Disciple Men, Build Families, Change Nations | Dr. Nancy Pearcey

Episode Summary: 

Something surprising is happening in churches across the West: young men are coming back! Not for hype or entertainment, but for meaning, mission, belonging, and direction. Are our churches ready to meet this incredible moment?

In this episode, we’re joined by author and professor Dr. Nancy Pearcey to unpack the deeper ideas shaping this cultural “vibe shift.” Together, we explore why the church’s sacred-secular split has failed men's discipleship, how the manosphere fills the vacuum, and what it takes to move from momentary revival to lasting reformation!

We also trace how family formation sits at the heart of cultural renewal. From marriage and parenting to workplace rhythms that keep fathers present, we discuss practical ways to re-enthrone the family and recover a whole-life gospel that forms men and women as equal image bearers with distinct gifts.

If you’ve sensed the shift but wondered what to do next, this conversation maps a path toward renewal: dethrone the marketplace, re-enthrone marriage and the family, and rebuild culture from the home outward.

Who is Disciple Nations Alliance (DNA)? Since 1997, DNA’s mission has been to equip followers of Jesus around the globe with a biblical worldview, empowering them to build flourishing families, communities, and nations. 👉 https://disciplenations.org/

🎙️Featured Speaker: 

Nancy Pearcey is the author of The Toxic War on Masculinity: How Christianity Reconciles the Sexes, as well as Love Thy Body, The Soul of Science, Saving Leonardo, Finding Truth, and Total Truth. She is professor and scholar in residence at Houston Christian University. She has been quoted in The New Yorker and Newsweek, highlighted as one of the five top women apologists by Christianity Today, and hailed in The Economist as "America's pre-eminent evangelical Protestant female intellectual."

📌 Recommended Links

     👉 Nancy’s Newest Book: The Toxic War on Masculinity: How Christianity Reconciles the Sexes

     👉 Darrow’s book: Nurturing the Nations - Disciple Nations Alliance

     👉 Last Podcast with Dr. Pearcey: The Toxic War on Masculinity with Nancy Pearcey - Disciple Nations Alliance

💻 Follow Us:

     📲Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/disciplenations

     📸Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/disciplenations

 📩 Ask us anything: info@disciplenations.org 

Episode Webpage

Chapters

• 0:00 Nancy Pearcey Returns
• 2:00 The Vibe Shift And Kirk’s Legacy
• 5:50 Young Men, Church, And Manosphere
• 11:10 Toxicity Narratives And Role Models
• 16:30 Sacred–Secular Split Under Fire
• 22:30 Third Way Strategies Critiqued
• 28:30 Global Impact Of Thin Gospel
• 34:30 Genesis 1 Vision Of Vocation
• 40:00 Family Formation As Culture Change
• 46:00 Men’s Ministry That Actually Helps
• 52:00 Two Scripts Of Masculinity
• 57:30 Equal Image Bearers, Distinct Gifts
• 1:03:30 Procreation And Complementarity
• 1:08:30 Pagan Sexuality Versus Christian Ethic
• 1:13:00 Fathers’ Influence And Warmth

Transcript

Dr. Nancy Pearcey: 0:00

Well, we're thrilled today to have back with us on the podcast uh Professor Nancy Pearcy. Um she is uh a dear friend of uh ours and the ministry. Um she is the author of many books, most recently, uh or her most recent book, The Toxic War on Masculinity, How Christianity Uh Reconciles the Sexes. She's also author of Love Thy Body, The Soul of Science, Saving Leonardo, and Finding Truth and Total Truth. Uh, she is a professor and scholar in residence at Houston Christian University. And uh Professor Pearcy's been quoted in the New York Times and in Newsweek. She's been highlighted as one of the top five women apologists by Christianity today and hailed in The Economist as quote America's pre-eminent evangelical Protestant female intellectual. Wow, what an honor to have you with us today. Uh Professor Pearcy, if I can just call you Nancy, I would uh I would uh also just add to that just how, and I I I always say this when you come on, uh Nancy, uh our ministry is just so indebted to you. You I often call you, you know, one of my along with Darrell, one of my gurus, your books, I cannot wait to read them as soon as they come out. Um so much of our teaching on just Christian worldview and Christian thinking has been shaped by you. I probably quote you more in the teaching that I do than almost anyone else. So I just want to again appreciate you and express my deep gratitude to to you and your your work, Nancy. I'm so glad you're doing what you're doing.

Scott Allen: 1:37

Thank you so much, and thanks for having me on today. I appreciate that.

Dr. Nancy Pearcey: 1:40

It's great to have you, Nancy. We I I I'm gonna get us started. Uh we're, you know, here today with Luke and with Darrow, and I know they're gonna be really anxious to to pick up and jump into the discussion, but here's where I'm coming from, Nancy. I you know, we're living through such kind of momentous times in the West and in the United States. Um, you know, there's just such an incredible uh uh change you know in our culture right now. Um and I wanted to, I would, I just really wanted to get your thoughts on kind of where we find ourselves at this particular moment. Um and uh a couple of things that um I'd love your thoughts on. It seems to me that we're some people call it the vibe shift. You know, I've noticed that phrase here recently, where uh in 2020, kind of at the height of COVID and the social justice revolution, George Floyd, the riots, the whole um kind of this uh dawning uh kind of awareness that many of us had that proponents of kind of neo-Marxism and critical theory had come out of the universities and now we're firmly entrenched in most of the um prominent places that uh kind of shape our culture and business and government and media, and we were like, whoa, at least I was, look what happened. And you know, it was coming into the church, but since that time, in just a few years, we've we've had what again people call a vibe shift, a seemingly pulling away, a pulling back from that, um, and a kind of a uh a kind of a resurgence of maybe what we would call traditional Christian values, at least at some level. Um and anyways, uh I you know the this comes, I think you in some ways culminated with we saw the assassination of Charlie Kirk and that massive, you know, um uh, you know, the memorial service here in Phoenix. Um really stunning in many ways. Uh some call it one of the greatest gospel presentations of all time. Um anyways, uh you know, people tie that in with the with uh there's evidence of revival happening. I just really wanted to get your thoughts on on what's happening right now, especially at the deeper level of worldview and ideas and the sh the shifting tides of ideas.

Scott Allen: 3:56

Well, that's a very good question. And I think tying it to Charlie Kirk's murder is a great idea because, well, since we are talking primarily about my book on masculinity, he was an icon to several, you know, to many, many young men. He and good and Jordan Peterson perhaps are the two who've had the greatest impact on young men and causing what you call the vibe shift among young men. It does not seem to be happening so much among young women, but there are surveys coming out saying that young men are now going back to church. And uh I I got an odd headline just a few days ago so saying that Gen Z is returning to church and they're being led by the young men. So it's young men in particular are being informed.

Dr. Nancy Pearcey: 4:40

It's phenomenal, it really is. I mean, I I had a son who's a pastor, uh youth pastor up here in Oregon, and uh he's seeing it, you know, in his own church and his own community. There's, you know, he goes into the high school and there's lots of kids that are coming into what they call the Jesus Club and getting baptized, you know. Um so it's you know, it there's a reality to what's happening here. What do you think has caused that, Nancy? I mean, besides your book, I I think your book probably but but what's going on there with that, you know, that uh if you had to come on, I don't know, three years ago or even less, we would be talking about the crisis amongst young men. It still isn't gone away, but there's been a huge shift. What's changed? What do you think? At the again at that deeper level, not just what we're seeing on the surface, but but at the level of culture and ideas.

Scott Allen: 5:28

Well, uh, among young men in particular, I think we're finally seeing a response to many, many years of feminist dominance. I don't mean women, but feminism as an ideology. Um I was just on the phone with a friend the other day who uh a male, a young male who works in IT, and he said, the work environment, you know, in the corporate workplace, the work environment, men feel afraid. She said, There's fear because you could you could violate some rule, some you could commit some microaggression without even knowing it, and it could uh upend your entire career. And I think men are responding to that by saying, we're done. We're done with that, we're done, we're done with the messages of toxicity, we're done with our culture saying that we're we're evil just because we're male. I think that's partly just a reaction against that and a healthy one, in the sense that being constantly um attacked and vilified has not been good for men. I read an article in the Wall Street Journal by a psychotherapist who said, especially the younger men coming into my practice feel defeated, demoralized, and depressed because they feel like they're growing up in a culture that's hostile to masculinity. And so for men to finally be say begin to say, you know, we're not we're not doing this anymore, you know, we have to find a way to recover a positive view of masculinity. Unfortunately, some go all the way into sort of the manosphere, right? And try to recover that way.

Dr. Nancy Pearcey: 6:54

Explain that, Nancy, just briefly for our listeners that may not be familiar with that term.

Scott Allen: 6:58

Right. So the manosphere is kind of a collective term for a number of different blogs where um masculinity is exalted to the point of the Andrew Tate phenomenon. That's the best way. Most people know Andrew Tate. But Andrew Tate, you know, he's he attracts young men because he works out and he looks buff and he tells them to get a job and you know to quit scrolling on your screen all day. But then, of course, he's completely non-Christian in his morality. And he openly calls himself a pimp. So, and has a very misogynist view of women. But I had an um an email from a former graduate student who now teaches high school, and she said, All my male students are fans of Andrew Tate. They're even using Andrew Tate quotes in the yearbook. I said, Where do you teach? She said, at a classical Christian school. So men are reaching out, young men in particular are reaching out for positive role models. And if they're not getting a biblical, healthy, strong view of masculinity, they will reach out to the Andrew Tate of the world. But underlying the reaching out to Andrew Tate, you know, we have to acknowledge that there's a real genuine uh desire there for uh you know, reaching out, groping um in into the into the online influencer phase uh for for a more positive view of masculinity. And that and in that sense it is good.

Dr. Nancy Pearcey: 8:20

Nancy, do you think this is this does this account for the kind of overwhelming reaction to the assassination of Charlie Kirk in terms of just again, when I went when I um you know witnessed the memorial service and just the the number of people uh uh praising him, of course, vilifying him too, you know, you had reactions on both sides, but I I told my wife, I can't think of anyone that's passed away recently, you know, for whatever reason they might have they might have passed, that kind of generated this kind of reaction that people were deeply moved. I know I was, that that's actually how it affected me. They were deeply moved because of what he you know what he stood for and represented, which was, you know, the strong biblical kind of masculinity as opposed to the Andrew Tate. But when we saw it, it was like, oh, this is so p powerful, you know, here, you know, that we we we've kind of missed this, this and and now it's gone, of course.

Scott Allen: 9:20

Well and what he did, of course, was he represented a view of Christianity that was not stuck in the sacred secular split. Absolutely. Right. You know, he really said, okay, as Christians, we should be on the front lines of culture and addressing issues in higher education and in politics and morality and the whole span of life.

Dr. Nancy Pearcey: 9:39

Economics.

Scott Allen: 9:40

And you know, he did he didn't start that way. You know, he was a libertarian originally. And I understand that he had a some kind of genuine conversion where he began to say, actually, we cannot support all of these good values without the the foundation. You know, the foundation really is Christianity, the reality of God's existence, you know, the the reality of the biblical worldview. And so he shifted, and that's when he became really much more effective, too, is that he began to say, you know, the the heart, the core, the foundation of this is Christianity. But it's not stuck in the sacred secular divide. It's some it's a Christianity that affects all of life and that empowers you to be able to stand on the front lines, you know, and talk to young college students who are you know oppositional, who disagree with you, who are attacking you, and he was able to graciously talk to them. It was fun to watch him. A lot of people watched his videos more after he died than before he died.

Dr. Nancy Pearcey: 10:35

I'm one of them. That's right.

Scott Allen: 10:36

Yes, me too. And I thought, but you know, he actually is quite gracious. He is able to smile and he's very quick-witted. He would have a Christian answer, you know, at the tip of his tongue. He was very, very fast. Um, but he always was reasonable and gracious. He was an icon even more now, I think, for young people. If you're on X, uh you know, formerly Twitter, I have seen so many. I know, I I do not like that name, but if you're on formerly Twitter, I have seen so many people saying, Because of Charlie Kirk, I'm going back to church. Yeah. So many people who you know, I don't know them, I don't know what saying, you know, because of Charlie, I'm I'm going back to church. Or one guy just today, right before I getting on, I saw somebody who said, Up, I've gone to church for seven weeks now. And it's making such a difference in my life. It's so true.

Dr. Nancy Pearcey: 11:26

I mean, the church that Luke and I attend here in Central Oregon, I mean, it was standing room only the Sunday after his assassination. You know, it really touched people. You know, in a way that surprised me, you know. Like, look at this. Well, and it still is. You know, you were expecting that wave, like, you know, sometimes when tragic events happen nationally, big wave comes in, then it simmers down. Still, still packed out in our church, the lobby's full of chairs. And uh and I've I'm hearing this of reports nationwide. Absolutely. It's uh something something's going on here.

Scott Allen: 11:57

And and uh chapters. The last time I saw a number, it was like 67,000 new chapters of TPUSA starting. And I'll have to tell you, on our university, we've had students try to two times before, have tried to start UP TP USA chapters, and they were told no. So they tried a third time, and this time they they got a yes. So um bec and I'm sure it's because of the the changed vibe, to use your word again, uh that even our university where we we may have some people who are uh it was in the student center, some of them were edging on being more liberal, um, and they they were opposed to TPS to TP USA at first, and now it's okay, it's a green light. So I think that's fascinating too, is that so many young people want to do what he did. You know, he they they want to learn from him on how to engage with their secular culture, with their secular students on a public campus. They are inspired now to go out and try to actually dialogue with non-Christians. And that's a wonderful pattern.

Dr. Nancy Pearcey: 13:00

Nancy, I would uh I want to bring Darren, but I just got one question I'm dying to ask, and you brought it up already. You said that Charlie Kirk represented um a kind of a turning away from the the kind of the Christ the long-standing kind of evangelical approach to culture rooted around this sacred secular divide, this idea that we we shouldn't really even think biblically about issues in the culture and spheres of society like government and economics. Our job is simply to preach the gospel and bring people into the churches. Um, this very kind of separatist and disengaged approach to culture. Um you know, I I've been observing too that there was, I would say about 20 years ago, there was a kind of a led by Tim Keller. You know, you've probably been reading about this on on X as well. There was this kind of move away from that, you know, this kind of disengaged, sacred secular approach led by people like um uh Tim Keller. Um some call it third ways. And I I when I first saw that move, I was excited because I thought, oh, here's people that want to be, you know, not separate but engaged in culture. But then I learned that the way that they wanted to engage wasn't on the basis of a biblical worldview, you know. They wanted to kind of be nice and winsome, you know, this the politically neutral and and and the whole idea behind it uh uh apparently was to have an opening. People would people like would like you enough to that they would be interested in have an opening to the gospel. And I found that whole approach to be really a disaster because the the what it resulted in was again very compromised Christians. They would tend to go along with whatever the dominant cultural narratives were, uh, you know, as opposed to defending biblical truth. Now comes Charlie Kirk, and he, like you said, he's it's kind of a repudiation of both, that first, you know, era of sacred secular and this winsome third wayism, as some people call it. And I've been wanting to ask you, Nancy, do you feel like that there's a kind of a new opening now for ministries like yours and ours that really focus on, you know, an engagement in culture from the vantage point of a full biblical worldview? It seems to me that we might be in kind of position uh ready for some kind of page to be turned and some new kind of openness to what we've always been passionate about. I just always wanted to hear your thoughts on that.

Scott Allen: 15:19

Yeah, that's a really good point because I think that third wavism has has held sway um especially among educated Christians.

Dr. Nancy Pearcey: 15:25

Absolutely.

Scott Allen: 15:26

Um the theorist, so to speak, of that movement was James Davison Hunter. Right. And he's Faithful Presence, yeah. Yes, faithful presence. But it was so interesting when that the when when that book came out, uh I was living in Washington, D.C. And my friends who were working on Capitol Hill hated the book because they all felt like, no, I have been called to be in government. You know, that they were in government because they felt that that was their calling from God, that was their gifting from God. And he was essentially saying, you know, you should all be like I am. I'm I made my way into a, you know, he's at UVA, University of Virginia, James Davison Hunter is, and um, he was essentially saying, you should all be like me, you know, find your way into a secular environment and then just faithful presence. And uh I felt a little like he was holding holding up his own career as the uh as the ideal. And not everyone can get into a secular university, number one.

Dr. Nancy Pearcey: 16:22

You're exactly right. I saw that. It was he wrote about that in his book to save the world, you know, um, or not to save the world, to to to change the world, I believe it was. And in y you know, all due respect to him. He's a he's a guy I benefited from significantly in terms of his writing and thinking. But but when I read that book, and I know Darrow, you you and I both have talked about this, there was it was elitist, you know. It was like if you want to change the world, you've got to stop start from the top down and get into these positions of of elite kind of cultural uh power and authority. And I thought, you know, listen, it is top down, but it's also bottom up. I did I I've always kind of rejected that. And then the once you get in those positions of elite authority, you know, I I remember them kind of holding up as well, um as their kind of exemplar of this, the director of NIH, uh Francis Collins, who had this really powerful position. And he did he, you know, he was a right, you you know, he said, I'm a Christian guy, and you know, he played the guitar and sang Christian songs, and I'm sure he didn't cuss and spit and chew, and you know, these kinds of things, but boy, did he go along to get along, you know, there, you know, supporting LGBTQ Pride events and everything else. And I thought if this is what this third way ism, this Winsome Third Way ism, you know, this is if this is what faithful presence looks like, I this is a disaster, anyways. Just yeah.

Scott Allen: 17:41

That's a great example because I was in DC when Francis Collins, you know, came to the NIH. And I watched it happen. I saw so many Christians who worked in in Washington, so you know, both on Capitol Hill and in think tanks and so on. They all immediately became disciples of Francis Collins. He represented what all of them wanted to do. He he represented somebody who claimed to be a true Christian, but who had gotten to the highest level in his career and in government, and so they all idolized him. And then the disappointment with his later, you know, his later behavior when not only supporting LGBTQ, but also supporting uh research on the Yeah, using abortive baby parts, really, really dark things.

Dr. Nancy Pearcey: 18:24

Right.

Scott Allen: 18:26

And then supporting the vaccine mandates, you know, it's not whether you think of whatever you think of vaccines, the point is the mandates that made it coercive and that made people lose their jobs and so on. Um yeah, so so his he became a great example of what you just said. They they get into a position of power and then they cave. They cave to the secular worldview that they're uh that they're surrounded by. And you know, where so much of their status then starts to become, you know, how the how they look in the eyes of the secular world. Um how they uh I Alvin Plantinger, who's a philosopher, Christian philosopher, calls it the guild. You know, you want to you want to fit into your guild, meaning your professional group. And there's tremendous for emphasis uh for Christians in any in any field to fit in with the guild. And so I I love the way that Plantinger argued against that, by the way. He had a very he had an article that's that's been widely, widely circulated where he said, no, even if you're in a professional organization, even if you're in a university, your primary obligation is to the church, not to your guild. It's to feed Christians, to nurture and teach Christians. It's not to make it in your discipline. So I think that we we are seeing, because we were so disappointed in Francis Collins, hopefully that will inspire a turn away from that elitism.

Dr. Nancy Pearcey: 19:50

And you know, the the ex the m if y i if these are two models or exemplars, one Francis Collins and the other Charlie Kirk, they're very different, aren't they? You know, Charlie Kirk went straight to, you know, the students and university campuses and not not that he didn't have influence in elite positions as well, but that you know, his primary ministry was on stud you know on campuses. And you know, he was willing to challenge, you know, these lies of culture and not go along to get along. So it's a very different approach. I uh Darrell, I would love to bring you in at this point. I know at this point in the conversation I'm sure you've got lots of questions or things, comments, and uh things you'd like to hear from Nancy on. So I'd like to comment and then see how you know Nancy's uh response to it. Yes, there's a lot of uh people uh going to church now, a lot of people buying Bibles. There's a new vibe. Is that what you're saying, Scott? Yeah, they call it the vibe shift. Yeah, which is that's a reflective of the language of our culture today as opposed to there's a reformation coming. And uh you know that it's it's what language are we using? And there is a vibe shift vibe shift. But I don't think the church is ready for this moment. Because the church largely is governed by a sacred secular divide. And so you get all these people coming to a church where what they're getting in the church is a message from a sacred secular divide, not a biblical worldview message and the framing of things from a biblical worldview. And this is one of the things in the book I'm finishing up, the last part of the book, deals, I think, with this, or at least it's my attempt to deal with it. It's calling people who to begin to understand that they have a calling to a vocation and that they are to approach that vocation not from the framework of a sacred secular divide, which is what a uh Francis Collins would do. I'm a Christian on Sunday, but on Monday I'm over here. We need to be Christians on Monday and not just on Sunday. And we need to think biblically, not in terms of our devote just our devotional life, but we need to think biblically in terms of what does it mean to be a Christian in the public square in the marketplace. And I think that's what Charlie Kirk was on to. And part of the end of the book gives a if you here's some here's some tools for you to begin to examine. If you're a Christian who's wandering around not sure what God has made you for, here's some tools that can help you discover what God has made you for. And if you have a good sense of what your calling is, here's another set of tools that can help you to begin to think theologically about your work. So you're not bifurcated by the culture of the church, the sacred secret dichotomy, but you are have a vision for the kingdom of God, that God has a place for you in that as an engineer, as an artist, as whatever it is. And it's not to be part of a clique, it's to be invading the principles of the kingdom into that vocation. Very different thing than what they're gonna get in churches. So I don't know, Nancy, how you would respond to that.

Scott Allen: 23:47

Yeah, that was one of my first concerns, Daryl. My first concern is when I heard that so many people were checking out church now, I thought, oh no, what are they gonna get in these churches? They're n they're not gonna get a support for what Charlie Kirk did. No.

Dr. Nancy Pearcey: 24:03

They are That's right.

Scott Allen: 24:06

Yeah, they're gonna they're going to get the the sacred secular split where okay, we're glad you're here now. You can sit in the pew and sing hymns and pray. But there's and by the way, this especially applies to men, I think, because um men in particular don't don't want a religion that just says, you know, come sit and pray and sing with us, but doesn't have a broader vision.

Dr. Nancy Pearcey: 24:29

Yep.

Scott Allen: 24:30

When I'm on podcast uh with my book, The Toxic Wang Masculinity, I take them back to the cultural rev the cultural mandate. Because so few so few churches teach that. And I say, I know, you know, this is important for all Christians, but I think it's especially important for men because it calls them to you know refer to and multiply, which does not just mean have families, you know, but anthropologists tell us that all the social institutions grow out of the family. So it's you know it becomes a clan, a nation, it you need groups, you need a marketplace, a church, a school, a government. So it means build all the social institutions. And then subdue the earth means harness the natural resources.

Dr. Nancy Pearcey: 25:12

That's right.

Scott Allen: 25:13

That applies to, you know, from from building things to mining to to um to science and the arts. And I think men need that message perhaps even more than women because they they do crave that sense of accomplishment and achievement. Yes, you know, building something, making a difference. And so the cultural mandate, I think, is critically important to ch for men. Yes.

Dr. Nancy Pearcey: 25:38

Related to that, what one of the things that we've been saying for a number of years at the DNA is are you a Genesis 1 Christian or a Genesis 3 Christian? And most of the church today globally are Genesis 3 Christians. They begin with the fall and set up the cross for here's God's plan of salvation, but there's nothing from Genesis 1 and 2 that tells you why we were here in the first place. And what we're saved to do, you know, once we come to faith in Christ. Exactly. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Darrow Miller: 26:11

I must have gotten that from you because that's a standard part of my lecture now is the Genesis 3 versus the Genesis 1 version. And of course, you always end by saying, and what does your church teach? Yeah. And the audience always says, you know, Genesis 3.

Scott Allen: 26:25

Yeah. And also it's all around the world. It is. It's global. I pulled together quotes from uh global theologians saying, you know, the missionaries the missionaries brought the sacred secular with them. That's right. They did. And so it's it's I I was teaching, I was teaching at a Christian university once, and they said, Oh, this you're talking about first world problems, you know. And I said, actually, no. No, because it's global. No, it's not. And last night I was speaking, I was speaking at Roshakristi, which is a um student group, apologetic student group that's on campuses. And the international leader was there, and he said, We call it missionary, the missionary form of religion, because it's the form that the missionaries brought over to Africa, Asia, you know, around the world. And he said, as a result, yes, everything, everything that we talk about in the West, the problem of not having a full-blown Christian worldview, the problem of not having a concept of vocation. We're seeing it all around the world. It's they have exactly the same problems.

Dr. Nancy Pearcey: 27:27

Nancy, if I could just add on to this, it's been a crisis for um the rapidly growing church. I mean, this is really the heart of our DNA ministry. It's been a crisis for the rapidly growing church in Africa and Asia. Because they have a worldview there. And by the way, they're holistic thinkers. Most people are holistic thinkers. They don't bifurcate things like we do in this sacred secular divide. Um, they think holistically in a comprehensive whole. That's their worldview. Um, but when the gospel came, it didn't come as a comprehensive worldview. It came as a message of salvation. So they received that message of salvation happily. They're in churches now, but they didn't it didn't come as a comprehensive worldview. And somebody once said, I thought this was very profound, you can't replace an existing comprehensive worldview with anything less than another comprehensive worldview, right? And you know, and that's not that's not what we brought as missionaries from the West. Unfortunately, a hundred years ago during this massive missions push, we at that time we were we, the Western Church, was stuck in a sacred secular divide. So we brought that, we exported that. And so you don't have the kind of worldview change. And to me, that's what discipling nations really is. It's a shifting away from whatever that indigenous worldly fallen worldview is that, you know, demeans women and that treats people as slaves and tools or whatever it is, to a biblical worldview, uh, you know, the worldview, the true worldview. And um so you're right.

Scott Allen: 28:54

It's it's I think it was Kuiper, Kuiper who at least was one person who said you cannot oppose one whole integrated systematic worldview without seeing Christianity as a whole integrated worldview. Kuiper said that um in his lectures on Calvinism. But I was speaking at an education conference not long ago, and I was talking about this sacred secular split, and you know, I was speaking on my book Total Truth, so I was giving lots of examples of the um the fact value split. You know, even in the secular world, they have the same split, they just call it the fact value split. And one woman interrupted me, she couldn't wait until the end for the QA. She was from the Philippines, and she said, and the Philippines, we don't make this distinction. Right. You know, we like you just said, most people are holistic thinkers. She said, we thought all of life was integrated, was whole because she was raised Catholic in the Philippines, but she said we did have this notion of all of life being part of being connected to your Christian faith. And then I moved here. She was a and she was really struggling with this. She said, This is the The way you guys think here is not the way we think back in the Philippines. You know, we do not have this sharp, sacred, secular divide. It was fascinating to hear somebody, you know, f from that country saying, um from a non-Western country saying, I am I'm I'm having trouble adjusting to the way you you Christians think here in the West.

Dr. Nancy Pearcey: 30:20

Well it's that that's but we I hear that message all the time. I I remember when Dennis Tongoy, one of our dear friends and trainers in Africa, you know, he you know when he first I think when he first got a hold of this idea that Christianity wasn't just a message of salvation and personal dis you know personal spiritual growth, but a comprehensive worldview, it really affected him because he you know he um changed his life. Yeah, he said, you know, I I w all all of you know all Africans understand you know life as a comprehensive whole, you know. And um, you know, this I've always struggled with my faith in the sense that it, you know, I've uh it didn't it didn't have an answer to that. And and then when he heard that and understood that, it connected so deeply with him.

Scott Allen: 31:03

So in in one of my talks, I um I quote another DNA person, you guys know Arturo Kuba? Oh yes. So he has that wonderful story about I I I think I just got his story off your website.

Dr. Nancy Pearcey: 31:18

Okay, and then we tell that story. He's got a great story.

Scott Allen: 31:20

Yeah, it's a great story. And so yes, I can I continue to look him up. You know, I found a couple of other places online where he's he's speaking. So no, I got his story from you. And and it works so well. You're the rats, right? The rats kept eating the crops. And he says, Who has dominion here then? You or the rats? And he it was a it's a wonderful story, and it's not Western for people who say this is a first world problem.

Dr. Nancy Pearcey: 31:44

Um and it's an example of the Bible not coming as a as a comprehensive worldview to that community, um, you know, and so they had a worldview and it made sense of things like crops and how you know exactly so.

Scott Allen: 32:00

That's right. Uh you know how I put it? You know, when the Christians first came to the Po Kong Chi po it was it the Po Kong Chi Indians. Um when missionaries first came, many of them became Christian, but they didn't shift in their worldview. They were still f you know the spiritualist animist worldview they had before tended to create an attitude that was yeah, passive, fatalistic. It trapped them in poverty.

Dr. Nancy Pearcey: 32:24

Yep.

Scott Allen: 32:26

Exactly. If you're if you're poor, you'll always be poor, is how is how our true Artudo Kuba puts it. And uh and then they became Christian, but they were still passive and fatalistic in their worldview. And here's how I put it when I talk to audiences, I say they had converted in their religion, but they had not converted in their worldview.

Dr. Nancy Pearcey: 32:45

Oh well said, Nancy. Yeah. That's really good.

Scott Allen: 32:48

Until uh until our Tudo Kuba came and taught the cultural mandate and and taught a complete Christian worldview.

Dr. Nancy Pearcey: 32:54

Had to go back to Genesis 1 and 2, didn't he? Exactly. I mean, so we're in a we're in a dilemma. There's there's churches being flooded right now. And it it it the stats are crazy, I'm sure you've seen them too. There's the one that really stuck out to me was there's more millennials and Gen Zers going to church now for the first time in decades than any older generations. So there's more young people in your average American church right now than there are older generations, which is fascinating to see. That came out of Barna. Um so the churches are packed, hopefully. That's what I'm hearing at least. Well, but the church is at Eastmont, too. The church we have. So we're seeing it, yeah, in person. Uh but we might not be ready. What now? What do we need to do? Yeah, good question, Luke. Yeah, Nancy, what how do we it and Darry, you brought this up too. The churches aren't ready. What can we do? You know, those of us who are uh whose passion and ministry is worldview, what do we do? How do we respond?

Scott Allen: 33:50

You know, the there's one concrete thing we can do, and that is recognizing that most of these people coming back to church are young men. You know, if you look at the again, the charts, the surveys, um I I looked I looked up one from just today showing that it's it's young men who are coming back to church, not young women. Uh Financial Times had an article, did you see you may have seen this, where they showed the gap growing between young men and young women.

Dr. Nancy Pearcey: 34:16

I saw that?

Scott Allen: 34:16

Yeah, it which is increasing. And explain that, Nancy.

Dr. Nancy Pearcey: 34:20

I didn't see that.

Scott Allen: 34:23

Um it it was, I think it was on the political views, and it had a graph showing, you know, men. You could it's very visual, right? It's it has more impact when you see it in instead of just numbers. So you could see the the blue line representing young men was going up in terms of becoming more conservative. And at the same time, the red line representing women was going down in all the Western nations. Was this and so the gap between the gap between men and women has actually been growing. And then there was a recent another recent one, uh, it was just 18 to 29 year olds, so it was young people, and they divided it not just by sex, but also also by politics. And what they found, and they were asked out of 13 things, what are your life goals?

Dr. Nancy Pearcey: 35:05

Yes, that's what I saw that one.

Scott Allen: 35:06

Remember that? Yes. And the young conservative men, astonishingly, the top life goal was having kids, and getting married was just under that. For women who were liberal, and they were defined as you know, who voted for Harris, for women, marriage and children was way at the bottom of the list. And that was that was shocking to see that women have been so influenced by the feminist movement that they no longer see marriage and having children as anywhere toward the top of their list. It was at the very bottom. Well, whereas men, and these are the men probably who are coming back to church, were saying marriage and family was very important to them. And so the the practical application I was thinking of that, by the way, um, was churches currently most do not have groups for men. They have women's groups, but they don't have men's groups. So one of the first things they could do was to is to start having men's groups. And there are there are global um national organizations like this one called Better Men, Better Men, and they go into churches and help them start men's groups. Um I was on on a video just two days ago with another group like that. Um so there are several groups out there that are now standing alongside churches and saying, let us help you start men's ministries. That would be a very you know concrete practical thing that churches could do to start addressing these young men who are coming into the churches.

Dr. Nancy Pearcey: 36:37

Don't you think that the the kind of men's ministry really has got to matter here? Because I I know most of the churches I've attended, including the current one, do have men's ministries. But what well, it's not uncommon, you know, it's not as big as women's ministries, that's for sure. But there's men's ministries, but what it tends to focus around is a kind of like a devotional message of some sort combined with eat lots, eat lots of bacon and talk about sports, you know, and shoot guns, you know. And it it it it so I'm not, you know, again, uh it's not addressing the deep need of men right now. It's it's kind of got this almost you know, it's almost like a Christianized Andrew Tate type of thing. I don't know. No. It's okay. Luke, go ahead. Sorry, I'm sorry. But sorry, Darrow, I just have been day um dying to ask this question. Uh this brings up perfectly something that we've heard a couple times now on recent podcasts, where uh like you were saying, Nancy, and you say this well in your book, Toxicora Masculinity, which I recommend to all my my young guy friends. It's it's such a great read for us. Very encouraging. I love that it's an encouraging book for young men. Uh a lot of books can be a little bit tell you how to live your life and demean you a little bit and make you feel guilty. This one's uplifting and it and it and it it backs that in a history of what it looks like to be a godly man. Anyways, we've had a couple podcasts recently where we're like asking our guests, as Christians in America, what is the one first main step that we can do if we want to begin to disciple our nation? Very broad question. But in two of my favorite episodes we've had this year, one of which was with Arturo Kuba a couple weeks ago. Okay. And then the other one was with Dr. George Barna. And both of them, in answer to that question, said we need to focus on our families. We need to focus on our children, we need to disciple our children, especially our young children. Build the build the biblical worldview then, and from that from that uh platform they can go and live the rest of their lives. Amen to that. However, the problem is young young men love this message, right? Young men love this young men want this message, go build something, like you were saying. Build a godly family. Yeah. Go build a godly family. Here's something to do, here's something practical to do. It's like guys are like, yeah, I can do that, you know. I I I I want to do this. We want to have kids. Gallup has showed this, a lot of other polls, the one you mentioned, showed this. We want to get married. But we're having the hardest time finding a wife. There's so many young Christian men in America that can't find a wife. And it's because of this value split that we're seeing only growing. This it's a really hard place for me to a lot of my friends are single and they want to be married. They're Christian guys, they can't find anyone to marry and and they want to have kids. Studies show this as well, that that the desire for kids in America since or the desire for young people to have kids in America since 2018 has only been growing. And everyone's freaking out right now about our population drop, which is uh an issue, but the desire for kids is there. But they're not having kids because they're not getting married. And I just see this as such an issue. So, Nancy, how do you how do you respond to that?

Scott Allen: 39:35

Yes. But you know what? It goes both ways. If you talk to young women, they often are all still saying we can't find good men. So it's not just one way, it's that they have contradictory expectations. And so, you know, women are still um saying that men haven't been men haven't been socialized into a a view of masculinity and and marriage and family that they think is really positive yet. You see, um this is where my book Toxic Woman Masculinity comes in where it talks about the secular script for masculinity and how that, you know, like you said, the kind of the historical sequence of how it developed. And remember the the message in particular from evolution, from Darwinism, I love to focus on this because that so many people are surprised. They think, well, Darwinism was a biological theory. But the social Darwinists immediately began to say the men who won out in the struggle for survival were brutal, ruthless, savage, barbarian, and predatory. And that's not ancient history, because I have two examples in the book that are recent, that are contemporary. Uh I think I have this in my in my notes. Here it is. Um I want to give you the exact words. So the book, The Moral Animal, was a best-selling book, meaning it had a lot of influence. And the author there says Um, human males are by nature oppressive, possessive, flesh-obsessed pigs. Giving them advice on successful marriage is like offering Vikings a free booklet titled How Not to Pillage. I'm glad he at least has a sense of humor. There's a and another book called Men in Marriage was just reissued, and he says, again, a direct quote: men are by nature violent, sexually predatory, and irresponsible. The deepest yearning is not for wife and family, but for the motorbike and the open road, the male group escape to a primal mode of predatory and immediate gratification. And these are books that are out there now, you know, in the marketplace, influencing men. And men who don't have a Christian background, who are reaching out to, so what does it mean to be a man? They're reading books like this that say, you know, that don't urge you to live up to the image of God in you, but that urge men to live down, you know, to the what they call the beast within, you know, their their masculine identity is supposed to be taken from, you know, the animal world instead of from the spiritual life. And I think we're still seeing a lot of women re reacting negatively against the secular concept of masculinity. Um because if you know if what I just read is what is what men are getting, and the men in their lives are, you know, they're believing it because they're not Christian, they don't have an alternative. I think we're still a lot of women are still saying that that men's this seems to describe a lot of the men that they do know.

Luke Allen: 42:37

That's a problem. It's it's this the the the Lone Ranger. I mean, without without Christ, that really is a compelling story for young men. It's the John Wayne, it's the it's the Jack London call of the wild, right? It's and and you know, we all know that message, but it's it's devoid of Christ. It's devoid of a higher meaning. It's it's it's selfish by the people.

Scott Allen: 42:56

And it is the the widest, and it is the most widespread among um young men. There was a book by K Peggy Ornstein. She wrote a book. Um she went around the country interviewing young men, high school and college-age young men, and she came back with to my surprise, young men are still influenced by the John Wayne um masculinity image of the Steve McQueen and the Arnold Schwarzenegger. But and I was reading it and I thought, no, surely you're wrong. These are these are from a previous generation. And then she addressed that. She said, yes, they're all still trapped in the previous generation's concept of masculinity. That's what young men, you know, in surveys like hers, that's what they're still identifying as the ideal version of masculinity. A very well, we would now call it the sort of red pill, right? The red pill version of masculinity.

Dr. Nancy Pearcey: 43:47

Darrell, you were going to say something. I wanted I wanted to hear your comment there. Uh well, a couple things. One, what we're describing is sexist culture globally. You could be in Latin America where there's a high percentage of people that are evangelical and charismatic Christians, but in their head, they're sexist. Same thing in Africa. And one of the greatest causes of poverty in the world, and I said this in a couple of books, is the lie that men are superior to women. It's a lie. And we find it in American culture as we're talking about here, but we find it around the world. The other thing I wanted to say when it was Trump's first presidency, and uh I'm pretty sure it was his first presidency, it was the last, his last State of the Union dress. And uh he stood up there and and all the Congresswomen that were feminist were dressed in white. And he wanted to say something that was positive for them. And he said that we can be happy today and proud today that there are more women in the workplace than there ever have been. And all the Democrats stood up and applauded, and all the Republicans stood up and replotted, applauded. That is a problem, and that I know you deal with Nancy. It's the whole uh women's lib side of things. Um it defines men and women, and the nation, Republican and Democrat, champions women being in the workplace. And the biblical message is family formation, and the biblical message is having children, then there's nothing no higher um vision that a woman can have than being a mother and nurturing the next generation. And that that's nowhere in our culture today.

Scott Allen: 46:03

I think it's really tragic that so many young women no longer think being a mother married is is good. The Institute for Family Studies um has had several articles on this. They watch the New York Times, and the New York Times is constantly having articles on how when women have children, they're unhappier. And so the have you have you seen that? They've had several articles like that.

Dr. Nancy Pearcey: 46:28

I like pushing that, yeah.

Scott Allen: 46:30

And the Institute for Family Studies, every time they do, they come out with a new study showing that married women with children are the happiest of all women. They keep coming out with the facts. And of course, I always am putting it on Twitter, you know, always trying to get it more publicity for those statistics. But women who are married and have children consistently test out as the happiest. And yet the message that young women get is that you know, marriage is a trap and it's oppressive, and having kids is going to destroy your life. And and I believed all that. You, I don't know if you remember this, but when I was young, I was a full-blown feminist and I read all the major books by the feminist writers, and I believed all of that. So I can't I have some sympathy for women who get trapped in that mindset because that the message is so strong. And I appreciate, Darryl, your um your experience in around the globe and the sexism that is so common there. I thought of it last night. I was on a podcast in Brazil. The it was the publisher who had translated Toxic War Masculinity into Portuguese for Brazil. And then they had, after I was done, they, you know, of course, it's it it it gives those studies that show that committed Christian men actually do test out as the most loving and engaged husbands and fathers. But at the end they had a QA. And you know what the women all asked, what about if my husband is not living up to what those surveys show? And of course, I I do have two chapters on abuse in Christian homes, so I was able to put them on that. But I thought that was very telling that for women in Brazil, that was the driving question that they had.

Dr. Nancy Pearcey: 48:14

Well, and this goes back to these things are driven by culture. And it's a culture that says men are are the beast and women are barefoot and pregnant, and women are tired of that. Rightly so. But the culture has to shift. We can we can shift policies, but until the culture shifts, there's not going to be much change. And the culture shifting, because culture comes from cult, from worship, this goes back to where is the church doing what Charlie Kirk did, sharing the nature and character of God, and that becoming the foundation of a culture that puts men and women on an equal footing as the image of God. I speaking of Charlie Kirk, Darrell, you know, he especially when I like you, Nancy, I was listening to him probably more after his assassination than before. But I always appreciated him in the sense that I was glad he was out there because I had listened enough to him, you know, I listened to his Oxford debate and I was impressed enough, especially in recent years. But his really his kind of pre a predominant message of you know of late was get married. You know, this was a message he said to everybody, especially young men, get married, have more children than you can afford. Build a legacy, pass down your values, pursue the eternal, seek true joy. That's quite a powerful message. We we need a message like that, it seems to me like a powerful spokesperson. And I'm not saying they don't exist. I think they're I think of Ali Beth Stucky and others that are that are saying something similar to females and women. Um but it seems like that's that's just we need to continue to to yeah, exactly, Darrow, that's a biblical message.

Scott Allen: 50:16

So you know, one of the questions that you guys sent ahead of time was the um you asked about the study done that showed that there were two scripts for men. And and that might fit in well here because um this was done by a sociologist, not a Christian, who is so well known that he speaks all around the world. And so he came up with a clever experiment where he would ask young men two questions. You know, first, what does it mean to be a good man? You're at a funeral and in the eulogy somebody says he was a good man. What does that mean? And the sociologist said all around the world, men had no trouble answering that. They would immediately start talking about honor, duty, integrity, sacrifice. Right. Do the right thing, look out for the little guy, be a protector, be a provider, be responsible. And he would say, Where'd you learn that? And they'd say, I don't know, it's just in the air we breathe. Or we would say, they are made in God's image, and they do have an inherent, intrinsic, innate sense of what it means to be a good man, to use their unique masculine strengths, not to just get whatever they want, you know, but to provide, to protect, to care for those they love. But then he would follow up with that second question where he would say, Well, what does it mean if I say to you, man up, be a real man? And the young men would themselves would say, No, no, no, that's completely different. You know, that means be tough, never show weakness, win at all costs, uh, play through pain, what else? Get be competitive, get rich, get laid. I'm using their language. And so even the secular sociologists said men are kind of trapped between two scripts. You know, they have that innate sense of being made in God's image, which is very encouraging, but they do feel the cultural pressure in most cultures uh to be very different. And not that not that all those traits are bad. I mean, we want people to hang tough in a crisis. But if it's disconnected from a moral vision, then it can slide into dominance and control and entitlement and so on. And I I love the fact that you know that, Darrow, that you wrote a book on women because you have that international perspective showing the same thing that in all cultures, it's not just the West that we that we have this the real man script, in quotes, but all around the world. Every culture has that lie that men are superior to women.

Dr. Nancy Pearcey: 52:33

As you're talking, Nancy, it reminds me of that famous quote from Alexander Solsenitsyn about the line between good and evil running through every human heart. And we have this divided nature in a fallen world, right? We've got, you know, there's a to be a man is to have this part of our lives that's fallen, it's worldly, that seeks those, you know, to dominate women and to it's hedonistic. I mean, that's true in every culture, and yet that's not the whole picture, thank God, right? I mean, they're still, as you said, we're image bearers of God, and that for men, that means uh what you were describing there, you know, in terms of what is a good man, what does it mean to live a good life? There's there's rumors of that. At least I don't know, I I was reading a book recently about the ancient uh world and how Yeah, especially in the ancient Roman world, you know, it was it was pretty brutal towards women, let's just put it that way. You know, that there just wasn't much of this biblical understanding that that that you know, even even in terms of common grace. Yeah.

Scott Allen: 53:31

Well, there was there's another study that you to uh bring us to a more positive note, there's another study uh by an anthropologist who did a cross-cultural study of concepts of masculinity, not of men, but concepts of what it means to be a man. And of course, there's differences among all the cultures, but he said everywhere there is a core ideal of what it means to be a good man. And he summarized it as the three P's that the good man will provide, protect, and procreate, meaning you know, have a have a family. And he said this is universal. Provide, protect, procreate. Yes. Um, despite cultural differences, and of course, he himself, again, was not a Christian and not looking only at cultures that had a Christian background. And so I think it gives us a much more positive way to deal with these issues because when we talk to men, I mean, obviously, men do not like being called toxic. You know, nobody would. But if there's a way that we can tap into and encourage and support that innate sense of what it means to be a good man, we can be confident it's there because even non-Christian social scientists are finding it. We can be confident that it's there and that if we can tap into it, we can have a much more positive way of addressing men.

Dr. Nancy Pearcey: 54:47

And the way to tap into it is the image of God. What?

Scott Allen: 54:54

Exactly.

Dr. Nancy Pearcey: 54:54

What does that mean? I'm made in the image of God. What? Oh, here's what that means. And here's what it means as a man. You're made in the image of the real man. Yeah. Barry, you've done such a great job on this. I think when people talk about God's image, um we don't tend to think about it in terms of male and female, right? Um, we we tend to think about it in terms that are true, you know. God is creative, he's made us creative, God is love, he's made us to love. Um, God has agency, you know, is free and has agency, so do we. But you've done a good job, Bero, and maybe you could talk a little bit about this. The image of God that also comes into being both male and female. Well, that's what it says in Genesis chapter one. He made us in his image male and female. And to fully represent the image of God in man, in mankind, in human beings, he made male and female. And he made us different. And that's a good thing. And he's made us to complement each other, and that's a good thing. And you see the most basic thing in the the Trinity is one God, three persons. And so if he's going to make us in his image, he couldn't make a single man or a single woman. He needed to make unity and diversity, and that's why it says he made them in his image, male and female. And then gave them the cultural mandate. It was given to the male and the female. That's right. Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and have dominion over creation. That wasn't just given to men. And we need we need to be Genesis one Christians again. Dara Nancy did a good job of, you know, the three P's is kind of uh a kind of a a sense of the God's image stamped on on all men, whether they're Christian or not, this sense, this kind of deep sense of we need to be providers, protectors, and procreators. How would you what w in terms of God's image being stamped on the female, um, the feminine, what do like was there an equivalent to that? Did you know I know that's very simple, the three P's, but what how would you describe that?

Scott Allen: 57:17

Well, well, let me start out by saying that when I wrote my book on the toxic war and masculinity, I often got people asking me, well, what do you think are the differences between men and women? And I had to start by saying, uh I had to start in our culture by affirming that being male is good. You know, that let's just start with the basic physical characteristics that men are bigger, stronger, faster, they have 75% greater upper body muscle mass, 90% greater upper body strength, and because of testosterone, they tend to be more aggressive and risk-taking. And we have to start with just saying, this is good. These are the creational givens. And we need to uh help men, you know, get a message that their unique masculine characteristics characteristics are good. But for women, I think Darrow's book is the best on the subject, nurturing the nations, because uh, in spite of all the books I've written I've read about feminism, I thought he did the best job of really showing that women's nature also also reflects God's character. Yes, because you talk about you know the womb and nursing and how these also are God's uh uh express you know, nursing particularly, you know, God nurtures us, he feeds us spiritually, he cares for us. All of these uniquely feminine characteristics are also reflecting God's character.

Dr. Nancy Pearcey: 58:38

It's funny, Darrow still gets in hot water over that. There's something about that that seems kind of um uh like pushing the envelope or or maybe even going too far. And I'm thinking, no, God made women in his image.

Scott Allen: 58:49

I know. Well, you know, it's just describing physical characteristics that put some people off, but I thought it was good because I've never heard anyone else do that. Even Christian women who are arguing against feminism do not show God's character in women's physical makeup in the way that Darrow does. It's it's very affirming, and I've recommended it to many people.

Dr. Nancy Pearcey: 59:08

Thank you, Nancy. I came across something within the last year or two that fits with what we're talking about right now. You use the word procreation for men, and that's part of it for women too, procreation. And we males nor females have a full procreation system. Yeah, we can't. You can't procreate because you only have half of the system. So it takes male and female both bringing their part of the system together to be able to procreate. Whoa. Wonderful. Exactly. You know, you can think on your own, you can speak on your own, you can walk on your own, but you cannot procreate on your own. Or any you think it's b bodily organs, they all function just fine on their own. That's the one that you know you only have half in terms of doing what it was intended to do.

Scott Allen: 1:00:07

So um it's an argument we raise against transgenderism a lot, for example.

Dr. Nancy Pearcey: 1:00:14

Yeah, we we could talk more about that, but I do think right now that yeah, there's a need, Darrow, to kind of there there's a in our culture there's there's a need. This gets back to your point, Luke, you know, about the men having a hard time finding women because it's such a low value for them to be married and have children right now, as studies have shown. Um but but what you know, what is that about being made in God's image as a woman? That you know, that that uniqueness um that that that needs to be recovered in our time right now. So she is named Eve. And what does Eve mean? The mother of all living. What? Where did all of life come from? From the creator God. So what is Adam's wife's name? The creator of all living.

Scott Allen: 1:01:18

Yeah, I I agree with you. Um you said you were reading a book on Romans, on the Roman culture, ancient Greco-Roman culture. And one of the things I find I have to help Christians understand is uh how unique Christianity is, because you know it's permeated America, yeah, Western culture enough that it's just many parts of Christianity are just sort of the background wallpaper.

Dr. Nancy Pearcey: 1:01:37

It's the air we breathe, as someone once said. Yes.

Scott Allen: 1:01:41

And just showing the early church and what it faced, you know, the Roman culture, marriage was held in low regard, women were held in low regard, women, you know, wives were to have legal heirs, but it was just expected that men would have sex with just about anything else.

Dr. Nancy Pearcey: 1:01:57

Including statues and boys and anything they wanted.

Scott Allen: 1:02:01

Trevor Burrus, Jr. And mostly slaves. You know, most adultery was with slaves because they were handy. They were right in your home. And so just and that alone, just valuing marriage and telling men that they needed to be faithful to their wives was was revolutionary. And also telling them to love their wives. Uh love, love and cherishing was not exactly masculine virtues back back in the Roman times. No.

Dr. Nancy Pearcey: 1:02:25

So the idea of a woman being made in God's image is radical and it didn't exist at all in Roman times. And even in our current time, the book that I was reading, you know, said that women were thought of and referred to their identity was tool. That was the word. They're a tool. All over Africa. And you see, you hear that same thing today in Africa, don't you, Daryl? All over. And so it's no word for who are men that have that idea. Women have that idea, right? That that is their concept of their identity. I'm a tool. And think about just go ahead, Daryl. Dennis Prager said something very profound a few years ago. I mean, he said a lot of things profound, but he said it was the Judeo-Christian concept of one man, one woman in a covenant relationship before God that made the development of the Western world possible. Without that concept, you wouldn't have had Western civilization.

Scott Allen: 1:03:26

It's a good quote because he talks about how it's hard for us to understand how other cultures were permeated with sexuality. It wasn't just that men could have sex with any woman around, but their gods. You know, their gods were having sex with each other and were raping human women. And he talks about how, you know, it it was sanctified sanctioned even by the gods. By the gods.

Dr. Nancy Pearcey: 1:03:49

Exactly.

Scott Allen: 1:03:50

There's a reason, by the way, you you mentioned boys. There's a reason Cupid was a boy. Um the god, you know, the god of love was a boy.

Dr. Nancy Pearcey: 1:04:02

What is that reason?

Scott Allen: 1:04:04

Because of pedestries. Pedrostry was so common in the Roman world.

Dr. Nancy Pearcey: 1:04:07

Ah, I see. Okay. Yes, exactly. Yeah, that's that's the neo-pagan sexuality we're we're quickly kind of de r reverting back to today, aren't we? We are. Yeah. That's a manifestation of our culture today. It's pagan sexuality.

Scott Allen: 1:04:23

Sorry. One more thing that I was going to talk maybe throw in here in terms of um, you know, how can we help men today? Yes. We cover a sense of of calling and so on. Um I think that men need to realize how much influence they have, whether they want to or not. You know, first of all, you know, after the industrial revolution, when men had to leave the home and and work in offices and factories, remember, before that, before the industrial revolution, men worked alongside their wives and children all day on the family farm, the family industry, the family business. And so the cultural expectation on men was much more oriented toward nurturing, responsibility, caretaking. And after the Industrial Revolution, um men had to work outside the home. They began to get their identity and meaning from outside. You see this even in the 19th century. They began to complain that men were treating their job as an idol. It's interesting how often they use that word because it was this was new. Instead of getting their main identity from family and religion, they were starting to get their identity from the workplace. Well, what happened then? Well, eventually women followed.

Dr. Nancy Pearcey: 1:05:30

They followed because they wanted to be valuable, like men. Yeah, that's where I'll say. That's right.

Scott Allen: 1:05:35

If men devalue, if men devalue home and family, eventually women will follow suit. So men have influence. And the other thing is children. You know, when when men had to work outside the home, they lost their contact with their children. One sociologist puts it this way: he said that for the first time ever, American boys had an identity crisis. Uh another another sociologist puts it this way: um, the the main love bond damaged by the Industrial Revolution was the father-son bond. So one reason young men have been having so much trouble today is because they're raised by women, you know, both at home, you know, elementary school, Sunday school. They have very little contact with really strong, healthy male role models. And one of the most encouraging things that I ran into when I was writing the book on masculinity was um a study that was done. It was a 35-year longitudinal study. Um, it won all kinds of awards. You know, it was a very well-done study. And it was on how parents succeed in passing along their religious convictions to their children. And they found two surprising things. One is fathers matter more than mothers. So again, men have influence whether they intend to or not.

Dr. Nancy Pearcey: 1:06:51

That's true.

Scott Allen: 1:06:52

Yeah, I mean, mothers have an influence, but I it was something like 68% versus 40-some percent in terms of uh fathers having a greater influence. But then the second thing was the nature of the relationship. It had to be a warm, loving relationship. If the father was a moral exemplar, you know, had perfect theology, was a pillar of the church, but was perceived by the child as cold, distant, and authoritarian, then they would not follow him into his faith, into his religious convictions. So fathers have more influence than they realize, and I think they just knowing that could help inspire a lot of men to do better, you know, because they're having influence, whether they mean to or not. Yes. And and there was an interesting uh study done on a purely secular basis, too, on how to how to raise masculine sons. There's a whole book on it. It too was a fairly large study. And they found the same thing. It didn't matter how stereotypically masculine the father was, you know, whether he was the John Wayne type or more gentle. What mattered was the quality of the relationship. It had to be warm, close, and loving. And if it was, then the the boy would have a healthy, secure, solid masculine identity. So it's interesting to see a secular study showing the same thing. It's very powerful. That the father's love is the a loving relationship with the father is the most important thing for children going up, and especially boys.

Dr. Nancy Pearcey: 1:08:21

I just want to highlight that and underscore that. Listen, I'd like to try to tie up tie up our conversation today. It's gone on for a long time, Nancy. I'm so grateful for your generosity of time, but uh, I think it was really important question that came up. You know, we are seeing a revival, especially young men. They're coming into our churches, and that raised the question and the the concern, you know, what are they going to hear? Are they going to hear a sacred secular divide? Um, you know, uh, you know, what this is a concern, this is an issue. And we ask the question, what can we do? How do we help the church at this moment? And that got us into kind of a lengthy discussion here. But I think a really good one about this kind of most basic vocation that comes from Genesis 1 and 2, right? This, you know, be be a man, be a woman, be married, raise godly kids, raise godly families. Charlie Kirk's message, his big message towards the end of his life. And so if churches that, if they could grab a hold of just that one thing, like I we'd need to help these young people, young men and women, understand the biblical view of who they are and of what it means to be married and raise a godly family, including very practical things like that, Nancy. Very helpful. I think this would this would really be quite powerful for churches right now, it seems to me.

Scott Allen: 1:09:39

So there was a there's a book by um uh he's Jewish, so I can't ever remember how to say his name, but he he's the founder of the National Conservatism Conference. You know, the annual conference now called National Conservatism, and he's written a couple books on it. And you know what he says? Guys, you want if you want to be politically conservative.

Dr. Nancy Pearcey: 1:10:00

Yeah, you're right.

Scott Allen: 1:10:02

Exactly. So but in his book, he says you have to start with living a conservative life. It's not any good to have conservative political views right now. You know, I mean, that's it's it's becoming more totally common to have you know conservative views, it's becoming more common to be anti-globalist, to be populist, you know, through all the European countries as well. But his point is you can't start there. You must make sure you're also having a a conservative life, meaning you know, focused on your family, raising your children, belonging to a church. I love that because uh when we lived in Washington, we knew a lot of people, Washington, D.C., that is, um, and my husband was working on Capitol Hill in a Capitol Hill newspaper, Human Events, and we knew a lot of conservatives who come to Washington to work in political politics, excuse me, conservative politics, and they were not living a conservative life.

Dr. Nancy Pearcey: 1:10:58

And you know, Nancy Guys who was sleeping guys sleeping with their girlfriends. I find this so empowering as just a as a father myself and a husband, you know, because I want to change the world. But biblically, the way you do that is you start with the most basic sphere, and that's your own family, you know. And if you can't change that, how are you gonna change the world? This is the inside out way that the world changes biblically. And, you know, there's something so empowering about that because you can do something there, right? It's really hard to change your city, much unless your state or nation, but your family is something that you can do something. There's just you know, there's something that's very practical there, you know, so it's very empowering, I think. Darry, you were gonna say something. Yeah, so I'd like to tie together these last two thoughts, one you made and the one Nancy made. We should not use the word revival without hyphenating it with reformation. Everybody's using the word revival now. But revival is not a true revival without reformation. And that's uh what Nancy is saying. It has to begin with doing and doing differently, right? Doing differently by different standards, by a different pattern, by a different worldview. So I think even in our own discussion, we need to bring it up when people are talking about, oh, there's a revival in the church. No, we'll see if there's a revival. A revival will produce a reformation. And if there's no reformation, a true revival there needs to be followed by reformation. Hey, that's really well said, Daryl. Yeah. And I think right here at this most, again, this is the the most basic kind of role that job description, if you will, that God gives us as human beings, right? Male, female, marriage and family. Again, not to say everyone needs to be married. God, there's singleness, there's a theology of singleness in the Bible. It's strong and powerful, but most people are going to be married, you know, and raise children. And to do that biblically, to understand that biblically in church, people need help with that. You know, they need help. And I I think our churches could really do so much good just by focusing on this biblically through great books like yours, Nancy, the Toxic War on Masculinity and Darrow, your book, Nurturing Nations, great places to start, you know, for any church on this topic. Uh any final, as we wrap up, Nancy, any final things that you'd like to say? This has been such a an exhilarating, kind of helpful discussion for me personally, so thank you.

Scott Allen: 1:13:32

Do you know? Um, we're talking we talked about the um having to counter the negative messages of the feminist movement, you know, that to women that being married and having children is not a good thing. But we need to counter the negative views of men, especially fathers, right? In in our media, the father's always the butt of the joke. You know, they're they're presented as bumbling idiots. Um I my son, one of my sons, loved the Bernstein Bears. I don't know if you know them, but the father was always the one who's who who's so stupid his kids are smarter than him. Um and and again, where did this come from? After the Industrial Revolution, when men had to be out of the home all day, they got sort of out of touch with their children. And already in the 19th century, you see the literature change and men become portrayed as out of touch, incompetent, irrelevant, and superfluous in the home. And so again, we have to talk about you know, how do we motivate men to want to do what you just said in terms of you know, getting married, having children, starting, starting at home. Reformation starts at home with your closest relationships. We have to counter that negative image of fatherhood and reconnect fatherhood with a you know, with honor and respect. And and even helping, I would say we even have to look at the workplace because we've gotten so used to the idea that men are apart from their family all day, we kind of take it for granted. But the pandemic helped change a lot of people's minds. Harvard University did a study in which they here's the here's the exact words of their finding. They said during the pandemic, 68% of fathers said they got closer to their children and they don't want to lose that. So when men do have an opportunity to have, you know, some home-based work, some remote work, some more hype more hybrid jobs or flexible hours, ways that we can tweak the workplace to give fathers more time with their kids. They find out they actually like being with their children. You know, they do want to be fathers, they do enjoy that that task that God has given them. So, and by the way, I did have to uh quote CEOs too. We've got to get the corporations involved. And one of the CEOs I quoted said, um, before the pandemic, we were very suspicious of any kind of remote work. And then he said, during the pandemic, that fear was completely exploded. We did not see any drop in productivity. So we have to help people to realize, you know, maybe there's a way we can actually bring some reformation to the workplace to enable fathers to be more involved with their children, both for their sake and of course for their the sake of their sons.

Dr. Nancy Pearcey: 1:16:18

Let me create a slogan right now. Let's dethrone the marketplace and re-enthrone the family. And that applies to men and women. Well, Dare, I think this would be a really good place for the reformation in our churches to start. Yeah. With that, with that slogan. And uh so I yeah, I this has been this has been so helpful, Nancy, just to hear your thoughts on just kind of what in the heck is going on, because there's so much going on. And um, I do hope that it can lead to a reformation where the the comprehensiveness, the fullness of the biblical worldview is rediscovered, the sacred secular peace is put aside, um, and it can it can there can be this kind of beginning in the family, in the home, in the church, you know, these basic institutions. Um and so may it be. And uh appreciate so much, Nancy, all that you've done over the years to be pushing and and and uh leaning into this. Um you've you've made such a difference. So thank you.

Scott Allen: 1:17:18

Thank you. Well, thank you. Thank you. No, thank you so much for doing it. It's good to reconnect.

Dr. Nancy Pearcey: 1:17:24

Well we'll we'll we'll be bugging you again for the next time too, Nancy, that's for sure. So all right. Well, listen, everyone. Thanks again for tuning into another episode of Ideas Have Consequences, the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance.