Interview: Zach Garris, Author of Masculine Christianity

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Interview: Zach Garris, Author of Masculine Christianity

September 1, 2021

This Wonky Wednesday I interview author, attorney, writer, and follower of Christ Zach Garris. Zach holds a Master of Divinity from RTS (Jackson) and a Juris Doctor from Wayne State University Law School. He has written for Chronicles Magazine, the Mises Institute, and Desiring God. He edited a book call "Dabney on Fire", writes at KnowingScripture.com and manages another website TeachDiligently.com. He wrote the book "Masculine Christianity" which is what the interview is over. In this interview, we walk through the book to get a few big picture points that Christians ought to consider moving forward in America. Feminism, Egalitarianism, Complementarianism, and Biblical Patriarchy are just a few topics in this episode. Biblical roles of men and women are always rooted in the creation order and not some cultural norm. Enjoy the episode and thanks so much for listening!

Pick up Zach's Book here: https://www.amazon.com/Masculine-Christianity-Zachary-Garris/dp/1735473901

Zach's interview with Eric Conn on the Hard Men Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5sfOMlAM995pLzg5BAenqm?si=c1e393cf230c4570

Website: forthekingpodcast.com

Contact : forthekingpodcast@gmail.com

Transcript

(music) Hey everybody, welcome to the For The King podcast. In Mark 15.2, Pilate asks Jesus, "Are you the King of the Jews?" and Jesus says, "You have said so." So this is a podcast where obviously we recognize Christ as King, the King that He is already reigning over all things. And this week actually I have an awesome privilege of having a guest on the podcast.

That's just a brand new acquaintance to me. But obviously my brother and I have talked about this book already on the podcast that he wrote. It's called Masculine Christianity and I have Zach Garriis with me today, the writer.

He has an MDiv from RTS and Jackson. He has a JV, so very educated man. He was an editor for Dabney on Fire, a theology of parenting, education, feminism, and government.

So he was an editor for that. He writes at KnowingScripture.com. Check out his website and also manages TeachDiligently.com, which is a Christian education resource website. So he has his hands on a lot of things.

We're really excited to have him on the podcast today. Thanks for coming on, Zach. Wow, let's get into it.

Anything I missed or is that a pretty good summation of some of your... Yeah, that's pretty good. So thanks for having me. Yeah, yeah, definitely.

Okay, so Masculine Christianity, this book you wrote, was it two years ago? Two and a half, three? Actually, it came out October of 2020, so less than a year. About a year and a half. Okay, gosh, that makes sense.

So the first part of the book, first chapter, just starts with setting this picture of feminism and the way it's impacted our society. So the first question, kind of getting into how the book tracks along, why is feminism bad for society? So can you just kind of speak to that, the first chapter, kind of uncovering some of these trojan horses coming into the church through feminism? So what would you say some of the big points there? Yeah, I mean, I guess first, let me explain feminism briefly. And it was a movement that started in the mid 1800s.

And so that's often called first wave feminism, which was pushing for women's suffrage, which in the United States, women were granted the right through constitutional amendment in 1920. And then you had the later movements, or waves, such as second wave feminism of the 60s, 1960s. And that's usually associated with the sexual revolution.

Now you have a third wave, which is, you know, kind of harder to define, but more tied, I would say, with like, transgenderism and things like that, or redefining gender. And there's fights amongst feminists, they don't all agree on things. And not all, you know, the second wave feminists aren't always fans of kind of what's going on today.

But so I think it helps to understand the different waves of feminism. And of course, I get into the details in the first chapter of my book, trying to explain that. But yeah, I do think, you know, as far as Christians, you know, when we evaluate these these movements, you know, most Christians will say, you know, second wave feminism was bad, or at least mostly bad, partly bad.

But they don't usually want to go all the way back to first wave feminism and point out any problems. And so that's one thing I try to do in the book is show that, you know, the different movements, different waves are connected. And that second wave feminism, you know, stems from first wave, and so you can't totally detach them.

So in order to understand the problems of second wave feminism, you need to know a little bit of the earlier history. So as far as that, I think the problem with first wave was that it was not just seeking to get women the right to vote, but it was also tied, I would say, with more radical things, which like, one of the leaders was Elizabeth Cady Stanton. And she was advocating some pretty radical things such as no fall divorce.

And she mentions that any even, you know, women leading in government, women leading in the church, she has, I provide some quotes, you know, with her saying these. So those were great. Really helpful.

Yeah, it's helpful to see those because a lot of people with first wave feminism, they just think of Susan B. Anthony, and because she was she was a little more. She was at least less radical. Sure, palatable.

And yeah, more palatable. That's a good word. And so, you know, that's a lot of people like to put her as the face of first wave feminism, but she and Stanton were good friends.

And Stanton was, you know, I would say, in some ways, more of a force behind all these things. So, you know, as far as the church goes, I mean, it doesn't feel the full effects with first wave feminism. I think it takes some time to where we get to like the modern day where it's, you know, what's known as egalitarianism, particularly in the church where you have a lot of Christians advocating that women can be pastors.

And they'll essentially undermine like male headship in the home. So like Ephesians five, they'll come back and say, okay, well, the man's the head of the household, but they might not say that, but they'll say, okay, the wife is supposed to submit to the husband, but it's actually mutual submission. And so the husband also has to submit to the wife.

So it just totally changes, you know, the meaning of male headship. Yeah, really flips the worldview on its head of what is explicit in the scriptures. Yeah, and I thought from the book, when you're talking about Caddy Stanton, I forget what's her first name.

Elizabeth. Elizabeth Caddy Stanton, yeah. Some of her theology, these women that led like the suffragette movement, all that kind of stuff.

I mean, I know that was later on, but, you know, in its conception from all these ladies, their theology, they do interact with the text. They go to some of these verses in the Bible, man, they knew it well, what was some of the implications of these verses. And frankly, they understood it better than most, you know, complementarians understand the text.

And they were like, I don't like this, that the Bible teaches this. And yeah, basically that birth, second, third wave, like you're saying, they're all connected. So I thought that was great.

Just just hitting what these women literally said and what the theology was and how they rejected the Bible. They did interact with the Bible often. It wasn't just out of the back.

And let me add there, Stanton even had a book that she helped edit. It was called The Woman's Bible. And it, you know, like takes, you know, parts out of the Bible.

And, you know, I quote from the, I think it's the preface, our introduction. And, you know, she has some pretty terrible things to say about the Bible. So she definitely disrespected the Scriptures, did not believe them.

And, you know, saw them as standing in the way of feminism. Exactly. And for the leaders of the feminist movement to have that idea and the egalitarian that are claiming to be Christians, and like the people that they're getting their theology from don't believe, you know, in the Bible.

It's a very odd phenomenon to see that in America now. So it's a sad thing. And I'm glad you have a polemic, you have a work here, a book going against that.

So I hope that, you know, there's ripple effects. So let's move on. How has feminism infected the church? What are some of the big signs of feminism in a church? If you're church shopping, you're looking for a church, whatever, you just became a Christian and you're looking into the Scriptures to know what it means to be a man, what it means to be a woman.

You know, how do we see this feminism specifically like you're saying the second and third way of impacting the church, you know, like women's ministry stuff you already brought up, them wanting to make women pastors, make women deacons, that kind of thing. Even teach, you know, have a seminary professor, that's a woman to teach for a position, you know, that she can't even hold, that kind of thing. So people like Beth Moore, these traveling teachers that, you know, are they a pastor? They speak at conferences, you know, how do these things, how are they, you know, trickling down from feminism in the church? Yeah, there's obviously a lot.

There's a lot there. I think the most blatant, you know, signs of feminism would be a woman pastor or elder at a church. Deacons are another issue.

And though I disagree with women deacons, I think the office of deacon is reserved for men. Though I think women have a assisting role, particularly in dealing with serving other women. Yeah, I think that's referenced in 1st Timothy 311.

But so I don't want to go too hard after the churches with deaconesses, because there have been some historically like more conservative churches and even denominations that allow it. But elders is another issue. Elders and pastors, depending on churches view here of ecclesiology, church leadership.

But if a church has a woman elder pastor, then they clearly are egalitarian to some extent, and rejecting, you know, male rule in the church. And that's a lot of denominations. I mean, you know, that was a big battle in the in the 20th century, a lot of churches dividing over women's ordination, I think it was often tied with more than that, because a lot of a lot of the more liberal churches, especially the the column, the mainline churches like the the mainline Lutherans, which is the ELCA, the mainline Presbyterians, PC USA, they were also rejecting the inerrancy of Scripture.

So they didn't they didn't start with women's ordination. But, you know, you see it a lot, even in so called, like conservative churches, like the EPC, which is the evangelical Presbyterian Church, they have complementarian churches in there, but they also have egalitarian churches. And so a lot of times these churches won't have women senior pastors, they might have like, women associate, or assistant pastors or women elders.

I think there's just maybe some things that go into it, why they still maybe want a male senior pastor or something like that. But that's, that's obviously the first sign. Yeah.

Or, you know, most blatant sign that of egalitarianism. You have, you know, you mentioned Beth Moore, you know, if that's geared towards women, it's, it's, you know, not as much of an issue. But, yeah, you know, obviously, Beth Moore, you know, like you said, kind of acts like a pastor in some ways, and it's hard to establish her role in Scripture.

But let's comment, I guess, on this, in some more subtle ways, churches that might only have male pastors and elders, but, you know, signs of feminism, they might even call themselves conservative and things like that. And so I definitely mentioned this somewhat in the book. But I've seen this in my own experience where churches are, you know, they'll call themselves complementarian, and they only have male leadership in the church.

But they may, in practice, be more egalitarian. Maybe in how their homes function. Maybe they don't comment on like greater society, or their, you know, I think generally cases, these churches do a couple things.

One, they don't want to speak on issues, because it's controversial. So they're definitely not gonna like say there's something wrong with like a woman leading somewhere in society, like civil government or something, probably not going to touch outside the church. They probably aren't going to preach on it a whole lot or teach on it.

As far as why only men should be pastors. And when they do, when they do come to passages like Ephesians five, they might like to say kill it with 1000 qualifications, where, you know, they might say, Yeah, it's male headship. But you know, the emphasis is always on a husband loving his wife.

And of course, the husband should love his wife, that's in the passage. But it's both right, it's the husband, loving the wife submitting. So I think they kind of, you know, tiptoe around some of these passages.

Another thing is they're not going to talk a whole lot about gender roles as far as women staying at home with kids, and careerism, which I think is a huge problem in the church. You see it more and more with the younger women is that they're, you know, they're going to college, which which education is fine. It's a good thing.

But they're going to college, maybe going into master's programs or PhDs, medical, you know, becoming doctors. And they're taking on careers. So oftentimes debt where they feel like they have to go into a career.

And obviously, this gets in the way of children. And so I think this is probably one of the biggest problems in churches today, that are otherwise conservative is they haven't talked about these issues. And so they kind of de facto become feminist, where you start looking around, and the women are all career women, and they're either not married or married, they're marrying very late, having kids, you know, starting into their 30s rather than 20s.

And then they're probably not having very many either. And if they do, they send them off to daycare or public school. Yeah, this is kind of becoming like the norm.

And, and, you know, one thing I argue in my book is this is happening because not because the Bible doesn't speak to these issues, but because pastors aren't touching on them. Yeah. And so so that really is the problem.

So I think that's, that's probably a that's a really controversial thing to get into nowadays. But I think it's something we need to touch on. Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, that was that was great. The subtle ways are more obvious to people that have spoken about it when it comes to the light.

It's like, whoa, there's there are these issues here that I'm not even realizing, you know, you bringing up in the text that says, you know, husbands are to love their wives and wives, if she submit a church will not speak to a woman's sin of not submitting to her husband, she's commanded to. And when they don't, you know, when your pastor does not speak to such a sin occurring in the home, that is a sign of feminism, we will not speak on, you know, the way women can sin and their roles, they have a specific role, and they're not, they're not filling it. If the pulpit is not proclaiming that that is a heinous sin before God to not walk in your God given sex and gender, then you know, that's an issue.

So yeah, does that make sense? That any did you disagree with what I said? Or I think, oh, no, I absolutely agree. Okay, cool. Yeah, I just want to dial.

I don't want to just be I asked a question you answer. I want to dialogue a little bit, you know, have some fun with it. But no, I was that was great.

So obviously, for you guys listening, you can see these things in your church, whatever congregation you're part of, or even in, you know, the greater society, like Zach just walked us through. So, you know, a question I had by the end of the book, you know, does it make sense to have a woman's ministry? Historically, in the church, you know, it was, like you're saying, we're moving from your family unit, and then you're a part of a congregation, and then you're a part of, you know, some society, that's like what you're a part of nobody's an individual, that that's a that's a novel view, and being a human in humanity to say, it's just me myself, and I this postmodern thought, I define myself all that. So does it make sense to have a woman's ministry to like section off women, apart from the local congregation, and to just have, you know, obviously, we know in Titus, I think it's chapter two, women ought to teach younger women how to love their husbands, and, you know, fulfill the role of a woman.

But, you know, does that text alone, basically approve of explicit women's ministry in a church? Yeah, so I think I want to go speak a little more broadly, because I think this becomes a problem in larger churches, especially, but but even smaller ones where they want to create all of these different types of ministries. So they'll have a men's ministry, women's ministry, children's ministry, youth ministry, you can go down the line, yeah, college ministry, right? So they always have these separate ministries and maybe have a different pastor for each or something, somebody running it. And so I actually would just be critical of that model, you know, as a whole, because, I mean, one, it's not in Scripture.

But two, it's kind of, you know, breaking up families, and, you know, I think there's a place for like men's groups or men getting together. I think that's healthy, women getting together, you know, without the men, you know, there's a place for that, you know, youth group, whether the youth should just hang around each other all the time. That's another question.

I think that brings a lot of problems when they're not engaging with adults on a regular basis. But, you know, so I think there's just problems where these sort of, you know, if you have a men's breakfast or something, that's great. But if it turns into like, just men focused ministry all the time, I think, you know, that's a problem.

The pastors and elders of the church should be ministering to the congregation as a whole. You mentioned Titus too. And I think that's important because that mentions, you know, the role of older women, you know, it's not really appropriate for like men to be discipling young women.

So it makes sense that older women are going to be taking on this task. And that's what Paul says in Titus too. But what is the content of what he mentions is, you know, as you said, being submissive to their husbands working at home.

People can go read the text for themselves. That's what it says. And, you know, sadly, a lot of women's ministries don't focus on these things.

They don't focus on women, being good, good wives and mothers, but they're focused on, I mean, maybe it's just like they turn into a Bible study or a hangout or something. And so instead of the older women really training up the younger women, you know, in God's, you know, design for them as mothers and wives, you know, the I don't know what else they're doing. I mean, this just happens in the church.

It becomes like kind of a social club a lot of times. No, that's no, that's it. Yeah, that's great.

And that happens all the time. And even my, my mom and then my sister-in-law, they go to, you know, this little women's book study group. And yeah, it's kind of like a, you know, echo chamber of people's feelings and things like that.

It's just not really actually helpful for women versus, you know, what they're supposed to do in their role rather than just the cycle of, you know, trying to affirm one another, make everybody feel good and encourage affirmation, you know what I mean? Yeah, that can be kind of not exactly Christian, you know. Yeah. And let me just add there is, you know, the younger Christians need mentors, you know, that's the men need, you know, mentors, older men to mentor them and the younger women need older women to mentor them and set them good examples.

And I just think it's sad that, you know, this isn't happening to the extent that it that it should. And so the younger, the younger people, both men and women are off kind of trying to figure things out on their own. And the culture is certainly pushing them in the wrong direction.

Yeah, no, exactly. I know some of the biggest blessings in my life have been older men just teaching me how to be a man. So yeah, I'm 23.

I'm very young. So there's a there's a guy I meet with weekly that we memorize scripture with. And he's an older guy, you know, he's in his 60s.

And I just appreciate it. And I don't need more young people telling me how to be, how to be young and stupid. You know, I don't mean that.

Yeah, I got enough of that. Okay, so, okay, here's the one that was super convicting. And me and my brother have this joke.

Now, we were always talking about like our wrists being tight or being loose, you know, like, you know, you'll see a feminine guy kind of going like that, you know, but you know, a real man always has taught wrists, and we'll always, you know, be like around each other, we'll go like that to show our wrists are taught and I'll be like, Okay, yeah, you're good. You're good. So just yeah, we really resonated with this verse specifically, with I guess the set of verses, but first Corinthians six, nine through 10 is talking about the people that will not inherit the kingdom of God.

In the book, you do an excellent just walk through the text and what is being articulated. The King James translates it a feminine men will not inherit the kingdom of God, most of our literal translations and you know, ESV and ASP, things like that is going to say men who practice homosexuality. But you're saying there's actually a part of that word that's more getting at just a man being a soft, effeminate man.

So I guess the question with that understanding of that verse, we're just going to assume that our modern Christian men, effeminate, specifically in America in the West, our modern Christian men, more effeminate than they are masculine to some extent. Or are they leading? I will say some of them are effeminate. There's still a lot of good godly masculine men in the church today.

Yeah, so I don't want to indict, you know, everyone. Sure. I think, you know, I guess maybe we should talk a little bit about what a femininity is.

And, you know, when Paul is using in First Corinthians six, nine, I mean, that word, yeah, it literally means soft. And so it's used metaphorically for, you know, male homosexuality. And that, of course, is kind of the worst, I would say like, that's like the, you know, peak, a feminist for a man.

Yeah. But it's, it's broader than that. And so the, some of the older authors like Calvin, you know, they would associate it with kind of decadence and, you know, effeminate dress.

So if a man is speaking or dressing, you know, not like a man, more like a woman, they would, they would include that in there. I think, you know, if we define a feminist in our modern terms, it's, it's clearly a man is not acting like a man, he's acting like a woman. So it's good for a woman to act like a woman.

But when a man acts like that, he's acting, you know, femininely. So I think, you know, there's a lot of things you could get into is to what that means in the, in its application today. You know, as I mentioned the book is, well, what's a man supposed to do? Well, the scriptures say, you know, man is to lead, you know, so he should, he should lead in life in general, but he's married and has kids, he should lead his family.

Well, spiritually, physically should provide for them. He should protect them. And, you know, he should have a mission.

There's there's that too, is God, you know, gives us tasks and missions to carry out in life. And so, you know, if he's not doing those things, if he's just sitting around and, you know, wanting others to just, you know, give him handouts, or, you know, he's not willing to work. Yeah.

That's, that's definitely not acting, you know, in a masculine manner. If he's unwilling to protect, you know, people, you know, doesn't mean he has to sign up to be a soldier, but he should, you know, protect those in his life. And it's not, it's not just physically fighting.

I mean, there is a, you know, occasion where that may be necessary, but it would just be looking out, looking out for people. And so, you know, there's that, then there's the more, I think, explicit, effeminate behavior, which sometimes hard to define, but most people, you know, know it when they see it. And so it could be, you know, the way the way a man dresses.

I mean, you have you have today, you have transgenderism. So, I mean, that's the most, that's the most blatant form of it, obviously. So, yeah, and this is a problem in the church, just kind of where you asked me, it is a problem in the church to an extent.

I guess, especially when men defend feminism, that's, that's always pretty, pretty bad, because they're essentially, you know, defending a position that undermines God's teaching on masculinity. So, yeah. And can you speak somewhat to the nice guy thing you brought up just being nice in the book, just men acting effeminate Lee in that way, not acting like men are just being agreeable all the time rather than maybe firm in the truth at times, you know? Yeah, you know, it's, it's funny, because we use that word nice a lot, right? Oh, he's a nice guy.

And, you know, I, you know, sometimes it's harmless most of the time, but usually people use it just because, like, the person they're speaking of is agreeable, like you said, or he just, you know, he, the way he comes off is he's nice. Yeah. And we generally think that's like a good thing, always a nice guy.

But really, like that word's not, you know, found in the Bible. And you'd have to ask, you know, well, was Jesus a nice guy was the Apostle Paul was, you know, Elijah and the Old Testament Moses, you know, I don't think these men would be described as nice guys by our standards. And so that doesn't mean they weren't kind.

I think that's the biblical word is kindness is where you know, there's, you know, it's the fruit of the spirit, right? So there's, there's taking care, caring for others, that's kindness, you know, taking others into account, you know, loving others, that that's a, that's a good thing. But there is a time where a man has to, you know, he's not, he's going to act in a way that he doesn't come off as nice. Yes, he has to, you know, men have to exhort, a preacher should be exhorting the congregation, that's probably not going to be nice language all the time.

Yeah. You know, correcting correcting people, disciplining children, you know, so I think this word nice is just overused. And it often is not a term you want to be described by it may just mean that you there's no you have no backbone, right? You don't you don't stand up, right? So is people men who push back who, who, you know, maybe go against the grain or that they won't be pushed around, they're probably not going to be described as nice.

Exactly. Yeah. You know, you don't read about nice men in history, really, you know, you read about strong men, masculine men.

Nice guys don't accomplish much. Not really. What's the saying, right? Nice guys finished last.

There's, there's something to that. He is. Yeah, that's not a saying for no reason at all.

There's always a hint of truth to some of those. Okay, so let's move on. What are so this whole, these set of three questions are just about, you know, feminism infecting infecting the church.

So what are some of the major ways that complementarianism has compromised itself? You know, we can talk about like de Young's book where he defends women can interpret prophecy to kind of open up that door to teaching things like that, you know, so how that those kind of things as one example, you know. Yeah, so this is this getting into controversial territory, right? Because complementarianism is supposed to be team conservative. So, but I think a lot of people have realized, you know, who follow these debates have realized that complementarianism is not a monolithic movement.

And that the term and, you know, encompasses a lot of people who disagree on a lot of things. And that some of these people who, you know, we would describe as maybe more narrow complementarians compared to the broad. Then, you know, they're pretty close to egalitarianism.

And so that I think that's part of the challenge here. So let me say what complementarianism is, it's a movement that started in the 1980s as a response to evangelical feminism in the church. So, you know, women had, you had women pastors in the churches for, you know, quite some time, I think it started to really take off maybe in the 50s, 1950s.

And complementarians is a term coined by a group known as the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. And they came out with a thing called the Danvers Statement. I think that was 1987.

And then they have the book, Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood in 1991, I think, was edited by John Piper and Wayne Grudem. So those are kind of the two of the big names associated with the movement. And so I think there's a couple things that are noticeable about this is one, it's a, it's a reaction against feminism.

So it wasn't necessarily a full orbed biblical theology of men and women. They were really trying to argue against, you know, feminism in the church, which was, you know, saying, undermining male headship in the home and then saying women could be pastors and elders in the church. So those were the two things that the complementarians, you know, kind of staked out on was one, they said, you know, man is the head of his household, and two, that only men can be pastors and elders in the church.

So that was their focus. And that was good. I think there's a lot of good things about that.

And the book, Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood has a lot of good chapters in it. And so the conservatives on this started calling themselves complementarian. But since the 1990s, you've really seen kind of some fracturing of complementarianism.

And this includes a lot of churches and theologians that go by the name, but they started allowing more and more things. So they generally won't advocate male or female pastors, but, you know, they start allowing women to preach, or preach to men, that is, where they would say, well, you know, it's the only first time that he was only teaching that men or women can't be elders. So they would allow women to preach, maybe teach Sunday school to men.

But they'll go even broader than that. Probably taking a soft view on male headship in the home and submission. And we kind of talked about that how a lot of times they won't teach that very explicitly, or they dance around it.

Yeah. So those are kind of some common things with narrow complementarianism. And I think you had kind of the seeds of this, these disagreements, even early on, because I think John Piper holds to a broader complementarianism, where he's going to argue, look, these are these, these gender roles or duties, as I like to call them are rooted in our bodies and in the differing nature between man and woman.

And so he'll go further. And he'll say like, he's openly said he doesn't think a woman should be president. And you get differences with like Wayne Roodham is not not really there.

He's he seems to be holding to a more narrow form of complementarianism. So my book is obviously defending a broader view. And so I get into some of that.

And I even kind of critique the term complementarian a little bit. And I do so partly because it's kind of a strange word. But part of it also is that I think complementarianism particularly its narrow form deviated from historic Christianity on these views.

And I think they held to a broader form or well, you know what we may term patriarchy, which is just male male rule overall, when you know church home in society. And so I cite John Calvin, I you know, I, reformers, you can cite early church, I think that was, that was the old old view. And I think complementarianism, you know, which is only like 30 years old or so, really threw off some of those teachings.

And you even mentioned they interpret first Corinthians 14, and a new way which deals with prophecy or interpreting prophecy. So at least in their view. So yeah, definitely some deviations.

And I think it's probably what I'll just say here is I think it's really opened the door to feminism in the church. In that it was complementarians are often trying to appeal too much to the egalitarian and feminist. So yeah, you know, they might even be willing to say, yeah, there were some bad things about patriarchy or abuses in the past.

And so we are changing some, you know, correctives. And they would say it's in the Bible, you know, I would argue against that, you know, I try to root all my arguments here in Scripture. So yeah, seriously, it's yeah, it was spectacular to go through the book and just see true biblical argumentation of the gender roles, because some of it just seems so inconsistent to me.

And, you know, I hope we can get into this in a second, but just the civil realm, that was one of the broad, even the broad complementaries don't even really apply as heavily to the civil realm as they probably should. And the narrow definitely don't. So yeah, I think yeah, that was all really helpful.

So you already brought it up. The third kind of part of the interview was, why is biblical patriarchy a better term than complementarianism? You already kind of walked through that. But how does I think a huge concept in the book, that the listeners should understand is that all of your arguments for every, I think almost every text that when Paul brings up gender roles, he roots it in the creation order, the way God just made things.

Every single time he brings up Adam and Eve, and he brings them up usually before the fall, you know, so there's not really a, this is a post fall, the, you know, enmity between the man and the rulership and all that. So yeah, how is the creation order very, very important when understanding biblical masculinity, biblical femininity, and then just just patriarchy as the understanding of how those two react with each other? Yeah, I mean, you have to go back to creation. And I think that's where God instituted male headship with, you know, he put Adam in the garden, Genesis 2 15 says to work it and keep it, which can also be translated guard.

So he had this protection role, but also this provisionary role, he was to work the garden, he's supposed to feed his family, once he's married, and things like that. So that starts in the creation account. And Eve is a life giver.

I mean, that's that's what her name Eve means in the Hebrew. And so, you know, all of this is wrapped up with how God designed them at creation. And so their duties flow from their, their very being.

And I, you know, I have two chapters on this. And because I think it's essential. And as you say, Paul is always appealing to the creation order.

So first Timothy to one of the more important texts here, he says, you know, he bases when he says I do not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, he bases it on Adam and he says for Adam was created first than Eve. And he also mentions Eve's deception. Yeah, so he's going back to how God designed it before the fall.

And this is why egalitarians will focus a lot of their arguments on creation and trying to argue that no, Genesis one and two teach egalitarianism. And then they try to argue that the fall Genesis three introduced male rule. And so we're trying to go back to the egalitarian ideal.

That's their whole argument. Yeah. And so yeah, I think why this is also important is that it's not just roles.

You know, we're not just going to isolated text in the New Testament. We're saying that, you know, male headship in the home and in the church, those are the two most explicit in scripture are rooted in creation. But then you can also, you know, extrapolate from there.

Okay, well, why would it then change? You know, in the civil realm, you know, man and woman's nature, they don't change just because you step outside of home and church. Yeah, okay. And, yeah, and the same thing would be for, you know, women can't rule in, in their own homes or in the church, why are they permitted to rule, you know, over households, I guess, you know, in like the civil realm.

So maybe I'm getting ahead of things here. But that's why that's why the creation account is so important. Yes, yeah.

And that's, that's going to get into the very last question as we kind of wrap up here. One real quick point that I just kind of want to interact with you on to see, to see what you think. You diving into First Timothy two, right, was the text that includes Eve was deceived uniquely, she was uniquely deceived.

And Adam was uniquely not deceived in that moment, but just listened to his wife. Um, like not being a masculine man. But have you ever read George Orwell's 1984? Yeah, I have.

So it's I don't it's no, obviously, I think he was a pagan. I don't think he was a follower of Christ. But he even recognized in the gender roles that women he makes the fanatics in his book, the religious and political fanatics in the book, females.

If you remember that part of their wearing the chastity belts, they're the ones that are like dogmatic about the party. So he, I just that always when I was reading that, I was like, Yeah, like, it's not that women are like, they're obviously not less intelligent. But like you lay out in the book, women are made from the creation order to be followers to be, you know, the men lead and they follow.

And because of that, they're uniquely able to be deceived in ways that men aren't. And that's why men are to guard, they're to be watchdogs, watch men on the towers that are looking for evil. So I don't know what you think about that.

But it's definitely not an intellect thing. But it's definitely a spiritual reality of them wanting to follow that they're more apt to follow. And it just makes me think of all the, you know, there's pop bunch of pop culture references, you know, like George Orwell's 1984.

And the fanatics are always women. And I think about most of the people that I know that are just very falling in line with the mask thing, not to get to like, you know, present times, but it's more women that just get wrapped up in these, you know, social justice warriors are always women that are out there just going along with the movement. They're just they're not thinking critically about what's being articulated about the ideas.

They're just, I'm here for the movement. I'm not here to think about anything critically, really. So hopefully, women don't hear me wrong on that.

I hope they can hear my point in that it's not an intellect thing. It's definitely a spiritual reality that's laid out in Scripture and rooted in the creation order. So anything on that real quick? Do you think I'm off base? Yeah, yeah.

Well, we haven't gotten enough controversial already. So, so touch base here. So I think, you know, you bring up first Timothy two, I think it's first 14, where, you know, mentions, you know, in Eve was deceived, Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived.

Yeah. And you know, there's two different views there, I argue for the more historical view, I think, which is that, you know, Paul's rooting this in, you know, something the effect of women are more easily deceived. Yeah.

Like you said, it's I don't think it's an intellect thing. But I say George Knight in there, how he says, well, women are made to follow, right? That makes sense. So if Eve's made to follow Adam, she just means she's more susceptible to deception from someone else trying to lead.

And so Adam doesn't lead well, he doesn't guard. Yeah. And Eve is deceived.

And I think you do see this a lot of ways, whether it's cults, you know, people following cults. Of course, it's not just women that are deceived, men are too, obviously. Sometimes it's men are the ones in, you know, leadership or whatnot.

And but, you know, you could get into politics, maybe we shouldn't get into too much. But I mean, it's just a fact that women vote higher rate, you know, more and more liberal, so Democratic Party, for example. And that's just like a statistical fact.

So the question is, well, how do you interpret this? Well, I mean, if you don't like the Democratic Party or liberal politics like myself, then I think they rely on a lot of emotional appeals rather than logical arguments. And so when we want to help the poor and immigrants or things like that, without getting too much into this, I think there's just something about like the appeals they make. And I think they deceive people.

I mean, I don't think these are generally good policies. Yeah. Or they're, you know, using these words and phrases, when they're without actually playing out, how does this work? I mean, it happens with economics all the time is, yeah, well, we want to help people.

So we'll raise taxes and give them this money. And then it has all sorts of destructive effects. So you have to walk through, you know, what's actually the result of going this route.

And so, yeah, maybe I got into too much there. But I think there's something to what you're saying. You know, that's, yeah, I think that's probably, you know, to stay on topic with the book.

But you know, there's the point is it's in creation, the creation order, even pagan women are exuding the way they vote, the way they do these things, the way the movements that women get wrapped up in all these things, we just can see it in culture. And that's really, I think, I thought you were spot on with that. And once you once you argue it, you guys should check out, obviously, how he argues this in the book.

But yeah, there's something to women just being followers. And as men, the point is we should love our women and protect them because there's a promise of that to women, just like there's a promise for men to be harsh with their wives. So, you know, women on set, you know, call out their men when they're being harsh with them, that kind of thing.

Okay, so to wrap up. Last question. The creation order, like we just walk through, we know how it plays out, we just we've walked through, you know, home shirts, but the most intriguing thing to me that is actually extremely biblically accurate that I did not, I wasn't even aware of this until I read the book of all this being applied to the civil realm, and how biblically, especially the Old Testament, we can see ways that, you know, elders, the elders of a town, these wise men that were, you know, the judges, those kind of things, you know, they're always men.

And your treatment of Deborah and Barack was great too, going through how they played out. Yeah, so what do you think about the civil realm? And what's it going to take for Christians to realize all these things that we've just laid out that you've laid out in your book, they do apply to the civil realm. How can somebody's wife be, you know, their district's congresswoman that has authority to put, you know, legislation in place that could affect her own husband? You know what I mean? Like, how is that? So yeah, just flush that.

Yeah, I think I mean, I think the argument is pretty strong here, which is, I lay out in chapter 11 in the book. So, you know, you mentioned the Old Testament. And yeah, I realized like there's a closer church state tie with Old Testament Israel.

But it's very clear, like, okay, the women are not priests, just men, but it's more than that. It's only male soldiers, only male kings, prophets, well, there's prophetesses, but as I argue, they're doing like more individual or not public ministries. Yeah.

And so, you know, the judges, all of these civil offices are held by men. And I think this makes sense based on God's differing design of men and women. So going to the creation account, but also extending out from the teachings of Scripture on the home and church, male leadership in these two spheres.

And of course, I'm not alone in doing this. I mean, you have John Calvin making this case, John Knox, of course, others as well. And it basically is kind of where you're saying, you know, if a woman can't lead in her home or church, how is she supposed to lead, you know, more broadly? So if a state or government is made up of households and a president, let's say, has authority over households, then how can a woman who can't lead her own household then lead, you know, in a civil way over other households who are run by men? And so I don't think it makes a lot of sense.

I mean, if she's married, she would even be, in a sense, leading over her own husband. So that doesn't make a lot of sense. But Ephesians 5, Ephesians 5 says, you know, wife should submit to her husband in everything.

And so, you know, they just logically, I don't see how you get there. And so I'm trying to be consistent. I think Calvin was trying to be consistent.

And of course, this is controversial, because now you're stepping on the toes of people outside the church. Yeah, you're not you're not just saying, Oh, well, here's our Christianity. And we have male leadership.

You're saying no, even out there should be male leadership. Yeah. So obviously, we can't do a whole lot.

You know, if a society is, you know, fairly secular, or for a small minority as Christians, I'm more concerned when people are wanting to send women into combat, you know, so I spend time on that as well. I think that's a huge problem. It's certainly not protecting women.

Yeah. Yeah. So some of this is the ideal, you know, if we're in a more Christian society.

But I don't think we should just hand over the civil realm to the feminists. And I think that's what a lot of complementarians, unfortunately, at least appear like they want to do. Yeah.

No, yeah, that's, that's all. Yeah, that's great. One thing that's been odd with this new perspective, you know, God convicting my heart on, you know, through your book and through other teachers, what is really sad about masculinity and femininity.

It's very odd. Now, I just started my career, I just finished on my master's. So I got a job.

And my superiors are women. And it's like, this is not correct. Like I, you know, it's just it's very odd to, I have to answer to a woman and she is leading me in my work in like, I'm being trained by a woman.

So it's just like, it's an odd reality. And, you know, these, these women aren't, I don't think they're married or have kids, you know, and that's why they're working their career women. So yeah, it's just a sad reality.

And hopefully we'll see some change, you know, as God's law returns to America, Lord willing. It does introduce some, some, you know, difficult dynamics, I think that are just, you know, men and women relate to one another differently than a man, you know, to a man, I think that's, that's obvious. So sometimes I don't know why this is also controversial when, you know, we're kind of stating things that that should be obvious.

Yeah. But yeah, it is, it's, it's the world we live in today. And we have to try to navigate it.

And yeah, like you said, hopefully, you know, we can through teaching, especially the church, I mean, is going to be the one that leads the charge and returning to God's ways. And ultimately, you know, feminism, I don't think is going to work out very well. It's, you know, rebelling against God's design.

And so this, you know, whether it's just population decline, or family breakup, that you know, a lot of the problems that have been tied to it. You know, I think, you know, if we want strong Christian families or strong families, it's going to be Christian men following God's ways. Of course, we need good, Catholic Christian women to come alongside them as well.

So yeah, Amen. Yeah, and it's just one final comment, it is odd to be forced to spend like, you know, eight hours a day with a woman, that's not your wife, you know, and it's like, I just would rather not, you know, so it's just a weird, you know, it's just weird, you're forced to do such a thing. So I think that's, yeah, I think that's all I wanted to get through.

I guess my final question, you know, if you were conducting this interview, you know, if you were interviewing yourself, knowing what you wrote in the book, you know, what's maybe a big idea we missed out on that you think is just crucial for Christians to hear, because a lot of the listener base is Christians. You know, there are some, obviously, non Christians that listen, but you know, what's some of your words of wisdom there? And if not, no pressure. Yeah, well, I guess you could ask me, I a lot of people like the last chapter in the book, so you could ask me, what are some practical steps we can take? Maybe that's a good.

Yeah, that's what I would ask myself. No, that's good. So I'll just answer briefly, kind of what I state in that chapter is, you know, we can't control all of the madness, you know, out there in the world, in our feminist secular society, but we can do a lot to control our own households.

And so there are a lot of steps we can take, you know, as men to lead well, and that starts, obviously, with following Christ and in his ways, as set down in his word. But then, you know, some practical things as far as, you know, trying to find a good wife, and leading her well, and loving her, and then having children, I think we should try to have lots of children. And I get into that in the in that last chapter, because that that's, frankly, going against feminism, right? If you want to look anti feminist, it's going to involve, you know, having several children, and maybe homeschooling them or something like that.

So crazy like that. Really good advice. Hope that's helpful to you guys listening.

Just a few comments I had at the end, that I just wanted to throw out there. I thought, obviously, the first Timothy 215 about women being safe, the childbearing, that was extremely helpful. The first Corinthians 1434 to 35, the stuff on the civil sphere, like we walked out and Deborah and Barack and just feminism in general, this, your book was really helpful on all those things.

I just wanted to highlight those for the listeners. And I use lots of stuff we didn't even there's tons of topics in the book. You know, we couldn't even cover.

Yeah, and also some names, you know, you quoted Calvin a lot, but there was Bb Warfield, R.L. Dabney, A.A. Hodge, those were some good patriarchal thinkers from the past, obviously Calvin, John Knox. Mostly Presbyterians. Exactly.

Exactly. A lot of Baptist guys, unfortunately. So, okay, I think that's good.

I usually end with the doxology. So first Timothy, chapter one, verse 17 to the king of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.

This is the for the King podcast. Check out the website. Thanks Zach so much for joining us today.

Thanks for listening guys.

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