Toxic masculinity is a real thing. Yet in responding to such abuses, many Christians are afraid to boldly stand on God’s established order, which is this—men, not women, are made to rule in the family, church, and civil sphere. Hosts Scott Brown and Jason Dohm discuss this dilemma with Michael Foster, author of the handbook, It’s Good to Be a Man. Their conclusion: patriarchy is inevitable, but it needs to be restored, by God’s grace, to His design. This requires men to set aside macho bluster and courageously lead.

Welcome to the Church and Family Life podcast. We're going to talk about what I'm going to call one of those backlash books. It's a backlash book. And a backlash book, here's how I think of a backlash book. Culture changes, it shifts, it drifts off into unbiblical territory, even evangelicalism.

And then somebody says, enough, enough of this. And of course, when I say backlash book, I'm not speaking pejoratively at all, but we kind of ended up in a world where actual biblical manhood became toxic masculinity. We lived through that world, right, for the last probably a couple of decades. Authority was abuse, Headship was abuse, patriarchy was evil, and even Christian authors, you know, like mainstream Christian authors were saying stuff like this. So then, In the last few years, these backlash books start coming out, and they're all by young authors, right?

And they're actually fantastic. And they correct some of the, Well, either misunderstandings or just manifestations of fear, not actually saying what the Bible says. And so these guys start basically saying no. And one of those guys is Michael Foster, and we're going to talk to him right now. Outstanding.

Do you think of your book as a backlash book? In the forward, I think we call it a forward. We said our goal was to write a book that was timely, not timeless, right? And we weren't really trying to be the guy that figures out biblical sexuality for all times. We were responding to issues we saw in the culture, a moment that we wanted to address.

And so I don't know if I would call it that way. Maybe I would have never used that, but the way you're using that, it does fit. Because what we saw was an kind of return of pagan masculinity. And that's never, that's always been out there. What was interesting to us is how much young Christian men were turning to it, whether it was Jordan Peterson, Bronze Age pervert was another one of these guys at the time, the Manosphere, pick up artists, all this sort of stuff was suddenly finding its way into our churches through these young men and good young men, right?

Not losers or anything like that. Some weren't the greatest, but some of them were pretty impressive. Good looking, tall, handsome, smart, accomplished, not awkward at all. And it was a little perplexing why they were into that. And I'd always had an interest in sexuality.

I started studying it academically in my undergrad, but it was more of a, it was less practical at that time. I was really interested in anthropology because I had started in the Church Fathers and they had a very physical understanding of redemption and talked a lot about physicality, whether it's Clement and Beards or whatever. And then I was in sociology, anthropology, and psychology classes where we were talking about feminisms. I get introduced to Betty Friedan and Sheil Mith Firestone and all these radical feminists. And So I've always been interested in that and I can remember reading recovering biblical manhood and womanhood and just hating that book I hated that book and I thought this doesn't answer any other real questions, right?

I think there was like a chapter in there that was okay. But I was like, complimentarianism? Like, that's, if you spell that word one time in Scrabble, you win Scrabble for all ages, right? Like, clunky, awkward word. And so I was kind of in that world thinking about that stuff.

So I was never really a complementarian. I'd always say I was patriarchal, not knowing of the biblical patriarchy movement that was that you guys really saw. I didn't know about that at the time at all. I just thought I was responding to what the feminist said, hey, we hate patriarchy. As I looked at it, I was like, well, you hate it because it's biblical.

That's why you don't like it. So I was always kind of more on that sort of side of things, but came up from it from a different stream. So, Michael, when I read Recovering Biblical Man and Womanhood, like John Piper and Wayne Grudem, they actually changed the world in many ways, but they didn't go far enough. And that's what it was a compromise position. I think, you know, I don't know.

The Danvers statement is the Danvers statement is doesn't, doesn't take a strong stance on nature. It roots everything in roles that made ground for Confentarianism to become a halfway house for egalitarians. And that's exactly what happened to it. Yeah, pragmatism or patriarchy is a dirty word. You can't use that word anymore in the church.

That's what happened. But those guys sort of started it. But I think- They were pretty patriarchal actually. Like you look back at early Piper in some of his statements, he wasn't very- I wasn't very far from his position. Grudem, less so, but Grudem was wanting the respectability of ETS and things like that.

And I think early Grudem was pretty solid and there's a few of his books that were really good, you know? But those guys were trying to make common cause with people that you just can't and I respect it's so easy for me to criticize them here so many years later you know they open they open the floodgates was what they did it really did you agree with that yeah oh yeah so right away every time I met a complementarian the goal of being a complementarian is not to not be a feminist. The goal is to not be patriarchal. The goal is to prove that you're not mean. The goal is to prove that you're reasonable.

The goal is to prove to people like you're not one of those guys. And so it really was just a way to say, you know, I'm not a big meanie and I actually don't hate women. And, you know, it was rooted in a sort of fear and Not to state in the biblical position, you know, my position would be I believe in biblical sexuality I'm not gonna get stuck on labels, but I think biblical sexuality is a godly patriarchy, right? That there's an evil patriarchy. There's no the father's it or the devil's a father, right?

I think we have no problem admitting that but these guys were teaching us to try to nuance our way out of taking a stand and they raised up a bunch of cowards. Yeah and you always had to do the will of a woman. Oh 100% yeah a common a common man is basically a meal for a woman. And he exists to do her honeydew list and all that. And I love my wife and she does have a list of things that we need to get done around her house.

And I love all that. But I am definitely the leader in my home and my wife is my helpmate and we get a whole lot done together But you know, I don't exist Adam wasn't brought to Eve Eve was brought to Adam and all of reality like makes that true. Like there is not, there is no matriarchal society ever that stands more than, I mean, there may be matrilineal Things that are traced through a mother, but there's nothing that's matriarchal in America still if you look at all our companies You know the vast majority of them are ran by men the vast majority of the power positions that are in government are ran by men a woman is very exceptional you only have a queen if you don't have a king. And you look at books like by Goldberg, who's not a Christian, called Why Men Rule is a great book. He got a favorable review from Margaret Mead of all people, who is a feminist anthropologist.

And Margaret Mead said, there's no way to contest this. And It's just a breakdown on how there is no such thing as a matriarchy patriarchy is inevitable. That's why we Started our book with that line and it was partially when I read the first version of Goldberg way back in college and he had a book called The Inevitability of Patriarchy. Interesting. So I got introduced to patriarchy through a bunch of Jews.

No kidding. I didn't come this through the church. The church was already gay. Yeah, so you've got this chapter, chapter one, The War Between the Patriarchies. That's really, that's a great title for what you're saying.

Tell us about that. So you've written books and I know how to catch these people. I knew they would lie about this book. I knew they're lazy and I knew they wouldn't read it so I wrote that first page to prove that they didn't read the first page of that book. I actually wrote that page like 12 years ago And so I wrote it to stress the idea that you can't get around patriarchy.

You can't smash it just like you can't smash gravity. It is part of God's design for the world. But just as heterosexuality is part of God's design for the world, there are sinful manifestations of it. So you have godly fathers and bad fathers, right? The devil is, you are the son of the devil or you're father of the devil, Jesus talks this way.

And So anyone that is a son is taking on the attributes of the father. So we wanted to stress that patriarchy is inevitable, but it needs to be restored by grace to what God's design is, right? Grace doesn't elevate, grace doesn't obliterate grace restores to God's design and that's kind of like Baving and basic Dutch theology. Hey, I love the way you started. You said men, I'm gonna quote you, men were made to rule.

They always have and they always will. Nothing can change that, nothing will. It's not a question of whether men will be ruling, but which ones and how. And I thought, wow, that sort of sets forth the whole proposition. 100%.

So basically you have an evil patriarch like Pharaoh who tries to utilize the Hebrew midwives to kill the firstborn sons of Israel. And so you see this plot against men throughout scripture and the devil trying to use women as a way to destroy Destroy godly godly men or men in general and so we wanted to stress that that's part of the battle that's been going on throughout the ages is part of the battle is that if you can't capture the men and get them to serve an evil purpose, you try to pacify them and if you can't pacify them, you try to destroy them. And we think there's a move at multiple layers in this culture to men to be pacified through feminism or men to be pacified through pornography and video games. And if that won't work, destroy them, right? Put them on ADHD drugs, methylphenyl date or Adderall or whatever it is these days, or try to keep abortion, kill lots of lots of them.

And so there's a real war on manhood and there's a war on patriarchy because as the men go so goes society. Michael you you talk about embracing natural aggressive instincts. Can you develop that for us? Yes when There is a bump in the night, you don't crawl underneath your mattress and send your wife downstairs. It is your job to go down there.

Testosterone is not a product of the fall. It's in us. Little boys want to fight. Little boys want to play sports. Little boys want to climb and conquer.

Women expect men to run to the front lines while the women run backwards, right? This is part of God's design and that instinct to protect, to conquer when redeemed by the purpose of God's Word is glorious. And we have somehow treated the aggressive instinct of masculinity as if it's always violence or unholy violence, right? It's treating like sexual desire as if all sexual desire is lust You know, it's not if it's rightly ordered, you know And kind of the Augustinian sort of way of thinking about it. It's glorious and we need to tell men It's good to get aggressive.

It's good. Jesus is aggressive. Yeah, I love John 6, right? John 6, like, you know, are you going to leave too? Right?

You guys offended? You're going to take off? You're going to hike? You know, oh no, where else will we go? Christ is a very aggressive man because he's a godly man.

But the whole category now has been labeled toxic, all of it, the whole continuum has been labeled toxic. We are toxic to their terrible worldview, we will tear it down. So we are in that sense, of course, we're going to call us toxic because we're a threat to their evil system. The reason you have to shut down Men is because men pull down evil Godly men pull down evil patriarchy's right? So there's a patriarchy that needs to be smashed the kingdom of darkness needs to be smashed Any manifestation of the demonic or sin or rebellious behavior needs to be smashed by the tools that God gives us.

Of course, you're going to call us a threat. We are a threat to their sinful worldview. So I've been complaining about mega-feminism. You have all these power women. The power woman is sort of the new virtue.

What's your take on mega-feminism? I think what we saw at CPAC this previous year, I don't get it in politics that often, but what we saw at CPAC is this, it's MAGA, it's just paganism. Trump knows how to get people that get things done. And you know, it's interesting. There's a book.

This might be weird. Let's see if I can make this make sense. I'm going to try here. It's a book called Faith of the Fathomless by Paul Witts. And in that book he studies the relationship between atheists and theists with their fathers, right?

And really strongly held atheism tends to be connected to a rejection of weak fathers. So Nietzsche has a weak father, so the uber mensch is a sort of idealized father. He has a chapter in that book that I'd love to see some develop more where he looks at what is behind extreme atheism in women. And with women, it is almost always attached to a mentor or lover, right? And I think that's fascinating that for men, it's a rejection of father, for women, it's connected to the man that they are made to help.

I think guys like Trump does know that you women become a bulldog for their man and they're very like if someone attacks me online my wife cares ten times more than I care I don't care whatever but my wife's like I'm gonna go destroy that person like stay out of it it's okay But I think Trump knows that women are helpmates by nature. And if she can be a helpmate and not have to deal with her curse, if she can reject aspects of motherhood in the household and still get glory for it and get the credibility of being conservative. I think that's a very, very appealing offer to worldly women. And I think that's Trump knows he can really utilize those people to get things done. I think Trump is way better than our other options, and I did vote for him.

But I do think there's incredible, you'd see that there's just a few decades behind where we were. That to call this, it's more like Nebuchadnezzar or something, than it is Josiah or anything like that. So you probably know what I'm going to ask you now, gravitas. I ask you now, gravitas. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, so gravitas is the opposite of hubris. Gravitas is a really helpful Roman virtue that talks about weight. So scripture talks about men being grave, right? But we think of grave as like a serious face. And that is this type of gravity, right?

This is a grave situation. But what we mean by that is someone who through A sober pursuit of virtue has built this overarching virtue of weight or gravitas and a lot of men lack gravitas. You feel it when they enter the room. There are certain people that are just in charge and they may be a big personality. They may be a real quiet person, but on the whole, these are people that have incredible discipline by just working and learning how to do things.

And so gravitas is what we really encourage men to pursue. A lot of guys think, if I get a woman, that'll make me a man. And that is the opposite of the truth. You need to be a man before you get a woman. Now, it doesn't always work that way.

For me, I had definitely pursued being a man. But when I was already married, and when Emily was pregnant with my my first child, a son, you really feel the weight, like, Oh, how am I gonna hand this baton? I don't even know how to be a man yet. Right. And so gravitas is virtue, mission, vocation.

It develops as you pursue those things, right? Hubris is big talk. Hubris is like acting. It's that sort of macho nonsense, right? When you actually do the work, the hubris disappears, macho disappears, because you know how hard it is and how costly it is to create all that stuff.

So, yeah. So, get Gravitas. Yeah, hubris is definitely self-proclaiming. Gravitas is exactly the opposite of that. If you have to say you have gravitas, you don't have gravitas.

The people around you naturally have a sense of the people who have it and don't. This is chasing rabbit a bit, but this definitely applies so much to pulpit ministry as well. Well, if you have to demand respect, you're, you know, demanding respect, it doesn't work. I always give people the example of Barney 5 versus Andy, right? If you have to point at the badge all the time, then you have a friend, he's like, the reason I wear a collar is so people know that I'm a minister.

Right? And you know, it's kind of like the what's Jay Ver McGee used to say, when women ask him about makeup, if the barn needs a paint, paint it. Well, I guess if you need a collar, if you need a collar to look like you're in charge, I guess wear your collar. But they know, they know I am, I don't need a collar. And if you're making demands, I demand you respect me.

Right? That's never, that's kind of weak and pathetic. Ultimatums always make you look weak and pathetic. Yeah, amen. Wow, great conversation.

Hey, I really hope a lot of people read your book, It's Good to Be a Man, handbook for godly masculinity, a lot of really, really helpful things for everybody. Thank you. Every young man should read that book, you know, I just think there's just so many super helpful things, all from top to bottom, from just the structure of manhood down to being a father. You'd address it all. Thank you.

Okay, yeah. Thanks so much. And thank you for joining us on the Church and Family Life podcast. I hope you can be with us next time.