David Edgington on White Knights and Reviling Wives

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Welcome once again to the Conversations That Matter podcast. I'm your host, Jon Harris. We have a special guest that's actually been on the podcast once before returning to talk about an upcoming book.

00:42

We have Pastor David Edgington on with us today. Welcome, Pastor Edgington.

00:48

Thank you for being on the podcast. Great to be here again, Jon. Thanks. And of course, you're a counselor, you're a pastor.

00:54

People can go to your website if they listen to this and want to actually do counseling with you at compassionatecounselors .com.

01:03

And you can call the numbers there on the website, and you'll actually get Pastor Edgington himself.

01:10

He answers the phone. And if you have problems in your life, I don't know if you've ever met anyone who doesn't.

01:15

I think everyone does. I'm pretty sure. Somewhere. Including me. I need counsel too, so.

01:22

That's right. That's right. I was actually leading a Bible study last night on the first section of the book of James. And that if any of you needs wisdom, you can ask of God.

01:32

Right. And I'm thinking, well, that's everyone. That's everyone. That's me. That's me multiple times a day.

01:38

So we're all in the same boat in that sense. But there is wisdom from God to give.

01:43

And of course, you help people find it. And so thankful for your ministry. And I want to say this too, before I get to the new book.

01:50

I have had a number of people reach out to me since we did an interview about two years ago and just say how helpful it was.

01:57

And I don't know how many people it helped, but I think it was a lot of people. And we're going to hopefully repeat that again, talking about your new book.

02:05

So tell us a little bit. I know you don't have a release date, but tell us why you decided to write a second book.

02:12

It's very similar to the. So the first book was on the reviling wife. And of course, you unpacked that in our previous podcast.

02:18

What a reviling wife is. Right. And maybe we can talk about that some more. But you decided to do a part two, essentially.

02:25

And in this book, you talk a lot about what you refer to, I think, is soft feminism. But it's really just complementarianism.

02:32

Why did you feel the need to expand on this? Well, the first reason is that the first book was written actually 10 years ago in 2015.

02:43

So that's that's the one thing. And the world has gotten much more confused, much more wicked.

02:52

There's much more gender confusion. There's feminism is on the rise. There's a lot of things that have been happening just in society as a whole, but also in the church.

03:03

And the second thing is I've learned a lot in the last 10 years. And and as a result of the podcast

03:10

I did with you and several other people a couple of years ago, I've just gotten a flood of phone calls of counseling times.

03:21

And I've frankly I've learned a lot in the intervening years and I'm seeing things clearer now.

03:29

I'm not saying I see it 100 percent clear, but the problem is much worse than I thought it was.

03:37

So let me talk a little bit about the title of the book, and that will help help us understand it.

03:42

So the title of the book is White Knights and Reviling Wives, How Feminism Destroys Families.

03:50

So each of those terms is important, and that's why they're in the title of the book. First of all, like reviling wives, we've talked about that before, that the reviling wife is bitter, angry, controlling, demanding, hard -hearted.

04:04

She will not submit. She will not follow her husband. She wants to be the boss. She wants to be in charge.

04:10

She lets her feelings run rampant and whatever she feels has to be obeyed.

04:17

And and that is destructive to a marriage. So there's a number of proverbs that talk about that.

04:23

That it's better to live in the corner of a rooftop than with a quarrelsome wife, or it's even better to live out in the desert lands than with a reviling wife.

04:33

A quarrelsome wife is what it says. So that's half of the problem.

04:39

You know, the wife that is so hard, that's not even a good word to say, so impossible to live with in peace.

04:51

And she basically burns her marriage down. She just destroys it. She's the Proverbs 14, one woman with her own hands.

04:58

She tears down her own home. But in these 10 years, John, I've seen more and more of the other side of this problem.

05:08

So this goes to the other term in the title, white knights. So for our listeners that are not familiar with the term white knight, a white knight is someone that will come to rescue a damsel in distress, and he will defend her no matter what she's doing, no matter how bad she is, no matter how wicked she is, no matter how much sin she's embroiled in.

05:31

He will defend her and blame the husband in the process. And so you think about this now.

05:39

Okay, you've got a husband and wife, and the husband has a reviling wife. He goes to the right resource to get help because he can't address the problem.

05:48

He goes to his church. He goes to his pastor, or he even goes to a biblical counselor.

05:56

And he says, please help us. And the counselor, and again, including biblical, so -called biblical counselors and pastors, they blame the guy.

06:08

And they say, if you only loved your wife more, just do what she says, sacrifice more for her, and then she'll be loving towards you.

06:18

And this is a terrible, terrible way to counsel a family.

06:23

It's bias. You know, it's partiality. James chapter 2 warns us about being partial, and this is exactly what it is.

06:32

It's just automatically siding with the wife. So there's a blindness on the side of the white knight, and it's a spiritual blindness that he refuses to acknowledge what the wife is doing and simply hold the wife accountable.

06:54

I'm all for holding men accountable. I do that every day. But you have to hold the wife accountable, too.

07:01

So it's a mystery to me of why more pastors and counselors just won't do that.

07:07

They just run away from it, and they're afraid of holding women accountable. So these are things that I've learned in the last 10 years.

07:16

And this problem is across the board, too, John. This part normally shocks people.

07:23

This is in Reformed churches. This is in Arminian churches. This is in Reformed Baptist or Presbyterian churches.

07:31

This is in Arminian churches of every stripe, Bible churches, Calvary Chapel, doesn't matter. All of them.

07:37

I see the same thing over and over and over again. And I talk to these pastors, too, and I say, you know, do you understand what's going on here?

07:46

And they refuse to see it. It's the biggest mystery to me. Before we get to the specific issue theologically, which you do go into detail about,

07:59

I would like to talk about the extent to which this is a problem, because you just said it's across the board. And there's a quote from your upcoming book.

08:07

You say that 90 percent of pastors and counselors actually blame these suffering men for their abusive or reviling wives.

08:15

Ignoring the problem would be bad enough, but the vast majority go one step further and actually condemn the man.

08:20

That's a pretty high number, 90 percent. So you would say, based on your conversations with pastors and counselors, that it's that high.

08:30

PASTOR BARRY and PASTOR MIKE It is. When you have a reviling wife involved, it's that high. PASTOR JONES That's amazing.

08:37

PASTOR BARRY And that's not an exaggeration, Jon. I wish it was. I wish it was just a make -believe number, but it's like over and over and over again.

08:45

I can count on one hand the number of pastors that I've talked to that there's a reviling wife with a husband, and they handle it properly.

08:55

They do church discipline, or they at least try to hold the wife accountable. It's that bad.

09:02

It's that high. PASTOR JONES And of course, I think one of the critiques is that, hey, men sin too, right?

09:08

And the local church has to address that. And of course, you believe that. I think it's important to say that you think that men can also contribute to problems in marriage.

09:17

But there's this unjust weight that seems to exist in our society. So let's get into that. Why? We understand feminism is out there, but why in the church, in solid, you just said good doctrinal churches, why is this a problem?

09:31

PASTOR BARRY Yeah, and I'll say good doctrinal churches, churches where there's good preaching. In other words, you and I could sit under the preaching and say, wow, this guy's a good preacher too.

09:41

It's solid, it's doctrinal, it's expositional, it's everything you'd want. And then you get into the counseling realm, and it's a different guy.

09:51

And he doesn't practice what he preaches. He doesn't do the same thing.

09:58

So why? Why is that the case? And this is,

10:04

I dig into this in the book, because this is feminism that has invaded not only our churches, but the average wife.

10:15

I mean, something is going on worldwide with women.

10:21

It's incredible. It has to be a spiritual warfare issue that is just destroying women.

10:28

And I think of that, it's just like in the Garden of Eden, right? Who did the enemy target? He targeted the wife.

10:33

He targeted the wife, and then she pulled the husband in, and that's what happened. But what we're seeing here, let me go back to your other point.

10:44

When I counsel, first of all, I always counsel husbands and wives together, unless the wife refuses to counsel.

10:53

That's the only time I'll counsel a man one -on -one. So when a man contacts me and he says,

10:59

I have these problems, I say, okay, before you go into more details, let's get your wife involved so I'm hearing from both of you.

11:07

It's only fair to hear what she has to say and recognize

11:13

I'm going to hold both of you accountable. The guy says, yep, okay, I want that. See, most of these guys that contact me with a reviling wife, they say to me, help me see what

11:24

I don't see that I'm doing wrong. There must be something I'm doing. I just can't figure it out.

11:31

I do this, and she's mad. I do that, and she's mad. So the average guy that I'm counseling, when

11:41

I admonish him, when I rebuke him, when I say, okay, this is sinful, or even this is not wise,

11:50

I'd say probably 90 % of those guys, they say, hey, thanks, that's really helpful. You're right.

11:57

And then I lead them to repentance, and I help them to understand, okay, here's how we change that.

12:02

Here's how God's grace works in us to change that. But now when I do the same thing with the reviling wife, she doubles down.

12:12

She's not soft. She's not quiet. She's not sorrowful. She blames her husband for her sin, and she doesn't call what she's doing sin.

12:22

She says, I'm not safe around him. He's a dangerous man. And I go, is there weapons involved?

12:29

Is he beating you up? Is he hitting the children? Is he punching holes in the wall? I mean, what do you mean you're not safe?

12:36

And what it is, John, is emotional manipulation, and these wives do not see it.

12:43

Now, again, I'm not just broad brushing and saying every wife is this way. We're talking about a specific class of wife, the reviling wife, that she is hard -hearted, she is unrepentant, and she does not want to change.

13:00

And she will not ask for forgiveness because she thinks she's doing nothing wrong. The husband's the one that's doing it wrong.

13:09

And the other thing I'll tell you, too, is that among the men and women

13:17

I counsel together, about, it's actually risen a little bit, about 15 % of those women actually do repent.

13:27

They respond to what I'm saying. And they say, okay, help me to be that kind of a wife that the scriptures teach.

13:36

So about 15%. Used to be about 10. It's gone up a little bit, I think, maybe 15%.

13:41

So it's still pretty sad that it's so low, but about 15%. But among the ones where I only counsel the man, so in other words, that's a husband and wife, where the wife refuses to even meet with me one time,

13:55

I've never heard of one where the wife repented, not one. And we're talking of about 400 cases now,

14:04

John. And again, that's not an exaggeration either. I've lost track.

14:10

I've lost track of how many. But I mean, this is a result of the podcast, frankly. The podcast come out and people read my book and they go, oh my gosh, this is exactly what's going on in my home.

14:20

And they say, it's like you've got a video camera in your closet, in the closet in my home and you're showing everything that's happening.

14:27

I mean, even the conversation is exactly what's going on. And so I think with book number two, it's going to be even bigger because now whenever you want to talk about it,

14:43

I don't just talk about the reviling wife. I talk about the white knight pastor. Right.

14:49

The white knight counselor, because he's making it far, far worse. He is exponentially making this problem worse and worse because now these men, they've been rejected by their wives.

15:04

We didn't talk about parental alienation, but that's why I said feminism destroying families.

15:10

It doesn't destroy the marriage. It destroys the family too, because the wife turns the children against the husband, against the father.

15:20

And many times these fathers have zero relationship with their children, none because they hate the father so much because the indoctrination from the mother is destroying the minds of these children.

15:36

So again, we've got the man is rejected by his wife, very often rejected by his children.

15:42

And now he gets rejected by his church and he's like, what's left? This is why many of these men become suicidal.

15:53

It must be something I just can't see. It must be me. Nobody can point out to me what's going on.

15:59

They all blame me for stuff that's not true. And I don't know. I must be crazy. And then they call me and then they call me and I say, look, there's hundreds of other guys that are going through exactly what you're going through.

16:12

They go, oh, really? Oh, thank you. Thank you just for that. Just that alone helps me to understand

16:18

I'm not the only one. So this is why there is this rising sense of, boy, we're not trying to make men into just wicked, harsh, oppressive tyrants of their wives.

16:33

That's not even close to what we're trying to do. These are usually loving, kind, compassionate, love their wives, love their children.

16:44

They're not screamers. They're not yellers. They're not violent. They're not brandishing weapons.

16:51

Because that's the narrative that the feminists like to set. If you've followed me on X, you can see how the feminists twist everything.

16:57

It's like, oh, you're saying this. I'm like, I'm not saying that at all. Right, right. This is a normal, happy home.

17:04

That's all we're looking for. Not a wife that the husband has to tell her how to vacuum the floor.

17:11

We're not talking about stuff like that. So let me ask you this. This is that spiritual blindness,

17:20

John. Yes. And before you go on, I just want to refer to a passage of Scripture, I think, that describes.

17:26

Sure, sure, please. It's 1 John 2, 11. It says, but whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness and does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes.

17:43

So here we have the reviling wife that hates. I mean, she despises her husband.

17:49

She doesn't even like him anymore, let alone love him. I mean, everything about her life.

17:54

She wants to kick him out of the house, or at least she wants to kick him out of the bed. Guys, if you've got a reviling wife and she does that, do not leave your bedroom and definitely do not leave your house.

18:06

But she hates him. She's walking in the darkness. She doesn't know where she's going.

18:12

And the last phrase, 1 John 2, 11, the darkness has blinded her eyes.

18:18

That's the bitterness of the reviling wife. That's why she can't see what she's doing.

18:24

She's walking in this darkness because this hatred has filled her heart. It's like cancel culture.

18:31

It's all about hatred. It's like critical theory. It's about hatred, making yourself into a victim.

18:39

And see, here's the other thing too. I know we're going on a lot of tangents, John, I'm sorry, but here's the other part too, is now these wives, they paint the husband and say, well, you're just being a victim.

18:51

You're just crying because you can't take a wife that just disagrees with you. And the guy's like,

18:56

I'm not crying victim. I'm not saying I'm a victim. I'm saying stop screaming at me and yelling at me and fighting me and rebelling against everything

19:06

I try to do, no matter how simple it is. Why is this so complicated? And this is, again, this is the enemy's tactics just to flip everything upside down.

19:17

And the perpetrator acts like she's the victim. And then she accuses the other guy of being the victim.

19:25

She accuses the husband of being the victim. I don't know if I said that clearly, but. Right, yes. No, I understand.

19:33

Last time you were on, I was thinking about examples that I've known of this dynamic.

19:40

And I would like to ask you, there's so many questions, but one of them is this. When that happens, oftentimes

19:47

I do see men who I think you had just said it. You just said they tend to be nice guys.

19:53

They tend to be there's a passivity that I've noticed. And oftentimes, and this is something

20:00

I want to get into later as to whether or not we should be discouraged about finding a wife or finding a pastor, because there is a dark road that a guy can go down, which

20:08

I want to avoid here. But I will say oftentimes you can see the hints of this early on.

20:15

Now, sometimes someone just goes crazy, but oftentimes I've noticed in my own personal experience, hey, on the wedding day, there were already signs that maybe this was not a good thing or that there was potential pitfalls.

20:30

And oftentimes it's nice guys. It really is. It's the guys that you would think don't deserve it the most who end up becoming part of this situation.

20:39

I don't know if it's linked to some kind of passivity too. So I just want you to talk about that.

20:44

Maybe if there is, now I don't want to make the men like victims here, but like if there is a tendency for these situations to involve men who maybe don't practice full masculinity and it is that part of the problem too.

21:01

Yeah, no, it's a good, it's a good question. And we have to be careful on both sides of this, of this ditch.

21:06

We'd go on the one side of the ditch and say, no, all these guys are perfect. Not true. Or all these guys are so passive, then it's all their fault.

21:14

It's like, no, neither one of those things are true. Right. So, so let's talk about the first, the first part that, that all these guys are perfect.

21:23

No, they're not perfect. And just like I mentioned, again, probably 90 % of the guys that I counseled that are passive, that are too weak, that are kind of wimpy about things.

21:34

I told them, I said, look, you got to lead better. You got to stand up and help your wife. Those guys respond.

21:41

They say, you're right. I've been the servant leader. And that's, that's a, you know, a very dangerous teaching as well.

21:51

The servant leader becomes just sacrifice, just be passive, just go along to get along.

21:57

And obviously that does create problems. But that doesn't make the wife, a reviling wife.

22:06

Right. Doesn't cause her to say I'm justified in sinning against my husband now because he's too weak.

22:12

It's like, well, no, that doesn't, that doesn't cause that. But I'll give you an example of a, of a young couple that I counseled probably a month or so ago that they came to me because they were having marriage problems.

22:25

They were in their twenties and they had just gotten married. I think it was like six months earlier.

22:31

And they just came in and said, you know, we're just not getting along. We're having problems. I go, oh, good. Okay. Finally, not a reviling wife situation.

22:38

So, you know, it's going to be a normal marital problem. And as we're talking, it comes out that the husband is extraordinarily passive and the wife is extraordinarily fierce.

22:52

And I'm like, oh, here we go again. I was hoping this wasn't the case, but here it is. I go, okay,

22:57

God, you've prepared me to help this couple. You know, I've counseled so many of these now. So I turned to the young man and I talked to him about, you know, you need to lead better.

23:07

You need to be stronger. Stop just giving in to your wife. You know, you're, you're the authority in the home.

23:12

You're the head. We don't even have to use the word patriarchy. We can just say you're the head, but you know, and, and you need to lead better.

23:21

Here's the ways that you need to lead. And he looked at me and he says, wow. He says, you're right.

23:27

Exactly right. And his dad was in ministry too. So, I mean, he, I would think he would have known better, but he didn't.

23:34

And then it turned to the young, young wife and I talked to her and I said, you know, you're, you're really pushing pretty hard against your husband and you're, you know, you're kind of rebelling and just resisting any attempts he has at leading.

23:49

And the problem when the wife resists everything is the husband. Eventually he does one of two things.

23:54

He either fights with her or he abdicates. A lot of times a guy will abdicate.

24:00

It's like, what can I do? If I fight with her, she's just going to get worse and worse. She might leave me.

24:06

So I'll just take the, take the road that's, that's peaceful. So that's what you're doing, wife.

24:13

You know, you're, you're being too harsh with your husband. You're resisting him. You're pushing back against him.

24:20

Even his weaker attempts at leading, you're not even admit that you're not even following him in that.

24:27

So you need to back down. And she listened. So he listened and she listened and their marriage is reconciled and doing fantastic now.

24:38

So, so that's a good example of that, that, okay, it was a man that was being weak. It was a woman that was being too strong.

24:47

Yet here's the, here's the issue, John. It's the heart, right? He put on humility.

24:52

He listened to me. She put on humility and she listened to me. That's the way it works.

24:58

You humble yourself and say, help me to become a better man, a better wife. This will work.

25:06

But if you push back and resist and say, you don't know what you're talking about. You're a harsh man. You're this, you're that.

25:12

And I go, I'm trying to help you, but I can't. So I'm not going to just throw the men under the bus and say, well, it's, it's obviously weak men that are making these strong women.

25:23

I'm like, no, not really. It's not, it's not that at all. These women are, are that way.

25:29

And they'll pick a guy as a husband. I think that's more, yes. He more soft and compliance, and he's not going to push her around and all that.

25:38

And I go, okay, shouldn't be pushing his wife around, but he does need to lead. And the guy does need to be able to say, you know what?

25:46

I'm sorry. You don't like this direction we're going, but I believe this is what God wants us to do.

25:53

That's the simple leadership, right? But she has to be willing to submit to that and say, okay, I disagree with you, but I trust the

26:00

Lord to work through you. The reviling wife will not do that. She will not submit to him and follow him and trust

26:08

God. She says, no, you're an idiot. You're a fool. I mean, words that I would not say on a podcast.

26:14

She calls him and, you know, and the guy's like, okay, what do I do about this?

26:20

I'm going to lose my wife if I don't just ignore her, just get along. And then she gets mad because he ignores her, you know?

26:28

So it's like, it's a no -win situation for the guy. And what I have to tell guys is you have to stand.

26:36

You've got to be courageous. You've got to be strong. You've got to be bold, not nasty, not arrogant, not reviling her in return, but you have to be firm and say, this is not going to work this way.

26:50

This is not godly order to our family. God sets that order. Not me, not a man and not a woman.

26:58

God sets that. We have to submit to God because ultimately, John, that's what it's about.

27:04

Submission to God. It's not submission to me as the counselor. It's a mission to God and what his word says.

27:11

That's what we have to be willing to do. But the wife says, nope, I know the Bible really well. I read my

27:16

Bible every day. And I, you know, and the reviling wife, I go, you might read it every day, but you're not being changed by it.

27:25

And that just grieves my heart. Doesn't make me angry. Just grieves my heart. I go, man, you're reading the

27:32

Bible and you still don't see this? You still don't see that submission is the right thing?

27:38

Why have we allowed submission to be a curse word? Why is that a curse word in society?

27:44

Okay. We can understand society, but why has that become like a curse word in a church where a pastor is like, man,

27:50

I better not use the infamous S word in a sermon, or I'm going to get a bunch of angry women at me.

27:57

Why is that? Well, let me, there's two things I wanted to explore. One of them is a quote in your book.

28:03

Feminism is snuck in the back door of good conservative churches through FL. So explain what

28:11

FL is to the audience and what you're talking about here, because I think this gets at the root.

28:18

People should be doing what you're doing, local pastors, especially. And there are some I know who do, but when they have a different experience, when things are rerouted to it's the husband's fault, which is a very common thing, you say they agree with FL.

28:33

So what's this FL? Well, I do explain it in the book. I don't know if you saw that. FL is...

28:38

No, I know. I wanted you to explain it there to the audience. Got it. Yeah. Feminism light is what FL in my terminology means.

28:45

Feminism light. It's like, okay, it's complimentarian that says men lead, they're the heads, they compliment each other.

28:53

The husband and wife compliment each other. But in reality, it's just a different form of feminism.

29:00

That's what it's become. And frankly, John, I didn't see it until the last few years.

29:06

And that's where it's like, oh, this is just feminism with a different word on it. It's just like,

29:12

I don't believe there's such a thing as egalitarianism either. I think there's male headship and there's feminism.

29:18

That's it. And then there's little shades of that feminism, egalitarianism, complimentarianism.

29:25

Those are just forms of feminism. Because here's what happens in the practical sense.

29:32

If you're a complimentarian pastor or a complimentarian in your convictions of scripture, you say, okay, the man is the head of the home.

29:39

Right. Got it. Check. The man sets the direction in the home. Yep. Got it.

29:44

Check. The wife completes that husband in some way. Okay. I can see that. I don't have a conflict with that.

29:51

But now here's where it changes. Okay. The husband's trying to lead and the wife says,

29:57

I don't like that. That scares me. Or I don't think that's right.

30:02

Or I think you're going the wrong way. And now here's what complimentarian says. It says, husband, if you really love your wife, you'll serve her.

30:12

You'll sacrifice for her. You'll go along with her. See, that's feminism.

30:18

That's all that that is. It looks like it's male headship, but it's really not because he's abdicating to her.

30:24

He's letting her feelings or her fears or anxieties or her worries rule and be the authority.

30:32

So that's what complimentarianism typically does. Almost without faults, John. And again,

30:40

I was guilty of this too. Before I wrote my book in 2015, I was guilty of the same thing.

30:45

I thought, you know, she's crying. Just let her have her way. You know, and then it just, after seeing this over and over again,

30:52

I go, no, that's abdication. That's feminism. It just looks like male headship, but it's not.

31:02

Feminism lights, what I call it. I don't know. It's probably a better term, soft complimentarian. You know, whatever terms we have, we have all these buzzwords, but I go, it's just feminism in disguise is what it is.

31:12

And it's sad because there's a lot of great pastors, theologians out there that hold to the complimentarian view.

31:21

And I don't think they realize what they're doing. A lot of them don't realize what they're doing.

31:29

Yeah. Yeah, I would agree. I remember being at a very, a pretty conservative doctrinal church.

31:35

And in the, I think they had a school, but in the women's or the young girls, you know, going to the restroom,

31:41

I wasn't in there, but I heard that they had, like, you're a daughter of the

31:47

King and that, you know, slogans like this. And then, you know, the nothing in the restroom, of course, you're not a son of the

31:54

King. You're not like, it seems like from a very young age, even in the most conservative churches, there is an undercurrent of feminism coming in that seeks to place women a higher priority on them in some way and kind of relegate the guys to something that's inferior.

32:11

And it's more, I think, felt than even sometimes articulated. It's because it's so in the water that we swim in.

32:19

How do you help guys though? This is one of the things that I'm realizing is there are guys that they understand these dynamics and sometimes they overreact to them and then they get afraid of marriage.

32:30

And so I've met guys in my travels who are in their forties sometimes. And they're just,

32:36

I think sometimes fearful, obviously all over different circumstances, but there's that.

32:41

There's also this kind of anti -pastoral authority vein that really bothers me.

32:47

There's this anti -pastor sense, kind of a black pill view among a lot of young guys, even middle -aged guys.

32:57

And yeah, I see that too. And so here's the twist on all of that.

33:04

Um, there are these pastors that are failing so badly that it's hard to trust a lot of these pastors, you know, like the churches that these men have gone through that have gotten, they've even been church disciplined by their pastors.

33:21

And the guy is not the one that was the problem was the wife and the guy gets kicked out of the church. So how are young men or even middle -aged men going to have respect for the pastorate when pastors are failing at that so badly?

33:39

And, you know, I've been a pastor for 33 years. I know how hard it is. It's, it's not easy being a pastor.

33:44

It's not easy being a counselor of your flock as well. But if pastors are failing so badly, it's totally understandable that a lot of young men are so disillusioned with the pastorate that they say,

33:58

I'm not listening to this guy. He doesn't practice what he preaches. He doesn't counsel the way he preaches.

34:05

Why, why would I submit to him? It would be just as wrong of me to submit to him as it would be to submit to my reviling wife.

34:13

So I get it. I understand the point you're making too, that, wow, we can't just check out of the church and say, we're out of here or marriage or marriage, right?

34:23

But there's gotta be a reformation in the church. And this is, this is a sleeping giant.

34:28

This is something that's like, oh, this is, this is exploding. It's, it's getting worse and worse. It's not getting better.

34:34

It's getting worse. I agree. And in those last 10 years, since my first book, I've seen that.

34:41

I've been in contact with a lot of these, again, theologically solid pastors.

34:48

We're not talking about liberals. We're not talking about mainline denominations. We're not talking about cults.

34:54

We're talking about pastors and churches that you and I would go to and say, man, this guy preaches, he's a solid guy.

35:00

I love this guy. And then if he fails so badly, not just makes a mistake, but destroys the marriage.

35:10

Yeah. How is a guy going to trust him with anything else? Great. He, he's good with sermons, but so a lot of guys, all they do is listen to podcasts.

35:24

That's getting us to another dangerous place. Not to destroy what you're doing, John, but you know, they listen to podcasts all day.

35:31

They listen to sermons online and they're not plugged into a church because they can't find a good church.

35:37

So now I'm reformed in theology and I've told guys this, I, you know, cause they said, I went to all the reformed churches in my area and they're all like this.

35:46

I said, you know what? Check the Armenian churches too. I'm not an Armenian. I totally agree.

35:51

But you know, go to an Armenian church if, if, if the reform guys are so lost and so out of touch with things, go to the

35:57

Armenian church. And I'm like, it's not heresy. I don't believe everything they teach, but boy,

36:04

I don't believe in feminism light either. That's going on in a lot of reformed churches.

36:11

Yeah. So, so there's where I go. Okay. Usually, you know, here's another tangent.

36:17

I know we've got a lot of tangents. Usually the patriarchal view is the good view.

36:23

That's the view that's most, that's biblical in my mind. My first chapter in my book is on biblical patriarchy, but I've even seen problems with that too, where the biblical patriarchy, sometimes those guys are so strong in defending the woman that they become white knights too.

36:44

So, you know, so it's not like, okay, go to this denomination or this group and you'll be okay.

36:49

I'm like, you got to check everyone out. There's some really great OPCs. There's some really great

36:55

PCAs, you know, Zach, Zach Garrison and I are friends and you know, he's a solid

37:00

PCA pastor, but I would not tell people, well, just go to the PCA. You'll be fine. I go, oh no, no, no, no, that's not, that's not the case.

37:08

Don't go to the OPC and you'll be fine either. You know, there's some that are really good and solid. I know some, but others

37:14

I go, oh no, no, no, no. Yeah. You're going to make a bunch of... Each individual church you have to check out and you can't just look at the doctrinal statement on their website either.

37:25

It's like, yeah, that's not really them. That's what they want to present, but you got to start talking to the pastor.

37:32

Like, when is the last time that you did, that you held a wife accountable for her sin pastor?

37:39

Yeah. What did that look like? What did she do? How did she respond? If she resisted, what did you do after that?

37:47

You know, I mean, just simple questions like that. That's a good idea to ask those questions.

37:53

Yeah. And not in a threatening way, not where, you know, and I'm going to just grill you pastor, but man, before I commit myself to you,

38:00

I want to know what, what do you think about this? Because if, if you say, well, I can't remember the last time

38:06

I held a wife accountable, I'd go, okay, get out of that church. Don't even bother. I don't care what everything else is like.

38:13

So this has kind of risen to a pretty high level. In my mind, John is like, I used to think, you know, you got your, your doctrine, right?

38:21

And you know, you got your 10 points or 12 points or whatever. It's like, okay, that's good. You agree with the

38:27

Westminster confession or the London Baptist can fit. Okay. That's good. It's like, well, no, that's not enough either.

38:33

Yeah. It's almost like we have to have another, another layer of questions and, and thoughts to guide us.

38:42

And yeah. Yeah. It's the same with social justice. These social issues, these creation issues have become more definitive than some of these almost now secondary doctrinal matters like Arminianism or Calvinism.

38:55

I've been in several areas where it was hard to find a church. I've taken that advice that you've given.

39:01

I've also realized there's a lot of young men who, and middle -aged men too, who might want to look at pursuing leadership in their community.

39:12

If you can't find a good church, that's a good cue to say, Hey, maybe the Lord, I'm not saying he is, but maybe he's calling you to fulfill that role because we can't obviously give up on the church or on marriage.

39:24

And maybe it means you got to move too. There's several options here that don't include just giving up on pastors or churches, but it is a problem.

39:34

And I'm glad that there's people like you that are trying to come up with solutions and help guys. Where can people find the book when it comes out?

39:41

Since it's supposed to come out this summer, even though we don't have a date. Right. It's being published by New Christendom Press.

39:48

So that's the group in Ogden, Utah. And they're the ones that approached me and said, we hear you want to write a second book.

39:56

We'd like to talk with you about publishing it. I said, great. Let's chat. Let's do it. So those are the group that are latching onto it.

40:05

And I know they're controversial, just like other groups. I go, yeah, but I love it. That's fine. So am

40:11

I, right? But we're all like, Hey, and let me say this too, John. I think this would be a good place to say this.

40:19

We have got to stop these reformed wars that are going on among brothers.

40:24

Good brothers. Good brothers that just see things differently. And I go, it's okay. We can have differences of opinion and still have peace with each other.

40:35

Because we need the guys over here. We need the guys over there. And I pray that that happens.

40:41

I'm not accusing you of anything. I'm just saying that for. Yeah. You got, I mean, the guys in Ogden, the guys in Moscow were kind of fighting last year.

40:49

We need both of those guys. We need, you know, I mean, they're both good guys and I'm not their judge, but I just go,

40:57

I pray for peace. I really do pray for peace. I want us to be peacemakers as leaders in the church.

41:05

Because that's what, those are the ones that are blessed. Blessed are the peacemakers, right? Not just the ones that say, well, there'll be peace if you change your view.

41:12

It's like, no, there's, there should be peace. Even if you don't change your view, you're spouting heresy.

41:17

Then we got to deal with that. But yeah. God bless you. And in that prayer and in your work,

41:24

Pastor Edgington, I really appreciate your time here and check out New Christian Impressed. It is newchristianimpressed .com.

41:32

And keep an eye out starting, I guess, in June to next month for when this book drops.

41:37

And I hope everyone gets a copy and that it helps, especially pastors. Amen. God bless you, brother.