Theology in the Raw - The Toxic War on Masculinity: Nancy Pearcey

Episode Date: January 6, 2025

Professor Nancy Pearcey is the author of Love Thy Body, The Soul of Science, Saving Leonardo, Finding Truth, Total Truth, and the most recently released: The Toxic War on Masculinity: How Christianity Reconciles the Sexes, which is the topic of our fascinating conversation. Professor Pearcey is professor and scholar in residence at Houston Christian University. She has been quoted in The New Yorker and Newsweek, highlighted as one of the five top women apologists by Christianity Today, and hailed in The Economist as "America's preeminent evangelical Protestant female intellectual." -- If you've enjoyed this content, please subscribe to my channel! Support Theology in the Raw through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theologyintheraw Or you can support me directly through Venmo: @Preston-Sprinkle-1 Visit my personal website: https://www.prestonsprinkle.com For questions about faith, sexuality & gender: https://www.centerforfaith.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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April 3rd, fifth, 2025 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, all the information is that theology in the rod.com sign up sooner than later. If you plan on attending live because it is a registration is going pretty quickly. You can also attend from your living room via live stream. Okay. My guest today is professor Nancy Piercy, who is the author of several awesome books, including love that body, the soul of science, saving Leonardo, finding truth, total truth, which if you're watching on YouTube, this is total truth. I talk about this book at the beginning of our conversation together and then her most recently released book, which is called the toxic war on masculinity, how Christianity

reconciles the sexes, which is the topic of our conversation today. This is an absolutely fascinating book. I, if anybody mentions the term masculinity, I know it gets really triggering for some people. It's like, well, what's she going to say? And everything, wherever you're coming from with this conversation, it is, it is a stimulating, very well-researched book that will challenge you on many levels. Professor Percy is a professor and scholar in residence at Houston Christian university. She has been quoted in the New Yorker and Newsweek, uh, highlighted as one of the top five women apologists by Christianity today. And the economist called Nancy, piracy, America's preeminent evangelical Protestant female

intellectuals. So I am very honored to talk to, uh, professor, piracy. Um, I've been following her work for many years now. And so it was a delightful, delightful conversation. And I think you will very much enjoy it. So please welcome to the show for the first time, the one and only professor Nancy Pearson. I am so excited to talk to you, Nancy. Thanks so much for being a guest on theology and raw. We've been trying to make this work for a while and we finally, we finally found the time to make it work. I was telling you offline, I came across your name at the beginning of my teaching career, uh, back in the late two thousands when I was wrestling with the, the

integrate, how to integrate a Christian worldview into all areas of life. And I was trying to teach my students it and I was like, I don't quite have it figured out. And so I didn't really teach it well, but then your book came out, I think right before my class that I was teaching called total truth, liberating Christianity from its cultural captivity. And it was a game changer in my life. Not only did it really revolutionize my thinking, but I was like, I can give this to students because it's such an engaging book. They can understand it. And I started to sign every chance I got, I assigned it to my students there at Cedarville university.

So thank you for that book. Thank you for being a guest on the all's in raw. Oh, thank you. You have a very interesting story for those who don't know who you are, as far back as you want to go, at least to Libri, how did you get, how did you become, go from being an atheist to now being a Christian public intellectual figure that's writing just really amazing books? Well, I was raised in a Christian home, but it was a Lutheran home. And I don't know if you know this, but all Scandinavians are Lutheran. And so it's more ethnic. It's kind of like all Irish or Catholic.

And so it's more of an ethnic background. And when I was in high school and attending secular public high school, all my teachers and textbooks are secular. I started asking questions. How do we know it's true? Really, just one question. How do we know Christianity is true? And unfortunately, one question. How do we know Christianity is true? And unfortunately, none of the adults in my life could answer that.

My parents were kind of like, well, you're Swedish. What else are you going to be? Or to be precise, I asked my father one day, point blank, why are you a Christian? He said, works for me. Oh, wow. I said, but that's it? He was a university professor. I really thought I'd get more.

And then I talked to one of my uncle's who was a seminary dean, Concordia Lutheran Seminary. And all he said was, don't worry, we all have doubts sometimes. Like it was a psychological phase. And I eventually decided, about halfway through high school, I decided that if you don't have good reasons for something, you shouldn't say you believe it, whether it was Christianity or anything else. And I obviously was not getting good reasons from the adults in my life.

So I very intentionally walked away from my faith at about age 16 and decided it was up to me to find out what's true. Where can I find a worldview to live by? And that's how I started studying philosophy because I thought, well, isn't that their job to ask questions like what is truth? How do we know it? Is it a meaning to life, purpose to life? Is that foundation for ethics or is it just true for me, true for you? And I realized pretty quickly that if there is no God, the answer for all of those is no. No, there's no meaning to life. We're just on a rock flying through empty space. I was the one in my friend group

who was arguing for moral relativism, telling people, you can't say that's right or wrong. We don't know right or wrong. I even decided that there was no foundation for knowledge, in other words, skepticism. Here's how I thought of it. I'm 16, but the way I think of it was, if all I have is my puny brain and the vast scope of time and space and history, what makes me think I could have access to any sort of universal objective, transcendent truth? Ridiculous. That's how I thought of it.

By the time I graduated from high school, I had really absorbed all of these isms. For my science classes, I'd become a determinist because we're just complex biochemical machines anyway with no free will. I was prime for ending up at La Brie, you know, because it was only an apologetics approach that would work with me because I had thoroughly absorbed all of these secularisms. And it was a few years later, I went to Germany. We lived in Europe when I was a child. And so I'd saved my money all through high school because I wanted to go back. And so that's how I ended up in Europe and sort of stumbled across Le Brie, which was

the ministry of Francis Schaeffer. And I find more and more people don't know him. So here's how I introduced him to my students. The two top apologists of the 20th century were Francis Schaeffer and C.S. Lewis in terms of the sheer number of people who were converted through their work or brought through a crisis of faith. And so we should know them for that reason, you know, for nothing else, you know, we should learn from success. What did they do right? So I ended up being able to actually study under Francis Schaeffer at Lebrie and

well, I didn't become a Christian at first. Lebrie was so attractive because I'd never met Christians who were smart, who could engage with the secularisms that I had absorbed by that time. I didn't know any Christians who could talk on that level. Not only could they answer my questions, but they knew the questions better than I did because they had studied the same secular worldviews and knew what the problems with them were. So actually, I stayed a month the first time. I stayed a month and then I fled. I just needed to get away. I was afraid I might be drawn in emotionally. Christianity

had let me down once before, so I was not going to be drawn in emotionally. I was not going to do this unless I was intellectually convinced it was true. So I went home and because of that, I had learned about apologetics. I never knew such a thing existed. So I studied all of Schaeffer's books and Lewis and Jess Judin and Oz Guinness had written his first book by that time as well. At any rate, eventually I decided I did know enough to be intellectually convinced that it was true.

And then I thought, where do I find other Christians? Because I wasn't in a church or anything. I was just reading on my own. And I thought, well, I knew some back at Lebrie. So a year and a half later, I went back to Lebrie and stayed several months. And that's when I really got grounded in Christian worldview and apologetics and so on. It's marked all of my writing, all of my speaking, all of my teaching. That's all I want to talk about. I love to help young people who have questions like I did. We always want to help the people who had the same problems that you had when you were young. And so that's why all of my books

and teachings and all on apologetics today, and a lot of it's cultural apologetics. Cause you know what was unique about Schaeffer is unlike, you know, sort of purely classical apologetics, which is, you know, logical arguments in the ether. You know, he looked at how ideas percolate down through a culture, through art and literature and music.

And you still have to know the same isms, but you're looking at how they're expressed through cultural means. And so that's what is unique about his approach. And that's what we teach, by the way, at Houston Christian University. We're the only Christian university that offers a degree in cultural apologetics. Really? I did not know that. You guys are getting all, I feel like every time I turn around you're getting a new awesome scholar professor at Houston Christian University. It seems like it's becoming, oh, I mean it's been, but it's becoming even more of a go-to place to study.

Yeah. I mean, other universities have a course or two in cultural polygenics, but we actually offer a degree. Which I think in this day and age is more effective. That's the question. When I'm around younger people or skeptics or even people inside or outside the church, it typically has to do with a cultural issue that is driving a wedge between them and Christianity. It's not the existence of God kind of thing, as much as maybe it used to be. You found that to be true as well?

Oh, I agree. I totally agree with you, yes. And well, I have to agree, because that's what works for me. Right? I would never been drawn in by William Lane Craig. My older brother became a Christian before I did, and he tried to draw me in with historical arguments

for the resurrection. Oh yeah. Yeah. And one day he asked me point blank, he said, okay, do you think Jesus was from the dead? And a mutual friend was standing there who said, well, that's the crux of it, isn't it? And I said, no, it's not. It could be a wonderful parable that makes some people feel good.

You know, so I was already totally postmodern, like who cares about facts? And Schaeffer addressed the postmodern young person because he lived in Europe where postmodernism hit earlier than it did in the States. And so he was already addressing postmodern people, which apologists in the States were not doing that. And I think that's why it appealed to me. I was completely postmodern already. Interesting.

I remember that I was like a few months into the faith when I was working at a restaurant as a food server. And there was this kind of like hippie, you know, white Zen Buddhist Hindu guy, you know, that I was talking to. And I raised that same question. I was like, what would it, so if Jesus rose from the dead though, what are you going to do with that? And his responses, right. He probably did rise from the dead. Happens in Hinduism all the time. People come back from the dead, talk to people, chill, go back. It's like, yeah, that's no big deal. Is Christianity good and beautiful for the world? He didn't put in those terms, but that was kind of his hang up, which has to do with kind of the cultural beauty or lack thereof of Christianity

in some ways. Well, that's exactly the type of student who used to come to Libre. I was there in 71, and so it was all hippies. People would come to Europe, left the States, come to Europe, traveled to India, studied at an Ashwam. That's the kind of student who ended up at Libre in those early years. It was really quite fun. You said it's different now. Have you been back in recent years? And you said it's different now. Have you been back in recent years? Well, the year and a half between my two visits, you could already see a change. Here's how I would put it. Before that, news of Lubri was mostly word of mouth. And so the type of student who came was mostly intellectually seeking non-Christians. They were mostly non-Christians when I was there, the majority.

But then in between his books came out, his first books, God Who Is There and Escape from Reason, and he began to be known in the Christian world. And so even in the year and a half between my two visits, there was a noticeable change as it became much more emotionally troubled Christians. Because a lot of Christian young people have doubts about their faith because of emotional issues and conflicts with their parents, and especially, you know, pastor kids and missionary kids. And so, it took several years for Libri to say, well, what do we do about this?

The sort of a polygenic approach we were using is not working as well. So they noticed that there was a difference. So it has taken Le Brie a while. I'll tell you, I have not gone back to the Swiss Le Brie, but I've been invited to speak at the national conferences. Every time I wrote a book, I get invited to speak at a conference. And when I wrote Finding Truth, so after Total Truth, I wrote Finding Truth as sort of a follow-up. And that year, they actually labeled the conference Finding Truth after my book and said, oh good, apologetics

is finally coming back. Oh wow, interesting. and said, oh good, apologetics is finally coming back. Oh wow, interesting. They began to focus on apologetics more again. What happened with the shift, for a while they started defining their ministry as hospitality. So many of us who read Schaefer's books and thought he was about apologetics went to Libre and said, the apologetics isn't really strong anymore. And so I think they've tried in recent years to come back a little bit more to finding

out that some of Schaeffer's key insights really do work. Like in the book Total Truth, I talk about how one of Schaeffer's key insights with concept of truth has changed. And that as a result, when we say to people Christianity is true, they no longer mean the same thing by the word true. So, we're talking right past them. Half of his message was training Christians to understand that the secular view of truth has changed. If we want to be effective in communicating, we need to learn the secular view of truth has changed. And if we want to be effective in communicating, we need to learn the secular language. I mean, our job is to be missionaries, right?

Missionaries don't expect the natives to learn their language. You know, it's the missionaries job to learn the natives language. And so if we're missionaries, it's our job to learn the secular worldviews and the secular language so that we can talk to them in words that

they understand. That's good. That's good. Oh man. I could talk to you all day about the old days of Lebron. It sounds so exciting. I'm a little jealous that I didn't get that experience. But let's fast forward to your latest book, The Toxic War on Masculinity, How Christianity Reconciles the Sexes. Very provocative title. And I, it was different than what I was expecting. I'm not even sure I know what I was expecting, but I, this is, this is such an incredibly good book. And why don't we start with what led you to want to write this book? I mean, it's, it's talk about masculinity and toxic stuff is highly disputed this, you know,

this day and age. Um, I'm sure there's a backstory to why you wanted to write this book and then we'll get into the content. Well, you're right. It's very controversial. And what has surprised me is that it's been the most controversial book I've written because my earlier book, love, thy body was on abortion, homosexuality, transgendersm, I thought that would be my most controversial book. Yeah. But masculinity is even a greater trigger word apparently. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I've been attacked relentlessly on Twitter, for example. But I think the reason I wanted to write it is because I was a feminist for many years and I was still coming to grips with masculinity myself. So in my book, I do start with the story of my own father who was severely physically abusive. And, I mean, he wouldn't say, do this, I'll spank you.

He'd say, do this, I'll beat you. I mean, he's quite open about it. And he would use his fist. I mean, his favorite was the knuckle fist with the middle finger slightly extended to cause a sharper stab of pain. So I grew up in terror and watching my siblings get beaten too was very difficult. And so when I became a young adult, of course, I ricocheted off into extreme feminism.

I always had some feminist book on my bedside table, you know, and I thought they were wonderful. And then I became a Christian and I had to start rethinking the whole thing. And you know, since we started with Libri, let me tell you an aspect of Libri that I don't usually mention. On staff was a psychiatric social worker. And of course she couldn't see everyone who came through. So she would pray and God would tell her, God would tell her who was going to come see her. So the first day, you know, people said, oh, you should go talk to her.

Her name was Sheila Bird. Her nickname was Birdie. And so people said, you should, you should talk to Birdie. She's cool. Well, I was there just a short while. I'll talk to anybody. And then I found out she was a psychiatric social worker. I didn't know that at first. But when I came in to her office the first time, she said, God told me you were going to be coming. And

I was not a Christian, so that freaked me out. But the upshot was she was willing to be on staff because she did know that a lot of people's issues with Christianity are not just intellectual but also emotional. And in talking to her, I did realize that it wasn't just that I had intellectual questions, which I did. And what I appreciated about Schaeffer

was that he took them seriously. Other Christians had acted like, if you have questions, there's something wrong with you. What's wrong with you? You don't have faith. Maybe you have some sort of a moral problem. You just want to party on Saturday nights, right? No, actually, I just did have honest intellectual questions. But through Bertie, I was able to see that I also did not want Christianity to be true because of my father. I did not want to be anything like my parents.

And if they were Christian, I was not going to be. So that helped me to realize that I also had an emotional barrier to Christianity as well. So what was cool about that, Preston, is that from the very beginning of my Christian life, I had both a very rich intellectual understanding and Christian worldview, but I also had a very rich psychological, spiritual healing from day one of my Christian life. And because my father's abuse was so severe, I have to tell you, it's taken my whole life up until this time to really get to the point where I could write about it in this book. So as I put it in the introduction, in a sense,

I've been writing this book my whole life. So that's really the reason I wanted to write it is in a sense, it was me making sense of my own background all the way back to childhood. This episode is brought to you by Jitasa, an organization that offers bookkeeping and accounting services exclusively for churches and nonprofits. So the name Jitasa simply means the spirit of serving others. And with over a decade of experience in clients across the US, Jitasa helps nonprofits and churches of all sizes manage their bookkeeping, accounting, taxes, and CFO services.

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that's jitasagroup.com, or just click on the link in the show notes, and tell them Preston sent you, and you'll get your first month of services for free. One of the most helpful things early on in the book is, and you did this in total truth too, if I remember correctly. Yeah. Yeah. You did the difference between the family in the pre-industrial age versus post-industrial age. Can you unpack that for us? And just the father, the husband, wife relationship with kids. And I mean, the family structure we live in

now in a post-industrial Western era is just so different than a pre-industrial age. And I think this is helpful as we try to enlist the Bible to endorse a certain view of the family today. We just have to be really cautious and thorough in doing that. So, yeah, paint a picture for us, pre-industrial family, post-industrial family. Well, you're right. I have one chapter on it in total truth, but back then I was still thinking mostly of the impact of the industrial revolution on women, because I was still, you know, that had been my background, feminism. But in this one, I went back and realized, hey, you can make sense of men and the expectations on men and the changing definitions of masculinity if you go back to the Industrial Revolution.

Because most people think, where does the concept of that masculinity is toxic? Where does that even come from? And most people will think, well, 1960s, second wave feminism. But actually, it starts back in the Industrial Revolution. And here's how we have to set it up. Before the Industrial Revolution, fathers worked all day with their families, people they loved, their wives and children on the family farm, the family industry, the family business. And so there was a much closer relationship between men and their families back then. And the social expectations on men were different too,

because they focused more on their caretaking role, their responsibility to be gentle and patient and loving with their children and their wives. And of course, early America was also more Christian. So, it was a stronger sense of a Christian calling on men. Even secular historians will say things like the colonial definition of masculine virtue was, quote, duty to God and man. So, it's fun, you know, secular historians have to acknowledge that there was a really strong Christian understanding of masculinity until the Industrial Revolution.

So what does that do? It takes work out of the home into factories, but men have to follow their work out of the home into factories and offices. And for the first time in American history, men were not working alongside people they loved and had a moral bond with, their wives and children. Instead, they were working as individuals in competition with other men. That's a very different environment. Already in the 19th century, you start to see the literature change. This is when you start to see criticism saying, the male character is changing. Men are becoming individualistic, acquisitive, greedy, to use some

of the language of the day, self-centered, assertive, aggressive, and turning work into an idol. It was fascinating how often I saw that language in the 19th century literature. Instead of using work as a way to support your family, I mean, you weren't supporting, you were working with your family. Now you're working, if you're working alone, it's much easier to start treating work as a way for individual achievement and professional success. And so there were a lot of critics in the 19th century

who said men are starting to turn work into an idol, and starting to take their place of their religious loyalties. Especially fathers, by the way. We're so used to having fathers out of the home all day. We think that's just normal. But in the 19th century, there was a huge outpouring of literature of people lamenting

the loss of the father in the home. They felt like the home had been hollowed out because the father was just not physically present all day as he used to be. So, 1842, I'm trying to give you some specifics, Parents Magazine had an article in which he said, the greatest source of domestic sorrow these days is father absence. That the father works late, he toils early and late and has no time to fulfill his duties to his children. Another one said, the way our industrial revolution has set work up, the main stay of the home, the father, the central figure is no longer even there. The head of the Women's Christian Temperance Youth Movement, who by the way many people

say was the most influential woman of the 19th century, put it this way. She said, the major issue of our day is father absence. We think that happens much later, but they were absent from the home physically, even though they were technically still living at home. She said, father absence. And here's how she put it. The prototype of the divine is the father. And yet he's absent from his home from Sunday to Sunday. So, the family no longer has a prototype of the divine. The model of the divine father is no longer there from day to day in the home. And it affected girls to some degree, but at least girls still had the mother in the home

as a model. It really affected boys. And so sociologists, psychologists write things like, one historian says, for the first time, boys experienced an identity crisis. That language became popular in the 60s. It really started when fathers were out of the home and boys no longer had that connection to the adult male world.

A psychologist at the time in the 19th century put it this way. He said, ever before has the American boy been so wild. The reason is he said he's half orphaned. You know, I mean, his father's gone, you know, from day to day. So he's half orphaned. And so people began to comment on how boys were becoming wild and unruly and unmanageable. And we think, oh, boys will be boys. You know, haven't people always said, no. They began to say that in the 19th century when they noticed that boys behavior was growing worse

because fathers were not there to supervise them. You know, pretty soon, you know, boys were interacting only with women, the mothers, female teachers, you know, female Sunday school teachers. And so boys were growing up without a close relationship with any male figure. And so a lot of the, well, I guess the way we get

from there to today, what happened when those wild, unruly boys grew up? They brought that behavior with them. So the 19th century is known for being a century where there was a great increase in crime, in gang activity, drinking, prostitution. And that's why there were so many reform movements in the 19th century, because men's behavior was growing worse.

And so a lot of the negative stereotypes that we have of masculinity came from that 19th century era. And to really counter it, we need to go back and see where it came from and how it developed. That's fascinating. And as you're talking, I'm reliving reading your book. And honestly, that part of your book is worth the book as a whole.

That'll be my last sales pitch. I'm not going to be able to say this. Like that alone, I just remember reading through all that. And I was like, man, this, this is a kind of a game changer. The thing that made, made me think of, cause I, you know, my expertise is more in like ancient, you know, the biblical world, but it's like, it's very, it's still pre-industrial and it's like same thing you had oftentimes men and women either on the farm or at the shop and you know, in the, in the city working alongside each other. And there isn't this, there isn't this harsh divi, there's a division of labor, so to speak, but it's not separate from each

other. It's all integrated. There's an Old Testament scholar, Carol Myers, I had her on the podcast, and she's done a lot of work in the significance of bread making in the ancient world, that this was a tedious three to four hour daily task and 70% of people's caloric intake came from bread. And she talked about, and she's not even a Christian, but she was saying like, women had a ton of, a lot of agents, the whole idea of like patriarchal culture. It's like, isn't it quite accurate because yes, there was kind of male authority and all this stuff, but women carried a tremendous amount of agency.

In fact, if she wanted to pull the plug on bread making and nobody else knew how to make bread, and this was an arduous task. And the men, yes, they may have been out in the fields, but nobody would say, oh, the men's going off to work or the women's not doing any work. She might be tending to the children like she was doing that as well. But everything was so much more integrated. You're right. I mean, all you have to do is read Proverbs 31, the Old Testament version. There's a woman who's running several businesses, running a large household, has a lot of servants

and selling things in the marketplace and buying fields and so on. And by the way, I read, this didn't make it into the book. I had to cut somewhere. But Martin Luther's wife was an awful lot like the proverb of 31 woman. She was buying land. She was buying orchards. She had a brewery, if I can say that right, making beer. Brewery, yeah. Yeah, I knew about that. She had several businesses as well as a former nun, you know, discussing theology with Martin Luther. You know, they didn't have a lot of professional journals back then. So often, theologians would get together by going to each other's homes and actually visiting

for several weeks. And so she was known for, you know, being able to stay right with these professional theologians because of her background as a nun. Luther called her Dr. Risa, meaning female doctor. He's her Dr. Luther, but she was Dr. Risa because she was so well known. And even National Geographic had a fascinating article on her in which he said, even at the time, a lot of people felt that Luther was getting a lot of his ideas from her, which may be true. But anyway, yeah, the pre-industrial era. Even Colonial America,

I read historians on Colonial America saying the same thing. It's okay, legally, women did not have the same rights that we have today, but there was a kind of equality just because of their indispensability. You could not run a household without women's contribution. And that gave them a kind of power, which they lost after the Industrial Revolution, when household labor was not valued and not as important. And so women doing household labor experienced a huge devaluation in their position. That's interesting.

So there was more of a value, even more power and agency ascribed to women pre-industrial age and then post-industrial age as societies quote unquote progressing, we're actually regressing a little bit in how society is viewing men and women. Oh yeah.

And this is, I mean, this is how you understand the feminist movement. It's because there were genuine losses. Twofold. One, women lost access to interesting and creative work, you know, because it wasn't just men's work that was taken out of the home. So was women's work. You know, like you said, breadmaking was an arduous, hours-long task. So was weaving, cloth making, spinning. Making fabric was equally arduous

as breadmaking. And of course, women often had the garden and raised the chickens and churned butter and made candles. There's a whole host of household Manufacturer that women were in charge of and that was interesting and challenging Well, those all left the home what happened to women women was stuck with early child care and cleaning I mean that was not you can see why that was not as intellectually challenging and so and also because they had lost the You can see why that was not as intellectually challenging. Also, because they had lost the indispensability of their labor, they did experience a huge decrease in their morals and their status. One of the ways you see that is if women were to ask their husbands to contribute to the

household, that was no longer seen as valid. She was nagging, she was a shrew. That language was not really used very often before that. You hear it a lot in the manuscript today, right? That women are shrews and they nag. But when women were an equal part of the household and they asked their husbands to contribute, that wasn't seen as illegitimate. It was only afterwards which she no longer had as much moral authority that it was seen as illegitimate. The feminist movement itself, this is what I was writing more when I covered the Industrial Revolution in total truth is I wanted to show how it had an impact on women. Dorothy Sayers has

a wonderful quote about this. She said, all this wonderful, interesting work that women used to do as part of their household manufacture was taken away. She said, even the dairymaid and her simple bonnet has been replaced by a male mechanic in a milking machine. So yeah, women lost something definitely. And I think we need to acknowledge that as well, if we want to have an effective counter to feminism, is that we have to acknowledge that women did lose something in the Industrial Revolution. That's interesting. Quick question, I want to move on to kind of an adjacent point. So would you say that it would be anachronistic? Maybe I'm throwing you this, maybe I'm answering my own question, but I kind of want to hear you say it or at least see if I'm on there with something. I mean, in the modern period, if someone says it is biblical for the man to go off and work and

the woman to stay home with the kids, like, that's the black and white. If a woman is not doing that, if the man's not doing that, that that is a violation of biblical principles? Or how would you... Is there a biblical model of the family that is mandated today, if that makes sense? Yeah, I think those people are living in the 50s. They're living in the 50s. They think they're being traditional. They're not being nearly traditional enough. You need to go back before the Industrial Revolution if you want to get at what was traditional for millennia. Millennia, most of human history, men have worked in the home and its outbuildings. If they were a blacksmith, it was connected to the home.

If they were professional men, like lawyers and doctors, usually had an office in the home. So, that has been the model for most of human history. Today is the anomaly. Since the Industrial Revolution, that's the anomaly. So I would like to see us find ways to reconstruct as much as we can a greater sense of pre-industrial work style.

For example, the pandemic was a game changer because a lot of people, a lot of men got a chance to work from home. And Harvard University actually did a study. It's not in the book because it came out after my book, but they did a study and the conclusion of the study was, during the pandemic, 68% of American men said that they got closer to their children and they don't want to lose

that. Wow. That they want to continue some kind of hybrid arrangement, work from home, flexible hours. They want some way of tweaking the industrial workplace so that they can have more time at home. By the way, of course, you've got to convince the CEOs as well. So in my book, I have several quotes from CEOs who said things like this. One of them put it this way, before the pandemic, we were very suspicious, very hesitant about

any sort of remote work. And then he said, the pandemic has completely exploded those fears. We did not see any drop in productivity. So I tell people, take these quotes to your boss and make your argument that having a more flexible workplace and maybe having some days at home, a hybrid situation. I quote people who've done studies and who say allowing men time to be better fathers actually makes them better workers. They may not put as much time in, like staying over time and coming in on weekends, because they value their family. But the time they do put in is more productive. That's what

the studies are showing. I would like us to see ways in which we could maybe bring work home. I've written about this for women for a long time, but about 60% of women who are home with children do now have work that they do at home. They either run a business or they have some sort of remote work. It's a lot larger than you would think. Most women who are home with children are contributing to the family income. So they're in a sense recreating the pre-industrial lifestyle where their work and their family is more integrated.

And now it would be nice to see if men can also do that so that they can have the benefit of being closer to their children. So I, pre-pandemic, my wife, my family entered into that. Like, so yeah, we, we, we, we run a nonprofit and this, the theology of Raleigh has become its own kind of LLC ministry. Both my wife and I work full time for both. We both work from home and our kids have been either homeschooled or the last several years they've been doing more online school, but still at home. So we, there is no nine to five in our house. It is just integrated. In fact, like yesterday, my wife and I woke up, we

built a fire. The kids were gone, studied. They went to a coffee shop to do some of their homework. My wife and I were both working with our laptops on different couches next to the fire. We were getting work done, but we were also like, you know, we kind of would remember something funny from yesterday, say it, and then talk about something here and then go back to work, whatever. And it was just all integrated. And I would say in the last several years, it's been, you know, like, you know, I might come up for lunch and then do the dishes really quick because they're messy. And then my wife might do the same thing or, you know, like it's just, everything is much

more integrated and our division of labor is based more on skill sets. So there might be something I'm better at that, okay, that's my job and something she might be better at. And some of them fall along the lines of traditional gender roles, but some don't. Like my wife actually loves to build stuff. She loves power tools. And I can manage that world too. And I could jump in, but a lot of times, if there's something that needs to be built or something, she'll go do it. I would normally feel threatened by that physically, but now I'm like, she enjoys it and somebody's better at it than I am. And I don't feel less masculine if I'm doing the dishes. And there's other areas that we might fall into more traditional gender lines. But when I was reading your book, just that integrative role, I'm like,

man, we have kind of fallen into that. And it is so, it's been some of the most beautiful moments in our family. It really has. And I hate even saying that because I know some people maybe would want that for various reasons. They don't or can't have that. So I don't, I want to take that into consideration. I want to encourage people to try because sometimes I've gotten the response of, oh yeah, you're writing for the laptop class, you know, because they can do that. But I have known women, for example, who have pink collar jobs. Pink collar is the counterpart to blue collar. For example, a friend of mine who has a hairdressing salon in her basement, one chair, and she cut my hair recently.

She had glass doors so we could watch her kids playing in a fenced in backyard. She had her eye on her kids while she fixed my hair. That's a pink-collar job. For the most part, you'd think, well, you can't do that because that's hands-on. That's not a laptop. Another friend of mine on the male side, he ran an auto shop. Well, you'd think, well, he can't do that at home. But you know what? He could do his book work at home. Instead of staying in the office, he's staying in the shop to do his book work, he would take his book work home and sit around the kitchen table

while his kids were doing their homework so that he could answer questions and he could discuss what they were learning. And so the way I put it in the book is this, not every job can be done at home, but aspects of almost every job can be flexible and can be done at home. And so I encourage people to think that way.

It takes some creativity. Or another friend of mine was a scientist. Okay, nobody can afford a lab in their home. A lot of Christian universities can't even afford a lab. It's very expensive. But she hit on the idea of writing abstracts, working for an abstracting service, because nobody in a

professional field can keep up with all the journal articles coming up. So, most of them subscribe to an abstracting service where they can read short excerpts. So, while she was home with her kids, she wrote abstracts. By the time she was ready to start going back to work, she was hired like that because people knew she was up on the latest literature. She hadn't missed a beat. Even though she wasn't in the lab, she knew what was going on in her field. So there's lots of ways that you can be more creative if you really want to try to recreate the closeness of the, like you said, the integrated family.

Yeah, that's good. I want to jump ahead to something in your book that this, it might be seen as controversial, but you, you, you argued the case well. You cited tons of data. And I hope I word it correctly. This assumption that modern day families where that are more traditional or I might even use a term, complimentarian in their theology, that these environments are more prone to foster abuse, sexism, a demeaning view of women. And you showed that the data doesn't really, doesn't really support that. Am I wording that correctly? And can you speak into that? That was a bit of shock. I was

like, wow. I mean, it's hard. I mean, given the data you're citing, it's hard to argue against it, but that's not, that's not the assumption today. In fact, I know people that say, complimentarianism is intrinsic to abuse of households. And I'm like, I hope that's not true. But well, you know, the sociological studies were not done on complimentarianism so much because that's a theological term. So the studies were done on theologically conservative men, is how they phrased it, or theologically conservative evangelicals. And yes, you are totally right.

The media narrative is that if you hold any notion of male headship in the home, that will turn men into overbearing, oppressive, tyrannical patriarchs. Well, that's actually an empirical claim. overbearing, oppressive, tyrannical patriarchs. Well, you know, that's actually an empirical claim. And so the sociologists and psychologists were listening to that and saying, well, is that true? We can test this. If you hold these beliefs, does it in fact turn you

into an overbearing, you know, tyrannical patriarch? I cite about a dozen studies. The one good thing about evangelical men being targeted is they got studied. So there's a lot of studies done on them. And you're right, to my own surprise as well, okay, with my family background, with my abusive background, I was blown away. I had no expectation that I would find this, that the studies show clearly that men who hold theologically conservative positions actually are the most loving and engaged husbands and fathers. And of course, the first question I always get is, yeah, well, did they talk to the wives?

So the answer is yes. These are large databases. Most of the studies were not done by Christians not, most of the studies were not done by Christians on, you know, inventing their own surveys or questionnaires. They went with these large things like the General Social Survey, which, you know, was 30,000 Americans from the University of Chicago. And so, in fact, yes, the wives were also being interviewed. And so the wives were the ones reporting the highest level of happiness with the way their husbands treated them if evangelical men were more engaged with their children both in shared activities and in Discipline like setting limits on screen time. They spend 3.5 hours more per week with their children than secular men Evangelical couples have the lowest rate of divorce, 35%

lower than secular couples. And then contrary to the narrative, they actually have the lowest rate of domestic abuse and violence of any group in America. And sometimes a quote can help. Nancy, so these are secular studies. And that last stat you cited, that's narrative disrupting that theologically conservative or just say conservative men that has lower levels of abuse than non evangelical conservative men. Let me finish with this point and then I'll give you the qualifications. There are some qualifications. Okay, okay, good. Yeah.

But some of these, by the way, some of these researchers were Christian and some of them were not. For example, I'm going to give you a quote from Brad Wilcox. He's Catholic and he's at the University of Virginia, but he is considered one of the top marriage researchers in the country. And he gets invited to write articles to places like the New York Times and the Washington Post. So, this is an article from the New York Times, direct quote.

He says, it turns out that the happiest of all wives in America are religious conservatives. Of course, they're focusing on the wives because the assumption is that the wives are the ones being oppressed. Then he goes, religious conservatives, fully 73% of women who hold conservative gender values and attend church regularly with their husbands have high quality marriages. Then he turns to his secular colleagues, because sociology tends to be a very secular field, and he says academics need to cast aside their prejudices against religious conservatives

and evangelicals in particular, because Protestant evangelical men are the most loving and engaged husbands and fathers. And so this isn't a pep talk from some religious leader. These are evidence-based findings, and this is solid research. And we should be confident in bringing it both into our churches because it's not there yet and into the public square as well. Have you gotten pushback on this? You said you got some pushback online or whatever.

Most pushback online comes from people who haven't read the book, I'm sure. Yes. You're right. You're right. Well, the first pushback I always get is, but haven't we all heard that Christians divorce at the same rate as the rest of the culture? In fact, I ran into a stat saying it is the most widely quoted statistic by Christian leaders. So obviously they're trying to motivate us, right? By telling us we're failing. But anyway, they went back to the data, and they did make one very

important distinction between evangelical men who are really sincere about it, who attend church regularly, you know, are really committed, versus nominal Christians. And so, nominals are those who defined as, you know, on a survey like this, maybe they do check the Baptist box, for example, but they attend church rarely if at all. These men test out shockingly different. They fit all of the negative stereotypes, the toxic stereotypes, the wise report the lowest level of happiness. They spend the least amount of time with their children.

They have a higher rate of divorce, even higher than secular men, 20% higher than secular couples. And they have the highest rate of abuse and violence of any group in America. So Brad Wilcox, that same sociologist, wrote an article for Christianity Today in which he said, the most violent husbands in America, the was italicized, the most violent husbands in America are nominal evangelical Protestant men. So that's what we're up against. On the one hand, the public narrative obviously has been shaped more by these nominals. By the way, my students don't even know what nominal means.

So I have to tell them. N-O-M is Latin for name. So, it means Christian in name only. But they're the ones who are in a sense shaping the cultural narrative. But the men who are actually committed and attend church test out extremely positive. And that is not in our churches yet. If you read my Ed notes, you'll see that they're all journal articles from the academic literature. And so, I have a graduate student who's a head of the women's ministry at a large Christian 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 hand out roses and tell the woman they're wonderful. On Father's Day, we scold the men and tell them to do better.

Okay, the tone of my book is no more scolding. Bring these positive findings into the Christian world to encourage men that on purely objective measures they are in fact doing very well compared to the rest of the culture. And they should be encouraged because what it means is the data from the social sciences is showing that living by God's design actually does make for happier marriages and families. Imagine that, imagine that, yeah. I'm curious, what do you think in this? I mean, your title is obviously playing off of a common phrase, you know, toxic masculinity. There's a lot of heightened awareness of toxic masculinity and there has been a response

to that, which I'm hearing you say, you know, the answer to toxic masculinity is not no masculinity, it's reintroducing healthy masculinity. What's been the byproduct in your either opinion or your research on what's the results that we're now living in on this backlash against toxic masculinity? What is that producing? Well, it's kind of split, right? On the one hand, there's sort of the feminized masculinity where men feel as though they're being told to avoid toxic masculinity, you should be more like a woman. And a lot of men are picking up that language.

When I told my class at Houston Christian University that I was writing a book on masculinity, a male student shot back, what masculinity? It's been beaten out of us. Oh, wow. So a lot of men feel that way. And then of course we have the opposite reaction, the Manosphere and the Andrew Tate type of masculinity that is kind of sort of exaggerated. And again, I heard from another graduate student who now teaches high school.

And she said, all of my male students are fans of Andrew Tate. They're using Andrew Tate quotes in the yearbook. I said, where do you teach? At a classical Christian school. Oh, yeah. So, even young Christian men are being drawn into these online influencers. You know, if we don't give them a positive biblical view of masculinity, they will be drawn into some other groups who are giving them a secular view. And by the way, let me tell you where the secular view comes

from, because that seems to have come out of nowhere. You know, the Andrew Tate, where did he come from? In my book, I'm an apologist, right? So, my main goal is to show why does the secular world get its view so wrong? I want to help people critique and respond to the secular world. And so I spent a lot of time showing step by step where the secular view comes from. And just to focus on just one, it's my favorite stage of the many stages I trace

is the rise of Darwinian evolution. And this is somewhat surprising because we think that's a scientific theory, but it had a huge impact on secular views of masculinity. Because social Darwinists like Herbert Spencer said, the men who came out on top in the struggle for survival would by necessity be ruthless, brutal, savage, predatory, and barbarian. This was his language. So, instead of urging men to live up to the image of God, they were urging men to live down to what they called the beast within. That was man's authentic nature. And that view is still common in secular

culture. There's a book called The Moral Animal. It's not called Social Darwinism anymore. It's called Evolutionary Psychology, but it's basically just renamed. I didn't know that. Okay. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Rebranded. Social Darwinism got discredited, so they gave it a new name. But there's a book called The Moral Animal, bestselling. I emphasize, best-selling book. And the author says, the human male is a possessive, oppressive, flesh-obsessed pig. Giving men a booklet on how to have a better marriage is like giving Vikings a booklet

on how not to pillage. Oh, wow. I thought, where does he get away with this? Well, it's the social Darwinist background that says this is the true nature. Or another one that was, it was an older book that was just reissued called Men in Marriage. He has the same message. She says, men are by nature violent, irresponsible, sexually predatory. Men's deepest yearning is not for wife and family, but for the open road,

the motorbike, for the male group escape to a mode of immediate and predatory gratification. I'm like, whoa, you think this is how God made men? No, this is a product of sin. This is a product of the fall. But partly because of the Darwinian influence, the message has been that this is the true male nature. And so this is the source of the Manosphere. Andrew Tate didn't come out of nowhere.

The intellectuals have been preparing the way for a century. And so, by the way, there's another influencer who was heralded in the New York Post as the new Andrew Tate. Have you heard of him? Myron Gaines. No. Myron Gaines. He has a podcast called Fresh and Fit that's becoming very popular. It was Christian men who told me about him. So, okay, they're aware of him. But his tagline is, I help men transform from simps into pimps. That's his tagline. So all I have to say...

Sounds very Andrew Tate-ish. We need to know where these ideas are coming from if we want to be able to counter them and help our young men. Like I said, the high schoolers who are being drawn into Andrew Tate, we have to help them to see this is coming from a very secular perspective and is not biblical. It seems like the inevitable Andrew Tate seems like the inevitable byproduct of if a society comes down too hard on men or neuters men, you either get a bunch of men with their heads down and bowed shoulders, scared to do anything.

Or the second they feel any spike of, you know, energy or testosterone, they feel ashamed or whatever. Or you get a bunch of Andrew Tate. So people are like, I'm sick of this. I'm sick of being, people trying to suffocate me. And neither of those are really healthy responses. I think the Bible does, oddly enough, have a good prescription of what healthy masculinity looks like. Well, even this is all the way back to the 19th century. Because that happened in the 19th century. After the industrial revolution, when men were no longer growing up on the farm, you know, and hunting in the wilderness, and they were sitting at a desk all day, people did begin to be concerned that they were losing their masculinity. And a new word entered the English vocabulary, overcivilized.

People began to be concerned that men were overcivilized. What's worse is that in the process, women had been put on a pedestal and held up as the moral and spiritual leaders. This was new. This was completely new. Again, it was the product of the Industrial Revolution. What happened is after the Industrial Revolution, there emerged a sort of large public sphere, large factories and financial institutions and the university and of course the state.

And people began to argue that values had no realm in the public sphere, that these large institutions should operate by quote, scientific principles, unquote, by which they really meant value free. Don't bring your private values into the public realm, which is what we still hear today. And since it was men who were getting that secular education and working in that secular environment, they did become secular sooner than women did. And so what the church did is the church started then pitching their appeal to women and began to say, well, think about it this way, if values are kicked out of the public realm, where will they be cultivated? In the private realm, in home and church where women still presided.

And I have to tell you, many people think this double standard, you know, women being morally superior to men, they think, well, that's just forever, right? No, this was brand new. No one had ever said this before, all the way back to the ancient Greeks and Romans. It had been thought that men were morally superior. Here's how their reasoning went. The insight into right and wrong is a rational insight,

and they thought men were more rational, and therefore men were more virtuous. In fact, the Latin root of the word virtue is V-I-R, which means man, as in the word virile, manly, virile. Anyway, so virtuous, the word had overtones of manly strength and honor. So this was completely new in the 19th century when people began to say, well, we'll make women responsible to be the moral guardians of society. And it was women who led a lot of the reform movements

of the 19th century. Why? Because most of the reform movements were against what were sort of traditionally male vices, like crime and drinking and gangs and prostitution. There was kind of a male-female tension in those reform movements because it was women trying to get men to behave, to quote one historian. That's not my word.

A historian said the bottom line was women were trying to get men to behave. That's funny. But that's when men started feeling like, at first they kind of went along with it. They said, okay, well, women are morally superior, so I should allow myself to be taught by my wife. I mean, you see this in the literature of the day. I'll give you an example. Ulysses S. Grant, since we all know him. He literally wrote a letter to his fiance saying, you know, I try to organize my life by what I think will please you.

You know, you are my angel. You are the one who tells me right and wrong. I don't remember the exact words, but something like that. I govern my life by what I think you will approve. So at first, my end, men went along with it. But eventually, like you said, they began to feel beaten down. Wait a minute, why are we always the villains?

Why are we always the bad guys? Late 19th century, early 20th century, you do see already then the Manosphere attitude growing, men starting to say, well, this is just who we are. You don't like it? This is why the social Darwinist line became so popular. You don't like it? Well, men are by nature, brutal, savage, barbarian. So that Manosphere message started in the late 19th century as well.

Wow. That's interesting. Gosh, Nancy, Um, do you have time for a couple? I've got some questions coming in from my, uh, patron community. Do you have a couple more minutes or? Sure. Um, okay. This one, um, this goes back to the whole theological conservatism versus complimentarianism. I'm glad you made that distinction. You weren't talking specifically about complimentarianism, but the question is, is comes from Teresa. She says, uh, since the researchers only looking at theological conservatism, do you think we can make strong conclusions on complementarian versus egalitarianism and marriage health, especially since some complementarians may actually make mutual decisions? You do talk about the mutual decisions in your book among

complementarians, this idea of if you're a complementarian, it's just top down, you know, rulership over the home. Practically, a lot of commentarians in your book said that's actually a lot more mutual than people might assume. But can you speak into, can we say anything about complimentarianism versus egalitarianism within the marriage health or? Yeah. So this, again, it blew me away. I was surprised. So I have two chapters on these sociological findings. And the second chapter is, well, okay, if theologically conservative couples agree with the notion of male headship, and not all of them do, but the majority do. And how do they define it though? How do they live it out? And again, when I read the surveys

and what men and women actually said, you're right, they spoke very much in terms of mutuality and respect and agreeing with one another. And if my wife disagrees, I'm not just going to charge ahead. Of course, I'm going to stop and find out why she disagrees. I used their own language that I extracted from all of these interviews. I've been criticized by egalitarians who say, well, the complementarians that you quote are actually kind of egalitarian, aren't they? Really? Really? I'm like, look, I'm letting them define it. This is how they define headship. Maybe it's not how you would define it. The people who reject the notion of headship may have a different definition of what they're rejecting. But if you read surveys of the people who say they believe in male headship, I say,

let them define it. That's my goal. I'm being factual here. I want to let them define it. If they say they hold the male headship, how do they define it? And I was astonished. I'm being factual here. I want to let them define it. If they say they hold the male headship, how do they define it? And I was astonished. I just didn't expect them to describe it in such loving, mutual, respectful ways. But the people that they interviewed did in fact define it in ways that were very loving. And as far as the vocabulary, let me say parenthetically, on the vocabulary of complementarian versus egalitarian, like I said, that's not what sociologists were looking at. But I did point out why I was not using that language in the book.

And the reason I didn't use it is because two of my main researchers said it didn't seem to make much difference. You would think it would. You would think if you believe in egalitarianism that it to make much difference. You would think it would. You would think if you believe in egalitarianism that it would make a difference. But the first one was Brad Wilcox, who I've already mentioned at the University of Virginia. He's excellent, yeah. And he said, here's how he put it, the husband's gender theory does not seem to make a difference

in how happy his wife is. In our studies, the husband's gender theory is not make a difference in how happy his wife is. You know, in our studies, the gender theory, a husband's gender theory is not making a difference. A lot of these women are just as happy. In fact, he did one study of egalitarian marriages, and he said, they weren't any happier. They weren't any happier. You know, we studied them too, and they weren't any happier. And the other expert I quote is John Gottman, who is not a Christian, he has a Jewish background, but he's considered the top marriage psychologist. Brad Wilcox's sociology. John Gottman is the top psychologist in the nation. And he said, we get people into our practice.

Some of them believe the man should be in charge, some of them are more egalitarian. Here's how he puts it. Emotionally intelligent husbands, I'm quoting him, emotionally intelligent husbands have figured out the most important thing, which is how to convey honor and respect to your wife. Again, no matter what your gender theory is, if you know how to convey honor and respect to your wife. I quote these two guys and I say, for that reason, I'm just not even going to engage in that debate because it does not seem to make a practical difference. That's interesting. Gosh. Well, okay. I'm taking over time. One more quick question.

What does the, this is a great question to end on. What does the world have to gain by Christians encouraging our men to be men? Well, I think the person knows the answer to that. But obviously men have been the great builders of civilization and we need to honor that and support that. Obviously the great musicians and the great composers and the great inventors and the great scientists and the great builders of cultures, a lot of it's been men. I'm not saying that women couldn't have done that. It's partly a matter of time.

When women are home with children, they don't have time. A lot of secular people and even Christian people historically have concluded well women were not as smart. You know women aren't scientists and composers and poets because they're not as smart. I don't think that's true. I think it's because they don't have time because especially in a pre-industrial age when you didn't have birth control women spent most of their adult life with children, you know. They're pregnant, nursing, and a baby in arms, sometimes all three at once. Children on their back,

two toddlers holding onto their skirt. They're not going to go into war, okay? Because they're not going to move quickly. So traditionally, of course, women have done work that is closer to home that is compatible with raising young children. And they have not had the time to be the great scientists and the great builders of civilization, not because they don't have the intelligence, but because they haven't had the time. They're not the great statesmen. So I wanted to clarify, on the one hand, I don't think it's indicative of a difference in intelligence.

You know, this might be a good gateway into ending with, I think the Christian message to men should focus on the cultural mandate. Only about half my students have ever heard that term, so I have to explain it. The cultural mandate, because it's starting, it starts in Genesis, right? It's the verse that says, you know, God has created the universe, He's created the animals, He creates the first human couple, and what is the first thing He says to them? Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. Subdue the earth. And be fruitful and multiply does not mean just the nuclear family, because anthropologists

tell us all the social institutions grow out of the family, ultimately. The clan, the tribe, the village, the nation, and even individual social groups like you need a state, you need a marketplace, you need a church, you need a school. And so it really does mean build up all of the social institutions of society and the laws and constitutions that govern them. And subdue the earth means harness the natural resources. It's all the arts and sciences. Again, it usually starts

with agriculture, but goes to mining and technology and building computers and composing music. One of my students said, oh, come on, composing music. I said, well, I play the violin. What's the violin made out of? Wood and the bow, horse hair. All of the transcendent beauty we associate with music does stir with harnessing the natural resources that God has built in to creation. And theologians call it the cultural mandate because what it means is that this is pre-fall. This is not after the fall. Pre-fall, what was God's intention for the human race was to build cultures, build civilizations,

and make history. And I think that losing this has been losing this message, you know, right now a message is take Jesus into your heart, you know, or, you know, if you're a Christian man, you've basically told sit in a pew and sing and pray. That's a very narrow, you know, truncated view of what it means to be a Christian. We need to go back to the pre-fall, you know, what did God originally create human beings for? You might say in sin we got off the track, in salvation God puts us back on the track, but what was the track? You know, pre-fall, what did God create us to do? And I think it's especially important for men just because, you know, the biological

differences between men are that men are somewhat more aggressive, more risk-taking, and I think they, even more maybe than women, benefit from the cultural mandate message because it speaks to their need to achieve, to accomplish, the drive to have an impact. So that's the answer to the question, you know, what do we gain? Well, if Christian men took up the challenge of the cultural mandate, they would be living out Christianity in every area of life. And so they would be having an impact everywhere, not just in the church, but in every sphere of society. Oh, that's a great word. Nancy, I want to hold up your book one more time, The Toxic

War on Masculinity, How Christianity Reconciles the sexes for those watching on YouTube. This is what it looks like. Came out a year ago, I think, right? It's been out for a bit. I still have my, uh, my, uh, arc, my advanced reader copy. So it's not the official one, but, uh, anyway, um, yeah, thank you so much for your work on that and your pile of great books you've written and really honored to have you as a guest on Theology in Iraq. Well, I'm glad. This was wonderful to talk to you. And I knew you would be fun to talk to you because you just have such a personal way about you. Thank you so much. I could tell that from reading your books. You have a very warm personality. So yeah, it was very obvious today that you're a lot of fun to talk to. So thank you for having me on.

Oh, thank you so much. It was my pleasure, Nancy. Any time. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network. Hi, I'm Haven, and as long as I can remember, I have had different curiosities and thoughts and ideas that I like to explore Usually with a girlfriend over a matcha latte But then when I had kids I just didn't have the same time that I did before for the one-on-ones that I crave So I started Haven the podcast

It's a safe space for curiosity and conversation and we talk about everything from relationships to parenting to friendships to even your view of yourself and we don't have answers or solutions but I think the power is actually in the questions so I'd love for you to join me Haven the podcast. Hey friends Rachel Grohl here from the Hearing Jesus podcast. Do you ever wonder if you're truly hearing from God? Are you tired of trying to figure it all out on your own? The Hearing Jesus podcast. Do you ever wonder if you're truly hearing from God? Are you tired of trying to figure it all out on your own? The Hearing Jesus podcast is here to help you live out your faith every single day and together we will break down these walls by digging deeply into God's Word in a way

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