Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 832 | Fighting the Toxic War on Masculinity | Guest: Nancy Pearcey (Part One)

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort.

Starting point is 00:00:19 We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. Contrary to popular opinion, it's actually Christianity that upholds the dignity and worth and the importance of the body, of the physical world, of matter. It's the secular perspective that actually denigrates it. And that's why we have so much confusion about the body. about identity, about sex, about things like abortion. And I really understood this from reading the

Starting point is 00:01:05 work of Professor Nancy Piercy. She wrote the book, Love Thy Body. And she's also written a new book about the war on masculinity, the toxic war on masculinity. So this is a two-part conversation. The first part is going to be a little bit about her fascinating testimony, how she got involved in apologetics, how she became a professor of apologetics, and how the truth about scripture informs what we think of the person, informs what we think of gender, informs what we think of the body, informs what we think of sex, and also the differences between male and female. The second part of our conversation will really get into her book, which is just absolutely mind-blowing and fascinating. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Go to Go to Go to Ranchers.com. Use code alia. Checkout. That's

Starting point is 00:01:54 GoToRanchors.com, code alley. Professor Piercy, thanks so much for joining us again. Everyone who watches and listens to Relatable knows how much I admire you and your work. But for those who maybe are unfamiliar, tell us about who you are and what you do. So I teach at Houston Christian University, and I teach apologetics, and I'm also scholar in residence. So I get to write about issues on how do we know Christianity is true and how you How do we defend it and how do we engage in a good way with the secular world around us? So people often ask, well, how'd you end up there?

Starting point is 00:02:43 And the answer is that it was a big part of my own life. I started asking questions when I was in high school. I was raised in a Lutheran home. And I started just asking, how do we know it's true? How do we know Christianity is true? And I didn't get any answers. I asked a Christian college professor point blank, why are you a Christian? And he said, works for me.

Starting point is 00:03:05 Wow. Really? That's it. And I talked to a seminary dean. I thought I would get something more substantial. But all he said was, don't worry. We all have doubts sometimes. Wow.

Starting point is 00:03:14 So I eventually decided Christianity didn't have any answers. And I very intentionally walked away from my Christian faith. And started on a search for truth because I thought, whoa, if there's no God, then what answers are there? Is there any purpose or meaning to life? is there any foundation for ethics or is it just true for me, true for you? Is there is there even any truth? Because I thought if all I have is my beauty brain in the vast scope of time and space and history, how can I be sure that I could even have access to any universal absolute truth?

Starting point is 00:03:51 And I thought ridiculous, obviously ridiculous. So by the time I graduated from high school, I was a complete relativist and skeptic. and even determinists because in my science classes, I was learning that were just complex biochemical machines anyway. So it was a few years later that I ended up at the Ministry of Francis Schaefer, which is called Labrie. It's in Switzerland. I had lived in Europe as a child, and so I went back because I loved it.

Starting point is 00:04:19 And so I stumbled across the Ministry of Francis Schaefer. And as you know, Ellie, he's best known for his apologetics. That's what his ministry was about. it was cultural apologetics, which meant it was a little different. He was looking at ideas as they percolate down through the culture, through art and literature and music and movies. And that's how I ended up becoming a Christian again. And that's why I write on apologetics myself. Today, all of my books has something to do with how do we engage with the surrounding secular culture,

Starting point is 00:04:50 because I want to answer the questions that young people have that I used to have when I was their age. And so that kind of gives a big picture of why I do what I do. Yeah. Tell us a little bit about that kind of turning point, though. You said that you stumbled upon Francis Schaefer's ministry. Do you remember any one moment or anyone question or anyone thing that was sad that kind of made something click for you that you said, huh? Okay. I guess I've been wrong.

Starting point is 00:05:20 Or maybe there's something more. or was it just kind of the slow drip of truth that eventually changed your mind? Well, I have to tell you, I was at Libri twice because the first time I left. I was there only a month, and I was so impressed. I had never met any Christians who could engage with the secular worldviews that I had absorbed by that time. And I had never met Christians who could show that Christianity made sense that it was logical and reasonable and you could make good arguments for it. And so I was so impressed,

Starting point is 00:05:57 in fact, that that's why I left. I was afraid I might be drawn in emotionally. And Christianity had already let me down once. So I was not going to do this unless I was absolutely intellectually convinced it was true. And so to get away from Libri, I left, went back home, back to the States, but through Libri, I discovered that there was such a thing as apologetics. I discovered CS Lewis. I'd never heard about him before. I discovered G.K. Chesterton, and Oz Guinness was writing his first books way back then. And of course, I read Schaefer until I practically memorized him. And so it was several months later, maybe about a year later, I finally became a Christian. And then I went back to Libri. After becoming a Christian, I thought, well, where do I

Starting point is 00:06:45 find other Christians? Because I wasn't connected to a church or anything. I had no Christian friends. I had no church. So I said, well, where do I find other Christians? I knew some back in Switzerland. So that's how I ended up going back to LaBrie and staying for four months where I really got grounded in Christianity as a worldview. You ask if there's a particular moment. Actually not because it was an accumulation of dealing with.

Starting point is 00:07:18 Well, the first question was relativism. Like I said, I arrived at Libri, a complete moral relativist. Back in my high school, I was the one in my friend group arguing that there's no such thing as right or wrong. You know, my friend one day, I remember this. A friend one day was talking about a mutual friend's like, oh, she's so wrong. And I jump in there and say, you can't say it was right or wrong. So that's the kind of person I was.

Starting point is 00:07:41 I was very, very adamant that there was no truth, there is no right or wrong. and so yeah, I had to really work through issues like relativism and so on when I got there. And again, no Christians had ever been able to talk to me about that before. So it was working through those isms. Yes. I love that story. And I love how God does this so often with his plans of redemption for people, how he didn't just make you a Christian.

Starting point is 00:08:10 He also made you an apologist. And then he made you an a teacher, a teacher of apologetic. the person who in high school was arguing that, well, there's just my truth and there is your truth. You wrote a book called Total Truth that combats those lies, which I mean, God uses what Satan means for evil for good, but he also uses parts of our past and then redeems them and uses them in ways to then advance his kingdom. And so you have taken what was kind of a disdain for truth. God has given you a love for truth, and you've tried to teach other people to love to love truth too. And I'll just like for me that has really impacted me. I think a lot of times Christians,

Starting point is 00:08:52 um, we just devalue apologetics and the answer to the question why when it comes to changing the hearts and the minds of people. Because my story is very similar to yours in high school. I started reading C.S. Louis. I had been raised a Christian and I didn't realize this huge intellectual side of Christianity that actually answered the questions that I, had that, you know, I thought as a teenager were so original and so edgy. I realized that there had been people answering those very tough questions, actually, for thousands of years. But, you know, in particular, C.S. Lewis and others like him, even Tim Keller, reason for God had a big impact on me. And so, yeah, I think Christians, we forget about that, that these questions need

Starting point is 00:09:38 answers, and it's important that we engage in them. Yeah, and if anything, I was discouraged by Christians. I was treated as, what's wrong with you? Why don't you have faith? And that's why I say the first time I ever found Christians who would engage on these issues was that we agree. Francis Schaefer was known for a phrase that he often used, we need to offer honest answers to honest questions. And that's what he did. So you're right. It's not just that Christians are not tuned into the question of truth, but I was actively discouraged from searching truth.

Starting point is 00:10:14 searching for truth. But I would say, Allie, what really kept driving me was the search for truth. I wasn't happy with just relativism and skepticism. I realized that you can't live on that basis. So I kept searching for truth. And that's what really drove me eventually to discovering that Christianity is truth and that it does stand up, like you say, to the questions and objections that people have. Yes. And one of the ways that you did that, so you wrote total truth, which is really about a lot of that, but you also wrote Love Thy Body, dealing with not just the gender issue, but also just sexual immorality, promiscuity, and then there's gender confusion and then abortion, all these issues that have to do with the body. And I listen to this on the audiobook, which I don't

Starting point is 00:11:00 typically do, but as someone who already agreed with your conclusions about all of these things, someone who's pro-life, who understands the biology of the gender binary, understanding the philosophical history and legacy of these ideas that we have now and the postmodern conclusions of these things. I mean, it really, really helped me understand where these ideas are coming from, how we can confront them, and then why the Bible offers a better alternative to the very vapid and hollow philosophies that have given us things like gender identity and abortion on demand and things like that. So again, you answer the questions of why, which is so incredibly powerful, even for people who already believe those things in bolstering our beliefs.

Starting point is 00:11:54 Yes. I mean, we're made in God's image. And so we want reasons. You know, we have to love God not only with our heart and soul and strength, but our minds. And that means we have to understand why Christianity is true, not just that is true, but why it's true. And you're right, that was my goal in my book, Love Thy Body, was to help Christians understand and make the case for why the Christian ethic is true. How do you talk to your secular neighbors? How do you talk to people who don't agree with you? But of course, also, how do you become stronger in understanding for yourself why the Christian view is true? And, Ellie, what I found is that many people still have a difficult time with the main theme of Love Thy Body is I show that if you read the secular body, I show that if you read

Starting point is 00:12:41 the secular sources. He said, that's my job. I go out and read the secular sources so that I can interpret them for Christian. Here's what they're really saying, and here's how you have to respond to them. So the secular people are justifying things like transgenderism by denigrating the body, denigrating biology, saying that your authentic self has nothing to do with your biological identity. Some trans activists actually say the term biological sex is a hate term. Because, of course, It reminds them that that's what they're ignoring. And so when I talk to a Christian audience, I say what we need to do is show that Christian worldview has a very high view of the body. The value and dignity of the body is God's handiwork.

Starting point is 00:13:25 You know, we're made in God's image. And God made a physical universe. You know, he didn't have to. He could have made a totally spiritual realm where we float around, you know, as spirits. But he chose to make a material world, which means you mentioned Lewis. Lewis says, God likes matter. He made it. So I have found that the most difficult thing in talking to Christians, though, is they've been so trained in the idea that the body doesn't matter, that this world doesn't matter. Here's how one of my students put it. She said, growing up in the church, I was always taught spirit, good, body, bad. And so even just getting over that, just training yourself in the vocabulary of saying, the reason for the Christian ethic, is that we do value the body, the body that God gave you, you know, your female or your male. It's a good gift from God.

Starting point is 00:14:17 You want to honor your body. Respect your biological sex. Live in tune with who you really are in terms of your biological sex. And you have to almost train yourself to use that positive language. And when you do, you will be much more effective in talking not only to non-Christians, but to other Christians. You know, maybe people in your family who are having gender-discipline. four-year or other questions. Hey, this is Steve Day.

Starting point is 00:14:47 If you're listening to Alley, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's

Starting point is 00:15:09 unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over cancer. chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. And it goes back to this idea of telos and teleology that God actually gave our bodies a purpose, which is what you argue. And the idea of, and you can explain it way better than me, but just remembering how you talked about the idea of dualism that has been so popular, like the separation of the soul and the body or the real, quote, unquote,

Starting point is 00:15:55 authentic self that we feel inside versus the body, which is basically just a trap for our authentic self that can be changed and manipulated based on what we really feel on the inside. And you argue, well, no, that's not the Christian worldview. The Christian worldview believes that the body has purpose, that people have purpose, that your biological sex actually has purpose. And just like a bird would fail at trying to be a fish, so a man failed at trying to be a woman and vice versa. And the postmodern philosophical traditions that even Christians, you mentioned, have been influenced by. They completely deny the importance of the body.

Starting point is 00:16:35 And really, I think that goes back thousands of years, right? I mean, if you look at Christians and how we decided, okay, no, we're not just going to discard children. We're not just going to discard the poor and the elderly. we're going to care for them. We're going to build these hospitals. We're going to build these charities. We're going to feed people. We are going to clothe people. We are going to heal people. I mean, the history of the church has been combating that lie that the body, that the physical world doesn't matter. So I'm wondering kind of, I don't know, how we lost our way. Oh, it was the impact of Greek philosophy. Yeah, you're right. It does go back to the early church. The early church was born into a culture, Greek and Roman culture. that did have a very low view of the body that had that dualism that you're talking about, you know, matter of, they call it matter and form.

Starting point is 00:17:24 Form just meant, you know, abstract ideals. So, you know, the humanity is an abstract ideal and my body is matter, so matter and ideal. At any rate, they felt like the ideal realm was the only thing that really mattered, that the physical realm was the realm of death decay and destruction. Right. And many of us are familiar with this because it's part of Gnosticism.

Starting point is 00:17:48 And many of the books in the New Testament are written against Gnosticism. That's why John says, how do you know someone's a true Christian? They say that Jesus came in the flesh, in the body. So the incarnation was the ultimate affirmation of the dignity of the human body. Because the Gnostics at the time, some of them tried to sort of meld Gnosticism and Christianity. And what they said was, well, Jesus was just an avatar from the higher realms who came down and wasn't really human. You know, he just inhabited a body and then went back up to the higher spiritual realms. And so that's why John says, no, no, Jesus had a body, a real body.

Starting point is 00:18:30 And of course, creation also is the theological foundation for respect for the body. Anything God creates is good. I think sometimes Christians have also felt too much like. the fall destroyed creation, right? They tend to think whatever was in the original creation is not totally corrupt. But that's not the biblical view. Even after the fall, the text still says, Genesis still says, that humans were made in God's image. And so the fall does not abrogate the image of God in us. It's like a very famous masterpiece in an art museum, for example, and a child comes with a magic barker and scribbles on it.

Starting point is 00:19:15 Well, yes, it's defaced, but the original beauty still shines through. And that's how we should see God's creation. It's been marred by the fall. It's been defaced, but the original beauty still shines through. And that's what we need to affirm if we're going to have an answer to the secular world today, which is denigrating the body, which is saying your body doesn't matter. I read a book by a Princeton University professor. You know, I read the academic literature because that's what filters down to ordinary people.

Starting point is 00:19:48 And I think it was the first book ever written, Defending Transgenderism. And the irony was, first of all, that she said transgenderism involves disconnect, disjunction, self-alienation. And I thought, what? This is a defense? It sounds like my critique. But then she said, what the physical body tells us is nothing. It has no meaning at all. And I thought that captures the secular view.

Starting point is 00:20:15 Yes. The physical body has no meaning. As you put it, tell us, that's the Greek word for meaning, purpose. And that's what she was saying, just point blank. And that's what's filtering down all the way to kindergarten is today, that your physical body has no meaning at all. It gives you no moral message. It gives you no clue to your identity.

Starting point is 00:20:36 You can do with it whatever you see fit. Yes. And that is the exact opposite of what Christianity teaches. You mentioned that in the, you know, Jesus becoming, God becoming Emmanuel, God with us. It reminds me of that passage in Colossians. I had to look it up on Bible Gateway. Colossians 2. 9.

Starting point is 00:20:58 For in him, the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily. And you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. And it seems like in context, Paul is actually mentioning some of this Gnosticist. and things that people were wrestling with at the time, but also we learned that there's going to be a resurrection of the bodies, which is a pretty incredible aspect and a little bit of a mysterious aspect of Christianity. We also read that sexual sin is actually different than other sins because you are sinning against yourself. It's a special kind of affront. We also read that our bodies are a dwelling place for the Holy Spirit. And so there is a very

Starting point is 00:21:38 elevated sense of the body even while, and I think this is why it's confusing. So maybe you can differentiate this for us and then we'll move on to your current book. It'll be a good transition. But we also do believe in a self-denial. We believe in the traps of the flesh, which is kind of the word that we use for sin for carnal desire that is actually opposed to God's will, just following our physical desires, following our physical whims, not without any thought to God's standard, holiness, righteousness, Christ-likeness. And so how do we parse that out? On the one hand, the body is really good. God gave us our body. God gave us matter. It's really good. On the other hand, we are to deny the carnal desires, the fleshly, bodily desires that God calls sin.

Starting point is 00:22:32 we are to deny those things in favor of what is spiritual and eternal. Yeah, it's tough because all languages have words that mean different things. Like, God so love the world. World, there is something we should love. And then there are other verses that say, you have to die through the world. You have to reject the world. And it's the same with the word flesh. There are times when it does mean your sinful nature.

Starting point is 00:22:58 And then there are times when it just means your body. And that's, I agree with you. That's where a lot of the confusion comes in. Here's how I would differentiate it. We're not called to deny ourselves in sense of who God made us. You know, our gifts, our talents, our abilities, our basic personality. That's not the self we're supposed to deny. We're supposed to deny our sin.

Starting point is 00:23:20 I'll illustrate. I had a student once who was very, very good at computer science. And so as he was graduating, I said, well, what are you going to do? He said, I'm going to become a lawyer. I said, what? You obviously are extremely gifted in computer science. Why are you doing this? And he said, well, because I have Christian teachers who told me I have to deny myself.

Starting point is 00:23:44 And I think being a lawyer might be more important because I can defend religious liberty cases. And I said, if you are in computer science, you can create great programs that have a tremendous influence. Young people are on their computers and their games all day. You could create games that are redemptive and beautiful, and they draw people to the truth. You see, he was thinking, I have to deny my basic talents that God gave me. And that's not what it means. It doesn't mean you deny who God created you to be.

Starting point is 00:24:18 It means you deny your sin. And by the way, he did end up in computers. He's done a great job now. Yeah, I was glad. We hooked up several years later. and he did end up in computers. But the point is, we used the word deny self without carefully defining what we mean by self.

Starting point is 00:24:37 And of course, it's not even just carnal desires. It's spiritual sin. A lot of the sins listed in scripture are not necessarily physical. They're also spiritual, beginning with pride. Pride and self-centeredness and hatred and so on. These are spiritual sins. So it would be a mistake to just think of physical sins when we think of denying yourself. We have to make sure that we're also including

Starting point is 00:25:02 the spiritual things, sins, which can sometimes be even more devastating, more destructive in our lives and in the lives of other people. So now you've written a book called The Toxic War on Masculinity, How Christianity Reconciles the Sexes. As people are listening to this or watching this, the book just came out a few days ago, so it's available everywhere. And as we're talking about the differences in the body, the differences in gender, the differences in strengths and weaknesses that people have, as well as a lot of just the worldly confusion and worldly philosophies that not just, they don't just affect secular culture, they also affect how Christians think about these things. I mean, one of the toughest things that the church, for example, I'm Southern

Starting point is 00:25:56 Baptist. The church is still dealing with today and debating, like, not what is a man, what is a woman biologically, but what is a man, what is a woman when it comes to our roles, when it comes to what God has called us to do. So tell us about this. Tell us about your book, The Toxic War on Masculinity, in particular how this affects men, but how it affects or how the Bible should affect how we see men and women. Well, I like the way you are starting with biology. I figured that was probably the best way to start my book. I put it right in chapter one, because people always start with, well, what are the differences between men and women then? And the reason it's sometimes confusing is on personality traits, men and women are more similar than they are different. I mean,

Starting point is 00:26:43 when Adam sees Eve, his first response is, oh, somebody like me. Yeah. You know, bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh. So he's overwhelmed with excitement because there's somebody like me. So we have to be careful that in discussing differences, we keep in mind that even scientifically, if you plot a particular trait like, even aggression, if you plot a trait like aggression, In men, you get a bell curve, and in women you get a bell curve. And those bell curves overlap quite closely. You know, the differences are mostly at the edges, at the extremes, which is why most people sitting in prison are male.

Starting point is 00:27:20 Those are the ones at the extreme. But in terms of physical characteristics, I think that's the one that's with the transgender movement today. That has become controversial. And yet it shouldn't be because there's quite clear, scientifically, that men are bigger, stronger, faster, have greater bone density, greater upper body strength, 90% more upper body strength than women. Because of testosterone, they tend to be more aggressive and more risk-taking.

Starting point is 00:27:50 And we have to affirm that these are good things. These are things that God made men to be. And the difference is how do they use these masculine strengths? I quote a study. It was done by an anthropologist, and it was the first study ever done of cross-cultural concepts of masculinity. And what he found was that no matter how much they differed in how they defined masculinity, maybe more aggressive in some cultures, less aggressive and so on. But they all agreed on three things. they all agreed, as he put it, the anthropologist said, they agree on the three P's, protect, provide, and procreate. In other words, become a father, build into the next generation.

Starting point is 00:28:41 And he said, all cultures share this. This is the universal expectation of men. What it means to be a man is that you don't use your unique masculine strengths to get what you want, but to provide, protect the people that you love. if necessary, even maybe fight for them, you know, to protect them. So I thought this was a great finding because what it means is men universally across all cultures understand what manhood is in a positive way, provide, protect, procreate. And it's intrinsic.

Starting point is 00:29:15 They're made in God's image. And so they do understand what it means to be a good man. No matter how their culture teaches them otherwise, they've got down the three peas. And that's encouraging to know that every culture recognizes, oh, let's use your word tell us again. Tell us, the goal, the purpose of masculinity is recognized everywhere because people are made in God's image. And yet we do see in some, you know, different parts of the United States even that masculinity, well, on one end, masculinity for some people is seen as exclusively toxic. It is seen as something that just wants power, just wants control, that we really need to feminize and weaken. And then you do see, I mean, especially we see this with the young men who are fatherless,

Starting point is 00:30:07 how there is a misconception of masculinity, just being brute strength, just being being able to prove yourself, just being able to be, you know, to protect your own turf, not necessarily care for the vulnerable, but to watch out for yourself and to assert your own dominance at all times. And so even though there's an understanding across cultures of what a man should be, we do seem to disagree on that a lot, even in the United States, of the importance of masculinity and what healthy masculinity really is. Yes, I have another study on that. By the way, this is the most fact-based book I've written because it has a lot of studies,

Starting point is 00:30:48 first on masculinity and then later on history, the history of concepts of masculinity. So this was a study by a sociologist, which I really found helpful, which by my students found helpful. Let me give you some background on it. When I taught the manuscript in my class, and I ran reading groups on it, and they would tell their family and friends they were reading a book on masculinity, and invariably the first question was, whose side is she on?

Starting point is 00:31:20 With that tone, right? Who side is she on? And the next question was, and why is a woman writing a book on masculinity? Anyway, so this book has proven to be more controversial than any I've written. You know, the book we talked about earlier, Love Thy Body, I thought would be more controversial

Starting point is 00:31:38 because it does deal with issues like abortion, homosexuality, transgenderism, and so on. But in fact, this one has proven to be more controversial. And so right at the beginning, I found this study helpful. I put it right at the beginning of the book. So this is a sociologist. He's not a Christian, but he is well known in his field, so he gets invited to speak all around the world.

Starting point is 00:32:01 And he came up with this clever experiment where he asks young men two questions. And the first question is, what does it mean to be a good man? You know, if you're at a funeral and in the eulogy, somebody says he was a good man. What does that mean? And he said, all around the world, young men had no problem answering that. They would say things like honor, duty, integrity, sacrifice, do the right thing. Look out for the little guy. I kind of like that one.

Starting point is 00:32:33 Look out for the little guy. Be a protector, be a provider, be responsible. And that's what they would answer. from Brazil, you know, to Nigeria, to Australia. They would all answer that. And he would say, the sociologist would say, where did you learn that? And they would say, it's just in the air we breathe. Or if they were in a Western country, they would say it's part of our Judeo-Christian heritage.

Starting point is 00:33:01 So then he would follow up with the second question. And he'd say, well, what does it mean if I say to you, man up, be a real man? And the young man would say, oh, no, that is. completely different. That means be, in fact, I'll read it to you. So you get their words, not mine. That means be tough, be strong, never show weakness, win at all costs, suck it up, be competitive, get rich, get laid. So in other words, when he asked about the real man, the traits that they listed tended to be the things that our culture calls toxic. Or at least if disconnected from the ideal of the real man, a moral ideal, it can slide into entitlements, dominance,

Starting point is 00:33:49 control, and so on. And so clearly, young men have two scripts going on running through their minds. On the one hand, it reinforces that earlier study showing that they do know what the good man is. Universally, across all cultures, they do know what it means to be the good man. I keep coming back to, they are made in God's image. Or Romans 2, right, which says we all have a conscience. We all inherently, innately, no, right from wrong. But cultures create a cultural script, a secular script for masculinity that is telling them, you know, what you just said a moment ago, even here in the States, we have these competing scripts. But knowing this gets us, I think, a better strategy for dealing with it. Men don't respond very well to being called.

Starting point is 00:34:40 toxic, right? Nobody would. So this study shows us, we might have a better strategy if we focus on the good man, which men already know. If we focus on that and support it and affirm it and encourage it, encourage their innate knowledge of what it means to be good, that gives us a much more positive approach for dealing with these issues. I did a video back in God. It was probably 2018 for Prager You and it was make men masculine again. And, you know, some of the same questions of why is a girl talking about this? And it was controversial, but it was also their most watched video for several years. I think it's been surpassed now.

Starting point is 00:35:39 But because, you know, we kind of deal with the issue of yes, because you explained like the belkers and the extremes. So men's extremes when it comes to aggression are more extreme than when. women, mostly I think, because of the physical differences. Also, God, I think, wired their brain differently in some ways, but those physical differences, men actually can dominate. Even if a woman desires to dominate, she physically just can't do the same things that men can. But also that just natural desire to protect and provide can easily be channeled into a desire to destroy. men are really good at building. They're really good at protecting. They're really good at going into the heart of danger and making sacrifices. And that kind of bravery can be used for good. It can also be used for wrong. And it seems like men just have a greater capacity both for building and for destruction than women do. That's how it seems to me. And so it seems to be very dire that we distinguish between how, masculinity and aggression and bravery and courage and toughness can be used for edification

Starting point is 00:36:56 and how it can also be used to destroy. I think about fatherlessness, which has an effect that motherlessness, motherlessness is rare, is more rare, but it also is less, it seems to have less of an effect or different effects than fatherlessness does. Like men have a unique capacity to create coherent and strong communities and families and also the unique capacity through their absence to completely destroy them. So you could kind of see, I don't know, from a secular and certainly feminist perspective, when you see the destructive parts of men or masculinity or what they do to just say, you know what, it's masculinity that's wrong, It's men that are bad.

Starting point is 00:37:43 And if they were just more like us, then everything would be calmer, less crime, all of that. Because men are, I mean, men are responsible for the vast majority of sexual crimes, for the vast majority of violent crimes, for the vast majority of sex trafficking and pornography, consumption and things like that. So from a feminist perspective, you could see how they're just like, oh, masculinity is the problem without thinking of all the good that masculinity has done. Yes, I totally agree with you, and I do have two chapters in the book on domestic violence and abuse. But let's get there through another sociological study. Christian men show that same divergence between the good man and the real man to use the language of that study. And this is actually the main reason I wrote the book, because sociologically, it turns out that Christian men do far better than any other major group in America.

Starting point is 00:38:46 Yes. And this is good news. I put this, it used to be at the back of the book. And then I realized, hey, people are going to be a lot happier if you put the good news first. So this is right at the beginning of the book. If we acknowledge that there's a lot of hostility against masculinity today, like you were mentioning, You know, what caught my eye was the Washington Post had an article called, Why Can't We Hate Men? Yeah.

Starting point is 00:39:12 I thought, really? Or a Huffington Post editor who had a hashtag, kill all men. Wow. You can buy T-shirts that say, so many men, so little ammunition. Wow. And there are books out titled, I hate men, and no good men, and are men necessary. So this is the, you know, reason I wrote the book. begin with. Okay, how do we explain where this hostility is coming from? And even then, there's a book

Starting point is 00:39:41 by a male author that says, talking about healthy masculinity is like talking about healthy cancer. So I thought, where is this coming from? We need to get to the bottom of this. And that was kind of the big project I undertook with this book. But of course, we've all heard that Exhibit A of toxic masculinity is evangelical men, you know, the Christian men. If you believe in any sort of male headship or authority in the home. And that was easy to find, too, by the way, a quick Google search. I found lots of examples of people saying things like, you know, any notion of male headship in the home is going to lead to abuse. Or the founder of the Church Tomb movement said Protestant theology on headship feeds the rape culture that we see permeating Christianity today. So it's Christian.

Starting point is 00:40:35 men who are particularly targeted in the media as being toxic. Well, what I found out is that this is contrary to what social sciences say. The social sciences have completely debunk this. What happened is the psychologists and sociologists were reading these accusations and saying, where's your evidence? Wait. Where's your evidence for those positions? For your accusations? And so they went and did the studies. So most of them are fairly recent studies. And what they found was just the opposite. They found that evangelical family men, men who are married and have kids, are more loving fathers and more loving husbands than any other group in America. And they do, by the way, interview the wives separately, which is important if there is abuse, for example.

Starting point is 00:41:26 So what they're actually saying is that the wives report being the happiest with their husband's expressions of love and affection, evangelical fathers test out. as the most engaged with their children, both in terms of shared activities like sports and church youth group, and in terms of discipline, like setting limits on screen time or enforcing bedtime. Evangelical couples are the least likely to divorce, and here's the real stunner. They have the lowest rates of domestic violence of any major group in America. Yes. So it's exactly contrary to the media message. And let me summarize it. Let me give you one quote because it's so good. My go-to sociologist, so to speak, is Brad Wilcox at the University of Virginia. He's considered by many people to be perhaps the top marriage researcher in the nation. And he said, you can tell because he gets published in places like the New York Times. Yes.

Starting point is 00:42:31 And so they will even publish, even though he's conservative, they will publish him. So this was in the New York Times. And he said, it turns out that the happiest of all wives in America are religious conservatives. And of course, they focus on the wives because the assumption is that evangelical men are oppressive, tyrannical patriarchs. Yeah. So it turns out that the happiest of all wives in America are religious conservatives. Fully 73% of wives who hold conservative gender values and attend religious services regularly with their husbands have high-quality marriages. Even Christians don't know this.

Starting point is 00:43:14 If I use these statistics in Christian audiences, you see people visibly sit back and their mouths drop open because we've all heard that Christian men are in fact the worst in terms of toxic masculinity. and the numbers are now totally debunking the media stereotypes. And that was the final reason I decided I have to write this book. I've got to get this literature out there. Because right now I had to go digging in academic sociological journals to find this material. And I wanted to bring it out and make it accessible to Christians so that Christian men can be encouraged. They are actually doing a very good job. I want to read something by Brad Wilcox.

Starting point is 00:44:06 We reference him a lot too. You reference him several times in your book. And so here's something he wrote in Christianity today. In general, setting aside nominal Christians, the research indicates that evangelical Protestantism does not pose the kind of risks that are often alleged. Indeed, at least judging from the studies here in the United States, it looks like churchgoing may well help men steer clear of violence. In the national survey of families and households, Wilcox found that churchgoing evangelical

Starting point is 00:44:35 Protestant husbands were the least likely to be engaged in abusive behavior. Sociologist Christopher Ellison also found that men who attend religious services several times a week are 72 less, 72% less likely to abuse their female partners than men from comparable backgrounds who do not attend services. He does say that nominal Christianity, people who are nominally Christian, so people who just say that they're Christian, they don't attend church, they don't really have a relationship with Christ, that there is vulnerability for abuse there. But the faithful evangelical Christians who are going to church, who as far as we know, or reading their Bible, trying to actually live out their faith, according to these studies,

Starting point is 00:45:19 he talks about them in his book, Soft Patriarch's New Men, are the least likely to be abusive and oppressive. And you're exactly right. We hear the opposite every day. And I've seen several studies over the years saying, people who are happiest with their sex lives, people who are just happiest in general, happiest with their work life balance, happiest with their home life, are actually Christian women. Yes, and I'm glad you brought up the nominal men because the first pushback I always get is,

Starting point is 00:45:52 but wait a minute, haven't we all heard that Christians divorce at the same rate as the rest of society? in fact in my research, I found that that's one of the most widely stated statistics among Christian leaders. And it turns out that it's false. But the reason we know it's false is researchers went back to the data, and they made that important distinction that you just mentioned, between committed Christian men who actually do attend church regularly and live it out from nominal Christian men. And by the way, my students don't know what the word nominal means anymore. So I have to explain to them. it means in name only.

Starting point is 00:46:28 N-O-M is Latin for name. And the research says that these two groups diverge dramatically. That nominal Christian men, if you serve by their wives, their wives report the lowest level of happiness in their marriage. They are the least engaged with their children. They have the highest levels of divorce, even higher than secular men. and they have the highest rates of domestic violence, even higher than secular men. So this is the real shocker.

Starting point is 00:47:03 These are men who hang around the fringes of the Christian walls enough to pick up religious language like headship and submission. But then they infuse those words with secular meaning and concepts like entitlement and dominance and so on. And so they really are, they end up worse than secular men. I have people ask me, well, why would they be even worse? Apparently it's because they're taking the secular ideas of masculinity, but they're putting a Christian veneur on top so that they feel justified. They feel as though, you know, their religion has given them permission to act like this. And so they end up actually being worse than secular men. So this is the challenge, I would say for us today is how do we, if it is, it is, it is,

Starting point is 00:47:52 church, for example, how do you minister to both sides of the good man and the real man? This is the Christian version of the two scripts, right? The good man who's living out a biblical worldview and the real man who's actually living out a secular worldview, but who claims an evangelical identity. We want to encourage the men who are doing a good job, and we want to reach out to the men who think that they're Christians, but who actually are living out a very secular. view of masculinity. Okay, I know you loved the first part of that conversation and the second part is even better. Such a fascinating look at the history of masculinity, the history of the view of

Starting point is 00:48:40 women and how Christianity totally changed the game and still changes the game on these things and why we actually need biblical masculinity and femininity to have a healthy relationship between men and women in society today. So stay tuned for that episode coming up. See you guys. Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues

Starting point is 00:49:11 facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality.

Starting point is 00:49:24 We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 832 | Fighting the Toxic War on Masculinity | Guest: Nancy Pearcey (Part One)

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.