Will Spencer 00:00:40

Hello.

Will Spencer 00:00:40

My name is Will Spencer and thanks.

Zach Garris 00:00:42

For joining me for the Will Spencer podcast.

Zach Garris 00:00:44

This is a weekly interview show featuring extended discussions with authors, leaders, and influencers who can help us make sense of our changing world.

Zach Garris 00:00:53

Today I release new episodes every week on Friday.

Zach Garris 00:00:57

My guest this week is Zach Garris, who's returning to the podcast.

Zach Garris 00:01:01

Zack is a husband, father, pastor, and the author of two books including Masculine.

Will Spencer 00:01:06

Christianity and the new honor Thy fathers.

Zach Garris 00:01:09

Feminism is in the cultural and political crosshairs today.

Will Spencer 00:01:13

Praise God.

Zach Garris 00:01:14

Because for the first time since womens liberation exploded into western consciousness in the mid 20th century, cultural commentators have actual evidence to back up their critiques.

Zach Garris 00:01:25

Naturally, 60 million aborted infants is in itself an incriminating statistic.

Zach Garris 00:01:30

But with marriage and birth rates collapsing, antidepressant use soaring, and women's self reported happiness declining generation over generation, we can see that the feminist experiment is failing in culture, politics, and economics.

Zach Garris 00:01:44

Indeed, it's failing in civilization as a whole, albeit slowly.

Zach Garris 00:01:48

The evidence can even be seen as far away as Korea and Japan.

Zach Garris 00:01:52

With birth rates so far below replacement, they've reached the level of national emergency.

Zach Garris 00:01:58

But strangely, the one place feminism doesn't.

Will Spencer 00:02:01

Appear to be failing is in the.

Zach Garris 00:02:03

Church, which always lags behind the times.

Zach Garris 00:02:06

While the Kamala Harris candidacy is representing both the apex and nadir of feminism, churches are seeking ways to expand feminism's influence in both local and national bodies, despite the clear word of God.

Zach Garris 00:02:19

Otherwise, some churches and national organizations insist that women can be preachers and pastors, putting together endless study commissions to explore something thats been clear for 2000 years.

Zach Garris 00:02:31

And yet some organizations that call themselves churches and yet are not, have gone tragically soft on abortion, claiming it might be a womans choice and we should be more compassionate, less faithful, more empathetic, and less dogmatic.

Zach Garris 00:02:45

Naturally, this is also a result of feminism that prioritizes womens feelings over gods truth.

Zach Garris 00:02:51

Now let me be clear.

Zach Garris 00:02:53

There is also a movement of churches out there that are prioritizing men's feelings primarily of anger, as a result of what we're talking about with women.

Zach Garris 00:03:01

That is not better, it might even be worse.

Zach Garris 00:03:04

And it's another podcast.

Zach Garris 00:03:06

So in the meantime, we can talk about church's capitulations to the demands of feminism without directly answering but what about the men?

Zach Garris 00:03:14

So let's talk about feminism in the church.

Will Spencer 00:03:17

Anyone?

Will Spencer 00:03:18

Anyone?

Zach Garris 00:03:19

Bueller?

Zach Garris 00:03:20

And therein lies the problem.

Zach Garris 00:03:22

Because in a reformed faith that has so much to say about politics, culture and even economics, there's often a shocking silence when it comes to something much more fundamental the nature of men, women, and our shared roles, responsibilities, and destinies together.

Zach Garris 00:03:38

But it wasn't always so.

Zach Garris 00:03:40

Which brings me back to Zach Garris and his new book, honor Thy fathers, out now on new Christendom Press.

Zach Garris 00:03:46

In his brief, inaccessible work, Zack demonstrates the traditional stance of the reformed faith towards feminism, sort of because feminism wasn't really a thing during the age of the reformers.

Zach Garris 00:03:57

But the word of God still rang true, which is why Luther, Calvin, Knox, Turretin Warfield, and many other reformers and Puritans were bracingly clear on women's roles in the home, church and government, namely, that they are not to teach or have authority over men.

Zach Garris 00:04:14

Period.

Zach Garris 00:04:14

Full stop.

Zach Garris 00:04:16

Not that women can't have authority at all, as in over fellow women and children, just not over men.

Zach Garris 00:04:22

That's a hard teaching.

Zach Garris 00:04:23

I know there are so many cultural and political incentives to egalitarianism and what's known as broad complementarianism, which is basically the same thing.

Zach Garris 00:04:32

But the word of God is clear, and things go better for us, men and women, when we submit ourselves to it, because the fifth commandment is the only one with a promise.

Zach Garris 00:04:42

And that is where Zack derived the title of his book from, to help us understand that honoring male authority is following the Fifth Commandment, as elucidated in the Westminster confession of faith and elsewhere.

Zach Garris 00:04:54

So, as Zack writes in one of the most memorable first sentences I've read recently, feminism has fallen on hard times of late.

Zach Garris 00:05:03

But it has not fallen on hard enough times.

Zach Garris 00:05:05

I couldn't agree more, and I hope feminism continues to fall on hard times outside the church and harder times within it.

Zach Garris 00:05:13

May Zach Garriss new book, Honor Thy fathers, contribute to that effort.

Zach Garris 00:05:17

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Zach Garris 00:05:20

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Zach Garris 00:05:26

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Zach Garris 00:05:35

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Zach Garris 00:05:40

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Zach Garris 00:05:46

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Zach Garris 00:05:49

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Zach Garris 00:05:53

I've curated every advertiser that appears on this show, and purchasing their products and services bring multigenerational wealth back to the christian community so we can rebuild a christian foundation to the west.

Zach Garris 00:06:06

And please welcome this week's guest on the Will Spencer podcast, the author of honor thy fathers, Zach Garris.

Will Spencer 00:06:15

Zach, welcome back to the podcast.

Guest 00:06:17

Thanks for having me.

Will Spencer 00:06:19

I have here the Zach Garris collection, masculine Christianity and honor thy fathers.

Will Spencer 00:06:25

Congratulations on your second book.

Will Spencer 00:06:27

I like to call honor thy fathers the reformed strike back.

Will Spencer 00:06:32

So congratulations on this.

Guest 00:06:35

Thanks.

Guest 00:06:35

Yeah, it's kind of complimentary book, I think, to masculine Christianity.

Will Spencer 00:06:41

Very much so.

Will Spencer 00:06:42

In fact, I remember when I had you on to talk about masculine Christianity maybe a year, year and a half ago, something like that.

Will Spencer 00:06:49

And having read on to thy fathers now, it feels very much like a couple missing chapters and away from masculine Christianity.

Will Spencer 00:06:57

Not that the book felt incomplete, but that the two fit together really well, almost as if they could be the same volume, which is a great way to write a couple books.

Guest 00:07:06

Yeah, I think so.

Guest 00:07:07

I mean, they're obviously different angles.

Guest 00:07:10

They could all go in the same book.

Guest 00:07:12

There's some overlap, but honor thy fathers is more of a historical angle.

Guest 00:07:16

So for people who are interested in that, I think it's useful.

Guest 00:07:20

And then also it does get a little more into, I guess you could say, like the narrow complementarianism in the particular, in the reformed world.

Guest 00:07:30

I mean, there's some of that in masculine Christianity, but, yeah, a little bit different book.

Will Spencer 00:07:35

Yeah, it's definitely a different posture on the same sets of issues.

Will Spencer 00:07:40

So I think I remember masculine Christianity being very heavily heavy on exegesis, like in the posture of these verses, in contrast to what the feminists say about them.

Will Spencer 00:07:51

And then it's let's go and do a historical survey of what our reformed forefathers used to say about these verses, in contrast to more of like the modern approach that the church is taking to egalitarianism, complementarianism and feminism.

Will Spencer 00:08:04

Really?

Guest 00:08:05

Yeah, absolutely.

Will Spencer 00:08:07

So when you sat down to write honor thy fathers, did you have this book sort of like, was it kind of percolating in your mind for a while after masculine Christianity?

Will Spencer 00:08:16

What was the genesis of this book pun allowed?

Guest 00:08:19

Yeah, well, actually I was initially asked to write an essay on, um, basically the reformers on male rule, male headship.

Guest 00:08:31

And so that got, that got things started, and then that actually, the guys who asked me to do that, that ended up not going anywhere.

Guest 00:08:39

And so I had this essay sitting around and I was like, what am I going to do with this?

Guest 00:08:43

It's, it seemed too long, you know, to post on the Internet.

Guest 00:08:48

So then, you know, it's just kind of over time I started adding to it and I had more books I had acquired and was looking through things.

Guest 00:08:56

And I think it was always kind of in the back of my mind because the essay was just sitting there and I hadn't done anything with it.

Guest 00:09:03

So I eventually just kept adding to it and refining it.

Guest 00:09:08

And then I was like, well, I think this could actually make a whole book be a little bit shorter.

Guest 00:09:14

But I think I was able to, you know, add enough that it made for a book.

Guest 00:09:22

And so that's, that.

Guest 00:09:24

That's what came to be.

Guest 00:09:24

Honor thy fathers.

Guest 00:09:25

I mean, it's not, it's not super short, but it's actually maybe the kind of length of book people like to read.

Guest 00:09:31

You know, where it's 100 to 150 pages, Macedonian Christianity was like 300.

Guest 00:09:37

I tend to be not necessarily long winded, but it's easy on, like, a subject like this to.

Guest 00:09:44

To write more.

Guest 00:09:45

So, yeah, that's why I think this book is somewhat useful.

Guest 00:09:49

Is it for people where it's a.

Guest 00:09:51

It is a different angle.

Guest 00:09:52

It's not the same book as Mexican Christianity.

Guest 00:09:54

It has some of the same themes, but in some sense, it's maybe a little more accessible.

Guest 00:09:59

People might actually start with this book and then say, hey, oh, I want to.

Guest 00:10:04

Actually want to read masculine Christianity and dive a little more into the scripture passages.

Guest 00:10:07

So, yeah, I.

Will Spencer 00:10:11

And I know that this came out on new Christendom press, which is, I mean, it's a beautiful book.

Will Spencer 00:10:16

People listening can't really see it, but you should definitely check it out.

Will Spencer 00:10:18

Lovely design and cover.

Will Spencer 00:10:20

And I think one of the things that it captures is this spirit of, hey, these questions that we're struggling with in the church right now, they've been answered.

Will Spencer 00:10:31

This is not new.

Will Spencer 00:10:32

It didn't just spring up out of the ground.

Will Spencer 00:10:34

The reformers dealt with this hundreds of years ago.

Will Spencer 00:10:37

So maybe you can start, maybe you can offer some examples of some of the reformers that you surveyed, some of the things they had to say about some of these egalitarian and feminist kind of questions.

Will Spencer 00:10:46

Because when I saw that recovering the anti feminist theology of the reformers as the subtitle, I'm like, let's go.

Will Spencer 00:10:53

So I appreciated that you dove into that to find some of those things that I think people today needed to hear.

Guest 00:11:00

Yeah, I mean, the subtitle's a little bit anachronistic, right?

Guest 00:11:03

I mean, feminism was not a term back then.

Guest 00:11:10

I mean, they were around before the movement was around.

Guest 00:11:14

But I mean, the thing is, you've always had kind of elements of feminism in the world.

Guest 00:11:19

I mean, you've had rebellion against male rule and God's design and marriage and throughout society.

Guest 00:11:29

And so none of that's new.

Guest 00:11:33

But I think, you know, part of the reason I titled it the anti feminist theology of the reformers is their theology.

Guest 00:11:42

They had a theology of men and women and male headship, and they clearly opposed what we would today call feminism.

Guest 00:11:52

And so their writings are still very applicable to our day.

Guest 00:11:56

And though we're writing, you know, this side of feminism, and so there's some things we might add, you know, particularly to the historical context.

Guest 00:12:10

Their writings are still, you know, extremely helpful and.

Guest 00:12:17

And especially practically.

Guest 00:12:19

Right.

Guest 00:12:20

Because they're.

Guest 00:12:20

They're getting into the Bible and.

Guest 00:12:24

And doing theology.

Guest 00:12:26

So, yeah, I mean, you mentioned examples.

Guest 00:12:29

I mean, I.

Guest 00:12:32

You have, like William Goodge, for example, he wrote a book of domestic duties.

Guest 00:12:37

Goodge was a member of the Westminster assembly that drafted the Westminster confession and catechisms.

Guest 00:12:46

And his book of domestic duties is like a very practical work on the home.

Guest 00:12:57

I mean, it's not just on male headship.

Guest 00:12:58

I mean, it gets in everything, parenting.

Guest 00:13:00

And so it's got.

Guest 00:13:01

It's got instructions for husbands, for wives, and other aspects of the home.

Guest 00:13:08

So it's a very good book.

Guest 00:13:09

It's very popular.

Guest 00:13:10

I think it was 1622 when it came out, and you can find it online today.

Guest 00:13:16

I mean, it's a little older.

Guest 00:13:17

English reformation heritage has republished it as, like, a more modern, modern English.

Guest 00:13:25

But they did.

Guest 00:13:26

They did more than just some spelling corrections.

Guest 00:13:28

So, I mean, I don't love that.

Guest 00:13:30

But overall, it's good.

Guest 00:13:31

They don't change the wording too much.

Guest 00:13:35

But if you want to quote it or something, obviously you can just go look up the original online because it's free.

Guest 00:13:42

But anyway, so, I mean, good even gets into there, like, you know, when he's dealing with husbands and wives, I mean, he's definitely getting into the details of what headship should look like and the marital relationship.

Guest 00:13:57

And so, I mean, he's dealing with situations where, like, you know, he mentions women who don't obey their husbands, you know, don't submit and don't follow their lead.

Guest 00:14:06

And so, I mean, he's got.

Guest 00:14:08

He's got things to say that are, you know, probably somewhat offensive to some people, but that's at least, like, kind of one example in marriage.

Guest 00:14:16

And then you would have.

Guest 00:14:19

I mean, there's other quotes in there.

Guest 00:14:20

I mean, there's just so people know, listeners know.

Guest 00:14:24

The first three chapters of my book are male rule in the home, church and then the Commonwealth.

Guest 00:14:31

So I get into all of those.

Guest 00:14:33

And then I'm looking at the reformed on those different spheres.

Guest 00:14:39

And so, I mean, there's not as much on the church in one sense, because they weren't dealing with like, this push for women pastors, um, like, like we have today.

Guest 00:14:48

But, but they still have, they still have teachings that they applied.

Guest 00:14:51

They applied like, first Timothy two and one corinthians 1434 and 35 and other passages to, to prohibit women from, uh, preaching and leadership in the church.

Guest 00:15:03

So, um, yeah, I mean, there's, there's all sorts of stuff in here we can discuss, but maybe that's enough for, for now.

Will Spencer 00:15:11

Yeah.

Will Spencer 00:15:11

Just to go back to something you said about it, the reformers weren't talking about feminism.

Will Spencer 00:15:16

That wasn't really part of their world, but they were observing some of the same trends, some of the same behaviors, some of the same sins that have now taken shape in a socio political, in even theological kind of posture.

Will Spencer 00:15:34

So it wasn't that they would have described themselves as feminists or anti feminist.

Will Spencer 00:15:38

They didn't know what that was.

Will Spencer 00:15:40

But they had made the same observations that many people are doing today, and they had spoken into these particular issues in their writings.

Will Spencer 00:15:49

And so I guess we can go to the past to find what our forefathers honor thy fathers would have said about some of the same things that we're facing today and apply it to our modern challenges.

Will Spencer 00:16:01

It feels like that's kind of the spirit of the book.

Guest 00:16:03

Yeah, absolutely.

Guest 00:16:04

I mean, the goal of, or like you said, the spirit of the book.

Guest 00:16:08

It's taking the teachings and principles of the older reformed theologians.

Guest 00:16:14

Just to be clear, it's the 16th and 17th century reformers is what I focus on, because that would be the actual reformers, like Calvin.

Guest 00:16:23

I mean, I mentioned Luther a little bit, but it's mostly Calvin, Calvin and Bollinger.

Guest 00:16:29

And I mean, there's others again, too.

Guest 00:16:34

There's more probably the post reformation reformers, reformed orthodox, they've come that are a little bit later that, that's like Goog and Vermigli and others like that.

Guest 00:16:49

So there's.

Guest 00:16:50

Sorry, Vermigli is actually earlier.

Guest 00:16:51

He's a reformer so much, that's, that's another guy.

Guest 00:16:58

He's Dutch.

Will Spencer 00:16:59

I was wondering how to say.

Will Spencer 00:17:00

I was gonna, I was gonna say his name, but I don't know how.

Guest 00:17:01

To say I put in there.

Guest 00:17:04

I think it even has like a f sound.

Guest 00:17:05

Technically, it's like Fuchsius.

Guest 00:17:08

Yeah, fuchsia.

Guest 00:17:09

So, yeah, it's, that's a hard one.

Guest 00:17:11

Gazbertus is his first name.

Guest 00:17:12

So he's a dutch guy, but there's actually not a lot, a lot of his stuff is not translated, so he's somewhat hard to access in English.

Guest 00:17:22

But, um, yeah, I think it's just, you know, it's part of the advantage of going and reading those older theologians is the fact that they're, they're, they don't have the pressure that we do, you know, today, I mean, where we feel like we have to qualify everything or pastors today are afraid to almost even read certain portions of scripture because they're, they're very, you know, patriarchal or whatever.

Guest 00:17:49

I mean, male, they teach male headship and so, you know, they just didn't really fear speaking on those things back in the day.

Guest 00:17:58

I mean, that's not to say we shouldn't be sensitive, you know, to our context and hearers, but I just think it's helpful to go read these older guys and realize, you know, they pretty much all said the same thing with some variation.

Guest 00:18:13

And if that's the case, then that's a pretty good argument that they were right.

Guest 00:18:19

I mean, if you're reformed, right, if you, if you'd like them on, if you like the reformed theologians on justification and, you know, everything else theologically, then we should, we should care what they thought about mail headship and the like.

Will Spencer 00:18:35

Now, were you aware going in of what some of the reformers had said?

Will Spencer 00:18:39

Or was it kind of like a research project?

Will Spencer 00:18:41

Like, did you know where to start?

Will Spencer 00:18:42

Or was it your own kind of journey to go through these men's writings to find out what they had said about these issues?

Guest 00:18:49

I mean, I had a pretty good idea from things I had seen that they were all going to at least hold what we would consider, like traditional teaching regarding male rule, certainly in the home and church.

Guest 00:19:00

And I guess I didn't know exactly what they would all say about the Commonwealth.

Guest 00:19:04

I mean, I had seen some differences between Calvin and Knox that I had even mentioned, I think, in masculine Christianity.

Guest 00:19:12

So I think probably what happened is I had a good idea.

Guest 00:19:15

But as I was researching this book, you know, it's kind of refining things and, you know, understanding even the different nuances, especially on the point between Calvin and Knox.

Guest 00:19:29

And I found other guys who spoke on that question, such as Beza and Bollinger.

Guest 00:19:35

So, yeah, I mean, and even that, I mean, I'll even say now, I mean, the book is nothing.

Guest 00:19:40

It's not exhaustive.

Guest 00:19:41

I mean, there's, there's lots of theologians I don't mention, and you could probably find even more, although I think one of the challenges is trying to find, I mean, there were the reform, the older reformed theologians wrote a lot.

Guest 00:19:55

So, you know, because they didn't do a lot of books directly on the subject.

Guest 00:20:01

It wasn't, you know, major controversy at the time.

Guest 00:20:05

And so sometimes it's hard to find the quotes you have to read through fair amount or skim or know what you're, you know, looking for.

Guest 00:20:13

And so, so, like I said, there is more you could find out there, I'm sure.

Guest 00:20:18

But I tried to, I tried to get at least as much as I could in there.

Guest 00:20:21

I mean, especially, I'm hitting kind of the big names like Calvin and Gooch because he has that of domestical duties, John Knox.

Guest 00:20:31

I mean, he's, he's got the whole book on the trumpet blast against the monstrous regiment of women.

Guest 00:20:37

So I had to get that one in there.

Guest 00:20:41

And then I do get into the reformed confessions a little bit, where I mentioned the Heidelberg catechism on the fifth commandment, but then more so, the Westminster larger catechism, because it has more questions on the fifth commandment.

Guest 00:20:53

It has, like ten of them, I think.

Guest 00:20:55

And so some of that's like, even looking at the, the fifth command is honor your father and mother.

Guest 00:21:05

And so broadly, they understood that to apply to all authority structures.

Guest 00:21:09

So that would include marriage.

Guest 00:21:10

Now, it doesn't always spell that out explicitly in, like, the Westminster large catechism, but if you go look at the language that he uses for the fifth commandment, and then you also look at the verses it's citing, so the proof text, and it's clear that they include marriage in there.

Guest 00:21:30

You know, they'll cite, like, parts of one Peter three, and I know they at least cite that one, but maybe Ephesians five as well.

Guest 00:21:42

And so you can see that when they're citing these texts and then they're using this language that, I mean, I mean, part of the problem is they're speaking of authority structures.

Guest 00:21:52

They're speaking of authority structures in general, like, what should the superior authority do and what should the inferior authority do and the duties and sins.

Guest 00:22:04

And so that's why it's language that would be used both for, like, for superiors, abuse, for husband, but also, like the civil magistrate and parents, even with children.

Guest 00:22:18

But they did include it in there.

Guest 00:22:19

And you can even see that in, like, some expositions of the larger catechism, which I mentioned some of them in there.

Guest 00:22:29

That's just how they, that's how they understood the fifth commandment.

Guest 00:22:32

And so that's just a way.

Guest 00:22:34

I think that's maybe an important thing to mention is that's something we don't often think about today.

Guest 00:22:38

I mean, unfortunately, the church today doesn't even always teach the Ten Commandments, but that was always a big deal back in the day.

Guest 00:22:47

You would learn the Ten Commandments, the Lord's prayer and even catechisms.

Guest 00:22:50

That was common as they would exposit these things, they would go through the Ten Commandments and ask questions, how do we understand this?

Guest 00:22:57

What does this mean, each commandment?

Guest 00:22:59

And then they would do the same with like the different lines of the Lord's prayer.

Guest 00:23:04

And so when you do that, they actually had a whole theology under christian ethics.

Guest 00:23:09

I mean, so that's what this would fall in.

Guest 00:23:11

There was christian ethics.

Guest 00:23:12

But you can see how they under, at least that's the context for how they were teaching on marriage in male headship.

Will Spencer 00:23:22

So they were using the fifth commandment as a way to explain the concept of male headship and authority and submission in the context of the home specifically.

Guest 00:23:34

Yes.

Guest 00:23:35

So that's their primary target.

Guest 00:23:39

There would be the home.

Guest 00:23:42

Now, when you read the reformers, and I have quotes in the book about this, but they, they saw the home as kind of the foundation for then the other spheres of church and state, or Commonwealth, as they would often call it.

Guest 00:24:00

So the language, like William Perkins, I know he used it and maybe Googe as well, where they said that they referred to the family as the seminary of the church and the family as the seminary of the Commonwealth.

Guest 00:24:19

And so the reason is that's like the language of seed is what it's getting at.

Guest 00:24:25

And so they're seeing the family as like the models, the seed of the church.

Guest 00:24:33

And so, I mean, you actually see this even in scripture.

Guest 00:24:36

They're not just making this up.

Guest 00:24:39

You go to like one Timothy three, and you've got Paul.

Guest 00:24:43

He's speaking of elders in the church.

Guest 00:24:46

And one of the requirements is he says that the elder must manage his household.

Guest 00:24:50

Well, that's, I believe, verse four and five and one Timothy three.

Guest 00:24:54

And so he says, if a man doesn't know how to manage his household, how will he care for the church?

Guest 00:25:01

And so you have that very requirement is that the home is a model for the church.

Guest 00:25:08

And so the church is made up of households, it's made up of different families.

Guest 00:25:13

The same is true of the commonwealth.

Guest 00:25:14

And so, I mean, I think this is just the principle is you need to be able to manage your home well.

Guest 00:25:21

And those who do that well and then are called to leadership rule in the church, or teaching in particular, would be like a pastor or teaching elder.

Guest 00:25:32

You know, those men would be called to the eldership.

Guest 00:25:36

They have to be confirmed by the church, of course, so.

Guest 00:25:39

But you have that very practice there, and I think the same would apply to the civil realm, to the commonwealth.

Guest 00:25:48

Now, we don't.

Guest 00:25:49

The Bible doesn't make those demands, but I think that's a reasonable requirement as we look at a civil magistrate.

Guest 00:25:56

He's going to be managing, caring for the citizens.

Guest 00:26:01

I mean, how is he going to rule over other families if his.

Guest 00:26:06

His own family is a mess?

Guest 00:26:09

I think that's a good, good principle.

Guest 00:26:11

Unfortunately, in America, we don't seem to care about that anymore.

Guest 00:26:13

It's kind of gone out the window.

Guest 00:26:15

Most.

Will Spencer 00:26:16

Right.

Guest 00:26:16

You know, most politicians, their families are absolute disasters, so.

Guest 00:26:22

Which maybe explains things with politics, but.

Will Spencer 00:26:27

Amen.

Guest 00:26:28

Yeah, I don't.

Guest 00:26:29

So just to bring it back, that's the idea, is the family is there in the Westminster larger catechism under the fifth commandment, and they're reasoning their way from the family to these other spheres, and they definitely see a connection there.

Will Spencer 00:26:47

I think that does probably explain why we're at.

Will Spencer 00:26:50

Where we're at is that there's been a general devaluing of the family for the past 60 years, generously 100 or more if we want to get really into it.

Will Spencer 00:27:00

And that process has undermined male rule everywhere else.

Will Spencer 00:27:06

You can go back, and again, we're talking about in a context of modern feminism.

Will Spencer 00:27:09

You go back to the 1960s, you see the devaluation.

Will Spencer 00:27:12

In fact, actually, just as a bit of an aside, in my church signal group with all the guys, we're talking about the bear and stain bears now, okay, I'm old enough to remember when they were the Berenstein bears, but that's a whole other conversation.

Will Spencer 00:27:26

But about how those children's books, which I read as a little kid, were actually pretty feminist with the bumbling dad and the mom kind of in charge.

Will Spencer 00:27:35

And of course, I was a little kid, I wasn't paying attention to that.

Will Spencer 00:27:38

But that shows how far back this idea goes.

Will Spencer 00:27:41

You can go into all in the family, the subversion of the male rule, dad is a loudmouth bigot, etcetera.

Will Spencer 00:27:46

So you see these themes that we're all kind of doing in culture, that we're participating in or kind of immersed in to undermine male rule in the home.

Will Spencer 00:27:55

And that has had cascading effects of undermining male rule in the church and then in the state, perhaps at the same time.

Will Spencer 00:28:03

And so the reformers would have looked at it and said, the male rule in the home as established in the fifth commandment is the central ground and the pillar of male rule everywhere else in society.

Will Spencer 00:28:15

Proceeding from the home outwards.

Guest 00:28:19

Yeah, I mean, I think so.

Guest 00:28:22

And when, when the home therefore collapses, I mean, this is a problem.

Guest 00:28:29

It's going to affect everywhere else.

Guest 00:28:31

And so I think, I mean, look, there is an interconnectedness, right?

Guest 00:28:35

Obviously, the church helps support families, right.

Guest 00:28:40

Because they're, they're overseeing them, the elders, they're preaching to families to fulfill their duties.

Guest 00:28:47

And I would say that the state is also supposed to support families.

Guest 00:28:54

I think they don't always do a good job in our culture.

Guest 00:28:56

Right.

Guest 00:28:56

So.

Guest 00:28:57

But some of that would be like.

Will Spencer 00:28:59

Divorce law, the opposite.

Guest 00:29:00

Yeah, yeah, right.

Guest 00:29:01

Like no fault divorce, I mean, actually, I would argue, undermines, well, male headship because the wife could say, well, I don't want to submit to my husband.

Guest 00:29:10

I'm just going to divorce him.

Guest 00:29:11

And the state, there's no punishment.

Guest 00:29:12

There's no, I mean, I pointed this out.

Guest 00:29:14

In masculine Christianity, you know, divorce is, well, marriage is a involves, it's a Christians, we believe it's a covenant.

Guest 00:29:23

I know that Roman Catholics call it a sacrament.

Guest 00:29:26

I don't agree with that.

Guest 00:29:27

It is a covenant.

Will Spencer 00:29:28

But don't worry, they're not here.

Will Spencer 00:29:30

They're not here right now.

Guest 00:29:31

I mean, there could be some listening.

Guest 00:29:32

I don't know.

Guest 00:29:33

But so, yeah, you know, we do believe it's, it's a covenant, but, but legally, it's going to have the, you know, it serves as a contract.

Guest 00:29:43

But, so basically, the way at least I can just speak on us law is, and the states differ in some regard, but they, they have their default laws, default rules for the contract.

Guest 00:29:55

And so you get married, you go sign the marriage license and.

Guest 00:30:01

Yeah, I mean, you can, you can modify it with, you can modify the marriage contract with a prenuptial agreement.

Guest 00:30:07

I mean, that's, that's allowed.

Guest 00:30:08

There's sometimes limitations on it, but you can do that.

Guest 00:30:11

But the problem is, is the default contract is no fault divorce in most states.

Guest 00:30:16

Now, if all states, I think, have it.

Guest 00:30:19

Yeah, New York was like the last one, ironically, it was New York.

Guest 00:30:22

That was the last one.

Guest 00:30:22

Change it.

Guest 00:30:23

Which wasn't that long ago, actually, maybe the last 20 years.

Guest 00:30:28

So, you know, where it used to be required that you would show fault to get a divorce and now you don't have to do that.

Guest 00:30:36

I mean, some states make you wait a little bit longer.

Guest 00:30:38

If you don't, if it's not consensual.

Guest 00:30:42

It's not agreed by both parties.

Guest 00:30:45

But the point being is, unfortunately, the default rules are now either party can unilaterally, unilaterally file for divorce, and there's no punishment.

Guest 00:30:56

There's no.

Guest 00:30:57

Even though they might have breached the contract, they might cheated on their spouse or something, or just they're getting out of the marriage and the other party doesn't want to.

Guest 00:31:07

I mean, that seems like a breach of contract, but there's no penalties.

Guest 00:31:11

It's just judges tend to.

Guest 00:31:12

I mean, there's been some problems here, but judges tend to at least the trend now is they just.

Guest 00:31:18

They don't want to hear anything.

Guest 00:31:19

They just split things 50 50, children, you know, parenting time, and then also finances and the like.

Guest 00:31:27

So that's kind of where we've trained.

Guest 00:31:30

We're training in the United States.

Guest 00:31:31

But the problem is that doesn't support strong families.

Guest 00:31:36

Right.

Guest 00:31:37

We don't have laws in place to actually keep families together.

Guest 00:31:40

We don't have.

Guest 00:31:41

I mean, we have more and more laws that don't protect children.

Guest 00:31:44

I mean, so.

Guest 00:31:44

Oh, that's bad.

Guest 00:31:45

I mean, some of the, you know, transgender laws.

Guest 00:31:49

So there's all sorts of things there.

Guest 00:31:53

And all that is to say, those three spheres of family, church, state, they are all interconnected, and the church and the state are supposed to be supporting the family and supporting.

Guest 00:32:06

Just having strong families.

Guest 00:32:09

And unfortunately, I think we could argue.

Guest 00:32:13

I mean, I've just argued that the state doesn't do a very good job of supporting families, but I think we could also point out a lot of ways that the church is also not supporting strong families.

Guest 00:32:22

Sometimes they.

Guest 00:32:23

I mean, I've seen examples where pastors, sessions, church leadership is allowing one of the parties to divorce, and then they don't.

Guest 00:32:33

They don't penalize them.

Guest 00:32:33

They don't.

Guest 00:32:34

They don't discipline them or bar them from the supper or excommunicate them eventually is what they should do if they don't repent.

Guest 00:32:42

And instead they'll just allow divorce.

Guest 00:32:44

I mean, I've seen.

Guest 00:32:44

I've seen this, and you probably heard of situations like this.

Guest 00:32:48

Well, and so, I mean, this is a problem is, you know, when the state's not doing its job, that's bad enough.

Guest 00:32:56

But the church needs to stand on the scriptures, and they shouldn't just be allowing a party to divorce a Christian to divorce their spouse or a fellow christian spouse is often the case when there's no biblical grounds.

Guest 00:33:13

Right.

Guest 00:33:14

There should be.

Guest 00:33:16

It should be justified in the traditional protestant position.

Guest 00:33:18

I realize some people disagree with this, but the traditional protestant position, which is found in the Westminster standards, is it has to be adultery or abandonment.

Guest 00:33:27

And so anyway, all that is to say, I mean, and this is just in the divorce issue, there's also other things.

Guest 00:33:32

The church isn't always preaching male headship.

Guest 00:33:37

It's not always preaching.

Guest 00:33:38

Pastors aren't always preaching for wives to submit to their husbands.

Guest 00:33:42

And so they're almost like, you know, they may.

Guest 00:33:44

They may give lip service to male headship, but then they're essentially encouraging egalitarian practice, which is contrary to God's design.

Guest 00:33:53

And then, of course, so what you end up with is that causes problems.

Guest 00:33:59

And so in that way, the church, and often many churches, unfortunately today, are just straight up egalitarian and teaching egalitarianism.

Guest 00:34:06

So all of that undermines the family.

Guest 00:34:11

And so the family is kind of left often on it on its own.

Guest 00:34:14

I mean, there's some good churches doing a good job here, but the family's often left like, it's just up to husband and wife, and hopefully they do a good job.

Guest 00:34:21

And if they don't, things fall apart, and then the church might not, might or might not help them, and the state probably isn't going to help them at all.

Guest 00:34:29

So all that is to say is that this three spheres should be working together.

Guest 00:34:33

The family is foundational, but we basically have the disintegration of the family.

Guest 00:34:40

I mean, there's lots of people that talk about this, right?

Guest 00:34:42

That the family's kind of falling apart.

Guest 00:34:44

The american family, at least we can say, is rather weak, but then that ends up affecting church and state.

Guest 00:34:51

So it's kind of this, you know, it's reciprocal in the sense that, okay, the state and the church harm the family.

Guest 00:35:00

The family breaks down, but then that ends up leading to a weaker church and a weaker state, because those people go into politics or church leadership, or there's a lack of church leadership.

Guest 00:35:12

Right.

Guest 00:35:13

You know, suitable candidates.

Guest 00:35:14

So anyway, that was kind of a long answer, but all of that kind of goes hand in hand.

Will Spencer 00:35:20

Yeah, the pieces all fit together.

Will Spencer 00:35:22

That answer is great.

Will Spencer 00:35:23

I mean, I think a lot of people listening can see these things reflected in their own lives.

Will Spencer 00:35:28

You can see that the male rule in the home, the value of the family and marriage itself, and even human life and abortion has been undermined.

Will Spencer 00:35:38

And what we have now, which many men that I know have been experiencing, is they have the divorce industry, the meat grinder that just grinds men down, that enables women to claim, without justification, things like abuse and to deprive dads of their children.

Will Spencer 00:35:56

That's a whole big thing.

Will Spencer 00:35:58

I know that David Edgington talks about the abusive wife he's having a lot of men flocking to him who have been sharing their stories of the ways that they've been actually impacted by the way that the family court system has been weaponized against men.

Will Spencer 00:36:15

And I think the frustrating thing is all of those things can be true, and they're terrible for what they are, but that the church seems to turn a blind eye to all of it.

Will Spencer 00:36:25

You know, I know a man, he was married for 20 years, had, I think, three sons, four sons with his wife.

Will Spencer 00:36:33

They were married, and she decided that she was just going to peace out of the faith.

Will Spencer 00:37:53

She's done with this whole Christianity thing, you know, dropped a.

Will Spencer 00:37:56

Dropped a surprise divorce on her husband, you know, and instantly, she gets half, you know, and actually ends up being closer to 60%.

Will Spencer 00:38:05

And his church didn't do anything about it, and she just decides she's going to go to another church that's just going to be like, oh, yeah, that's cool.

Will Spencer 00:38:12

Yeah, sure.

Will Spencer 00:38:12

You just destroyed your family for no reason at all because you decided you didn't want to submit to your husband anymore and how common this is and how the church is supposed to be the backstop for this.

Will Spencer 00:38:23

It's supposed to be far more than that.

Will Spencer 00:38:24

But I think men have a right to expect that a patriarchal religion, very obviously, if you read scripture like, Christianity, would speak up for them.

Will Spencer 00:38:34

I mean, obviously, hold them accountable for sin.

Will Spencer 00:38:37

Don't give them carte blanche to sin themselves.

Will Spencer 00:38:40

That's not what I mean.

Will Spencer 00:38:41

But to say that, like, hey, this is what the book says, and you're a minister of the word.

Will Spencer 00:38:45

What's going on?

Will Spencer 00:38:46

And they just kind of, like, shrug their shoulders and like, well, you know, and it's frustrating for men who feel like their own churches should be standing up for them and simply aren't.

Guest 00:38:56

Yeah, well, I'm frustrated by it, and I'm a minister myself, but, I mean, there are exceptions out there.

Guest 00:39:03

Obviously.

Guest 00:39:03

There are good pastors.

Guest 00:39:04

There are good churches.

Guest 00:39:07

But, yeah, I think this is a huge problem.

Guest 00:39:10

And, I mean, some of this is unavoidable in the sense of we have different denominations, we have a lot of independent churches, and people could.

Guest 00:39:23

People can either be deceitful, like, they can just.

Guest 00:39:25

They could get excommunicated at their church.

Guest 00:39:27

They can go to another church and just not mention it.

Guest 00:39:29

I mean, that's possible.

Guest 00:39:31

Or more likely, though.

Guest 00:39:33

And the unfortunate thing is that more likely that that church just doesn't care.

Guest 00:39:37

You know, they just, they don't care that another church excommunicated them.

Guest 00:39:40

They don't even know, like excommunication.

Guest 00:39:42

Well, we never do that.

Will Spencer 00:39:45

Oh my goodness.

Guest 00:39:45

Right.

Guest 00:39:46

So, I mean, this happens, unfortunately, is there's, so if we were to identify the problem, it's, there's a lack of discipline in the church.

Guest 00:39:55

And I mean, this, I mean, discipline starts with the preaching of the word.

Guest 00:40:00

So you have to have faithful preaching because the idea is, right, you're calling people to repentance on a regular basis to obedience to God.

Guest 00:40:09

And so that should be, that's kind of your like first line of defense.

Guest 00:40:13

But when people don't do that and then they commit flagrant sins, right.

Guest 00:40:18

It's the public stuff or scandalous sinse.

Guest 00:40:21

And then they need to be censured, they need to be rebuked, you know, by, I mean, we have this in like Matthew 18, right?

Guest 00:40:29

You go, if somebody sins against you, your brother, you go talk to him and rebuke him.

Guest 00:40:34

If he doesn't listen, you go to two or, you know, bring two or three, and then if he doesn't listen, that you go, you take it to the church.

Guest 00:40:39

And so the church would be going to the session.

Guest 00:40:41

You go to your church leadership.

Guest 00:40:43

I mean, Presbyterians, we call it sessions the elders.

Guest 00:40:47

But whatever your church leadership is, and they should, they should be taking up discipline against the person.

Guest 00:40:55

I mean, they could start with just talking to the person about it, but when the person refuses, then they can go through their courts.

Guest 00:41:01

We have church courts.

Guest 00:41:03

Maybe people don't always realize this, but at least, like the Presbyterians is how we do things.

Guest 00:41:07

We have ecclesiastical courts, and so we can do censures, we can charge the person with an offense.

Guest 00:41:16

And so let's say, you know, it could be like abandonment, right?

Guest 00:41:21

They're divorcing their spouse.

Guest 00:41:23

We would say, well, that's, you're abandoning your spouse.

Guest 00:41:24

You don't have warrant to do that, assuming there's no warrant.

Guest 00:41:29

And so, you know, the church should be bringing discipline, and that would start with rebuke, and then it would move to suspension from the sacraments.

Guest 00:41:42

Right.

Guest 00:41:43

You know, you don't go to excommunication right away.

Guest 00:41:44

You're trying to be patient with people to repent of.

Guest 00:41:46

Yeah, but eventually, if they're refusing to repent, contumacious is the word that's sometimes used, contumacy.

Guest 00:41:57

They refuse to repent.

Guest 00:41:58

They're hardened in their sin.

Guest 00:42:00

Then you excommunicate them.

Guest 00:42:03

And that's just right.

Guest 00:42:04

We see that in the Bible.

Guest 00:42:05

I mean, this principle is there like one corinthians five, at least amongst other places, you deliver them to Satan.

Guest 00:42:15

I mean, the hope is they repent.

Guest 00:42:16

But that's actually part of the discipline process is you have to cast them out of the church and say your sin is unacceptable, it's unbecoming of a Christian.

Guest 00:42:23

You can't do it and remain a part of the church.

Guest 00:42:26

And so we visibly, as part of the visible church, you are no longer communicating with us.

Guest 00:42:31

Communicating, you're excommunicated.

Guest 00:42:35

So all that is to say there should be a discipline in the church.

Guest 00:42:39

And especially for things like unjustified divorce, that would be called abandonment.

Guest 00:42:45

I mean, and this, this isn't limited to women, right?

Guest 00:42:48

It would apply to men or women doing the same, a man or woman doing the same thing or, you know, committing adultery or whatever sin it is, whatever flagrant sin there is taking place, there should be discipline against it.

Guest 00:43:01

It just seems, though, that there's, I mean, I've seen this in some cases, I mean, it's a small sample size, so I can't, I can't extrapolate it everywhere.

Guest 00:43:09

But I, from talking to other people, it does seem to be that this is primarily a problem with women because I do think it's more common if a man was to, a christian man is to just leaves his wife.

Guest 00:43:22

The church is going to, you know, more likely than not to lay down the hammer.

Guest 00:43:27

But when a woman does it, they can, they can, I don't know, they sometimes justify it or they have some basis as well.

Guest 00:43:36

You know, she said that her husband was abusive.

Guest 00:43:40

Okay, well, was this physical abuse?

Guest 00:43:43

Did she call the police?

Guest 00:43:44

I mean, when those things aren't, aren't the case, which, you know, that's usually not the case when this is going on.

Guest 00:43:50

I mean, if the police are involved, that's a different story.

Guest 00:43:53

But when we're just saying like spiritual abuse or this loose definition, and then they kind of let it go.

Guest 00:43:58

Right?

Guest 00:43:58

That's, that seems to be the case, is there's this practice where the churches are just, they're like overlooking things because, well, the wife, you know, gives some basis for why she's doing what she's doing.

Guest 00:44:13

And a lot of times it's like emotionally manipulative, really.

Guest 00:44:18

I mean, that the pastors and elders are being manipulated by women.

Guest 00:44:24

So this is really, I mean, messed up, right?

Guest 00:44:26

I mean, it shouldn't be working this way.

Guest 00:44:28

Yeah.

Guest 00:44:28

The pastors and elders should be objective.

Guest 00:44:33

Neutral arbiters in these, in these things.

Guest 00:44:35

And so it should be fair, you know, whether it's the husband or wife that's abandoning the spouse, they should, they should be put under discipline.

Guest 00:44:42

So this seems to be, from what I understand, talking to others as well, seems to be there's this particular problem with women doing this.

Guest 00:44:51

Christian women, some of them maybe leave the faith, but sometimes they just are just going to a different church or whatever, or they stay at the same church.

Guest 00:44:58

I mean, kind of crazy.

Guest 00:44:59

And the pastors don't do anything.

Guest 00:45:01

Elders don't do anything.

Guest 00:45:03

But so that raises the question, though, you know, what are we to make of churches that aren't disciplining people for flagrant sins like obvious sins?

Guest 00:45:13

Right.

Guest 00:45:14

Well, I mean, you look at the reformers and that the reform, the reformed tradition, the protestant tradition, you know, they ask, well, what are the marks of a church?

Guest 00:45:24

Well, the marks are, you know, the faithful preaching of the word and the right administration of the sacraments.

Guest 00:45:30

And then sometimes you hear the third one, which is the proper administration, discipline.

Guest 00:45:35

But really, the thing is, you know, if you, you don't even necessarily need to name that one because that falls under the sacrament.

Guest 00:45:42

Right?

Guest 00:45:42

If we just say baptism and, sorry, the preaching of the word.

Guest 00:45:46

The right preaching of the word.

Guest 00:45:47

Right.

Guest 00:45:47

Administration of sacraments.

Guest 00:45:49

If you're rightly administering the sacraments, then if someone's in open flagrant sin, then you should not be administering the sacraments to them.

Guest 00:45:56

You should be suspending them and then eventually excommunicating them from the sacraments.

Guest 00:46:01

And that's the very language of excommunication.

Guest 00:46:04

Right?

Guest 00:46:04

Communion of the Lord's supper.

Guest 00:46:08

So here's the really concerning part, is if a church is not properly or rightly administering the sacraments, then they are actually, they're not meeting one of the two marks of the church, which would mean that they're actually a false church.

Guest 00:46:24

And so that's, I mean, this is a serious problem.

Guest 00:46:27

And you see this in like, scripture uses the language of like, synagogues, of satan.

Guest 00:46:32

You know, you have, you have actual, like false churches.

Guest 00:46:36

We know there's false churches.

Guest 00:46:37

I mean, the protestant consensus has been that Rome is a false church because they distort the gospel and their idolatry with the mass.

Guest 00:46:50

It's because they don't rightly administer the sacrament.

Guest 00:46:52

So if we're going to say that about Rome is, well, they get the sacraments so wrong that they're actually in the gospel, they're a false church.

Guest 00:47:00

I mean, what does that say about kind of modern evangelicalism.

Guest 00:47:02

I think you have a lot of false churches within the, within evangelicalism today.

Guest 00:47:08

I mean, I'm not gonna, I can't know on an individual basis, but I'm just saying like, I think that's pretty obvious.

Guest 00:47:13

If we have churches that are either distorting the gospel or it doesn't have to be that they could be preaching justification by faith or something, but then they turn around and they're not doing any church discipline for flagrant sins.

Guest 00:47:25

Then according to the traditional reform position, I think we say traditional protestant position, they're actually a false church.

Will Spencer 00:47:33

That's right.

Will Spencer 00:47:33

That's right.

Will Spencer 00:47:34

I want to flip to the back of the book.

Will Spencer 00:47:37

You probably would remember the quote faster than I would be able to find it.

Will Spencer 00:47:41

But you make the point that what good is it to have reformed all these different aspects of the church if we're not reforming our impact on culture?

Will Spencer 00:47:53

And that seems to be the most striking aspect of the book, is like, okay, reformed our soteriology and all of, and that's, and then praise God.

Will Spencer 00:48:02

And you know, there is a particular blind spot that we have in our culture today.

Will Spencer 00:48:07

And when I've had these conversations with many women, they will say very rightly that there have been situations of church abuse which I think we could probably rightly and truly call abuse.

Will Spencer 00:48:23

But I think the response that the church has had a, is rather than saying, okay, we're not going to do that anymore and we're going to hold a bolt.

Will Spencer 00:48:29

We're going to hold both to a standard.

Will Spencer 00:48:31

They've just kind of said, you know what we're going to do instead?

Will Spencer 00:48:34

We're going to hold both men and women to a low standard or a no standard to make up for past excesses.

Will Spencer 00:48:39

And that seems to be, seems to have created a particular blind spot where, okay, long before I was born, there was probably abuses happening in church that probably still are today.

Will Spencer 00:48:50

But the existence of those abuses or those excesses does not itself justify overlooking excesses on the other side.

Will Spencer 00:48:59

And that, I think, is the unique aspect of our moment is that, okay, we have to make up for those other abuses by being blind to a completely different category of abuse.

Will Spencer 00:49:09

And somehow these scales will even out.

Will Spencer 00:49:11

And I just don't, I mean, I don't think that that washes, but that seems to be the posture that many churches have like, well, the christian church screwed up in all these other ways in the past.

Will Spencer 00:49:20

So now we're just going to let everyone have kind of a free for all, but it's actually serving to make things worse?

Guest 00:49:27

Yeah, I mean, that makes no sense on really any level.

Guest 00:49:30

Because.

Guest 00:49:31

Because, I mean, if you're practicing injustice now, then on what basis could you even say prior generations were practicing injustice or abuse?

Guest 00:49:44

You know, practicing abuse?

Guest 00:49:45

So it's a.

Guest 00:49:46

That's just kind of crazy, is.

Guest 00:49:49

I mean, I would challenge the idea that there was widespread abuse in marriage and the like, prior to the feminist movement or something.

Guest 00:49:59

I wouldn't agree with that.

Guest 00:50:01

But, like, even if we were to grant that, well, then the solution would be we should just seek to follow God's word properly now, and I.

Guest 00:50:14

And follow just practices.

Guest 00:50:16

So, yeah, this idea of justifying injustice because of past abuses is.

Guest 00:50:23

Well, it's actually just unjust.

Guest 00:50:25

So there's really no other way.

Guest 00:50:27

Other way to put it.

Will Spencer 00:50:28

So, yeah, it's just unjust in the opposite.

Will Spencer 00:50:32

It's unjust in the opposite direction.

Will Spencer 00:50:34

And that seems to be the whole thrust of wokeness.

Will Spencer 00:50:37

Just in general, this straw man is built of excesses and abuses in the past.

Will Spencer 00:50:44

And so in order to right those excesses, we allow them in the opposite direction.

Will Spencer 00:50:48

And that's not justice at all.

Will Spencer 00:50:50

But that seems to soothe, not in any good way, a particular longing, perhaps, for revenge.

Will Spencer 00:50:59

And I think that's the spirit that underlies a lot of this.

Will Spencer 00:51:03

And I can understand, not to excuse it, but I can understand how people in the secular world would think that way.

Will Spencer 00:51:11

I can understand the victor victim kind of cycle, which might be one of the only things ever to come out of psychology that's any good, is to understand the ways that victors become the victims.

Will Spencer 00:51:21

And that cycle goes around and around.

Will Spencer 00:51:23

But within the christian church, that that seems to have been swallowed and digested from self professing christians is something that's quite odd.

Will Spencer 00:51:33

This idea that we have to welcome in the marginalized and give them power to then exert their own agenda, and somehow that writes the scales of history.

Will Spencer 00:51:43

I think that's anti biblical.

Will Spencer 00:51:45

There's an objective standard that we're all accountable to, but it's something that has flowed in probably through the very same feminist doors that you articulate, opened and opened in this book, and probably through theological liberalism as well.

Guest 00:51:59

Yeah, I mean, even when you look at, like, feminism, they're not advocating actual equality.

Guest 00:52:07

I mean, I would reject what they're wanting anyway, which would be functional equality.

Guest 00:52:12

And, I mean, scripture doesn't teach that actually teaches that the husband has authority.

Guest 00:52:16

I mean, while it affirms equality and being right and worse between men and women.

Guest 00:52:25

So.

Guest 00:52:26

But, yeah, I mean, you see that now is.

Guest 00:52:29

It's.

Guest 00:52:30

I mean, feminism wants essentially female dominance.

Guest 00:52:34

I think that's often the case.

Will Spencer 00:52:37

So, yeah, yeah.

Will Spencer 00:52:39

Just real quick, I want to get back into the book.

Will Spencer 00:52:41

A couple more questions.

Will Spencer 00:52:42

But one of the things I wanted to mention is there was a thread going around on Twitter about female toxic femininity, and could someone please provide examples of toxic femininity?

Will Spencer 00:52:55

And so I replied to that, and somewhere down the thread, I was able to say, well, when we look at the examples of male heroes, the component of male heroism is never like, haha, I won over the women.

Will Spencer 00:53:07

But when you look at female heroes and media today, one of their components is always like, I put down those silly men.

Will Spencer 00:53:14

And so you can see in that there is an element of this isn't just about equality, it's actually about supremacy.

Guest 00:53:21

Yeah, absolutely.

Guest 00:53:22

I see that same thing.

Will Spencer 00:53:26

It's hard to miss, and it's becoming, I don't know that it's actually popular, but it's trendy, let's say.

Will Spencer 00:53:32

So to get back into the book, one of the things that you did, I kind of see the book as being divided into three sections.

Will Spencer 00:53:41

In a way.

Will Spencer 00:53:41

You have the reformers within the home, and then you kind of bring it into the commonwealth, as you said.

Will Spencer 00:53:46

But then you also talk a little bit about where things are in the evangelical church and some of the particular leaders, in particular Tim Keller and his wife, who have maybe they played a central role in letting some of these ideas in.

Will Spencer 00:54:02

And I found that to be the most shocking part of the book.

Will Spencer 00:54:04

But before we get there, I want to talk a little bit about female rule in the commonwealth, because you mentioned the difference between Calvin and Knox, which I thought was really interesting.

Will Spencer 00:54:14

Maybe we can talk a little bit about that for the moment, because we've talked about in the home.

Will Spencer 00:54:19

And so now let's bring it into the commonwealth, and then we'll take a look at what's going on in the church.

Guest 00:54:24

Yeah, so, I mean, Knox has his.

Guest 00:54:27

I mentioned this earlier, the first trumpet blast against the monstrous regiment of women.

Guest 00:54:31

And he writes this.

Guest 00:54:33

He actually writes it anonymously at first.

Guest 00:54:36

And this is against Bloody Mary because she's queen and she's Roman Catholic, but she's persecuting Protestants.

Guest 00:54:45

She's killing Protestants.

Guest 00:54:46

And so, I mean, hence the name she earned, bloody Maryland.

Guest 00:54:52

But when Knox writes his short treatise, he doesn't just attack her.

Guest 00:55:01

And he doesn't just say, well, women generally shouldn't rule.

Guest 00:55:06

He actually says that female rule is illegitimate.

Guest 00:55:08

He attacks it entirely.

Guest 00:55:12

He's attacking just the idea of women rulers at all.

Guest 00:55:16

Now, this becomes a problem because Mary dies, and then Elizabeth comes to power, and she's a Protestant.

Guest 00:55:26

So, I mean, I think Mary was only alive for, like, four years.

Guest 00:55:31

I think that's right.

Guest 00:55:32

Queen for four years.

Guest 00:55:32

So that's kind of the context of what happened there.

Guest 00:55:39

And Elizabeth is not happy with John Knox.

Guest 00:55:42

I mean, Knox is scottish, but that was under the monarchy at the time.

Guest 00:55:46

So Calvin was not happy about Knox's treatise, the first blast, because he actually writes, and I have it in there, basically, Knox had asked him once, like, in private about this issue, and Calvin didn't see what Knox wrote immediately.

Guest 00:56:12

But once he finds out about it, he was not happy.

Guest 00:56:15

And partly because it's not that he did disagree with Knox in part, and I'll explain that.

Guest 00:56:20

But the bigger issue, I think, was Knox caused trouble for basically the reformers because I think it was published in Geneva.

Guest 00:56:29

And so Queen Elizabeth was upset.

Guest 00:56:33

I.

Guest 00:56:34

She was upset with Calvin and Beza, and they, of course, aren't pleased with this situation.

Guest 00:56:40

So though they weren't, they weren't in England, but just relations with England.

Guest 00:56:45

So all that is to say Calvin, and you see this in letters between him and also Bollinger and Beza, those guys all said that female rule should not be ordinary.

Guest 00:57:02

So they weren't, you know, happy about having queens.

Guest 00:57:07

They didn't think it was this great thing.

Guest 00:57:09

They just didn't think it was illegitimate.

Guest 00:57:10

So they didn't go as far as Knox.

Guest 00:57:14

But, you know, you can see this in, like, Calvin's.

Guest 00:57:16

I mean, you could just.

Guest 00:57:17

I have it in there, but you can go read, like, his commentary on one Timothy two.

Guest 00:57:21

And he actually applies that, you know, prohibition on women teaching in the church.

Guest 00:57:25

He applies that to Commonwealth.

Guest 00:57:28

And he just says, like, you know, the female power rule has always been considered a monstrous thing.

Guest 00:57:38

So, I mean, he's got even pretty strong language against this as well.

Guest 00:57:41

So that's why I say, like, his view isn't that different from Calvin.

Guest 00:57:45

It's not like he thought women rulers were good.

Guest 00:57:47

I mean, all of these guys, if they were looking at our society today, would say, yeah, something's really out of whack.

Guest 00:57:52

I mean, you know, you're pushing 50% or even, like, higher.

Guest 00:57:57

You know, majorities of your leaders are women.

Guest 00:57:59

That's.

Guest 00:58:00

That's not just some, like, Deborah situation where there's, like, you know, where she was a judge.

Guest 00:58:05

I mean, I qualify that some.

Guest 00:58:06

I get in that some of the differences there in masculine Christianity with her.

Guest 00:58:10

But, yes, but, you know, we can at least grant.

Guest 00:58:13

Okay, there's occasional female rulers.

Guest 00:58:17

You know, that's.

Guest 00:58:18

That's.

Guest 00:58:19

It happens sometimes.

Guest 00:58:21

They do a decent job, but that's not the issue.

Guest 00:58:23

The question is, what's God's design for leadership?

Guest 00:58:27

Should women be leading?

Guest 00:58:29

And I think the traditional reform position, consensus, the minimum, at least, is that, well, it shouldn't be ordinary.

Guest 00:58:40

Just as men are the leaders in the home and definitely are leaders in the church, in the civil realm, they should ordinarily.

Guest 00:58:47

Should ordinarily be men.

Guest 00:58:48

But.

Guest 00:58:48

But sometimes things did happen right, where, you know, you would have a queen.

Guest 00:58:52

I mean, they weren't.

Guest 00:58:53

We have to remember, like, they weren't.

Guest 00:58:55

They weren't elected.

Guest 00:58:56

It's because there was, you know, the queen's married to the king, or there's no.

Guest 00:59:00

There's no male heir.

Guest 00:59:02

I mean, sometimes that was part of the problem.

Guest 00:59:04

So.

Guest 00:59:06

So anyway, so a little different situation.

Guest 00:59:08

It wasn't, you know, a democracy or something where they're electing female.

Guest 00:59:12

Female leaders.

Will Spencer 00:59:14

So was John Knox's book, was that inspired by Mary's brutality, or was it a posture that he had already held?

Will Spencer 00:59:23

Was it, like, I have to write this now, and to assert that female leaders are unjust because she's persecuting Protestants?

Will Spencer 00:59:30

Or was this just something that he already believed that the circumstances gave him the opportunity to write?

Guest 00:59:35

I don't know how much he knew or thought about women leaders before he wrote that, but I think it's fair to say he probably thought what he thought before he wrote it, but he decided, well, Mary, she's awful, and I need to blast her.

Guest 00:59:55

And so that's what he did.

Guest 00:59:58

And I think it's just, that's where his theology came out.

Will Spencer 01:00:01

Okay.

Will Spencer 01:00:01

So it gave him sort of an urgency in his occasion to express this, and so that's to be distinguished from men like Calvin and like Luther that thought that there were extraordinary circumstances where women could lead in the commonwealth, but it certainly wasn't ordinary.

Will Spencer 01:00:20

It wasn't to be sought, it wasn't to be celebrated.

Will Spencer 01:00:23

It was perhaps remedial versus.

Will Spencer 01:00:26

John Knox was like, no, never, under any circumstances.

Guest 01:00:29

Yeah, he said, it's illegitimate.

Guest 01:00:30

Yeah.

Guest 01:00:30

So he went.

Guest 01:00:31

He went a step further.

Guest 01:00:32

Yeah.

Will Spencer 01:00:35

But, I mean, I guess that makes a little sense.

Will Spencer 01:00:38

That makes sense given the circumstances.

Will Spencer 01:00:39

So, as you were investigating the reformers, I meant to ask you this a little bit earlier.

Will Spencer 01:00:45

Did you find anything that these men said about these ideas that surprised you?

Will Spencer 01:00:51

They were like, oh, like a particular clarity that was relevant to today or anything that was like, oh, I wouldn't have expected they thought this way about it.

Guest 01:01:01

Yeah, that's a good question.

Guest 01:01:03

I, I mean, I guess at least maybe just how well they address the issues.

Guest 01:01:15

I think, I think they really have good counsel.

Guest 01:01:17

I mean, just even the words, I mean, I don't know.

Guest 01:01:20

You know, look, the older writers are always going to get accused by modern standards of being sexist, but you go, you go read, you go read them.

Guest 01:01:30

And, you know, they obviously thought highly of women.

Guest 01:01:34

They weren't trying to keep women down.

Guest 01:01:37

I mean, so none that surprises me.

Guest 01:01:38

But to see it drawn out, you know, it's pretty standard to, like, speak of a husband's wife as his counselor, advisor and those kind of things.

Guest 01:01:47

So, you know, I don't really know how you would, the, the feminists would fit that with their paradigm because they weren't saying like, oh, yeah, we don't care what women think.

Guest 01:02:02

You shouldn't even ask them their opinions.

Guest 01:02:04

No, that's not how they approach things.

Guest 01:02:07

They just thought, well, the husband's the head of his household and so he had ultimate responsibility and duties.

Guest 01:02:15

But, yeah, I mean, they're, they're, they affirm, like, equality between men and women in a sense.

Guest 01:02:22

Right.

Guest 01:02:23

I mean, which we would all do is, I mean, they even use this language of, and there was that Matthew Henry quotes it, but it was from some earlier theologians where they say Eve was not taken from Adam's head or feet, but from his heart.

Guest 01:02:46

Right.

Guest 01:02:47

So he doesn't trample her, but, but she, you know, there's a nearness in equality with her.

Guest 01:02:52

So, you know, they say things like that.

Guest 01:02:54

It's pretty standard.

Guest 01:02:55

So, I mean, yeah, I think feminists, you know, would probably be tripped up by some of this stuff if they actually read it.

Will Spencer 01:03:03

Can't be bothered.

Will Spencer 01:03:04

Yeah, I thought the consistency, I think the number, the number of times that you, that, that different reformers quoted that same sentiment, that she wasn't taken from Adam's head to rule over him or from his feet to be trampled under him, but from his side to be next to him.

Will Spencer 01:03:18

There were at least three or four different reformers who said the same thing.

Will Spencer 01:03:21

Maybe they all got it from one of their predecessors.

Will Spencer 01:03:24

But I thought that was a very beautiful and moving sentiment that speaks exactly to the, like, look, headship is a thing, but headship and submission doesn't mean subjugation.

Will Spencer 01:03:37

And that's, of course, the feminists jump right into the, this is all about subjugation.

Will Spencer 01:03:41

Ditch and overlook the notion that this is supposed to be a loving bond of equality in one sense, but leadership in another sense.

Will Spencer 01:03:49

And how much Holmes need that?

Will Spencer 01:03:51

Because I don't think that they could make the case that our leaderless homes today are doing better than they ever have at any point in history.

Will Spencer 01:03:59

The joke that I've been making is that real feminism has never been tried, of course.

Will Spencer 01:04:04

But maybe if they investigated the reformers, as you did, they would see, particularly in the church, that this is a far more loving bond than perhaps they want to interpret it as.

Guest 01:04:14

Yeah, absolutely.

Guest 01:04:16

I mean, we've got that quote about you being taken from the rib, but also just the duties.

Guest 01:04:24

Well, scriptural duties from the Lord.

Guest 01:04:27

But they preach these to men and women.

Guest 01:04:29

And so, I mean, they.

Guest 01:04:30

Have.

Guest 01:04:30

You read Goodge, for example, William Goodge.

Guest 01:04:32

I mean, he's got hard words for wives, but he also has hard words for husbands and being gentle with their wives.

Guest 01:04:38

And it's one, Peter, three.

Guest 01:04:39

So, yeah, I mean, it's just.

Guest 01:04:41

It's all balanced.

Guest 01:04:42

They're just wise, and it's good, good application from scripture.

Guest 01:04:49

And I think, really, anybody would benefit from, you know, reading the quotations I provide in the book.

Guest 01:04:56

But then you can also use that to jump off and go read, you know, the original sources.

Guest 01:05:01

If you'd like to read more.

Guest 01:05:02

I mean, like I said, you could googe.

Guest 01:05:04

And, yeah, I think, you know, just when we contrast.

Guest 01:05:07

When we contrast, like, older culture, christian culture, compared to, like, what we have today, I mean, okay, everybody, every culture has always had problems.

Guest 01:05:18

There's always been divorce and adultery and all these, you know, sins.

Guest 01:05:23

But, you know, who had a.

Guest 01:05:25

Who had healthier marriages?

Guest 01:05:28

I mean, we have some very healthy marriages today.

Guest 01:05:30

But, like, overall, I mean, you look at our divorce rates and all these things.

Guest 01:05:34

I mean, I don't know when you have a nation where, like, 40% of the children are born outside of marriage.

Guest 01:05:40

I mean, and then the divorce rates.

Guest 01:05:41

I don't even know what the divorce rate is.

Guest 01:05:43

It's just high.

Guest 01:05:43

I know that.

Guest 01:05:46

I don't know.

Guest 01:05:47

I don't know how you say that.

Guest 01:05:48

Well, we've got a better grasp on marriage today.

Guest 01:05:50

No, no, we don't.

Will Spencer 01:05:52

I'm sorry.

Guest 01:05:52

Just don't.

Will Spencer 01:05:53

You mentioned Guj, and so I marked this page.

Will Spencer 01:05:59

It's sort of an extended quote, if I may.

Will Spencer 01:06:01

Read it real quick.

Will Spencer 01:06:04

Good recognizes on page, I think it says, this is 25.

Will Spencer 01:06:09

Goodge recognized that some wives must have their own will and must command not only children and her servants, but husbands also, he added, quote, if a husband be a man of courageous and seek to stand upon his right and maintain his authority by requiring obedience of his wife.

Will Spencer 01:06:25

Strange it is to behold what a hurly burly she will make in the house.

Will Spencer 01:06:29

But if he be a milksop and basely yield unto his wife and suffer her to rule, then it may be those there shall be some outward quiet.

Will Spencer 01:06:39

The ground of hereof is an ambitious and proud humor in women who must needs rule, or else they think themselves slaves.

Will Spencer 01:06:47

And I thought that was a pretty powerful picture in a way.

Will Spencer 01:06:52

In some sense, the things that the reformers are dealing with.

Will Spencer 01:06:55

Sin is not new.

Zach Garris 01:06:58

It's not a new invention.

Will Spencer 01:06:59

And to look into the past and to see, I mentioned earlier, David Edgington and the abusive wife.

Will Spencer 01:07:07

So many men in his book and his practice, they try to lead righteously, and the response is to have a big hurly burly made about it, as if it's slavery.

Will Spencer 01:07:18

It's like, well, no, that's not the case at all, as we've been saying.

Guest 01:07:22

Yeah, I'll continue to quote for you because it gets even more controversial.

Will Spencer 01:07:26

Please.

Guest 01:07:26

He says, but in doing so, the women who react this way, he says, assuredly herein, they thwart God's ordinance, pervert the order of nature, deface the image of Christ, overthrow the ground of all duty, hinder the good of the family, become an ill pattern to children and servants, lay themselves open to Satan and incur many other mischiefs which cannot but follow upon the violating of this main duty of obedience, which, if it be not performed, how can other duties be expected?

Guest 01:07:54

So that's kind of where I was saying, you know, Gooch has some.

Guest 01:07:57

Some strong words for people, but in this case, he's.

Guest 01:08:01

That's the feminist spirit.

Guest 01:08:02

He's.

Guest 01:08:02

He's saying, you know, this is.

Guest 01:08:06

This is just what God calls you to do.

Guest 01:08:08

And if you don't obey God in this matter, if wives won't submit to their husbands, on what basis are they going to do, you know, other.

Guest 01:08:15

Fulfill other duties and.

Guest 01:08:17

And practice other christian virtues?

Guest 01:08:19

So, I mean, that's why this stuff matters, right?

Guest 01:08:22

I mean, the Bible's pretty clear on male headship, wifely submission, and it's just as clear as that you should, you know, practice patience and be loving and these kind of things.

Guest 01:08:35

So, I mean, if I don't know how we can just divide things and throw.

Guest 01:08:40

I mean, obviously, I'm familiar with egalitarian arguments.

Guest 01:08:43

I tried to dismantle them in masculine Christianity, but, you know, I just.

Guest 01:08:51

If you're gonna throw one out, you're probably throwing other things out.

Will Spencer 01:08:56

So that's a great opportunity to segue into the third, I was gonna say the third half of the book, but really the third section of the book, which is about the Kellers and Nancy Pearcey's toxic war on masculinity.

Will Spencer 01:09:10

So maybe we can talk a little bit about that, because you had mentioned jokingly, I don't know how they make.

Will Spencer 01:09:15

How they square these two things.

Will Spencer 01:09:16

It's like, well, here are some pretty significant leaders who identify themselves with the reformed tradition, who have been doing just that.

Will Spencer 01:09:25

Like the section about the Kellers, I was like, I couldn't read.

Will Spencer 01:10:44

My hand was over my face.

Will Spencer 01:10:46

Like, what am I watching right now with some of the things that were being written there?

Will Spencer 01:10:50

So let's talk about that, because that was, of course, we're having this conversation a couple days after Ray Ortland had tweeted about his support for Kamala Harris and never Trump.

Will Spencer 01:11:01

And, of course, we all have misinterpreted that.

Will Spencer 01:11:04

Obviously.

Will Spencer 01:11:05

Obviously, we had misinterpreted a six word tweet, but it's up right now.

Will Spencer 01:11:12

So maybe we can talk a bit about that last section.

Guest 01:11:17

Yeah, absolutely.

Guest 01:11:18

I mean, we can maybe just preface this by saying that, you know, many of the leaders in the church have done a poor job in, well, a variety of areas, but feminism being one of them, or male.

Guest 01:11:30

Male headship, I think I spend, like, 15 pages on the Kellers, you know, which is unfortunate.

Guest 01:11:38

I mean, Tim Keller was, you know, he passed away last year.

Guest 01:11:43

I mean, he's been very influential in the PCA, my denomination.

Guest 01:11:46

I'm some same denomination he was.

Guest 01:11:49

And just even outside of, really, even the reformed world.

Guest 01:11:56

And Tim Keller's gotten a lot of criticism for a number of things, but I haven't seen a lot of criticism on this issue.

Guest 01:12:05

In fact, I've seen some people praise his wife's booklet, which I get into in there, which is Jesus justice and gender roles.

Guest 01:12:12

It's very short, published by Sondervin, so that maybe will tell you where it's coming from, which, you know, Sonderin's not very conservative, not anymore.

Guest 01:12:23

So, yeah, I mean, you can ask me specific things in here, but I think, yeah, the Kellers were very narrow.

Guest 01:12:34

They held to a very narrow complementarianism.

Guest 01:12:36

In fact, I wouldn't even.

Guest 01:12:38

I mean, I don't love the term complementarianism for various reasons, one of which is that, you know, that that would put their view in the same camp broadly as, I mean, maybe mine, if you wanted to call me a complementarian.

Guest 01:12:53

I mean, I like.

Guest 01:12:54

I said, I generally don't like that term.

Guest 01:12:56

But you've had that distinction between, like, broader and narrow complementarianism.

Guest 01:13:01

But yeah, I mean, they're almost at, like, egalitarianism.

Guest 01:13:04

But yeah.

Guest 01:13:04

Go ahead.

Will Spencer 01:13:06

Well, so for the listeners who don't know the difference between broad and narrow complementarianism, maybe to even contrast it with egalitarianism and patriarchy help because those two terms in particular, like, what do they mean in the context of this discussion?

Guest 01:13:20

Yeah.

Guest 01:13:21

Well, let's start with, like, the traditional reform view, which is what I'm advocating.

Guest 01:13:26

The book, which some people would call patriarchy, just male rule.

Guest 01:13:30

It's God designed mental rule.

Guest 01:13:33

And so that would be in the home, church and Commonwealth.

Guest 01:13:40

That would fit some complementarians who would say they are broad complementarians.

Guest 01:13:45

But maybe what will help explain that is the narrow complementarians, where they.

Guest 01:13:49

I don't know if they use this term for themselves, but it got used for them, which is that, I mean, to be a complementarian, you had to affirm.

Guest 01:13:58

This was in the 1980s, then into 1990s, you had this rise of the complementarian movement.

Guest 01:14:06

It was really a reaction against egalitarianism or christian feminism, which was denying male headship, you know, at all.

Guest 01:14:14

In the home or church, they wanted women pastors and mutual, mutual submission, they call it in the home.

Guest 01:14:19

It's kind of crazy.

Guest 01:14:21

So complementarianism came in and said, no, no, no, we affirm male leadership in the home.

Guest 01:14:28

We affirm, you know, only.

Guest 01:14:30

Only men can be pastors and elders in the church.

Guest 01:14:34

And that's good.

Guest 01:14:35

Those are good things to affirm.

Guest 01:14:36

But the problem is how that got played out, how these things were applied and then kind of some compromise in between.

Guest 01:14:45

So, for example, some people calling themselves complementarians, they wouldn't let women hold the office of pastor elder, but they would let women.

Guest 01:14:55

I mean, you have this actually a lot.

Guest 01:14:56

There's a lot of guys who do.

Guest 01:14:57

They still let women teach Sunday school.

Guest 01:14:59

You know, they can.

Guest 01:14:59

Well, they can teach men in other settings.

Guest 01:15:01

Okay.

Guest 01:15:02

But.

Guest 01:15:03

But, you know, some of them, the worst offenders would say, well, women can actually preach as long as it's under the authority of the session.

Guest 01:15:10

Right.

Guest 01:15:10

Because they can't be the pastor, but they can preach.

Guest 01:15:12

I mean, no, I don't think that makes any sense, but.

Guest 01:15:16

And I have various reasons for it with some of which I get into the book.

Guest 01:15:19

But, you know, I'll just mention one here is like, first Timothy two says, I do not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over man.

Guest 01:15:27

So the prohibition is on teaching.

Guest 01:15:30

It's not even limited to preaching, and it's not on the office.

Guest 01:15:32

So you have a broad prohibition that women aren't to teach scripture to men.

Guest 01:15:36

And I argue that that's like a public aspect, not a one on one conversation or something.

Guest 01:15:46

So anyway, so I don't think it makes sense.

Guest 01:15:47

But that's the narrow complementarian position.

Guest 01:15:50

Now, the Kellers never said that they allowed, that they would allow women to preach, but I don't think they really put the brakes on that.

Guest 01:16:03

In other words, I think the very things that they said in that Cathy Keller's booklet argues, I think it would allow that for that position, though they didn't say that that's what they held.

Guest 01:16:16

But I do know.

Guest 01:16:16

I mean, and I dug this up, and I have footnotes on it, so if people want to see my research, they can find it.

Guest 01:16:21

It's all backed up for Timothy Keller, I had to find stuff that was, like, audio.

Guest 01:16:27

You know, it's.

Guest 01:16:27

He didn't write a whole lot on this.

Guest 01:16:30

His wife has that booklet.

Guest 01:16:32

But I mean, basically, I can just tell you they agreed.

Guest 01:16:35

He clearly was fine with everything she wrote in that booklet, and.

Guest 01:16:39

Which, which would make sense.

Guest 01:16:42

So basically, he allowed women to teach theology courses in their church to Mendez.

Guest 01:16:51

Mixed groups, even.

Guest 01:16:52

I think they had one exception.

Guest 01:16:53

He said it's like, not their, like, I think they call it, like, catechet humans class.

Guest 01:16:58

So basically, they're new members, but, yeah, so that meant, like, in Keller's church, which is redeemer, New York, they.

Guest 01:17:07

And I assume they're still doing this.

Guest 01:17:09

They were allowing women to teach.

Guest 01:17:14

They did a systematic theology course, or, I don't know, you're just going through the old testament or whatever in some Sunday school course, they got women teaching that.

Guest 01:17:21

So, I mean, that seems fairly egalitarian, but so, so that's the thing is, like, the narrow complementarian position is kind of like this compromise of sorts.

Guest 01:17:30

It's like a middle.

Guest 01:17:31

I mean, it's kind of Tim Keller's thing is the third way ism.

Guest 01:17:36

But, yeah, so that's.

Guest 01:17:37

That's where they were.

Guest 01:17:38

And I will mention you've seen my prediction here is people that really followed Keller on these things will.

Guest 01:17:46

Will continue to go down a bad path.

Guest 01:17:49

I think narrow complementarianism is very unstable.

Guest 01:17:54

I mean, there's other issues we didn't get into, but, like, they don't tend to really tie the prohibition with nature, the difference between men and women.

Guest 01:18:03

And so they kind of make the prohibitions to be, like, arbitrary.

Guest 01:18:07

And so then if they're just arbitrary, then you don't really have a good reason.

Guest 01:18:11

I mean, you have, you have God's command.

Guest 01:18:12

I mean, that's a good enough reason.

Guest 01:18:13

Follow it.

Guest 01:18:14

But it does help when we understand why he said what he did, why he placed prohibitions on us, which is.

Guest 01:18:20

Oh, well, he designed men to lead, and men are more suited for preaching and leadership and all these things.

Guest 01:18:28

So, yeah, so my prediction is that those who follow the Kellers on these points will continue to go down a path that leads them towards egalitarianism.

Guest 01:18:38

And I think we've actually, I'll give some evidence of this.

Guest 01:18:41

We've seen some people do this.

Guest 01:18:43

Scott Sauls was a former PCA pastor, and he had some issues at his church.

Guest 01:18:51

There's some discipline.

Guest 01:18:52

And he, instead of coming back into the PCA, he actually left and went to the eCO, the echo, which is evangelical covenant order.

Guest 01:19:01

It's actually an egalitarian Presbyterian denomination.

Guest 01:19:06

He was a kellerite.

Guest 01:19:07

He was a disciple of Keller.

Guest 01:19:08

I mean, he talked about this.

Guest 01:19:10

And so, and, yeah, we have to distinguish the echo from, like, the EPC.

Guest 01:19:16

The EPC has its majority egalitarian now, but actually allows, you know, you don't have to be an egalitarian there.

Guest 01:19:25

But that's not the case.

Guest 01:19:26

If you go to echo.

Guest 01:19:27

If you go to Echo, you are an egalitarian, like you must affirm or, I guess, must deny male headship.

Guest 01:19:34

So, yeah, you've seen some guys from the PCA leave and go there.

Guest 01:19:37

And I just, you know, it raises questions about what exactly did they believe when they were in the PCA?

Guest 01:19:44

How firmly did they actually hold male headship?

Guest 01:19:47

I don't know.

Guest 01:19:48

I mean, I can't answer those things.

Guest 01:19:49

But a couple of other examples.

Guest 01:19:55

The last couple years there's been a case in the PCA, in the New York metro presbytery, which is where Tim Keller was in Redeemer.

Guest 01:20:04

They planted a bunch of churches in that area, and there was a church that allowed a.

Guest 01:20:08

I think she was an episcopal priest.

Guest 01:20:10

They allowed a woman, they clearly allowed a woman preacher.

Guest 01:20:14

She preached a sermon, I think.

Guest 01:20:17

I don't know if it was her.

Guest 01:20:17

I think she even administered the sacrament there, the supper.

Guest 01:20:21

Don't quote me on that, but something happened.

Guest 01:20:23

I think there was something with the supper, but I know she definitely preached.

Guest 01:20:30

And so there was discipline.

Guest 01:20:31

And part of the problem is the presbytery didn't have actually discipline.

Guest 01:20:36

The church that did that.

Guest 01:20:37

So that tells you something about the New York Metro presbytery.

Guest 01:20:41

And then that went up to the General assembly so the General assembly, the higher court, is handling that, and now it's off to the standing judicial commission, which is like basically the Supreme Court of the PCA.

Guest 01:20:52

So that's still going on because the SJC didn't want to take it up.

Guest 01:20:57

And if I remember correctly, I think the General assembly sent it back to the SJC.

Guest 01:21:01

So, but that's, that's still in process.

Guest 01:21:03

So that's, let's do what you will with that, but at least know that happened in the New York metro Presbyterian.

Guest 01:21:10

And then actually, I've seen some.

Guest 01:21:12

Well, this ties into another thing is, like, even in the PCA, there's a lot of churches that allow women to, they don't allow women to preach, but they'll allow women to lead other parts of worship.

Guest 01:21:24

And I mean, like, I'm specifically referring to, like, leading some prayers.

Guest 01:21:29

Maybe some even let them do the pastoral prayer, but don't call it that.

Guest 01:21:32

I was not calling it the pastoral prayer if a woman's doing it.

Guest 01:21:36

But I know some will at least let women do some smaller prayers, shorter prayers in the service.

Guest 01:21:41

And then probably the most common thing, and the Kellers used to do this all the time, or Tim Keller is they'd have women read scripture prior to the sermon.

Guest 01:21:52

I mean, that's pretty common.

Guest 01:21:53

If you ever listen to a Tim Keller Sermon, that's almost seemed like the majority of the time of the sermons I've heard by him is they, he'd have a woman read his scripture text.

Guest 01:22:02

Now I'm just going to say, I'm a preacher and I don't like anybody reading my text.

Guest 01:22:10

I want to read my own text before I get up there.

Guest 01:22:12

One, it's just, you know, it's fresh on my mind.

Guest 01:22:15

But two, I might add something, explain something, or just, I want to read it the way I want to read.

Guest 01:22:20

I want to make sure it's read well.

Guest 01:22:23

And I'm best suited to do that because I prepped from it all week.

Guest 01:22:29

So there's just that principle.

Guest 01:22:33

But that being said, our church, in our liturgy, we do have other scripture readings and prayers and things like that, and we only let elders do that.

Guest 01:22:44

So it either has to be me or as the teaching elder, pastor or a ruling elder.

Guest 01:22:51

I think along with the Westminster assembly, we'd make the exception of like a man who's training for the ministry.

Guest 01:22:57

He's an intern or he's a licentiate.

Guest 01:22:59

He might be licensed to preach by the Presbyterian.

Guest 01:23:01

That's fine.

Guest 01:23:02

I think all that's good just keeping with the spirit of the pastors and elders doing these things and the scripture texts.

Guest 01:23:11

I mean, the fact is you have entire, you have prohibitions on an entire class of people in the New Testament, and that would be on women.

Guest 01:23:21

So you have in one Timothy two, and then one corinthians 1434 and 35, which says, like, let the women be silent of the churches.

Guest 01:23:27

So, I mean, if you have these prohibitions on women as a class, that means women shouldn't be publicly speaking in church.

Guest 01:23:38

They shouldn't be teaching or exercising authority in the, over the congregation.

Guest 01:23:43

So, I mean, I think that's just pretty simple.

Guest 01:23:45

This is the reformed tradition.

Guest 01:23:47

I give, I give quotes to back all this up, even though I'll even, I'll note even the Westminster larger catechism, which.

Guest 01:23:54

The PCA, it's part of our standards.

Guest 01:23:57

I think it's one, it's 156.

Guest 01:24:03

I'd have to look, says are all to read.

Guest 01:24:08

It's basically asking all to read in public worship.

Guest 01:24:10

And the answer is it says, it says not all are to read.

Guest 01:24:14

And it gives some qualification.

Guest 01:24:16

Now, it doesn't say who's not to read.

Guest 01:24:17

Okay.

Guest 01:24:17

It's not, it's not, like, explicit.

Guest 01:24:19

I wish it were more explicit.

Guest 01:24:20

But what I show in there is the context that the Westminster assembly drafted other documents.

Guest 01:24:27

And so their directory for worship, you can go there and it very clearly connects.

Guest 01:24:32

And you see, ah, when they said all or not to read, they meant only ministers and those training for the ministry.

Guest 01:24:42

So they clearly didn't think women should be reading scripture in public worship.

Guest 01:24:47

So all that is to say, the Kellers, amongst others, have departed from the reformed tradition in this regard.

Guest 01:24:57

And one thing I'm trying to do is call them back to consistency here.

Guest 01:25:02

And I don't think it's good to have women leading, you know, in our worship services.

Guest 01:25:10

But there's kind of the spirit.

Guest 01:25:12

I mean, we all see it and it's not limited to the PCA or anything.

Guest 01:25:16

I mean, Wayne Grudem does this.

Guest 01:25:18

Tom Schreiner, you know, he's a Southern Baptist.

Guest 01:25:20

I mean, I've got quotes from there and from them in here.

Guest 01:25:23

And I think also masculine Christianity, where they're like, they're basically saying, you know, we, we obviously have to follow scripture, but, but we want to push women to as many positions as we can.

Guest 01:25:35

And I'm like, oh, whoa, whoa.

Guest 01:25:37

That's, that's not what I'm getting from the Bible.

Guest 01:25:40

You know, the Bible has prohibitions, but it, you know, it certainly isn't saying we should push for these, these other things.

Guest 01:25:48

Push the bot.

Guest 01:25:49

Push the boundary as much as you can.

Guest 01:25:51

No, that's a very modern, like, spirit.

Guest 01:25:54

That's a very modern feminist spirit.

Guest 01:25:57

And so I guess that's, that's just what I would say there is.

Guest 01:25:59

Like, that's.

Guest 01:26:00

They're not getting this stuff from the Bible.

Guest 01:26:04

I mean, I know someone might appeal to, like, first corinthians eleven five, which speaks of women praying and prophesying.

Guest 01:26:09

I deal with that.

Guest 01:26:10

The reformers all dealt with that.

Guest 01:26:11

I don't think it's permissive, certainly not a command.

Guest 01:26:16

And it's.

Guest 01:26:17

I raise questions about the context.

Guest 01:26:19

I don't.

Guest 01:26:19

I think it's about private or semi private situations, like a Bible study.

Guest 01:26:25

I don't think it's talking about public worship.

Guest 01:26:27

So anyway, there's a whole host of issues there.

Guest 01:26:31

But yeah, just to wrap up, we were saying is the Kellers have been a driver behind pushing this narrow complementarianism.

Will Spencer 01:26:40

As you were talking about those things, I remember reading masculine Christianity and just getting a sense of how fine the people who are trying to bring feminism into the church, how fine they slice things.

Will Spencer 01:26:53

It's actually pretty remarkable the amount of brain power that must be applied to, like, well, how can we just shave off just a little bit?

Will Spencer 01:27:03

Let's bring women into all these places where a plain reading of scripture explicitly prohibits that.

Will Spencer 01:27:09

But then you get, I think it's one corinthians eleven.

Will Spencer 01:27:12

You said, how much they hang on that one verse and that verse in context of everything else throughout all of the Bible.

Will Spencer 01:27:21

You can't say that, well, this is the little keyhole that we can squeeze things through, and yet they're trying.

Will Spencer 01:27:29

And that was the thing that was.

Zach Garris 01:27:30

So shocking to me, particularly in the.

Will Spencer 01:27:32

Section about the Kellers, is that obviously there's a lot of, we'll call it scriptural wisdom there, but that seems to have been used to like, well, what can we cut off to enable things that otherwise any sensible person would look and be like?

Will Spencer 01:27:48

That's not allowed.

Will Spencer 01:27:49

But because of their scriptural wisdom, they knew exactly where to push.

Will Spencer 01:27:53

And that's the troubling part to me.

Guest 01:27:56

Yeah, I think Bb Warfield, he got into as the old Princeton theologian, he got into that passage with one corinthians 14 and eleven, and he looks at eleven five by one, praying and prophesying.

Guest 01:28:15

And he says, what this means, basically, I'm paraphrasing what this means.

Guest 01:28:20

Nobody really knows.

Guest 01:28:21

And we're building up inference after inference when we start saying, well, oh, well, this means we should have women leading prayers and public worship.

Guest 01:28:33

That's what, it's one passage, one verse, not even a, it's not even really a passage.

Guest 01:28:38

It's like part of a passage, one verse phrase, and we're gonna, you know, run with it.

Guest 01:28:45

I mean, that's, that's basically how christian egalitarians work is.

Guest 01:28:49

They find anything.

Guest 01:28:50

They find, you know, they go to Deborah and.

Guest 01:28:54

Well, let's make Deborah normative.

Guest 01:28:57

I mean, that's pretty much how their, you know, hermeneutics work.

Guest 01:29:01

It's not good.

Guest 01:29:02

Nobody does this with other stuff you shouldn't.

Guest 01:29:04

It's not a good practice.

Guest 01:29:05

So we don't take the less clear things, the muddy things, and build whole doctrines and practices on it.

Guest 01:29:14

That's a bad idea.

Will Spencer 01:29:16

Yeah, don't do that.

Will Spencer 01:29:18

I remember in our first interview I asked you what the response had been to masculine Christianity.

Will Spencer 01:29:25

You gave a really good answer.

Will Spencer 01:29:26

But what has the response been to this book?

Will Spencer 01:29:29

Like, as you've launched out there into the world, what's, what's the response been?

Will Spencer 01:29:33

Broadly?

Guest 01:29:34

Yeah.

Guest 01:29:34

Well, I'm a little concerned because I only seem to get positive feedback.

Guest 01:29:37

So I, my thought is probably that, you know, my, my critics or people who don't like this stuff aren't, they either aren't reading it.

Guest 01:29:49

That's probably the most common thing is they don't, they don't want to touch the stuff I write or they read it and I, I mean, this is what I would hope.

Guest 01:29:57

They read it and they go, oh, I'm not interacting with that.

Guest 01:30:01

That's just going to get me in trouble.

Guest 01:30:03

And, I mean, that's kind of what I want.

Guest 01:30:06

I want people to read my books and think that they can't refute it and that there's no reason to even try publicly and they're just going to look bad.

Guest 01:30:13

So in this case, I mean, I argue things, right?

Guest 01:30:18

So this book is an argument.

Guest 01:30:21

It is contrasting, like, the older reform theologians with the modern, modern church, modern reform leaders and whatnot.

Guest 01:30:30

And one of the things that's trying to show is that we've departed from our reformed forefathers.

Guest 01:30:34

I think that's obvious.

Guest 01:30:35

I don't think that's debatable.

Guest 01:30:39

But what they would have to do, if you wanted to defend some sort of egalitarianism or narrow complementarianism, you would have to then take the position.

Guest 01:30:46

If you read my book, you'd have to say, well, they were all wrong.

Guest 01:30:50

Who wants to do that?

Guest 01:30:51

Right?

Guest 01:30:51

Who wants to say Calvin, Vermegley, Knox, guj you know, down the line, Perkins, everybody, they were all wrong.

Guest 01:31:01

They just, I know they all agreed, but they, they all misinterpreted the Bible.

Guest 01:31:05

They all got it wrong, and we today are right.

Guest 01:31:09

You know, I mean, that's, that's kind of a crazy position.

Guest 01:31:13

You know, I say in the book, it's, it's always possible that the church is erred.

Guest 01:31:17

But I, you know, when that's, that's more likely when there's like very variance in views and.

Guest 01:31:25

But when you have like a consensus, especially, I mean, you, I mean, this book only gets in the reformers.

Guest 01:31:30

I mean, you could also get into, I do get an American Presbyterian, some like the 18th, 19th century, which, you know, they're in line.

Guest 01:31:37

I mean, then you could throw in the church fathers and you could probably go in the medieval church, and when everybody's saying the same thing and they're all in, like central agreement.

Guest 01:31:47

Let's just put it this way.

Guest 01:31:48

The historical argument is not on the side of the feminists.

Guest 01:31:54

So anyway, to answer your question, I haven't received a lot of criticism.

Guest 01:31:59

I mean, but, you know, in one sense, it's good.

Guest 01:32:03

It's less controversy on my part, but I hope, and I do think what I'm doing with my books honor thy father's masculine christianity, is I'm trying to feed the brethren.

Guest 01:32:15

Right.

Guest 01:32:16

I'm trying to build up the church and give them tools and weapons for proper doctrine, for fighting egalitarianism, for fighting against narrow complementarianism.

Guest 01:32:29

And, yeah, I hope that's rallying the troops.

Guest 01:32:35

That's another thing is just kind of encouraging, encouraging the brethren.

Guest 01:32:38

So that's what I hope my books, even these interviews are doing, and just kind of get this stuff into other people's hands.

Will Spencer 01:32:50

I want to be respectful of your time, but I did have one more question, if you've got a minute.

Guest 01:32:54

Absolutely.

Will Spencer 01:32:57

So I wonder.

Will Spencer 01:32:59

Now, I don't want to spoil it, but it's one of my favorite parts of the book was the seven step process for feminization.

Will Spencer 01:33:07

And speaking of encouraging the brethren, I wonder if you could.

Will Spencer 01:33:10

I want people to read the book.

Will Spencer 01:33:12

It's at the end of the book.

Will Spencer 01:33:13

It's completely worth it to read the whole book.

Will Spencer 01:33:16

Exactly.

Will Spencer 01:33:17

But without giving it away, maybe you can talk a little bit about that process just a bit, because I found that to be very encouraging.

Guest 01:33:26

Yeah.

Guest 01:33:27

So I don't give it away.

Guest 01:33:28

I won't read it because I won't remember it.

Guest 01:33:30

Exactly.

Guest 01:33:30

But this is one of the things.

Will Spencer 01:33:32

I mean, I could read it this.

Guest 01:33:33

Is one of the funny things when you write a book, um, for those who haven't, is, you know, you don't remember every detail you wrote.

Guest 01:33:40

Uh, and I go back and reread things I've written before.

Will Spencer 01:33:44

Um, so, so I said that.

Will Spencer 01:33:46

Oh, yes.

Guest 01:33:47

Yeah.

Guest 01:33:48

As far as the conclusion goes, um, from what I recall, I basically, you know, say that, um, the church, there's kind of a trajectory.

Guest 01:33:59

The church slides into egalitarianism, and there's some steps.

Guest 01:34:04

And so some of those are like, the first I think I list is, well, they're not, they're not reading the older theology, older reformers on these issues.

Guest 01:34:15

You know, I think I say they read, they read the Puritans, but they don't, they don't read the Puritan.

Guest 01:34:22

William Googe, you know, he had a very popular book of domestical duties on the family, and they don't read that.

Guest 01:34:28

I said, how many pastors, how many pastors are handing out of domestical duties or recommending to their congregants?

Guest 01:34:35

You know, probably not very many.

Guest 01:34:37

Hopefully that changes.

Guest 01:34:38

But, and then, and then some of it just starts with, like, I think negligence is they're not doing the active things we need to do.

Guest 01:34:51

You know, teaching the scriptures on these passages and reading the reformers, they don't, they don't talk about women outside the home.

Guest 01:35:00

They kind of just let that be.

Guest 01:35:01

And the next thing you know, you've got all this massive cultural pressure of feminism, and then next thing you know, they're not even speaking on things really in the church significantly.

Guest 01:35:15

And so that's really, I mean, how I'd summarize it is there's, there's this negligence, and then it leads to, you know, women leading in all sorts of positions.

Guest 01:35:24

And that, you know, we end up with, like, this very, very narrow practice where it's just like, well, we just, we just won't have a woman as the senior pastor or a woman as the.

Guest 01:35:35

We just won't have a woman president of the college.

Guest 01:35:37

We'll just, you know, you know, have women in leadership all over.

Guest 01:35:42

And, I mean, how long does that last?

Guest 01:35:43

I mean, not very long where, well, we're going to at least keep a man as the senior pastor or president of the institution.

Guest 01:35:52

I mean, eventually, if you're putting women in leadership all around, then it's going to lead to, I think, you know, complete capitulation to egalitarianism.

Guest 01:36:00

So I don't know.

Guest 01:36:02

Was there anything else you want to add?

Guest 01:36:04

I mean, I do know.

Guest 01:36:05

I say, like, which way are we going to go, you know, as a church?

Guest 01:36:08

Are we going to, are we going to, we're going to follow the path of feminism or are we going to follow the path of our forefathers?

Will Spencer 01:36:17

The, the conclusion that kind of outlined what I liked about it was like, you laid out, this happens first, and then you'll see this happen, and then this happened.

Will Spencer 01:36:25

And this leads us to this egalitarian or perhaps even inverted kind of situation.

Will Spencer 01:36:33

And it was those seven steps that you laid out so clearly that it was so intuitive, like, oh, yes, obviously this inverted scenario is where that's going to lead to, and then you're not far from there, from the sparkle creed.

Will Spencer 01:36:44

Just throw yourself into it wholeheartedly.

Will Spencer 01:36:47

And what I found encouraging about that is I think it would help the brethren and the sistren, so to speak, to identify where their church might be in that process and reverse and reverse the trends.

Will Spencer 01:37:00

Like, if you're on stage three of a seven step process, you might be able to turn things around, if you can spot it for what it is.

Will Spencer 01:37:07

But of course, if you're at six or seven, perhaps, where it's already a five alarm fire, maybe not so much.

Guest 01:37:15

Yeah, that's a great point.

Guest 01:37:16

And I think if you're at this, well, without getting specifics, we can just say if you're, if you're like a narrow complementarianism, you, you can still salvage things, right?

Guest 01:37:27

I mean, you know, you don't have women officers in your church or women elders at least, or pastor, you know, you maybe you just, you just need to change some practices.

Guest 01:37:37

Hey, we've been having women, you know, do a lot of things up front that we shouldn't, we shouldn't be doing.

Guest 01:37:42

You can reverse course on that.

Guest 01:37:43

You can, as a session, actually, like, look into the issue and make a determination and then, and then change course.

Guest 01:37:52

And like you said it.

Guest 01:37:54

So instead of going down that path of like, well, actually, we're going to consider ordaining women as elders.

Guest 01:38:02

I mean, no, you can go back towards a more faithful, you know, traditional reform position.

Guest 01:38:09

So, yeah, for many, I think today it's not too late.

Guest 01:38:14

I mean, sometimes your church turns completely egalitarian and then, you know, you probably, if you're a member there or whatever, you probably just have to leave.

Guest 01:38:21

But, I mean, I have heard of occasional situations where pastors have gone in.

Guest 01:38:26

I don't think this is common.

Guest 01:38:27

But, you know, maybe of women elders and their female elders, and they're actually, they have, like, concerns about this.

Guest 01:38:34

I mean, they don't think this is ideal and they're willing to even step down.

Guest 01:38:37

And so that does happen.

Guest 01:38:40

So, yeah, I mean, I think we should be just positive in that.

Guest 01:38:45

Yeah, this stuff's messy.

Guest 01:38:46

There's a lot of problems in the church.

Guest 01:38:48

But I do think we should always be repenting and always be seeking greater faithfulness towards the Lord and all things.

Guest 01:38:55

And we can correct wrongs.

Guest 01:38:57

We might have made mistakes in the past.

Guest 01:39:00

We might have given into feminism in some ways, caved into culture, but we can, for the most part, reverse course, and it might bring some hardship.

Guest 01:39:11

It doesn't mean it's going to be easy, but that's what repentance looks like, and that's what faithfulness to God looks like.

Guest 01:39:17

So hopefully that's at least an encouraging note to end on, is that there is hope for improvement and greater faithfulness in these areas.

Will Spencer 01:39:25

Amen.

Will Spencer 01:39:26

That's very encouraging, especially because of the work that you've done in your two books.

Will Spencer 01:39:30

I'll just hold them up real quick.

Will Spencer 01:39:32

Honor thy fathers.

Will Spencer 01:39:32

And masculine Christianity paints such a clear picture.

Will Spencer 01:39:36

This is what it looks like.

Will Spencer 01:39:37

And here are the arguments that feminists and egalitarians marshal to misinterpret scripture.

Will Spencer 01:39:44

Here's what it actually means, and here's what our reformed forefathers once said.

Will Spencer 01:39:48

And putting the two books together, of course, here's what it looks like in our modern world.

Will Spencer 01:39:53

And so that clear picture that you've painted, it's a wake up call.

Will Spencer 01:39:57

Like, oh, this is not what it's supposed to look like.

Will Spencer 01:40:00

This is what it is supposed to look like, and we can start working our way back there.

Guest 01:40:05

Absolutely.

Will Spencer 01:40:06

Amen.

Will Spencer 01:40:07

Well, this has been a fantastic conversation yet again.

Will Spencer 01:40:12

Thank you so much for coming on the show, and thank you so much for writing your books.

Will Spencer 01:40:16

Where would you like to send people to find out more about you and what you do?

Guest 01:40:21

Yeah, you can find message and Christianity on Amazon.

Guest 01:40:25

Honor thy fathers.

Guest 01:40:26

At least the ebook is on Amazon.

Guest 01:40:28

Otherwise you have to go to the new Christendom press page for the hardback.

Guest 01:40:33

But hey, it's worth having the hardback.

Guest 01:40:35

I think it's a nice addition.

Guest 01:40:37

Otherwise people can go to my website.

Guest 01:40:38

I write fairly regularly@knowingscripture.com.

Guest 01:40:42

comma.

Guest 01:40:42

That's more Bible based articles.

Guest 01:40:45

Sometimes I write for other websites, but, yeah, otherwise you can follow me on Twitter acerygarris.

Will Spencer 01:40:54

Wonderful, wonderful.

Will Spencer 01:40:55

Well, thank you.

Will Spencer 01:40:56

Real quick, do you have another book planned, or is there something in the works?

Guest 01:40:59

I am working on a project with a friend, Sean McGowan, on the southern Presbyterians so it's more of a historical.

Guest 01:41:07

I mean, I guess this last book was somewhat hysterical, but at church, I've been teaching through american presbyterian church history, and I've been heavily, you know, kind of studying the southerners in particular.

Guest 01:41:21

And so I think that book will be useful because there's not a lot on the southern presbyterian church.

Guest 01:41:26

I mean, that's the.

Guest 01:41:28

Well, the mother church of the PCA.

Guest 01:41:31

The PCA actually came out of the southern presbyterian church in 1973, and there's a lot of interesting history there.

Guest 01:41:38

And, yeah, I mean, I love the reformers, but I also love american Presbyterians.

Guest 01:41:43

So I hope this will be of use, and I certainly think it'll be interesting.

Guest 01:41:49

We've uncovered a lot of information and probably gone through more books than I had hoped to.

Will Spencer 01:42:00

You mean, you also had a really nice appearance.

Will Spencer 01:42:02

I think I'm gonna get the date wrong, but I think it's the 1607 project.

Guest 01:42:05

Yes.

Will Spencer 01:42:06

I was very happy to see you in that documentary.

Guest 01:42:08

Yeah.

Will Spencer 01:42:08

Maybe you could talk about that for just a minute.

Guest 01:42:09

Yeah, yeah, real briefly.

Guest 01:42:11

So that was with the Abbeville Institute, and I had written articles for them several years back, and then I got asked to contribute an essay on religion in Virginia because that was a.

Guest 01:42:30

This is for the 1607 project book.

Guest 01:42:34

They also did a book, America first.

Guest 01:42:35

So I contributed that chapter.

Guest 01:42:38

And actually, that's kind of what got me started on writing on the southern Presbyterians is I was.

Guest 01:42:44

I mean, I had read a lot on, like, Robert Louis Dabney and some other guys, but I ended up really diving in to other southern figures like John Holt Rice.

Guest 01:42:54

He was an important guy in Virginia.

Guest 01:42:57

But there's also Archibald Alexander was from Virginia.

Guest 01:42:59

He was the first professor of theology at Princeton Seminary in 1812.

Guest 01:43:04

So he's kind of a big name.

Guest 01:43:06

I mean, his student is the most famous.

Guest 01:43:08

It was Charles Hodge.

Guest 01:43:09

But, yeah, there's just a lot of great history there.

Guest 01:43:13

And so then I was asked to be in the documentary the Virginia first, the 1607 project.

Guest 01:43:20

So that's available on YouTube.

Guest 01:43:22

It's free.

Guest 01:43:23

And I think it's great.

Guest 01:43:24

It's got a lot of good history.

Guest 01:43:25

It's kind of contrasting Virginia with, like, the New England Puritans.

Guest 01:43:30

And I certainly think there's good of both groups.

Guest 01:43:32

But there are some, like some things you see at least note here is, you know, I think.

Guest 01:43:39

I think, you know, the south's referred to as the Bible belt still today, and kind of orthodox Christianity survived longer in the south.

Guest 01:43:46

So there's.

Guest 01:43:47

We can discuss why that's the case, you know, there's differing opinions, but the fact is I think there's something healthy about, you know, Southern Christianity.

Will Spencer 01:43:58

Yeah, John Harris and I talked a little bit about that when he was on the podcast that came out a couple weeks ago at this point in time.

Will Spencer 01:44:05

But it was maybe when you finished this book on southern Presbyterians, because I think a lot of people in America don't really understand where the different Presbyterian denominations came from.

Will Spencer 01:44:14

And there is a very large Baptist to Presbyterian pipeline that's happening right now.

Will Spencer 01:44:19

Certainly I had my own journey through that.

Will Spencer 01:44:22

I think that could be a really interesting thing to inform people, like, well, the traditions in America, the denominational traditions, they have specific roots in specific places and times that I think we can feel, but that we don't necessarily know.

Will Spencer 01:44:34

Because what's the joke that church history for american Protestants began with Billy Graham?

Will Spencer 01:44:39

Something like that.

Guest 01:44:41

Yeah, I don't like that joke because that's unfortunately an insult to probably what many people believe.

Guest 01:44:49

Yeah, I mean, Presbyterian, part of the problem is Presbyterian history is kind of complicated because it came out of, came out of Scotland.

Guest 01:44:55

I mean, it has its roots in the reformation, like, you know, Calvinism and reformed theology, but came out of Scotland and, but then you have the american presbyterian church.

Guest 01:45:07

It's its own thing, but you have splits and divisions, new school, old school, and then northern southern church and then reunions and then liberalism in the, in the 20th century.

Guest 01:45:17

So a lot of it gets, there's definitely some like, you know, complicated factors involved, which is why it's been great on my part to teach through it, but also really dive into the, to the sources.

Guest 01:45:28

And so hopefully, yeah, I mean, I think the book's gonna be pretty long, but it's gonna have a lot of biography in it and theology, and I think people will like that.

Guest 01:45:36

But even I could probably do some interviews and, like, explain some of the details, make it a little clearer for people, give them big, big picture information on, like, american Presbyterianism that hopefully will be useful.

Guest 01:45:49

Because like I said, I like both the 16th and 17th century reform theologians.

Guest 01:45:55

I think we should embrace them.

Guest 01:45:56

But I also think there's a lot of good to embrace from the american Presbyterians.

Will Spencer 01:46:02

I agree.

Will Spencer 01:46:03

And I think as America tries to find its way forward with its christian identity in terms of christian nationalism, what does that actually look like?

Will Spencer 01:46:10

What actually is our christian history in America?

Will Spencer 01:46:13

Because it's kind of fuzzy.

Will Spencer 01:46:14

Once you get past 19 hundreds looking backwards, it's fuzzy for a lot of people.

Will Spencer 01:46:18

But I do think that those themes are still very present, but we don't know how to recognize them, perhaps.

Guest 01:46:24

Yeah.

Guest 01:46:25

And maybe if I could just add one thing here is one of the interesting things with the American Presbyterians is they kind of bridge the gap.

Guest 01:46:31

So if we're talking christian nationalism, like christian government and things like that, is, you know, most people we know what we have today, we might read about the reformers.

Guest 01:46:41

Oh, they had like, you know, christian magistrates and things like that.

Guest 01:46:45

But what you have in the United States is that the early colonies were christian for the most part.

Guest 01:46:52

I mean, you had different levels of establishment.

Guest 01:46:54

I mean, you had like the, you know, New England Puritans had the congregational church, but then in the south you had a lot of anglican establishments, but then they had strong dissenters like the Presbyterians, Baptists, and then eventually the Methodists, which came out of the Anglicans.

Guest 01:47:11

But what's interesting is, like, so you had this kind of transition is, you know, people always say the First Amendment, freedom of religion, those kind of things, but that actually was only a prohibition on the federal government from establishing a church.

Guest 01:47:23

But the states were trying to sort out, well, how are we going to do things?

Guest 01:47:26

So, like, Virginia had to disestablish their church before.

Guest 01:47:30

Before the US Constitution, right before.

Guest 01:47:33

And then, you know, some of the other states, like South Carolina actually for twelve years, had a general establishment that allowed for like, just the generally established Christianity.

Guest 01:47:45

Now, they didn't keep it, but a lot of those states did keep like, requirements that magistrates were Protestants even.

Guest 01:47:53

They had to affirm the protestant religion.

Guest 01:47:56

And eventually, over time, some of that stuff just kind of faded away and, you know, we became more pluralistic in the United States.

Guest 01:48:04

But, yeah, I think it's the history there is at least interesting.

Guest 01:48:10

And it certainly shows that while I wouldn't say America was strictly a christian country, because in one sense, we're a republic, we did have like christian states within the republic.

Guest 01:48:20

And so, yeah, I mean, that's just, that's just the history there is.

Guest 01:48:25

America at one point was like 98% protestant and mostly british origin, and with immigration and things started to change in the 18 hundreds.

Guest 01:48:39

But, yeah, so a lot of history there that people just unfortunately are unfamiliar with.

Guest 01:48:43

But I think hopefully we can change that.

Guest 01:48:46

Hopefully it's starting to change some now and we'll continue to change it in the future.

Will Spencer 01:48:50

Well, I definitely look forward to that book coming out and reading it and we can, we can have another conversation like this one.

Will Spencer 01:48:55

I've enjoyed our chats.

Guest 01:48:56

Yeah, absolutely.

Guest 01:48:56

I'd be glad to do that at some point.

Will Spencer 01:48:58

Cool.

Will Spencer 01:48:58

Well, thank you so much, Zach.

Will Spencer 01:49:00

This has been great, and definitely, everyone, go out and buy, honor thy fathers and provoke a feminist today.