The King's Hall - Reformed Resourcement： Recovering Biblical Patriarchy with Zach Garris

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, Brian here with a big announcement from New Christendom Press.

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00:00:37.340 This episode of the Kings Hall Podcast is brought to you by Joe Garrison with Backwards Planning Financial,

00:00:42.940 by Alpine Gold, by Max D Trailers, Salt and Strings Butchery,

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00:00:56.600 According to Calvin, in requiring women to cover their heads in 1 Corinthians 11.10,

00:01:06.400 Paul looks, quote, to God's eternal law, which has made the female sex subject to the authority

00:01:11.860 of men. On this account, all women are born that they may acknowledge themselves inferior

00:01:16.680 in consequence of the superiority of the male sex, end quote. Thus Calvin rooted male headship

00:01:22.520 in creation, since God, quote, in his free goodness created man and gave him superiority

00:01:28.100 over the woman, end quote. However, he also held that marital subordination is harsher as a result

00:01:34.280 of the fall. In a sermon on 1 Timothy 2.14, Calvin said that, quote, women are made subordinate on

00:01:40.680 account of Eve's transgression, end quote, a punishment that is rooted in Genesis 3.16.

00:01:46.300 According to Calvin, Adam sinned, but Eve was the source of the fall and more at fault than man,

00:01:51.900 and thus Eve's trespass had to be punished in every woman.

00:01:56.120 Similar in how God punished the whole human race for Adam's sin.

00:02:00.140 According to Calvin, women would still have been subordinate to men apart from the fall,

00:02:04.820 but now it is a harsher rule that can feel like bondage.

00:02:08.580 Additionally, Calvin affirmed different duties for men and women in marriage

00:02:12.660 with women called to motherhood.

00:02:14.500 He understood Paul's words that women should bear children in 1 Timothy 5.14

00:02:18.380 to mean all the hardship which women suffer in looking after their offspring.

00:02:23.160 Paul bids them to do the work of mothers, which is pleasing to God.

00:02:27.040 If a woman were to spend all day long in church, praying and chanting,

00:02:30.380 her style of life would not be as agreeable to God as if she were a wife

00:02:34.320 who patiently performed her duties, feeding her children, caring for them,

00:02:39.000 guiding them, and doing all she could to teach and train them.

00:02:42.760 Excerpt from Honor Thy Fathers,

00:02:44.480 Recovering the Anti-Feminist Theology of the Reformers by Pastor Zachary Garris

00:02:49.380 The King's Hall Podcast exists to make self-ruled men who rule well and win the world

00:02:56.140 Well, gentlemen, welcome to this episode of the King's Hall Podcast. Speaking of men who rule well,

00:03:04.380 Dan Burkholder, Brian Sauvé. I thought you were going to say, speaking of me.

00:03:09.280 Speaking of men who rule well, I am here, joined by other men who aspire to the same,

00:03:14.480 i'm dan burkholder actually uh you know brian i think it's fitting at this point i got i got a

00:03:20.300 comment from uh some of our listeners recently uh that they felt like we weren't making fun of

00:03:25.420 your frenchness enough lately i see um so i don't know if you've got anything off the top of the

00:03:31.060 head that we can make fun of um like the thing is the problem here's the problem with it is that

00:03:35.560 everything abominable about the french race i already agree with and uh they would the french

00:03:41.680 as they exist today would hate me. I just think that there's much in the heritage Frenchman

00:03:48.220 that has contributed to Christendom and that we, you know, maybe we can pray that France will rise

00:03:55.000 again. Well, it's interesting. I was watching a Tour de France thing, Lance Armstrong, 30 for 30.

00:04:01.020 And it was interesting. They were describing the cyclists of the world. And they were like,

00:04:04.540 the Americans, they're brash and rude and weird. The Italians are flamboyant and eccentric.

00:04:09.920 trick the germans are meticulous and they have programs and they follow the programs then they

00:04:15.300 got to the french and they're like what are the french and they had a german guy and he said

00:04:19.520 they think they are better than all of us the french cyclists are probably like literally

00:04:26.240 smoking a cigarette and eating a baguette after you know having been with his mistress unfortunately

00:04:33.120 right before actually tour de france fun fact not that that's what this episode is about but

00:04:38.020 the early tour de france when it started i think early 1900s the people who were competing were

00:04:43.720 all day laborers so it was like coal miners and workers so the reason people love the race

00:04:49.460 was they knew these guys yeah they were like they're they were the blue collar guys not so

00:04:54.200 much the case anymore my dad calls them all leg shavers like i think that's a great great epithet

00:04:59.840 for cyclists shaved legs and numb nuts is that going to get edited too no come on i think that's

00:05:06.440 Eric keeps editing me.

00:05:07.920 That's within the pail.

00:05:09.340 You should be so proud.

00:05:12.000 Speaking of things that we did edit, though, we have an interesting conversation today with Mr. Zachary Garris, Pastor Zachary Garris.

00:05:20.380 We're going to be talking about the book just a little bit.

00:05:22.180 Then we'll jump into the interview with him.

00:05:24.260 Of course, we do, Brian.

00:05:25.040 We want to let people know you can still purchase this book, newchristendompress.com slash fathers.

00:05:29.540 And what a steal of a book.

00:05:31.200 It's not going to take you, you know, six weeks to read it.

00:05:34.640 Nope.

00:05:34.900 It's a I would say a very readable rendition of, you know, sort of summarizing what the reformers consensus view on biblical patriarchy was.

00:05:45.540 I find that helpful. And then I find the modern application helpful.

00:05:50.100 Yeah, definitely. It's not a book that you will require you to labor through paragraphs to understand what Zach's saying or, you know, how how does this quotation fit with with that quotation?

00:06:01.880 like hopefully good writing is writing that you can it's clear you don't think about it a lot

00:06:06.740 because you're just understanding what's what's happening and zach definitely did that he put it

00:06:11.480 together well it's a book that has a lot of punch of clarity to it and it's pretty difficult to

00:06:17.880 argue with well one of the things i thought was really helpful in describing how zach writes

00:06:23.040 this is how masculine christianity was too uh but our friend samuel johnson who's a you know

00:06:28.040 a lawyer of some sort, uh, was giving props on Twitter to Zach. And he said,

00:06:32.600 this book is like somebody making, you can tell he's a lawyer from one lawyer to another,

00:06:38.140 like his case is airtight. The arguments make sense. I think it's helpful in this situation

00:06:43.220 just to have clear thinking, Dan, like that it's not muddled. Yeah. There's not a lot of

00:06:48.240 wasted words. I think, you know, to piggyback when Brian was saying, if you will, he took,

00:06:53.280 uh, the best of the reformers teaching on patriarchy and, uh, he distilled it into like

00:06:59.800 this very potent, you know, liquor, if you will, that's it's very, very approachable and yet it's

00:07:06.300 very potent. Yeah. And so I think it's really helpful. Uh, one of the questions, uh, this

00:07:11.180 will come up in the interview with Zach that, that I found really interesting. I asked him this

00:07:14.620 and so we get to hear his take on it, but we have a lot of people and he references Nancy

00:07:19.460 in the end of the book, she'll say, you know, I'm a patriarchalist or a complementarian,

00:07:24.540 but she's arguing for positions like functional egalitarianism in marriage is what works best,

00:07:30.860 of course, citing Brad Wilcox, University of Virginia sociologist. And there's not,

00:07:35.200 it's not all bad. But one of the questions I asked Zach was, why do you think so many moderns,

00:07:41.360 particularly in the conservative camps, they view themselves as the staunch conservatives,

00:07:45.220 but don't is it ignorance uh what's driving the fact that like you're actually an egalitarian

00:07:51.680 though you see what i'm saying like they think they're conservative and they claim to be um

00:07:57.160 do you think it's a mix of ignorance lack of courage what would you say on that well i think

00:08:02.600 it's probably part of the target that they're aiming at because a conservative by nature is

00:08:06.780 trying to conserve something from the past right and so it is really ironic that you have people

00:08:12.720 that have this cognitive dissonance between being reformed and being a conservative. And it's almost

00:08:18.840 like they're able to pick and choose at what point in time they're trying to conserve. And so for

00:08:24.140 soteriology, they want to conserve the reformers. But as far as sexual ethics and anthropology and

00:08:30.740 things like that, they're going to like 1950s, you know, or even later in a lot of cases. And so

00:08:37.520 But I think it's cognitive dissonance and just not knowing what the target is exactly,

00:08:42.740 what they're trying to conserve.

00:08:44.140 Yeah, some of it, Brian, maybe also just, you know, we talk a lot about this, but if

00:08:49.180 feminism is the air we breathe, you know, you don't see air.

00:08:52.440 It's just, it goes unnoticed for so long.

00:08:54.660 And we've been in that mix for so long.

00:08:57.200 It's actually kind of shocking reading the reformers.

00:08:59.580 Yeah.

00:09:00.280 Even for me, like reading some of these quotes, the one that you read in the cold open, I

00:09:03.960 was like, wow, Calvin.

00:09:05.460 Yeah, you have to understand.

00:09:06.300 So there's some translation that has to happen where you have to understand how they used words like superiority and inferiority, which Zach does well in the book to diligently explain the context, historical context and theological context and cultural context of the reformers, what they meant and didn't mean when they used words like superiority and inferiority.

00:09:29.860 But even once you do all that historical understanding, there remains a significant part of their actual words that are frankly offensive to our sensibilities.

00:09:40.260 And so one of the things I think is happening with Nancy Peercy or some of these like conservatives that are that would still look at a lot of what we do and say, wow, you guys are crazy or you're you're out there or you're radical or they'd be tempted to put a word like radical in front of patriarchy hyper.

00:09:57.240 A lot of it, I think, is explicable because when the gap between the current state of cultural affairs and the actual classical position is so huge, the temptation is to hate the current thing and be like, well, this egalitarianism, feminism, it's crazy.

00:10:18.960 And so I'm going to be really conservative and I'm going to go 40% of the way back.

00:10:23.060 And 40% of the way back really is very conservative compared to what we're doing today, right? So it's much more comfortable, though, to remain there than it is to keep going all the way back and at least do the work of understanding.

00:10:38.560 And then if you're going to reject it, knowledgeably reject the 100% back to the classical patriarchal position, if you're going to reject it at all, or embrace it, to really truly embrace some of these positions is to make yourself the laughingstock or the object of derision by the modern sensibility.

00:11:05.860 So would you say it's a lack of courage?

00:11:07.620 yeah i think it can be a lack of courage i think is it ignorance back to eric's question it also i

00:11:12.980 think it has to do with the relative temperature difference like if you imagine going from

00:11:17.000 water that's you know like 33 degrees and then you got into water that was 55 degrees you'd be

00:11:24.680 tempted to say it felt like a hot bath but a hot bath you know like is in the 90s so you're this

00:11:32.340 you have the sensation of being conservative yeah right without actually realizing that all you are

00:11:37.940 is a liberal from 60 years ago and that's a difficult sensation i think to figure out when

00:11:44.000 you're in the midst of it we've all been there as you start shedding belief like i remember as a

00:11:50.380 totally different example i'd gone to calvary chapel bible college dispensational growing all

00:11:55.100 the way up and i remember after becoming the teaching pastor of the church um deciding we

00:12:01.300 needed to brush up as a church on some of our systematic theology. So I'm like, okay, let's do

00:12:05.100 a little eschatology. Let me teach on, um, the rapture. I need to go back and brush up on the

00:12:11.060 rapture, get my key verses, unpack them and teach the church. Cause I think people might not have a

00:12:16.840 full understanding here. So then I went back and I realized, oh, the rapture is biblical, but it's

00:12:22.560 just at the return of Christ where, you know, they're caught up and glorified with the resurrected

00:12:27.280 saints. It's not this event that happened seven years prior to the return of Christ,

00:12:31.960 pre-tribulational dispensationalism basically. And so I rejected that. And at first what I did

00:12:38.740 was I went back to historic pre-millennialism because it felt comfortable to me. I was like,

00:12:43.760 well, I can keep a lot of the, what I already thought about pre-millennialism with, and I can

00:12:50.040 get rid of some of these things that I think are problematic. But what I found is that as I kept

00:12:57.160 testing. And going back, I kept shedding more and more of these things until I ended up in a

00:13:02.320 position that to the dispensationalist is like radical post-millennialism. Something similar

00:13:07.480 happens when a modern conservative, they reject egalitarianism. It's like they've rejected the

00:13:13.540 pre-tribulational rapture, but they still want to maintain their pre-millennialism. They still want

00:13:19.020 to maintain some of the sensibilities about sex and sex roles, some of the post-World War II,

00:13:25.920 some of the modern like third wave even second wave in even first wave feminist ideas like for

00:13:32.580 example women's suffrage if you are if you think women's suffrage is obviously correct and anybody

00:13:40.720 who would question the 19th amendment is crazy i think and you're like i'm a conservative and i

00:13:45.900 think they're crazy what you've done is you've gone from the 33 degree water to the 53 degree

00:13:51.260 and you think you're in a warm bath like you're just not there yet it's interesting i forget the

00:13:55.040 law. I have to look it up. Dan, it's actually your brother. We were having this conversation

00:13:58.820 and he brought this law up to me. And it's basically like if you, if you do a, from left

00:14:03.700 to right, just a chart, the people with the highest confidence are the most ignorant.

00:14:09.040 And then as you learn more, your confidence crashes. As you become a PhD and expert,

00:14:13.940 you know, that sort of level, your confidence goes up, but never as high as the ignorant person.

00:14:19.260 and um i think it actually explains a lot of this where we'll see in conservative circles like people

00:14:25.660 will react like violently toward what we're saying and no pastor of mine i can't believe

00:14:31.100 you know what kind of you know today on twitter people are like oh you know eric's advocating

00:14:36.080 marital rape and all this crazy stuff and you look at it and you go almost what i want to say

00:14:41.640 to the christian camp is hey be a good exegete of the bible especially to pastors hey study the

00:14:48.100 bible see if these things are true weigh the historical theological data and it's almost

00:14:53.360 like we have to just be aware that we have that impulse instinct of what brian's saying about

00:14:58.580 something that's really new and weird i mean the first time i heard somebody say that

00:15:02.400 complementarianism i actually think it was aaron wren that complementarianism was like a departure

00:15:06.580 from like more traditional views on sex piety i was like excuse me aaron wren i'm pretty sure it

00:15:14.640 was him early on well aaron aaron wren was one of the earliest guys to interact with bap and like

00:15:20.520 the red pill manosphere yeah he was poking holes in the servant leader model

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00:18:25.260 coffee. So a lot of things that were, they seemed crazy. One of the things I'll throw out there too,

00:18:31.480 but Dan, I don't know if you think this is true. There is sort of because of 2020, again, I keep

00:18:37.320 going back to this, but because of 2020, I think people have been so surprised by the things that

00:18:43.620 turned out to be true that we were lied about that I think people actually are that right now

00:18:49.120 that muscle's been honed for a lot of people where they're like, Oh, actually, I mean like

00:18:54.020 more and more people, you see this with Candace Owens. She's like, well, I know, you know,

00:18:57.620 flat earth. People say it's crazy, but I don't, as many crazy things has happened, I'm going to

00:19:01.740 hear them out first. Now, whatever you think about some of those positions, I think that instinct of

00:19:07.360 I'm going to, I'm going to delay my reaction until I do the reading is because we've been lied to so

00:19:13.140 much. So, so for a fact, you know, if they lied to you about COVID, like why wouldn't they lie

00:19:17.860 to you about feminism? So do you think that's true, particularly like something about our moment

00:19:22.520 that could be advantageous that people maybe are willing to hear a book like Zach's?

00:19:27.000 Yeah, I agree. It's really interesting because it hasn't, even though COVID was mostly political and medical, what it did is it, it caused really doubt in all spheres. And so, and also media, you know, and so the, the predominant narrative or the expert fallacy was brought to light.

00:19:47.980 you know, when people are like, trust the experts, you know, you just need to trust the

00:19:51.200 experts, the economic experts, the political experts, the medical experts. And all of a

00:19:56.780 sudden you realize all of the experts were wrong or lying, which is worse. And, and so you then

00:20:04.560 start to go back. And this is a lot of the work that we've done, right? This is like the crusades

00:20:08.740 thing. All about that is, is we're asking the question, well, I mean, we've heard some people

00:20:15.580 say the crusades weren't actually like the worst evil that's ever happened in the world. And so

00:20:22.160 what are, what's that position? You know, we should read these guys and really go back in

00:20:27.860 time. And I think, you know, what Zach has done is the same thing with anthropology and patriarchy

00:20:33.460 and, and with sex roles and things like that is that all he's done is gone back in time and said,

00:20:39.820 Hey, the predominant narrative that's been shoved down your throat since you were a young child by

00:20:44.920 the media you know media experts and by educational experts by religious experts you've been lied to

00:20:51.660 in this point too and i think it's really important work in that sphere because the ramifications are

00:20:57.640 actually massive for all of human culture and flourishing especially here in this moment in

00:21:03.940 time in our place in the united states i mean it's also important elsewhere as well but but

00:21:09.720 particularly pertinent for us. I, I, and I really hope that what happens with a, with a book like

00:21:14.860 Zach and with works, works like this, this one is that what happened with people in COVID and

00:21:21.040 medical trust happens with modern, innovative, um, sexual anthropology. It's like if you,

00:21:27.940 maybe you grew up in like a functionally egalitarian world and then you discovered

00:21:31.900 like complementarianism and you went and you were like, ah, good back. And then, and then I would

00:21:37.120 hope you go oh wait even that though let's talk about the commonwealth and let's talk about uh the

00:21:41.780 things outside of just uh men being pastors let's also talk about men being rulers godly rulers in

00:21:48.740 their home officers military all this stuff it's kind of like in 2020 a lot of people were like

00:21:53.660 now all the other vaccines are fine but this recent one this one's crazy it's so it's wildly

00:21:59.200 unsafe they didn't study it at all so i'm an anti-covid vaxxer but not an anti-vaxxer no no

00:22:04.460 to know and then they find out that vax that no vaccine has submitted itself to a double blind

00:22:09.760 medical study and that the entire vaccine industry is basically as corrupt and wicked as the covet

00:22:16.480 vaccine was and so then they go all the way and that's what i hope happens is that you don't land

00:22:22.440 in the halfway house of modern complementarianism but that you would just just go all the way just

00:22:27.780 become patriarchal and you even see in a book like that doesn't mean that we all agree on every

00:22:32.500 single possible question. Calvin and Knox, in the book, Zach is a good lawyer. He'll show you

00:22:38.060 that when we say there is a unified tradition, it doesn't mean everybody thought the exact same

00:22:42.860 thought about every single question at every single point, but they were all reasoning from

00:22:46.820 the same foundations and the same background, basic background presuppositions. That's what

00:22:51.420 I'd want to have happen so that then we can return to a broadly patriarchal background to understand

00:22:59.660 these things because it's one of the key issues of our day. A lot of what we're getting wrong today

00:23:05.280 in culture flows from getting this wrong. So it really is important. It's at the center.

00:23:11.940 Yeah, it's helpful. A final question. Do you think that, you know, I've wondered this,

00:23:16.300 but we get your guys' thoughts. Do you think that any of the mid-Eva, big-Eva type people

00:23:21.780 will interact with the book at all? You know, part of me thinks you'll probably get the same

00:23:26.820 reason they won't publish a book like Zach's you probably get the silent treatment or the cone of

00:23:30.860 silence as it was called but I don't know maybe some of them read it some of them interact Dan

00:23:35.160 what do you think I don't have a pulse on big Eva world that would be that close as far as like

00:23:40.780 personal relationships with people but I would suspect that you look at like the young restless

00:23:47.540 and reform movement you know how many big Eva pastors were closet Calvinists and that was not

00:23:53.600 a popular position right uh but the influence of that movement caused a lot of these big eva guys

00:24:00.020 to at least in the closet in their in their office they were they were calvinists and i suspect that

00:24:06.300 something similar could happen to some of the fringe of the big eva world is that they'll pick

00:24:11.600 up this book and they might you know they might believe it i don't know that's that's what i

00:24:18.920 suspect i think you're right i think we will get a lot of that i think generally they'll ignore it

00:24:23.360 but it will be to their peril until they no longer can.

00:24:26.220 And when they talk about it,

00:24:27.280 it will probably be similar to what they do with like the Moscow mood.

00:24:30.320 They'll probably launch some big sideswipe at the Ogden borough and it'll,

00:24:36.620 you know,

00:24:36.780 try to discredit us in one fell pass,

00:24:39.480 you know,

00:24:39.720 a very passive aggressive,

00:24:40.820 like poison the well,

00:24:41.860 or even just like a huge complimentarian conference that comes from a reaction

00:24:46.180 of this.

00:24:46.740 Yeah.

00:24:47.300 Yeah.

00:24:47.560 I would say the biggest encouragement I've had is as we're doing the

00:24:50.380 shipping, seeing how many pastors and elders teams are buying five, 10, 15 books. And so I'm

00:24:56.580 encouraged that, you know, somebody was writing about this recently, but even in the PCA,

00:25:02.120 what's held it together on the conservative front is not the teaching elders. It's the ruling elders

00:25:07.700 because they're in touch with blue collar America still. That's a good point. And so I think that,

00:25:12.560 you know, that's also an encouragement to me and the number of blue collar guys that we wanted a

00:25:16.740 book to be accessible to them. And they're willing to do the reading and to think about the

00:25:20.740 application for their families and their communities. So I just continue to encourage

00:25:24.800 people to do the reading. If you're a pastor, if you're a blue collar guy, it's encouraging to see.

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00:26:06.860 i would just say one more thing about the book uh from a supply issue is that the like you said

00:26:16.980 we've been selling a lot of copies and there could be a supply crunch at some point so i would

00:26:22.740 encourage you not to wait especially with this deluxe hardcover edition right we're well past

00:26:29.220 the halfway mark of selling through them yeah so get one get one while supplies last

00:26:35.640 as seen on tv i was trying to make it not as cheesy as that but yeah yeah way to lower the

00:26:41.900 bar eric uh well i i appreciate the conversation again encourage people to check out new christen

00:26:46.460 and press.com slash fathers by the way we've got on the davis vault encourage people to check that

00:26:52.680 out patreon exclusive show gentlemen we're going to be doing some vlad the impaler maxing wow if

00:26:57.900 you haven't yeah i mean dang so yeah if you like the king's hall support us keep it going and you'll

00:27:05.220 get access and you'll get to improve your impaling technique.

00:27:08.420 That's right.

00:27:09.100 Gentlemen, we will now jump into the interview with Pastor Zachary Garris.

00:27:22.260 Well, welcome to this episode of the King's Hall podcast.

00:27:24.900 I am one of your hosts, I'm Eric Kahn, and I am talking today with the one and only Pastor

00:27:31.020 Zachary Garris.

00:27:31.960 Zach, thanks so much for joining me for this episode.

00:27:34.220 Yeah, thanks for having me. It's good to be here.

00:27:36.500 So Zach, I want to jump in. We've been touting the book. We've been excited about the book.

00:27:42.280 We have Honor Thy Fathers now available from New Christendom Press. First of all,

00:27:47.520 it's funny how this project kind of started because you said, I have a manuscript you guys

00:27:52.400 might be interested in. Originally, we're like, yeah, well, maybe we'll do a paperback, whatever.

00:27:57.320 We get into the weeds and we're like, no, we're going to do a nice hardcover. We've got Medusa

00:28:02.880 on the front. I mean, how could it get better than this? So I just want to hear kind of your

00:28:07.460 take, like, what was it that got you originally? Obviously, you wrote Masculine Christianity,

00:28:12.760 but this book in particular, what made you want to start writing along this path of reform

00:28:17.740 resourcement on sort of the issue of patriarchy? Yeah, it's interesting. I wasn't really planning

00:28:22.600 on doing much more after Masculine Christianity, but I was asked by some brothers to contribute a

00:28:30.080 chapter basically on this subject the reformers on male headship or male leadership whatever you

00:28:37.180 want to call it and so i wrote this essay and then basically that book project never happened

00:28:43.520 so i had this essay in my possession and i said well what in the world am i going to do with this

00:28:48.420 thing and i'm like it's too long for like a web page uh but it's you know i i just don't know

00:28:55.100 where to publish it so i just started thinking about it and i don't remember at what point i

00:28:59.280 asked you guys about it. But I just started expanding it. I was adding other reformers,

00:29:05.500 reformed theologians that I had read on the subject. And so, I don't know. This went through

00:29:10.580 a couple phases, basically. And I expanded even the second part where it interacted with modern

00:29:18.240 pastors and the like, kind of contrasting or criticizing them for deviating from the reform.

00:29:23.420 So, yeah, there was kind of an evolution of this whole book.

00:29:27.520 Yeah, it's helpful. And I think, you know, part one, right, you jump into really a discussion of what did the, you know, sort of the majority positions of the reformers. So you get into William Gouge and Calvin and Knox and that sort of thing. In particular, think about like reform denominations, PCA, stuff like that.

00:29:47.240 you know, a lot of people may think if they're on the outside of that, they're like, well,

00:29:50.760 everybody in the PCA already knows that these doctrines are true and everybody holds to the

00:29:54.960 position of the reformers. But of course that isn't the case. So talk about why it was so

00:29:59.960 important to start there and to go back to, okay, what do these guys actually say and think

00:30:04.720 on headship and particularly not just family and church, but also with the Commonwealth?

00:30:11.300 Why was it so important to start with their views and just getting that out there?

00:30:15.120 Well, yeah, I mean, part of it is because these guys are almost entirely ignored on these matters. You know, when I was writing Masculine Christianity, I did interact some with like Calvin and quoted some other reformers and definitely William Gouge.

00:30:30.000 But that was, you know, that book was more, you know, biblically based, again, exegesis, theological arguments. And so I was using theologians from earlier times to kind of support my arguments and sprinkle them in there along the way.

00:30:45.980 But this book was just more expanded on that foundation. It's more of a historical argument, of course, the entire book. But it's just kind of fascinating. It's like, oh, well, it wasn't just Calvin or Gouge. It was pretty much everybody. Those guys maybe said the most or wrote the most on the topics of male rule and the home church commonwealth.

00:31:09.020 But, yeah, I think just the ignorance of what our spiritual forefathers said, that's certainly tied with some of the modern deviations, whether it's narrow complementarianism or egalitarianism, you know, which even exists within some so-called reformed churches.

00:31:28.780 Yeah.

00:31:29.000 And, you know, I mean, these same Reformed churches, they'll quote Calvin or whoever on other topics.

00:31:36.600 You know, people always say, go read the Puritans, but why not read the Puritans on the family or male headship?

00:31:42.920 I mean, why do we ignore them on these things?

00:31:45.260 I mean, that's something I started to ask myself, and I'm like, well, we need to just really make this stuff known.

00:31:51.140 And so that's the foundation of the book.

00:31:52.720 I mean, the first chapter is basically just, it's on the home, male headship in the home, but it's a lot of quotes.

00:31:59.000 I mean, it's just trying to show like, look, this was everybody.

00:32:02.220 They all held pretty much the same view.

00:32:04.360 So, yeah.

00:32:05.700 One of the questions I want to ask you, Zach, is, you know, for a long time, even guys like

00:32:09.820 B.B. Warfield.

00:32:11.200 So you're getting into the 1800s.

00:32:13.100 People are still, you know, bobbing.

00:32:14.780 They're still talking about this sort of view of headship in the home as the earlier

00:32:21.000 reformers would have.

00:32:22.960 But what do you think it was that I don't know if it was eroding of this doctrine?

00:32:27.960 I mean, today you go to many, quote unquote, reformed churches. And if you talk like this, you're going to have problems with elders, particularly with elders' wives, probably. But these would be seen as controversial doctrines. So what do you think happened societally, but also in the church, that we got that far away from the classic reformed positions?

00:32:47.140 Yeah, I mean, the obvious answer to that is the feminist movement. I mean, that started, as I like to point out, it didn't start in the 1960s. I mean, that was a major part of it with second wave feminism. But really, some of these changes started to happen in the mid to late 1800s with first wave feminism.

00:33:07.220 and so you just start to see attacks on male rule from the culture and sometimes even within the

00:33:14.120 church so that didn't really take off until probably the mid 1900s and the push you know

00:33:19.340 as far as the church goes it's the push for female pastors and i mean that just you had

00:33:26.300 pretty broad capitulation there in i don't know maybe the 1970s i mean so it's definitely tied

00:33:32.480 with the feminist movement, you know, more broadly in the secular culture.

00:33:38.660 But yeah, so I think, I mean, you had a response to that, of course, as I've noted before,

00:33:42.980 the whole complementarian movement, Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood in the 1980s.

00:33:49.720 But that really wasn't returning to the 16th and 17th century reform theologians.

00:33:57.100 In fact, and maybe this is something you want to get into, but it was almost a clear break.

00:34:01.500 I think they consciously said we don't want to go back to traditional views. We want to have some kind of distance or separation because, I don't know, they thought that sounded sexist or whatnot, to quote Calvin.

00:34:15.600 But yeah, so a lot of what we're just dealing with today is a response to feminism. We all have to deal with the reality of feminism in our culture. And it certainly is not limited to outside the church, but exists even within the church. Even to our day, many of us just are kind of born into a feminist mindset.

00:34:39.520 Yeah, that's one of the questions I wanted to ask you. Let's say the late 80s, complementarianism, but even to what's left of that today. I kind of grew up in the Young Restless and Reform movement thinking that that was the really conservative position. Later finding out it's actually a compromise, I think, already.

00:35:00.080 Do you think it was originally ignorance or do you think it was like how much is intentionally say, no, we don't want that?

00:35:07.680 And the reason I ask is because even in Piper and Grudem's book, they'll say things like we're like intentionally being non-hierarchalist, like at least that part was intentional.

00:35:18.140 So what do you attribute to active choice they made versus like people just being ignorant of what the reformers taught?

00:35:24.680 I mean, if I were to guess, I mean, it's hard to know completely, but I think there was a little bit of both. I do think there was an intentionality on the part of the early complementarians to move away from the reformed tradition.

00:35:41.360 Now, look, I mean, some of this is the fact that a lot of those guys were Baptists. They're not even necessarily Presbyterian. So they're not necessarily committed to the Reformed tradition in the same way that I would want to be as a Presbyterian.

00:35:54.540 So, you have that, but you also have, they're clearly aware of the controversial nature of embracing what, at the time, they weren't necessarily calling it patriarchy. They were referring to traditionalism or the traditional position.

00:36:12.260 And I've seen that word used in some of those early writings, some that were not republished, like Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood edited by Piper and Grudem. That's continued to be published. But some of the other stuff early on was using, I think it was maybe early 1990s, was using the language of traditional. So I think there's a clear break there.

00:36:32.040 They did not want to be entirely tied to some of the reformers.

00:36:38.740 Some of that might have been concern over – I think they thought that some of the reformed or earlier theologians went too far as far as the way they would maybe even speak of ontology, like the natural differences of men and women, like rooting God's commands in those natural differences.

00:36:59.120 is i mean that i think you have to go there to to some extent and that that may be introduced

00:37:04.640 or i think did introduce the problem of like narrow complementarianism where

00:37:09.480 they almost they almost make god's commands for men and women arbitrary in a sense like god god

00:37:16.460 said women can't preach or teach publicly in the church but that that's that's just kind of the way

00:37:21.940 he designed it and so we need to follow him but they don't want to really go to the point of like

00:37:26.320 rooting that in God's design differences between men and women, and as far as authority, and

00:37:33.060 those are places I like to go. It's like, well, just listen to the way God designed a man to

00:37:38.140 speak and carry himself. He's fit for preaching, or at least some men are, whereas women are never

00:37:44.840 fit for preaching. I'm comfortable saying that. I think that makes perfect sense and is common

00:37:50.720 sense, really, but that's considered controversial. So, a lot of complementarians don't want to go

00:37:56.500 there. Look, at the end of the day, though, if you just say a woman can't do whatever or shouldn't

00:38:01.600 do whatever, that is considered sexist. So, I mean, if you're going to go ahead and say that,

00:38:05.880 you might as well have a consistent, robust, biblical, I think that's the key, is we want a

00:38:10.920 biblical view, but also a consistently Reformed view. And that's what's great about looking to

00:38:16.580 our Reformed forefathers. I mean, they're guides for interpreting scripture and Christian theology

00:38:22.380 in all regards. And so, why are they off limits on this kind of stuff? I don't think they should

00:38:29.340 be. In fact, I think that's who we should be going to for guidance. Yeah, it's sort of that

00:38:34.240 thing where it's actually more helpful to have people who weren't influenced like we are by

00:38:39.000 feminism that, you know, you're going to get a take that, you know, and that's also why it's

00:38:43.940 so shocking to people. I mean, I remember the first time reading Gouge, I thought,

00:38:47.600 holy cow, the stuff that I've gotten in trouble for saying is like a fraction of this.

00:38:51.780 And then I just was like, well, I'm going to put Gouge on Twitter and see what happens. And of

00:38:55.360 course, people lose their minds over this. But the other question I want to ask you is,

00:38:59.480 so how would you describe the consensus view of the reformers?

00:39:04.740 Well, I mean, look, I don't quote everyone in here. And sometimes it's hard to find

00:39:09.020 stuff on by by certain guys

00:39:11.300 like there's I don't have any

00:39:12.940 Zwingli in the book as far as I

00:39:14.920 recall but that being said for

00:39:16.780 everybody I could find material

00:39:18.700 on male headship

00:39:20.260 of some sort

00:39:21.940 they universally affirmed

00:39:25.080 that the husband

00:39:26.760 is the head of his wife

00:39:28.360 meaning he's he holds authority over

00:39:30.840 her and yet they would all

00:39:32.680 basically come back and

00:39:34.360 you know they're going to explain duties for

00:39:36.700 for both husband and wife I mean because this is

00:39:38.740 just what I think is pretty obvious, plain scripture, scriptural teaching that the husband's

00:39:45.480 to love his wife, to lovingly lead her, but the wife is to submit to her husband in all things.

00:39:53.480 So, she's to have a submissive attitude. And I mean, that's, I mean, complementarians will say

00:39:58.540 the same thing. They might just kind of water it down, some of them. So, that's universal amongst

00:40:03.100 the reformed. It seems like a part of the big issue becomes, you know, even in some of the

00:40:09.000 complementarian camp, right? You can kind of get people to talk about like the family. Okay. The

00:40:12.920 husband should lead there. The church. Okay. But it seems like particularly with the reformers,

00:40:18.520 like when they're being bold on this issue of the commonwealth too. Yeah. And look, I mean,

00:40:24.020 I couldn't find everybody speaking on this subject, but you have a lot of, you know,

00:40:29.220 big names that do. So, I mean, the most famous is John Knox, right? His trumpet blast against

00:40:35.280 the monstrous regiment of women. Now, Knox, in one sense, takes a little more extreme view

00:40:40.200 because he was... And by the way, he wrote that anonymously. Initially, it was published that

00:40:45.680 way. But people kind of figured out who wrote it. We know this guy.

00:40:49.960 Yeah, I think we've heard him before. So, Knox was there arguing that women rulers are illegitimate.

00:40:57.340 But, you know, you see that his friend Christopher Goodman followed him there. But for the most part, other Reformed theologians just said that female rulers in the Commonwealth should not be ordinary. So, they're not illegitimate. They're still rulers, but, you know, it definitely should be the exception.

00:41:16.620 And it really doesn't fit with God's design, which is for men to rule in the home and also the church. And so, they would say like a female pastor is illegitimate, right? That you can't have a female pastor. But as far as a female ruler in the Commonwealth, she's legitimate, but it shouldn't be ordinary.

00:41:40.120 And one of the arguments they make, I mean, there's a variety, but one of them is that the home is kind of the basis for the church and the commonwealth. So they speak of that language of the, it's the seminary, the home is the seminary of the church and commonwealth. So it's the seed, the foundation.

00:41:56.700 You see that in passages like 1 Timothy 3 for elders, where Paul is saying, you know, if a man doesn't rule his household well, how is he going to rule the church?

00:42:08.680 And so, you know, you have the comparison there.

00:42:11.480 He needs to show himself, prove himself in his household, and then he can rule in the church.

00:42:17.280 And so, I mean, we can ask, why would that same principle not also apply to the state or the commonwealth?

00:42:25.700 I mean, of course, we have that problem today.

00:42:27.460 We have all sorts of politicians who their households are a complete mess, but they think

00:42:31.820 they can come rule over the rest of us.

00:42:34.120 And of course, that doesn't go very well, right?

00:42:36.220 So yeah, it's interesting, too, because even the Calvin Knox debate, which you bring up

00:42:41.140 in the book, you know, Knox would be seen as the more extreme.

00:42:44.960 But even in Calvin's case, I feel like most reformed pastors wouldn't even want to go

00:42:49.520 as far as Calvin did and saying that it's unnatural, it's not ideal, you know, and it

00:42:54.200 gets into things like just not just politicians, but women ruling in the Commonwealth in general.

00:42:59.780 Whereas Calvin was, you know, quick to say, there's one of my favorite quotes, like God,

00:43:05.080 God is commending her for all the work she does in the home. And if she never does anything except

00:43:10.060 be a mother, like that's good. Like there's not a push for her to go, you know, rule in the civil

00:43:16.660 sphere in the Commonwealth. It seems like that, I don't know many complementarians, like John

00:43:21.720 Piper kind of got in trouble for this, but he was like, I don't know if a woman should be a police

00:43:27.020 officer. And there was, you know, Carl Truman and Amy Byrd when she was on the podcast, there was a

00:43:32.080 huge pushback on that. So it seems like that's going to be, I don't know if this is what you

00:43:36.640 found, but it seems like particularly the Commonwealth, that's going to be a huge

00:43:40.440 problem for moderns, even if they're claiming the reformed moniker.

00:43:45.180 Yeah. I mean, John Piper said that he didn't think a woman should be president.

00:43:48.400 You know, I don't remember how much he commented on that. Otherwise, for like senators and things like that. But yeah, that was considered pretty controversial. And then, yeah, he's also said he doesn't think a woman should be a police officer. It just is more controversial to say those things. I think he's more consistent than a lot of other complementarians.

00:44:09.240 So, but yeah, a lot don't want to say that. I guess, I mean, there's a couple of problems with women's civil rulers. You bring up the one which is, well, that means they're not probably doing much in their own household and that's a problem.

00:44:22.900 But then they're also tied with that setting a poor example, right? And it's just kind of the snowball effect with feminism is the more women we have leading like publicly and things like the Commonwealth, then, you know, women and even men are taught that that's normative rather than extraordinary.

00:44:39.940 and I mean, that can undermine male rule in other spheres. I mean, we have this problem. I mean,

00:44:49.200 some of the early feminists even argued this way. Well, if a woman, we think a woman should

00:44:53.600 be able to lead in the public sphere or civil sphere. And if she can do that,

00:44:57.180 then why can't she also lead in the church? Yeah, it really is kind of a slippery slope.

00:45:01.680 Yeah. So all of these things are kind of interconnected. I mean, so look, I don't think

00:45:05.560 we need to push the male rule in the commonwealth as much as the others, but it should flow. You

00:45:11.620 know, it's just kind of a consistency thing. It should flow from the home. I mean, if God made

00:45:16.700 men to rule, then he made them also to rule in the church and in the state. And so, we should

00:45:23.600 expect that. We want to raise our men to lead in their homes. And some men are going to lead

00:45:30.980 publicly and have a public role but yeah this this does come back i mean this is definitely

00:45:35.680 tied with the home i mean all of this is woman's role or duties i mean part of the reason people

00:45:42.060 are not as sound on you know male male rule in the the home or the church or even the commonwealth is

00:45:49.460 they don't necessarily see a strong distinction between male female duties in the home

00:45:56.520 But if you affirm that, which the reformers definitely did, and I think the scriptures do, then things will kind of flow out of that. I mean, there's lots of work to do in the home that we need our wives to fulfill as wives and mothers. And if they're doing those things, part of us is going to be too busy to go run for office.

00:46:20.660 Yeah.

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00:49:04.180 Yeah, I'm curious, too, on the book.

00:49:06.740 You know, we've, I think we're, well, we launched a conference,

00:49:10.660 and then we've had a lot of online sales for a while,

00:49:13.380 So a month, a couple of weeks.

00:49:15.720 Have you had a chance to see much feedback or hear much feedback from people yet?

00:49:20.040 I'm just curious from your angle, how has it been received?

00:49:23.820 I mean, I've only seen positive feedback so far, so that's good.

00:49:28.060 But that also maybe tells you who's reading it.

00:49:31.880 So, I mean, this is kind of the same thing with like masculine Christianity.

00:49:36.180 Will the egalitarians actually engage with it?

00:49:39.800 I don't know.

00:49:41.140 I mean, I think they'd have trouble with this book unless they just want to, I mean, they

00:49:45.280 could just come out and say, well, hey, all of the reform, early reform theologians were

00:49:49.340 just wrong and men of their time and sexist or whatever they want to call them.

00:49:54.160 I mean, they don't have to claim the reform tradition, but kind of my argument is, well,

00:49:58.120 if you do claim the reform tradition for other things, then you need to claim this as well.

00:50:02.960 So we'll see.

00:50:04.540 I mean, even kind of more narrow complementarians, I'm curious what the reaction will be, but

00:50:08.840 I haven't seen much criticism yet. Okay. One of the other things, so moving into the second half

00:50:14.640 of the book, you get into some of the modern applications and perhaps misapplications, I guess,

00:50:20.080 of biblical sexuality running all the way to egalitarianism. One of the ones that was intriguing

00:50:25.680 to me was Nancy Piercy. Of course, we had her on the show, talked about her new book, I think,

00:50:31.300 The War on Toxic Masculinity or something. Her book is actually designed to be a defense

00:50:36.560 of, you know, what she would call biblical masculinity. But you point out in your book

00:50:42.400 that there's some problems, maybe some modern assumptions, I think, with where she goes.

00:50:46.780 So I guess let's just start there. Why bring up that as an example? Why include that? Why is that

00:50:52.740 important? Yeah, I think I included it. I mean, Nancy Piercy is obviously not a pastor. She

00:50:57.560 teaches at a Baptist university. But maybe part of the problem is like, I like Nancy Piercy

00:51:02.960 otherwise, and it had benefited from her writings. And I mean, I liked the idea of her book,

00:51:10.840 which was, you know, criticizing this concept of that masculinity is toxic. But I reviewed that

00:51:18.520 book initially for American Reformer, so people can find that online if they want to see the

00:51:22.960 whole thing. I included some of that in here, kind of like a summary, maybe a couple parts,

00:51:28.000 But then I actually added some further criticism. And so that's that's why I included. I mean, she studied under Francis Schaeffer at Labrie. And so she has some kind of reformed roots. And but but unfortunately, I think what happens with her book is she ends up redefining male headship.

00:51:46.800 And she ends up taking this really narrow complementarian view where she kind of undermines the whole thing. And I'm forgetting some of the language she uses, but she really doesn't like the idea of a man ruling in his home. You know, a lot of people are uncomfortable with that kind of language, but that's really what leadership is. It's exercising rule and authority. So, yeah, if I recall correctly, she rejects this very idea of a man exercising authority.

00:52:15.240 Yeah. There's also kind of the talk of, you know, it's this weird play where it's like, you know, headship is really healthy and it's really healthy because according to her, it's functionally egalitarian. Like the examples given in the book. So a lot of people have actually done this for a long time. Some of his stuff is helpful, but like Brad Wilcox, University of Virginia, like Russ Moore was quoting him in a paper back in like 06.

00:52:42.140 So looking to sociology and saying, what are healthy, thriving marriages?

00:52:46.300 And she'd say, well, it's with headship.

00:52:48.240 OK, but then define headship.

00:52:49.920 And then it's headship is functionally nobody's in charge.

00:52:54.020 We just sort of, you know, collaborate and work things out.

00:52:58.180 And so, like we would say, I would say reading that it's like, well, but that's not headship, though.

00:53:02.220 Yeah, it's it's it's not.

00:53:03.620 I mean, she does – now I recall a little bit with the book as she is going off some sociological studies and they basically redefine male headship so that it's like – it comes down to like this tie-breaking vote, essentially, is we agree on pretty much –

00:53:20.100 Yeah, sort of a leader model.

00:53:21.040 Yeah, we agree on – husband and wife pretty much agree on everything, work things out.

00:53:25.440 But if there's a tie-breaking vote, then we go with the man.

00:53:28.700 Of course, but there never is a tie-breaking vote, right?

00:53:30.700 It never happens probably.

00:53:31.500 So, yeah, I mean, it's basically, she's basically saying, well, most people today are just practically egalitarians. And she thinks that's a good thing. And I'm like, that's actually not a good thing. Because that's not what scripture teaches at all. And if that's the case, it's probably just a lot of men catering to their wives. And let's put it this way, not leading, right? That's the whole point. They're supposed to lead, which, you know, it's not a tyrannical rule.

00:53:57.100 I mean, the reformers all use that kind of language, right?

00:53:59.300 It's supposed to be a gentle rule, but you are supposed to rule your house as a man.

00:54:04.260 You set the tone.

00:54:05.240 You make decisions.

00:54:07.240 You consult your wife.

00:54:08.540 She's your counselor and advisor.

00:54:10.860 But sometimes you make decisions that she disagrees with.

00:54:14.000 And that's part of what it means to be the head of your household.

00:54:17.460 Yeah, it's interesting because even in organizations, I remember working for a company years ago.

00:54:23.100 And it was like a new agey, the owners.

00:54:25.440 and they were like, I was like, okay, what's the hierarchy? What's the authority structure?

00:54:29.960 Who works for who, you know? And I remember the owner coming in and he was like, listen, man,

00:54:34.480 like nobody works for anybody. Like we're just working together as a team. But then what would

00:54:39.580 happen is there would be huge frustration because like projects wouldn't get done on time. And they

00:54:45.680 would say, Eric, you know, this was your responsibility. And I'd say, well, I'm

00:54:48.560 technically not in charge of that. I've never been put in charge of that. Well, I know,

00:54:53.160 But as a team member, you know, we, you know, everybody needs to step up.

00:54:58.140 Basically, what I learned from the experience is we actually need hierarchy, chain of command, authority.

00:55:03.800 It's actually really helpful to know in a business.

00:55:06.960 But then, OK, also in the home, it's really helpful to know, well, who's in charge?

00:55:11.420 Who actually has the authority to make these decisions?

00:55:14.640 And then just like in the business, it's like, what do you know when we actually start instituting biblical patriarchy in the home?

00:55:22.200 the biggest comment I always get that is so shocking is the women are like,

00:55:26.140 I'm so much happier.

00:55:27.180 Like this is so much better that we're not fighting to decide who's in charge

00:55:32.000 or who is going to make the decision because we know, you know,

00:55:34.960 the man is leading, he's ruling.

00:55:36.660 I also think it's tied Zach to, as I mentioned before,

00:55:40.100 this concept of servant leadership where I heard this forever.

00:55:44.260 It actually still goes on with like promise keepers.

00:55:47.140 They think they're doing a good thing.

00:55:48.780 what they're trying to do is call men to not be selfish,

00:55:52.620 but what you're functionally telling them is you're in charge and your job is

00:55:56.780 to make sure your wife's happy. Yeah. Right. And so pastorally,

00:56:00.680 there's ramifications for this. We look at societal collapse,

00:56:04.100 collapse of the family, stuff you've cataloged, no fault divorce, all that.

00:56:08.260 You're like, but this would be my contention, even at a practical level,

00:56:11.420 that's not working. So it, to me, it's worth going back and saying, okay,

00:56:15.840 Maybe at a time period, like look at the reform time period when all these guys are writing and you're like, were families better or worse than now?

00:56:23.760 Most people, you know, it was better.

00:56:25.820 You're like, OK, well, patriarchy is so bad.

00:56:27.640 Why is it why is it so much worse now that feminism has been a dominant force?

00:56:32.960 Yeah.

00:56:33.340 A couple of thoughts there.

00:56:33.980 So so the servant leadership thing, I mentioned that a little bit in the section on Tim Keller in Chapter five.

00:56:41.080 Yeah.

00:56:41.200 But just a couple thoughts is, I mean, there is definitely the sense in which a leader should serve. I mean, Jesus teaches that in the Gospels. But some of the problems are, like, you're right, is one, it's construed as if the husband should just please his wife. Like, that's his whole goal is just to make her happy. And that's not what it means to be a leader who serves, because he may make decisions that his wife actually doesn't like, but are for her good, right?

00:57:07.540 Because he's supposed to lead her spiritually. And, you know, he sins and she sins and he shouldn't cater to her sinful desires. He should correct her and guide her. So, you got that. But also, the husband doesn't only serve his wife. He serves his children. He serves his church. He serves his neighbors, right?

00:57:30.660 I mean, obviously you have primary duties with your immediate family, but I don't know why don't people speak of the husband as the man is servant leader for others.

00:57:38.220 It seems like it's always just directed towards the wife as if like he just exists as if Paul said the man was made for woman and not the woman for man.

00:57:47.740 But that's actually not what he says. Right. He says the opposite. So, yeah, there's the problems there.

00:57:52.160 As far as like happiness and things getting worse with the family, I mean, it's hard to it's hard to argue with this.

00:57:58.940 I mean, this is why I don't even cite statistics on these things, because people just dispute them or whatnot.

00:58:05.340 But some of this is just common sense.

00:58:06.780 Like, obviously, the divorce rate is atrocious today.

00:58:09.980 The number of children born out of wedlock.

00:58:13.420 I mean, we could just go down the line.

00:58:14.700 But I think even like happiness.

00:58:16.560 I mean, there's lots of studies that come out and just kind of highlighting people being depressed or whatever.

00:58:21.760 And it's not like people were never addicted to substances, you know, abusing alcohol or drugs or whatever.

00:58:28.940 But obviously, we had problems.

00:58:30.940 We had men abusing their wives, cheating on their spouses.

00:58:35.520 I mean, this stuff has always existed with humans, you know, for the entire history of the world.

00:58:41.600 The question isn't, has there always been problems with marriage and humanity?

00:58:48.600 But are we better off now than we were with feminism?

00:58:53.680 And I think the answer is no.

00:58:55.560 Let me give one example.

00:58:56.440 If you go read Archibald Alexander, he's the first professor of theology at Princeton Seminary. He was found in 1812. And you can go read, he's got a good book on religious experience. Thoughts on, I think it's thoughts on religious experience. At the end, at least one of those editions, he has letters to the aged, but then he has some to like the young men, I think some to women, mothers maybe, I think it's to women.

00:59:19.000 And he's, there's several spots where he's like praising the women of Virginia.

00:59:24.460 He's like, we have the best, right?

00:59:26.640 The best women, that's where he's from originally was Virginia.

00:59:29.740 He praised his mother.

00:59:31.060 And then he's like, these are just godly women.

00:59:34.180 And I just, I'm like, could anybody really write that today about their home state within

00:59:40.120 the United States, their hometown?

00:59:41.940 I mean, maybe there's some towns that are exceptions.

00:59:44.140 Maybe like a church.

00:59:46.060 Yeah, yeah, right.

00:59:46.800 Right. I could totally say, hey, we have a lot of great ladies at our church, godly feminine women. But I couldn't write that about a town, let alone a whole region. I mean, it doesn't exist. Feminism has absolutely destroyed the women. I mean, it's destroyed the men in a lot of ways too. But yeah, the quality of feminine character has definitely declined since pre-feminism.

01:00:12.920 And all you have to do is go, like I said, go read words of older people.

01:00:16.800 They used to praise the women in those Christian societies, and now we can't do that.

01:00:21.920 So obviously, things are worse off than they were.

01:00:26.020 Yeah, it's interesting, too, when you look at the state of the church, and you talk about this in the second part of the book, but Tim Keller, you know, Gospel Coalition, just his influence was tremendous.

01:00:39.720 But I think you mentioned he wrote a book on marriage and then there's a book.

01:00:44.660 Is it the book on marriage where they don't talk about motherhood?

01:00:47.400 That's the one on vocation.

01:00:49.680 OK.

01:00:50.860 Yeah.

01:00:51.080 Book on vocation doesn't list motherhood for women.

01:00:54.340 There's a lot of absurdity there.

01:00:56.000 One of the things Aaron Wren actually pointed this out and I started reading before he died.

01:01:00.580 Tim Keller had a manifesto and he's talking about, you know, we need to align ourselves

01:01:04.500 with the liberal mainline.

01:01:05.540 let's keep the five solos basically but oh well well really let's keep sort of the core soteriology

01:01:13.080 but we need to jettison fundamentalism even complementarianism was like too right-wing

01:01:18.320 all of a sudden and uh so there's a there's a clear push left there you kind of look at the

01:01:24.400 overall trajectory though and you know another pastor read your book and and we were texting

01:01:30.360 about it. And he told me, he said, I had no idea the negative influence that Keller had.

01:01:36.260 Because I think a lot of us probably weren't following that really closely. You know,

01:01:39.940 if you're on Twitter, you see some stupid clips of, you know, gay belay and all that stuff that

01:01:44.660 they're doing for communion and stuff. But, you know, when he's actually explicitly saying what

01:01:49.260 he said. So just talk about that. You obviously include that in the book. Why is this important

01:01:54.320 to address somebody who had such a really a predominant role in shaping what we think about

01:01:59.260 sexuality. Yeah. I mean, Tim Keller gets like 10 or 15 pages in the book. And the reason for that

01:02:06.700 is Tim Keller was highly influential. I mean, he was in my denomination, the Presbyterian Church

01:02:12.840 in America. And I mean, look, a lot of people like Tim Keller's writings and preaching.

01:02:20.940 And so, he was an attractive personality. And he had a lot of influence in the PCA,

01:02:27.120 but even outside. I mean, he was one of the founders of the Gospel Coalition with D.A. Carson

01:02:32.080 there. But yeah, I mean, one thing I just try to do in here is highlight some of his more egalitarian

01:02:38.480 direction. I mean, he would have called himself complementarian, of course. And he wasn't promoting

01:02:43.660 women pastors or anything like that. So, I try to be fair in him. I mean, fair to him. Some of this

01:02:48.260 is just me. I had done some research and just kind of highlighting here's what he actually thought.

01:02:54.620 So, yeah, I mean, you mentioned the book on vocation was Every Good Endeavor, Connecting Your Work to God's Work.

01:03:03.000 It was published in 2014.

01:03:05.780 And I remember I read that as part of a book study at a church several years back.

01:03:12.260 And my wife was in there with me and we had discussed that.

01:03:17.700 And we both had that kind of the same thought.

01:03:20.900 Like there was good stuff in there.

01:03:22.160 And then you're like, wait a second, though.

01:03:23.800 We finished the book.

01:03:24.620 he never talked about motherhood. And so, I did word searches and stuff after to verify this.

01:03:31.520 And yeah, sure enough, I think I said in there, he never uses the word motherhood. I mean,

01:03:34.800 mother comes up a couple of times in certain contexts, but it's just, it's kind of mind

01:03:40.120 blowing that you're writing a book on vocation, which is your calling. One's calling in life,

01:03:46.240 which is God's calling. That's what vocation is getting at. And I read scripture and I read

01:03:53.020 the reformers early reform theologians and god's calling on women's woman's life is is is motherhood

01:04:01.080 for for the most part that's that's normative um there might be some exceptions but most women are

01:04:06.820 called to be wives and mothers and and so they're not going to go out into the uh the workplace

01:04:13.220 full-time and i mean i mean i realize that's we have some cultural problems here but but primarily

01:04:21.620 I think a woman should be domestically oriented, focused on children in the home, all these great things, important things, needed things that are lost today for a lot of Americans. And I just can't imagine talking about vocation and not talking about motherhood. So I think that just kind of tells you where he's coming from.

01:04:39.340 I mean, yeah, I know Tim Keller ministered in New York, where they probably had a lot of career women. But I mean, even still first teach what scripture says. But second is also, I mean, a book like this is going out well beyond New York City.

01:04:55.500 And, yeah, so I just kind of highlight that and contrast it with some scriptural passages as well as, I mean, you can just kind of see even the background of the Reformers, you can contrast yourself.

01:05:09.360 I did that a little bit, too, with Nancy Peercy on that subject, because she kind of says, like, a woman, the passage in Titus 2, women should be working at home.

01:05:21.760 And she says that it doesn't mean they have to work.

01:05:25.980 What does she say?

01:05:26.640 It's something to the effect of, like, it doesn't have to be at home.

01:05:29.180 Yeah, I think she ties it to, like, productive households, pre-industrial.

01:05:33.760 This is one of the concerns I have, though.

01:05:36.040 I noticed this a couple of times with some of her interactions on Twitter where it's it's still the egalitarian instinct to be like, yeah, you know, let's talk about context.

01:05:46.160 Let's talk about all this stuff historically surrounding culturally surrounding the passage.

01:05:51.560 And then by the end of the exposition, the passage means exactly the opposite of what it plainly means.

01:05:58.660 You know what I mean?

01:05:59.160 Like Titus 2 is pretty clear.

01:06:01.080 I've had people even say to me, well, you know, it's not like Paul actually gives a syllabus for what they should be teaching.

01:06:07.960 And our position has been, no, but like he actually does.

01:06:12.100 It's actually spelled out in the next verses about what is supposed to be taught.

01:06:17.340 And I think that is just, it's a good warning that any commentary, any modern interpretation of a text that I hear,

01:06:25.180 and we're going to lean on a sociologist or we're going to lean on, you know,

01:06:30.260 we just don't understand the culture, right? Or something like that.

01:06:32.840 I immediately, especially if it just flies in the face of the plain reading of the text,

01:06:37.700 I'm immediately like, that's probably not where I would, you know, lay all my chips.

01:06:43.260 Yeah.

01:06:43.560 If it's going to come down to that.

01:06:45.140 Yeah, exactly. And so that's why, like, I mean, I cite some of these verses in here,

01:06:49.720 like Titus 2, 3 through 5, but also 1 Timothy 5, 14, where Paul's talking about widows.

01:06:55.180 and he's got the requirements

01:06:57.220 if they're going to be enrolled, basically

01:06:59.100 supported by the church, they have to

01:07:00.740 there's certain requirements for them, but they have to be over 60

01:07:03.360 but then he says in 1 Timothy 5.14

01:07:05.280 for the younger widows, he says, so I would

01:07:07.240 have younger widows

01:07:08.360 he doesn't say go

01:07:10.720 do something else outside the house, he says

01:07:12.900 I would have younger widows marry, bear children

01:07:15.180 manage their households and give the adversary

01:07:17.120 no occasion for slander. So

01:07:18.900 I'd like to point this out is the New Testament

01:07:21.140 doesn't prohibit a woman from working

01:07:23.100 outside the home or bringing in income

01:07:24.640 But it does orient her work towards the home. And so, we have to have that same mindset. I mean, that is the scripture's mindset. And it's for the good of mankind. And when that's lost, yes, people suffer and our culture suffers.

01:07:39.580 So, yeah, I mean, one thing is, is like you read, you go read a lot of modern commentaries. It's kind of like what you're saying. Like they, they just really, I mean, they're, everybody's reading these texts from, from their perspective, from their culture. I mean, I am too. I understand that. That's why it's good to go read earlier, you know, or I like to say old dead guys.

01:08:00.660 I like to read a bunch of old dead guys because they didn't see things the exact same way we do, and they don't have the blind spots we do.

01:08:10.960 I can tell you this from writing this book.

01:08:14.660 The old Reformed theologians were not explaining these passages away.

01:08:19.000 They embraced them.

01:08:19.900 They just said, obviously, here's what it says, right?

01:08:24.100 that women should be focusing their efforts on the home and children, and the husband has the

01:08:30.040 duty to provide. And so, that's where they go. So, that's why it's nice to read old commentators,

01:08:36.520 old theologians. And I love modern commentaries too. I'm not saying don't read them, but some of

01:08:42.300 them are straight up egalitarian. And some of the guys, even who aren't, are still compromised

01:08:47.400 sometimes on some of these issues. So, you just have to keep that in mind.

01:08:50.920 Yeah, that's a really good point. Zach, as we kind of wrap things up here, one of the questions I want to ask you, you know, is what impact you would hope that the book would have. I have been encouraged, even if it's a small number, but there's more people now than there were 10 years ago who are willing to talk about just straight up high octane, you know, biblical patriarchy.

01:09:13.100 I'm grateful for groups like American Reformer.

01:09:15.360 They've been reviewing the book, Matthew Pearson.

01:09:18.360 You know, there's been a number of guys who've been willing to say, yeah, absolutely, we'll

01:09:21.480 read it.

01:09:22.160 It's been a positive thing in terms of reform resourcement.

01:09:25.420 So I've been encouraged with that.

01:09:27.060 I've been encouraged by the book sales because I've noticed as actually my son is the one

01:09:32.680 processing the orders right now.

01:09:34.480 And so, but like going through the orders, it's really cool.

01:09:37.040 I know a lot of the people, but a lot of pastors buying five, 10 books for their elder team.

01:09:41.860 So as you look at all that, I know we're very prayerful. We're hoping that this will have a broad impact, that this, as opposed to what's been in the teaching of the church for some time, that this will get a foothold and will grow and people will understand it. But I just want to get your feel for what your hope is for the book, how it will kind of be a part of the conversation and start pushing it a different direction.

01:10:04.720 Yeah, I mean, one of the things with this topic is it's very practical. We're not just talking about some theological, obscure theological topic that, you know, everything in the scriptures, you know, is important. Obviously, let's not downplay it.

01:10:20.900 But some things just are going to be more relevant, more practical, and how we structure

01:10:26.840 our families and who leads in the home and church and commonwealth, all of these are

01:10:33.500 very important questions.

01:10:35.640 And if we get them wrong, they have negative consequences.

01:10:39.640 But on the bright side is if we get them right, that's for our good and God blesses that and

01:10:44.760 God blesses obedience to him.

01:10:47.180 And so, I mean, that's really my goal when I write these things, whether it's masculine Christianity or this book, Honor Thy Fathers, is I really just want to take people back to the Bible and interpret it properly and apply it properly and to live it out.

01:11:03.780 I mean, that's what we do as Christians.

01:11:05.500 We want to please God.

01:11:06.600 We want to order our lives according to his ways.

01:11:10.960 And, you know, we talk about faith, right?

01:11:13.300 We trust God.

01:11:15.140 What does faith look like?

01:11:16.140 It should lead to obedience and it should lead to trusting him.

01:11:22.740 Even the culture tells us male headship, that stuff's bad and sexist and abusive, but faith in Christ says, no, I'm going to do what God tells me to do.

01:11:36.960 So, whether you're a husband or a wife or looking to marry at some point is saying, I'm going to do what God says.

01:11:49.600 And even if some people in my church don't like it, I'm going to please God.

01:11:53.840 And so, this book is aimed at helping people live out scripture and obey God as calling husbands to lead their households.

01:12:07.540 And that includes loving their wives, leading them spiritually, providing for their households, giving their children a Christian education, raising them in the faith, helping wives to submit to their husbands to actually...

01:12:20.460 That is pleasing to God, right?

01:12:21.620 1 Peter 3, it's very clear.

01:12:23.020 And it's good to hear, yeah, it's not just me saying this, but you can go read all of these reform guys we love and respect on other things. Calvin, Gouge, you know, I even quote Herman Bavink quite a bit in chapter four. Everybody loves Bavink today, but then, you know, a bunch of egalitarians love him too. Well, what about his book, The Christian Family? I mean, he's pretty, you know, traditional in his views.

01:12:47.680 So, and I think all those guys are traditional because scripture is pretty plain on these topics.

01:12:52.500 Yeah.

01:12:52.860 Despite all of the challenges of feminism and, you know, Christian feminism, egalitarianism, whatever you want to call it, I think their arguments are bad.

01:13:04.320 I think they're going to lose long term.

01:13:09.320 And I think they've led people actually away from obedience to Christ.

01:13:15.040 And so, that's really what we want to recover.

01:13:16.620 We want to please God.

01:13:17.360 We want to bless our families, and we do that by following God's design.

01:13:22.760 Yeah, amen.

01:13:23.320 I love that.

01:13:24.320 Well, Zach, I appreciate you coming on the show.

01:13:26.820 Of course, thanks for writing a book that we can publish and partnering with us.

01:13:31.140 Of course, I want to encourage our listeners to buy Zach Garris' new book, Honor Thy Fathers, Recovering the Anti-Feminist Theology of the Reformers.

01:13:40.300 Also forward by Joey Piper.

01:13:43.140 That was pretty cool to have him contribute.

01:13:46.220 Yeah, that was great.

01:13:47.040 former president of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. And now he's still a

01:13:50.880 professor there. So he still teaches. He's a great man. I highly respect him. And I was

01:13:55.480 really honored that he wrote the foreword here. Yeah, very excited about that. Of course,

01:14:00.660 we got some good plugs on there from Dr. Stephen Wolfe, C.R. Wiley, Michael Foster as well.

01:14:05.380 So encourage people to check that out. You can go to newchristendompress.com

01:14:08.480 slash fathers, and you can order your copy today. Zach, thanks again for joining me for

01:14:15.320 this episode of the podcast thanks for having me on well in case you didn't know we have another

01:14:29.720 king's hall show called the after hours and it's available only to our patrons we have a great time

01:14:35.180 in the after hours i play hype songs which brian loves sometimes we even talk about brian's cut we

01:14:39.820 talk about recent news on x and answer listener questions overall it's a great time so i'd

01:14:44.380 encourage you to head over to patreon.com slash the kings hall if you'd like to support the show

01:14:50.360 and get some extra content

The King's Hall - July 12, 2024

Reformed Resourcement： Recovering Biblical Patriarchy with Zach Garris

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