The Unawakened Warrior

Chaplain Justin Schalow introduces his forthcoming book "Warriorism," which addresses the crisis of biblical manhood and calls men to embody both the lion (strength/danger) and the lamb (restraint/discipline).

• Many men lack father figures or clear blueprints for biblical manhood
• Current men's studies often offer shallow principles rather than substantive tools
• The unawakened warrior is physically present but mentally absent in life's battles
• Biblical manhood requires integrating ferocity with restraint, like Jesus embodied
• Passivity isn't peace—it's a liability that allows spiritual enemies to gain ground
• Modern culture encourages men to be either harmless lambs or reckless lions
• True shepherds stand between their flock and danger, laying down their lives
• Men need to identify areas where their warrior is asleep and take immediate action
• Future episodes will explore how to develop a personal creed and kill passivity

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Transcript

Speaker 1 0:01

Welcome to the Theopsych Project the fight within. This is where theology isn't soft and psychology isn't secular. Here we're going to confront trauma, identity and spiritual warfare with clinical clarity and ancient truth. No fluff, no filters, just real stories, real healing and a God who's not afraid of your pain. So head over to revivewolkocom, click the Theo Psych Project, send us your questions, share your story or pull up a chair.

Speaker 2 0:32

Hey guys, welcome to the Theo Psych Project. Today I'm really excited because I get to interview my husband, chaplain Justin Shalow, who wrote the book called Warriorism, and it's coming out in December hopefully, justin, by Christmas. So this can be a gift to spouses, hint, hint. Okay, and over the next eight weeks we're gonna do an eight-part series where we're gonna walk through the core ideas, without giving away your whole book here, but just enough, I think, where it matters and where you can kind of see what warriorism could mean to you. So, justin, I'll let you start and tell us why. Why warriorism?

Speaker 1 1:11

I think chiefly I, like a lot of men in today's culture, like I, grew up without a father figure in my home to disciple me into not even biblical manhood but just manhood in general. Like I, just I didn't understand what it meant to be a man. I didn't know what was expected of manhood, much less what was expected of biblical manhood. So I didn't understand the blueprint, I didn't know what the rules were or what the boundaries were around manhood, and I certainly didn't have a guide into biblical manhood and, later in life, the church. They motivated me in the right direction, but there's not a ton of theology that's taught. It's wrapped around the idea of biblical manhood. So really, that just turns into pep talks instead of systematically teaching men how to be the man that God has expected them to be. So, really, when it comes down to it, the men's studies that I was a part of and participated in on my journey really taught principles, good principles like be nice and listen to your wife, but those end up being really shallow cliches and not necessarily tools that we can use as we pursue God's design for manhood in today's culture, or in any culture for that matter. And one of those studies, and I think it's fantastic. But John Eldridge wrote a book called Wild at Heart and I worked through that book with some men at one point in my journey and that really opens the door, but it left me wanting more right. So he talks about things like adventure and romance. It kind of falls flat when it comes to the discipline and the danger and the mission that I see God is calling men to via the blueprint he laid out in Genesis 1.26. And then again, something I observed in the military men. We really crave a creed, we need a mission to be on, we need a brotherhood to stand next to us, and without those often we will drift into destruction. I think that one of the real inspirations for this book has been the call, the understanding of the blueprint, to call men to cultivate and protect right, so to be dangerous, but also to exercise a level of discipline that aligns with the word of God.

Speaker 1 3:42

So I think Jordan Peterson says it rather well. He talks about a harmless man isn't a good man. So weak man's not a good man. A good man embodies danger, but he has that danger under voluntary control, right. So if you think about that in correlation to the Bible, man, that's the lion and the lamb. So that's exactly what warriorism is seeking to do. The book we want to take that deeper. It's not just voluntary control, but it's spirit led control, right? So John, in chapter 10 of his gospel, jesus says no one takes my life from me. I lay it down on my own accord. That's the ultimate picture of warrior control, danger and discipline. But this is the real thing, right? We don't need another pep talk. So that's not what warriorism is. We need a creed to live by, and that's exactly what I want to teach men how to do is develop a creed that drives their own warrioristic biblical manhood, you know, and then again, the church tells us to be nice, but the Bible tells us to be dangerous, but under God's control.

The Missing Blueprint for Manhood

Speaker 2 4:56

Yeah, I hear you that is so good. You know, I think that a lot of books scratch on the surface, right, and so what I hear you saying is like it doesn't really get to the raw parts of man, right, the things that maybe really drive them. What do you think is missing here? You know what is missing from the books that you've seen and where is warriorism going.

Speaker 1 5:17

Yeah, so you know a lot of the studies, men's studies that I've done, you know they engage men at a certain level and they identify that every man longs for a battle to fight and an adventure to win or go on, and a beauty to rescue, a damsel that needs rescuing, right, like that that connects to something in every man, right, that stirs something in every man. But they really don't, they really don't give us a playbook on how to do that Right, so it doesn't. They really don't connect it back to the original blueprint which, you know, adam created in the garden, right, and he was given a job, he was told to do something by God and then he kind of fell flat, right, and we see later on in scripture, jesus was able to execute exactly what Adam was not. He stood toe to toe with Satan and was able to push him off. So the thing is is that you know a lot of these studies they don't. They don't press into sin, right? So, like lust and rage and cowardice, like these aren't just wounds that we carry, we have to understand that these things are rebellion against God and, without calling sin what it is, you know, our, our wounds really just become excuses. And and then, further than that, we, we, you know, we don't press into the wounds, right, you know so. For example, like father, wounds are something that is talked about quite often, but we, we glaze over. Betrayal or moral injury, that's a good one, you know. Combat trauma, porn addiction, general generational curses, like these are all things that men deal with in our culture every day and we're really not talking about it.

Speaker 1 6:49

And discipling men, how to get past those things so they can return to the blueprint, and then I would say also the press into discipline. We often think passion equals purpose, but here's the thing we all have to come to the understanding of there's a warrior in every single one of us and it's either asleep or awake. But that warrior needs order, because that warrior without order is just. It's just going to be the beast, right, he's just going to be the lion, he's not going to know how to be the lion and the lamb, right. And you know, mission, mission without discipline, anything without discipline, is just. It's either, you know, physical or spiritual suicide, right, and then. And then we never talk about the anthropology of it all, right.

Speaker 1 7:33

So Genesis 2.7 talks about the body, the soul and the spirit. Basar nefesh ruach, right, these things, these things are important. So what I'm seeking to teach men through the warriorism book is that your body, it craves battle. Our soul, men's souls, it craves meaning and our spirit craves God. And here's the thing, that integration, it matters. That integration, it matters Pope John Paul II.

Unawakened Warriors: Passivity Problem

Speaker 1 8:07

He wrote something fairly profound. I love this. The body, in fact, and it alone, is capable of making visible what is invisible, the spiritual and the divine. We understand this from modern psychology. Your body keeps the score. So I think here's the thing, for warriors is like your drive to protect, that's awesome to conquer, to seek intimacy. It's not random, it wasn't by accident. You weren't designed that way by accident. These are the fingerprints of God in our life. They're the signposts of divine design. So the warrior archetype that that is presented in the book is danger under control. Like good, men are dangerous both to physical and spiritual threats, but they understand when and how to execute those dangerous capabilities. Right, because, because we know this, men who lack danger, we just we're weak men, and men who lack discipline, we become tyrants. So if you have that danger and no discipline, then you're just a tyrant. But the integration creates balance. So that's exactly what warriorism does. It puts language to this the lion and the lamb.

Speaker 2 9:29

That is so good. So you have to be curious. Here you keep talking about this idea of warriorism and what that kind of looks like. You've painted this picture like who is that guy? But what does that actually mean right now? What does it mean? This maybe unawakened warrior?

Speaker 1 9:47

Really, you know that warrior is either asleep, he's unawakened, he's asleep at the wheel, or he's wide awake and he's engaged and you're using that to your benefit. But really, to answer this question, I want to kind of take you back to Genesis 3, right? So, at the fall of mankind, you know, eve, eve takes a fruit, she, she wants to see what's going on. She picks up this piece of fruit, she eats. Right, adam was standing right there with her.

Speaker 1 10:13

But the language used, you know, and this is something that I had in my mind like with her, what's with her mean? Because with her means, like you know, when you go to the store with your wife and you're in the hunting section and she's in the grocery section, like you're with her, but are you with her, with her, you know what I mean. But that's not the language that the Bible is using. The Bible is using language to suggest that he was with her, like kind of side eye on the whole situation. And I think that we do this every day in our culture. I think that we do this as men. We're kind of side-eyeing what's going on, like is this really, you know? Like you know, let's just see what happens, let's just see how this goes. And that's exactly what Adam did, when he should have valiantly stepped into that situation and protected the woman that God had given him from the evil that was there and present. You know why? Why wasn't he? Why wasn't he using his voice? Why wasn't he using his warrioristic manhood to step in and say hold on to be the unawakened warrior. You're, really, you're. You're present in body, but you're absent in spirit. Are you breathing, but you're not fighting. You're, here's the here's.

Speaker 1 11:27

The thing about it is like we, we call it, we call it peace, but ultimately it's passivity, and passivity is a liability, right, you're, you're a peacekeeper. That's fantastic. Peacekeepers, they avoid conflict. But check it out. Jesus called you to be a peacemaker and peacemakers confront conflict. So, really, here's, here's how this could look in today's life, right? So, like you're, you're just completely engaged in a video game. You're, you're disconnected from your family. I know you worked all day, right, but you got three, four, five, five hours before the kids go to bed that you could really use to intentionally engage with your family and and teach them these principles and protect them from the evil that exists.

Speaker 1 12:04

And once in your house and once in your marriage, or you could just check out and you can just scroll or you can watch reels, or you can. You know, a lot of folks jump on porn instead of pursuing your wife. So you're showing up and you're physically present, but you're, you're mentally absent. That's the unawakened warrior. And you're physically present, but you're mentally absent, that's the unawakened warrior.

Speaker 1 12:31

Right, passive men, we love to tap into this passivity, we love to tap into this peacekeeping, and really here's what we call it. Let's be a nice guy, but nice guy, see, check it out, you don't have a pass. Right, revelations 21,. It says the cowardly, right, that's the pacifist, that's the, that's the peacekeepers. Right, the cowardly, their portion will be in the lake of fire. Listen, god's, god's not going to call it all your passivity, right. And then you know also Ephesians 2, paul talking you were dead in your trespasses and sins, walking corpses. So check it out. Like, here's the crux If you're asleep in a war zone, you're a casualty. You just don't know it yet. If you're not a casualty, then you're a liability, just don't know it. If you're not a casualty, then you're a liability. The unawakened warrior really is the calmest prisoner in his own cell block.

Speaker 2 13:34

Wow, yeah, and I really it's very interesting, you know, because we always think in our culture, pop culture tells us right, the nice guy is the good guy, right, and you know it's so interesting the way that you're describing that and you know I love that. You called to specifically, like you know, passivity in our life, you know during the day and kind of what that looks like. But you mentioned lion and the lamb and I kind of want to hear more about that. Can you tell me a little bit about how that fits into all of this?

Speaker 1 14:06

Yeah, and I love that you brought that up, because it's one of my favorite things about the book is the idea that every man should embody both the lion and the lamb. So if you think about a lion, like, what is a lion? What is it that we should embody? That correlates to a lion, right? Strength, aggression, fight. You know what I mean. This ferocity that's embodied.

Speaker 1 14:28

Like you immediately respect a lion, it doesn't matter if you've ever met one, maybe you've never even seen one you immediately respect a lion, but you also have to embody the lamb. And then what comes to mind when you think of a lamb Meekness, restraint, sacrifice, love, approachability, right? So here's the thing Jesus was both and that's exactly what he expects warriors to be Both A lion and a lamb, Unawakened men. We really bury both of them, right? So there's no ferocity in us and there's no love in us. We're just pacifist, we're just. We're just kind of moving through life, Kind of like Adam did side eye and our wives out of the corner of our eye, like you know, really like, do I want to say anything? You know, keep the peace, you know. But see, here's the thing is that's they do that because they're neither dangerous nor disciplined right. They can't just be dangerous. You also have to embrace the discipline that that God brings through his word, Right? So, really, what I mean by the lion and the lamb is, you know, the?

Lion and Lamb Integration

Speaker 1 15:33

The lion? It's, it's it's your threat response, Jen. You could probably explain this better than I can, but your limbic system creates this threat response, right. That's a good thing. It alerts you to things that are wrong in life and it helps you maintain a posture of readiness, right. And then the lamb would be like a correlation to your prefrontal cortex right. Correlation to your prefrontal cortex right, Restraint, logic, your ability to think through, your ability to even think ahead of what is in your face right now. But when those things are aligned, the ferocity is safe, but when they're split, you're either a tyrant or you're a coward. I'm just being honest with you. Warriorism, it's an integration of both the lion and the lamb. So check it out, and I want my guys to hear me say this Without danger, you're not trustworthy, but without discipline, you're not safe. A warrior is not one or the other. Listen, he's both at the same time.

Speaker 2 16:41

That is so good, you know. Just to touch on the psychology and their neuroscience lens, of what you were saying about the lion being the limbic system, I can see that, the amygdala, that threat response, that circuitry that, like you know, fuels aggression and fight and raw passion in humans. And then I can see what you're saying about the lamb being that prefrontal cortex. In psychology we really call that the higher order brain, which means it's the region that governs restraint, it governs logic and moral reasoning and self-sacrifice, which is so interesting, the way that you've kind of brought that together and that makes total sense and we utilize that word in psychology called integration, and that really is a mark of maturity. When the limbic system fires, you know, and then the, the prefrontal cortex, takes over and it becomes yoked together yeah and this person does become fierce and safe at the same time, and so capable of battle yet trustworthy of restraint.

Speaker 2 17:41

So knowing when to act and which part. And you know, in society today we see that disintegration okay where we're not integrated, is it equals pathology, right? It equals depression and anxiety and all these different things like that. And so, split apart, the lion really devours without mercy, like you're talking about, and I can see the lamb really flees right away, like there's no courage there. And we can see that in trauma and sin and even in pop culture, you know, and how they deliver what that's supposed to look like, you know. One of the things that really stands out to me as you're talking about this is you know, do you think culture encourages men to stay asleep, to be harmless lambs or reckless lions?

Speaker 1 18:25

Yeah, and you know I talk about this in in Ignatium in the book. The reasons that that manhood has fallen into the situation that it is and some of those are, you know, are things outside of our control. But as we acknowledge those things, they are definitely things that we can identify, name and overcome. The reality is that culture has changed and it always will and it's always going to, but the Word of God stays the same. The blueprint for manhood always stayed the same, from Adam to Jesus to now.

Speaker 2 19:00

Cultivate and protect. Yeah, so kind of going into that. Tell us why this matters right now. Why is this prevalent right now? This is needed in the society that we're in. Tell us more about that.

Speaker 1 19:22

That's a great question. The reality is that culture is collapsing under passive men and, again, a myriad of different wounds that men carry, whether like myself, fatherlessness, divorce, porn, addictions of various types. You know, these things are really an epidemic and they are something that is killing biblical manhood in our culture. And we really need people, we really need men that are calling men out and saying, hey, this is the biblical blueprint and we can establish this, we can get ahead of this and we can do better for the sake of our families, for the sake of our marriages and for the sake of our relationship with God. See, here's the thing is that you don't want let me ask you this Do you want a nice guy protecting your home? Like, no, nice guys, they're not going to storm hell with a water pistol. You know what I mean. Like you want a warrior protecting your home, and that's exactly what I'm calling out of men and men.

Speaker 1 20:27

The church isn't raising good men because, you know, we're focused on creating this passive man that keeps peace rather than raising warriors that embrace this lion and lamb mentality. Right, there's something in every man that's a warrior. It's violent. Think of Beauty and the Beast. There's something that is beast-like in all of us. But see, the thing is that the beast is no good, because the beast is destroying relationships and his house is trashed. He's got a massive rage problem right. But the prince. The prince isn't separate from the beast. He's the same person, but he has that under voluntary restraint.

Speaker 1 21:22

But here's the thing is, if men don't wake up and the next generation is just going to inherit our words and if we don't get busy, getting busy and we're we're just setting the next generation up for for failure. So you know, ezekiel says chapter 22,. I think I looked for a man among them who would build up a wall and stand in the gap. And he says but I found no one. That's the crisis that we're in right now. Wow, you know, passivity is the father of every generational curse, because if you're not going to stand up and engage the enemy, if you are convincing yourself that every time your boots hit the ground in the morning that you're not in a battlefield, then enemies already went in your house. The fact is that cultures collapse completely when warriors sleep.

Culture's Collapse and Men's Role

Speaker 2 22:18

Yeah, that is so good. Let me ask you a question. Do you remember when I asked you just in our conversations at one point I said why does God need an army at all? Can you speak to that?

Speaker 1 22:47

Armies exist to make peace. Because the reality is is that peace is kept because there are hard men willing to do hard things for defense, right? So the infantry creed, for example. It says I am my country's strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I'm the heart of the fight, wherever and whenever. Now I understand that's the infantry creed, it's the United States Army infantry creed, right? But correlate that to the spiritual realm. And the reality is is that if you want peace, stay ready for war, right?

Speaker 1 23:18

Paul's saying the same thing in Ephesians 6. Every morning you get out of bed suit up with armor of God and, by the way, you know we love to preach that the sword of the spirits, the only offensive weapon in this entire arsenal. And I don't think that's true at all. I think every piece of the armor is an offensive weapon. It's designed for you to use, it's designed for you to put into action, to protect yourself and to protect your family from the spiritual forces that are at work all around us. Life's not a playground, it's a battleground. You're either in it and you're defeating the enemy, or you're falling off as a casualty somewhere and the enemy is gaining ground in your life.

Speaker 2 24:05

That's so good and you know, as you're talking about like them being peacekeepers, and we need peacekeepers. We need men to protect the church, right.

Speaker 1 24:13

I mean ultimately.

Speaker 2 24:14

I mean, they are shepherds Like you are shepherding your family and, yes, your first relationship is to the Lord and that it is to your immediate family but also men in society. They hold us together, right. They are the shepherds of the church, the flock, right, and so I love that you're kind of confronting that in this book and really helping you know to see, maybe, how pop culture has misled our men and bringing them back to their calling in life.

Speaker 1 24:42

And you use some language that I think we as men we tend to understand, that we are warrior priests. I love to say that because I think that there's a little bit of an aggressive connotation to it. But we're shepherds, that's exactly right. We're the shepherds. And see, the thing is that we almost identify, like being a shepherd, with you know, a little boy with a cane standing in a field somewhere. But Jesus says, he says I'm the good shepherd. Right, when you do a little research and I'm going to encourage you to do this, do a little research on what a good shepherd is and what a good shepherd does, because I'm going to tell you something Everything in the wilderness wants to kill a sheep, everything wants to attack a sheep, and the good shepherd stands in that gap between his flock and the evil that persists in the world.

Speaker 1 25:31

He stands in the be the most warrioristic of us all, because a good shepherd defends the flock and he lays his life on the line so that he can protect the flock. And even in some instances, when they would herd the flock into a pen for the night, it lacked a gate or some type of a closure, so the good shepherd would even lay his body across the opening to both keep the sheep in and the things that want to hurt the sheep out. Right, that's, that's incredible, it's profound. That's exactly what Jesus is calling us to do Lay yourself down so that you can make others great. The lion and the lamb, you can't do it. Your love is a fantastic thing, but it is so much more potent when there's ferocity in your heart. But you choose to love, you choose empathy. You choose to have discipline in your heart. But you choose to love, you choose empathy, you choose to have discipline in your relationships Before we close.

Speaker 2 26:46

I do want to ask you, though, just as you're speaking and there's men listening right now, what would you say is the first step for them? You know right now, as you begin to move into which, our future episodes will get more intentional about what this looks like for them, but can you give them a little bit to look at? For the guy who's listening right now and he knows maybe he's asleep what does he do?

The Call to Wake Up

Speaker 1 27:08

Yeah, no, it's great. You know, there's a saying in the military you don't have to get ready if you stay ready, right. So that's exactly what I would say to the guys that are listening right now Like, stop waiting to feel ready. Satan's always going to keep you pushed back. Wake up the warrior inside of you, because I'm going to be honest with you, the war is not going to wait for you. The enemy is coming after your marriage, he's coming after your kids, he's coming after your home, he's coming after your peace and your joy, and he wants to kill those things and, as he does, all those things make us continue to feel unready. So you're, you're never going to feel ready until you take that step forward and you put yourself into action, right. So here's what I'm encouraging you to do Write down one area Yep, I journal, I love journaling.

Speaker 1 27:57

I'm a I'm a guy that journals. I know that you know this is kind of a foreign concept to guys sometimes, but listen, I highly recommend journaling. And in your journal, keep a journal right. In your journal, write down one area where you feel like the warrior is asleep inside you right now. Like, where are you hiding, where are you drifting, where are you tapping?

Speaker 1 28:17

Where are you side-eyeing your wife or somebody else in your life? Where are you tapping it? Where are you side-eyeing your wife or somebody else in your life? Where are you walking past sin and not engaging in peacemaking? Where are you allowing the enemy into your house? And I would just encourage you write that down, confess it, name it, call it what it is and listen. Pray Psalm 23 over it. He restores my soul. Ask God to wake up what's dead in you, because that's the only hope we have. You could read my book and you could listen to our podcast, but the reality is, if you don't take what God is saying to you through these tools, then the warrior's just going to stay asleep. So get up and get busy and get into the fight.

Speaker 2 29:15

Yeah, thank you so much for sharing and thanks for listening, guys. This was just an opening of what the Unawakened Warrior looks like and, justin, you tell us a little bit more about what the future episodes will hold.

Speaker 1 29:26

Yeah, no, I'm going to talk about the commissioned warrior. I'm going to talk to you about how to get into action. I'm going to talk to you about how to build that creed. We talked a little bit about men. There's a reason why every structured military in the world has lived by some kind of creed, right? Because they're developing warriors that are hinged on a single purpose. They're driven in a single direction. So, hey, listen, why would we think that we can just walk away from this and not live by some type of creed, right? So I'm going to teach you how to acknowledge both the creeds that are in God's word that we should be living by already, but then also how to develop your own creed and kill the passivity in your own life. Teach this to your kids, teach this to your wife and, by the way, you've got to awaken the warrior in them. That's your job. You're the warrior priest of your house. So, yeah, much to come. Looking forward to some of the future episodes and definitely looking forward to getting the book out later on this year.

Speaker 2 30:26

Thanks for tuning in to Theopsych, where psychology meets theology and healing begins. We're just getting started, so head over to the next episode. Disclaimer the content shared here is for educational and inspirational purposes only and is not a substitute for counseling. If you're in need of mental health support, visit revivewellcocom that's revivewellcocom to request a session with a licensed clinician or to connect with us directly through the email on the site To share your story, explore additional resources or get involved with the podcast. Click on the tab TheopsychProject at ReviveWellCocom. We're here to walk with you mind, soul and spirit. Thank you for being a part of this journey.

Speaker 1 31:27

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