The NXR Podcast - THEOLOGY APPLIED - Patriarchy Vs. Complementarianism, “Shiny Happy People,” & “The Rise & Fall Of Mars Hill” w Doug Wilson

00:00:00.000 In less than a year, our podcast has gone from an average of 10,000 downloads a month

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00:00:23.480 five-star review on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks. Welcome back to another

00:00:29.160 episode of Theology Applied. I'm your host, Pastor Joel Webin with Right Response Ministries. In this

00:00:34.560 episode, I am very privileged to welcome back to the show a returning guest, Pastor Douglas Wilson

00:00:40.980 of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho. We talk about a new popular documentary, Shiny Happy People.

00:00:49.560 It's a hit job on the church to be sure, but there are some important things to parse out. We also

00:00:55.460 talk about an older documentary that made a lot of waves. That's The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill

00:01:01.620 put on by Christianity Today. We talk about The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill,

00:01:07.340 shiny happy people, how this all pertains to the biblical model of roles and distinctions

00:01:14.440 in design between men and women. So we're talking about complementarianism, its failures,

00:01:20.580 we're talking about biblical patriarchy and some of its sad abuses, it's an important episode for

00:01:27.280 you to tune into today. Real quick before we get started though, check out my book if you haven't

00:01:32.680 already, Fight by Flight, Why Leaving Godless Places is Loving Godless Places. Doug Wilson

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00:01:45.460 Daily Wire, and Michael Foster from It's Good to Be a Man. You can check out the book by going to

00:01:51.280 amazon.com, or you can purchase a copy right off of our website, rightresponseministries.com.

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00:05:07.420 Applying God's Word to every aspect of life.

00:05:11.120 This is Theology Applied.

00:05:17.080 Hi, welcome back to another episode of Theology Applied.

00:05:19.940 I'm your host, Pastor Joel Webin with Right Response Ministries, and in this episode,

00:05:24.260 I'm privileged to welcome back to the show Pastor Douglas Wilson.

00:05:27.980 Pastor Wilson, thanks for joining us.

00:05:30.100 Yeah, good to be with you.

00:05:31.400 Thanks for the invite.

00:05:33.280 You're welcome.

00:05:33.980 So, for the five people listening to this podcast who don't already know who you are,

00:05:38.640 could you let them know a little bit about yourself?

00:05:41.180 Sure.

00:05:42.520 I live in the panhandle of Idaho up north, and I'm the pastor of Christ Church.

00:05:49.320 here in moscow idaho um i've been the pastor of this this church for over 40 years um that's my

00:05:57.420 day job and i do a lot of writing and cultural political commentary on the side great and in

00:06:05.520 the broader reformed world you're currently known as someone who's um a moderate a bit squishy

00:06:11.220 right when it comes yes yes talk about that for just a second that's got to be a very novel feeling

00:06:18.840 for you yeah it is a novel sensation because for years and years and years i've been sort of the

00:06:25.000 hardcore um conservative bad boy and uh as clown world started to pick up steam and become ever

00:06:35.600 ever more clownish as that happened a lot of people uh got red pilled and some of them got

00:06:43.980 scarlet pilled you know deep deep red pilled and they moved over to my right and they wondered

00:06:51.580 what's this all who's this temporizing wilson fellow right yep yep that has happened um okay

00:07:00.460 well for today i would love to have a discussion with you about the new documentary that has got

00:07:07.540 a bit of momentum i think it's on amazon is uh who produced it but it's called shiny happy people

00:07:13.620 It focuses on the Duggars and their family. It focuses on Bill Gothard. It focuses on Michael and Debbie Pearl and really just the whole homeschooling, patriarchal Joshua generation movement of the 1970s, maybe late 70s, certainly the 80s and some of the 90s.

00:07:34.540 and i've just been thinking you know that there seems to be because in in large part because of

00:07:39.660 your influence and then younger guys like me who in the last few years have have come to the light

00:07:44.380 and seen the goodness of things that you've been faithfully teaching for 40 years and now we're

00:07:48.420 coming on board and amplifying your efforts probably also getting you in trouble i i think

00:07:52.540 i've gotten you in trouble a couple times cross politic right the young guys i feel like you get

00:07:56.580 yourself in trouble and then a good 90 of the trouble is like a younger guy who's in your

00:08:02.540 orbit saying that um baptists are the cause of transgenderism you know something like that stuff

00:08:08.200 like stuff like that yeah and you know and i've noticed just admiring from a distance that um

00:08:14.020 the way i mean you could you could throw a guy like me who gets you know who says something

00:08:18.740 and and quotes you but says it a way that you actually wouldn't say it and gets you in trouble

00:08:23.780 you could throw us under the bus but i think that uh you do a good job not exasperating spiritual

00:08:28.680 son, so to speak. So I'm grateful for that. But all that being said, guys like me, young guys

00:08:33.960 have hopped on board the patriarchy train. And a lot of that because of your influence and a few

00:08:38.240 other guys. But it seems in my assessment that this new resurgence of patriarchy has some clear

00:08:45.900 doctrinal distinctions and methodological distinctions from the patriarchy of the 70s,

00:08:52.860 80s, and 90s, the way that the Duggars might've done it, or the Pearls, or certainly some

00:08:57.540 distinctions with Bill Gothard and some of his teachings. What do you think some of those

00:09:01.140 distinctions are? How have you seen patriarchy, that world that you were ministering during that

00:09:06.580 time? How have you seen it good? How have you seen it go bad? What do you think? Yeah. So this is

00:09:12.760 really an interesting subject because we're dealing with a cultural moment, dealing with

00:09:20.380 hundreds of thousands of people and consequently definitions shift and change over time so when

00:09:28.960 feminism first became a thing uh in our culture generally and then right on schedule maybe five 1.00

00:09:36.780 ten years afterwards evangelical feminism became a thing you know okay uh the world's doing

00:09:43.460 something let's uh let's all discover that this is what the apostle paul meant all along

00:09:49.240 Right. So evangelical feminism started to get traction back in the 70s. And there were some people starting to articulate that. At that time, the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood and the response to it from evangelicals was that they came up with the name complementarian. 0.63

00:10:09.920 okay so and the and complementarianism at that time were was emphasizing that women men and

00:10:17.720 women are equals before god but they have distinct complementary roles okay now i have no objection

00:10:25.720 whatever to that definition men and women are equal before god and they do have distinct

00:10:33.020 complementary uh roles so that is thus far everything's great and when it started out

00:10:40.160 it was an answer to a response to a pushback to uh feminism and that's that was all to the good

00:10:48.200 okay but as time went on and you're dealing with more and more people uh i would say that you have

00:10:55.940 the complementarian world

00:10:58.240 grew

00:10:59.100 and as it grew it developed

00:11:02.400 a right wing and a left wing

00:11:03.840 and I would say

00:11:06.440 left wing complementarianism

00:11:08.520 is simply right wing

00:11:10.380 egalitarianism

00:11:11.740 so

00:11:13.980 left wing complementarianism

00:11:16.480 started to mush into

00:11:18.060 egalitarianism because they started

00:11:20.380 to cede

00:11:22.560 territory that they ought not to

00:11:24.460 have ceded

00:11:25.220 so um such as uh restricting your debate to the pulpit and to decision making in the home

00:11:34.900 you know the husband right is the head of the home at the end of the day after much

00:11:40.600 egalitarian discussion you know with the husband it sort of breaks the tie kind of like the vice 1.00

00:11:47.040 president in a tie vote in the senate um so there's that and then we can't let uh women 1.00

00:11:54.200 open the Word of God in the pulpit to a mixed audience on Sunday morning. 1.00

00:11:59.240 So the husband becomes, like the vice president, a joke of a role.

00:12:04.100 Right, right, right.

00:12:06.040 And so that left-wing complementarianism is simply egalitarianism.

00:12:14.120 In the complementarian world, there are people who still call themselves complementarian

00:12:20.900 that I think are fine Christians and understand the scriptures

00:12:24.280 and for various social, cultural reasons

00:12:29.180 are more comfortable with the term complementarian

00:12:32.720 than they are with the term patriarchalism.

00:12:39.340 Because we're dealing with many, many people,

00:12:42.800 the patriarchal world,

00:12:44.320 so I would call myself an advocate of the patriarchy.

00:12:47.700 I'm a defender of that which the egalitarians want to smash.

00:12:51.700 They want to smash the patriarchy, and I want to defend the patriarchy.

00:12:56.620 And I want the leadership of men and the gifts and calling of men to be in evidence in more places than just the pulpit and the final decision-making vote in a family discussion.

00:13:10.400 I think it should come out in things like men and women's role in combat and war, in business, in just general cultural things.

00:13:24.560 So I'm happy to call myself an advocate of the patriarchy.

00:13:32.180 But men and women are sinners wherever they go.

00:13:36.660 so if they adopt complementarianism at some point some people are going to start sinning with that

00:13:43.440 term right um right and the same thing is true of the patriarchy when you say i'm an advocate

00:13:52.080 of the patriarchy does that mean i'm an advocate of everything that anybody might do under the

00:13:58.220 banner of patriarchy uh well of course not i've i've seen some really obnoxious behavior

00:14:04.580 on the part of some men who would call themselves advocates of the patriarchy.

00:14:11.400 And one of my interests is to not let them represent what I'm talking about.

00:14:18.400 So that means that if I'm going to inhabit the realm of the patriarchy,

00:14:22.940 then we have to be diligent to police our own.

00:14:26.820 So there are certain things that we must do to guard the perimeters of this world

00:14:33.900 so that it doesn't turn into a joke of a term yeah amen um so my understanding is i think it

00:14:41.160 was 1988 that uh john piper and wayne grudem uh really were integral in coining the term

00:14:48.460 complementarianism and if you look at some of the early writings there was even kind of um

00:14:54.680 an admission on on their part that in some sense it was it was a way to mount a defense against

00:15:02.400 feminism against egalitarianism uh but trying to make it was it was kind of a halfway house it was

00:15:08.440 a third way ism it was between patriarchy and egalitarianism uh trying to basically seed every

00:15:15.220 inch you possibly could without uh compromising the scripture and i think that there were some

00:15:20.280 compromises in my assessment and exactly what you were just saying i would be right there on board

00:15:24.540 with you that um i i think that complementarianism part of what it did was it said there's a

00:15:29.700 distinction in role so male and female roles he assigned them um instead of male and female

00:15:35.960 natures he designed them um and and they would now to be fair because i don't want a straw man

00:15:41.860 to be fair they would say no no no the difference of roles stems from a difference of design

00:15:46.280 but they would exclusively root the distinctions at the level of design um in the physical realm

00:15:52.780 so men can bench more and women have hips and can have babies praise god and so you know and 1.00

00:15:58.600 And, and, but that would be about it. Whereas I would say, well, traditionally, like when you read somebody, you know, who, who's a theologian before the 1960s, like the other 1960 years of church history, um, they don't just say that there's a physical difference between men and women, but that the difference goes all the way down.

00:16:15.440 Right.

00:16:15.840 And and that, yes, of course, there are always exceptions. We can find one woman who can outbench one man, you know. But in general, we're speaking in group general terms. The difference between men and women is not just a matter of ovaries and physical strength, but but that there actually is something to be said for not just the order of creation, but Paul appeals to the order of the fall. 0.99

00:16:37.200 The woman was deceived and became a sinner, whereas the man bears more responsibility, but he sinned with his eyes wide open.

00:16:44.060 So more culpability towards deception or vulnerability towards deception.

00:16:49.200 And then I would add onto that first Peter chapter three, that the woman has a quiet and gentle spirit as her general disposition or she should.

00:16:57.420 And so I even think of women who are not preaching, but in the public sphere, I think a woman can be in the public sphere. 0.85

00:17:04.600 I think she can have a podcast, those kinds of things.

00:17:07.200 But I do think that there needs to be a carefulness about regular polemical language, a polemical, especially calling out men, even bad men who need to be called out.

00:17:19.580 to me it just feels off when when that's the that's the meat and potatoes that's uh that's 0.70

00:17:25.240 the regular um um disposition of a woman um using sar you know a levying sarcasm and those kinds of 0.58

00:17:33.440 things against men in the civil public sphere i just i listen to it and i'll even agree a lot of 0.84

00:17:40.720 times and yet i feel a little bit uneasy it just it doesn't feel quite right um am i crazy what

00:17:46.920 what would you say to them? So I would say that, uh, I would want, uh, women when they exercise 0.99

00:17:53.580 their satiric gifts, which some of them definitely have, they, it should look more like Jane Austin 1.00

00:18:00.000 than it does, uh, than it looks like HL Mencken. Okay. Because when you get into a certain kind

00:18:08.620 of verbal polemic combat, uh, watching women engage in that sort of thing, it's like woman, 0.63

00:18:15.900 a woman like watching a woman do uh competing in the shot put um there's something there's 0.99

00:18:21.780 something unbecoming about it but in that area you don't make hard and fast rules there are times

00:18:28.680 when there's a burglar in the house and husband's not at home and the and the wife knows where the

00:18:33.880 gun is you know you want your wife to defend the home when it comes down to it so it's but at the

00:18:41.360 same time uh the glorification of that kind of thing which you see very much in our entertainment 0.74

00:18:48.820 in the in the movies is a glorification of something kinky um there's something wrong

00:18:56.120 with it so the um in deuteronomy uh 22 5 it says it prohibits transvestitism uh for the men

00:19:05.360 a man shall not wear the apparel of a woman and it also says that the woman shall not bear the

00:19:12.120 gear of a warrior kelly gebir um so she she is not supposed to be decked out in a 50 pound 0.91

00:19:20.120 backpack and an automatic weapon and a helmet she's not supposed to wear the gear of a warrior 1.00

00:19:25.000 um and the the glorification of the of the deadly assassin female is has got a sexual kink in it 1.00

00:19:34.800 There's something wrong with it.

00:19:37.160 And having said that, of course, there are times when Jail, the wife of Heber, does her duty.

00:19:43.640 Right.

00:19:44.940 Right.

00:19:45.940 Yeah.

00:19:46.720 Okay.

00:19:48.040 So I think there's a lot of confusion.

00:19:51.280 I think it helps when people quit the ambiguity and just speak plainly.

00:19:56.460 I've been saying over these past couple months, because there's been a little bit of a resurgence of a disagreement between patriarchal guys

00:20:03.940 and complementarian guys online and i've thrown my hat in the ring and i've tried to be careful

00:20:08.100 and you know but but i've also tried to be courageous and and saying hey no i think

00:20:12.260 patriarchy is good i'm on that side and there is a difference we're not just talking past each

00:20:15.940 other it's not just semantics there's some some real uh differences and i've been kind of limiting

00:20:20.020 those differences to this number one um that uh that there's a difference not just in role but a

00:20:25.860 difference in design and that difference in design is not merely physical but that it also um has to

00:20:31.220 do with uh the the not just the physical nature but the emotional psychological spiritual nature

00:20:36.860 the way that god made men and women so that's one difference between patriarchy and complementarianism

00:20:40.980 secondly i've been saying that complementarianism only wants to limit now it's not speaking to

00:20:46.420 nature but speaking to role only wants to limit the distinctions in role to the home and the church

00:20:50.900 whereas patriarchy we're going to say father rule is a good thing and it is the ordinary design of

00:20:56.440 God, um, for every sphere of life that the men sit in the city gates, not just sitting on thrones

00:21:02.920 on the stage, like an old timey Baptist church, you know, on Sunday morning. Um, but they also

00:21:06.860 sit in the city gates outside of the Lord's day, outside of the setting of the church when it comes

00:21:11.420 to, um, making decisions for, um, for the overall society. So I think that's another distinction

00:21:18.500 that I've mentioned. Now here's the last one. And I think I, you may disagree with me on this one

00:21:23.040 and that's fine um and maybe you'll set me straight i may you know end up being persuaded

00:21:27.520 one other distinction uh when it comes to so older women um are called to teach younger women 0.59

00:21:32.900 so uh women can teach but they should not teach and and exercise authority over over a man uh but

00:21:39.340 older women do teach younger women uh titus 2 i look at titus 2 uh they are to teach the good um

00:21:45.980 but but i don't think that paul lost his train of thought and all of a sudden uh hops on an

00:21:49.960 entirely different subject. I think the following phrases is Paul's description of what that good

00:21:55.940 is. And it all seems to be domestic, lovers of children, submissive to their husbands,

00:22:02.580 not slanderous, and all of this so that the word of God would not be reviled, which is ironic 0.97

00:22:06.820 because the feminists would say that the patriarchy is giving room for the word of God to 1.00

00:22:11.760 be reviled. And we would say, no, the feminist bearing the name of Christ is giving room, 1.00

00:22:16.900 according to scripture for the word of God to be reviled. So all that being said, I would 0.79

00:22:21.020 personally hold that even outside of Lord's day preaching to mixed gathering of men and women,

00:22:25.760 even if it's a podcast, predominantly targeting Christian women, um, outside of, of the setting 1.00

00:22:31.400 of the church, outside of the Lord's day, I would prefer not to see a woman's going to be teaching 0.84

00:22:36.280 theology, but I would prefer not to see it being a deliberate 17 part series on theology proper

00:22:42.520 and uh divine impassibility i i would like to see there be some deep rooted theology there's a

00:22:48.820 theology of sourdough there's a theology of but i would like to see it predominantly um dealing

00:22:53.800 with with womanly things with with parenting with marriage um with with womanly things and

00:23:00.320 for instance i think your daughters do a fantastic my wife is a big fan of what have you

00:23:04.380 but the reason why she likes it and there are other godly christian women that she doesn't 0.79

00:23:08.600 like their podcast um but she likes your daughter's podcast because it gets a little snarky every now 0.88

00:23:14.420 and then but but by and large it's all it it's two women talking about being women right and you know

00:23:20.700 so they're not teaching women and and and i you know one more distinction where i've gotten straw

00:23:26.040 manned and misrepresented is they say well see they don't think women should learn theology

00:23:29.320 we're not talking about learning we're talking about what women should teach to other women

00:23:33.100 so the woman should sit right next to the men learning theology proper learning doctrine of 0.82

00:23:38.140 God. But when it comes to older women teaching younger women, the reason why I think it's 0.94

00:23:42.700 primarily about these domestic feminine type of things is because when it comes to learning

00:23:48.100 doctrine of God and systematic theology, the context for a woman to learn, and she must 1.00

00:23:53.100 learn those things, but the context for her to learn those things is right next to her husband

00:23:57.380 on the Lord's day from male pastors. Where would you say I'm off or what do you think I'm...

00:24:04.820 So on this third one, let me agree with you and add a few things and then go back to your second point with a yes, but with a yes, but so on the I believe that women should learn right alongside the men.

00:24:19.500 We've provided our daughters with the same education that we provided our son with, but it was toward a different end.

00:24:27.960 And so as my daughter Becca pointed out, I think it's in her book, Eve in Exile, the

00:24:35.860 woman learns theology right alongside of her husband.

00:24:40.060 As the pastor is preaching, let's say he gets into a theological series, both the man and

00:24:46.820 the woman learn and take it on board, but they're supposed to process and apply differently.

00:24:52.900 And Becca's point was, it's the woman's role to take in systematic theology and then glorify it.

00:25:01.740 And she glorifies it within her realm, in the home she makes, in the way she treats the kids, the way she supports her husband, all the things that you rightly pointed out, Paul tells the older women to teach the younger women how to do.

00:25:20.840 So this is not, oh, my husband will go off to the theology club and learn to read Berkhoff, and I'm just going to get enough education to enable me to read the instructions on the biscuit box.

00:25:38.060 I need to know fractions because I'm going to bake, but that's it.

00:25:40.800 But that's but that's all. Don't push me. Right. No, not at all. I wanted my daughters to have a first rate education, but I never wanted them to forget why we were giving it to them.

00:25:52.360 And the reason we were giving a first rate education to our daughters was a different reason than we were giving that same first rate education to our son.

00:26:00.780 so we we wanted to go in different directions and so what our daughters have done is so if someone

00:26:07.500 says hey um uh wilson is this uh domineering patriarch he doesn't let the women talk and

00:26:14.040 he's he he doesn't think they have a thought in their heads it's worth anything and uh well if

00:26:19.420 that's my position then it has to be acknowledged that i'm very bad at it because because i've got

00:26:25.840 a wife who's written eight books, and one of them a textbook, and my two daughters are both 0.61

00:26:33.120 published and very accomplished and intelligent, but they are also distinctively feminine,

00:26:40.900 and they've taken their role as, I take on this information, and it comes out of, I'm fond of

00:26:47.800 saying, theology comes at your fingertips, and whatever it is that's coming at your fingertips

00:26:52.060 is your theology. Well, the Reformed theology that comes out of my daughter's fingertips

00:26:57.740 is very different than what comes out of my son's, what comes out of my fingertips.

00:27:03.740 What comes out of my wife's fingertips is very different, not because it's a different theology,

00:27:08.880 but because it is being dispensed through different channels, through different avenues.

00:27:16.540 It's a different application.

00:27:17.540 It's a different application, because God has created them to process the theology differently.

00:27:25.560 Amen.

00:27:25.840 Okay?

00:27:26.400 And like you said, the differences go all the way down.

00:27:30.500 It's emotional, spiritual, psychological, physical, everything about it.

00:27:34.940 And it's all good.

00:27:36.440 And to borrow a term from my brother adversary, it's complimentary.

00:27:41.820 It goes together.

00:27:44.560 So that's the point there.

00:27:46.580 To back up to your second point, my yes, but here is I believe that men are required to be the head of their home.

00:27:57.520 And I believe that given the option, if the husband's in a car wreck and is a quadriplegic, you have those sorts of exceptions.

00:28:08.840 But it's God's pattern for the husband to be the head of the home across the board in all areas.

00:28:15.180 Wives, submit to your husbands in everything, Paul says.

00:28:20.860 Okay?

00:28:21.320 So we don't devise our theology on the quadriplegic case, but we go from Scripture. 0.88

00:28:30.380 In the church, God requires that the leadership of the church be masculine. 0.82

00:28:36.920 Okay? 1.00

00:28:38.780 There will not be a situation where it will be okay to have a woman preacher. 1.00

00:28:43.960 that's just forbidden now if if the families of a culture are being obedient in this and if the 0.96

00:28:53.160 churches in a culture are being obedient in this it will be the case that overwhelmingly the

00:29:00.740 civic leadership the cultural civic political leadership of that society is going to be

00:29:08.620 masculine, got to be male. But in Isaiah, I think it's chapter three of Isaiah, it says one of the

00:29:16.020 curses on a culture is when women and children lead them. So when a culture is dominated by 1.00

00:29:24.160 feminine leadership, something is drastically, desperately wrong. It's not great progress 1.00

00:29:31.500 to have um 57 of your 100 senators to be women yeah okay that's that's something is really

00:29:41.680 really wrong if that happens but here's my yes but uh if i i don't have any problem with deborah

00:29:50.320 being a judge in israel because that's that was an odd circumstance and there you go i don't have

00:29:57.260 any problem with queen elizabeth the first being queen of england um during a period that is prop

00:30:04.100 was probably one of the most intensely patriarchal periods in all of english history was that period

00:30:12.200 of time but it happened that a woman was the queen uh if i was a brit and living in england

00:30:18.580 in the 80s i would have voted for margaret thatcher that doesn't that doesn't bother me

00:30:23.820 It's not like having a woman preacher, but I would resist and fight the idea that, that if everything was as it should be, that the, the leadership of the culture should be 50% men, 50% women that if you have that, if that's the dominant paradigm, then basically your leadership is 50% feminine and 50% effeminate.

00:30:50.820 So, I am a strong advocate of masculine leadership in civil society, but it is not to be regulated as strictly as keeping a woman out of the pulpit. 0.71

00:31:07.720 If a woman's in the pulpit, you're disobeying. 0.82

00:31:10.280 um if oh if a woman is the one of two women in the senate 98 men and two two women and the two

00:31:20.600 women are widows of their late husband the former senator uh if it's something like that then i don't

00:31:26.860 think that that's a uh a sign of creeping egalitarianism but what we have going on now

00:31:32.640 really is uh and even in even in conservative circles you'll have people say well let's have 0.78

00:31:38.940 a woman speak to the abortion issue um why yeah because the men are cowards that's why right i

00:31:47.320 and so i'm with you 100 that um the way that we operate in the political civil sphere is different

00:31:53.560 than the church um in the same way that uh i could vote for donald trump in 2020 with a clear

00:31:58.440 conscience uh but i could not appoint him as an elder in my local church um because we're because

00:32:04.200 we're not living uh in a vacuum and all things are not equal and so um yeah so if we've got this

00:32:09.580 bastion of defender of of life in the womb and it's a woman and she's running for president and

00:32:15.740 then i've got joe biden as my other option then i'm casting my vote for that woman but all things

00:32:21.040 being equal let's say uh the the two options are morally equal i'm voting for the man um and and

00:32:27.700 that's you know and so uh whereas in the church uh it's uh well if those are the two options a

00:32:33.360 corrupt man or a godly woman then that church just we're we're going to go with the third option in

00:32:38.000 that case which is uh we're not going to have a pastor or underground church you just go right

00:32:44.380 yeah right um so let me run a couple more things by you real quick so um it has been said um uh

00:32:51.960 you know that a woman um can preach in terms of and i can preach in terms of ability um and better

00:33:00.060 than most men um that that she you know and which is not saying much you know these days because

00:33:05.720 most men you know are are deplorable uh most men pastors male pastors but that a woman could in

00:33:11.380 terms of her ability she could communicate she could say things that are doctrinally true

00:33:15.600 theologically true communicate those things well a powerful communication order order um all those

00:33:21.700 kinds of things um but she she could but she shouldn't um and and i addressed that um recently

00:33:27.820 and had a response video to that. And I said, I think that's part of the problem of complementarianism.

00:33:32.480 At some way, at some level, it subtly asserts that God's roles are arbitrary, right? That God calls

00:33:42.520 birds to fly and he calls fish to swim. And he just randomly decided that. It has nothing to do

00:33:48.360 with the fact that birds have feathers and wings and a hollow bone structure and fish have gills

00:33:52.020 and fins. And so, whereas I would say, no, a woman can't preach, or I'm sorry, she should not 1.00

00:33:58.300 preach in part because she can't. And I think part of this gets to our understanding of men and 0.93

00:34:03.460 women, but I think part of it gets to our understanding of preaching. And so what I

00:34:06.280 asserted in this little video response is I said, I think we misunderstand preaching. If we think

00:34:11.300 of preaching exclusively, entirely as serving up a spiritual meal to God's hungry children on the 0.68

00:34:19.440 lord's day spiritual nourishment um then why can't a woman do that it seems very feminine um but if

00:34:25.980 we think that preaching is is offering spiritual nourishment to to people the lord's people his

00:34:31.220 children sheep who are hungry but also it's also likened not just to a woman in the kitchen serving

00:34:37.360 up a spiritual meal but to william wallace riding down the front line slamming his sword into the

00:34:42.300 spears and swords of his comrades and calling them into war if preaching also contains that element

00:34:48.780 then it's not only that a woman shouldn't do it but she literally can't do it and you know and i 0.70

00:34:54.540 had one one response i said well i can ride a horse and and and swing a sword without falling

00:34:59.220 off you know and uh and and my response was um okay so you can physically ride the horse and

00:35:05.320 swing the sword um but the men won't follow you uh that's the problem you so you still can't it's

00:35:11.380 not just you shouldn't um in terms of of what you're allowed to do but it's also in terms of 0.97

00:35:16.160 what a woman is able to do. And I think as we've lost the worship is warfare aspect of the Lord's 0.98

00:35:21.700 day, as we've lost the masculine characteristics of preaching and calling the saints to battle,

00:35:29.260 I think that's part. It's not just that we've lost our understanding of the differences between men

00:35:33.440 and women. We've also lost our understanding of the nature, not just of men and women, but the

00:35:37.440 nature of preaching. And I think that's part of it. You've been famous for saying the fern pacing

00:35:42.900 preacher with the plexiglass pulpit that's just as transparent as his soul you know and um and so 0.93

00:35:48.900 it's like why well women are great at that so of course a woman could preach um what what would 0.67

00:35:53.520 you how would you respond to that that a woman shouldn't preach but also i'm asserting that 0.98

00:35:57.500 there's something in the nature of woman and something in the nature of preaching that she

00:36:00.680 actually if we understand that properly it's not just she shouldn't preach she can't preach

00:36:05.340 is that too far no i think it's right right on the money uh i think that there are many godly

00:36:10.820 women who would be capable of um preaching according to our current definition of preaching

00:36:20.880 in other words there are women who could do what a lot of the men think they're supposed to be doing 1.00

00:36:26.900 right and but they're not supposed to be doing that because that's not preaching

00:36:31.220 that's either exhortation or encouragement at the good end um or or teaching at the good end

00:36:39.240 But preaching, there's something when I'm looking to train ministerial candidates and looking to encourage young men in preparing them for pulpit ministry.

00:36:51.380 One of the things I look for is something that can best be described as pulpit presence.

00:36:58.720 Okay, you step into the pulpit and you belong in that space, right?

00:37:04.820 And you're able to prepare yourself to declare the Word of God authoritatively,

00:37:13.540 and your body is an instrument for doing that. 0.91

00:37:19.060 Now, a man who is a shorter or slighter build,

00:37:25.540 if he doesn't have that physical component,

00:37:29.800 he can still have that pulpit presence,

00:37:33.260 but he's got to project and it's not it's not um incongruous so john piper's like that uh john

00:37:41.560 piper's a small man but he communicates his preaching is masculine preaching and there's

00:37:48.780 gravitas there and and a woman either cannot have that or if she does it's creepy that's right

00:37:59.700 right that's exactly how i've been wording it is thinking that if a woman can do it so it would

00:38:05.600 almost be like a woman going back to what you talked about earlier in the old testament about

00:38:08.820 a woman shouldn't uh you know garb herself in in male attire especially male attire for combat 0.93

00:38:14.700 you know um military attire um for a woman to say i can preach but i won't because i'm not called to 0.98

00:38:21.000 it uh it's it's um it feels like a self-owned i'm like sister i i don't think you know what 0.81

00:38:28.360 you're saying because that that's like i mean it's almost like saying like i could wear that

00:38:33.180 male military uniform better than a lot of the men could but i won't i'm like do you want to is that 0.86

00:38:38.920 the brag you want to be making because because that's the thing is like i i think some women 1.00

00:38:43.640 could do it um but they but if a it's if a man doesn't do it if a man is doesn't have gravitas 1.00

00:38:51.700 especially in all of life but especially in the pulpit if a man doesn't have a masculine weightiness

00:38:57.120 glory weightiness to him in the pulpit his absence of that gravitas is the absence of the gravitas

00:39:04.060 in the case of a man is sin but the presence of of that masculine aggressive um war-like gravitas

00:39:12.600 in the presence of a woman is sin because we're called to different things and i think that gets

00:39:17.460 back to part of the problem is that um people people think that men and women not just that

00:39:23.640 there's no distinction between us outside of the physical distinction, but they also don't think

00:39:27.440 there's any distinction in God's calling. People think that it's just, like I've also heard it

00:39:33.720 expressed, you know, well, the chief end of men and women is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.

00:39:38.280 So we have the same chief end. There's not one chief end of man and one chief end of women. And

00:39:43.080 I would say, yes, but, all right? So yes, to glorify God and enjoy him forever. Here's a great

00:39:48.980 question how you know by doing what he said amen amen so any any other thoughts on that and then i

00:39:58.420 figured we can land the plane by getting back to you know the beginning and saying okay so

00:40:02.440 all these things being said what how are what are some ways that you know the early patriarchal

00:40:07.560 guys not early but like 80s you know the 80s patriarchy where were they different where would

00:40:14.200 they have disagreed with our conversation that we've had today okay i think a lot of them

00:40:18.760 would not disagree with the the broad outlines and everything has to do with how um how how you

00:40:27.580 embrace this and how you put it into practice with wisdom or not so i'm i'm fond of saying

00:40:35.860 that if you enroll in a math class the first thing you're going to encounter is math problems

00:40:42.380 okay so and and not every student that goes into a math class gets all the answers right

00:40:49.120 if you enroll in the math class some students get a 62 some get an 87 some score 100

00:40:56.500 so let's say a bunch of us enroll in the in the patriarchy class the first thing you're going to

00:41:03.800 encounter is patriarchy problems and becoming a becoming a patriarch becoming someone who joined

00:41:11.620 a patriarchal world does not remove your sin nature it does not remove your temptations it

00:41:19.440 doesn't it does not make it impossible for you to sin the way uh paul addresses a peculiar

00:41:27.580 masculine sin in colossians he tells men not to be harsh with their wives right okay so um if you

00:41:36.400 have a beta male type person who's doing his level best to be a girl, right, or his wife's

00:41:45.620 best girlfriend, he might not have to obey what Paul says there about being harsh. He might be

00:41:53.300 the most soft-spoken person in the world. But if you have a patriarchal guy who is simply reacting

00:42:00.420 to feminism and is consequently harsh with his wife and harsh with his children and

00:42:05.900 he's going to have all kinds of destructive consequences when his kids leave the faith

00:42:11.800 when his wife finally gives up and you know melts down or is institutionalized or abandons him

00:42:18.340 and it's all it's going to be because he was harsh not because he was patriarchal but in the

00:42:25.660 patriarchal world if someone goes to him and says brother you're just you're just being a cold hard

00:42:32.780 harsh husband that's not loving your wife as christ loved the church oh you're a feminist

00:42:38.740 so so in the patriarchal world some of the guys some of the hard-bitten guys who can point to

00:42:47.020 chapter and verse and i'm you know i'm the head of my home and what i say is law and you know

00:42:53.120 all that kind of posturing that's not headship that's machismo okay and machismo doesn't get

00:43:01.680 the same results the sacrificial headship does and and it's easy to represent sacrificial headship

00:43:09.600 as some sort of compromise with what the ladies want uh no it's it's not what the ladies want at

00:43:15.720 all. It should be, what does Christ want? What does Christ demand? And Christ requires that I

00:43:22.940 love my wife as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. So I've seen a lot of posturing

00:43:28.600 and brittleness and concern about reputation and machismo among people who would want to call

00:43:38.400 themselves patriarchal. And they think that whatever they're doing is biblical because it

00:43:45.520 makes the feminists mad. But that's too low a bar. Everything makes the feminists mad, 1.00

00:43:50.880 and everything's not biblical. So again, going back to what I said earlier, we who want to be 1.00

00:43:59.000 responsible advocates of the patriarchy have to police our own ranks. But that means that we're

00:44:05.480 going to react differently to exposes that the the world conducts like this uh recent film on

00:44:14.440 the Duggars okay um for us we're going to react differently because we're going to say the Duggars

00:44:22.840 and people like that are not are they're being attacked with their sins but they're not being

00:44:29.800 attacked for their sins okay that's a good point that's right they're being so when david sinned

00:44:37.680 with bethsheba and uriah and became uh um uh and became the the the laughing stock of the late

00:44:47.480 night comedians he was being attacked with his sin but the reason he was being attacked at all

00:44:53.640 was because he was a man after God's own heart, because he was of God's party.

00:44:58.820 So he was aligned with God and with his law, and this radical inconsistency gave them ammo.

00:45:06.080 But if the Duggars, as a clan, had just had enough good sense to put a rainbow on it and a plus sign,

00:45:18.620 you know we are fundamentalists who are family friendly rainbow friendly lgbtq i plus friendly

00:45:28.080 they wouldn't be attacked at all right um so josh josh is just expressing the plus

00:45:34.780 right that's all he's doing and in the meantime joe biden can sniff anybody he wants

00:45:40.320 right right and he can do it on camera and everybody can say man i wouldn't let this guy

00:45:48.180 do anything involving children in our church. Are you crazy? And then everybody circles the 0.98

00:45:58.320 wagons because the issue is the political issue. They defend their guy. They don't attack him with

00:46:04.420 his sins because they're in his camp. For the people who are representing God's order,

00:46:14.400 when people who are representing the traditional family, some of them well, some of them poorly,

00:46:20.360 they're going to be attacked with any inconsistency that they can find.

00:46:26.260 But so as far as I'm concerned, pastorally in-house, if I'm dealing with people in our congregation

00:46:34.860 who are really into a particular child-rearing method, or I'm going to say, okay, that's fine.

00:46:44.400 Take whatever good you find there,

00:46:48.180 but we're going to be looking for biblical balance and grace and kindness.

00:46:54.860 So if I see a husband who treats his wife like a queen,

00:46:59.580 and she is thriving and happy, obviously so,

00:47:03.860 I don't care that he learned something from the pearls

00:47:08.380 or learned something from Bill Gothard.

00:47:11.180 okay that that's good right because i can see that you've evaluated by the fruit but if but

00:47:20.620 if someone has gone whole hog into one one child rearing method or one family method and they're

00:47:28.580 treating the whole thing as a plug and chug formula uh i'm just going to paint by numbers

00:47:33.240 and it's showing in the kids look miserable the wife looks miserable you see him always grabbing

00:47:41.960 for himself yeah you see all sorts of telltale signs that he's not loving his wife and family

00:47:49.760 the way he ought the problem is not what books he's reading the problem the essential problem

00:47:56.440 for me as a pastor is what he's doing with what he's reading because and and i want to i i should

00:48:02.700 It hastened to, because lack of wisdom can show up anywhere.

00:48:07.020 I know that there are people out there who don't have wisdom, who read my books, and

00:48:14.080 who run the things I'm saying through their self-aggrandizing filter, and then they go

00:48:21.440 and make their wife and kids hate the sound of the, hate the name Doug Wilson.

00:48:27.220 Well, Doug Wilson says, wife, you should submit.

00:48:30.820 Doug Wilson, here's the verse.

00:48:32.560 what's your problem? That kind of heavy-handedness, I'm confident, has been done in my name.

00:48:40.580 And even though I try in every third paragraph to guard against it, I know that there are people

00:48:45.400 up to the challenge. And they behave that way. Yep. Yeah, people will misuse the pearls. They'll

00:48:54.460 misuse you. They'll misuse 1 Peter and 1 Timothy. I mean, just even reading the Bible,

00:49:02.560 you know, and applying it requires, uh, wisdom. And so, yeah, no, that's really helpful. Um,

00:49:09.260 I think, I, I, I think, uh, it reminded me a little bit of the, uh, rise and fall of Mars Hill,

00:49:15.300 uh, podcast. I don't know if you ever got a chance to listen to that, but, um, at the end of the day,

00:49:20.380 it's like, okay, yeah, I, there are maybe some things that, um, I didn't particularly like about

00:49:24.760 Driscoll. For me, it's kind of funny because the things that I didn't like about Driscoll are not

00:49:28.560 the things that most people would fault him on. Um, but, uh, you, you gotta look through the

00:49:34.800 piece at the end of the day and, and say, okay, but what's the big idea here? The big idea coming

00:49:39.640 from Christianity today, um, is not, uh, we're really concerned about Driscoll. No, they're

00:49:44.540 really concerned about, um, male leadership in all its shapes and forms. Um, they hate, they hate, 0.76

00:49:51.100 they hate, I mean, Christianity today that, I mean, the piece against Driscoll in that podcast

00:49:55.480 was so clearly just a hit piece against any traditional conservative bible believing christian

00:50:01.560 um so it's it wasn't a hit piece against driscoll it's a hit piece against you and uh and the same

00:50:06.920 with the shiny happy people i think that uh that documentary same thing like okay maybe there are

00:50:11.420 some real failures here or there um but at the same time i think as christians we have to be

00:50:15.880 discerning enough to say um at the end of the day um their concern i like what you said you know

00:50:21.420 attacking with the sin but not because of it, that their concern isn't that some children

00:50:27.900 were sexually abused because they'd be fine with that in a public library so long as it was a man

00:50:34.300 dressed in drag, right? So they're not concerned. Yeah, they don't care about that. They don't care 0.94

00:50:39.680 that a child got abused. They don't give a rip about that. And if I could say one other thing

00:50:45.480 about this and just around this with I've got marked disagreements with Mark Driscoll having

00:50:52.280 having said that but that hit piece was leveled against him and Mark Driscoll is still walking

00:50:59.200 with the Lord his kids are still walking with the Lord everybody is they're intact Christians

00:51:06.820 and they're they're all speaking to each other in the meantime a number of the people who

00:51:12.900 came out against him have left the faith and have you know have have flamed out so okay like prosper

00:51:23.000 yes yeah so basically i want to say i want to keep the majors the major and the minors the minor i

00:51:31.080 i differ with driscoll on this and that and the other thing and okay i'm not gonna i'm not gonna

00:51:38.400 to sign up as the ultimate driscoll advisor but i can i've got eyes in my head and i can see what

00:51:46.600 happened and i can i can see that a number of the people turned on driscoll using the very things

00:51:54.640 that attracted them to him in the first place that's right okay and and so i can i can see that

00:52:00.940 and i should be able to say that and uh so i don't think anybody if christianity uh wants me

00:52:09.300 to think that driscoll's an orc well watch me not do that because christianity today has

00:52:16.980 uh began circling the drain a long time ago and and i've got far far more worries about where they

00:52:24.660 are than i i do about where mark driscoll is because when they attack him for those reasons

00:52:30.540 i know that i'm next you know right exactly exactly yep this is not unique to like driscoll

00:52:37.380 did something uniquely wrong and they're only going to target their scope you know on him

00:52:41.820 uh no that he's a useful he's a useful pawn uh to try to take out you and i to take us all out so

00:52:50.440 no no i agree the things that attracted me to driscoll were not the things that turned me off

00:52:54.740 the things that turned me off were the things that um that that initially attracted me that he

00:52:59.120 forsook like like calvinism like i liked that you know and so when he comes out and kind of you know

00:53:04.720 dogs the doctrines of grace as though they're not important and maybe he believes half of them

00:53:09.180 and i'm like uh no man no that i i i don't like you now as much now i liked you because of this

00:53:15.880 i said anyways okay any final final yeah it reminds me of uh forget which political

00:53:22.220 commentator said this but he said he didn't like richard nixon until watergate

00:53:26.600 yeah yeah all right well pastor wilson thank you so much for your time it's always a privilege

00:53:34.720 and i hope to have you back on the show sometime in the future great thanks for having me all right

00:53:39.500 hold up you're not going to want to miss this i'm going to tell you exactly how our spring 2024

00:53:43.740 conference is going to go down here's the title of the conference blueprints for chrysidom 2.0

00:53:49.620 subtitle seven doctrines for ruling the world we're going to have seven primary sessions covering

00:53:55.960 each of these doctrines for ruling the world righteously. Number one, reformed confessionalism.

00:54:02.980 That's going to be Pastor Doug Wilson preaching on that topic. Then we've got covenant theology

00:54:07.880 with Pastor Brian Sauve. Then we've got biblical patriarchy with Pastor Michael Foster. Then we've

00:54:13.760 got presuppositionalism with Dr. Joseph Boot. Then we've got Kuyperianism, all of Christ for

00:54:20.620 all of life, where we're going to welcome Pastor Doug Wilson back for a second session. Then we've

00:54:25.680 got general equity theonomy we're going to have dr joseph boot come and do a second session on

00:54:31.060 that topic and then lastly we'll have pastor dale partridge on post-millennial eschatology in

00:54:36.840 addition to these seven sessions we're also going to have not one but two live podcasts on the first

00:54:43.900 day of the conference that's friday march 1st we're going to have a live theology applied podcast

00:54:49.160 i'll be on the stage hosting the discussion with douglas wilson michael foster and eric

00:54:54.980 Kahn from It's Good to Be a Man, the topic is going to be all about biblical patriarchy. We're

00:55:00.400 going to specifically be parsing out, distinguishing the biblical doctrinal differences between

00:55:06.180 patriarchy and complementarianism. Again, that's Friday, March 1st, the first day of the conference,

00:55:12.080 a live theology applied podcast on biblical patriarchy. Then we're going to have the next

00:55:17.560 day, that's Saturday, March 2nd, a live Haunted Cosmos podcast. I'll be hosting this discussion

00:55:24.340 with Brian Sauve and Ben Garrett.

00:55:26.960 We're going to be talking about the Nephilim.

00:55:28.540 We're going to be talking about the Watchers. 0.98

00:55:30.220 We're going to be talking about

00:55:31.160 what creatures currently are living

00:55:33.220 underneath the surface of the earth

00:55:34.980 and chasms of the deep.

00:55:36.320 It's going to be wacky.

00:55:37.380 It's going to be weird, 0.99

00:55:38.200 but it will also be thoroughly biblical

00:55:40.360 and incredibly unhinged.

00:55:42.840 So you're not going to want to miss

00:55:43.760 these two live podcasts,

00:55:45.560 Theology Applied, on Friday, March 1st,

00:55:48.380 the first day of the conference

00:55:49.560 on biblical patriarchy

00:55:51.580 with Doug Wilson, Michael Foster,

00:55:53.200 Eric Kahn and myself, and then the next day of the conference, Saturday, March 2nd, a live Haunted

00:55:59.240 Cosmos podcast with Brian Sauve and Ben Garrett and myself on the Nephilim, the Watchers, and what

00:56:05.460 lies under the surface of the earth, and then the conference will hold over for one final, the third

00:56:11.340 and final day, that's going to be the Lord's Day, Sunday, March 3rd, where one of our speakers will

00:56:16.900 be holding over to preach the Lord's Day sermon, and I'll be leading us in worship through the

00:56:22.440 liturgy. So we've got three days, a Friday, Saturday, Sunday, March 1st, 2nd, and 3rd of

00:56:28.000 2024, blueprints for Christendom 2.0, seven doctrines for ruling the world. You're not

00:56:34.800 going to want to miss this conference. Our early bird rate is still available, but only for a very

00:56:40.260 short period of time. We are ending the early bird rate on August 31st at 1159 p.m. That will

00:56:47.200 be the final chance to get into this conference at an affordable, cheap rate. All right. So go

00:56:53.740 and take advantage of the early bird rate right now by going to right response conference.com.

00:56:59.460 Again, that's right response conference.com to register for blueprints for Christendom 2.0

00:57:06.840 March 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, 2024. Register today.

The NXR Podcast - July 03, 2023

THEOLOGY APPLIED - Patriarchy Vs. Complementarianism, “Shiny Happy People,” & “The Rise & Fall Of Mars Hill” w Doug Wilson

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