Being a Man with Jon Harris

thing. Welcome to another edition of the

Wrap Report. I'm your host, Andrew Rapoport, the Executive Director of Striving Fraternity and the

Christian Podcast Community, of which this podcast is a proud member. Over 50 podcasts out there, so just go to christianpodcastcommunity .org

and you will find something that you enjoy listening to if, of course, you're a

Christian. If not, well, if you're an atheist, you might find things that really get you angry. But we whether it's homeschoolers, moms, you like theology, sermons, apologetics, we have something for everyone.

We produce about 40 hours of content a week. So, okay, if you're a truck driver, you've got plenty of time.

The rest of us, we're going to have to pick and choose. But that's your choice. Go see what you can find at christianpodcastcommunity .org.

I am joined this week, and we're going to start a series that we're going to do.

I have come back. Okay, granted, I came back a while ago from the Overcoming Evil conference that I talked about that was back in September, and it's been a while.

And so, I came to that conference and said, you know, this is some really good content that my audience really would get a lot of value out of.

So, I asked each of the speakers if they would be willing to come on and just discuss some of the things that they talked about, or things that is on their minds as well, and also encourage you guys to attend the next conference next year.

So, I am starting off with the first speaker, who happens to be the guy that was running it all.

You guys are going to be familiar with him because I mention him often here. John Harris from Conversations That Matter, and he also is the one that,

I don't know if his idea, but he helps run TruthScript, and I'm going to let him talk about that as well.

So, John, welcome to The Wrap Report. Yeah, thanks, Andrew. I appreciate you inviting me, and it's good to see you again.

So, your topic at the conference was on, well, basically manhood, being a gentleman, and that is something

I think a lot of people will, it's going to be encouraging for people to, especially the men, to hear some of that.

But before we get to that, just let folks know, you know, TruthScript, what it is, where they can find it, why they should be going there, just saying, and reading the articles.

Yeah. So, truthscript .com is where you go, and I'm actually, I have the prestigious position of being the scribe,

I guess you could say. That's the more, I guess, masculine way of putting it. But basically, I take notes at the meetings.

That's my level of authority. But I, it was something that I, I guess you could say it was my idea.

And we have a board, my brother, David, who you've met, is the president of the 501c3.

And it's intended to be an alternative to websites like the Gospel Coalition that,

I guess, for the last maybe 15 years, whenever it started, it's been pretty influential up until,

I think that started to wane in 2020. But before that, with the

Young Restless Reform Movement, TGC had a sizable reach.

And of course, they're well funded as well, which is something we don't really have. But we, we thought that it's a simple formula.

They've put together articles that are very accessible for working class people, especially, and I think their target demographic is probably like, you know, your suburban housewife outside of Dallas or something.

That's like, that's how they've gained the success they have. They'll talk about theological things, they'll break it down, though.

But they'll also talk about pop culture, and they'll talk about the news and all these things that are being discussed already, that Christians would like to have some good analysis on.

And we didn't see a great competitor out there. You have websites like Grace To You, and G3, and discernment websites, we have, you know, you have what you're doing, you have like,

Protestia, and there's all these websites that, that do very helpful things.

But we didn't see anyone that was really taking that formula, which we think is a winning formula. So I'm not going to say we completely copied everything

TGC, we didn't at all. But we definitely wanted to reach a similar demographic.

So if you go to true script .com, you'll find blogs, you'll find some events, we have an events page, and there's two events next year.

And we did two this year. And you'll find a church, well, you will find soon a church finder.

So like, if you're looking for a church in your area, we'll have recommendations for churches.

And so we're working on new stuff every day. We're gonna have some merchandise up there soon.

But it is a 5 -1 -C -3. So people like what we're doing, they can donate, and that'll expand our reach.

And conversations of matter. I've mentioned it here before as a podcast, you do. Yeah, basically dealing with discernment.

Right? Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's kind of what I'm known for. I think 2020 was when I became 20 2019 into 2020.

I became, I guess, I don't want to say popular, because it's not like I have a huge audience. But I went kind of mini viral in Christian circles for exposing

Southeastern and the woke content they were pumping into the seminary classrooms. And, and that expanded to talking about social justice more generally,

I wrote a few books on the topic. And now I do focus on that somewhat

I did an episode today on transgender stuff. But I also talk about history and, you know, really, whatever strikes my fancy.

I mean, it literally is my podcast that I can really say what I want. So, you know, inside the mind of John Harrison.

Yeah, pretty much. I mean, I thought about doing like, an episode on cycling or barbecue or, you know, things

I'm interested in, too. And I want to do more content like that. But of course, when you do content like that, you see the numbers like go way down.

And I'm like, well, I wanted to do that. Like James White gets like, okay, I'm not here to listen to your cycling.

I'm here to, you know, right, right. Some people like to hear that stuff. And others think it's just they try to fast forward to get to the content they want.

But yeah. But yeah, I mean, I called it conversations that matter, because I think what

I have to talk about and the interviews I do matter. My wife thinks it's an arrogant name. I should never have chosen it.

But I couldn't think of a better one. And either could she. So I went with it. Yeah. And you and I had gotten, or at least

I found out about you. I didn't realize we had met before. Yeah. I became more aware of you when

I did some episodes on Al Mohler. That's right. You happened to do some episodes on Al Mohler.

And a lot of people thought we had been talking to one another because there's so much similarity.

And I kept going, John, who? Like, I just didn't, didn't know. And my bad for forgetting that we had met.

No, I mean, I wasn't any, you wouldn't have known who I was. I was like a college kid.

That, you know, I was going to like a community college at the time. It was a long time ago. And we were just doing evangelism.

And then I did meet you a few times, or at least I saw you when I go out to Shepard's conference, because I would go out there quite a bit with my dad.

And you were always there, I feel like, or at least I saw you somewhere. And then we talked the last time in 2020.

But yeah, you go to a lot, or you did. You introduced me to your dad there. I did. Yeah, yeah.

First time, which folks will have to listen to next week's episode to hear a little bit more about that.

Yeah, yeah. But I, yeah, I feel like I saw your face many times before you knew who

I was. So yeah. Well, let's get into your topic. So your topic at the conference was really on manhood.

I mean, the overall theme of the conference, overcoming evil, you dealt with something that, you know, to be honest with you,

I haven't heard people talk about in a very, very long time. Definitely not at a conference, which was having men be gentlemen.

What's the idea of a gentleman and why is that term, like kind of why should we revive that term again as Christians?

Yeah. Yeah. So a gentleman, actually I have right in front of me, this is George Washington's rules of civility and decent behavior.

I keep it on my desk and it's very short, but you know, if you read a rule a day, like at random, you know, do not laugh too much or too loud in public.

Right. That's not a Bible verse, but Hey, it's like a good wise. I'm in trouble. Yeah. I don't,

I just picked that at random, but, and I'm not like living or dying by any of those rules, but the idea is that, you know, a gentleman is someone who lives by a moral code.

They act publicly in ways that are decent, respectful. They have boundaries that they abide by.

They don't cross those lines. They have self -control. They they're really kind of the,

I guess they inherited the mantle of what we would think of as the knight. Someone who has chivalry and doesn't see themselves as existing to serve themselves, but to serve or to fulfill a purpose beyond themselves.

So that would include if they are married their wives, their families, if they have kids, it would include the obligations they have to society, to you know, their region, their town civic institutions that, you know, like volunteer firemen or something like that.

I mean, they're involved in some way in defending and preserving their people. And of course, when it comes to Christians it it's very much a

Christian concept. I mean, it's a lot of the characteristics we associate with being a gentleman are biblical concepts and were formed in European contexts as the

Bible made its way into those contexts. So you can think of like the qualifications for being an elder or a deacon as those kinds of limitations, like, you know, being hospitable, of course.

So there's this side of a gentleman that is gentle, as the name implies, where you're not being aggressive about every single thing.

You're you have some moderation about you, but also there's a side of you that will be fierce when the things that you love and that you have obligations to are threatened.

So I think in our context in the United States most recently, and I think this is dwindled, but you can think of like maybe when you were a kid, you know,

Western movies and stuff were still on television and shows. And a lot of those like exuded this cowboy code.

I mean, that's kind of that's you could see like the knight, the gentleman, and then like in our

American context, the cowboy as exemplifying somewhat of the same thing.

And we need more of it. Unfortunately, we just don't have men like that in sports because or, you know, acting or in or really any field, the people who rise to those levels of influence tend to be very self -serving.

And I think that's the new code is that you just do as much for yourself and get as much as you can before you die and stomp on whoever you need to stomp on to get what you want, which is the exact opposite of what a gentleman does.

A gentleman that protects other people who are weaker from men like that. So that's briefly, yeah.

It's interesting, you know, someone had pointed this out. I never thought of it until it was pointed out, but you look at a

TV series like Star Trek. The original Star Trek was a

Western in space. That's right. Captain Kirk was the guy. He's he always goes on the mission and he's the one to fight and he's going to, you know, even with fists, but he's the tough guy that's going to solve the problem.

And then you look at all the other ones that came afterwards. And it's all about what we negotiate, we plan, you know, and you really could see that here in this futuristic world, there was a change between the when they did the original series and what the 60s, 70s to what they would do in the 90s and 2000s.

Yeah, you see it when Gene Roddenberry died, really, because I think Gene Roddenberry was a Western writer, like he wrote for those television shows and then, you know, wrote for Star Trek.

But yeah, the stuff that wasn't written by him is I think what you just said is like they negotiate.

But there's like a utopian dynamic to it, like that there's that they've they've reached a point in their development of society where men no longer actually have to be as aggressive because we've kind of we've evolved past the need for war and these kinds of things.

And so the Enterprise or whatever ship in the series is now kind of like a it's on the frontier where this these kinds of things are still happening to some extent.

So they have to negotiate and have to do these things. But they they don't come from the same world that Captain Kirk came from, which is a world of, you know, riding horses and and having to kind of hold your own in a fight.

So did my nerd just come out? That was not good. I knew way too much about Star Trek anyway.

Hey, simple things. I mean, I look for my audience. They're surprised that I, especially coming from me, picked up the pop culture reference of Star Trek.

But there are some things that I I do know pop culture. I did. I used to watch TV as a kid.

Yeah. Well, yeah, Star Trek was one of my favorite shows. So you couldn't have picked a better example. Oh, yeah. It was one of my favorite, too.

I remember when my son was born and they had a a Star Trek marathon and they just did it from the first one straight through.

And I just sat and spent the weekend. Was that on TNT? I have no idea because I remember

TNT and then Channel 11 did those marathons on like 4th of July, probably Channel 11. Yeah.

I know if your son is your son my age, because we probably or maybe a little younger than me, because I remember watching.

Yeah. Yeah. Remember watching it? Yeah. He's a he's twenty eight. OK, yeah, that makes sense then.

So I would have been like six or seven watching that. Anyway, this is totally off topic, but interesting nonetheless.

Yeah. So so the idea, though, we we can see in Hollywood, we could see in the movies they there is a change that occurred.

And I'll argue it this way is I think the reason we see a change in culture is because they tried shoving it in our face with Hollywood, with all of the as you mentioned, the sports figures to try to get them to portray in movies a certain stereotype.

I mean, I was thinking about this weekend or last weekend, I think I was in a church, not my home church.

And there were two guys in front of my wife and I. They two rose up and until they turned around, we would have sworn they were women.

Oh, yeah. Really long, curly hair. And it got me thinking, like, when did this stuff that we're seeing to now with the transgender and all that, where did it start?

I was thinking it actually probably started back with men wearing long hair and earrings, right, to to to start morphing so that you couldn't tell the difference between a man and a woman and that the natural progression of that is what we have today, where you have you have two people in a sport, a transgender, basically a man who is pretending to be a woman and a woman and they tied, but they had to give it to they tell the woman, well, we're going to give the medal to the transgender.

Yeah, it's like, OK, so someone who is naturally stronger in the sport but is cheating so he can he can win a medal and you're going to give it to him versus the one who had to work harder to get it because she was competing against the man.

Yeah. But I really think like like when we think about where it started, I think, you know, it started back then in the 60s when guys would have long hair and then you end up having the movies changing in the 70s and 80s.

I remember this before your time, but I remember watching Kramer versus Kramer.

And for folks who don't know that movie, it's a movie about divorce and and the idea of how the effects of divorce and things like that.

But really, I walked out of theater. I did I walked out saying there's not a single person

I know who's divorced. But as I thought about it, I said, but this movie kind of makes it sound more normal.

And I was a young child before I was saved, was thinking about it and realized this is what the media does.

Yeah, this is not commonplace, but they make it seem like it is and people become more accepting of it.

That's right. Social media has taken it to a whole new level. Yeah. Yeah.

I think your analysis is is correct. The media definitely has played a part in all of this, for sure.

And the androgyny of the 1960s, the sexual revolution and doing whatever, really breaking those middle class ethical codes and doing your own thing.

I mean, that, I think, opened Pandora's box to some extent, because, as I said before, the gentleman lives by a code and they were questioning all codes and seeing codes as means by which people are oppressed and their creativity is stifled and that kind of thing.

And so once it might not have been overt transgenderism initially, but once you start going down the path of you, whoever you are, the authentic you is not bound by creative norms or even social obligations, but instead by the only thing that really influences it is certain fudgable, fudgable social constructs.

And, you know, your desires play into that to some extent, then you really can make anything perfectly acceptable.

So I think this is just like another step in eroding what was there before. And, of course, we aren't at the bottom yet.

There are more steps that can take place. We could certainly see normalization of pedophilia, bestiality and other forms of sexual degeneracy that will lead us to even greater levels of evil.

But the solution has always been the same, no matter what it is, whether it's no fault divorce or gay marriage. Right.

The solution is getting back to the creator's intention. And of course, the creator's intention is that men should be men, women should be women.

We see this even in the scripture, not just Christians and Jewish people in the

Old Testament recognize this, though they did. But even the Philistines, if you look at like first Samuel chapter four, the

Philistines, even in their war against Israel, try to encourage each other to act like men. And, of course, that's the advice

David gives to Solomon is to act like a man. We see Paul saying the same kind of thing at the end of first Corinthians in chapter 14 to act like men.

So it's not necessarily spelled out in super specific terms for every circumstance in scripture, which a lot of leftists want in Christian circles want to capitalize on and say, they're in fact,

I was just watching Zach Lambert did a sermon last year where he's normalizing transgenderism.

And he says, look, the Bible doesn't have specific rules for holiness for men and for women. It's just general rules for holiness.

So we just shouldn't be concerned about the gender of someone. And, you know, he's he's half right in the sense that, no, scripture is not going to give you like an explicit list of like, here's the top.

Here's the 50 things men do. Right. I mean, I don't want to be crass on your show, but like scripture doesn't have to tell us that men stand up right when they go to the bathroom.

Right. That's something we all know. Like there's there's something in the nature of men and in the nature of women, which is different from our creator.

And scripture assumes this. The authors of scripture just thought, you know, well, duh. Like, you know, everyone knows that you didn't need to explain this.

Didn't need to like, yeah, I don't need a exegesis on it, you know. So so I think so that's why

I'm very specific in my language, which is we need to get back to the creative order, what God's intentions for men are.

And of course, special revelation is going to play into that. But special revelation assumes a lot of this, too, because it what it does is it puts some limitations on what a man already is.

So, yes, men, you have more testosterone. You're stronger in general. You can, you know, do things that women can't.

They can also do things you can't. So you have these physical abilities. You have a different emotional state.

You're able to without it's amazing that men are more able to kill without remorse.

Right. Men by and large are the ones who go hunting there. You know, these are all different things.

But scripture puts boundaries there and says, OK, now that you have that strength, you have that aggression.

How do you channel that to rightful, useful ends? And and so I think that's

God's intention. And that's that's the solution. You raise a really interesting point that I hadn't thought about, but the idea of traditions, because we saw this in the church where they're with the church growth movement, this uprising against tradition.

Oh, we can't do hymns. That's too traditional. Everything was tradition. It was it was against tradition.

Started in the world, but but made its way into the church. And I think that is that tradition to, you know, if we think about it for you think of like from the

Jewish mindset we see in scripture, we have these traditions to remind us to kind of act as as barriers to keep us from going off a cliff.

Right. You know, I don't want to start singing, you know, traditions from Fiddler on the Roof, but right.

But but that's your second pop culture reference. I will know. Yeah. Well, that's a Jewish one. So, you know, being raised,

I grew up watching Fiddler on the Roof. But the the idea, though, is traditions have the the value of kind of keeping us from going off.

Off the cliff, off the rails, and I think that so many people attack the traditions without thinking, thinking them through.

Like why have traditions? What are the advantages of traditions? No, it's just a knee -jerk reaction against them.

So, you know, you spent a good amount of time in the in the in your message, specifically on what you just referred to, you know, that, you know,

David saying, be a man. And, you know, so what I want to do is I want to ask you after this break, what it when we say be a man in our culture, it's it's so different.

Right. I mean, we just had. Oh, I just draw a blank. Kevin Sorbo.

We just had Kevin Sorbo, who had put out a thing saying that people in Hollywood don't know how to be a man.

Right. He he was Hercules. And then they have pictures of the male actors today and they're all feminine.

What does it take to be a man? I want to discuss that after we talk a word from our sponsor.

Folks, if you want to get yourself a good night's sleep, go and get yourself a

MyPillow or better yet, get the MyPillow mattress topper. Gets yourself not only a great night of sleep, much of it is made here in the

United States. But you're also, if you use promo code SFE, which stands for striving for eternity, be providing and supporting this podcast by letting them know that you heard about them through us.

So not only can you get a good night of sleep, but you can continue to get the gospel message going forth.

So they support us. And a great way to to support us as well would be to let them know that if you're going to get anything.

And by the way, Christmas is coming. You can get yourself a set of towels. They have bath towels. They have robes.

They have different a lot more than just pillows and toppers, but they do have those.

So go to MyPillow .com, use the promo code SFE, stands for striving for eternity.

Let's them know you heard about them here and they will continue to support us, which we are thankful.

Well, John, let's get to this question. What does it take to be a man? Yeah, so I hesitate to give like an ideological, like itemized list of like, here are the 10 things.

And if you do those 10 things, I think it's more it's something that you can see and recognize more than you can than you can write, like make an abstract list of.

So I think virtue is the most important thing. So you can be a man and be someone who is disabled, right?

You don't have physical strength. So some people would then say, well, you know, hey, that means in fact, there was a

Twitter war about this maybe three weeks ago. I remember it was it was kind of dumb, but wait, there's a

Twitter war. There was a war on Twitter. If you know, that never happens. Yeah, I find that so hard to believe.

It was shocking as the first time I'd ever seen people argue on Twitter, but they were arguing over whether or not someone was a man if they were disabled.

And it was it was Christians arguing this because someone had made the statement that men should go to the gym, or at least they should be fit, they should, they shouldn't be obese, right?

And this became like a big thing, like, you know, oh, you're, you know, you're trying to make a standard that's extra biblical and this whole thing.

And then, and so like, you know, springing off that example, I think, like, obviously, being strong physically is something that in a perfect world, every man would be that way without the effects of sin,

God made men to be stronger physically. So but obviously, with the effects of sin, there are going to be men who suffer because of that, you know, through no fault of their own individually, just because of the

Adam's sin that they were born as, you know, without legs or with, you know, they became paralyzed or something like that.

And so, so I think the one thing that you can look at and say, well, this, this holds across the board for every man is internal virtue more than anything else that that is truly so.

So if you, no matter what body you have, short, tall, you know, thin, whatever, if you have virtue, you're going to steward well, what

God has given you physically. And, and I see the virtue lists in scripture that are given to certain offices.

I mentioned earlier, the offices for deacons and for elders. We also see qualifications though, for rulers like Moses, when he was appointing overseers over Israel, there's general principles that are supposed to be used that men should match themselves to.

So, so we have virtue, self -control. We have, then

I think this is maybe the more important aspect. We have those virtues exemplified in actual heroes.

And Paul talks about this because he says to follow him as he followed Christ. And the example, he says, you have seen in me, you know, the, that's something that is something it's more caught than taught.

You actually, the way you learn it is by noticing how someone lives in various situations, someone who is respectable, someone who is a man.

So Jesus is the template for this, but there are men who have followed Christ so closely, they look like him.

And I think there's men in the Bible that are like that, but there's also men in our daily lives. There's men in history.

There's men that we can see around us in our know, when we see it, like that's a man, that's someone who's doing it, right.

That's someone who's taking their obligations seriously. They're not irresponsible. They are gracious.

They aren't arrogant and prideful in their speech. So, so, so in one sense,

I'll land the plane here, but if you're a male with a

X and Y chromosome, right, you are a man. If you have the biology of being a man, you're a man biologically, you're a man according to God.

And, but, but living up to the standard God has for men, being a man in that sense does require discipline and work.

And that's something that I think that that's what we've ignored. And to the point now where we are also ignoring the biological end of it saying,

I don't even know if you are a man, but, but like, no, you are a man and you also should be a man in the way scripture has told us to.

Yeah. I mean, our world has lost all their, the mindset of having definitions in an attempt to you get away from, as we were saying earlier, the traditions.

Yeah. There's, there's a blurring between man and woman, which is, I find this so interesting because when you think about the transgenderism and the argument that gender is fluid and when

I would, I would listen to like four or five different transgender podcasts so that I could be, you know, for my audience, be on top of where they are.

Yeah. Oh, it's torture. And I eventually stopped because I realized there, there's nothing but perversion on them. There's nothing, there's no,

I don't even understand why people would listen to those other than just to dwell in their, in their perversion.

But here was one thing I did, I did recognize is there, there was a one podcast that was kind of devoted to this guy's transition to being a woman.

And it was interesting because everything he was saying was, he's trying to say there's, there is no gender, everything's fluid.

I am who I am. But then everything in his life, he's trying to be the stereotypical woman.

Right, right, right. He's, he's talking about how, learning how to put pantyhose on and makeup and, and do everything that a woman would do.

And I just found it so interesting because they argue, oh, there's, there's lots of different genders. There's not just two, that's so wrong and outdated to think there's just two genders.

And I started going, but you guys think there's only two genders. Because when a biological male says he's transgender, what does he do?

He acts like a biological female, but actually even more so typically, higher pitched voice, puts on more makeup.

So even in their behavior, they were, they reveal that they know there's only two genders.

They, I, it's like as if they just can't get around God's created order. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting what you said about tradition too, because they're borrowing,

I saw Derek Webb, who's a Christian music performer, a few weeks ago, attended the Dove Awards dressed as a woman.

And he's a man. And he had a, I think it was a polka dot dress with some pearl necklaces and things.

And the thing that stood out to me was that most women who are attending the Dove Awards would not be dressing as feminine as he was.

Right. And that like, I was like, wow, he's really borrowing from this kind of this traditional archetypal, like, like a 1930s housewife really is what he looked like.

Or he didn't look like that, but he was trying to go for that. He's borrowing from this, this strong tradition.

And so people who, and Christians do this too, who say like, traditions don't matter. Traditions are social constructs.

They don't really mean anything. It's just it's, it's a development in the way that we behave, but it's not, the

Bible has nothing to say about that. Like traditions and even the transgender people know this, the traditions point to something that is rooted in reality.

They point to creative norms. So long hair or short hair in our, our society has developed short hair means you're a guy, long hair means you're a girl.

Are there exceptions? Okay, sure. There's exceptions, but the, the point being that this tradition points to something that is underneath of it, that is so much deeper.

So when you break the tradition, it's not about the long hair, short hair, that's not the issue. Now I'm realizing

I picked probably a bad example because we could go to first Corinthians. Yeah. I didn't really want to go there.

I should have picked a different example. Like, okay, we'll pick wearing a dress, you know, like, you know, Scottish people wear tilts, right? So, um,

Hey, in our society though, that means something. And, and the people who wear dresses who are men, they're not trying to, you know, tip their hat to their

Scottish heritage, right? They are trying to make a different statement, which is that, um,

I am rebelling against who God made me to be. And I don't want to take my responsibilities as a man seriously.

I'd rather shirk those. So traditions point to something and, and, you know, traditions that end up not pointing to anything anymore.

We just do them for tradition sake. Well, you know, maybe those should be reexamined at some point, or at least we should recover the reason for those traditions if we're going to keep them around.

But, um, but, but you can't ever say like traditions don't play a huge part in this because they certainly do.

And I think as Christians, our responsibility is to, in whatever context we live in is, is to uphold the

Bible's teaching on morality and apply it to a context in which we do have traditions.

And in my context, that means I'm going to wear, um, you know, I'm not going to wear dresses.

That's just one tradition. I could pick, you know, many other traditions, but I'm going to behave in a way that reinforces the order that God has set up.

And, um, so it's, you know, I, I don't know why I wanted to go on that. I think just because you were talking about traditions and I think it's so important, but it's a good point.

You, when we talk about manhood, you brought up the idea of a kilt, which people will say, oh, well, that's, that's not being a man.

In fact, they would actually say it is. In that context. In that context. I mean, as I discovered,

I, so I was, I would go out evangelizing in California each year and we had a guy, his name was

Andrew. He would dress in a kilt. And I'd always, I was always joke with him because he's wearing a dress. Okay.

Now this was before some of the craziness we have nowadays, but I remember, um, joking with him about that.

He was wearing a dress and he'd be like, it's a kilt. It's not a dress. You know? Yeah. It was really funny because there was one time we're sitting there, we were out evangelizing and a police officer walks by and I was joking with, you know,

I had a gospel track for the police officer and I, it's hard to get a police officer to take a track. So if you can do some, bring them into a conversation.

So I said to the officer, I said, you know, officer, look at this guy, he's wearing a dress. And the officer with this, with an

Irish accent turns and goes, that's not a dress. It's a kilt. That's what men wear.

And so the two of them were best friends after that. But, but they actually said like, this is wearing a kilt in Ireland was a manly thing to do because it was something they wore in warfare.

Right. So that they didn't have to, you know, in warfare, they could, they, if they had to, you know, not to be crass, but go back to what you said earlier, they have to go in and, you know, use the bathroom, you know, they don't have to take off their pants.

They just went, did it and go back to the fight because the idea of the kilt was getting back into the fight.

Yeah. Do not take time away from the battle. So in that concept, that's still their idea of manliness, which is even with that, yes, they're, they're wearing something that looks resembles a skirt in our culture.

And yet the purpose for it was completely different, still having the idea of what we would think of as manliness against what the way our culture would say a man wearing a skirt.

You know that that, yeah, you know, the tradition matters because the transgender activists or, or, or just the, you know, people who consider themselves to be transgender, they don't ever wear kilts and claim

I'm another, I'm a man who's a woman because I'm wearing a kilt. They don't choose that. They choose a very feminine looking skirts or dresses to try to make their point.

So it's, it's, it's worth reinforcing those things and examining, you know, what's, what are the true and valuable things we swim in a sea of traditions.

And honestly, like you have to wear something, right. We're talking about clothes, but this can go into, you know, just even the kinds of activities that you do you know, who does which tasks in the household which responsibilities are the man's which responsibilities are the woman's like the decision has to be made at some level.

Cause it's impossible not to make the decision, right. So traditions should be helpful things that clue us into what is, what is best, what, what, what, what has worked the best in time, but also what reinforces at least in our context with a sort of an

Anglo -Protestant background, what reinforces biblical morality. Let me give a practical example of that within the household is, you know, in every house that my bride and I have lived in, it it's been really clear that I even, you know, even if we go to a hotel or some,

I sleep nearest the door because my job is to protect her.

That's right. So, you know, even though, you know, there's times where she would be like, well, can I sleep on the set? No, like this is where I sleep because I'm going to be the one to protect you.

So if someone comes in, I'm the protection, I'm the defense against harm coming to her.

Right. You know, and there's going to be a whole lot of my little toys that I'll have with me to help me in that defense.

But, but the reality is, is that, you know, that's the mindset we as men have to have.

Yeah. I had a gentleman who we were discipling through the Ministry of Striving Fraternity. We were training him up to, to be a speaker and do some evangelism.

And it was interesting. He had decided, he contacted me, he said, I'm going to start taking Brazilian jiu -jitsu.

And he wasn't a kind of guy that was very into martial arts and things like that. And I asked him why.

And he said, well, you know, one day I plan to eventually get married. And I realized that my job will be as a protector of my wife and children.

Right. And I can't decide to be the protector when I get married. So he actually had the mindset of saying,

I'm going to train myself so that if something was to happen where I need to protect my wife,

I'm able to do it. I can't wait until married to start that process. That's sort of the thing, you know, as men, we got to say, okay, if, if you're not married, you got to realize, okay, well,

I got to learn to be a protector. I got to learn to have to provide for my wife and my family.

You know, there's certain things you may have to start now before you're even married so that by the time you are married, you can be a man for, for your wife and family.

And if you are married, well, there's things you, you got to think through practically, you know, are you doing things to say,

I'm going to protect my wife? And it's more than just physical. You, are you protecting her emotions?

Do you know what she may be reading? The far too many, I hope not

Christian, but I'm sure there are some women who get into reading all of these, well, soft pornography.

Yeah. It's these love stories. And yet they're so intimate in, in their details and it gets women to start thinking things.

Well, that, that ends up being harming their emotion. Yeah. Yeah. Are you protecting that, you know, spiritually, are you protecting your wife?

Are you keeping your wife away from the, because Beth Moores and, and Joyce Meyers and all these others who have all this nonsense out there that gets into the women's ministry and church, because that's the number one area that creates problems in the church.

Are you protecting her? You, my wife, when she'd go to a women's Bible study, which wasn't often, would come and bring the material home for me for review and I'd check it out.

And there'd be times where, okay, well, you're, you're not going to go to that anymore. And with my bride, I didn't have to worry too much because my, my, my bride would rather go to a pastor's conference than a woman's conference because she's just like,

I don't want, they don't give any content. It's just all emotional fluff, you know? My wife's a little bit like that too.

Yeah. It's women's ministries is kind of a joke, like 95 % of it at least.

But yeah, I think I know everything you're saying. I agree with, I think you're a hundred percent right.

This is the reason we had rules that were unspoken. Like if you, if there's a seat if there's not a seat available and a woman comes in to the cab or to the, to, or rather the bus or to the room, a man needs to give up that seat or open a door for a woman or walk on the side of the sidewalk that faces the street.

Like all of these things were intended to create a distance, a barrier between what a man is and what a woman is and remind the man that he had a responsibility to protect as you're saying but also to this is the gentle part of it to be to be kind and to be gracious and to hold the umbrella and you know, make sure that she doesn't suffer as much as possible and take that suffering themselves.

I mean, this is the example we have in Christ, obviously supremely as the one who suffered for the sins of his people and took his responsibilities before the father very seriously.

So our wives are our ministries if we're married. And if we're not married, we treat women like sisters and mothers, and we still do some of those same things to protect them.

So, so all of those traditions have been, I think important. You're not going to find all of that in the

Bible, but I think what you see is an erosion of that. Like I was seen as quaint for opening my wife's door, right when we were dating.

And like, that was something that I don't, I don't know. I don't want to judge any of my friends, but I, it wasn't something that was even understood,

I think by most of them and or many of them. And that was something that I took seriously as you know, that, that was my responsibility.

I felt that was just, it was it's symbolic, but it means that, Hey, I've I'm protecting you.

You're with me. I've got you. And and I think what happened, you, you mentioned the 1960s, but if you look at like media, even, you know, in the eighties and then in the seventies, eighties, nineties.

And of course, for a lot of this, you might remember it. I have to, you know, go to history books to find out about what happened.

But like, you see the transition from like a John Wayne to a Clint Eastwood, right. Or Rambo or so, you know born

Arnold Schwarzenegger character. Like a lot of those characters I'll pick Clint Eastwood's roles in the seventies and eighties, like John Wayne didn't like him.

They, in fact, there was a, there's a story like John Wayne and Clint Eastwood were going to someone wanted to cast them in the same movie.

And John Wayne was like, I won't do a movie with Clint Eastwood. He shot someone in the back, you know, it was like, he broke the code.

And and Clint Eastwood's character was often this anti -hero, but I think what you see there is like a version of masculinity, kind of like a rebellion against the feminism.

But the rebellion was we're going to be men in an evolutionary sense, an animalistic sense where men, we have strength.

We're going to use that strength to our benefit, but we're going to get rid of the code like, or the, the, the moral guidelines that would have made a man in previous times, you know, limit themselves.

We're going to get rid of that, take away the limitations and it's just raw masculinity without any, there's no meekness in it.

And I think that put a bad taste in people's mouths too, because they're like, well, I don't want that. If that's what being a man is, then that's terrible.

Right. And and so, you know, you, you have then these effeminate men who are trying to appeal to women who don't want that, but so they're trying to appeal to their sensitive side, but they've lost their masculinity.

They've, they've over -corrected to the point of like, you know, it's the masculinity that's the problem because it must be toxic.

And it's like, it's not the problem. It just needs to be channeled. And that's that's where I think more work needs to be done in Christian circles is how do we channel that?

It's not about beating your chest in the jungle and killing a, you know, a wild lion or something like, you know,

I'm not saying not to do that. Maybe that's a good thing to do, but, you know, it's more, it's about cultivating that virtue that says in any situation

I'm in, I know my responsibilities before God and I'm going to be obedient to them. Yeah.

And I mean, the world has flipped on their own head now. I mean, like you look, and we,

I previously talked about this on this, on this podcast with feminism. You look at first wave feminism, second wave feminism, third wave feminism, right?

First wave, it was women saying, hey, we're not just sex objects. You know, we have brains.

That was the sort of thinking. And now it's the idea is, well, we are sex objects.

That's how we control men. That's how we show we have power over men is to be nothing but a sex object. It's like they've completely flipped where the, the first wave feminists would be appalled at what is happening today with feminism because they've, they've gone right back to the worst and the same with the men where the men, it was the idea for manhood was that there was a respect for women.

There was, as you mentioned, this moral code we live by. Well, when that's gone, there's a complete disrespect for, for women.

Men are just brutes. They, you know, those that, or they're so feminized that they're, they no longer act like men.

And the problem with it that I ended up seeing is you, you have all of these liberals, they're, they're against rape, right?

And they'll be, they'll say they're for abortion because of the issue of rape. But the issue

I always bring up, are you really against rape? Do you watch pornography? Because one thing we know about every rapist, they started with pornography.

It doesn't mean everyone that watches pornography is going to be a rapist. Right, right, right. But we do know that every single sexual predator started with pornography.

Here's an idea, cut out the pornography. So if you're really going to say you're against rape, then you should be against pornography, right?

It's the number one thing. You're going to say you're against rape, then you should be for biblical manhood.

Stop watering down manhood so that men don't know and don't have a concept of what a man is to where they think it's either being a woman or being a brute.

That's right. That's right. Yeah. I mean, if they're really against rape, these, this is what they would do.

That's what Christians do, right? We define men as men and say, this is what men should be doing.

And we say, you shouldn't be looking at pornography. That why? Well, for many reasons, but one of them is we're against the whole rape culture that we see.

But when you tear this all down for the men and the women, where you make it where women should be out there having sex with multiple men, as many as they can have to show that they have power over a man.

And you teach men that they should be the brutes that they're looking at in pornography. And the women should be enjoying being treated that way.

And then they want to go, well, why is this culture this way? You're like, oh, and now we're going to have the Me Too movement. Well, you're contributing to it.

Don't complain about it. You're adding to it. You know, I don't think they really are against that movement.

They just want the benefits of that movement, but they're not really willing to stand up and say, you know, we got to step back from all this nonsense and say, men are men and women are women.

So let me ask this, to close out the show,

I want to let you talk a little bit about the conference, your goal in starting it and, you know, where you want to see it go.

What do you want to do with it? Why should people attend? I mean, I'll give some of the things of what

I really got out of it and where I saw the value of it. But I first want to let you kind of speak to the idea of the conference and what your goals are.

Yeah. Well, in 2020 and 2021, I spoke at a number of different churches on social justice, and I just realized that smaller venues, churches that, you know, they'll never make it out to a big conference, that people can't afford it, but you can bring the conference to them, was where I wanted to spend more of my time.

It was more rewarding. It felt more real. And, you know, there wasn't, what did you call it?

Something, the, not the black room, but the room before you, the green room. Thank you.

You're just yourself and people get to know the real you. And we hadn't at my own church, which is in Wappingers, New York, we had not done a men's retreat.

Usually we did them in the fall, but we hadn't done one for over a decade. And I just thought it'd be nice to revive that.

And I'll just advertise it. I'll just mention it on the podcast. And I mentioned it and we got a much bigger crowd than we would have had with just my church.

And so that last year became a conference. So I added an extra day and I just said, you know, there was two tracks.

You could go for the weekend or you could go for three days. And we, I got more speakers.

You were one of them. And then we had a few others and the intention was really just to give people, especially people in the area, there's not a lot in the

Northeast, an opportunity to fellowship with like -minded believers and encourage each other, enjoy what

I think is a relaxing time for a lot of them. It's a beautiful facility on a Lake in the Adirondacks.

It's a little bit of a challenge to get to just because it's out in the middle of nowhere. But once you're there, it's just,

I think so much more rewarding than being, let's say in Atlanta or at Los Angeles or Chicago at a conference where there's just tons of people and it's, you know, traffic and it's like this, all your meals are taken care of.

You're on a peaceful setting and you can just take time. You know, there's plenty of free time. You can pray, you can read the

Bible. So I thought it was somewhat maybe therapeutic. And so next year we're going to do the same thing.

My brother who runs the TrueScript website will probably have more of a role similar to the role that I did this past year.

So he'll be making some of those decisions, but we haven't picked speakers yet or anything, but we're probably going to do something very similar and maybe even add some things to it that'll make it even a better experience.

So yeah, I mean, it's not really that complicated. It's just men getting together, being men, learning about God's word, being able to interact with the speakers directly, staying there a few days, enjoying hiking and fishing, or just napping if you want to do that.

And yeah, and people who can't afford it, we try to do everything we can. We're able to get everyone who could not afford it there on scholarships and on, yeah, just the generosity of others.

So yeah. And that's kind of the heartbeat of Striving Fraternity, right, is to go into the smaller churches, bring that conference feel and conference event to them, to bring speakers in for a weekend, get people trained up and kind of spur on the local church.

And you're right, in the smaller setting, that was the thing, sitting around the fire every night as we'd sit around the campfire, just having discussions, getting to meet new people, getting to know people.

It really was encouraging to see. And here was the thing, one of the nights I got to the fire late and just instead of sitting down and just getting into conversations,

I actually just walked around there and listened, and just listening to all the different conversations.

And it wasn't what I generally see. No one was talking sports. Nobody was talking movies.

People were talking theology. People were talking about scripture. And that was the thing that got me was,

I mean, you mentioned the food, and I will say, you told me ahead of time that the food was good. And I thought, okay, it's going to be good camp food.

Okay. Yeah. It wasn't good camp food. It was good food. Yeah. I mean, that first night

I went there, we're like, okay, this is like good restaurant style food. This is not. So that surprised me, the scenery, the activities that are there, the places to hike, really set it apart from other conferences, just in the sense of there was times to go and do things with other men.

That's right. And just pour into one another and get poured into. There was a lot of counseling that went on.

I mean, your dad and I, Tom and I, there were different people. We'd just sit and have, I kept moving around.

So I wasn't sitting in the same place so that I could hopefully be with different people. Your dad did that.

Tom did that. And so as each of the speakers would move around and just get to know different people, it was just interesting to see some of the, just what we'd call counseling going on, the discipleship that was going on.

This is not something you're going to get if you go to one of these big conferences.

Oh, you'll get to see your friends again. The TruthScript conference happened to be at the time of another conference that was going on.

And it was interesting because I had a friend who went to that and he said, it's just too big. He's like, I didn't see any of the people

I know. And that you're not going to get at this. You're going to get a small group of people that get to know each other and start talking.

And there was real life on life. I have, I would say about half dozen to a dozen guys that over the course of one weekend were either asking me or someone else, whether it was one of the speakers or one of the other guys,

Hey, this is what's going on my life. How would I deal with this? That's what men need to be able to do with one another.

That's something that I saw come out of this conference that I thought was most encouraging.

The talks were good, not belittling them, but especially as one of the speakers, but each of the speakers on my podcast to discuss them.

But what I really got out of it was more than what you get out of other conferences, other conferences, what you typically get is the talks, the messages.

That's the selling point kind of for the conference. Yeah. You may get to meet some of the speakers.

Most of them are going to hang out in the green room, but you'll get some fellowship with other friends that you get to meet and know, but here you got to have real genuine heart to heart discussions with men, being able to be alone and just saying, as I did with one person, there's issues in his life, said, you know what, let's go off and just talk and walk away from where all the guys are and have a conversation that said some hard things.

That could be done at this TrueScript conference. So, I know it's a ways away. We're talking

September before the next one. Wouldn't be too bad to start planning for a vacation now, plan for, what was it, the first weekend in September?

The last weekend of September. So, I mean, we could plan now to make sure that, hey, know to have that weekend saved for vacation so that you can attend this conference.

Sorry, ladies, that's not for you. We've thought about doing something, but it does change the dynamic.

So, yeah, maybe another event at another time next year.

And two of our events for TrueScript are, you can have kids, men, women, whatever, but we have seen the benefit, as you're saying, in keeping this for men, because men will admit things and talk about things they would not if women were there.

It just changes the dynamic, because if you can believe it, men and women are different, apparently. Yes, they are.

Well, John, thanks for coming on. Thanks for helping to encourage us to be men. I'll recommend, again,

Conversations That Matter. Go check out TrueScript .com and check out what

John's doing. John, any other things you want to share with us? Oh, man, not really. Just, yeah,

I appreciate you having me on and good to see you. Yeah, it's good to see you again and look forward to seeing you again.