therefore, you know, like they didn't read the Bible that way.
01:02:39.640And it's so unfortunate that we've come to a place where that's so common.
01:02:43.000It's so common in evangelical churches that you get this really limp-wristed reading and preaching of Scripture to where Christians are just very anesthetized from realities on the ground, what men are struggling with, what families are struggling with, and they have no martial spirit about them.
01:03:01.860They have no sense of responsibility that there's evil, and I should speak against evil, and I should leverage whatever influence I have to stop this evil in our land.
01:03:11.020man i totally agree with what you just said chase people should go to new christian impressed.com
01:03:16.640slash abraham and pre-order andrew isker's brand new book with new christian impressed the seat of
01:03:21.620abraham right now a book all about answering the question who are god's chosen people today
01:03:27.240is it the modern nation state of israel should we support bb net and yahoo should i venmo him money
01:03:32.660right now andrew isker answers all those questions and chase is right in the point he just made in
01:03:37.720this interview that you should pre-order that book right now why are you still here yeah it's
01:03:45.100really interesting i remember reading a book uh muscular christianity i think is the book
01:03:49.500um but this problem is not new either so this is even like at the turn of the 20th century
01:03:56.120teddy roosevelt and actually what's really interesting it was a lot of liberal uh churches
01:04:01.620and pastors who were noticing the problem and they were like you know coming up with you mentioned
01:04:06.720like the YMCA and stuff like this. And, you know, so I lived through like Mark Driscoll era.
01:04:12.020And at that time I was young enough. I thought, oh, this is the first time we've ever dealt with
01:04:15.780this, you know, historically as a church. I guess just talk about that, how maybe learning some of
01:04:22.580those lessons from older saints is helpful on this path to like rediscovering masculinity.
01:04:28.940Yeah. I mean, back in the early, like you mentioned, the early 20th century,
01:04:31.740there was a muscular Christianity movement. Billy Sunday was part of that. It was born out
01:04:37.700of the same, a similar tension. You know, the difference today is that back then they were
01:04:43.260working with a lot of natural goods that they could speak to about people. People had a general
01:04:46.940belief in God, the Christian God. People had a general belief about the differences between men
01:04:52.020and women. They were dealing with a lot of early stage feminism and a lot of the wins. Now we're
01:04:57.640kind of late stage feminism and kind of the Young Restless Reform, Mark Driscoll, all this kind of
01:05:03.500stuff. It was almost like a punk rock response to kind of boomer seeker sensitivity. And what I'm
01:05:10.580trying to encourage people to do is really go back to the sources, go back to the word, go back to
01:05:15.360our forefathers. It's really not complicated, but we've made it really complicated. And so some of
01:05:20.980those lessons like that were good is they started institutions, right? They started ways for men to
01:05:27.240connect with other men outside of the church, because I think for a lot of men, what they're
01:05:31.440looking for is their church to provide them with like a friend group, community. These are not
01:05:35.800wrong instincts. I mean, I want people in my church to be able to find community and get connected.
01:05:40.880And yet at the same time, to load the church with that, kind of like the end all be all of your
01:05:45.980friend group is not necessarily the most productive way to be an offensive Christian. What's more
01:05:52.360productive would be to start like, if you were to start a men's gym, for guys to join, where they
01:05:58.260can work out together, inspire one another compete, that would be an excellent use. And that's what
01:06:02.760our a lot of these guys were referencing earlier did, started the YMCA started Boy Scouts, all this
01:06:07.820kind of stuff to help men get back into nature, help men be strong. A lot of it got taken over
01:06:12.660by libs. I mean, you look at the YMCA today, it's all run by women. It's insane. Yes, yes. So we need
01:06:20.220new institutions, we need to reform those that we can salvage, but we definitely need new
01:06:24.580institutions. And I think a lot of guys are in this space, where they're going like, okay,
01:06:27.780what can we do? And there's just been a lot of wisdom lost over the last 30 years, a lot of kind
01:06:33.200of apathy to start new things. But I think there's a coming generation where we need to do it. And
01:06:39.040there's a lot of interest in it. We just got to figure out how to either navigate the current
01:06:43.720civil rights regime, and all these kind of laws and systems that may preclude us from having the
01:06:49.720freedom that they did have in the early 20th century to start these things. Yeah. And you
01:06:53.600guys have even done this locally. I know with, in terms of, you know, there could be guys who
01:06:57.460get together to go shoot, um, guys who are lifting guys who are doing Brazilian jujitsu,
01:07:01.840stuff like that. Um, tell me a little bit about male only spaces. You talk about it in the book,
01:07:06.960uh, Robert Putnam, how does that all fit together in terms of what happened culturally
01:07:11.460in the 20th century? And then how do we, you know, how do we create those spaces again?
01:07:17.560Yeah, it's not difficult, but it is something that we need to consider and implement.
01:07:23.140So what basically happened is a lot of the male fraternal organizations and male only spaces, there was kind of a two pronged attack.
01:07:31.420One, you had kind of the rise of media, mass media, television, where people could consume and sit at home.
01:07:39.140And, you know, the classic illustration, which I'm not trying to dump on suburban life, but the classic illustration is you pull into the garage, you shut the garage door, you go into your air conditioned home, there's no porch anymore.
01:07:49.540So this lack of community, this lack of connection.
01:07:52.780And then you had the kind of incursion of feminism into every space to where any space that was explicitly male was kind of prohibited by law.
01:08:00.880And so a lot of these spaces just ceased to exist as they were.
01:08:05.380You see this in many institutions, whether it's golf courses or anything like that.
01:08:10.620And so what we need is kind of a resurgence of that, a reclaiming of that.
01:08:14.820And it's really important for men to get with other men to be able to discuss these matters, to be able to compete with one another.
01:08:21.560You know, one of the wonderful things about growing as a man over time, from the time you're a young boy to the time you're an older man, is kind of figuring out where you line up, where you stack up against other guys in different competitions.
01:08:33.540I think a lot of guys just kind of hone in on one thing that they're good at, and that's my thing,
01:08:39.020and I'm going to dominate this field, and that's great.
01:08:41.140I think there's something very noble in that.
01:08:43.160But I think a lot of times we can stop learning and growing if we don't try other things as well.
01:08:47.700So I think about guys who have never been hunting before.
01:08:49.640It's important for other guys to bring them along and say, hey, this is how you shoot.
01:08:55.320You've got to start somewhere, and it's good to get in the gym with other guys.
01:08:58.260Let them tease you a little bit about how weak you are.
01:09:00.460And that kind of playful, jovial spirit that Christian men have needs to be expressed.
01:09:07.140And instead, if we just kind of have this vision of Christianity where it's just ethereal, it's just otherworldly, it just deals with immaterial matters, and it really doesn't form bonds beyond kind of the walls of the church or kind of this eternal destination, we're going to continue to see cultural erosion because we're not going to see these male spaces come back.
01:09:25.960So I would love to see kind of a reclamation of male spaces.
01:09:29.740A great, great idea would be like to start a cigar lounge.
01:10:25.980Should we actually think through that?
01:10:28.020Yeah, it's one of my favorite things to write about.
01:10:29.920It's actually, I think it's my most controversial because I'm really stepping out of my lane
01:10:33.160a little bit in terms of, you know, natural law and Greek philosophy.
01:10:37.960But basically, my theory is that a lot of the ignorance and sometimes foolishness that's
01:10:43.820taught from pulpits is because we don't honor beauty, we don't understand beauty, we don't
01:10:49.800understand how it works. Part of this has been very sneaky, and it's been forwarded through kind
01:10:55.320of a narrative of you're not allowed to notice kind of like differences. You're not allowed to
01:10:59.680see differences. That's judging. And I'm trying to go back to the Bible and show very clear examples
01:11:06.140where beauty is not the enemy of godliness. In fact, it goes along with godliness many times.
01:11:12.600Two things on this. One, there's the typical triad, truth, beauty, goodness. Christians are
01:11:18.140very kind of keen on truth, many times on goodness. They want to be good. They want to
01:11:23.680celebrate what is good. They may have different definitions of that. We shouldn't, but we should
01:11:27.420celebrate what God defines as good. But beauty is often ignored. You see this in evangelical
01:11:31.160seeker-sensitive churches, which are often warehouses. You see this in how they dress
01:11:35.780when they go to church. And there's really not a lot of talk about beauty, but beauty is the
01:11:39.860ground where the enemies gain the most ground, because they've really attacked beauty. They
01:11:46.400celebrate ugliness. They parade ugliness around us through advertising, through certain parades,
01:11:53.460all this kind of stuff. Beauty is perverted to where ugliness is celebrated. And so Christians
01:11:59.900have been duped into thinking they can't talk about these things. To talk about these things
01:12:03.380is perceived to be vain or sinful. Bible verses are misquoted. To talk about women, or men
01:12:10.580particularly, but women in the passages in the New Testament where it talks about braided hair
01:12:15.080and earrings and this kind of stuff. I grew up, I don't know about you, but I grew up in churches
01:12:18.620where it was like, the women wore t-shirts that said modest is hottest, which is very confusing
01:12:23.280as a young man. You really don't know what to do with that information. You're like, I don't,
01:12:28.160nothing about this is very, very, very much mixed signals here. But I like to use David as a good
01:12:34.320example. So the story of David being chosen by God, he's out in the field, he's with the sheep,
01:12:39.860He gets called in. He's the youngest. And it still says he's beautiful. And this verse is used so often to diminish and suppress kind of the natural way that God taught us to discern the world, where it says, man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart.
01:12:59.300The point isn't that we're not allowed to look on the outward appearance.
01:13:02.860The point is that we can't see people's hearts.
01:13:23.620And what's so frustrating many times when I talk about this is like the people who decry it the most are oftentimes very obsessed with beauty and apparel and they're wearing fancy watches and and all this kind of stuff.
01:13:34.960And it's like, look, like it's kind of hypocritical.
01:13:37.840You're on the one hand, you're decrying judging by the outward appearance at all ever ad nauseum.
01:13:43.040But at the same time, you wouldn't got a haircut and you brush your teeth.
01:17:14.380And it's funny how almost any other religion, all false besides Christianity, of course, but every other religion has kind of a self-respect about it, where if you were to go to Israel, you were to go to Thailand, you were to go to France, and you were to visit a holy site, they have rules for how you dress, right?
01:17:29.240But for some reason, evangelicals are very hesitant to have any rules at all because it's about a relationship, not a religion, and all this kind of stuff.
01:17:36.040And, of course, I'm not suggesting that at the Well Church in Boulder we're going to have a sign of rules in front.
01:17:41.160I mean, I've thought about it, but we don't have that.
01:17:43.460But as pastors, we do have the authority to go, hey, that's not appropriate for Sunday worship.
01:33:21.920You know, as you talk about that, I think a lot of people, maybe if you're like center left, one of the fears is like, oh, this is one of those masculinity churches.
01:33:31.640It's going to be, you know, pastor is going to be chewing Copenhagen from the pulpit and spitting on the floor.
01:33:36.560And it's going to be this insufferable environment for women, particularly in children.
01:33:42.160And I think people, it's probably true at your church, but I know for us, people come and they're like, your women seem really happy.
01:33:49.360And I think that's an important selling point for all of this.
01:33:53.700So maybe if you would talk a little bit about that, that when you have strong men, you typically
01:34:08.300He's going to be able to master himself, his own emotions, his own state.
01:34:11.440He's going to have a presence about himself that commands authority, not in a tyrannical
01:34:15.520way, but in a way that inspires confidence and comfort in others and puts others at ease.
01:34:20.360So when he walks in a room, he obviously owns his own space in terms of like, he's fit,
01:34:26.340he's well put together, he knows how to carry a conversation. And this puts people at ease,
01:34:31.140not because we're just trying to put people at ease, but it's natural hierarchy. That's how
01:34:34.640God designed the world. And I do address that in my book, like the call here isn't,
01:34:38.780okay, the church has been feminized for so long, it's time for it to be masculinized. Like, no,
01:34:43.400the Bible always uses feminine language to describe the bride of Christ. And we don't
01:34:49.420want to like take that too far. Piper actually had some good stuff on this. I think it was over
01:34:54.760at Desiring God. But we should honor the Bible's illustrations when the Bible talks about
01:35:00.480ecclesiology, when it talks about a family, a community, an outpost of the kingdom, an embassy,
01:35:06.040these kind of things. We should honor that. What we're not calling for is kind of like this
01:35:09.220macho church where, you know, you'll see some of these pop up every once in a while. I see some
01:35:14.840that come up in Texas where it's, you know, they're trying very hard to be masculine. And
01:35:19.280it's like, no, like what I'm trying to call men to is like what I got tired of,
01:35:22.880and kind of the masculinity discourse early on in my Christian life,
01:35:26.580was in books like Wild at Heart or other things, where manhood really submitted itself to kind of
01:35:33.300the gender psychology of the 20th century, where masculinity was like a outward presentation to
01:35:41.020the world. And I'm saying, no, no, no. Look, there are components where manhood expresses itself
01:35:47.080and dress and appearance and all that kind of stuff, but it's more deeply rooted in biology.
01:35:50.940It's more deeply rooted in our testosterone levels, our assertiveness, our competition,
01:35:56.880our teamwork. What we don't need to do is just like, Lord, a bunch of tropey. This is what men
01:36:02.680do and that's all we do. It's like, no, I mean, there is a reason why men are drawn to hunting
01:36:07.100and fishing and outdoors activities. That's all normal. But really what it means to be a godly
01:36:11.600man is pursue glory. And that glory is found in Jesus Christ. And that's what we're calling people
01:36:16.080to is to submit their lives to Jesus Christ, repent of their sins, believe in the gospel and
01:36:19.700become a new creation in Christ. And out of that, you can live into that godly nature because when
01:36:25.020Christ redeems men, he doesn't obliterate their manhood. He doesn't come in and suck out all the
01:36:29.980levels. He doesn't demand you become a woman. He doesn't demand you go on a men's retreat and just
01:36:33.700start crying with other dudes. He's like, no, now all that strength, agency, and power that you have
01:36:38.740can be used for me. A lot of this actually gets into a lot of the formational talk that's around
01:36:44.940today. So a lot of people will talk about authenticity and identity and these kinds of
01:36:49.280words, which I address in the book. And really, we're not really focused on that in this kind of
01:36:55.100literature as much, because a lot of that is like modern psychology speak for like, you know,
01:36:59.540how do I get self-esteem in life? Or how do I, it's like therapeutic stuff to where God is the
01:37:04.960great therapist in the sky, which is really sad and kind of disgusting. Instead, we should take
01:37:10.820comfort from Christ. We should take confidence in Christ. We should rest in Christ and not in a way
01:37:15.140that leads to passivity, but it leads to agency, leads to confidence and building. And so there's
01:37:21.560going to be marks of men on the outward appearance. Absolutely. We kind of talked about that earlier,
01:37:26.440but it's more rooted in nature. It's more rooted in who God designed men to be and how they lead
01:37:31.460their home. Men are going to have different preferences, different talents, different
01:37:35.240skill sets based on their heritage, based on their father, based on their just interest in
01:37:39.580the world. And that's totally fine. But there are common things that are predictable among all men,
01:37:45.440namely competition. They want to be the best. They want to dominate. They want to win.
01:37:49.660These are normal things. Christ didn't come to say, you can't compete, you can't win.
01:37:53.680He didn't teach the first shall be last in order for you to always lose every football game or kickball game or, you know, skeet shooting competition, whatever it is you're competing in.
01:38:04.080I mean, we all know this, but it's become so stupid out there in terms of how the Bible is taught.
01:38:10.080And that's part of the reason I wrote the book.
01:38:12.200Yeah, I think one of the other things that's interesting, you brought this up with Wild at Heart.
01:38:16.820I think about it every time there's kind of a resurgence, maybe a new book comes out on masculinity.
01:38:21.440uh hopefully we're pushing the ball further but you'll also have to critique maybe what didn't
01:38:28.220work whether it's wild at heart maybe promise keepers uh for my money i thought like wild at
01:38:33.680heart sort of devolved as you said into sort of like the answer was like more group therapy for
01:38:39.060men you know which i think was actually a huge turnoff uh because it was a lot of emotionalism
01:38:45.280was the answer you know i want to hear god call me maximus and i was like yeah i don't
01:38:50.660i'm not i'm not i'm not jiving with that so much um as you kind of learn from these movements that
01:38:57.520are more recent what are some of the things i guess with this book that you you would hope
01:39:02.240would be different in in addressing look yeah there's a masculinity problem but it's not
01:39:08.700necessarily you need group therapy there's there's more to this biblically rooted and in nature
01:39:14.520Yeah, I think the main thing I want to see men do is come alive in Christ and have a joyful self-confidence that's very humble.
01:39:23.440So I get into this in the last chapter.
01:39:25.280A lot of the psychological speak, the therapeutic speak, which while their heart is replete with, they still do this.
01:39:31.940Many men's ministries and retreats model the same kind of thing.
01:39:37.260They're going to put out the advertisement where you've got guys shooting guns or throwing axes or drinking beer.
01:39:43.580they're around a campfire and then you get to the retreat and there's like a men's talk you're a bad
01:39:49.060man you want to be a better man tell me about your dad you know like how did your dad hurt you
01:39:54.300you know and then you got half the guys crying and i'm sitting back there like i'm i'm fine with
01:39:58.980my dad actually like i don't like uh we had beef when i was a teenager because i was a teenager
01:40:03.980like it's not that's like normal stuff um and so what we would have instead is just like
01:40:09.200a lack of resentment. Because a lot of those movements, what they taught is bitterness.
01:40:14.680They taught men to just obsess on their wounds, their perceived wounds. A lot of it was kind of
01:40:19.400grievance mongering, where it's cultivating a bitter spirit. And instead, what does it look
01:40:24.700like to live with forgiveness, with joy in Christ, acknowledging that we may not have gotten
01:40:32.080everything we needed from our Father, acknowledging that, yeah, maybe we were dealt
01:40:35.180what we felt like as a raw hand. Okay, what are you going to do about that? And this comes back
01:40:38.900to a lot of Eldred's training in Jungian psychology. There's another one of these
01:40:44.900psychologists. He's not a Christian. I think his name is Alder. But this is why we focus on agency
01:40:49.600so much moving forward. It's very unproductive for men, typically, to dwell on their past,
01:40:55.160either failures or grievances or anything like that. And our world is riddled with revolutionaries
01:41:00.020who are preying on resentment. They're just looking for opportunities to be upset. They're
01:41:05.060just looking for reasons to tear things down, to destroy things. They think they're justified in
01:41:10.640their grievances, just ad nauseum because they're upset. And we as Christian men, of course, don't
01:41:15.040want to model that. And we shouldn't be modeling that in the church. There are real problems that
01:41:19.640especially young men have today. Young American men are struggling with a horrible housing market,
01:41:24.960horrible wages many times, horrible opportunities. What are we going to do about it? We want to move
01:41:29.660towards productivity, want to move towards confidence, and we want to equip men to mature
01:41:34.180in an environment that may not be ideal. Maybe our parents had it better in some ways.
01:41:38.520Okay. Like that is what it is. Let's move on. Let's figure out what we can put to use today.
01:41:43.140What has God given you to put to use instead of living in bitterness?
01:41:46.960Yeah, that's, that's such a good point. I think, uh, even Jordan Peterson kind of got into this
01:41:51.080with taking responsibility versus like falling into this, like black pill nihilism.
01:41:56.680Um, you mentioned like the father wound again, grievance farming really. Um, as you think
01:42:04.000about this book kind of the future um i think you're kind of talking some about there's a
01:42:11.160concept in the book about meekness um the ideal i think would sort of be this meek guy and
01:42:16.820understanding what that means that he's extremely powerful but under control man what it would be
01:42:23.320like in the church if we had men who are like that who knew what they were about who took
01:42:27.480responsibility for their realms of authority. Long-term fruit, where do you see the church
01:42:34.600going if people heed sort of this message? What would it look like, I guess, is sort of my
01:42:40.580question. Oh my gosh, I was just talking to a pastor the other day. I'm convinced if every
01:42:45.620Christian in America would read my book and listen to it and apply it to their life, we would have
01:42:50.140our home again. It would bleed out into every area of life because we would have men of agency
01:42:55.240and authority that we're humble before the Lord, but we're not afraid to take action that was
01:42:59.200necessary. And so much of our cultural erosion, the degradation, the political fracturing,
01:43:05.680the political impotence many times is because we don't have men of agency. We don't have men that
01:43:10.240are rising up, that are being cultivated, that are stepping into local politics, that are stepping
01:43:14.040into any kind of local sphere of influence, maybe because they don't know how it's out of ignorance,
01:43:19.540but also a lot of times it's because nobody's challenging them to do so. And if we had these
01:43:24.480men that knew their capabilities and had something to offer. And this is the danger with a capable
01:43:29.200man, an insecure capable man is somebody who's going to like, you know, peacock around and try
01:43:34.340to prove himself to other guys. But that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking
01:43:37.640about a man who's like, I know what I'm good at. I know what I have to offer. Let's, let's put me
01:43:41.960to use, you know, let's, let's be part of a team here. And let's see how I can work within this
01:43:46.440local community, whether it's Colorado or Boulder County or Utah, California, wherever it is,
01:43:50.280How can I make this place better than when I left it? And how can I take responsibility? And, you know, for young men, that means they're going to take risks that older men maybe aren't willing to take, right? They're going to either say things, do things, act in certain ways. And that needs to be encouraged in some way and cultivated so that younger men know that that older generation has their back.
01:44:11.040All the while that younger generation needs to have a humility about themselves where they're able to say, hey, I messed up on that one, you know, and I'm going to learn from that and grow.
01:44:22.040Talk about that in the last chapter where like the attitude of this kind of strong, capable man who is meek, who has his power under control, who is disciplined by the Lord, is not one who is passive, is not one who is like a slave morality or whatever, you know, Nietzsche talked about.
01:44:37.060He's one that walks into a room and commands respect because he's a respectable man.
01:44:41.040And he can act in ways that are useful to the team.
01:44:45.080He cannot act when he doesn't need to act.
01:44:47.020He operates with a shrewdness and a prudence that almost goes beyond him.
01:44:50.700And if we had more men like that in America, pastors, Christians, business owners, things
01:45:06.180But if we did that, it would be incredibly powerful.
01:45:08.320And it would be a blessing to our neighbors, whether we whether they think it's a blessing or not, because we would be defending them and their future and their children as well.