I'm Glenn from Speak Life. We like to see all things through the lens of Jesus. I'm joined on the line from Edinburgh by Joe Barnard. He is a church leader originally from the US and the author of a new book called The Road Back to God. Thank you so much for joining us, Joe. It's great to be with you. Back in April of 2025, the Bible Society released a report that was conducted by UGov. They had asked a bunch of people way back in 2018 the same questions as they asked in 2024. They asked 19,000 people questions about well-being, uh meaning in life, as well as church attendance, and they asked those same questions in 2024 to about 13,000 people online. And one of the most remarkable statistics was that in terms of self-reported monthly church going, among 18 to 24-year-old men, that has gone up from 4% in 2018 to 21% in 2024. A remarkable, truly unbelievable statistic, really. Did it shock you when that statistic came out? I think to see the figures was really interesting.
SPEAKER_01Um, because I can remember uh a couple of years ago uh when I was writing this book, you know, there's an intuition, there was a sense that just from anecdotally, from my own experience, that there was this rise and increase of interest among men, but there still wasn't much written about it. Um and so I think you know the figures coming out, they're indicative of what a lot of people have been noting and seeing in their own churches, that all of a sudden the the the least interested, the young guy, is actually showing up with a sort of pre-evangelized or at least a pre-interest already latent within him. So surprising, yes, but at the same time, the trend has been evident for a while.
SPEAKER_00I'm not sure we're quite seeing 21% of young men in in churches. I'm not I'm not sure we're quite seeing that the self-report actually trickles through into actual church attendance at at that very same level. But I'm very interested that there is a social permission now to say you go to church that simply wasn't there in 2018. Whatever else you say about that report, they ask the same question of people in 2018 and 2024. And even if those people aren't showing up in church, and I think many of them are, but not all of them, nevertheless, there seems to be more of a social permission to say, I'm exploring my faith, I'm purchasing a Bible online, I'm gonna try out church. Are you seeing that there's a there's a sort of a vibe shift that's spiritually speaking?
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. Uh, I think in my own experience, not long ago, uh I was sitting at one of my sons playing basketball. It's before the game. Um, his coach is walking by, I'm reading a book, and he stops and says, What are you reading? And I have this moment thinking, oh, I'm a pastor. He's about to see the title as Image of God. That's going to be a conversation stopper. As soon as he sees a Christian book, it's the opposite. Right. His eyes light up. He's super interested. He's telling me he's been reading this religious book and he wants to have a further conversation. That's happened multiple times. The people who you would think there's going to be no interest, you find out actually they're already listening to stuff on YouTube or elsewhere. And so I think, again, this is something that a lot of stories are beginning to come in, that there really is this vibe shift that's happening.
SPEAKER_00You mentioned that uh people are being pre-evangelized. Uh tell me, what are some of the sources of this pre-evangelism?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, by pre-evangelism, I'm thinking broadly. I'm thinking about uh men in particular going from being unthinking to becoming people with questions. That can begin with someone like a Jordan Peterson, where for the first time, whether it's psychology, whether it's philosophy, you're opening yourself up to questions, you're opening yourself up to history. That's a different space for a lot of men to inhabit. And so I think a lot of guys are coming in with this sense that there's something to be recovered. Um, there is something transcendent. Um, I want to figure out who I am and you know what uh what has purpose in this world. All of that's wonderful in terms of then being able to layer on it the gospel. And so rather than this sort of um, you think the stereotypical unthinking man of 10, 15 years ago, again, guys are listening to a podcast where all of a sudden a Tom Holland's talking positively about Christianity, that's a great spot to then pick up the conversation about Christianity.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So culturally, there are messages that are filtering through that um might not be confessionally Christian, but are at least Christian curious or Christian friendly. Um, what else is going on culturally that make makes people more willing to hear something substantial? You know, it it seems to me that it's not just the solid rock of the church that people are craving, it it is the sinking sand underneath that we are noticing. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01I mean, it's the sort of Douglas Murray afterglow of Christendom type thing where what we took for granted for so long, uh, that the world was stable, that we sort of reached a certain plateau of morality where that's anchored, that's real, that's not going anywhere. We respect one another, human there's dignity to human life. We've realized all of this stuff really can evaporate, and we've been watching it disappear. And I think for some that's a really frightening prospect. And so it feels a little bit right now like the world is untethered. Um, with all of the technological innovation, we're not quite sure where we're going. We need some sort of moral grounding, and uh, we're not quite sure where to find that. And so I think there is this sense of even fearfulness about what might happen that's causing people to turn their face away from the future, which used to be the play that the you know, the perspective of progress and innovation and the world's gonna get better. Now we've got to find another direction. So people are looking backward, and you begin to look backward and you begin to see things like Christendom, you begin to hear things like the gospel, ultimately you see the cross, all of these type things. And um, that begins to create the opportunity to recover Christianity.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so your book is called The Road Back to God, and and and perhaps somebody might say, Well, this is a very regressive move, Joe, um, where you're you're no longer facing forwards. I thought the Jesus Revolution was meant to sort of reach the the furthest ends of the earth and and be a forward-looking kind of dynamic. You're wanting to get us back. Are you wanting to get us back to the 1950s? Are you wanting to get us back to pre-Enlightenment times, to 1517, to the Middle Ages, to the early church, to where? Where are we looking back to?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think um, again, as people are moving into this space that feels very foreign and potentially dangerous um as we move forward in the world. I think there's just this sense, maybe it's not always back, maybe it's underneath, we could change the metaphor, to where there's been something underneath the floorboards of society and culture that again we took for granted. And you begin to unearth it, what used to hold the world together, the part that's worth conserving. Not all of it's worth conserving, some of it is worth conserving. And very quickly you find things like, oh, the Sermon on the Mount. Um, you find things again, like the kind of self-giving love exhibited at the cross. Um, and all of that stuff that was underneath, um, all of a sudden, that's what I think um we're trying to uncover. What was it? Not that everything was good about the past. There are some things, though, that we can say that actually Christianity really did benefit the world. This is where the work of Tom Holland and others has been so useful. And I think that's what we're trying to enable guys to see the value of.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'm I I'm doing a conference in November with Justin Briley, who is the author of the book The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God. And his whole metaphor is that tides go out, uh, but tides also come back in again. And uh and and Justin is is from a more sort of revivalist part of the church, um, and is is probably more prone to um saying this is definitely a a turning of the tide. Um I'm more of a you know sour, pragmatic kind of conservative evangelical who kind of says, uh, I think the tide is out. I'm not sure if right now is when the tide is going to come back in. I'm not I'm not certain that whatever trickle we're seeing is going to become a flood necessarily, but I am noticing that low tide helps you to see things that you could not see at high tide. Um when the sea of faith is out, you notice, as you say, what is underneath all things, and and without Christianization and without some Christian presuppositions, I think you do have a kind of a Nietzschean will to power. I I think it's a very brutal world, um a world that forgets the cross of Jesus Christ. So I I think the the the opportunity at low tide is that people have seen the shaping influence of what the Sea of Faith has done over the last twenty centuries. They see kind of what is underneath, and they kind of have the opportunity to consciously embrace the Christian way rather than just bobbing along because the tide is high. Uh, what would you say are some of the advantages, actually, of there being a a kind of a low tide of the Sea of Faith?
SPEAKER_01The distinctiveness of the gospel really does shine forth. Right. Um again, the the fact that we really value the dignity of life and have a basis for such dignity, that we can talk about things that like natural rights or human rights or natural laws or all the rest. We have a we have the potential to have a framework of moral belief. Um that we can speak positively about ways that the world has been bettered through the church, through the gospel. Um, you know, there's an alternative narrative to something about the abolition of slavery, something like this. There's ways of telling the story of history that are slightly different than what people have heard that actually all of a sudden indicate that this man, Jesus, that we thought was, you know, maybe just an ethicist, know that actually his life has changed the trajectory of the world. And uh that we can turn away from that message. And when we do it again, we start to see this tide go out that we thought would stay in. Equally, though, when we rediscover his message, we can find that actually the world can begin to be transformed again and lives can be transformed. And so just the startling uh uniqueness of the person of Christ, his message, his work, the way it's already transformed the world, the way he can transform it again, all of this, I think, in this moment stands out in stark relief to the world that we're beginning to see around us.
SPEAKER_00Right. Yeah, I I often think about the uh the the timing of Dominion coming out in 2019. Um I mean, Fukuyama's book back in 1999, 20 years earlier, was about the end of history and sort of liberal democracy is going to take over the world, and uh it's only progress from here on in, it's just the world will catch up with these obvious, natural, universal, secular values um that are totally self-evident and it's going to be a liberal utopia forever. Um, 20 years after that thesis, um, I think that's when Dominion can actually take hold in people's moral imaginations. I I think if Dominion came out in 1999, people would be like, no, it's not Christianity, it's just it's just the obvious ebb and flow of Western culture. Um after the low tide of of the last of this century, really, I think that's that's when the message of the distinctiveness of of the way of Jesus re really hits home. I tell me tell me more about um the masculine side of things. So it's not just about the road back to God, it's it's sort of the road back to God for men. Are men in particular finding that low tide is uh unmanageable?
SPEAKER_01I think men are in general confused. Um they're in many cases they're angry, and I'm not endorsing any of these emotions. But if you look at someone like Richard Reeves and the way that all of his sociological data about how the world is shifting, and in a in a real sense, it's becoming a woman's world in the sense they're outpacing men at university in terms of getting postgraduate degrees, in terms of getting advancement. The world is changing from men in the world and to find their place, they're not sure where that is. A lot of them, they've watched the sort of radical progressivism, they don't like that trajectory, so they've become sort of conservatist. All of this can be really dangerous and toxic, but it leaves them in this spot of, again, being confused, disoriented, looking for some voice. And add on top of that, many of them have not had good role models. We've had broken families, they've not had a father. And so the whole notion of masculinity is undefined by our society. And if it is defined, again, often it's been described as something that's just toxic. And so you have these guys, they don't know their place, they don't understand the world, they're a little bit angry about the way things are going. But all of this does open you up to listen and to ask questions and to have conversations. And so this is where I think it's so important that the church get on the front foot rather than the back foot in terms of evangelizing men. I mean, even where guys are drifting into churches, what we're seeing is they're often then drifting out of churches relatively frequently, relatively quickly. And we don't engage them fast enough. And so to realize these are guys willing to have a conversation, we've got to engage them, we've got to pick up the questions they're asking, leverage those for the gospel. If we think of it in that sense, I'm with you. I think I'm a bit pessimistic. I'm not sure this is the kind of revival that some people are speaking of it as being, but it is an opportune moment where we can have conversations that five years ago even weren't available to us.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's interesting. The um the image for the the conference that we're running with, the poster that we're running with that that our mutual friend James Aymer actually um did for us is a single person coming into the front door of church and the sort of the light behind him and he is uncertain because as soon as you pick an individual coming into church, you have to pick a gender. Okay, well, here is a young man stepping into church, uncertain, and really, you know, my I mean my heart is to know what to say to whoever might find themselves in that circumstance, woman or man. Um, but it does seem to be a moment at which, certainly in my church, the the newcomers who are younger, some of them are women, mostly it's skewing male. They've been pre-evangelized by a quite varied social media diet, and and some of them have never heard the name Tom Holland or Jordan Peterson. Um some of them uh you know they don't follow the same, you know, online influences as the guy next to them, who is also a newcomer, and so it's it's a very varied social media diet that is leading them there. A lot of them might have read um uh the Bible online, some of them have ordered Bibles online, maybe they've ordered a King James Bible online and they're starting in Genesis, and some of them are are buying suits in order to show up to church because they they feel like they're gonna take everything seriously, and church is a is a way of taking life seriously, and they're showing up. Um they don't really know anything about Jesus or the gospel. Help us, Joe. When such people show up in our churches, how do we help them?
SPEAKER_01A lot of these guys are they're interested in a moral framework. Um, they're interested in a rule of life. Um I think we've got a wonderful opportunity to engage them with good questions on those topics. Um, you take up the book of Proverbs, for example, and it's full of wisdom that begins to help you think about righteousness, unrighteousness, sin, holiness, these types of concepts. And I think to not be afraid to sort of begin there, the sort of uh starting place of your sort of Jordan Peterson. Now we're gonna have to get further than that. We're gonna have to deepen their understanding of sin. We're gonna have to get them to a point where they recognize their need for grace. But if you're just talking about a moral framework, when you begin to think in terms of the wisdom um uh concept of the scriptures, you know, we have a framework that makes sense of this world. And so I think this is where some of the philosophical questions are relevant. And um, to get guys thinking about what is real, what is evil, what is righteousness, um, what is our place in the world, ask big questions. Let those be the on-ramp into what eventually becomes a more gospel-focused conversation.
SPEAKER_00We'll we'll think about what our conversations are like. Um we'll think about what uh early evangelism and discipleship looks like. And I kind of say evangelism and discipleship because what I'm noticing in this moment is that the people who are showing up in church, it's all woven together. Um they they need to know Jesus, but they also need to know wisdom for life because things are not working, and that's that's why they've shown up in church. And there might be all sorts of very thorny pastoral issues to be dealing with alongside evangeliz evangelizing them. Let's just let's just start there. Have have you noticed that dynamic that um when people show up in church nowadays, it's it's not them asking what what must I do to be saved? Um what are the kinds of questions that they're they're asking and and how do we combine pastoral care and evangelism together?
SPEAKER_01Often they're asking, how do I get my life in order? Yeah. Um, you know, often there are guys, if they're men, for example, that they've maybe been trapped with some pornography. They've heard some stuff about, you know, how that can be detrimental. They're feeling a sense of shame and guilt. They're they're wanting to be a better man. Um, there's that interest. Like you said, they might have just bought a first suit to show up at church. They want some sort of order in their life, and they're trying to find it with whatever online influencer they're listening to. Um now, again, that's a far cry from the gospel, but that's a conversation where we can begin to talk about, you know, what human flourishing looks like. Um, what are the things that cause us to um experience spiritual misery? Um, I mean, if if we understand anything about sin, we know it's, you know, often the sinful passions that are so destructive and lead to such self-loathing. So, you know, we've got a wonderful framework to take the desire that men have to escape the stuff that they can feel is killing them, to find some path that leads to real authenticity and life and significance. We can we can start there and lead them on a path that you know takes them through Proverbs and that weaves them closer and closer toward understanding, you know, the gospel. I think that's those are questions that we're very well equipped in the Bible to be talking about.
SPEAKER_00So tell me specifically what you do then. So let's let's say somebody comes through the door and let's say they are they are wrestling with porn or something, and um, you say to them, what do you say, hey, are you free on Tuesday? We could go for a walk, we could go for a coffee, go to the pub, we can um, and at some point do you bring out the Bible and open up to Proverbs? Like, like what are you what are you practically doing? I think we start by asking good questions.
SPEAKER_01You know, I think uh three three big questions we can all start with is is one, you can ask somebody, you know, where are you going? Where are you going in life right now? Um, and you know, that's one level of thought. A second one, especially in a social media sort of environment, who are you following? Um the truth is, you know, we all have this sense we're listening into voices that are leading us. Who are those voices? But the third one, the question I like is, you know, what's the altar on which you're sacrificing your life? What do you think it's ultimately all about and for? Um, you know, that shifting from just sort of self-reflection, life management down to the level of sociological thinking, down to some philosophical thinking, and we're now going to be able to start to move toward religion itself, which is a step further. But if we ask better questions, we get deeper into people's thinking and we start to get to that layer where finally we can begin to think more about where we want to get to, which is the problem of sin and of holiness and the cross.
SPEAKER_00And what do people tend to answer to that third question? Have you noticed any common denominators when you ask them, you know, the uh what what what is the altar on which you're sacrificing things for? What do people tend to say?
SPEAKER_01Or even better, I like, is the altar worthy of the sacrifice? Um, I don't think, I don't think most people have gotten there, but that's the point. Right. It opens up a level of thinking that they need to be engaging. Because to ask that question, what is it ultimately all about? What is the thing that I'd lay down my life for? We're all gonna live for something, which means we're all gonna die for something. Do you have any awareness what that is? If you don't, again, you're just a member of the herd. You're just following whatever the altar society has given you is. And so if you begin to ask that big question, now we can start to go on a journey together and can begin to think about um how do you find truth? How do you uh think in terms of reality, those big, big questions that again, the Bible's full of answers for?
SPEAKER_00I love it. Well, and what sort of answers do you start to give? Obviously, the the intention of this is to draw them out and where they're coming from on these things. But but as you listen to them and share with them, how do you how do you answer those three questions for yourself? What what are what are the three again? Where were you, where are you going? Where are you going? Who are you? What are you following?
SPEAKER_01Is the altar worthy of the sacrifice? Okay. What are your answers to those questions? Well, I'll start with the third one. I think, you know, there's only one altar ultimately, which is when we read in Romans 12, 1 to present our bodies as a living sacrifice. Um, the amazing thing is in one sense, you know, we're just, you know, you look at our bodies, a material creature that's going to disappear in no time. In another sense, our lives have potential for eternal significance. It's when we recognize that we live, you know, for Christ, we live for God that suddenly the ordinary takes on eternal significance. And so I want my life to be laid down on that altar for God's glory. In terms of who I'm following, um, well, I mean, I hope as a Christian, I hope I hope I'm following Jesus and I hope I'm following uh people who have followed him well. And so I think for any set of men, one of the things I want to push them toward is um, again, who are those people talk about your five closest friends, you know, defining who you are. You know, who are the close people that are helping you to follow that path that you believe leads you toward genuine authenticity? Um, so you know, I've got my own answer for that, but you know, where am I going right now? Um, That's where I think each one of us, our life, it should be a vocation. You know, if you're a Christian, you've figured out a way to take the particularity of your life, connect it to that eternal significance, and to work out a life of uh a living sacrifice to God. So, you know, it's not an easy thing to put in a few sentences, but hopefully live in it for Jesus.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And so you're painting a picture of drawing alongside these men who are showing up. Um, what does that call for from us? Uh, we're all busy people, we're all distracted people. Um, how how do Christians need to rethink what evangelism and discipleship means when these opportunities are on offer?
SPEAKER_01I think a lot of Christians have uh been well equipped in recent years. You know, we've we've thought lots in the UK about um building relationship, um, asking good questions, uh, these type things. Um so, in one sense, I think people realize, you know, there's a there's a quantitative time as well as a qualitative time in all of this to be able to get to know people, um, to be able to have the kind of conversations that lead to um talking about Jesus. I just think we need to realize that multiple things are going to have to happen to say your typical young man to really awaken him. So we've talked about one thing, we've talked about asking good questions. That's not the only thing. If you look at these men coming into churches, um there's an interest, there's a curiosity, it's not yet an earnestness. So it's kind of religion on my terms, um, which isn't enough to really be a full engagement. And so I think one of the things that uh we also need to do, and this is slightly differently, is beside ask those questions, they need to be stung by the moral contours of reality. And that's where sin comes in. You know, sin isn't just a problem because it keeps me from being able to fulfill my life plan. Um, it's a bigger issue than that. And they can't understand that until we introduce something like holiness. And that's totally foreign. Nothing in the modern secular world has prepared us to think in terms of holiness. So that's a whole different challenge. How do we introduce this fundamental aspect of reality in a world that has whitewashed it, and guys have been through multiple years of education, but nothing has prepared them to think in terms of the living God. Right. That's a big question.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So how do we do that? How do we contextualize this idea of holiness for people who have no category?
SPEAKER_01I think this is where, you know, C.S. Lewis talks about his imagination being baptized by the literature George MacDonald. And I think there has to be that kind of baptism. Um, this is where certainly there's a lot in the scriptures, certainly preaching has its role, but also I think for modern people to engage with great Christian literature that gives them that backdrop of what it is to inhabit a world where God is real. Um, so I think I like guys reading Christian fiction. Um, I like a guy encountering C. S. Lewis's paralandrum. My goodness, what is this universe that I've just stepped into? The rich conversations you can have with something like that. Again, it's a slow road. It's not easy to get through something like that, but we have to realize that um it's not just a set of ideas we can drop into the mind.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Again, there's the imaginary, as Charles Taylor talks about it, that equally has to be sanctified. Wow.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So people are awakened more, and we we pray that they will be, awakened more to the reality of God, the holiness of God. They are stung by the reality of their own sin and the ways in which they fall short of that. Um what next?
SPEAKER_01You know, this is not new. So you can go to someone like Kierkegaard, he's going to talk about the phases of existence, the aesthetic, the ethical, the religious. And so what we're talking about is this kind of movement, someone beginning to be a thinker, um, someone beginning to realize that uh goodness and evil aren't just conceptual, that they that there's a real uh war within my own soul, that I've got an existential problem. Um, of course, all of this is preparing us to get closer to that one place where we find a way for sinners to be forgiven, which is the gospel. So we want to get there. It's just the long road to get there. And I think this is where something like sin, if we just pick up our Bibles and use the words God has given us, it provides a wonderful framework. So take your typical guy interested in an ethical framework, drop the word sin, pick up the old Hebrew word hetat, which a lot of Christians have heard. It means missing the mark. What does that tell us? There is a mark that actually in this world, there's a mark we're meant to hit as human beings. This is virtue ethics in some ways. Um, and as soon as you inhabit that, you begin to have a framework, okay, I've fallen off. I should have hit this mark, but that's not the only word the Bible gives us. You know, there's this word pesha, transgression, that we're meant to inhabit a certain area where we flourish, step outside that boundary, and we find that actually the world's a very dangerous place to be in. That that adds into our kind of understanding. And then you can add another one, Evon. You can take that Hebrew word, the way sin bends us out of shape. And so all of a sudden, rather than having dignity, we're turned in on ourselves and we feel shameful and self-loathing. Man, that's the world I inhabit. That's the world guys inhabit. And once you see the degree to which we're broken, the Bible has this diagnosis. We can call that sin. All of a sudden, that opens us up. Well, what do we do with that problem? And that's where psychology has no answer, philosophy has no answer. Great news is the gospel does have an answer.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. No, that's that's beautifully done. And and I I often think our our definitions of sin become so unidimensional that they become it becomes very easy for different people from different cultural backgrounds to kind of to slip off the hook. Um if if sin is only, let's say, like rebellion against a ruler, then every kind of Pharisee is kind of like off the hook for that. Uh if if it is only um transgression, then the the sort of person who would never say boo to a goose, you know, is is is not kind of is not convicted of sin, but we we need that multifaceted uh vision of sin so that it so well, so that it shows us our multifaceted need for the Savior Christ. In in what way do you think Christ strikes the meaning hungering man of the 21st century? Oh, I think there's there's different facets.
SPEAKER_01I think everything from the I think we we've underappreciated um the lordship of Christ, the majesty of Christ. And I think one thing that you're looking as guys, look for masculinity with all of its distortions. There is this desire to have someone that you can really look up to. And I mean, who is worth looking up to like Jesus? So I think in one sense, the the weight of his person, if you really present him in all of his dimensions, yes, the sort of compassion, but also the righteousness, um, you know, that that full picture is something so compelling. Um, I think the uh the the cross, as we do justice to the problem of sin, and I think often we've we've discarded that notion because we've not seen the degree to which it diagnoses accurately our condition. But as you truly come to see the manifold ways we're affected by evil personally and the predicament we're in, the thing is that then, like a like a you know, you think of the teeth of a key, the way it perfectly fits a lock, the cross, it fits every single aspect of our need that we experience through sin. And so if we can all empirically know that we've got this problem of moral evil within us, to finally see in the act of Jesus' self-giving, his sacrifice, something that meets every aspect, the uncleanness, the distortion, um, you know, the the reconciliation with God. I mean, there's nothing. There's nothing like the love of Christ. And so I think I think again, the presentation of the cross, the the majesty of Christ's person, this is stuff that can appeal to men in the 21st century.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And you are talking there. I mean, obviously, the the best way for Christ to be presented in such a way, I would think, would be on the Lord's Day among the Lord's people, um, where the word of the Lord is is heralded in in that way. Tell tell m maybe that's just me. Um, where do you think church and in particular like worship fits into this whole picture?
SPEAKER_01I think one of the the blessings of preaching, so people have often talked about the feminization of sort of Christian worship, evangelical worship, and often it's talked about in terms of the sort of praise and the kind of um emotionalism that's characteristic. Um, whether or not that's true, we can put that aside. I think one thing to recognize is there's something really appealing to men about a persuasive argument. And one of the things that happens on church every Lord's Day that doesn't really happen many places is somebody stands up and gives reasons for what we believe. Um, that actually has, I think, a great amount of currency uh for this sort of typical male mind. That though, combined with the collective corporate act of it, um, there is this sense of a need for belonging. Um, I think if someone like Sebastian Junger, who's talking about tribes, the way in which our society has been atomized, the way that's affected men, their mental health, they want to belong. And church can be a place where men belong too. And I think it's so telling when you've got someone like Jordan Peterson telling churches to put a banner up and say, Men, you're welcome here. We need to realize let's not do that exclusively, but let's do realize that they're hungering for community. And we offer community. And so that between the community, between even the sort of aspects of ritual formalism, the message, a lot of this stuff has currency among men right now.
SPEAKER_00Tell me some stories of uh men who have walked something like this journey. Um I'm I'm sure you you know many, but yeah, if you could, if you could pick out a couple.
SPEAKER_01Being in Edinburgh, you've got uh you've got universities. Um, so you've got students, you've got uh thinkers, um, you've got uh strange accounts of people, you know, beginning with uh the least expected of philosophers, someone like Nietzsche, you know, a nihilist, but you know, kind of coming to an end at an early age. What's the purpose? Um and then stumbling on something like a TikTok video where all of a sudden, you know, presented with a message of Christianity. And so uh picking up, like you said, picking up a Bible, reading the Bible, um, going to the local church, uh, a dead uh liberal church without much vitality, but finding their own path, you know, into eventually evangelical faith. I mean, I think of not far from where I am, um just a few months ago, a young guy sleeping with his girl from the night before, um, watches a video online, thinks I should go to church, looks out the window, sees a church across the street, small church, elderly congregation, they've got no expectation anybody's gonna visit. That Sunday morning, all of a sudden, you know, you've got a 19-year-old guy stepping inside, interested to hear more about Jesus. Um I think what I love about this moment is when we watch men coming into churches, it reminds us that the Lord loves to reach out to the least expected of groups. And if 10 years ago you would have asked, who is the one subset of people that you'd least expect to show up to church on their own, it would be men between ages 18 and 35. And so I think what we're seeing is God in his own way, and I think that's the key thing. There's not a formula, there's not one path, but in their in his own way, God is drawing these men um, you know, into churches, and it's just wonderful to see.
SPEAKER_00What would you say to people who listen in? So, you know, half our audience is not male, and they're listening in, and and I think a lot of them are thinking, praise God, we've been we've been praying for uh men to come to faith, uh, and we we love hearing these stories. I think a lot are also thinking, um, is this an unfortunate sorting of evangelism? The the culture is split massively, uh the culture is coming apart in terms of uh politically, but also the there is um much more distance between men and women, and you can measure that in lots of different ways, um, as we've spoken about sort of educational attainment and and that sort of thing, but also political allegiances, um, men are more skewing conservative and women are more skewing progressive. We're coming apart. Is there a danger that if we follow what you're saying, Joe, that we will just harden the differences between men and women because now we're going after men, and perhaps the fear is we won't go after women in the same way, and the the division increases rather than is healed in Christ.
SPEAKER_01And I think this is where neither male, male nor female, right? I mean, I think there's only if there's one place that the divide could be healed, it's not going to be out there in the world, it's gonna be within the church. Uh, there's no surprises that without Christ, divisions increase in our world. We think back, you know, to the world that the gospel uh was birthed in, and you know, you look at the divisions between Jew and Greek, um, Greek and barbarian, all of these subsets, slave and master, male and female. And it was the gospel that brought healing and enabled um unity in these groups that had so little in common at the time. And the same's gonna be true with us. And so I think uh certainly there's a danger. I think the wrong kind of appeal to masculinity, where that becomes the dominant note and you become insensitive to uh the women in the congregation, you can find examples of that, and that's unhealthy.
SPEAKER_00But um to recognize that there's what sort of examples are you are you thinking of there?
SPEAKER_01You know, I think uh the sort of Mark Driscoll um sort of situation, um, you know, where uh you feel as if the church is being set up for men in a way in which that might squeeze out uh women. I think the opposite we also though have to realize that maybe unwittingly, that the case in a lot of churches has been because there have been more women than men, in some ways it's had a more feminine environment. And so I think to realize we may need to enable, you know, guys to feel free to come in. There might be a little bit of that adjustment. But the truth is we don't want it either to be a dominant note, you know. We want everyone to be able to come into churches and to be able, in a sense, put some of these distinctives aside and again find our unity in Christ.
SPEAKER_00And what do we do about the political fracturing as well? Because it it does seem like whatever vibe shift there is, um, it's it's not necessarily a very ideological vibe shift. Um I I think uh a lot of America, for instance, and a lot of the online world is kind of where Joe Rogan is. And I think Joe Rogan um has been so popular online because he he is a bit of a bellwether for um for where so many people are, he's a he's a guy who voted for Bernie Sanders in 2016 and a guy who voted for Donald Trump in 2024, and he's kind of a he's a bar stool kind of not even a barstool conservative, but he's sort of becoming a barstool conservative um in the political climate in which we are. But if we're in a culture war in which there there is um such division um and progressives and conservatives are less and less able to hear one another, um I I find it very interesting that you know the Charlie Kirk moment, for instance, has meant a lot of people going to church, but then a lot of people who are in church um are then sort of alarmed because their social media feed only showed them a Charlie Kirk who said the nasty thing, right? And so they they might be to the left of Charlie kind of politically. They're being told that Charlie is you know a gateway drug to Christianity, and you know, half of that person is very glad um for the evangelistic opportunity. Another part of that person is worried that is the church going to become politicized um in order to chase this particular demographic? And once again, in a polarized world, it's not just politics that is divided. Now evangelism is threatening to be divided. Now are churches more threatening to be divided because of these political realities? What would what would you say to that?
SPEAKER_01I mean, certainly we're we're threatened because all the same uh influences have influence us as well. Um so I think we just have to be aware. One of the big problems is identity problem uh identity politics, right? Um and as Christians, one of the things we want is to not just base our beliefs or our affiliation on who we identify with, but on convictions. And so this is where it's the opportunity for us is to actually figure out, well, why do we believe what we believe? Um, and I think that that feeds into some of these questions. I think if you're talking about men, if you're talking about gender roles right now, these type questions, I think the church has been very fearful of, say, for example, taking up the question, what does it mean to be a man? Or what does it mean to be a woman? Um, the problem is that it throws people out into social media to figure out their answers. Um, we're often so worried about overstating, we understate, don't say anything. And so we've got to find ways to speak to these big questions and topics so that people can develop convictions, because otherwise they're gonna be swept into the same identity politics that is being so ruinous to the world at large.
SPEAKER_00What do you make of so we're in the United Kingdom, and there was a march called Unite the Kingdom uh that happened a couple of Saturdays ago, and Tommy Robinson um gathered together. The police say a hundred thousand, lots of their reports say many more than that. Um there there was a kind of a Christian-ish element. Obviously, it was a m it it's a movement that skews very masculine. Um, it's a movement that that skews right wing, to whatever degree, right wing or left wing uh is is useful as a as a kind of a uh uh uh political compass anymore. But they it it skews male, it skews right wing, and um the Lord's Prayer was was said, and uh somebody who is a bishop in some kind of denomination, um, the provenance of which I still cannot quite discern online as much as I can, but this this man kind of gets up and and in a very masculine way um is calling on people to return, you know, return to the Christian foundations of uh of of Britain. And and you know, I and many other Christians uh are deeply ambivalent about that. Um and in the abstract, I love the idea of men taking Jesus seriously and taking the Christian convictions of this country seriously, and perhaps picking up a Bible and going to church and trusting Jesus. I'm um profoundly grateful if that journey kind of happens. I'm also aware um that there are all sorts of cultural swirls that are going on, and there is a nominalism that's going on, um, and there's a there's a uh taking the Lord's name in vain uh sort of thing that that is very much uh at play as well. How how should we think through this moment at the uh at this time?
SPEAKER_01Let's not be naive. Um, you know, Spurgeon said we're God builds a church, Satan builds a chapel, and whenever you see any kind of movement, there's going to be something parasitical attaching itself to it. Um, you know, if you look at we've seen politics leverage religion countless times from the Old Testament through the Crusades, you can look at the religious wars post-the Reformation, you know, on into modern times. And so um there will be lots of people wanting to capitalize on anything to advance their cause, including any sort of religious interest. And so we have to be careful. Um, how many leaders have used the banner of religion to give people's allegiance to drive them to whatever their cause? And uh we can be swept in that as well. And so I think uh as we look out, uh, what are we really uh seeking to accomplish? Uh, to what extent is nationalism aligned with the kind of pursuits we're intended to have in terms of the kingdom of God, in terms of the gospel work that we're called to be doing? It's a lot of big questions. But the key thing is to not be swept up unthinkingly into movements, to not give your attention, which soon will be your affection and your worship to uh to influencers or to causes without uh without deep and serious thinking. So um I think whenever we just begin to attach ourselves to a movement or to a cause, that's a liability. Um, we've got to take every thought captive, especially at a time like this.
SPEAKER_00Yes. And if people do come to church or have an interest in Christianity for the wrong reason, um, well, A, that is all of us, isn't it? Um like none of us showed up in church the first time we showed up in church because we were just desperate to worship the living God. Um we we all come for mixed motives, and we have those motives transformed by the gospel itself. Um and what would we wish to happen to such people who who we might disagree entirely and profoundly with their politics? Um would we not want Jesus to get into their lives and uh and and and transform them? Um and uh hopefully in our better moments we all say uh yay and amen to that. Um tell me about the figure of Jordan Peterson, because um there there is an allegiance to Peterson among some of um those who are showing up in church, they're buying a suit that's They're showing up in church. They've read 12 rules for life. They've read 12 more rules for life. Um you're telling them about proverbs. Is that like 31 more rules for life? Or like like how do how do you start to affirm and appreciate what is good about what's brought them to church? And and how do you then point them to something different that Jesus is saying?
SPEAKER_01We do this all the time. I mean, if we were to go back over the last 25 years, most people have come to church looking for self-care. Um, right? They just want they want stable mental health, they want their emotional wounds healed. We talk about that, we talk about God filling an emptiness in your heart. We have to get into a whole different framework to really explain the gospel. And there's something similar here. Um if someone wants to begin with realizing their their life's messy and they'd like it to have more order, we can start there. Um, we're gonna actually show them that they've got a degree of mess they could never anticipate and that Jordan Peterson couldn't actually fully describe. So we're gonna go deeper into the mess to the point at which all of a sudden his advice loses its relevance because the supposition is we can still clean up ourselves. And as soon as we get to the point to realize that actually we're far beyond that point, now we've got to shift the gaze from ourself to a savior. And so that's what we gotta keep pushing into. It's not just your bed that has to be made in the morning, there's a bigger problem. And um, it's only as we diagnose that accurately that all of a sudden you let go of the self-help and you're gonna look for a savior.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. One of the little pep talks I I give to the guys who come to our church who might have had a Jordan Peterson diet on the way into church is to take them to Luke 15 and the parable of the two sons, and I make sure that we we check out that there are two sons to this father. There is the chaotic son who takes the wealth and goes and parties and ends up in the pig sty, because that's where chaos leads, right? And I I make sure that everybody notices, well, he wants to go back home in order to be a hired servant. So he he he wants order out of his chaos. And like he would definitely have bought 12 rules for life and then 12 more rules for life, and he's probably expecting his father to give him like 36 more rules for life as well once once he gets home. Interestingly, the father doesn't allow him to say, make me like one of your hired men. Um he receives him back as a son because he doesn't want elder brother religion either. And I I I help them to see, you know, that the the elder brother is the order guy, but he is left on the outside with weeping and wailing and the angry gnashing of teeth, actually. And there is uh a welcome for the chaotic and a welcome for the orderly in the arms of Jesus, which then and then I get them to imagine, imagine the next day though. You've you've been welcomed back as as a son, but then you know that that's probably gonna say to you, What do you want to do, son, today? And and probably what you do want to do, if your heart really has been transformed by this, is you want to work in the farm. Like you you you want and you probably will work the next day harder than the elder brother ever has. And at that point, some of the 12 rules for life actually really kick in. And I believe in the third use of the law. And I I I think a lot of the wisdom that comes from a Jordan Peterson is i is still useful in third use of the law type ways, um, in terms of d directing us towards godliness. And and you know, when the scripture comes out in Twelve Rules for Life, I I think it lands with a a weight um that is very serious, and I I think that that is why people are responding to him. But that that's the kind of the kind of pep talk that I give to people. And and I find that people actually really respond well to that kind of I appreciate, but I also discern. Do you find that that people are able to take what is helpful about Jordan Peterson to eat the meat and spit out the bones?
SPEAKER_01I think to some extent, I think again, uh the guys that aren't yet converted, uh they they need to let go for a while of just the um the superficial ordering of their lives and and deal with the deeper heart issues. But that said, I think in terms of discipleship, a lot of what I do is try to help guys with simple routines, bodily discipline. Um, because I think in the modern world there's so much need. So for example, if you're gonna have a prayer life, you better know how to manage your phone. Um, if your phone manages your attention, you're never gonna be able to really meditate on gospel truths. And so there's all kinds of space for practical advice on wise practice. Um, so yeah, like you say, that's where whether it's Jordan Peterson or anybody else that speaks to that level, there's a lot of life management stuff that's actually really helpful for managing life.
SPEAKER_00Very good. So we um are listened to by a lot of people who happen to be preachers, um, also content creators, people who have a message out there for the world. Um, if they're taking on board what you're saying in The Road Back to God, how should we speak the gospel? Are there different ways that we can be speaking the gospel? Are there different things we should be thinking about as we preach or as we uh give our messages out online?
SPEAKER_01I would just encourage guys to think in terms of, or people in general to think, um, helping people out of the materialistic, egocentric uh identity that they've taken on unwittingly. That aspect of evangelism and discipleship, I don't think we do enough of it. Um, in some cases, in terms of getting to the point where they can understand the gospel, but even sometimes just people carrying over that secular identity into their Christian faith and that hindering uh the degree to which they're able to be freed up, you know, for a new life in Christ. And so I just think there's a lot of work to be done in terms of helping people escape the sort of straitjacket they're in from having inhabited the world around them.
SPEAKER_00That's really naming the idols that are that are around there, and naming the sinking sand. Um, yeah, I think the solid rock of Jesus comes comes across uh with all its power once we've once we've named the the idols of our time. Um so last two questions, Joe. If you had a couple of minutes for a Christian who is keen to share their faith with those who are beginning to be aware of a hunger for God, what would you say first to the Christian? And then I'll ask you, uh, what what are you what are you going to say in a couple of minutes to the non-Christian? But first, what what are you going to say to the Christian to get them ready for this moment? I would say first go for it.
SPEAKER_01Um again, I think I think people are on the back foot. I think the supposition is that we are in the world that existed 10 years ago where everybody's listening to Christopher Hitchens. Um listen to everything that you're reading right now. Actually, people are have other people they're listening to and they've got interests they didn't have previously. One person you know is gonna shut down the conversation, um, be a hardened atheist. And just like your neighbors were uh 15 years ago, keep if you keep having these conversations, somebody else you're gonna discover is already thinking about Christianity, waiting to have a conversation. And so have the boldness to step into conversations until you find that person. Brilliant.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Boldness.
SPEAKER_00Scatter the seed a lot more broadly. I think you'll you'll find that there is hard soil, but you'll find there's a lot of good soil at the moment as well. Um, and and what are you gonna say to somebody who their interest has just been piqued, perhaps by something they've heard online? Um, they want they want to try Christianity on for size. What are you gonna say? Don't listen to podcasts, uh, don't read a book, go to church.
SPEAKER_01Um, I think that's the big issue. Um go where Christianity is lived out in an embodied way in the context of community where you hear someone declare the word of God. That's the space where you encounter the real thing. Uh, we're treating it like it's another topic to listen into a conversation about, or I can just read a book and discover it on my own. Even our evangelistic courses have communicated that uh that mistake at times. And so what we need to send people is go to church. Go find a church where people uphold the word of God, talk about the cross, love each other, and experience Christianity in that context.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, love it. Great advice. Uh, Joe Bernard, can you remind us of the full title of your book and then uh any ways that people can keep up with you online?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, uh, The Road Back to God, Faith for Men Dissatisfied by the Modern World. Um, and they can follow, run a men's discipleship ministry, cross training ministries. Uh so you can go to our website, see all of our resources um and other books that are available. Cross-training ministries. Wonderful. Joe Bernard, thank you so much for joining me.
SPEAKER_00My pleasure.