The Eric Metaxas Show - Nancy Pearcy

Episode Date: December 27, 2023

Author Nancy Pearcey shares her latest book: The Toxic War on Masculinity: How Christianity Reconciles the Sexes.

Folks, welcome to the Eric Metaxus show, sponsored by Legacy Precious Metals. There's never been a better time to invest in precious metals. Visit legacy p.m. Investments.com. That's legacy p.m. Investments.com. Welcome to the Eric McTaxe show. When Eric was a kid, he won a contest to ride on one of Santa's flying reindeer. Well, the experience was so amazing that Eric decided to change his middle name to that special reindeer. Now, please welcome. The man who was a man who was so amazing. He said, well, the man who was so amazing. He said, he was so amazing. He was so amazing. He was so amazing that Eric decided to change was so amazing. That was so the love soaring to new heights, Eric Blitzin, Metaxon. Hey, folks, welcome. Happy holidays.

I always say that sarcastically. Chris Heims, you know I'm saying that sarcastically. I meant to say, Merry Christmas. Actually. Merry Christmas. Yeah, that's legal now. We can say that. It's illegal for many years.

Because Trump is back in office. Oh, wait, not yet. Not yet. So, Merry Christmas and a happy new year in advance to those of you who are planning to alive in a few days when 2004 dawns, which is really, it's going to be one of the craziest years. Let me say in American history, no exaggeration. Yeah, that's a lot. That we cannot even talk about, like madness, lunacy.

But I want to be clear, I believe God's will will prevail. I believe that it's like being in a war and you fight and you pray and you trust God with the outcome. and I believe things are happening. As I've spoken around the country this past year, I have been profoundly encouraged meeting amazing people, going to amazing churches. One thing people ask me is, hey, what can I do, Eric? Number one thing you can do.

If you're going to a church that is not taking this battle for liberty seriously, taking this battle against evil, seriously, oh yeah, evil exists. Like cutting parts off of children and young people, you know, I think if you don't understand that that's evil, if you don't understand that strangers flooding across our border, Chinese nationals of, you know, young men in their 20s, radical Muslims who are potentially sleeper cells for Hamas,

people kind of act like, oh, yeah, that's just conservative talking points. Boy, do I wish that were true. But it's not. It's evil. And we have an administration in bed with evil. And so if you're going to a church that is not, dealing with this. And there are many churches, otherwise good churches that are not dealing with this, that think politics is out of the realm of the church. If slavery were on the ballot,

would you say that? If Jim Crow laws are on the ballot, would you say that? Do you think the civil rights movement born in the churches? Do you think that that was out of line, that the churches got political and tried to get legislation against Jim Crow laws? You think that's out of line. Many American pastors, that's what they seem to think. So here's my action point. If you're going to a church like that, please, for the sake of your own soul, get out. Don't ever give a dime to a church that is not in this battle. I mean that very seriously. In hindsight, I think you'll realize I was right when I said this. I think a couple of years from now you're going to say, you know what? Yeah, yeah. We were part of a church like going to a German church in the 30s that says,

we're not going to get political. We're not going to be part of those taking a stand against Hitler. No, no, we don't want any trouble. We don't want any trouble. We just want to do church. Folks, that's the devil's church. Pretty harsh, right? Except, unfortunately, if you look at what happened in Germany, it's true. I'm telling you, if you read my book letter to the American church, the parallels are not deniable. So you want to pretend that they're deniable. You want to ignore the facts. God is going to judge us for what we do and what we don't do. And if you're going to a church that doesn't take this seriously, I want to tell you that that is scary to me. We all need to link arms in this battle. So that's my message to you. If you're going to one of those churches, the time is over.

like, oh, I think we can convince the pastor to be a little bit more bold. No, it's over. Jesus cursed the fig tree. Over, done. You need to find a church or find a group of people who are willing to pray and willing to take this seriously and to be active. In whatever way you can be active. We're all active in different ways. Everybody can't do the same thing.

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As I gushed and gushed in the introduction a moment ago, I don't want to be. to gush right now with Nancy Piercy because she can hear me. But it's a real privilege to get her on the program. She has written many spectacular books. The most recent one is called The Toxic War on Masculinity, How Christianity Reconciles the Sexes. And it does. Nancy Piercy, welcome. Thank you. It's good to see you. It's great to see you and to have you on. And as I said in the introduction, I've read the book, so I'll try not to talk too much. But what you have done here is very important. You give us the intellectual background for understanding masculinity and how Christianity

uniquely and utterly reconciles the sexes. So my first question, of course, is why did you choose to write this book of all the things you might have written about. Well, my eye was certainly caught by how incredibly hostile that our culture has become to masculinity. The Washington Post had an article titled, Why Can't We Hate Men? And that was my wake-up call. I said, wait, in a respected mainstream publication like this, a Huffington Post editor tweeted

hashtag, kill all men. And you can buy T-shirts that say, so many men, so little ammunition. And there are books with titles that are very blunt, like, I hate men, and no good men, and are men necessary? So this is what I wanted to get to the bottom of. You know, where is this coming from? You can't really stand against a social trend unless you know where it came from

and how it developed. And then there were even men jumping on the bandwagon. A fairly well-known male author wrote a book in which he said, talking about healthy masculinity is like talking about healthy cancer. And then one more, which you may have seen, it's not in the book because it came out more recently, but the director of the movie Avatar, James Cameron, was in the news because he said, testosterone is a toxin that you have to work out of your system. So my initial reason for writing the book was I just wanted to understand where's this coming from

and how can we counter it more effectively. Well, it's interesting. Obviously, this has been in the culture for quite some time, and it's gotten particularly pointed in more recent years. But a number of years ago, my sense of this led me to write a book called Seven Men and the way I dealt with it, which is just to tell seven biographs, to give seven short biographies of seven, in my estimation, great men and what it is that's uniquely great about them and about their manliness. And then I wrote a book about seven women, and it's the same thing. What made these seven women great is clearly comes out of their being women. And so we're seeing an attack on the one hand on men. We're taking an attack on women. It's an attack on the image of God, and it's attack on God. There's no question in my mind that this is all an attack on God.

But I'm so glad that you've focused, I mean, you've really homed in on various aspects of this war on masculinity in the book and on the root side. So why don't we start with how this developed? Because a lot of people have this. I think a lot of people don't really understand how this has been worked out in history. You know, what was a man and a father in the 19th century, for example, and how that led to that. And you deal with that in the book wonderfully. So why don't we start there? A lot of people would say, oh, well, this hostility to masculinity, perhaps came out of the 1960s, second-wave feminism, but it actually started much further back. And this was a surprise when I started researching the book.

You have to go all the way back to the Industrial Revolution because prior to that, men worked with their husbands, men worked with their wives and their children all day on the family farm, the family industry, the family business. And so the cultural expectation on men focused much more on their caretaking role. In fact, here's a historical fact that was very surprising. Most of the books and literature written on parenting back then addressed fathers. If you go in a typical bookstore today, they're mostly addressed to mothers. But back then, fathers did spend just as much time with their children as mothers did.

And I love it when even secular historians bring out the Christian perspective that was very strong in the colonial era. So one historian says, masculine virtue was defined as duty, to God and man. So that sense of duty. Where did we lose that? Well, it really started with the Industrial Revolution because it took work out of the home. And of course, men had to follow their work out of the home. And for the first time, you know, they're working in factories and offices.

They're not working with people they love and have a moral bond with their families. And that's when you see the literature start to change. People started to protest. They didn't like what they were. seeing. They began to protest that men were becoming individualistic, egocentric, self-interested, greedy and inquisitive. I'm using the language of the day. And even making their career into an idol, that was the language you saw. I thought that was fascinating. Many people said men are starting to make their idol, their career success, their financial achievements. So this was the first time

negative language was applied to the male character. And of course, course, if the problem with men getting disconnected from their families, that does suggest what the most important solution is, which is reconnecting men to their families, which, you know, have a whole chapter on that as well. But that's how far back you really have to go to find people very explicitly arguing that the male character has become degraded. And the language surprised me, because it's almost as much as hostile as what we see today. But what's interesting to me is how it's Anybody who has a biblical worldview understands this is perfectly unbiblical. The idea to demonize any group, it's exactly like racism.

To demonize men, to demonize women, to suggest that they are intrinsically flawed is a satanic project. And we're seeing it happen. Obviously, we're seeing it happen with men, but we're seeing the same thing happen with really the erasure of women. And ultimately, it's an attack on God and God's. view of men and women. Well, exactly. I mean, even in the 19th century, since you asked the historical question, you see people start

to say, you know, the father is a prototype of God in the family. And yet all of a sudden, he's not here. You know, we're used to being men being out of the home all day. But back then, it was a shock. Like, where are the fathers? One, the leading psychologists of the day said, our boys are now half orphaned. half orphaned because their fathers were not in the home. And so I wanted to see why was this cultural shift?

It was because, like you say, because the father is the prototype of God in the family. And so when fathers were no longer in the home, as they had been, that's when you start to see the language change because they said, wait a minute, men are no longer being the sort of Christian fathers that we used to have. You see, this is also the period when America began to secularize. Before that, you know, when work was done in the home, there was no public-private divide. But now that when work was taken out of the home, this is also the development of large public institutions like business and financial institutions and the universities and the state. And people began to argue that these large public institutions should operate by scientific principles,

by which they really meant value-free. I have to say that is one of the points you make in the book. And again, I want to recommend the book. It's called The Toxic War on Masculinity. But you, by bringing this out, this is a stunning, really stunning discovery in a sense to say, aha, look what happened. For the first time, we have the development of this secular sphere. And it's not as though anyone planned it, but it just happens.

and obviously we are living with the result of that. I mean, the world of business, the world of just the world outside of the home. Suddenly you have it in the 19th century competing with the home. That to me is a major piece that I've not heard anyone besides you say, you know, in all these discussions of how we got here. Yes, and as the masculine character was secularized, as men were the ones they were working, in the secular realm. They were getting that secular education. And so people began to redefine masculinity in secular terms. One of the biggest stepping, you know, through the book, I go through

various stages, but one of the most important was the rise of Darwinian evolution. And that's surprising because most people think, well, that's about science. But it actually had a huge impact on the secular definition of masculinity. Darwinian thinkers began to say, the men who came out on top in the struggle for survival would be ruthless, brutal, barbarian, savage, and predatory. And so this is the understanding people began to have in terms of a secular definition of the masculine character. Instead of urging men to live up to the image of God in them, they began to urge men to live down to the beast within. That was their favorite phrase. It is.

And that's not. No, it's just, we're going to go to a break here. folks so hang on one second we've got much more with nancy percy the book is the toxic war on masculinity how christianity reconciles the sexes it is vital that we understand this so we can combat the pernicious trend we're seeing now uh we'll be right back tell me why relief factor is so successful at lowering or eliminating pain i'm often asked that question just the other night i was asked that question while the owners of Relief Factor tell me they believe our bodies were designed to heal. That's right, designed to heal, and I agree with them.

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Talking to Nancy Piercy, the book is The Toxic War on Masculpture. how Christianity reconciles the sexes. Nancy, we're just about to make a point when we had to go to a break. In other words, what many people today are protesting is not the biblical view of masculinity. It's the secular view of masculinity. And especially the secular view that was inspired by evolutionary thought. And it's still with us today. It's not called social Darwinism anymore. It's called evolutionary psychology. But it still says the same thing. There's a best-selling book called The Most-Selling Book called The Moral Animal. And the author says, and this is a direct quote,

the human male is a possessive, oppressive, flesh-obsessed pig. Telling a man how to have a good marriage is like telling a Viking how not to pillage. And I thought, really, you can get away with this kind of negative language to men. And there's a recent book, another one, this was actually an older book that was just reissued by, you may know it because it's by George Gilder. But George Gilder says it as well. He says, by nature, men are violent, irresponsible, and sexually predatory. Their deepest yearning is to escape to a primal mode of, let me see what he says,

primal mode of predatory and immediate gratification. And so this is why people protest against a kind of toxic version of masculinity. it's because the secular version of masculinity has become so negative. Well, it's a little complicated in the sense that George Gilder, he's getting at some things that there's truth there. In other words, apart from God, apart from, you know, the domestic influence of a wife, oftentimes that is where men go. And it's why, you know, God wants us typically to be in America. because there's something that men do for women and something that women do for men that's beautiful and it's God ordained. And so when you talk about men suddenly finding themselves away from their families most of the time in a secular environment and in an environment filled with other men.

In other words, there's something there when you think about what happens sociologically, the idea that men are not spending time with wife and kids in the home environment, but are suddenly now in this environment. with other men most of the time. That's also a strange development and it really led to, I think it's a, it was self-reinforcing in a sense. It creates this separation or it creates a kind of an environment where men maybe begin looking down on women or begin treating them because they're not around them as much. This kind of hypermasculine society develops. In other words, there are, there are truths there. So it's a little bit complicated. But what's wrong about it is it's a fatalistic, unbiblical view of who men are. Yes, and about the end of the 19th century, what happened is men began to say, well, this is just who we are.

You know, before that, the biblical view held enough sway that men still felt, okay, you know, my behavior needs to change. I need to live up to a biblical concept of masculinity. But then as a culture secularized, that's when men began to say, well, what we now have, is the Andrew Tate phenomenon, right? Fast cars, fast money, fast women. And Andrew Tate specifically says, you know, I'm a pimp. I produce pornography. And women need to understand that men are just naturally, sexually promiscuous, and they just need to accept that. So that's where the beginning of the Andrew Tate phenomenon comes from. And by the way, even Christian men are being drawn into it. I have a former graduate student who now teaches high school. And she said,

that all of my male students are fans of Andrew Tate. Yeah. They're even putting Andrew Tate quotes in the yearbook. I said, where do you teach? She's at a classical Christian school. So if men, if churches are not giving men a strong, healthy, biblical model of masculinity, they are reaching out to these online influences who are teaching a very secularized view. And that's why it's so important for us to get the biblical view of their,

competing with it so that even our Christian young men are not reaching out to the Andrew Tastes of the world. Well, I really do think that, you know, sometimes these bad symptoms are a sign of deeper health and the sense that I think young men are looking for real masculine role models. And to a large extent, they haven't found that in churches. Churches, as you well know, have been feminized. This is going back into the 19th century in America. but in this century, the virtues that seem to be held out are to be nice, to be winsome.

And of course, there's a place for winsomeness, but there's also a place to be a warrior. And a lot of that stuff has been bleached out of even the church's version of what it is to be a man. So it's no wonder really that men, especially young men, are attracted in these various directions. Yes, you know, a lot of it's because we've lost this. the notion of the cultural mandate. In my book, I bring people back frequently to the cultural mandate, which is in Genesis 1, half my students don't even know what the term means. In Genesis 1, God's created the universe. He creates the first human couple. And then what is the very first thing he says to them? Be fruitful and multiply and subdue the earth. So that's your purpose. That's why I

created you. And in the streamlined language of Genesis 1, we can unpack that. It doesn't mean just to have families, but historically, all of the social institutions grow out of the family. The family becomes a clan, a village, a nation. You need social institutions for specific purposes, like you need a state, you need a church, you need a school, you need a marketplace. And so this is a very rich calling for both men and women, but we're talking about men here, that their job is to build up all of the social environment. And then subdue the earth means harness the natural resources.

So most societies start with agriculture, but then also technology and so on. We'll be right back, folks, talking to Nancy Piercy, the book. It's a must read, The Toxic War on Masculinity. With the overturn of Roe v. Wade, lots of companies are coming out saying they'll pay for employee abortion travel and expenses. Most of you've heard about some of these companies. You've decided to stop shopping or doing business there, but did you know that you most likely own stock in those companies? through your 401k's, IRAs, and other investment accounts. Folks, this is a huge problem, and we need to do something about this to send a message to Wall Street

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don't wait any longer to get the best sleep of your life. Take advantage of this amazing offer. Go to Mypillow.com and click on the radio podcast square and use promo code Eric at checkout. Don't wait any longer to get the best sleep of your life. Call 800-978-3057 or go to Mypillow.com now and use promo code Eric. Back talking to Nancy Piercy. The book is The Toxic War on Masculinity, how Christianity reconciles the sexes. Nancy, you were just saying effectively that men are doers. they like to do, they like to act. And to some extent, many churches have turned Christianity into this theological, ecclesiastical project, which it is not. It is meant to take over the whole person, all of our lives, we're supposed to take our theology into the whole world, to make the

world a better place, and on and on and on and on. And that, it seems to me, you were just saying, lies at the root of why men often are less attracted to church environments and to church life and why often it's women that are that are more involved in churches. Exactly. The church has been privatized. Christianity has been privatized. And as a result, most of us tend to think of Christianity in terms of just the sort of specifically religious activities, going to church, going to Bible study, praying, and so on.

And that's not what men and women work. called to originally. You know, in a sense, we could say, when we sin, we get off the track. When God saves us, we get back on the track. But what was the track? The track was the cultural mandate, which calls men to be, you know, roll up their sleeves and be involved in building up the entire social world, including the laws and constitutions and treaties that govern it.

And then secondly, build up the natural world in terms of technology and, you know, inventions, making computers, composing music. One of my students once said, what, composing music, really? And I said, well, I play the violin. What's the violin made out of wood? What's the bow made out of horsehair? So all the transcendent beauty we associate with music starts with harnessing the raw materials of nature. And that's what the cultural mandate is about.

It means that this verse, as theologians interpret it, means that our calling was to build cultures, create civilizations, make history. And so this gives a much bigger scope for men who, like you said, are doers, who want to accomplish, who want to have an impact, who want to achieve, who want to have mastery. That's what the Bible actually does call them to. And that's, that's the vision that our churches need to communicate to men. Well, you, you talk in the book about how religion is often cast as a cause of domestic abuse, which is a sick, joke, but people say these things. You say that research shows that authentically committed, committed Christian men test out

as the most loving and engaged husbands and fathers. They have the lowest rates of divorce and domestic violence of any group in America. Living as a Christian man and knowing an infinite number practically of Christian men and families, that makes perfect sense to me. So this secular, this vile secular lie, it needs to be. to be pushed against, and you've done so with tremendous statistics and facts. It's one reason I think people need to be aware of your book, especially pastors and people in ministry.

Yeah, I was surprised as anyone else. I kind of stumbled across the sociological data on Christian men because, you know, we've all heard the secular narrative. I'll give you just one example. The co-founder of the Church II movement, which followed the Me Too movement, said the theology of male headship feeds the rape culture that we see permeating American Christianity today. And so social scientists were listening to these accusations and saying, where's your evidence?

You're making these charges, but where's your data? And so they went out and did the studies, and I cite about a dozen studies in my book. And surprisingly, they found out the evangelical men who attend church regularly, whose faith is authentic, who are committed, actually test out at the top in the sense of being the most loving and engaged husbands and fathers. Their wives report the highest level of happiness.

Sometimes I get pushed back by saying, of course the wife said that. The husband's sitting right there. No, no, the wives interviewed separately. Evangelical men spend the most time with their children, 3.5 hours more per week than secular men. Evangelical couples divorce at the last, lowest rate, 35% lower than secular couples. And then the real surprise is that they actually

have the lowest rate of domestic abuse and violence of any group in America. So this is where we need to focus and bring this message into the, both into the culture, to come to the secular narrative and into the churches. I'll give you one quote because a quote can sometimes summarize it, you know, encapsulate it. The sociologist who did the largest study was very, very, Brad Wilcox at the University of Virginia. And to give a sense of his stature, he writes in places like the New York Times. So this is a quote from a New York Times article he wrote. He said, and this is a direct quote, it turns out that the happiest of all wives in America

are religious conservatives. They're focusing on the wives, of course, because the assumption is these marriages are oppressive. But no, the happiest of all wives in America are religious conservatives. fully 73% of women who hold conservative gender values and attend church regularly with their husbands have high-quality marriages. And then he turns to his secular colleagues because sociology is a very secularized discipline. And this is my favorite part of the quote, actually. He says, academics need to cast aside their prejudices against religious conservatives and against evangelicals in particular. evangelical Protestant married men with children are consistently the most loving and engaged husbands and fathers.

So this is not a pep talk from a religious leader. This is solid empirical evidence. This is research data that we can confidently bring into the public square to debunk the secular narrative about evangelical men. I think, you know, data only works so much in the sense that it only works for people. people who are open to the truth and are open to these things, because I would suspect strongly that most people in the academic world, they've bought into another narrative, and they cannot possibly take Brad Wilcox's statistics at face value. They believe in their heart of hearts, there's no way this can be true, because if it were true, it would upend my whole narrative,

not just my narrative about what evangelical Christians are like or about the patriarchy. And that's what's so fascinating to me, which is why I think people who are conservative Christians need to push back a lot harder. I mean, sometimes what it boils down to folks is you have to know these are vile lies and to the extent that you can persuade people you do. But don't yourself buy into it. Let's start there or let's end there for this segment. We'll be right back talking to Nancy Piercy. the book is The Toxic War on Masculinity. The book is The Toxic War on Masculinity,

How Christianity Reconciles the Sexes. And Nancy, Percy, is the author. Nancy, there's really, so many people have a very confused view of what Christianity is, what it means to be a Christian. And that's because there is no easy answer. We know what the biblical answer is, the correct answer, but many people live out their faith in a way or identify as Christians. and they're not actually living as Christians.

So maybe talk about that for a moment because when you say how Christianity reconciles the sexes, I know for a fact that that is correct, but people have a perception. They don't understand that. Exactly. Well, and this is what, this is a pushback I always get. For example, I always get the pushback.

Haven't we all heard that Christians divorce at the same rate as the rest of the culture? So the researchers went back to the data and they separated out men who are truly convicted who go to church regularly from nominal Christians. And in America, we have a lot of cultural Christians. By the way, my students don't know what nominal means. So I tell them, N-O-M is Latin for name. So this means in name only.

Right. And these are men who, on a survey like this, might check the Baptist box, for example, but who attend church rarely, if at all. and they test out shockingly different. They actually fit all of the toxic stereotypes. Their wives report the lowest level of happiness. They actually spend the least amount of time with their children. They divorce at the highest rate of any group 20% higher than secular couples.

And then the real shocker is they have the highest rate of domestic abuse and violence of any group in America, even higher than secular men. And so this is why the statistics are so skill. Most people don't make this distinction. You know, they have the, so they have men who are better than secular men and men who are worse than secular men. And that's why the statistics are so misleading. And it does suggest, of course, that the church has quite a difficult task.

How can we, on the one hand, really support men who are doing well? You know, the church has a tendency to scold men. One of my graduate students works for a large Baptist church here in Houston. And she said, on Mother's Day, we hand out roses and tell the women. they're wonderful. On Father's Day, we scold the men and tell them to do better. So we need to stop that. Bring this data into the churches and really encourage and support and affirm the men who are doing a good job. And then on the other hand, how do we reach out with an effective discipleship program to these nominal men who in a sense are ruining the reputation of evangelicals

because they actually are worse than secular men? This is the balance that churches now need to strive for. that's fascinating and again when we're talking about you know secular men probably the data i guess you know a lot of secular men don't get married and maybe the few who do or the you know would would be more inclined to be good husbands because they don't believe in the idea of marriage where you find a lot of nominal Christians believe in the idea of of marriage and then get married maybe don't take it so seriously who knows all i know is that my experience has been that those men who are very serious about their faith are more than anyone alive dedicated to their families,

to their wives. And it's a beautiful thing. And again, the difference is that they're actually living out God's idea of what it is to be a man. And that's part of the problem. In just for, we've got 30 seconds left. But it seems to me that this really is a war on God. that ultimately the war on men, the war on women, it's a war on people created in God's image. That's at the heart of it.

There was a 35-year longitudinal study on how Christians can effectively pass on their faith. And they found two surprising things. Fathers matter more than mothers. Because the father is the prototype of the Heavenly Father. So the Father matters more. And the second thing was it's the... close, warm, loving relationship with the father that counts. He can be a pillar of the church, a moral exemplar, but if he's not warm and loving, his children won't follow him. There you have.

So you're right. An attack on the father is attack on God. The book is The Toxic War on masculinity. Nancy Piercy, thank you. Thank you so much.