In this episode, we are joined by special guest Erika khan to discuss patriarchy and Christian femininity. Erika is a writer, speaker, and advocate for traditional femininity and patriarchy in the public sphere. She has been a voice in the online push for Christian homemaking, submission, and submission to her husband, Tony. But as of this past week, everything about Patriarchy Hannah has unraveled.
00:00:21.860We need this content for the glory of God to reach more people's ears.
00:00:26.800If you've spent any time in Christian Twitter circles over the past few years,
00:00:32.000then you've probably come across the name Patriarchy Hannah.0.52
00:00:36.160With her bold advocacy for traditional femininity and biblical patriarchy and the trad wife lifestyle,
00:00:43.800she built a following of nearly 30,000 people and positioned herself as a voice in the online push for Christian homemaking and submission.0.63
00:00:53.040She claimed to be a devoted wife, married to a contractor named Tony, and a mother to 14 children.
00:01:01.660Her posts were filled with strong rebukes of modern feminism,0.98
00:01:05.980encouragements for women to embrace submission,
00:01:09.080and even some sharp critiques for other Christian women in the public sphere.
00:01:15.080But as of this past week, everything about Patriarchy Hannah has unraveled.
00:01:20.040The account has been exposed as a fabrication, run not by a married mother of 14 children, but by a single childless woman named Jennifer, a 37-year-old from Arkansas.
00:01:34.680A deep dive into public records, receipts, and past online activity revealed that her husband, Tony, doesn't exist.
00:01:43.560Her family life was invented, and the house that she claimed her husband built was actually constructed by a completely unrelated developer.
00:01:52.840Now, some are celebrating this revelation as proof that the entire online patriarchal movement is built on deception.
00:02:00.840They argue that trad influencers are merely cosplayers, and that many who follow them are fetishists.
00:02:09.660To be sure, Patriarchy Hannah deceived many, and it's worth noting that she has publicly apologized.
00:02:16.760But this does not mean that the goals of patriarchy and the Trad Wife movement are illegitimate.
00:02:23.320If anything, it shows that Christian women, and Christian men for that matter, are in vital need of real-life discipleship.
00:02:31.080The women, in their case, require discipleship in how to keep their homes, how to be lovers of children, and how to joyfully submit to their own husband.
00:02:41.640This episode is brought to you by our premier sponsors, Armored Republic and Reese Fund, as well as our Patreon members and our faithful donors.
00:02:51.540You can join our Patreon by going to patreon.com forward slash rightresponseministries
00:02:58.860or you can donate by going to rightresponseministries.com forward slash donate.
00:03:06.260As we have said before, sometimes you have to LARP before you can fly.
00:03:12.480Rather than disparaging the LARPers, we should continue to extol godly femininity
00:03:17.840and all women who aspire to develop it.0.76
00:03:21.540Tune in now with special guest Eric Kahn as we set the record straight and defend the lost virtue of patriarchy and Christian femininity.0.98
00:03:42.120That's it, boys. Pack it up. It's time to go home. We're so over.1.00
00:03:46.840as far as i can tell from the interweb um a woman lied therefore feminism is true1.00
00:03:52.980all the waves of it one two three and four one two three and four that's right one woman lied1.00
00:03:58.780feminism is true pack it up patriarchy it's so over today we are joined by a special guest
00:04:05.680my spirit animal who honestly at this point let's just let's be honest i'm not even proud
00:04:10.420about this but um it is the sad reality that i must admit uh there was a time when people would
00:04:15.580say you know you um you know if you're not careful you're going to be just as um just as hated
00:04:22.480online as eric khan and now people say who's eric khan eric welcome to the show thanks for coming
00:04:31.140introduce yourself awesome thanks for having me yeah absolutely joel i'm happy to pass that
00:04:35.760mandle on to you by the way on the interwebs congratulations and condolences yeah seriously
00:04:42.420seriously okay so this is what we're gonna do uh we have our very own wesley todd we've got
00:04:47.940michael belch uh myself and eric con is a special guest the reason we invited eric one because he's
00:04:53.280a friend and we love him uh two because he's been i think a really consistent and steady faithful
00:04:58.720voice on this subject of biblical patriarchy for quite a while um multiple years and i remember
00:05:06.180you know even i don't know when did you start uh would you start a hard man podcast when did that
00:05:12.880start uh so it started in 2020 uh really kind of hitting that hard about april i think of 2020
00:05:19.460covid was kicking off that's when we started cool yeah i just i remember listening to it i was going
00:05:25.780to say about five years ago and so that checks i wanted to make sure i didn't say five years ago
00:05:29.980and you're like i started it you know last week you know but uh so that yeah the math checks out
00:05:33.760there. And I remember being blessed by your content and learning a lot from it, your podcast,
00:05:38.860as well as It's Good to Be a Man. I remember listening to that back in the day. So we want
00:05:42.840to have Eric on because he speaks to this topic quite frequently, also because he's a friend and
00:05:46.780also because you and I were both named recently in a podcast. And we're going to show some clips
00:05:54.920from that. And we're going to do our best not to be bombastic and not to be unnecessarily, you know,
00:05:59.820we don't want to be mean-spirited, partly because we want to be consistent with our view. We believe
00:06:06.060in biblical patriarchy. We believe that's what the Bible espouses, gender piety, whatever term
00:06:10.520you want to use. And so, because of that, we don't want to unnecessarily pick fights with0.88
00:06:17.760the fair sex. Now, that said, if the fair sex chooses to pick a fight with us, we'll finish it.1.00
00:06:26.040No, I'm just kidding. No, but if the Ferris X chooses to pick a fight with us and their platform is significant enough within, you know, meaningful Christian circles, then there are times where it just simply merits clarification.0.81
00:06:39.740That's how I feel. What do you think, Eric?
00:06:42.360Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I've been told picking fights with women online is like kicking puppies on stage.
00:06:49.200so we try to avoid that if at all possible uh but yeah i think especially as we think pastorally
00:06:54.940just for our ladies um you know we'll talk about ali bestucky i think in a minute uh but we had
00:07:01.080people in our congregation asking about that in the patriarchy hannah situation so i think in that
00:07:05.740case you know it definitely warrants a response hopefully you know to be pastoral and encourage
00:07:11.060our ladies no patriarchy is not dead no the principles didn't fail just because uh you know
00:07:16.140somebody was grifting or you know larping in a you know unrighteous way right amen yeah so we
00:07:22.400want to bring clarity to this uh primarily for women i feel like most of the guys don't really
00:07:28.100care you know except for the bad faithless like the guys who were already soft complementarian
00:07:33.580and already didn't like patriarchy and are just looking for you know they had a confirmation
00:07:37.380bias and this is the confirmation you know so they were just looking for um low-hanging fruit
00:07:42.220a gotcha kind of moment uh so there's some of those those guys um but other than those guys
00:07:47.520most of the you know the men who are in patriarchal circles are like so what why is why is it a big
00:07:53.500deal but i think some of the women um are genuinely hurt in part because i think some of them um
00:07:59.280really did interact with patriarchy hannah at you know some of them you know lesser and more degrees
00:08:04.900depending on the person but some of them you know really you know they were following her page
00:08:08.960pretty intently and learning things from her, maybe even interacted with her some in private
00:08:15.140messages or whatever it might have been, or tuned into her podcast, or tuned into a lot of the
00:08:22.040spaces that I didn't really, you know, I think I listened to one that Michael Foster was leading,
00:08:30.660but she was an administrator on that Twitter space. And then, and there might have been one
00:08:36.820more. But I did notice, you know, because your, your phone, every time you open the X app, it
00:08:41.660alerts you, you know, what these spaces are happening. And I did notice, you know, she did
00:08:45.040a lot of spaces. And so I think there were women who, you know, whether it was following her
00:08:48.420account on X or hopping in the spaces that were done on a semi regular basis, pretty frequently.
00:08:54.900Most of the ones that I saw, I was alerted because they were led by Michael Foster, you know, he led
00:08:58.840at least a couple dozen with her. And, and when I say with her, I don't mean like she was speaking
00:09:04.700all the time but she was the administrator i guess i i don't even know really how it works but
00:09:09.200apparently um i don't know you there's such a thing as being good at hosting a space and she0.67
00:09:14.600was doing that and for a lot of guys in our circle so for those women who were you know in you know
00:09:20.380having those relational touch points um some of them were hurt and so i think it merits um as best
00:09:27.060we can like uh some encouragement to those women um some clarifications of what biblical patriarchy
00:09:33.000is, um, and, and the path forward so that we can move on. And that's kind of what we want to do.
00:09:39.840So Eric, if there's anything that you want to say, go ahead and say it. If not, we'll go ahead
00:09:43.720and throw on the first clip from a recent podcast from Ali Beth Stuckey. Yeah, I think just the one
00:09:50.700thing it kind of to contextualize everything. One of the things I've heard is, you know, Joel,
00:09:55.380you and Eric, you know, you platform this lady. And just to be clear, uh, I was invited to, uh,
00:10:01.000I think it was billed as I talked to my husband, Tony, who we now know didn't exist.
00:16:12.420And that's just not conducive to something that's a flash in the pan, very exciting,
00:16:15.980has a lot of people that are really into it all of a sudden.
00:16:18.060that doesn't create the ground the soil for a good pattern of life that lasts yeah there's a
00:16:24.980lot of things that multiple elements that can be appealing one like you already said Wes is just
00:16:29.920the desire for community belonging relationship which is a good desire right so a lot of people
00:16:34.860who get pulled into flash in the pan type movements it really can be simply that they're
00:16:41.660lonely that can be a big part of it is just wanting friendship in addition to that there's
00:16:47.280not just the desire for community but also the desire to be seen as virtuous and so um whether
00:16:53.360it was social justice and the black square it's like look at me i'm virtuous um or whether it's
00:16:58.820you know trad life you know like so if uh women are you know constantly flooding social media
00:17:04.240with pictures of themselves in bikinis and you're showing a picture with you and your children in a0.97
00:17:09.540sundress um that's good and i would love for social media to be flooded with that instead
00:17:14.680that is objectively good. But the desires, in terms of your incentives and motives, hidden
00:17:19.000motives of the heart, it could be to honor God. It could also be simply to be viewed as being
00:17:23.660virtuous, morally superior to those who are scantily clad. But a lot of that gets down to,
00:17:30.020again, I think the thing that I want to point out is those don't have any bearing over whether or
00:17:38.540not something is objectively moral and true. What you're talking about is at the individual
00:17:44.600level what the incentives or hidden motives of their heart, inward motives, might be for somebody
00:17:49.200hopping on board. But the fact that a movement or a set of doctrinal principles or whatever it might
00:17:56.480be, or even an individual local church, that it might attract people for the wrong reasons,
00:18:01.940it's a fallacy to say that that definitively and objectively means that this church or this
00:18:07.520movement or this doctrinal belief system is somehow inherently flawed, that it's morally
00:18:14.400flawed because it attracted uh the wrong person that's just um that's that doesn't um that's
00:18:21.340that's guilt by association that's a fallacy um and so uh that that's the only thing that i would
00:18:27.100want to add to it michael do you have anything you want to say well i do i want to um be up front
00:18:31.740almost a year ago i didn't look back and see the exact date that we did it but about a year ago we
00:18:36.740did an episode and it was which way western woman and it was witchcraft or trad wife right and so
00:18:43.280So, you know, in that episode, we were commending the virtues of the Tradwife movement.
00:18:47.760However, Eric, something I heard you say once a while ago, well, this is years ago, you said that one of the problems in the 50s and 60s was that as the domestic duties became easier because of machinery and canned goods, things like that,
00:19:08.220one of the failures of men was that we did not figure out how to continue to involve our wives
00:19:16.060women in the process of the creation mandate of being fruitful of subduing the earth and we kind
00:19:23.960of in some ways like modern society just left women kind of twiddling their thumbs so i'm i'm
00:19:29.800curious eric what you think um you know sourdough and sundresses is not enough right but i think we
00:19:37.000would all say it's a step in the right direction but i'm curious um if your perspective is still
00:19:42.460well we need to be creative and thoughtful about how we encourage our wives and dads their their
00:19:51.960daughters in knowing how to be keepers at home when the roomba vacuum can you know can clean the0.97
00:19:59.360floor for them right um so i'm i'm just curious yes trad wife is a good impulse in the right0.87
00:20:05.320direction, but it's not enough, obviously. Yeah, I think really what it's, trad wife is like the
00:20:10.840tip of the iceberg, but I think what women and men, too, who are interested in this sort of topic,
00:20:15.800I think what they're actually looking for is an old principle that we would have called in
00:20:19.520Christendom, the productive household. So when you read Proverbs 31, you see a woman who is working,
00:20:25.180she's busy with a number of activities that are associated with her household. She's actually
00:20:30.340involved in some ways, usually, at least in a tertiary way with her husband's business,
00:20:35.880whether that's maybe doing some bookkeeping, your husband's a welder or something like that,
00:20:40.020and you're involved in it somehow, the daughters would have been involved in those things too.
00:20:45.760So I think really the 50s is kind of, as Christendom falls apart, and the productive
00:20:51.380household is gone, they still maintain a little bit of the moral virtue of the household.
00:20:56.680But it's really more of what we think of today as like the nuclear family,
00:21:00.340Yeah, leave it to Beaver. There's a dad, there's a mom. But it's already broken down a little bit at that point because dad's going off to a job by himself. Mom just kind of stays at home. Kids go to a public school. It was definitely more wholesome than today, but it's still a denigration of what the biblical household, I think, pattern is supposed to be.
00:21:20.720So, yeah, particularly having women see that the sourdough is just part of a bigger hole and a bigger vision for the productive household.0.70
00:21:30.960And I think one of the things that we've tried to do, you know, I said we weren't involved in the Red Pill, Manosphere, Trad Wife, whatever.0.97
00:21:37.820But one of the things we definitely have done, and I think Joel's done this as well, is we've looked at those cultural trends and we've seen some of those hungers for the old productive household.
00:21:46.100And we've said sort of in the, you know, Paul going into the area of Pegasus and saying, yeah, actually, some of the things that you're talking about, it's the unknown God.
00:21:54.480But let me tell you the real story here. The reason we have so much father hunger in the land is actually because something has gone catastrophically wrong with society.
00:22:04.300And so we want to correct some of those errors. We do want to speak to the guys who are really hungry for, you know, Andrew Tate content, for example, without saying, yeah, I'm part of the red pill movement.
00:22:15.180We're obviously going to critique Andrew Tate, but we're going to speak to that desire.
00:22:19.320And I think you see that across society, that people really are longing, and wives in particular,
00:22:25.320not just to be cute on the fainting couch, but to actually be involved in the work that
00:22:31.820her husband is doing and then bringing the children into that work as well.
00:22:35.540Sourdough could be a part of it, but it's actually a much greater vision than just that.
00:22:40.280Right, because it's getting at virtues underneath, like what are dresses getting at underneath?
00:22:44.280modesty and beauty modesty without being frumpy modesty with elegance feminine feminine beauty
00:22:51.700right what is sourdough getting it underneath provision right submission warmth so by all
00:22:56.640means take the things underneath what we talk about all the time with masculinity what like
00:23:00.840what is working out getting underneath longevity longevity of life stability security protection
00:23:07.160right discipline what about a guy who's being ambitious and trying to make more money so long
00:23:12.380as he's doing it ethically without neglecting his other duties, well, that's provision.
00:23:17.260Like these are, this is the right direction.
00:23:19.960So, these are things that we don't want to disparage.
00:23:21.960These are things that we want to encourage, and we want to encourage them and then come
00:23:25.360alongside them and start to provide some of the theological, biblical underpinnings, like
00:23:30.860Eric was talking about, for them to say, this is right, let me tell you why.
00:23:34.540This is good, let me tell you why, and show them the biblical reasoning, and then also
00:23:38.240show them historically how this is how all the world has thought, even outside of Christian
00:23:44.400nations, even pagan nations have thought this way. All the world has seen a difference between men0.67
00:23:50.220and women and the function of women in society and predominantly that being in the home.1.00
00:23:55.580This is common knowledge for the vast majority of all of human history, and it's certainly true0.63
00:24:01.280to the scripture. So, if we see something like that in the culture at large, yeah, trad wives0.99
00:24:08.320and sourdough beat the hell out of OnlyFans, right? So, when we're living in OnlyFans culture,
00:24:17.920and then you see even just the sparks of a potential sundress and sourdough movement,
00:24:25.880then yeah we want we want to encourage that and say that's great and then and then add some of
00:24:31.700the robust underpinnings theological underpinnings for why but we don't want to disparage it um and0.99
00:24:37.680say well no that's not really what femininity is because we're actually intimidated by wives who
00:24:43.240are staying home and wearing dresses and making sourdough because we actually secretly want to be
00:24:48.380able to protect our own wives and their 40 hour a week career or whatever outside of the home
00:24:52.820So that's, to me, that does not sit well with me.
00:24:59.200So one more thing that I wanted to add with the clip, Nathan, can you play, not the next
00:25:03.200one, but can you go back and play the clip that you already did one last time?
00:32:47.940Yeah, I think that you guys make some really good points.
00:32:50.000I think the other is just practical, facing up to the practical things that are going on, too.
00:32:54.340So having spent a lot of time in the media industry outside of a particularly reformed or Christian space, you've got to think about the cultural context and what a marketing guy is thinking through.
00:33:06.400He's saying you've got a pretty blonde lady and you've got an audience of women.
00:33:10.980So how do you market to them? You get somebody to speak their language.0.68
00:33:14.300You feel like you need something like that. That's really a big factor here.
00:33:19.440The other one I would say, though, is when we're addressing principles, just like in the book of Acts, when you start telling the silversmiths and the magicians that what they're doing is not a good thing for them to be doing.0.76
00:33:32.480Well, what ends up happening is it causes an economic problem.
00:33:36.580And so I think for Ali and for other people, they're very successful.
00:33:41.060And I think in the past, this is why, you know, you'll tend to hear quips from them like you're jealous of my platform, yada, yada.
00:33:47.640we're like no actually it's a principled issue um but but you've got to be aware of that the
00:33:53.440other thing i think that's really it's kind of just in the cultural water particularly with
00:33:57.880mainstream evangelicalism for some time now is you've had the jen wilkin effect where we had0.75
00:34:03.020this idea that um the only way that you could serve women was to have a female version of a
00:34:08.040pastor and so we did that with women's ministries and so i actually view this as just an extension
00:34:14.920of the same thing where it's like well men addressing political issues wasn't enough
00:34:19.360we need a female version of that in order to be effective and of course again on principle we
00:34:25.640don't think that's the case i also think um going back to something that west said about movements
00:34:31.800this is one of the particular reasons that we we want to ground what we're saying not in novel
00:34:37.000innovative 1980s complementarian theology but in the reform tradition as a whole right so 200 years
00:34:44.620and plus older and we say when you stack up something like alibeth against all of that if
00:34:50.380you go 200 years ago they they would be laughing that this conversation is even happening right
00:34:56.300yeah a little just a bit on the war maybe we'll hit our first commercial break but um that's the
00:35:01.160positive side the polemical the attack the aggression but on the negative side i mean i'm
00:35:05.660sure joel and eric get much more than i do but the messages the insults and everything that i receive
00:35:10.320i would never want my wife to be on the receiving end they don't bother me whatsoever but anyone
00:35:14.980that has some level of a public platform and speaks strongly on the issues of today they're
00:35:20.240going to be on the receiving end of hate of vile disgusting things that should never be hurled at1.00
00:35:25.640a woman most certainly in regards to this and so by saying no i don't wouldn't want my wife doing
00:35:30.640a podcast on this i wouldn't want her speaking i wouldn't want her authoring related to these
00:35:34.080issues you're shielding her from being exposed to nastiness they have just no place being exposed
00:35:39.680to i love them i want you to sleep great at night and so we're not going to involve you in this
00:35:43.560culture war and i will happily take the heat because i can take a thousand or whatever it
00:35:47.300would be and uh and not lose not lose a wink but uh but for you out of love i just know this is to
00:35:53.340protect you yeah amen well said yeah sometimes people ask like how come you don't um how can
00:35:59.120we never see your family you know like how come your wife doesn't ever jump on a podcast with you
00:56:38.660they get into lots of little arguments. And at the same time, they will be like, no, we're on
00:56:44.320the front lines fighting the culture war. And women shouldn't be on here, bro. It's a podcast.1.00
00:56:49.900Okay. It's a podcast. And one thing that women are really good at doing is talking.
00:56:57.260So let me go first, Eric, and then I'll throw it to you. So just to provide some hit. Yeah,1.00
00:57:02.320I know it's rough. But just to provide some history for the listener, a lot of our listeners
00:57:07.220may be aware of this, but for those who aren't, um, so that part, you know, I tried, I tried to
00:57:12.140defend Allie earlier and say, yeah, I think both of these things could be true. Like I didn't want
00:57:15.420to have them on the show, but also I did, you know, because they paid for an ad, um, which that
00:57:20.240does, the details do matter. Like if you want to give me a hard time because we paid Allie for an0.96
00:57:24.880ad and I also asked if I could do a segment, that's fine. But what you see online is people
00:57:29.080saying, well, he paid to go on the show. Well, no, we didn't. We paid for an ad. I asked to go
00:57:33.460on the show. She felt obligated by her own admission because we paid for the ad to oblige0.99
00:57:39.760that request. So there I wanted to defend her and say, yeah, I think that's probably true when she0.98
00:57:43.660says I didn't really want to have Joel, but I went ahead and did it anyways. I think she's being
00:57:47.560truthful. That last clip that we just watched is not truthful. And you know what? I'll say this
00:57:53.940again to try to steal man and give as much charity as possible. Sometimes when we say things that
00:58:00.260aren't truthful, it can be nefarious, it can be malicious, that we're intentionally being deceptive.
00:58:05.480It also, it's not always our fallibility, it can also be our finitude, right? It could be just the
00:58:10.800fact that we're creaturely, and we don't have steel trap perfect, you know, memories all the
00:58:15.700time. So, giving the benefit of the doubt, maybe she's not trying to be deceitful here, but maybe
00:58:20.820she just forgot. But I remember, because for me, it was a bit of an ordeal, and so it's more
00:58:27.720memorable. But the way that this started, it started when Allie Beth quoted, she read
00:58:35.340verbatim for about five, six minutes or so, a portion of a transcript of my sermon on her show0.72
00:58:44.200and then mocked it. And then multiple women at the time, this was about two and a half years ago.
00:58:50.06023, I think. Yeah. Two years ago, something like that. Multiple women in our church,
00:58:56.220their husbands approached me because their wives were struggling with that, you know,
00:59:00.720because their wives at the time, now at this point, I don't know if we really have anyone
00:59:05.380in our church who listens to Allie Beth or definitely few. And I don't say that as like
00:59:11.940a dunk or anything. It's just like the people who are big fans of Allie Beth are probably not big
00:59:16.500fans of me. You know, it's just like, we don't have as much overlap. There was a time where we
00:59:20.720had more overlap and now not so much. But when she read that transcript from my sermon and then
00:59:27.780proceeded to make fun of it and say why it was theologically wrong and why it was also just0.99
00:59:33.520stupid and dumb, that affected me at a pastoral level. I had to do meetings with people and I had0.99
00:59:40.760to explain things to people. For me, I'm not just a podcaster. Yes, I podcast, but I also am a pastor.
00:59:49.740And so, I'm shepherding people's souls, and if you have women in your church who think very highly of Ali Bastaki, because they had previously had listened to her for years before even coming to our church, and had gotten some of the polemical, you know, boss babe, kind of catty, snarky stuff that's maybe not so good for their soul.
01:00:13.220but also, I'm not going to say that's all it is, also some things that are objectively theologically
01:00:18.100true and some good counsel along the way and this and that and the other. And so, they've benefited
01:00:22.900from her. They've been blessed by her and they have a history of maybe they listened to her for
01:00:27.280two years, three years, four years, and then came to Covenant Bible Church. And it was primarily
01:00:33.500the families that were new to our church. And Eric, I'm going to let you, because I think you
01:00:36.720guys have a similar experience. So, you're talking about not just one, but a handful,
01:00:41.500multiple newer families to our church that have only been there maybe six months or a year at most
01:00:46.560that have been, you know, the wives have been fans of Ali Bestucki and have benefited from her.
01:00:53.020And then, you know, they hear their pastor preach a sermon and they weren't bothered by it because
01:00:57.780they heard the whole context, the whole sermon. They know me and they thought that's true. That
01:01:02.800was good. But then that, imagine that next week they're listening to their favorite Christian0.99
01:01:07.980female podcaster and she is saying now ali didn't name me which i appreciate it i appreciated that
01:01:15.020but for me it was it was a local pastoral challenge that was presented by this not a
01:01:20.460public image challenge it wasn't for my podcast it was for my pastoral ministry when she quoted
01:01:26.180word for word five six minutes straight of a manuscript the manuscript for my sermon0.91
01:01:31.200all the women in my church in public people maybe didn't know but the women in my church0.99
01:01:36.840they knew exactly whose sermon that was. I heard that sermon last week. I know who that is.0.96
01:01:44.580And she's saying, my pastor is silly and stupid. And more importantly than that,1.00
01:01:52.120theologically and biblically unfaithful and wrong. Maybe I should be concerned.0.99
01:01:59.220you know, so that created, and that was the first occurrence. So, let the record be clear and be
01:02:11.020straight. We were teaching, guys like me, guys like Eric, guys like Brian, we were teaching the
01:02:18.180principles of biblical patriarchy, including not just that you should have, you know, not just
01:02:23.500complementarianism that you, as long as you have, you know, um, male elders and only men preach on0.95
01:02:29.400the Lord's day, then women can do everything else, including being, you know, they don't have the
01:02:34.180title, they're not ordained, but they actually can be the shadow elders who actually tell their
01:02:37.980husbands what to do and really run the church. And they can also preach in all these other contexts
01:02:42.220and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Um, we're not complementarian. We are patriarchal. And so we've
01:02:48.040been teaching these principles of biblical patriarchy um for you know the last few years
01:02:53.600and and i don't know about you eric maybe your story's different you can speak for yourself but
01:03:00.060for me i had not and i know this i had not named ali bestaki once not once as i was talking about
01:03:08.720what i see as a problem of women who are not elders they're not preaching on the lord's day
01:03:13.820but they're still doing a lot of polemical, theological warring in the public sphere.1.00
01:03:21.880Just in a nutshell, in general, I don't want to see women in the public sphere. You mean they1.00
01:03:28.720shouldn't hold political office? Correct. You mean you don't want to see them podcasting? Correct.
01:03:35.340Well, but what about in the marketplace, you know, with nine to five careers? No,
01:03:41.980not that either like i i don't want to see women holding positions in the public square i don't1.00
01:03:49.200um not just i don't want to see women in combat positions in the military that's1.00
01:03:53.720finally we've gotten there we've finally gotten to the point as a culture we can say yeah female0.98
01:03:57.900people you know female females in the secret service might be a bad idea i'm glad we've0.72
01:04:02.820gotten there but the president almost died well maybe not now that the president has almost died1.00
01:04:07.680because yeah, now we can say that. Yeah. So I'm glad we can say that. That's an improvement. Praise
01:04:12.460God. But I want to go way further than that. Way further than that. So we were talking about those
01:04:17.140kinds of things before. And I think that Allie must have heard something and it bothered her,
01:04:25.360but I had not named her. But then she, and again, to be clear and be honest, she did not name me,
01:04:31.580But she did verbatim read a transcript, not just two sentences, a whole portion of one of my sermons out of context to where every single woman in my church knew that she was talking about me and I had to address it.
01:04:47.280So when she says, you know, these guys are catty and they want to pick fights, I just think it helps to remember the details of what actually happened.
01:30:48.720I would not, you know, diminish that obedience.
01:30:52.160I think that it's appropriate if you see specific things that are strategic as your role in your role as a husband to say there's been a lot of progress, but this is a specific issue.
01:31:01.480Can we strategize? Can we talk? Can we pray about this? Bring those up.
01:31:05.080But if it's just a general how do we move faster?
01:31:09.020I don't know. The reality is a lot of people are coming out of perspectives that were wrong.
01:31:13.920And that's that does sometimes take a while to change.
01:31:16.420So be strategic, be specific, get them around other women who are thinking the same way.
01:31:23.820You know, go to a church that is preaching along those lines so that they're hearing
01:31:27.320it from the pulpit and they're around other women who are working, not working in that
01:31:34.020direction and demonstrating that in their own lives.
01:31:38.300And I would say, having seen situations where it doesn't go well, I would be very thankful
01:31:44.280to the Lord that he has inclined your wife and daughter's hearts in this direction and
01:31:48.620encourage them, challenge them when necessary to grow in that direction.
01:31:53.540Yeah, I think it's like what I was saying earlier.
01:31:56.920You know, the reason why I've had to change is because the train is way off the rails.
01:32:03.020It's the year of our Lord, 2025, and America and pretty much all of Christodom in the West
01:32:08.540and European countries have been fervently apostatizing against the Lord Jesus Christ
01:32:14.620for arguably 70 years, arguably 130 years, and arguably like 300 years, depending from where
01:32:21.440you start. We have been in quite a dip, quite a rebellion against the Lord. And so the only way
01:32:30.900to right the ship is going to be some pretty significant about-face, full turnaround, deep
01:32:38.360repentance and change that said um i do think that um you kind of get to choose as the husband
01:32:47.940you don't get to choose what god's word says you don't get to choose what's sin and what's not and
01:32:52.100whether repentance is necessary but you you do um just like a parent right it's not exactly the
01:32:58.500same the authority of a husband over a wife it is different than the authority over over a child
01:33:04.360But as my wife and I are parenting, one of the consistent conversations that comes up again and again is, do we really want to make that a command?
01:33:30.940but like as soon as you get home from school you can do it instinctively without even thinking
01:33:35.060about it right so you you you come out of the garage you just park the van you open the door
01:33:38.780we have a shoe cubby right there by the door to the garage where they come in and right there as
01:33:43.940a parent i have a choice i can say all right take off your uh take off your shoes go potty
01:33:49.300get changed and uh and and then we're gonna do something um i've just provided for you know
01:33:56.980not all five children one of them like i said is zero that you know she's an infant she's a baby
01:34:01.400but for you know three or four of my children the toddler we sometimes might give a separate
01:34:05.940lower bar command but for at least three maybe four of those five children i've just set a bar
01:34:10.820and i've just placed them in a position it's not wrong for me to do it but i do have a choice i
01:34:15.240place them in a position to where now i as a parent i'm going to have to follow through if
01:34:18.800they don't obey and i've just given to uh three or four kids like three different commands take
01:34:24.240off your shoes, go potty, change, get, get, uh, get out of your school clothes. And then,
01:34:30.940and then we're going to do something as a family before dinner. You know, we're going to go for a
01:34:33.580walk or whatever. So, but, but those, so I need you to go potty, take off your shoes, put them
01:34:37.340in the shoe cubby and get changed. Um, and I've got a seven year old, a five year old, a four
01:34:41.720year old and a two year old that I've just given three commands to. Um, so basically what I decided
01:34:47.460is, Hey, welcome home from school. And, uh, and in about, you know, 90 seconds, um, I'm going to
01:34:53.500be spanking i was about to say basically the decision that was just made because it's i mean
01:34:58.120you've got about a hundred percent chance with four kids little kids at those ages seven five
01:35:03.440four and two and three commands shoes off get changed go to the restroom uh you've got like
01:35:10.580a hundred percent chance that at least one of the kids is not going to obey one of those commands
01:35:14.660now here's the other thing you actually don't have to give the command now you have to teach
01:35:19.100your children obedience you have to sometimes give commands but you don't always you don't
01:35:23.180always. So I have to decide, my point is, long way of saying, I get to decide as head of the home,
01:35:30.800I get to decide, is this going to be a command? Am I going to make this an ultimatum? And husbands,
01:35:37.120you get to do that. Obviously, it's not telling them to go to the bathroom, but you get to do that0.99
01:35:41.780with your wives. You get to decide. So you, right, the train is way off the rails0.80
01:35:47.000in virtually every doctrine under the sun, especially gender piety, biblical roles of
01:35:54.300male and female, and their function in society and in the home and in the church. We're way off
01:36:00.240the rails and been off the rails for decades. You, by God's grace, are coming to biblical
01:36:06.960patriarchal convictions in the Word of God, and you're starting to see what's right. Good. Good
01:36:12.240on you. Praise God. Glory to God for giving you that revelation. But now you have the
01:36:16.840prerogative. You have the luxury of how fast are you going to make that change with your wife?0.68
01:36:26.260How often? Yes, you do have real authority as a husband in your home. You do. How often are
01:36:31.440you going to exercise it? What things are you going to, like, really, that thing? Yes, it is
01:36:39.500your authority. It is your authority. You actually do have the authority to say, sweetheart, I'd like
01:36:45.600for you to wear a red dress. Much to the chagrin of all the complementarians, you do have that
01:36:50.000authority. But here's the deal. You're talking about a woman that you love as Christ loved the
01:36:55.540church, your wife, that you're wanting to bring into glory with you as a co-heir and grace
01:37:00.600who has been shaped by 70 years of radical God-hating feminism. It's in her bones.0.82
01:37:10.400and you have a choice of how gently you're going to bring her along, whether or not you want
01:37:17.220constant friction and war in your home, or whether or not you want some moments of enjoyment
01:37:23.660and slowly bringing her along and realizing that, you know what? Feminism is such, it's a such a1.00
01:37:30.420cancer. This, this cancer might not get removed all in one generation. This might be generations.1.00
01:37:37.480it might be my wife repents some over the next 40 years my daughter because of that my daughter0.99
01:37:44.060she's uh becomes the next feminine beauty and then my granddaughter like can you have the humility
01:37:50.940and i'm not talking there's that's a separate category from well you're compromising the word
01:37:54.520of god like if you're going to be patriarchal then you need to be you know issuing commit like
01:37:58.040no no you you do have authority you have that authority that that's what i don't like about
01:38:02.080the complementarians is because they basically said say that headship is just like this spiritual
01:38:06.340ethereal it doesn't mean anything it practically it means nothing it means i get the tie-breaking
01:38:11.440vote that might come up three times over the course of a 50-year marriage i don't like that
01:38:15.580i think a husband has real authority that said i have never said and a husband should exercise
01:38:20.880that real authority on on anything and everything you know 40 times a day that's never been my0.99
01:38:26.500position and if your wife is a raging feminist and and 99 out of 100 times she probably is because1.00
01:38:35.580we've been off the rails, not picking on her, but just our whole society, men and women alike,0.80
01:38:41.580have been rebelling with every fiber in our being against the Lord God Almighty on this issue
01:38:48.640for 70 years and arguably longer, decades. So because of that, your wife probably is a feminist.1.00
01:38:56.060The question is not if she's a feminist, it's just how much of a feminist is she? Some of you0.99
01:39:00.220guys are married to a woman who's a little bit of a feminist, and some of you guys are married to0.99
01:39:03.700one that's a lot of bit of feminist. And if you just came in, husband, to patriarchal convictions
01:39:08.920six months ago, two years ago, three years ago, and your wife has been bred by her father
01:39:15.240and her mother, and they were bred and trained by their fathers and mothers, like for generations0.70
01:39:22.260to be boss babes, you do have to, you want your wife to go to heaven. So you do have to wash her1.00
01:39:29.400with the word. You do have to disciple it, but you get to choose how many times in a day you're
01:39:34.760going to have war in your home rather than peace. There is no verse in the Bible that says you do
01:39:39.860have the authority. The Bible says that, but the Bible does not say you have to execute and use
01:39:44.600that authority on every single issue 40 times a day. That is actually up to you. That's your
01:39:50.860prerogative. And so that's how I would answer the question, Ben. Thank you again so much for
01:39:55.260the generosity but that that's what i would say is man just lots and lots and lots of grace
01:40:01.560because at the end of the day i i i have counseled marriages i know marriages where um the guy came
01:40:10.040into biblical patriarchal views and he's right and it's true and he's and he's being honorable
01:40:15.420but but he drew a hard line in the sand right away and uh and you can do that and sometimes
01:40:22.120god in his mercy does a miracle in that woman's heart and she comes into those convictions too
01:40:26.860and both husband and wife are pinned together and is glorious and sometimes that doesn't happen
01:40:32.480and your home becomes a battlefield every every second you walk through the door and it's war
01:40:39.360war it's no one's talking the children have a have just this constant sense of unrest
01:40:45.420and instability and and worry um you got to be true to the word of god you don't have to
01:40:53.140exercise every command all the time i don't have to tell my my kids every time we come home
01:40:58.020um three commands actually if i'm more if thoughtful and my wife and i we've had this
01:41:02.840conversation like we've gotten to the point where there's some days where it's like the kids are
01:41:05.740already falling apart they're having a hard day we're going to um deal gently with the bruised
01:41:11.640reads. And so we're actually, we're going to get home and we're just not going to give the command
01:41:16.540because we know if we give it, they're probably going to disobey. And we know that it's our job
01:41:21.060to remove disobedience from their heart. Rebellion is bound up in the heart of the child
01:41:25.020and there's a way to remove it. The Bible gives and it's not just preaching the gospel. It turns0.96
01:41:29.500out if you read the Bible, there's another way to remove it also. So we've got to do some of that,
01:41:33.520but we don't have to do it all the time. We also need to have moments of peace and joy and happiness.
01:41:38.540and one of the ways that we can have that in our home is by pursuing jesus and loving him
01:41:41.740and also one of the ways you can have peace in your home is by having just moments where um
01:41:48.820where you're not constantly training i could give the command i would be justified to do so
01:41:54.400but you don't it's it's just like the military west it's like um yeah like like the drill
01:42:00.660sergeant could say and another mile and another mile and another and he would have the authority
01:42:05.780to do so right and and and the the platoon really does need to get whipped into shape but there is
01:42:10.940a fine line of like you want to train them but you'd like them to still be alive at the end of
01:42:15.880it right the best leader doesn't break he shapes right like that's an actual good leader that says
01:42:20.760you've got to get to this destination and i can't do it in three months but give me a year and i
01:42:24.900could and he actually gets them there it's not just uh yes sir two out of 100 finally met the
01:42:30.780fitness standards right it's i got the majority along with me and they love me for it that's a
01:42:35.600good leader amen eric what are your thoughts on the question just how to bring your wife
01:42:39.880along she's she's struggling with patriarchy yeah i think particularly in the instance where
01:42:45.760somebody's coming out of new age you know coming into patriarchy at all yeah my my first thought
01:42:53.000is exactly what michael said you know you're you're talking about a bruised reed and a smoldering
01:42:58.000wick and you're thinking about, okay, how can I, when you think about that, you see no flame,
01:43:02.640but there's smoke coming off of it. So there's gotta be something going on here. Uh, but in
01:43:06.500that situation, the Lord is gracious. He's merciful. You're going to do everything you can
01:43:10.080to, to encourage whatever growth you do see. Um, I think being gentle in the way that you lead is a
01:43:16.380really good thing. Encouragement. The only other thing I'd add to the discussion is it really is
01:43:20.960something that you ideally are not the only voice uh in their lives particularly what we've seen in
01:43:28.300community here if you could be in context where you just see modeled other versions of biblical
01:43:35.120femininity uh that has an appeal and an allure to it where you'll find wives who are new to our
01:43:41.640community saying things like that we didn't even necessarily tell them they just said that woman
01:43:46.180you know she carries herself well she's so respectful to her husband i want to grow into
01:43:50.380that we're creatures who imitate that's how god designed us so i think also having you know wise
01:43:56.140companions uh for them role models to look up to can be a really good piece of advice
01:44:01.220now we apply that right to vlad's question as well vlad's great brother and he asked the question
01:44:07.360i think it really is closely related to your answer what are some practical methods to help
01:44:11.460a wife be more comfortable in submitting in all things becoming less uncomfortable with the true
01:44:15.820amount of control a husband has so very much so in that vein but basically saying there could be a
01:44:20.020level where like a wife's coming into it and she's like holy cow he has a lot of authority like there
01:44:25.620really isn't aside from the extremes go kill your neighbor which no one in the right mind would ever
01:44:30.460order but aside from the extremes like he has close to not truly only god is true and ultimate
01:44:36.360final authority but he's got a lot of authority and that's that's scary so to apply to that patience
01:44:42.320grace and then demonstrating so authority versus prudence you can have the authority but it may
01:44:47.660not be prudent to do something demonstrating as much as possible over time when i do exercise this
01:44:53.440which is my right and does have to be obeyed i temper it with prudence every time i'm not coming
01:44:58.780off half cocked go i like i don't even know but like go whatever it would be you're not saying
01:45:05.600silly things saying like i have the authority i'm saying this and it ties directly your wife
01:45:09.640comes home from the store and she forgot an ingredient go back to the store right now right0.83
01:45:13.820you know like submission to that is a lot scarier and you could you do have that authority you could
01:45:18.680say it and you could say it kindly but you don't have to yep exactly just say it we'll get it next
01:45:23.020time and then but then point being comfortable with wait i know i'm not going to come home be
01:45:26.900ordered to go back to the store 45 minutes away or you know go clean the chicken coop three times
01:45:31.860a day no that authority is only coming in place when it's for the good hey that kid really needs
01:45:35.940a spanking and it's for love and it's for kindness or or this isn't modest and it's actually unloving
01:45:40.220to you and others around i can see that that's being exercised with prudence i think that's the
01:45:44.700way you help grow in comfort no well said good good all right we have a lot of super chats so
01:45:49.900gentlemen real quick the only thing i was going to add on that though is just um it's just important
01:45:56.160to understand like whether you call it sphere sovereignty or whether you call it you know
01:45:59.200classical two kingdoms however you want to frame it whatever theological framework it is important
01:46:03.860to understand that in the home, the husband has a, the husband slash father, the measure of
01:46:10.380authority that he has, biblically speaking, what the Bible says, right? God's the only one who has,
01:46:15.300you know, inherent authority. All human authority is vested authorities. It's an extension of God.
01:46:20.180God gives it to them. And so it's not limitless, not in the true sense, but a husband slash father
01:46:26.400is the closest in terms of human authority figures. It's the closest to limitless authority.
01:46:33.860if you command your wife to do something god forbids that's outside of your authority or if
01:46:40.760you um forbid her from doing something that god commands that's outside of your authority um apart
01:46:46.360from that as husband slash father um that that human position office head of household has more
01:46:57.040authority than any other human office in all of the created cosmos an emperor i mean even kings
01:47:06.820it's like well we we don't want to have a monarchy that would be tyranny um and it's like we have a
01:47:11.380deep state regime that has cameras everywhere and monitors all of your data and knows exactly what
01:47:16.400like no accountability yeah dude kings back in the day they had no clue what the peasants way
01:47:20.800over there on the farm like they had a ton of freedom people had actually a lot of freedom
01:47:25.220But my point is to say, even in what you would deem as a more tyrannical form of civil government, that king, even if we did have a monarchy, that king still would not, under God, and even if he tried to, he would not be able to pull it off.
01:47:42.900So in terms of what God's word gives, affords to him, and in terms of his own human attempts, even if he's trying to be a tyrant, he still does not have as much authority as the head of household.
01:47:52.500head of household has a ton of authority um but you because you have that authority you get to
01:47:58.100choose how frequently you're going to execute it and what you're going you know what what are going
01:48:04.080to be the deal breakers and where when are you going to actually draw a line in the sand are
01:48:07.440you going to make are you going to make a fight about everything because you you actually have
01:48:10.840the authority to choose not to okay uh let's go we got some more super chats good down a little
01:48:16.320uh granddad farms he gives us um five dollars thanks granddad farms we really appreciate it
01:48:22.640he says ga good afternoon gentlemen and eric ga and happy friday happy friday okay and then we've
01:48:28.540got a nobody special he says is theonomy a trap for unsuccessful men eric what do you think
01:48:35.460is theonomy a trap uh that's a super chat from nobody special thank you nobody special
01:48:40.400is theonomy a trap for unsuccessful men uh wow that that has a seems like a lot of baggage
01:48:47.440attached to it i don't know what the whole context of that question is but uh i would say no not
01:48:51.760necessarily uh i've done lots of uh lots of good guys in that camp uh joel joel webin kind of
01:48:59.800depending on very successful man no it would be my short answer it could be
01:49:06.680yeah okay there you go nobody's special that's you know what you give a hundred
01:49:12.080dollar super chat and you get a 45 minute answer
01:49:14.320that's not true um yeah i don't really have anything to add to i don't know exactly what
01:49:21.500you're getting at but uh we appreciate the support and i agree with eric um okay let's see
01:49:27.080daniel bartos oh wow fifty dollars super chat thank you so much for the generosity we really
01:49:32.020appreciate it. He says, this is well overdue and not nearly enough for what you men have done
01:49:37.840for my spiritual growth and my desires for a greater understanding of God's holy word,
01:49:43.300the truth. Stand strong and courageous in the spirit of the Lord. God bless. Thank you, Daniel.
01:49:48.500We really appreciate that. Michael here at the bottom, he says, could you do a podcast on how
01:49:55.100you do discipline? That's a great question. I've addressed it some in the past. It's difficult
01:50:02.860because that's one of those topics. It's not just hashtag based or controversial and you'll get
01:50:07.420grief, but we live in a world that hates children. I mean, hates them. And I'm not just being
01:50:14.740hyperbolic. I would back that up with scripture. Spare the rod, spoil the child. People always say
01:50:19.880that's not in the Bible. You're right. The Bible says way worse than spoil. It doesn't say spare1.00
01:50:24.340the rod, spoil the child. It says that he who spares the rod hates his son. That if you don't
01:50:30.440discipline, you actually hate the child, and gentle parenting is not biblical. The Bible tells us how
01:50:36.840to discipline. Now, it doesn't mean that that's the exhaustive, exclusive form of discipline. You
01:50:41.680can't ever discipline in any other way, but that is a part of discipline, especially in the little
01:50:46.920years, the earlier years of life. So in the younger years of life, spanking is a non-negotiable
01:50:55.620Christian part of discipline. But because we live in a world that hates children,
01:50:59.440the moment that our world that hates God and therefore hates his image as they see it in
01:51:04.000children, the moment they see someone loving children, because to discipline a child is love,
01:51:09.300per Hebrews chapter 12, God disciplines his sons, those that he loves. The moment that our
01:51:13.900child-hating world sees a parent loving children, they will try to take those children away.
01:51:21.200They will. They will actually try to take your kids. So this isn't just, oh, I'll get in trouble
01:51:26.120on X. You know, I'm in trouble on X every day of the week, every day of the week, no matter what.
01:51:31.740It's not about that. But this is one where people will actually, they really will try to ruin your
01:51:38.620life, legally take your kids the whole nine yards. So to answer the question...