321 - The Toxic War On Masculinity w/ Nancy Pearcey

Welcome to the Pure Desire podcast, helping you take back your life from unwanted sexual behavior and betrayal trauma. Happy day to you, listener. I am your host, Trevor Windsor, and you're listening to episode 321 of the Pure Desire podcast. Here joining me as always, is my co host, Nick Stumbo.

Martini, shaken, not stirred.

James Bond.

Yes, that is his drink of choice. Do you know the other preferences of that drink that come out in a couple of movies?

I know that he wants a lemon peel in it.

Yes. A large twist.

I was just reading a twist.

A large thin slice of lemon peel and I don't know, served ice cold.

Ice cold. There it is.

That's why it's shaken. To get it ice cold.

Okay.

I've been waiting for little tidbit there.

Been waiting for opportunity like this to.

Tell people I've been in James Bond.

Well, I've no, actually, believe it or not, on cocktails, as many people know.

I've gotten cocktails that grew up in a Tito towel. Oh, my gosh. Okay.

But here's the thing, and I was having this conversation with Tyler Chinson just the other day, our clinical director, about this, that you don't shake drinks that don't have citrus in it. And so Ian Fleming, when he writes this thing and he has this weird drink, it's like so countercultural. Like every YouTube bartender I've watched on this, it's like, James Bond had it wrong. He was an idiot. It's not. You always stir drinks like that. Cause it ruins it. Okay, I'm done nerding out James Bond.

Good to know. I'll keep it in mind.

Keep it in mind my next martini party. Okay, so we had. And I know the connection, but I'm excited for people to hear the connection. But we had Professor Nancy Pearcey on today. And let me just give you a quick rundown. We've had her on before, but she is the author of the new book, which we talked about today, the Toxic War on how Christianity reconciles the sexes. She's written, love thy Body, the soul of Science, Saving Leonardo, Finding Truth, and Total Truth. She's a professor and scholar in residence at Houston Christian University. And I love this part. She's been quoted in the New Yorker and Newsweek. She's been highlighted as one of the five top women apologists by Christianity Today. And the Economist hails her as America's preeminent evangelical Protestant female intellectual. That is a lot of words.

Wow.

And impressive.

She is. We love Nancy and we had her on to talk about this new book that she just wrote the Toxic War on Masculinity.

Yeah. And I think it goes without saying that James Bond is one of those iconic male figures in Hollywood and movies and books and all that, that we have kind of created this caricature, well, that's a man's man. Without really thinking through how destructive some of those views are, that as that man's man, James Bond has no commitment to women. He's got a woman in every port. He's above authority because if he's got a reason that it's the right thing to do, he can do it. It's kind of that above the law, my way or the highway. And in a movie, it plays well, it's cool, it's fun to watch. But you bring that into a real marriage, a real workplace, a real home, and turns out a lot of those things can be incredibly destructive and have led to what we're seeing in our culture, kind of this backlash against toxic masculinity that I think has caught up in the wash, all men in general, and has us kind of as a culture and maybe as men in particular, trying to figure out what is a man supposed to be and where do I look to? And obviously, as, you know, committed Christ followers, we see there's a pattern in scripture that we want to elevate. And I think Nancy really talks through that in a way that is very educated, very research based, which I think might be surprising to some of our listeners that are just used to like, all right, let's hear some good theology on manhood. I think it's important to see that she's backing this up from what we're seeing in research done by both Christians and non Christians. And it's really fascinating to see there's a better way that we already believe there is, but we can actually see it being revealed in research. And just, yeah, a great conversation on helping all of us rethink what is healthy masculinity and how can I be a part of creating that new ideal in our culture that goes well beyond James Bond's shaken, not stirred martinis?

Okay, so before we get into it, and we are really, really excited about this, and for those who've been following Pure Desire for years, you've known this is coming because Ted has talked about it and there have been some kind of rumblings about it. But we finally have a follow up resource to Seven Pillars of Freedom for Men. And it is Bob Vandermeer, Ted Roberts, and Diane Roberts who contributed to a new resource that is called the Compassionate Warri Warrior. And I feel like it's a perfect tie in to today because it really is exploring some of those pieces of what it actually means to be a biblical man.

Yeah, yeah, very much so. Tying the two sides together. That there are aspects of what I believe God created men to be that in a very healthy way could be that warrior of fighting to protect what's good, defending others, preserving the health of a culture. And yet so often we've looked at warriors kind of exclusively through that lens, which includes a lot of aggression and that. That need to be kind of disinterested in things that are below a warrior. So the compassionate warrior, bringing together that side of a heart that is filled with kindness and love and pursuit of relationships in a way that honors God and putting them together in a way that's countercultural and is a part of our long term healing and recovery. And that's really why Ted wrote this workbook. And I had the privilege of serving as the editor for a lot of that content of really helping us think through. I've experienced maybe a layer of healing by going through Seven Pillars. And by the way, that's who this work workbook is for. It is a follow up after Seven Pillars. So even if you're excited about hearing us talk about it, you really need to do Seven Pillars first. If you haven't, Seven Pillars is about gaining sobriety. The Compassionate Warrior is maintaining and then building on that sobriety into a new way of doing life as the kind of man God made us to be. So we're excited to have it out there. Would love to have you check it out. Would love to have you and your church do this as a follow up group. Or maybe you've been out of Seven Pillars for a while now and you've been saying, man, I could really use some community again. The Compassionate Warrior could be a great one to jump into if you've already gone through Seven Pillars. So check it out. I'm excited to have it out there and really believe it'll have a big impact on people's recovery journey.

Yeah, absolutely. All right, so if you want to check out or get a copy of Compassionate Warrior, you can just go to PureDesire.org Compassionate Warrior with that, let's subscribe to the podcast. Guys, come on, just do it. Just do it. Also, follow us on social media. I'm just going to say we've been pumping out some pretty good video content, so just be aware of that. Social media. Definitely follow us. Eardesirepdmi and with that, let's just get to it. Here is our time with Professor Nancy Pearcey on her new book, the Toxic War on Masculinity. Professor NANCY Pearcey, welcome back to the Pure Desire podcast. We're super excited to have you back. Thanks for being here.

Thank you so much. I'm glad to be back again.

Yeah, it's, we were just talking. It's only been a few months. Like, I mean, I remember nerding out that we got you in the first place. And here we are, like really in short succession. So grateful to have you back. And the reason that is is because you've recently released another and serious question. How many books have you written now?

You would ask that? Six or seven, I think. Yep. I haven't counted recently.

Yeah. And that's totally fine. But just know that we will have them in the show notes. But this is another excellent book, the new one that you have released. It's called the Toxic War on Masculinity. And I'll have Dwight just give us the center camera so you can see it right there. How Christianity Reconciles the Sexes. And Nancy, we wanted to talk about it because the topic of toxic masculinity and biblical masculinity and what those are, how they compare to each other and really talk to you about this book. And I know you did tons of research for this book as well. So we're just going to dive into your expertise in this resource to start. Toxic masculinity is a term that many people have heard. I feel like it's definitely this buzz phrase that you hear, but I don't know if I personally have ever heard it defined very clearly. So your book covers this topic, obvious, obviously, at length. So can you help us understand what is toxic masculinity? What does that mean?

Well, let me answer that question through a sociological study. This is, this is the most fact based book I've ever written. So it's got a lot of sociological studies, a lot of historical studies, and sometimes it's better to just answer by what do, what do people mean by the term toxic masculinity? So there was a sociologist who's very well known and so he gets invited to speak all around the world. He's not a Christian, but he turned this into an experiment and he would ask young men two questions. He would say, first of all, what does it mean to be a good man? In other words, if you're at a funeral and in the eulogy somebody says he was a good man, what does that mean? All around the world, young Men had no problem answering that. You're from Australia to Germany to Brazil. They would say things like, honor, integrity, duty, sacrifice, do the right thing, stand up for the little guy. I like that one. Be a provider, be a protector, be responsible, be generous. The sociologist says they had no trouble with this. They knew. And he would say, where'd you learn that? And they would say, well, it's just in the air we breathe. Or if they were in a Western culture, they would say, it's part of our Judeo Christian heritage. And then he would follow up with a second question. And he said, okay, what does it mean if I say to you, man up, be a real man? And the young man would say, no, that is completely different. And this was interesting because I'll give you the exact words so you know it's not mine. They would say that means be tough, be strong, never show weakness, win at all costs, suck it up, be competitive, get rich, get laid.

Yeah, right.

So most people would say that second set of traits is the toxic set. At least if those traits get separated from a moral vision, they can easily slide into things like entitlement and coercion and power. And power over instead of power under. So I think that what this sociologist discovered is fascinating because men are made in God's image. They do know what the good man is. That's what's so interesting about this. Everywhere, in every culture, people know what the good man is because they're made in God's image. Romans 2, right. We all know what the right thing to do is. We all have a conscience. But they feel cultural pressure to be instead of the good man to be the real man, which is usually defined in terms of dominance, entitlement, and power and so on. And so it does suggest a better strategy for dealing with these issues. Most men do not respond well to being called toxic, which makes a lot of sense. Most of us wouldn't. But what this suggests is that we have an opportunity to call out what men already know it means to be a good man. They know it means to. It's just innate knowledge. It's how God made them. And so we will be much more successful, I think, if we affirm and support and encourage men in being the good man that they already know. That gives us a much more positive approach.

Yeah, yeah, I'm excited we're having the conversation, because I think that definition of toxic masculinity, we would all, hopefully, universally see dangers in people that are out to get their own way, to have control, to win at all costs. To, you know, push other people aside to dominate the week. We'd say, yeah, that that's not healthy. But there's definitely been a danger, I think, and we're. I'm sure going to get into it in this conversation, that there. There's been a fear then for men of feeling like they're a man because they're like, well, I don't want it to be toxic. I don't want to come across. And. And we kind of have started to paint, I think, masculinity with that one broad stroke of, well, any man is toxic. And so we've just got to be careful of men in general. It's like, no, there's. I love that thought, that there's a really good, healthy side of being a man, and what a good man is that we all almost inherently know and see. And so how could we champion that? That there's a very strong, helpful side of masculinity in our culture. And separating that out from toxic masculinity seems to be a pressing needle.

Yes. And there's an even stronger opportunity to encourage Christian men because the sociological data is showing that Christian men actually test out even better than secular men. So our cultural climate says, you know, masculinity is toxic. I mean, I start the book with quotes like, the Washington Post had an article titled, why can't we Hate Men? Like, really? In respected publications like the Washington Post, it's now acceptable to talk like that. Or a Huffington Post editor who used the hashtag killallmen. You can buy T shirts now that say so many men, so little ammunition. There are books out with titles like I Hate Men and no Good Men and Are Men Necessary. And even male writers are getting on the bandwagon. There was a book by a male writer who said, masculinity. No. He said, testosterone is a toxin that you have to work out of your system.

Wow.

And so. And then I turned to Christian men. Okay. And that was easy to find as well. I found many people who said, if you believe in any concept of male headship or authority in the home, it will end up in abuse and patriarchy and tyranny and oppression. I'll give you just one quote on that. The co founder of the Church Too movement said, conservative gender, Protestant gender ideology feeds the rape culture. That's how she put it, feeds the rape culture that we see permeating American Christianity today. And I read those, and I said, wait a minute, you guys aren't reading the data from the social sciences. Because in the meantime, I was Reading the literature by sociologists and psychologists, they saw these accusations against Christian men and said, where's the evidence? Where's the evidence? So they went and did the studies, and they found that Christian men who are actually committed to churchgoing, authentic in their faith, they test out as the most loving husbands and the most engaged fathers. And so it's completely contrary to what the message that we're getting. They, by the way, they do interview the wives separately, which is important because if there is abuse, of course, often the wives won't say anything. So what they're really saying is they're reporting that the wives are the ones who say they are the happiest with their husband's expressions of love and affection. Evangelical fathers are the most engaged with their children, both in terms of shared activities like church youth group and sports, and also in discipline, like setting limits on screen time or enforcing bedtime. Evangelical couples have the lowest rate of divorce, lower than the rest of the secular society. And the real stunner is they have the lowest rate of domestic violence of any major group in America. So contrary to the media messages, they're actually doing very well.

Yeah, well, that's super encouraging and something we want to keep unpacking. But like in any topic, you know, culture has a deep impact on our view of people and interactions. And in your book, you talk about the comparison of Jesus and James Bond to help unpack culture's view of masculinity. So talk about that a little bit. In what ways do you see culture has impacted our view of true masculinity and through that lens of James Bond.

Yes. So the first pushback that I always get when I start talking about these statistics is, well, wait a minute. Haven't we all heard that evangelicals divorce at the same rate as the secular culture? And so the researchers went back to the data and they separated out truly authenticity committed Christian men who attend church regularly from nominal Christian men. By the way, my students don't know what the word nominal means, so I have to tell them it means in name only because N o m is Latin for name. And so these are men who, in a survey like this, might check the Baptist box, but who actually attend church rarely, if at all. And they test out even worse than secular men. So they are. This is answering your question because they are taking their lead from the secular culture. Their wives report the lowest level of happiness. They are the least engaged with their children. They have the highest rates of domestic of divorce higher than secular couples, and they have the highest rates of domestic Abuse and violence higher than secular men. So apparently these are men who are claiming an evangelical Christian identity, but they're taking words like headship and submission from the Bible and not giving them the biblical meaning.

Yeah.

You know, kind of like skimming the headlines. Instead, they're infusing it with the cultural meanings. So they're infusing it with meanings of dominance and entitlement. And like you said, I get my own way. This is what authority means. So this is where you really see the impact in the church of the secular culture. It's particularly among those men who claim Christianity but are hanging around sort of the fringes of the Christian world and actually thinking like secular men.

Yeah, I think that's what I really liked about your example is, you know, James Bond is like, everyone knows who we're talking about when we say that. It's a womanizer who's slick, who's really in good shape and, you know, is.

Always the bad guy.

Yeah. International spy and really cool and, like, you know, and gosh, I grew up, you know, like. I mean, Daniel Craig was my James Bond. Like, I wanted to be Daniel Craig, especially after that first, you know, Casino Royale, that first scene where he's chasing the guy. But I think that what you've, like, kind of explored is that that template gets copied and pasted over our society. That somehow that's what it means to be a true man, to not trust women, to womanize, to be violent and angry, to not show emotion. And that's not who Jesus was. And so yet we still take that James Bond mentality and then put it over our life. And that's how we judge whether we're really masculine or not or really valuable or not.

Yeah. Like you, I hang out mostly with fairly committed Christian men. And so I started this thinking that the nominals would be a fairly small group. Well, no, they're not. We have a lot of cultural Christianity in America, you know, unlike the rest of the world. And so we do have a lot of nominal Christians. At least one study I found said that the sheer numbers were the same. You know, the numbers of committed Christians and nominal Christians are the same. So you have about a 50, 50 chance that if you run into somebody who claims to be a Christian, that they're actually just nominal. And they're actually, like you said, have more of a James Bond understanding of masculinity rather than a biblical view of masculinity. So that was a little disturb, was when I found out the sheer numbers. And that does explain, say, the the church to movement. You know that. Not. By the way, not. My students don't know that word either. But the MeToo movement, which exposed a lot of sexual exploitation in the secular world, was followed by the church to movement against sexual exploitation in the Christian world. And so. And I would say, yeah, well, that's almost certainly nominal Christian men. That's why those numbers are where they are, by the way. It does mean that you can't put these two together. A lot of studies will put them together, so they'll end up having evangelical men who are better than the secular world, and then they'll have nominal men who are worse than the secular world. And if you put those two together, just say, oh, let's do a study on evangelicals, you're going to get skewed numbers. And so that explains a lot of the numbers we see and why they're mistaken.

It occurs to me that in a lot of areas, whether it's toxic masculinity or many other topics, we can use the banner of Christianity to excuse a lot of bad behavior. Because in the name of male head, like you've explained, in the name of male headship, we've claimed that banner, and yet we've executed it in a way that is clearly unbiblical. And I think that's something we all have to be on guard of. Am I using my faith to actually justify poor behavior that really isn't actually consistent with my faith?

Exactly. I often get people asking, why in the world would nominal men be actually worse than the secular world? You know, doesn't a little bit of Christianity help? Well, apparently not, because what they're doing is they're taking the secular definition of masculinity, the James Bond definition, but they feel religious permission. You know, they feel that the church is giving them permission because they're using Christian language. And so ironically, they're. They're getting the worst of both worlds, and they're ending up worse than secular men. And so we have to be aware of that when people, you know, the media criticisms of evangelical men, we have to help people to realize that this. Well, yes, part of that is true, but those are nominal Christian men who are actually being influenced by, not by the Bible, but by the secular culture. And by the way, that's an important distinction I found you have to make with people, because, of course, they assume if you're claiming Christianity, then Christianity is causing this bad behavior. No, actually, you're using Christian labels on what is secular, a secular script for masculinity. And that's why I spent a lot of the book, by the way, just explaining what is the secular script for masculinity, where did it come from, how to develop? Because you cannot really counter a cultural trend unless you know where it came from and how it developed because it is seeping into the church, especially through people who are more nominal.

Yeah. And I think it's, I mean, I want to keep moving forward in the conversation, but another thing just to mention is that if the church is silent when it comes to what true biblical masculinity looks like, then where am I going to go? I'm going to go to the culture. I'm going to go to where I'm hearing it, you know, or seeing it on the screen or reading it in books. And so I think that's something that the church should be aware of, that it should be something we should be pouring more and more into, understanding what masculinity is, what true headship looks like, what being a servant hearted man looks like. So definitely stuff that they should address for sure. Let's keep going though, in your book. This is what I love about your books is it's not just your opinion. You do a lot of research, a lot of reading, but in some of the studies you reference on male stereotypes, I was just curious what was surprising in that. What are the stereotypes that we're seeing people adopt or believe when it comes to masculinity?

Yeah, I was surprised by that research too, because the personality traits for men and women overlap quite extensively. If you make a bell curve for a trait like even aggressiveness for men and you make a bell curve for women, they overlap quite a bit more than you would think. Most of the differences are at the extremes, at the edges where they don't overlap. That's why 90% of the people in prison are male. Those are those ones on the edge. Yeah, right, right. But I, I have a wonderful quote from C.S. lewis, which Nobody has ever heard of before. I certainly hadn't. But he says it's arrogance. It's arrogance to have stereotypes, you know, to, to claim certain traits as being, you know, for my sex. If we. What did he say? He said something like chivalry and frankness, you know, and other masculine traits, quote, unquote. You know, if we say a woman who has those is showing a masculine side, that's arrogance. And the same on the other side. If a woman says tenderness and gentleness are feminine traits, that's arrogance on her behalf. So it's a fascinating quote from C.S. lewis, where he says, let's not be arrogant and claim that we own certain personality traits because in fact they do overlap quite a bit. Of course, then people's pushback then is yeah, but so what do you think are the differences? So right in chapter one, I had to deal with that. And let's start with biology. You can't argue with biology. Right. You might argue more over psychology, but let's face it, men are bigger, stronger, faster. They have more upper body strength, 75% greater upper body muscle mass, 90% greater upper body strength, they have more fast twitch muscles. That's a word I had to learn. It means they can. Yep, they can react more quickly. And of course, because of testosterone they are. And in general they are more aggressive and risk taking. And these are good things. You know, if this is the basic way God has created men, you know, that underlie all cultures, we should affirm those as good. Here's another study that I really enjoyed reading. It was the first ever cross cultural study of concepts of masculinity. It was done just a few years ago by an anthropologist and he found that no matter how they define masculinity, some are more aggressive, some less aggressive. No matter how they define masculinity, all cultures agree that men are supposed to do what he calls the three Ps, provide, protect and procreate, meaning, you know, build in to the next generation. And he said all cultures hold that. And so that's kind of the good man again, you know, back to that earlier study. All cultures know what the good man is. They know what it means to use your unique masculine strength, not to get whatever you want, but to provide protective, take care of those who you love. And again, it seems to be universal because this guy's not a Christian and he was not looking just at Christian cultures. It seems to be built into the male character, the DNA. You know, it's part of the hardware that God made us with that men know what they are called to do. They know what the purpose of masculinity is.

Yeah, yeah. It occurs to me that in so much of what we're talking about, we are seeing good things that are taken and skewed and used for either selfish purposes or wicked purposes or evil purposes. And that sometimes then we're throwing the baby out with the bathwater because we make those skewed versions. Like, well, that's what everybody's like. It's like, well, no, there's a very healthy side. And in particular to what we do, you know, that's one of the ways we would define pornography is it's taking a good gift that God gave men and women to share in marriage and perverts it to something that, that primarily men, but men and women can use just to turn others into objects and consume for their own pleasure. And so in relation to what we do here at Pure Desire, unpack that a little bit. And what you found for the book is how does pornography impact a person's view of masculinity?

Yes. And unfortunately, boys are being exposed to it now by about age 9 on average.

Younger than ever.

Yes, younger than ever. It's on his phone and it's his videos, it's everywhere. And young girls, there were things that I couldn't fit into the book, you know, or it would be too big. But I had anecdotes of young girls who, you know, in grade school were coming across their male, you know, fellow students, 9 year old, 10 year old, watching pornography on the, on the phone during a break between classes.

Yeah.

Wow. And the girl said, oh, gross. Because, you know, what's happening on the phone is not something that any of those girls would want themselves to be involved in. So they're having to already build up defenses against being misused and mistreated at a very young age as well. So I do think it's one of the ways in which you can say we want men to grow up to be considerate, respectful, responsible, and we're not giving them the tools to do it. And I think that, that instead of just blaming boys, you know, especially when it comes to them at such a young age that they don't always know right from wrong yet it's the culture that is, is giving them, is feeding them this, this things like pornographic literature and so on. Pornographic films, pornography on TikTok. There was a, there was a study done just recently, so it's not in the book, but some researchers created some fake avatars on TikTok and presented them as 13 year olds. Within days, they were inundated with porn and sex trafficking kind of messages and transgenderism. And they were just totally inundated. This is what our young people are inundated with today. And so, yes, I do think you're right that porn is distorting the sexual impulse in men. And they are asking women to act out the images that they're seeing in porn, often without even realizing that it's disrespectful, that it's objectifying, that women don't like it, that it's sometimes even painful. Some of the activities they want women to act out with them. So it's having an incredibly negative impact on women and young girls.

Yeah, Yeah. I just. I mean, going back to the kind of the James Bond thing, like, it's that idea of we are objectifying a specific, you know, gender and making it more about the man's pleasure and making it more about what he can get and the conquests and things like that. You know, I definitely see how that is. And I remember this from a blog our founder wrote years ago that pornography is just. It was at the height of the Harvey Weinstein and the MeToo stuff that we're just recreating more and more of that. We're creating more and more of men who take, take, take, take, take advantage of people, push themselves onto others because of pornography, because of what it's doing to our culture. And it's interesting, I hadn't thought of it that way, that also when young girls are seeing this, they're also saying, oh, this is what must be normal. Therefore, I need to sort of, you know, allow myself to partake in that.

Yeah. Well, it makes me think of what pastor Andy Stanley says, that in our culture, we bait men right up to the line and then we beat them for stepping over it. So we through, you know, James Bond movies and pornography and a world that teaches men, get the girl, have all the sex, be the champion. You know, it's all about your pleasure. I mean, that's the world of pornography. And then when a man actually acts that way, we're like, shame on you. You're toxic. You're what's wrong with our culture. And I think what I hear you saying, Nancy, is that we have to take a hard look at our culture and say, we. Are we creating some of these patterns of toxic masculinity by what we allow, by what's shaping our media and this underworld of pornography, that until we take a serious stand against it, we're going to continue to get the product of it that we're getting. That's not in any way to excuse men that behave badly or say, oh, you're not responsible for your poor choice. They totally are. But I think it's just taking a hard look at why are we creating this kind of man often in our culture? Well, they're. They're being trained that way.

Yes. And since I deal with nominal men, I acknowledge the existence of nominal men, and they. And they are actually worse than secular men. I do have to deal some with domestic abuse and violence, which often doesn't involve porn. You Know, a lot of. A lot of cases, the man involved is doing porn. And so I have a couple of chapters at the end of the book on abusive marriages, too, and how we can hold men accountable when they are actually sinning, when they're sinning, like doing porn, adultery, disrespectful and abusive behavior to the wives as well. And unfortunately, until recently, books on marriage often tended to hold the wife responsible, like, it's your job to satisfy him, to make him happy, to have sex whenever he wants to, wants you to, to cook his favorite foods, to be submissive, to die to yourself, et cetera, et cetera. And I have lots of stories from women who say this is the advice they got. Well, it doesn't work. And we know that doesn't work because on the, you know, a playground bully, you don't. He doesn't change if you're kind to him, if you forgive him, if you acquiesce to him. We know it in international affairs, if there's a belligerent nation. We learned this in World War II. If there's a belligerent nation, you don't placate and appease them. It doesn't work. And so, fortunately, more and more books are now coming out saying, actually, the way to handle this is Matthew 18. Matthew 18 is the passage on how to deal with sin in the body of Christ. Oddly enough, it's not usually applied to marriage, but it should be. So Matthew 18. For people who haven't memorized it, this is that chapter, the verse that says, if somebody sins against you, you confront them, you talk to them, and if they don't listen to you, bring a few more witnesses. And if they don't listen to them, then bring it before the church. So some form of confrontation and saying, no, this is not acceptable is the first way. Is the way that we need to deal with abusive marriage that are. That are. That often do involve sexual sin as well. And like I say, I. If you want some good books on the subject, go to my footnotes, go to my endnotes, because it's very recent. I mean, I. My whole life growing up, I always heard the other message, you know, it's a woman's job. If he's doing porn, it's your fault, you know, you're not cooking good at home.

He won't go out to eat. That kind of metaphor.

Exactly. And fortunately, Christian counselors are now starting to say, no, it's the man. If a man is sinning or a woman. But like you said, statistically, it's more often the man. If a man is sinning, you deal with the sins. And husband and wife are first of all brother and sister in the Lord and they need to hold each other accountable, just like they would with any fellow Christian. The more specialized relationship of marriage doesn't destroy or contradict that. You know, it should be on top of that, you still are brother and sister in the Lord and have the same accountability to each other.

Yeah. So let's look at the church a little bit. How do we get masculinity wrong in the church? And then how, I mean, and I would, this, I would love to hear your definition. What, what is your definition of biblical masculinity? So two parter. So how does the church get it wrong? And then what is the true definition of biblical masculinity?

You know, let me give you another study. I'm going to pull it out because I want to, I want to be able to share this with you.

Yeah.

As you probably noticed in reading my book, I do quote a lot of people who are not themselves Christian. And I think this is really cool that even Christians, even non Christians recognize the impact of Christianity on masculinity. So this was a historian who said your view of masculinity derives from your view of God. And so he goes to the polytheistic religions first. Right. The ancient Greek gods and Mount Olympus or the Norse gods. And he says, I have to read it to you because again, I want you to know this is not. These are not my words. In polytheism, the gods drank, they winched, they fought, they trumpeted their power. The gods called for war and demanded military valor. So polytheism tends to lead to an exaltation of the heroic virtues. To be a man is to be a warrior. And there's some truth to that, but it's incomplete. So then the historian says, what about monotheistic religions that believe in only one God? Well, there's some monotheisms that treat God as a transcendent, you know, absolute disconnected God who has no relationship to humans. And he said Islam is the main example of that. And I did actually find an Islamic writer who said Allah would not condescend to have a personal relationship with mere mortals. That the Judeo Christian idea that God can have a relationship with us is deeply repugnant to Islam. So this version of monotheism leads to the emphasis on power and authority. To be a man is to have power, to exercise authority. And then he said, again, we're going with this non Christian historian. Judaism is monotheistic. But it adds a different dimension. It says, God is not only creator, but he's also father. He's in covenant relationship with his people. So in Jeremiah, for example, God says, I will give them a heart to know me. And so in Judaism, a man, to be a man is to be a loving father. So that's the notion of masculinity. When Christianity rises from within Judaism, this historian says it complicated everything because Jesus introduced a completely new concept, servant leadership. You know, I did not come to be served, but to serve, as Jesus puts it. And this historian says this was totally new. For the first time, some traits that had been thought to be more feminine, like love and gentleness and mercy, were masculine virtues. They were not just feminine virtues. They were masculine virtues. And here's how he puts it. The historian says Christianity praised men, in fact, who had many of the virtues more commonly assigned to women. So Christianity actually completes and fulfills all earlier notions of what it means to be a man. Men who know that they're made in God's image can be whole persons, right? They can be tough and tender, they can be caring and courageous. And so you say, where does the church get it wrong when it takes only part of that either way, one end of the spectrum or the other. And so calling men back to the full image of God and helping them to be whole persons, I think it's so cool that even a non Christian can see this, that Christianity is unique in its understanding of masculinity.

Yeah, I love that. And we get a question often, like, from men in groups or that are coming to us for help. This idea of what does it mean for, you know, we've been taught that a man should be a leader in his home, he should lead his family spiritually. Like, what does that mean? And I think maybe we have this idea of it's just leading devotions every morning. And if that's what it is, I've failed miserably in that regard. But I think we've really gravitated towards the idea that to be a biblical man in your family is to go first. And that means go first to love, to go first in attending church, to go first in acknowledging that I've done wrong. Would you forgive me? It's to go first in offering forgiveness. It's leading the way. As I take seriously my devotion to Christ, I'm leading my family by taking those steps. And that can be in ways that might feel strong and courageous, you know, like going first to work and earn an income, but it can also Be in ways that are very soft and tender, like going first to offer an apology. And if we have that mindset, I think then we enter into the full scope that it's not just power or a lack of power. It's actually that idea of I'm following Christ and going first and leading my family in a way of life.

Yeah, I love that. And that's what I say in the book as well. So I'll expand a little. I think we can bring it back to Genesis when the text says a man will leave his mother and father and cleave to his wife, who's supposed to take the initiative, who's supposed to leave his childhood home and take the initiative to find a wife and start a new home, start a new family. I think it speaks to the fact of going first. And by the way, this is very radical in patriarchal cultures, because in patriarchal cultures, the woman leaves her family and joins the husband's family. So this is very countercultural even today in patriarchal cultures. And also it's embedded in the term authority, because I would say most people have a fairly negative view of authority today. But authority comes from the core. The root word is author, author, authority, author. I'm an author. An author writes books. An author is the one who instigates, who starts, who creates, who does something and feeds into what you're saying there. It's the person who goes first who decides this is a good thing to do. I think even the notion of authority needs to be redefined as the one who goes first, who initiates the action. And so I agree with you that we should also think of it. Maybe we don't always think of it in terms of what you call the tender ones. But yeah, if somebody needs to apologize because there was a blow up and you said something that you didn't mean to say. Going first means the first to apologize, or if there's a tough job, you know, if you have to discipline a child, who's, who's, who's been misbehaving, you know, who goes first? The, the father goes first. You know, he steps in and does and, and handles the job. I have a whole chapter on how evangelical men define headship and submission. Because in the book I, I wanted to not just say, you know, theoretically, most books are kind of theoretical, right Here, let's do a word study in the Bible. I wanted to see what does it actually look like? What does it look like when evangelical couples try to live out headship and submission. And I have to tell You. I was blown away. I was blown away. I had no idea that evangelicals would test out so positively, that evangelicals would test out so positively on how they treat their children and their wives and children, how they define headship. In these studies, the men invariably would just quote Ephesians 5. The husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the church. That was the verse that was quoted most frequently. And when you got down to, well, what does it really mean then, you know, to be the boss, they would say, no, that's. That's not what it means. You know, if you and your wife are both being led by the Holy Spirit, you probably will mostly agree. And if you don't, you should take the time to get on the same page. As one pastor put it, who I quoted in the book, he said, if you're going to have to pull rank like I'm the boss, your marriage is already in trouble.

Yeah, totally.

You better go back and find out what went wrong. So I was really stunned. I hope that readers get this impact from reading the book, that this is not just theoretical speculation on what scripture means. This is how actual Christians live it out. And they're living it out in a way that is dramatically different from the rest of the culture and much, much more loving and committed than even I realized when I started this research.

Yeah, well, if that's not a reason to go out and get a copy of this, I don't know what else would be. And I think for a lot of us, we have lacked in practical understanding of what does that look like in the home. And so I love that you're unpacking it, and I love that you're saying a lot of this is based out of this societal research that's being done. This isn't just my ideas. It's like this is what we're seeing, actually creates health in the home for good relationships and really can help us redefine healthy masculinity and the value that it can bring to strengthen a culture. And so in that regard, Nancy, I think all of us are aware of toxic masculinity, of ways that men have become domineering or are behaving in ways that are just not appropriate, what would you suggest? If we experience someone that is displaying toxic masculinity, and how could we call that out or approach that in a beneficial, maybe redemptive way? And maybe it's what you've already said about Matthew 18, which I think is critical, but what else might you add to what role can we play if we, if we want to address forms of toxic masculinity around us.

Well, I like where you started when you emphasized that this is based on actual research. And I wanted to add a little bit to that because this is research nobody knows about.

True, you know, very true.

I began digging into academic literature, the sociological, the psychological literature, and finding this material, I thought, this isn't out in the public yet. This isn't out in the churches. This isn't out in the, you know, in the public realm. I need to write a book. This was the main reason I wanted to write the book, is I thought the academics know this, you know, the professional researchers know this, but we don't. The church doesn't know this. And so a lot of what I write in the book is not well known at all. And so, yes, I, I definitely want to get that out there to encourage Christian men that they are doing a good job, they're doing very well. And you're right. What about somebody who is being toxic? Yeah. You know, I think the change started with the Boundaries books. Do you remember the book Boundaries? Major, major, major bestseller. Here's my theory on why it became such a bestseller. Because most pastors are men, and so their advice from the pulpit was often from a male perspective. And men are affirmed in being strong, leader, more assertive, and so on. And what was happening to the gentle people, the gentle people who didn't know how to say no. That's what that book is written to. It was the first book ever written to the gentle people who, because they were soft, compliant people, pleasing, they tend to get run over. People tend to walk all over them, and they had to learn how to stand up and say no. And I think that's why it became a mega, mega bestseller, because it was the first book that acknowledged these people exist and they need to be helped. And now there have been several more. Gary Thomas, when to Walk Away, for example, if you know that book, when to Walk Away, there's a time to walk away. The other person's fairly toxic. You don't have to put up with it. Or Jen Sylvius in her book Foolproofing your Life, where she deals with the foolproofing, the fool, foolproofing, and she uses the Proverbs definition of the fool to refer to many of the things that we talk about in modern lingo as the narcissist entitled domineering, and so on. So there has been a shift now in saying no. Actually, if you're dealing with a person whose behavior is problematic, then you do have a right to stand up to them. You do have a right to healthy anger. Healthy anger is defending your boundaries. And so for a long time, people have taught, I think of the church and the church people have taught, you know, anger is bad. You shouldn't do that. You should immediately, you should immediately forgive and so on. And, and relationships are not solved that way. So in a nutshell, it is back to Matthew 18, but that sort of spells out in a little more detail, yes, you have you not just for yourself, but for a healthy relationship, you need to stand up for yourself. You know, in my book, I was afraid of being called a feminist. You know, that's my biggest fear is that people say, oh, you know, in fact, in fact, this is the most controversial book I've written, which surprised me because I thought the book you interviewed me on before, Love Thy Body, would be more controversial since it deals with issues like abortion, homosexuality, transgenderism, which is the big issue today. But in fact, this book proved to be more controversial. And I, I did classes on it, I did reading groups on it, and they would talk to their friends and family. And invariably the first Christian, the first question would be, whose side is she on? Yeah, you know, and that tone too. Whose side is she on? You know, is she some male bashing feminist or is she some angry reactionary? And so, so what I had to do is kind of overcome that initial, that initial barrier. In my first chapter, I kind of had to say, okay, okay, guys, you know, we're Christians, right? In the world, but not of it. Can we rise above this polarization and just ask, what is the biblical view? And so all that to say, I was able to help people just say, let's go to the Bible and see what it recognized commands and like, again, really unpack Matthew 18. You, you, you'll be amazed at how many people, I thought people knew what Matthew 18 was. I say, yeah, well, we should just follow the Matthew 18 principle. And they'd say, and what's that?

Yeah, right. What?

Yeah, totally.

So maybe just more training. Yeah, yeah, on, on how to deal with the Matthew 18 principle.

Yeah, definitely. Excuse me. I also feel like it's, I mean, I'm just thinking personally, if someone came up to me and said, hey, you're being toxic, I don't know if I'd respond super well in the moment. You know, like, I think that there are more creative ways that we could call it out or really identify it, but just know that the way that we also bring it up is gonna, you know, it's gonna elicit a certain type of response.

Yeah, definitely.

I said, there's a really good book on that, A really good book on that. And it's titled When Good Men Behave Badly. And it's by a psychologist. He's not a Christian, but he's trying to get that balance between, you know, sometimes it's a good man, but he is behaving badly. And he says, what's the best way to deal with them? It's not first to dress the behaving badly. Like you said, don't just come up and say you're toxic. Address the good man. Address the part of him that does want to do what's right, that does love his wife and children, is not meaning to be toxic in the home. Make an alliance with the good man and then enlist his help in addressing the bad man. The bad behavior part.

Yeah, yeah.

I was going to say, I like what you said, Nancy, about training, teaching, helping someone understand, well, what is Matthew 18 and if there's sin, how do we lovingly but appropriately confront and call someone two wards, repentance and living a more God honoring life. And I think in a lot of maybe our Christian environments, we just assume, well, that people know what a good man is. People know what a husband ought to do or how a dad ought to act. And often we've not really been trained in some of these ways. And so I think for churches, for families to lift up a model of this is what healthy biblical manhood, God honoring manhood, Christ following manhood looks like. It really presents a very different picture than what people are seeing in the culture. It's kind of the counter to people that grow up just watching James Bond films, think, oh, that's what a man is. I think we need to create in Christ and through the pages of Scripture, a vision of manhood that captures us. And not because he's off saving the world as an international spy, but because there's beauty and power to the life lived. Well, it's like, man. I want that. And the more we could inspire, I think, that vision for particularly our young men and women to understand. There's a view of our humanity that that far supersedes kind of the cheap version we're given by Hollywood. Let's make this new ideal something we all aspire to. I think that's part of the answer, that if we wait until someone's displaying toxic masculinity, in some ways that's probably already too late. And I'm not saying we should just excuse and ignore it. But as we see it, if we're only waiting for the reaction to the negative versus training people towards the positive, we're often fighting kind of a losing battle at that point.

Let's lean into that, Nancy, because, you know, overcoming it, this toxic masculinity and leaning more into the biblical masculinity is something you talk about in the book. And there's one thing specific I thought was really awesome that stood out, and it was what you call emotion work. And I wanted to know, how do you define that? What is emotion work, and how does it help us in this transition from toxic to biblical masculinity?

Yeah, this emotion work, or sometimes emotional work, is a word that's used by psychologists basically to describe anything you do to build up a relationship, to be sensitive to the other person, to be aware of their preferences, to be kind and loving and forgiving, to honor their experience and so on. And the reason it's so important today is because we used to work and live in the same place. In other words, before the Industrial Revolution, men worked alongside their wives and children all day on the family farm, the family industry, the family business, whatever. And so men had to be gentle and patient because they're working with their wives and children and the ethos. The cultural expectation at that time was much more geared toward caretaking, towards being not looking at your own interest. In fact, that was the definition of authority back then, by the way, the definition of authority in the colonial era was that you do not look out for your interests, you look out for the good of the whole. Wow. Because, you know, I naturally look out for what's good for me. You look out for what's good for you. But who looks out for the good of the whole, Whether it's the marriage or the family, the school, the church, or whatever a position of authority was, that person was called to be disinterested. That was the favorite word at the time, disinterested, which meant you don't look out for your interest. No, you're an authority. That means you are looking out for the interest of the whole.

Yeah.

And so they were very strong. Isn't that wonderful? I mean, who would object, who would object to that notion of authority even today? And so the question is, how did we lose that? We lost it largely with the. With the Industrial Revolution, because it took work out of the home. So it broke up the family industries. Men had to follow their work out of the home. And for the first time in American history, they were not working alongside people they loved and had A moral bond with their family members. Instead, they were working as individuals in competition with other men. And for the first time, you begin to see negative language develop, by the way, that men are becoming competitive and egocentric and looking out for number one and looking out for their own self interest and losing that sort of fathering that they'd had in the, in the colonial era. But, and it also had the impact that, you know, coming back to your question, it also had the impacts that the family no longer had any other bond except emotional. I mean, if you were economically interdependent, it was really easy to sense that you were also emotionally interdependent because you could not survive on your own. And so when, when there were family industries, when you homeschooled your kids, because, you know, a lot of schools took, a lot of schooling took place in the home. We see in women's diaries of the day, you know, what did I do today? I did school. It's very common. And, and they, of course, they were creating everything from. Everything from scratch. Not just their clothes, but the cloth itself, the buttons. They were making bread and churning butter. At any rate, it was very easy for people to sense that they had very dense, very thick relational ties. Well, now we no longer do any of that. We don't work at home and we don't school at home. And for the most part, we don't take care of the sick and the old in the home anymore. And so the only. We don't even have entertainment at home anymore. Everyone's on their own TV or cell phone.

Yeah.

So what is it that holds the family together? Really? Just emotion, emotional connection. And that's why psychologists have come to use this term emotional work. Our families are not going to hold together anymore unless we are intentionally pursuing emotional work.

Yeah, absolutely.

A lot of people haven't quite caught up with this change, and especially men, because there are a lot of men who still think, hey, I was the breadwinner. You know, if I'm the breadwinner, I've done my part. And they sometimes come home and feel like, oh, my leisure time is my own instead of coming home to a second, you know, second shift. As a fully engaged father and husband, they tend to think, well, no, I can veg out, play video games. And so that's why it's important for churches, I think, to talk about emotional work is the only thing that's really holding families together. So if we are not training people in how to build relationships, both in the marriage and the father child relationships, as I Put it in my book. Breadwinning is not enough. Families do not live on bread alone.

That's good.

Yeah, I love that. As you're sharing about that, what came to me is just how Christ is such a picture of that emotional connection and for himself, an awareness of where his identity as a man came from, that in the points in the story where he is the most surrounded by crowds, popularity, a teacher, there was a lot of power behind the following. He was getting, that he could have leveraged towards power and control and authority. And yet it's in the midst of many of those scenes that we see children coming to him. Him or the woman who is, you know, bleeding and touches him, or the soldier who approaches him. That in that context, in many ways would have been like his enemy. And not only did he pause for them, he took time for them. He responded to them in a way that was loving and kind and affirming their. Their humanity. And so he didn't kind of have this public power Persona that then he had to figure out how to disengage from. To then talk to a kid is like, no, this is just all part of what the father's called me to do. I can preach to the crowd and a moment later I can be taking a child on my lap and in a very tender, loving way care for this child. And that. That was all a part of his being a man, that he navigated both of those worlds comfortably and wasn't maybe stuck, in a sense, in one or the other. And I just think that speaks to a lot to what we need to rebuild into men today.

There's a whole book on how Christianity gave rise to our modern notion of the child, focusing on just that one point you made about, you know, taking the child on his lap. In Roman culture, in the surrounding Roman culture, children were devalued. They were. They were seen as having very little value. They were not seen as persons. They were non persons. It was very common to beat them. Well, common to kill them. I mean, infanticide was very common as well, leaving kids out to die, you know, exposed to the wild animals and so on. Fathers were legally permitted to kill their kids for any reason or no reason. No, it's none of the state's business what, what a man did with his kids.

And.

And it even led to a low view of women because they acknowledged that women tended to have a greater emotional attachment to children. Well, if children were devalued, then women were devalued for caring about them. And so this is the context in which Jesus says, let the children come to me. He was shattering those stereotypes of the Roman culture and saying, no, children are made in God's image. Children are made in God's image and have great value and worth. And so do the women, by the way, who, who take so much time of their life bearing children and caring for them. So there is an entire book written by, I think he was a historian on how Christianity is what gave rise to the high view of children, starting with that paradynamic theme that you just mentioned where Jesus says children have value.

Yeah, well, may we be a part as Christ followers, of helping the world capture a new definition of manhood and rediscover the value of manhood lived out well. And I, I again think our listeners have probably had multiple reasons to grab a copy of this book to check out what Nancy has to say. We love having conversations with you, Nancy. I hope we don't have to wait until you write another book, although I'm sure you're going to. But I hope we don't have to wait until then to get you on the podcast again. But for today, would love to just hear what final encouragement would you like to give to our listeners on how they could address this topic of toxic masculinity and create a culture of biblical masculinity around that them.

You know, I'd like to spin off from the last thing we mentioned about fathers and children, because I have a lot of research in this book that is just not widely known. And one of them is, we all know that children need their fathers. We don't realize how much men benefit from becoming fathers. There's a whole slew of new research on how men feel that, that when they have children, it's a great validation of their masculinity, that it totally changed their lives. I have lots of cool anecdotes as well as the studies of men saying, I had no idea. And one of them was my own student. I'll tell you his because that's most familiar to me. So his, he's one of my students and his girlfriend is pregnant. She's 17 and he's at school. He's not involved with her pregnancy at all. Like, no, I'm having fun at school. I'm not going to get involved with her. And then he went to the hospital. He did decide to go to the hospital and attend the birth. And he said, my whole world turned upside down. I fell in love with my son. My whole value system changed. It was astonishing. And then I found studies Showing that, in fact, men also have a biochemical response to becoming parents. We already knew that women had oxytocin and all that that helps them to bond with their baby, helps them to be better mothers. It turns out the men have oxytocin as well. And so they are biochemically bonding with that child just as much as mothers are. But they have to be holding. They have to be holding and touching the child. It's a tactical thing. And there was even a study by an anthropologist who found that during the wife's pregnancy, the man's oxytocin is rising. Apparently, people never thought to check a man's blood during his wife's pregnancy. But when they did, they found out if the husband and wife are living together, his oxytocin is going up through the whole pregnancy. So he is being biochemically primed to be an engaged, involved father all the way through the pregnancy. So I thought that was a really great way to encourage men that they benefit from being engaged husbands and fathers, too. That they actually. It's not just, you know, to give another anecdote for my students. One of my students is a leader of the women's group at a large Baptist church here in Houston. And she said, on Mother's Day, we tell the mothers they're doing great and we hand out roses. On Father's Day, we scold the men and tell them to do better.

Right.

That doesn't work. So what I did in my book is I said, look at these great studies showing that you benefit. Let's say I'm happy. Happy to appeal to people's self interest when it does them good. So these studies are showing that men benefit greatly and they have a greatly enhanced sense of masculinity, even when they are deeply involved in their relationships with their wives and children. Yeah.

And I mean, that's what I love, is that's something that we didn't know before, that we do now, that just reinforces God's design for marriage. That's why having sex inside of marriage and having children as a married couple is so beneficial, is things like that wouldn't happen otherwise.

And we learn to care about others beyond ourselves.

Totally.

I think that's a huge part of biblical masculinity in a nutshell. And I feel like it's more than just me.

Totally. And I think that that, Nancy, is one of the biggest takeaways for us today, just from our conversation. Is that the way to move toward biblical, away from toxic and more towards. Toward biblical masculinity? Is to increase in our care for other people. I love what you said about authority, that we're looking not just to our.

Own whole new view of authority. That's awesome.

We're probably going to come back to you on that one actually and have you on again. But either way, we will absolutely put the book in the show notes where Nancy, can people get the toxic war on masculinity?

Yes. So buy it wherever you Prefer. Amazon or cushionbook.com or go to my website. The publisher has created a brand new colorful website, so it's a lot of fun. I know, it's cool.

Yeah.

So go to my website, nancypiercy.com okay. And you can read up on this book, read the endorsements, and also peruse my other books if you're interested.

Yeah, absolutely. And we'll put a couple of those in the show notes as well. Nancy, thank you so much for writing the book, for doing all the research, and again for being with us and talking us through it. We really appreciate it.

Thanks for having me. I always enjoy talking with you guys.

And wherever you're at on your journey, Pure Desire is here to help you take back your life from the want of sexual behavior and betrayal trauma. If you or someone you know needs recovery and healing, go to PureDesire.org and begin the journey today. If you like this episode or a fan of the podcast, please share it with others and make sure to check out the full episode on YouTube as well. And lastly, never stop being healthy.

Sam.