Zachary Garris on "Masculine Christianity"

Why Zachary Garris Wrote *Masculine Christianity*

Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. My name is John Harris. We've got a special guest on today, Zachary Garris, who just wrote another book. We had, Zach, we had you on about a year ago, I guess I want to say, when you did your book on Robert Louis Dabney.

And now you, for some reason, just are a glutton for punishment and you write controversial books. This one honestly shouldn't be, but I can see why in our culture it would be. It's called Masculine Christianity.

And you can tell from the title, that's going to be something that's controversial. I've made my way through about 60 of it. And I just got to tip my hat to you, Zach. You've done a great job, I think, in pulling together so many different things, theology, history, some sociology in a way, or at least some sociological observations.

And I mean, I recommend this, to be honest with you, from what I've read. This is, you try to actually answer questions people have instead of evading them or trying to dance around to give an answer that is halfway politically correct.

So you can somehow not get canceled. You just try to give the straight truth. And I appreciate that about you. So thanks for joining me. Thanks for being willing to have this discussion. Thanks for having me.

Creation, Headship, and the Traditional Christian View of Men and Women

So first question, why did you write this? Especially with everything going on with the Me Too movement. And I mean, you don't want to be canceled, I'm assuming. So why would you put this out there?

Right. Of course, I'm not looking to be canceled, not looking for controversy. But as we've all noticed, feminism has been a major problem in society, including the church. I think that's a big thing that I've noticed is a lot of our churches are feminist.

And I didn't think the literature was really meeting the need. And a lot of the complementarian works, there's good things in a lot of them, but there's a lot of inconsistencies and deficiencies. And so I set out to kind of address the, what does the Bible teach about men and women and not really shy away from anything?

Well, that is straightforward and simple. And I appreciate that. Why don't we start kind of at the beginning, at the root of, I think maybe perhaps what would be the key to all of this. And that is, at the base of it, you seem to be arguing that masculine leadership, or you can use a different word if you want, headship, I guess, use a biblical word, is kind of ingrained in creation.

And I know, let's kind of reverse engineer this actually. Let's start with kind of where the debate is within evangelicalism between egalitarianism and complementarianism. You kind of go back to this concept of patriarchy that says that there's actually ingrained in creation in God's created design, a place for men, for males, which is they're supposed to be leaders.

And that is a very controversial idea today. And so I wanna give you a few minutes. Why don't you just take us through that? Why would you think, biblically speaking, that men are supposed to hold the places of leadership either in the family, socially, or in the church?

Sure. Now, I just wanna start by saying that, this is the traditional position within Christianity, and that's what I'm defending. And I do think, of course we have egalitarianism today, which just to define is essentially saying that there are no gender role differences between men and women, or if there are, the differences are very minimal.

And of course you have complementarianism, which essentially started in the 1980s. And that was a reaction within the church against feminism. And they tend to emphasize male headship in the home and that church leadership, particularly pastors, should be men.

So I do think they deviated from the traditional Christian position in some ways, and we can discuss that. But when it comes to male leadership, it all starts in Genesis, in the creation account. Genesis one speaks of both men and women being made in God's image, but Genesis two gets into some role distinctions that God put Adam in the garden to work and keep it.

And as I discuss, the word keep can be translated guard. And so he had this protection role, but the work he had a provisionary role. And we see that affirmed in Genesis three in the fall, where his punishment is tied with working the ground.

And even his name, which comes from the Hebrew Adama ground. And then Eve, you have Eve, who's created as a helper for Adam. And we specifically see her role to bear children. And we see that with her name, which is a life giver.

And then also in Genesis three, where her punishment is tied with bearing children. And so you have these role distinctions in the garden, and these are affirmed all throughout scripture. You have the man is equal in worth and value with the man, but she has different duties, different functions.

And the Bible even uses this word submit, which is very controversial. Why is there supposed to submit to their husbands? So you have that in a marriage relationship, and then you have plenty of scripture texts speaking of male leadership, or you could even say male rule in the church.

I get into first Timothy two and three, and first Corinthians 14 verses 34 and 35. And so those are important passages relating to male-only clergy in the church. And of course, I also get even more controversial and argue that all of these gender roles, which are rooted in the natures of man and woman, also apply beyond the home and church in the civil sphere.

And so even a woman shouldn't even be a president or a governor, that those are roles reserved for men.

Whether Women May Step Into Male Leadership Roles in an Emergency

Now, I wanna ask you, because I know that those listening to this, there's probably a good portion right now. I don't know how many, but they're saying, wait a minute, hold on. You're saying a woman can't run for office or something.

And I wanna ask a question. Now, maybe this isn't the right question to figure out what God's design intentions are, but at least in the case when there are weak men or men who aren't willing to lead in those capacities, is it a sin for a woman to step up into a role that perhaps wasn't part of God's created design, but out of necessity to try to keep chaos from happening, she puts her foot forward and decides to at least temporarily take part in something like that.

Is that okay, or what do you say?

Well, without giving a straight answer, I think it's probably gonna depend on the situation. It certainly deviates from God's design. So I don't wanna say it's okay for a woman to step into a leadership role in the home or church or civil sphere.

I don't think that's right. Really, if men aren't doing their job, the responsibility falls on them, and it doesn't make it a good thing for a woman to then have to take that role. But I tend to think that's not usually the case we're dealing with.

It's usually that the, I mean, we have poor leadership. Men can be poor leaders all the time, but especially in our day, we have women seeking to usurp male rule. It's feminism.

Right, and you often hear that, though, from the example of Deborah's given, and this is kind of, or the mission field. What if you only have one person who really knows the gospel, and they need to somehow pass that on?

And I think you're exactly right. I think you nailed something there. If anything, that would be a deviation. It would not be the rule, the general rule. And the question that does not seem to get asked is what should be, what ought to be the case?

What ought to be the design that God has created for females and for males, and how should we carry that out? Rather than what are the exceptions? Where can we somehow bend this or get around this? And so I appreciate you being willing to even just go there because this is a question, it's an honest question, and I would encourage those listening, if you're getting upset, you need to contend with the arguments that Zach makes in the book, I think, because he didn't just come up with these because of some kind of personal bigotry or anything like that.

He really is trying to grapple with the text. Zach, I wanna ask you, some people will say that the design for men and women isn't really a creation design, but it's actually a result of the fall. What do you say to people who tell you, well, the only reason that women are in a, quote-unquote, subservient position in most of human history is because of the fall, and this is something to be overcome by Christians?

Egalitarianism, the Fall, and Creation Order

Yeah, that's the position common to egalitarians. And so they try to argue that the creational ideal is egalitarianism, that Adam and Eve were not only equal in worth and value, but in function. And at Genesis 3, the fall is what introduced male headship or hierarchy.

So a lot of egalitarians will affirm that the Bible teaches male headship and a form of hierarchy, but they'll say it's rooted in the fall, and therefore Christ is overcoming that. He's restoring the natural order, which is egalitarianism.

So for one, I think this is important, why we establish that male headship and hierarchy are rooted in Genesis 2 and not Genesis 3. But I also think the New Testament, I think, also gets around this. So we should appeal to the creation order.

And I give some arguments in my book. So let me first say, I have a whole section on page 130, where I give, kind of summarize the, I have 10 different arguments for hierarchy at creation. So you can get into a couple of these, like Adam is created first, right?

Paul appeals to that in 1 Timothy 2. And egalitarians, they have arguments for all of these, but I deal with these a lot in my book. Adam had a protective role over Eve in the garden. He had a teaching role.

He named Eve, things like this. You can also get into Adam representing the human race in the garden, right? So federal headship, that was Adam's role, not Eve's. So that's creation, creational hierarchy.

But when you look at the New Testament, look at Paul's words in Ephesians 5, he doesn't root male headship in the fall, but actually it's based on Christ and the church, right? So the church is supposed to submit to Christ and the wife is supposed to submit to the husband.

Of course, egalitarians have arguments for all this stuff, but that's what I get into in the book.

Why Complementarianism Is Crumbling

I wanna ask, and you do give, I think, a very compelling case, and you try to represent the other side, which is important. But the debate as it stands right now in evangelical circles, at least, seems to be, in my opinion, and I'm just putting my thought out there, kind of a weak-kneed complementarianism versus a very entrenched principled egalitarianism.

Egalitarians tend to be very sure of themselves. They believe that equality between men and women in the sense of role, purpose, I mean, depending on how far they take it, just about everything is supposed to be equal.

Some even would go as far as to say women's and men's sports is wrong, you should have them together kind of thing. But they're principled, and they have something they're shooting for and arguing for.

Complementarians seem to me, in my limited experience, but I've read a few books on this, and they're very reactionary. They're trying to prevent egalitarians from ripping down orthodoxy. So they're trying to root it in some kind of a complementarity that does not appeal to the creation norm usually, or it does not strongly, at least, link to that.

And they come up with every kind of exception to the rule and try to kind of argue for what I would consider to be a very bare-bones kind of patriarchy, if you want to call it that, because women can't be pastors, but they can do every single other thing.

They can even shepherd, just as long as they're not preaching on a regular Sunday service, that kind of thing. Why is this the case? Why are we here in evangelicalism? And is this sustainable? Because that's a question I've had.

And how long can we deal with this before we're just taken over by egalitarianism?

I don't think complementarianism is stable, and I think it is crumbling. I should note there's a couple of different, well, two different strands, essentially, within complementarianism. So people today will speak of narrow versus broad complementarianism.

There was even some tension within the original movement, as I would say John Piper holds more of a broader complementarianism, even if inconsistent. He'll say things like a woman shouldn't be a police officer or president.

Of course, everybody attacks him for it. But whereas Wayne Grudem, I at least have some quotes in there where he thinks a woman can be president. And so there is a difference here amongst complementarian authors, and that's still the case today.

Some of them I think are much better than others. Okay. But I think the fundamental problem with complementarianism was that it, like you said, it was reactionary against egalitarianism. I don't think it's a consistent fully biblical view, but because it was reacting, it tried to affirm two things that I think are just obvious in the Bible, which is that the husband is the head of his wife, and pastors should be men, not women.

So those are obvious things. So complementarians are trying to affirm scripture. That's good. But they also gave a lot away. And one of those things is they essentially argue these things purely based on divine command theory.

So the scripture says, wives submit to your husbands, the husband is head of the wife. So they affirm this, but they don't say much as to why, right? Why is it this way? Why did God design things this way?

And so one thing I really argue in the book is that gender roles and duties are rooted in nature and creation and God's design. And you even see that with the differences in the bodies between a man and a woman.

I think you can just look at natural law in a sense and see a man's body is made especially for physical labor. A woman's body is suited for bearing children. And that should be obvious to anyone. And we ignore this today.

And I guess you're a sexist for pointing this out, which is just ridiculous. And so that's what I try to do I try to offer a consistent vision of a biblical manhood and womanhood.

Biblical Manhood, Patriarchy, and the Duty to Lead Well

That was good. And I wanna take a minute to just acknowledge there are probably women who are listening to this podcast right now, who I'm sure there are a lot of them are amening you, but we are in a state right now where so many men don't want to act like men.

And I wanna, let's later on get to what it means to be a man if we can, but let's just suffice it to say for right now, they're just men who aren't taking their leadership role seriously. And women are stuck.

Many feel that way, at least in marriages, in churches, I think in society in general with kind of being helpless almost, like they want to see righteousness prevail. They want to see things that need to get done done.

And men are not taking that role seriously, which is a real problem. And I think they, how do we talk to someone like that feels that way and tell them, hey, look, hold on, patriarchy is actually a good thing.

And this is a good thing that God designed. That's it's good for women. It's not, this isn't something that's meant to hold you back or to oppress you or to make you have to live with these weak men who aren't doing anything.

This is actually by design a good thing. So if you would just talk to that person and maybe hold up an example of how this should work maybe in a relationship, if it was to work properly.

Right, so, you know, patriarchy male rule, it doesn't mean abuse, right? It's often associated with that as if it's just men abusing women. And that's actually a distortion of God's design. So we're speaking here of biblical patriarchy, not some, you know, pagan version of it.

And so, you know, a husband is to rule his home, but that means, you know, God has given him a responsibility and a duty to love his wife, to care for her. You know, first Peter speaks of being gentle with her and he's to provide for her.

And so that means bring income for the family, put food on the plate. And so these are good things. And, you know, our society, I don't know, they act like patriarchy is just there to harm women, but we're seeing the result of a lack of biblical manhood, of biblical patriarchy.

And so when men don't do this, that's actually when chaos comes into the picture. And I think we're seeing that in our society today. When men don't fulfill their responsibility, you know, you have women who are left unprotected.

And, you know, I look at our culture today where I think in the United States, it's like somewhere around 40 of children are born outside of marriage. So those are men, they're not committing to women.

They're not honoring women. And I think that's the result of feminism. And so, you know, Christian biblical view of manhood and womanhood is going to involve a man caring for his wife, caring for the women around him, leading them well.

And the women are gonna be satisfied with that. And, you know, I think we're seeing a deficiency of male leadership in our current society.

Effeminacy, Masculinity, and the Meaning of 1 Corinthians 6

One of the things that you reference a few times is 1 Corinthians chapter six. And I'm trying to look for the translation that translates it effeminate. I have it pulled up here in multiple translations here, but that the unrighteous will not inherit to the kingdom of God.

And then it expands on that. And homosexuality is part of this, but effeminacy is part of this as well. And I, you know, it's interesting thinking about this. What does it mean to be an effeminate man?

Because I'm afraid that we don't have a lot of good role models or definitions anymore. And so talk to us about a biblically rooted and creation rooted understanding of what a man actually is. And what his duties are.

Sure. So that passage in 1 Corinthians six, the Greek word is malakos and it literally is soft. And so Paul is using it as a metaphor for homosexuality, particularly the effeminate male person. And that is the opposite of masculinity.

Masculinity is not being soft, but, you know, carrying out God's design for man, which is to exercise authority, godly authority, and take responsibility and lead. And so that's how God has designed men.

That's what masculinity is supposed to look like. He gives men, you know, mission in life. He gives us duties to carry out. And when you don't do that, that is considered effeminate. You're not acting like a man.

And in some cases it can involve a man actually acting like a woman. And so that's where that language comes into play.

And you cross-referenced that with some contemporary sources that are not biblical, but showing kind of where that language is used. And, you know, this seems to be the kind of where we are as a culture today is many men are effeminate.

And as I'm saying this, I'm thinking about even something as basic as some of these Republican governors who are refusing to fulfill their duty as the governor or legislators who, and or justices who don't want to actually fulfill their job because of the social pressure upon them because of this election and so forth.

And we look around us everywhere we look, it seems like there's examples of men who cave, who aren't gonna fulfill their task and take a stand for truth. And you said something a moment ago that you think this is the result of feminism.

And there may be some Christians, I know I'm playing a lot of devil's advocate here, but it's helpful for people. Trust me on that. There's a lot of Christians who are gonna hear that and say, well, wasn't feminism though, something that Christians themselves brought about?

It wasn't that our movement, and then it kind of got hijacked in the sixties. You have a great section on this. Would you tell us a little bit about first wave feminism and whether or not it was Christian?

First-Wave Feminism and Its Radical Roots

Yeah, the first chapter gets into this. And I should say that you often hear second wave feminism of the 1960s about there. You hear that mentioned when people are criticizing feminism and that's tied with the sexual revolution, which that's an important period to discuss.

I think it brought a lot of bad things into our culture. But one thing I argue is that feminism didn't start there. That second wave feminism, first wave feminism started in the mid to late 1800s. And a lot of people know it, especially they associate it with the right to vote, women's suffrage, the women's movement as it was called, or women's rights.

And yeah, it's not popular to criticize that because how could you possibly be opposed to women voting? And I decided to delve into that a little bit in there, essentially showing that first wave feminism cannot be detached from its later forms.

And that you have to go back and look at exactly what the leaders of that movement were saying. Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, I think is probably the most important to look at. She's the most radical.

And you see these women were not Orthodox Christians. They were radicals and heretics as I refer to them. There were several Quakers that were tied with this, which the Quakers have some very odd beliefs and they themselves have been egalitarian for a long time.

But you have Elizabeth Cady Stanton, she has radical views. She wanted no fault divorce all the way back in her day. She wanted women, I have a quote in there, she wanted women to be able to have access to church councils and not just the civil realm.

And so she's very clear of what she wants. And there's another author in there or leader, I should say, I think it was Anna Howard Shaw, who spoke of wanting to be a policeman and be in military combat.

And so this is all the way back in the 1800s. And so you read this stuff and you realize, wow, this first wave of feminism was quite radical. And so, yeah, and I should also mention Elizabeth Cady Stanton's book, The Woman's Bible, where she, it's kind of crazy.

She goes through and criticizes the Bible for all of its patriarchal notions. And so, yeah, she was a radical.

The Seneca Falls Declaration and the Rewriting of Feminist History

Yeah, I've seen that. I've actually, I visited Seneca Falls, New York, where the 1848 Seneca Falls Declaration was given. And I've seen that Bible. I've seen all the National Park Service what they had set up there.

And it kind of hit me that, cause I had kind of heard that kind of thing, women's rights in the beginning was just a very Christian movement. And the more I looked into it, cause I read about it afterward as much as I could.

And it didn't seem like that at all. They're doing seances in the basement of this Wesleyan church. And they're talking about, if you read the declaration, I encourage anyone listening to this, go read the Seneca Falls Declaration, because it's not just about the right to vote.

There's all sorts of other things. I remember some quotes from some of those contemporary first wave feminists saying marriage is slavery. And just things that we would associate today with second wave feminism or even third wave feminism had their seed back then.

And I don't know why, well, I could probably put a guess out there, why the history has been so rewritten, but we're trying to now look back at these women as heroes and the men who forwarded this. And I'm with you on this.

I don't think that's necessarily the case. Let's bring it forward a little bit now. We know that the root of this was to somehow unravel the role that God intended for men. We are now 100, well, we're more than 100, 150 years, 170 years past that.

And we can see the effects of this. We see pornography addiction very high. We see women, a lot of single mothers, a lot of, of course, abortion plays into this. Domestic abuse, all sorts of issues. I mean, I know that was predicted by some of the critics back then.

Where do you see this going in the next 50 years? I know that's kind of going out on a limb, but I think we all kind of want to know, is there any hope on the horizon in your mind or what do you think?

The Future of Feminism, Transgenderism, and Biblical Masculinity

Yeah, it's very concerning. I mean, even our own day, we mentioned the illegitimacy rate. The birth rate in general is dropping drastically. And I just think it's very common amongst younger women, even in the church.

And this is something I address some in there. They're trading babies for careers. And I think this is certainly harmful for everyone, men and women. And where is it going? I don't know exactly, but it's not anywhere good.

And we're seeing kind of the outcomes of radical feminism today. It just, it never stopped. I think that's the big thing. We're seeing a lot of homosexuality. You had homosexuality tied with second wave feminism some, but there were some differences over that.

But now it's kind of become more front and center. You're seeing transgenderism. So I think that's a huge thing. And just the kind of the madness there where people are almost denying that there's biological differences between men and women and we should just raise kids gender neutral.

So I don't know where it's going. I'm concerned where it's at right now. And so I think that's partly another reason why I wrote this book is we have to get this stuff straight. I mean, we could have some very hard times ahead, but in another sense, I'm also hopeful because I am seeing kind of a return to the scriptures, a hunger for biblical masculinity, patriarchy.

I don't know what the numbers are, but it should be that people who follow this, who look to the scriptures, they're actually marrying and having kids. Whereas a lot of the people who are feminist egalitarians, they're not.

So in the long run, I think we'll be okay, but in the short term, we could have some problems.

Effeminacy in the Roman Empire and the Need for Christian Courage

One of the things, not to create too strong of a parallel, but between the Roman empire and the United States of America and the Western world in general that I've heard observed is that in the Roman empire, you can see this trajectory as the empire fell towards effeminacy in men, where you can even look at the statues, very muscular men giving way to, at the end of the empire, you can't hardly tell the difference between a statue between a male and a female.

And this was kind of one of the signs that was pointed out that this spelled the death of the empire when effeminate things, feminine things, I should say, men were interested in that and the women were becoming more masculine in a sense.

And so those lines are being blurred today, even with men who aren't homosexuals, styles, habits, art, all these kinds of things seem to be contributing to this. I even was thinking about the kinds of films Hollywood produces and what they used to produce in the 1950s and 60s.

And there clearly is less of a masculine presence. And so I'm encouraged though, that you're bold enough to put this out there to just say what I think is pretty obvious. And there is a counterculture movement, which you're part of and I'm part of trying to establish healthy, good role models for children and save not just the church, not just to fulfill God's commands, which we certainly wanna do, but also to save the Western world in a sense.

I mean, this is the kind of thing that'll do it. It's birth rates, it's men being men. And so I would encourage anyone who's listening to this, go grab this book and it'll at least give you some things to think about.

I think it's well put together. Any final thoughts, Zach, anything that you would wanna leave people with?

Well, one thing I wanted to mention, you hit on kind of government officials not doing their job. And I was just thinking that a big part of masculinity that I didn't mention earlier is courage. And I think that's part of the problem with the abdication of our civil leaders is they're weak, they're soft, they're not manly, they're not courageous.

And so they're not standing up for us. And so, yeah, we're seeing problems in our government. We have a weak and effeminate men leading our country. I just encourage people to go to scripture. I realized my book is controversial because we live in a feminist society, but I'm seeking to affirm the word of God and what it teaches.

And I think we should do that boldly. We should be courageous in that regard. And we're gonna offend people, but that's okay. That's not our goal, but that's what's gonna happen when we take a stand in a culture like ours.

Robert E. Lee, Cultural Decadence, and Where to Buy the Book

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And I just remind, you reminded me of something that I probably should have said earlier. It's almost, it's so appropriate that the day we're recording this, I don't know if you've heard about this, but it's talked about online today.

The governor of Virginia removed Robert E. Lee statue from the, I believe it's US Capitol. Virginia has statues there and Robert E. Lee was one of them. And so this was one of the quintessential masculine kind of role models of the United States, gone.

And on this same exact day, there's a controversy going on right now in Florida over this Tea Party USA event. They had very scantily clad women go on stage and shoot out all this money to a supposedly socially conservative audience.

And I'm not encouraging anyone to look up the video because it'll defile you, but this is, it's just, it says where we're at, that the conservatives supposedly, many of them, the political, social conservatives, pro-lifers, they're okay with something like that.

But it's hardly anyone will raise a finger to defend, let's say Robert E. Lee, who was known for his courage, his discipline, steadfastness, chivalry, Christian sense of duty, et cetera. And so your book is needed and we need more people to write these kinds of things and exemplify this kind of attitude.

Where can people go to find it if they wanna purchase your book?

Go to Amazon. It's available in ebook and paperback and that's the best place to get it. Anywhere else you wanna send people? You have a website? Yeah, I have two websites. One is a Christian education website.

I write on education. It has resources for Christian education. It's teachdiligently .com. And then I'm more active on my Bible website and that's knowingscripture .com.

Awesome, awesome. Well, Zach, I appreciate you joining me for this and God bless you. I hope your book sells well. My pleasure, yeah. And God bless you as well, John.