New Opportunities to Be A Different Kind of Man: A Conversation with Nancy Pearcey, Pt 2

The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that deny God. As such, we need thinking Christian to become as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast. I'm Dr. James Spencer. Through calm, thoughtful, theological discussions, Thinking Christian highlights the ways God is working in the world and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now, on to today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey, everyone. Welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian. We are continuing the second part of the interview with Nancy Piercy on toxic masculinity and her new book, The Toxic War Against Masculinity. So hopefully you're enjoying this conversation. I think it's really important. And Nancy just has a wealth of information to share. And so we're going to just dive back into the interview. Hope you enjoy. And then the life expectancy has gone down. You know, women's has stayed the same, but men's has gone down so that a magazine called The New Scientist had an article in which it said the major demographic factor now for early death is being male. And so and even in Christian circles. So, you know, I teach at Houston Christian University. And when I told my class I was writing a book on masculinity, a male student shot back, what masculinity? It's been beaten out of us. 46% of American men in one in one study agreed that these days society seems to punish men just for acting like men. And so on the one hand, what you're seeing is men falling behind and doing worse, dropping out of school, you know, this sort of failure to launch syndrome that we've all heard about, you know, young men sitting in the mom's basement playing video games. But a reaction to that is the Andrew Tate. You know, boys don't boys are not happy doing that. And so when they see an Andrew Tate saying to them, you know, man up, get a job, work out, get buff, get women, you know, that's part of it for him. Right. He's got his had was it seven? I think he's had children with seven different women. And Myron Gaines to Myron, the new Andrew Tate specifically says Men are naturally promiscuous. And so even if he has a main woman, he shouldn't really marry her. But even if he has a main woman, that woman has to understand that he's going to have a lot of other women on the side because that's just the male nature. And of course, women cannot have other men on the side, but men can because that's their nature. So when when that's tied up with the message of empowerment as well, you know, get out there, make money, get yourself in shape, that becomes very attractive to boys who've been falling behind. Unfortunately, that's why the church really has to think through this issue. And how do we present, you know, a balanced biblical view of masculinity that's both tough and tender? You know, that's courageous and caring. You know, that covers the whole image of God. How do we support young men in developing that kind of a positive view of masculinity? Yeah, it's interesting. So, yeah, after I read through your book, I did. I just went out and did an internet search and the guys that I kept coming across, right, when I searched for like masculinity or, you know, what it means to be a man, those kind of things. I came across Andrew Tate an awful lot. Right. Although he did seem a little more fringe than, let's say, the other one that kept popping up for me, which was Jordan Peterson. Now, Jordan Peterson obviously has a, I think, a more constructive message, right, one that's related at least to responsibility and, you know, I would say more traditionally oriented values. But I didn't find anything that was frequently coming up, masculinity from a Christian perspective, masculinity in the church, other than, you know, what I would consider to be sort of the bravado sort of folks that are sort of almost like saying man up within the church. Are you aware of any sort of good, strong Christian, like, where do we go for this? You know what I mean? Like, when we're looking at this as a church and we're saying we need to address this, we need to fix this. There's there's part of it that's understanding the issue. And I think your book helps to do that really, really well. And then there's this whole other side of it that says, you know, we've we've been blaming the church for feminizing things, which I'm not really sure I understand fully. You know, I don't know that I've ever been to a feminine church, but, you know, like, what does the church do here? What because it feels to me like a really tricky spot to be in. Even after you understand the issue, how do we help men in the church to develop that self-confidence? Maybe the that tough and tender that you're talking about. What does that even look like outside of just, you know, sort of basic discipleship? Yeah, well, actually, you're right. Basic discipleship. But there are there are some there are some there are some decent sort of devotional books for men out there. You might want to tap into Church for Men is a website called Church for Men. And it's written it's written by a man who wrote a book with a title, Why Men Hate Going to Church. So it's it's very good. It's it's it's not a very it doesn't dig deeply into history or anything like that, but it does give sort of ways in which the church can signal that they're pro masculinity. And I actually like the I like the site very much. I like his book, Why Men Hate Going to Church. But so that's a very practical thing. Yeah. But on the on the level of on the level of teaching, one of the most interesting sources I found with a non-Christian historian who talked about how a culture's view of God determines its view of masculinity. And this might help us think it through. For example, he says polytheistic cultures like, you know, the Norse gods and the Greek gods, they tend to well, the gods are constantly fighting. They're constantly warring. And so they they exalt the warrior virtues. So to be a man is to be a warrior. And there's some truth to that. And then this historian goes on to monotheistic religions and some forms of monotheism. God is so transcendent that he has no relationship with people. And he gives the example of Islam. And I quote, I quote a book on Islam that literally says Allah would not condescend to have a love relationship with mere mortals. The very idea is repugnant. So that's the view of God in Islam. And so that leads to a view of man, masculinity as, you know, power and authority. Then he moves to Judaism and says, well, that's monotheistic, but God does have a relationship with people. Right. Jeremiah, God says, you know, I will give them a heart to know me. So God has a covenant relationship with his people. And so in Judaism, to be a man is to be a loving father. You still have the authority, but it's the love and relationship. And then it was so funny reading this secular historian because he says, and then Jesus comes along and he complexifies everything because Jesus has all of the Jesus has all of the good parts, you know, of these other religions. But he introduces something new, servant leadership. You know, the son of man came not to be served, but to serve. And this secular historian says no other religion has that. No other religion has a God who comes to serve his people. And so he says, you know, as a result, Christianity actually holds up virtues for men like love and compassion and tenderness that are more commonly assigned to women. These are now masculine virtues. And so he ends by saying Christianity has a much more balanced view of masculinity than any other religion or culture, because, yes, you can have the traits that are more commonly assigned to women as well as the traits that are more commonly assigned to men, like, you know, toughness and strength and courage and so on. And so I love that. I would like to see Christians recover that balance. And, you know, it takes I think it's funny. It kind of it takes an outsider to tell us what's so unique about Christianity. But it is Christianity is unique and we should be, you know, bold in bringing that into the public square. Yeah, that's good. Let me let's take one more break. And then I think when we come back, because I really appreciated some of the more constructive ideas you had, particularly in relation to men and work. I know I know I heard you talk about this on the Sips Talk podcast as well. And so I kind of like to dig into that a little bit and just talk about the possibilities kind of post-COVID and moving into remote work that maybe men have to recover something.

That was lost during the industrial revolution. So let's take a quick break and then we'll come back. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian-owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free retirement defense guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian-owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free retirement defense guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. All right, everybody, welcome back. We are here kind of the last segment with Professor Pearcy. And Nancy, and I can't remember whether it was just on the podcast or it was also in the book, so forgive me for that. But at some point, you talked about sort of the move toward remote work and the way that that has the potential, at least, to reconnect fathers to their home or men to their home. Am I getting that about right? Yeah, yeah. So I quote a psychiatrist, Frank Pittman, who says, We're not going to have a better class of men until we have a better class of fathers. And I think that's right. When we talk about what's the solution here, the solution is fathers getting reconnected to their kids. And, you know, one of the barriers, of course, is that fatherhood is mocked and ridiculed today in the media, right? The Homer Simpson paradigm that, you know, the father's always the bumbling idiot. I don't know if you've ever read the Bernstein Bears, but one of my sons loved the Bernstein Bears and the father's always the one who's, you know, who's more childish than the children. And so where did that come from? I mean, we know that's a problem, but where did it come from? And again, it comes from the industrial revolution because when it took fathers out of the home, this was a huge shock. You know, we're used to it now. We don't realize it was a huge shock to suddenly have fathers not there, especially for their sons. And people began to complain that boys were growing up without that masculine presence in their life, without father's supervision. They were becoming wild. The leading psychologists of the 19th century said, Never before has the American boy been so wild and so half-orphaned. I love that phrase. You know, half-orphaned because the father's not there raising him. He's being left to female guidance, the psychologist put it. Female guidance in home and school and church. And so the question is, can we, even in an industrial age, overcome that gap between work and home? And I think the pandemic was a game changer. It did show a lot of people that it was more possible than they ever thought before. Harvard University did a study. This is recent, so it's not in the book. But Harvard just did a study where 68% of fathers said that they did not want to go back to the workplace full time. They would prefer some kind of hybrid situation where they could be better integrated into their family. But we also have to convince the CEOs too. So I made sure I found quotes from CEOs saying things like, You know, we were hesitant to try remote work in the past because, well, of course, we thought people would slough off, right? Productivity would go down. And they said, We didn't see that. During the pandemic, when everyone went home, we saw no drop in productivity. In fact, in some ways, they saw more productivity because people were not wasting time commuting, you know, and unnecessary meetings. So they actually said, Yeah, sometimes we have to tell them to stop. Stop working. But yeah, so I have lots of anecdotes because, you know, it's on the anecdotal level still. There haven't been that many studies. But I gave lots of stories about people I knew or read about who had come home during the pandemic. You know, let me tell you one because this is one of my graduate students is married to an IT professional. And during the pandemic, he came home, worked from home. And because he was home, he was able to be more involved with the family's homeschooling. He decided he would be the one to make lunch for the family every day. He was available to take kids to soccer practice and choir practice. He picked up so much of the family responsibilities that his wife was able to start a part time job. And the whole family benefited from the added income. So I interviewed him for the book and he said, Our life is so much more balanced now. I am never going back to a cubicle for 40 hours a week. And then the final kicker, he said, is the time that he used to spend in the morning commuting to work. He said, I now spend praying every morning with my wife. So at this point, it's stories like that that can inspire people to say, Actually, let's see if there's a way that we can bring men home, reproduce to some degree, you know, the pre-industrial pattern where fathers were just as involved as mothers with their children. And of course, you know, boys benefit, I think, the most. I mean, it's not a question anymore that fatherless boys do worse. That kids who are just boys in particular, who are disconnected from their fathers, are much more likely to have problems in school and addictions and crime and so on. And so getting fathers more involved. And you'll like this. It was a study done on how families succeed in passing along their religious convictions. It was a 35 year longitudinal study, so well done that it won a bunch of awards. And it found two surprising results. Number one, fathers matter more than mothers in passing along the family's religious heritage. And mothers matter, of course. But fathers matter more. My female students don't like this. They say, That's not fair. I say, I'm sorry, it's just a fact. You know, if the mother is a churchgoing, you know, committed Christian, she has some influence. But if the father is a committed churchgoing Christian, it has greater influence on the children. But the second thing they found was it only works if he has a close, warm, loving, affectionate relationship with his children. In other words, he can be a moral exemplar. He can be a pillar of the church. He can have perfect theology. But if the children perceive him as distant and cold, they don't follow him. They will not follow him in the faith. So it's fascinating. It's the quality of the relationship. And even secular researchers are finding the same thing. There was a whole book on how to raise masculine boys. And it was based on research. The study showed that for raising a masculine boy, a boy with a, you know, a secure sense of his own masculinity, did not depend on how masculine the father was. It didn't matter whether he was, you know, the rough and tough hot jersey guy or the quiet scholar. That didn't matter. What mattered is if he had a warm, loving, close relationship with his son, then he would be, you know, that gave the son a strong sense of masculinity. So the secular scientists are finding the same thing as the Christian ones on that the father's relationship with the son is what matters the most in raising boys with a healthy, positive view of masculinity. Well, I will say I, when I switched jobs in 2018, I started working from home and I've found pretty much just anecdotally, I have found everything you just said in my life over the last five years, six years now. It, you know, it kept me from working.

I was available to do things with my kids. My son had just turned 13 right around that time when I switched jobs. And so I've been, you know, available to him all through his teenage years. And, you know, my daughters are 14 right now. And so I drive them places, I cook lunch, I do dinner, you know, like all those kind of things around the house. And it's not so much that I feel like I'm, you know, ticking in, you know, on that contractual basis, like I'm doing more of my share now or whatever. It's actually that I enjoy just being with my family and having these opportunities to build into them and to provide for them and to contribute to them. And so I think there's something to this remote work thing, revised schedule thing, that we really ought to take into account as not only a church, but just as a nation. Figuring this out would be, I think, extraordinary. It's been amazing for me. I did have one more question before we kind of close everything out. You know, one of the things that I've been most concerned with as I look out on the landscape of what's going on in our nation right now, what's going on in the world, really, is technology. And so it just feels like to me, technology is giving us way more excuses to be less responsible, that it tends to have this almost dual action on us where we're no longer, you know, some of the things you were saying about the boys being influenced by women in the church and women in the community. That was the perception back when, you know, the industrial age began. Now it feels to me like our boys are being influenced by men that I would prefer they not be influenced by, like an Andrew Tate or, you know, whomever. And these people are accessible through, easily accessible through technology. You know, we're starting to see the other influences come in and really maybe shape what our kids are thinking, how our kids are thinking, and really also giving them opportunities to not work. And so those layers of responsibility and duty and integrity just seem to me like we're starting to erode them as we strip ourselves of the sort of effort that would actually produce character. I'm wondering, you know, having written your book and looked at these perceptions, did you think at all about, you know, you had the industrial revolution, which was obviously technical. Do you see that playing a role today still? And if so, how? Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian-owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free retirement defense guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian-owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free retirement defense guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. Yeah, I mean, there could be good things. In other words, one of the reasons we can do remote work is because of technology. And so... Exactly. That's a good thing. 100%. Yeah. I don't have to fly to where you are to have this interview. No, no. Yeah, 100%. I should have phrased it probably a little more balanced. But yeah, there's the positive side and the negative side. And so, yeah, I'm just wondering what your thoughts are on all of it, I suppose. Yeah, yeah. Well, because I have actually written articles in the past on how, you know, we should take advantage of this technology to kind of bring work back home. And so I want to make sure we keep that in mind as well. But I do quote a psychologist. He's very well known. Gabor Mate has written a book called Hold On To Your Kids. Hold On To Your Kids. The subtitle is something like Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers. And he makes a very strong case in that book that we're losing our kids to the smartphones and other technologies. And you see, we didn't, we used to lose our kids in the sense, you know, in other words, kids would be exposed to non-Christian ideas and often be, you know, attracted and lose their faith because of school. Or actually, when I was young, it didn't, it often happened when you went off to college. Like now it's happening much earlier. But when you went, it's still a crisis for some people, though, when they go to college and they're really immersed for the first time in non-Christian ideas. But it started to happen much more in high school. And now because of social media, it's happening even younger. And the point of his book, Gabor Mate, Hold On To Your Kids, is that kids are being alienated from their parents while they're still living at home. And that's the tragedy. He says the kids are on their phones 24-7. They sleep with their phones. They wake up in the night and text their friends. He says they are beginning to form their primary attachment to their peers instead of their parents. Right, you know, the primary theory in Psychology Today is called attachment theory. And it's the idea that to have a healthy, you know, to be healthy psychologically, you have to, from the time you're an infant, you have to have a strong, firm attachment to your major caregiver, usually your mom and dad. And so, you know, they're really investigating the importance of attachment. And so what he writes is kids are starting to get their primary attachment to their peers. And this is very dangerous for a couple of reasons. One is peers are never going to give the unconditional love that the parents will. And therefore, these kids will always be insecure. And secondly, they're not mature enough. Peers are not mature enough to have the wisdom that parents have. And so they're getting bad advice and bad ideas from their peers. And so he's written a whole book addressed to parents saying you need to put a limit on screen time. And by the way, that does remind me that one of the things we didn't manage to cover is that Christian fathers do much better, according to the studies. Christian fathers, evangelical men who attend church, have better marriages. Their wives report higher levels of happiness and they spend more time with their children, 3.5 hours more per week than secular fathers. And that's both in shared activities and also in discipline. And one of the things that they tested was putting limits on screen time. And so Christian fathers are more likely to put those limits on than other fathers. And so that's a good thing. And by the way, those studies are studies we should be bringing into the church more too. I had to go digging in the academic literature to find out that Christian men are doing so well, you know, both as husbands and fathers. They test out as the most loving husbands and fathers of any other major group in America. And Christians don't know that. And so that was a big part of the book too, was giving this positive data that we can use to encourage and support Christian men who are doing a good job in terms of their marriage and their families. Well, I will say one of the things that I think was a corollary to that research that you just brought up was that nominal Christian fathers actually exhibit more of the stereotypes of toxic masculinity or that sort of man up sort of masculinity than, you know, evangelical Christians, we might say. So unless there's that deeply rooted, discipled commitment to being a Christian, you're still seeing much of the, you know, what is exhibited in the world, exhibited by nominal Christians. Am I getting that right?

Yeah, it was so clarifying. The first pushback I always get is, but haven't we all heard that Christians divorce at the same rate as the rest of the world? And so the researchers went back to the data and they made that crucial distinction that you just made between committed, church-going Christian men who test out as the most loving and engaged fathers versus nominal Christians. And these would be men, my students don't even know what nominal means, so I have to tell them. And OM is Latin for name, so that means in name only. So on a survey like this, they might check the Baptist box, for example, but they rarely, if ever, actually attend church. And you're right, these men test out shockingly different. They fit all of the toxic stereotypes. Their wives report the lowest level of happiness. They spend the least amount of time with their kids. They are more likely to divorce, even 20% higher than secular couples. And they have the highest rate of domestic violence of any group in America. And so this is what the church is up against, right? On the one hand, we have men who test out as much better than secular men, and we have these nominal Christians sort of at the fringes of the Christian world who test out as worse than secular men. You know, and how can we have, how can churches have a ministry on the one hand, supporting the men who are doing well, and on the other hand, can we figure out a better discipleship program for these guys who identify as evangelical, but they're responsible for a lot of the negative stereotypes out there, right? You know, people who have negative stereotypes of Christians. I have found several that I put in the book, but I'll give you just one. This was the co-founder of the Church Too movement, which followed the Me Too movement. And she said, the theology of male headship feeds the rape culture that we see permeating American Christianity today. And where do those negative stereotypes come from? Primarily from the nominals, nominal Christians. So it's really important that we figure out how to disciple them, bring them in from the fringes. You know, they're taking words like headship and submission, but they're infusing them with secular meanings, from, like you said, the quote-unquote real men. And so, you know, they give off the impression that, oh, well, I'm doing this because I'm a Christian, and, you know, I'm the head of the home. But they're putting meanings into that from the secular world. And so they need to be better disciples in what the Bible really says about things like headship in the home. Well, I think what was really encouraging about that line of research, just to turn the frown upside down, is that the people who are attending church are actually doing better. Like, the committed Christians are actually doing better. And so that should be an encouragement for the church that they're getting something right, you know. And that if people would really engage and be involved and commit, that this is life-changing stuff. It's really transformative. But if you want to stay on the fringes and kind of do your own thing and meet God on your terms, it's not going to work out as well. And so, yeah, it's really fascinating stuff. I so appreciate you doing that research because when I was reading through that, I was like, wow, what a powerful distinction between, you know, committed Christians and nominal Christians. And you never see in the media, you know, like you never hear that and you never see it. It's kind of buried underneath the big, broad statistics. And so I so appreciated you drawing that out. That's right. If you just look at evangelicals as a whole, the numbers are going to be skewed. They're going to be misleading. And so I was, like I said, I had to dig in the academic literature to find this. We need to get it out in the churches. That was another reason, two reasons I wrote the book. You know, we started the interview with, because this society has become so hostile to masculinity. But then the second reason is because, hey, we have a solution, you know. And it's not just, you know, a pep talk from a religious leader. You know, this is solid empirical research. This is evidence-based findings that Christianity does, in fact, to use the subtitle of my book, it does, in fact, reconcile the sexes. Yeah. Well, I want to give you the final word. Anything you want to leave with the audience other than, hey, buy the toxic war on masculinity. I'll say that. But anything else that you want to leave with the audience before we say goodbye here? Well, I would like to invite you to come to my website. My publisher very graciously updated it, so it's colorful and fun. So you can come and browse my other books that way, nancypeercy.com. And you can even leave a comment. I don't get time to answer them all, but I do read them all. So come on over and say hello, nancypeercy.com. And we'll make sure that we link that in the show notes. Nancy, I really appreciate you being here. This has been great. I am very thankful for your work in Toxic War Against Masculinity and your other books. I've read two of them, Total Truth and Finding Truth. And so, in addition to Toxic War Against Masculinity. So I'm looking forward to picking a couple of others up, and I'll be visiting your website as well. So thanks for being here. Really appreciate the time. And to all of you who are listening, come on back for the next episode of Thinking Christian. Take care, everybody. Just want to take a second to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to lifeaudio.com, you'll find dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network. They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more. You know, everybody talks about life after death, but what about life during life? Hey, everybody, Greg Laurie here, and on The Greg Laurie Show, we're tackling life's biggest questions like, why am I here? What really matters? And what happens when I die? I'll discuss cultural topics with friends and experts and examine the biblical truth behind everyday issues and even share stories about my own personal spiritual journey. Listen now to The Greg Laurie Show on lifeaudio.com or wherever you get your podcasts.