Dead Men Walking Podcast: C.R. Wiley throws down the gauntlet on masculinity and fatherhood

Dead Men Walking

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00:16

I'm almost coming a little too early every time. Sometimes I wonder if we should go back to one of the other five, 500 intros we came up with.

00:24

Oh boy. I know those intros. I say we are blessed though, to have someone like you who's who can just sit down and riff.

00:29

Oh no, man. And then it's like, ah, we don't like that one. Let's switch intros. Yeah. Right, right. It was always fun just getting in here with the guitar.

00:36

And I think we had one with a slide. That was a lot of fun. We'll get to it. We got a couple of gigs of audio save that we can go through one of these days and update it.

00:44

But I know you almost hold it for a beat and a half, which I like. Yeah. Always coming just a little bit early. Right, right.

00:49

Gotta wait for it. Yeah. How you doing, Jason? Pretty good, man. Just, uh, you know, enjoying the, uh, the

00:56

Michigan weather at the moment, I guess, if we have to talk about the weather every time we get on here.

01:03

I know. It's like weather hunting. Dude, the thing is, is like, if it goes from 20 to 60 and then we have a bunch of tornadoes in Kentucky, I think we,

01:13

I seriously think we had one go through. We might have. Where I, you know, it was crazy other than I, but, uh, but anyway, it's hard to stay away from that weather conversation at the moment.

01:23

Yeah. We'll get to it. It's Biden's climate change, right? That's right. That's what he said. Yeah. I mean, it's all climate change.

01:29

Right. But, uh, no, I'm doing good. Uh, I don't know. It was a fun week. We did a little mini vacation, uh, about 30 minutes from here, uh, got back in studio.

01:37

Good to see you as usual. I know we usually talk for a little longer, but I know, uh, we want to introduce this guest that we have on the line and, uh,

01:45

Jason, I am so glad that you reached out to him because I've watched his videos and in some of the content he has and his books are just amazing, but I'm gonna let you, you want to do the official intro?

01:55

Hey man, I am going to try to do this this week. So let's see, let's see what happens here.

02:00

So, uh, CR Wiley, um, we are actually going to refer to him as Chris.

02:06

We get to say today we get, we, we were given permission, so that's okay. That's how close we are. All right. Yeah, exactly.

02:11

Exactly. No, a great guy. Great guy. Love all of his content. I just want to read a little bit of his bio from his website.

02:17

Yeah. Um, he hated eighth grade so much that he took it twice. Okay. Fortunately his, yeah, his imagination filled in what the, what life left out.

02:27

He drew a lot and actually got pretty good at it besides writing for magazines and publishing books.

02:33

He has been a pastor, a college professor, a commercial real estate investor. Hey Greg.

02:39

Okay. Let's talk a landlord. Hey, well, no, you're not a landlord yet. And a building contractor, man, man.

02:46

Um, he has been happily married for over 30 years and he has three grown children.

02:51

He resides in the state of Washington. Um, he's written for so many magazines and, and he's written too many, um, uh, some great books, the household and the war for the cosmos was the one that gripped me.

03:04

And, uh, that's why I decided to get ahold of Mr. C .R.

03:10

Wiley. All right. Welcome. Well, thanks for having me guys.

03:16

I like that, that, uh, applause track. That's great. I should have that go with me through my life.

03:22

Every time I, every time I walk into a room, it should be turned on, tell people we hire a hundred people for each episode to our little garage.

03:34

I like your, I like your studio there. That's fun. I like that. I like the look of it. Yeah. It's so good to have you on Chris.

03:41

Uh, like we said in the intro, I mean, some of the stuff, the content you put out as speaks to me,

03:47

I know it speaks to Jason and it's, it's for the time. Yeah, it really is. And I know when Jason reached out to you, we, we didn't really have a specific thing, but we said, we know if we threw out some subjects here, uh,

03:58

Chris could really jump on board with biblical fatherhood, uh, masculinity, this day and age, right.

04:04

We wanted to cover, um, and we're going to get into those things, but I know first we want to do a little newsy news and we want your input.

04:11

So if you have something to say about a new story, we talk about that's going on in the culture this week, we'll throw it to you and we'll definitely get your input too.

04:19

But I'll do some news. Let's do it. Let's go. Let's go.

04:30

All right. All right. Yeah. It's Tom Askew approved. Newsy news. Thank you, Mr. Tom.

04:35

You can catch his reaction on our YouTube channel or reform funny moments. He loved it.

04:42

Yeah. Pretty much. So, uh, the first, uh, newsy news story is from AP news.

04:48

This was dropped on December 8th. Um, joining drag Queens on TV show costs,

04:55

Indiana pastor is Chuck. So yeah. So Reverend Greg Duke has been a

05:02

Methodist minister for three decades, building a reputation as a staunch advocate of his pastoral duties have now been terminated.

05:13

The result of a bitter rift surfacing in his Indiana church. After he sought to demonstrate solidarity by appearing in drag alongside prominent drag

05:24

Queens in the HBO reality series, we're here Duke 62 said he thought most of his 400 member congregation at Newburgh United Methodist church shared his inclusive views.

05:39

And he was taken aback when a prominent congregation member soon backed by other church goers circulated emails attacking him.

05:49

You have thrown NUMC under the bus to elevate a minority of individuals said one of the emails of another, according to Duke.

05:56

Yeah. So anyway. Okay. Yeah. So that's what happened. So basically he was too good. Yeah. Yeah.

06:02

For a United Methodist church. Yeah. Which is unbelievable. Well, you know, you see that you've seen this just more and more.

06:08

It's unbelievable. That's why I like to include everyone, right? I mean, with like the, you know, even like with voting, talking about the cultural

06:15

Marxism and all that stuff going on. I mean, we're seeing this crazy shift. And I know Chris talks about this all the time too, but it's, it's the normalization of these evil things, even within church denominations is, is insane.

06:27

Right. Exactly. It's we have a local ad running down here. We're in Michigan, but we're very close to Toledo, Ohio of a church.

06:34

And it's, you know, two men in their son. Oh, come to our church. You won't be judged. Come to our Christmas night special.

06:40

And it's like, what, what are we doing here? Right. I mean, what's going on, Chris? Are we just going to keep seeing more and more of this or what do we do as the church?

06:47

Well, I do think we'll see more and more of it. I think it's going to play itself out to a point where things just can't be sustained any longer.

06:58

But you know, I think the thing that we need to kind of remember is that the

07:03

United Methodist Church back in the day was sound. And when it came to biblical sexuality,

07:10

Orthodox, and it wasn't that back long ago, I know guys in that world.

07:16

I had a I had a friend who actually attended a church I pastored on Cape Cod, who was kind of the head of the conservative movement within United Methodism.

07:26

I've got a friend who pastors United Methodist Church, I believe in Oklahoma. And so there are still some some guys when it comes to the subject of, you know, biblical sexual ethics are sound.

07:41

We would disagree as reformed guys with them on, you know, the order salutist and things like that. But at least when it came to the question of right and wrong the law of God, you could say these guys and you know, we are on the same page.

07:54

But there were guys back in the day, who said it could never happen in the

07:59

United Methodist Church. And look where they are. And there are people who say the same thing about the

08:04

PCA, it could never happen here. But you know, I think it can. So I'm in the PCA, I don't know where you guys are, you know, put your put your, you know, where you guys are members.

08:16

But I think that it's just, you know, I think it's not something we we can take for granted.

08:24

I think that the is sort of the kind of the things that ought to concern us are already present in the

08:33

PCA. And there are people in the PCA who are aware of it, but whether or not, you know, our denomination, the denomination

08:41

I belong to is going to be able to address these things is yet to be seen. So we'll see how it all plays out there.

08:48

But also, you know, I went to Harvard, I went to Harvard Divinity School, I remember talking with people there in class when

08:56

I was a student about this kind of stuff. And these were progressives, these were people who would say, Oh, you're just slippery sloping, it'll never happen.

09:04

Well, I want you to know, I was right, they were wrong. But I suspect that they all they, they were not being honest,

09:13

I think they knew that the things were going where they are going or have gone. And they were actually anticipating it and hoping it would be the case they were just playing a little game of let's not get the conservatives to worked up.

09:27

Yeah, even you know, this was back in the 90s. So even in places like, you know, you know, the

09:32

United Church of Christ, which is the Congregationalist in New England, and even in places like that, people didn't want to go that far.

09:38

They didn't want to have drag queens as pastors. Here we are, you know, 2021.

09:45

And you can have that kind of thing, I take my hat off to whoever it was in his congregation that decided to this was one step too far.

09:53

But I tell you what, it was one step too far about 40 steps back. And it should have been addressed a long time ago there.

10:01

Yeah, yeah. Did you find up in the northeast? That there was more of a liberal outlook within the church?

10:11

I mean, I lived on Martha's Vineyard for four or five months, West Tisbury.

10:17

But yeah, I went to a very conservative church. But I mean, I just don't know. That was that was 20 years ago now.

10:25

So I just I just didn't know if it was turned a little bit more liberal than, you know, it had been, you know.

10:32

I think that in New England, I served in New England, as you know, for years, and I was actually on Cape Cod and been to the vineyard a few times.

10:41

I think that what you have in New England is they went through a kind of a,

10:48

I guess a crucible that the rest of the country is going through now, but they went through it like 30, 40 years ago.

10:56

So the churches that I remember who were sound and orthodox on Cape Cod, you know, when

11:01

I was there are still that way. But it's not because they were so much smarter, more spiritually,

11:10

I guess, responsive to God's spirit or anything like that. It's just that they they're kind of like been there, done that.

11:19

We are the church I belong to split over that in 1982. Oh, wow.

11:25

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I just didn't know if it got more progressive, you know, since.

11:31

Well, I will say, you know, I am a member of the

11:36

Southern New England Presbytery, even though I am in Washington State. There are things that are, you know, going on in some sort of areas of the reform world in New England that I'm concerned about.

11:50

Yeah, yeah, I hear you. No, it's crazy. I'm a product of the 80s and 90s. I'm an 80s kid.

11:55

And I just remember there was some like non -negotiables, right, nationally with churches on social issues.

12:01

And now they all seem to not only be negotiable, but yeah, being flaunted, right. Come pretty far in a short period of time.

12:09

Let's move on to the second one. So obviously we got to touch on this. This is being recorded a couple of days before you will be listening to it listeners.

12:15

But so you've heard that there was tornadoes. We alluded to it earlier at the opening, man, 50 different tornadoes that struck eight different states, including

12:24

Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi, Ohio, and Tennessee. And we even got some up here in southern

12:31

Michigan. Some of that weather, high winds, gusts, gales, trees down, things like that. They're estimating more than 100 people dead and at least 80 of those in Kentucky.

12:41

Yeah, but they're still counting. And man, we didn't even let the the wind die down.

12:47

And in the Biden administration already said, well, this is what happens when the planet warms up.

12:53

It's climate change. You clamp down. Well, yeah, at first it was global warming and then it was global cooling or global cooling.

13:00

That's right. That's right. Man. Time magazine in 1975. We're going into an ice age. We're all going to be frozen.

13:06

Ten years later in the 80s. Oh, it's global warming. We're all going to burn. And it's in the 90s. Now, well, now it's just climate change, hot or cold.

13:14

They don't know. They're right. There's one entity that knows and he's ruling and reigning on the throne right now.

13:21

I don't know. I kind of fall on on that, on the climate change thing, if we're going to touch on it. Right. Look, we have some type of impact, of course.

13:27

Right. I mean, there's laws of thermodynamics and energy being transferred and stuff like that. Is it to the extent that some paid scientists have said?

13:34

I don't think so. Right. We actually now have more ice in the South and North Pole than we did 50 years ago since we started measuring it.

13:43

But I think it's all control. I think it's, you know, control through taxation, control through regulation.

13:50

I mean, that's what the governments want. Yeah, that's what they do. What do you think, Chris? Obviously, our hearts go out to the families who lost people definitely in the in the tornadoes.

13:58

But is this the end times, man? Yeah. All right. Well, you know,

14:08

I'm pushing 60 and I've seen this kind of thing before. You know, I've seen big tornado outbreaks maybe a dozen times.

14:16

And my oldest son and his wife live in Nashville, and they told me a little bit about what they went through just today.

14:25

We were on the phone. But yeah, I mean, Club of Rome, I think it was 1972, the big study came out of the

14:30

Club of Rome and they were calling for all the same things you hear people calling for today. How long ago was that?

14:36

You know, it's what, going on 50 years. So I think I agree.

14:42

I think there's a lot of freaky alarmist kind of stuff. But I think a lot of these folks just justify their pay by getting people worked up and afraid and saying, you know,

14:52

I'm in charge and I'll help you out. So I just saw that if you guys are familiar with the old science fiction dystopian film,

15:01

Soylent Green. Yeah, it came out, I think, in like 1972. And it predicted the sort of a kind of a global ecological kind of overpopulation crisis.

15:16

And it stars Charlton Heston and the film is situated in 2022.

15:24

And in the film, the city of New York has like 40 to 50 million people. And it's just like this incredibly freaky situation in which people are actually recycling dead bodies to eat them.

15:35

And that's what Soylent Green is. But it's a big, it's a big, you know, sort of cover up no one's supposed to know.

15:42

But when I was a kid in the 70s, that's the kind of world we lived in, you know, we had Planet of the Apes, Omega Man, Soylent Green, it was a lot of nutty kind of environmental freak out just like there is today.

15:54

And so I've seen this movie before, you could say, and I've seen it more than once.

16:01

So this is like my third or fourth time through this alarmism. So I'm a little jaded. And you still didn't get caught up in the sky yet.

16:08

That's right. With the Nakey Crapture. Yeah. Right. Right.

16:13

No, it is kind of crazy. I mean, you know, age is a natural type of maturity.

16:19

Obviously, there's discernment and wisdom that we seek after in the Bible, but I'm 40 this year. And I'm already kind of going, yeah, history kind of repeats itself.

16:28

And that's also why I just do not understand how in this country, this is off subject, but it's always bothered me how we take our elders and those who have accumulated the most valuable commodity, which is time, they have the most of it.

16:42

And we just kind of ignore them. Right. I find when I'm with people, I find the guy who's done it, been there, made the mistakes.

16:50

Give me all 50 years of your business knowledge in five minutes. Exactly. I don't make those. It's like as fast as you can tell me all about the stock market.

16:58

You know, they're just looking at you like, I can't do that, kid. But, you know, yeah, it's true, though.

17:04

It's like, oh, man, when I started trading, I mean, it was it was one of those things. I was gobbling up all this information.

17:09

It's like you can you can get all the information you want. You can think that you're going to reinvent the wheel. But it's like, man, people have been trading on the stock market for ever.

17:17

So, you know, just take some wisdom from the guy that's already done and you'll make, you know, make a little bit of money.

17:23

But then again, go ahead and, you know, buy Shiba Inu, you know, Shiba Inu. That is not financial advice, by the way.

17:30

Just just making sure everybody knows that. Yeah, I can't entertainment purposes. You want to do one more? You want to bring it?

17:35

Yeah, no, let's go. Let's go and get in the subject. We've we've been kind of riffing quite a bit here. Oh, yeah.

17:41

Unless you want to. I just like doing this and that. Well, oh, there we go. OK. All right.

17:46

You have a buttery smooth voice there, Jason. Yeah, right. Yeah, exactly. Well, let's get into it.

17:52

So you talk a lot about this, Chris, and maybe we can just kind of start general and see where we go. My first inclination when we brought up these topics was the one that popped out to me is masculinity.

18:03

It seems to be this hot button word. We had, you know, first, second and third wave feminism now that has kind of tried to define it.

18:09

We have obviously biblical masculinity. We have secular masculinity, which I would say for a long time kind of modeled biblical masculinity.

18:18

Now we see that kind of like what's going on. Is it important to understand what masculinity is? Is there a difference between biblical masculinity and secular masculinity?

18:26

Should we be teaching our children and our friends and people that we come in contact with how to model masculinity?

18:32

What what are you thinking? Well, yes. All right.

18:39

Thanks a lot for having me. Yeah, right. Yeah, I think that men and women are different.

18:44

That's where I start. I believe that this is scripted to creation. So I don't think that our efforts to kind of homogenize or make androgynous, you know, human beings is going to work.

19:00

I think that we're in a period of time where people have confused freedom with a kind of, well,

19:08

I guess I guess autonomy where you just can kind of like make it all up from scratch or zero.

19:18

So I think that we'll come through this period of time. It may take a while for it to play itself out, but I think we'll come out on the other side of this time and we'll and our and our children or our grandchildren or great grandchildren will look back and all the craziness that we're experiencing at the moment and say, what were they thinking?

19:36

What was going on? So I think that kind of getting back in touch with just fundamental truths and not freaking out about a whole all this other kind of stuff, but just kind of holding on to those things and sort of weathering the storm is what we need to do.

19:51

When it comes to the subject of masculinity, I think that men and women were made for each other, which means that they're not made sort of interchangeably.

20:02

They're not intended to to sort of be swapped out so that whenever you end up with some kind of attempt to, you know, live without the other half, women trying to live without men or men trying to live without women is just nuts.

20:17

It just doesn't work. And furthermore, it's sterile. You know, we need each other to to have another generation.

20:24

So all this kind of stuff is, in my mind, just basic creation truth.

20:30

And we just need to stay in touch with that kind of thing. That basic creation truth is the you know, the reality that has been established by the creator.

20:40

And it also serves as a basis for understanding redemption. And that's one of the things I got into in my book,

20:46

Household and the War for the Cosmos. So when it comes to doctrine, we cannot afford to go soft on these matters.

20:54

We we defend these truths, not because of some political or or cultural, you know, agenda.

21:02

We defend these truths because we're we're we're speaking to reality. We're saying these things are real and true.

21:10

And our understanding, even of salvation, the world to come depends on our understanding these truths.

21:17

So I think these things are, you know, just realities. Now, when it comes to masculinity, I think that there are certain characteristics that we associate with masculinity.

21:28

And I think these these things have been. They've been slandered in the last 30 plus years.

21:39

And when you when you're slandered, I mean, if we think about it just as a human being, you know, if you if you've been slandered, one of the things that is sort of,

21:50

I think, paradoxical about having to live with slander is that the more you protest, the better you look or the worse you look.

21:59

In other words, you know, without protest is too much. You know, the kind of. Yeah. I think you just kind of have to live it down.

22:04

I just think you have to kind of because I do think because these things are real, you just you continue to, you know, live accordingly.

22:13

But and you do present, you know, a reason defense when you're asked for one or when one is required.

22:22

But you don't get too worked up about having to to carry the day because reality carries the day.

22:29

In the end, you just say this is just the way the world is made. Show me what you got.

22:35

So so like I lived in Cambridge, I lived right between Harvard and MIT for a decade. I have lots of encounters with people who disagree with me about just about everything.

22:46

Yeah. And and I would say, you know, in effect, show me what you got. What do you got?

22:52

Prove prove it. You know, yeah, I hear your your your critiques. I give you some, you know, points for some things that you, you know, you know, are saying.

23:04

But, you know, show me a better way and and not just, you know, a couple of snapshots of a couple of lesbians with a kid.

23:13

Yeah. Show show me what you got over generations. Yeah, sure. So prove it.

23:19

Prove you can do what you're what you're talking about. Now they know they can't. They know they always shut down at that point.

23:26

But I think that's kind of where we are. God argues with by by his judgments in the real world.

23:34

God doesn't spend a lot of time worrying about whether or not he's winning an argument. You know, one way

23:39

God wins the argument is just saying, OK, you're dead. You're you're off the stage.

23:52

You wanted it your way. OK, I'll give it to you your way. Really hard.

23:58

Yeah, exactly what you want. And you're dead. Yeah, I am life.

24:05

You are not. You depend on me. I don't depend on you. This is just the way it works.

24:11

So now, you know, we may not live to see the day when what we know is common sense is common again.

24:20

But it will come back. It just because they've got no game.

24:26

So like another thing I do when I talk to these folks is I say, OK, I'm going to make a prediction.

24:34

Everybody who thinks like you is dead in 100 years. You have no children. You're not having children.

24:40

And the only way you can pass on what you have to the next generation is by taking over institutions that instruct other people's children.

24:48

That's the that's your strategy. You're like the Shakers. That's the that's the game they played. So in terms of the long game, it's either us, the

24:57

Christians or the Muslims. What do you want? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which people. Great.

25:02

What do you prefer? Yeah. I mean, I remember growing up and, you know, with with Rocky macho man,

25:11

Randy Savage, you know, Hogan, baby. I mean, you know, all these like really, really manly, tough, you know,

25:18

Arnold Arnold. I mean, you know, pumping iron, everything like that. And I mean, my dad, you know, he was he was always like, yeah, yeah.

25:25

You know, run around the room, get get strong, do pushups, whatever, you know. And now, I mean, it's like you're looked down upon.

25:32

If you you know, if you have that type of toxic masculinity, toxic masculinity.

25:40

Yeah, exactly. You know, and it's just very unfortunate where, you know, cancel culture has just attacked the man role in the manly.

25:52

Well, should we call it manly role in the family? Just as as a husband, as a leader, as you know, the role model to their children, you know, it makes me think of Ephesians five twenty five husbands.

26:05

Love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word.

26:16

But, you know, in the verses prior to wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. So that word submit,

26:23

I mean, whenever I really feel like whenever someone in the that's outside of the reformed community, here's that word submit.

26:32

It's it's like this. Yeah, it's like this, you know, we're all of a sudden, you know,

26:38

Islam, you know, or something like, you know, like, yeah, chauvinist. We're pushing them around, you know, like that is horrible.

26:44

Like if anybody's doing that out there, don't do that to your wife. Oh, my gosh. Well, you know, and we've said it before.

26:50

Just remember the command we have as men. OK, the wives have to submit. I have to die. Yeah. All right.

26:55

I have to lay my life down as Christ laid down his life for the church. So I would say we might even have the greater command there.

27:01

But what you were talking about, Chris, when you were talking, what's going on in my head is, OK, so we know it's the created order, right?

27:08

We have we have a biblical worldview that says we understand the created order. But I talk to unbelievers, atheists, secularists, and they'll even admit.

27:17

Yeah, there is a tendency towards they'll say nature or the natural.

27:22

Right. And I go, OK, so we know when I really get down to it and I talk to a female friend,

27:29

OK, and none of them go, oh, I want to be alone 40 years old without kids, but I want to have a killer career.

27:36

Even the ones that do say that, if you actually dig down a little bit, they're ultimately going, well, I would really like a man in my life that can provide for me and I can nurture children.

27:45

And right now, saying that event, it seems you could be called sexist for what I just said, right?

27:51

Yeah, exactly. But my work canceled now. It kind of that's right. Thanks for being on our last show. We're canceled.

27:58

That's a YouTube and Facebook doesn't like this at all. I think. All right. But my question to you guys are so you have people that are unbelievers that might not even have a biblical worldview, but they still understand the natural order.

28:10

We know it's the created order. They say, oh, nature. Right. Men are from what is it? Men are from Mars. Women are from Venus. Whatever.

28:15

Yeah. Why is there such an acceptance and even a push for this kind of toxic masculinity?

28:23

Yep. We don't want it. Yep. Except the trans stuff, except the homosexual stuff, except the divided family stuff, except the women leaders.

28:30

Yeah. The strong, you know, masculinity within women. Like, why are we wanting that when deep down even unbelievers understand that there's a natural order and a created order?

28:42

You know, why do you think that our society is seeking after that when they when they even know it's unnatural?

28:51

I guess that's not really a good word to use. But I mean, what do you think that is, Chris? I mean, it's almost like we're seeking after something that will eventually destroy us, even knowing better deep down.

29:02

Is that a that a bad premise or no? I don't know. Yeah, I think that's right. I think that we've seen it before, too.

29:09

It's one of the one of the one of the people that's a helpful guide in this respect.

29:15

And this is not a full endorsement of what this person says. This is more when you hear it from someone like this, then you really know that they have no kind of axe to grind.

29:24

That's going to kind of serve your own agenda. Right. Camille Paglia, I'm not sure if you guys have ever heard of her, but she's teaches at an art school in Philadelphia.

29:36

But she wrote a book years ago entitled Sexual Persona. She's a lesbian and she's a kind of a.

29:47

Well, a kind of a bomb thrower in a sense that she says things that make a lot of people kind of crazy.

29:55

She upsets a lot of people. But she she's good at her analysis of kind of the cycles of civilizations in history.

30:03

And even this transgender stuff, she says, we've seen this like five times, you know, in different civilizations, at different points,

30:10

Rome, Egypt, et cetera. And there are certain conditions that seem to be in place every time.

30:17

And one of those conditions is kind of a kind of a situation we find ourselves in in our culture today where you've got decadence and decadence.

30:29

Oftentimes, when we think about decadence, we think about decadence exclusively in terms of the excesses, sort of this, you know, particularly the sexual excesses that you see in a decadent society.

30:40

But what what decadence is really kind of a symptom of is a deep loss of confidence in the purpose for your civilization.

30:51

So people are no longer willing to make sacrifices. People are no longer willing to do the kinds of things that say the greatest generation did.

30:59

You know, when we think about the greatest generation, the World War two guys, you know, you know, depression, all that kind of stuff.

31:05

Now, it's it's worth it's worth remembering that the generation prior to the greatest generation was also considered decadent.

31:15

You know, the Weimar Republic, you know, you got all the stuff going on, the Roaring Twenties, you know, you got the

31:20

Great Gatsby, all that kind of stuff. There was a lot of what we see today then, too. And it took a crisis to kind of bring people back to reality.

31:32

So I think that a lot of the stuff we see today in our society, generally speaking, is people living on borrowed time, people living on borrowed capital, people living on knowing all the while that there's going to be a payday, but they're trying to get it while the getting is good.

31:51

They're trying to get what they can while they can. And, you know, we're talking about people that don't have, you know, the spiritual disciplines or virtues to kind of get their act together without the kind of the kind of the crisis that that calls it forth.

32:10

So I think that we're heading for some hard times and those hard times are going to be very salutary in the sense that they're going to help people get back in touch with reality.

32:19

One of the reasons why we see a lot of this nonsense, you know, you can make fun of masculinity when you don't really think you have anyone to fear.

32:30

Yeah, that's good. Yeah. But the moment that we are in a, you know, life and death struggle with the

32:39

Chinese, when when when we go from Cold War to hot, all that crap is going to go out the window and suddenly it's going to be

32:47

Arnold Schwarzenegger movies over again. Yeah, I can't wait for those on Christmas.

32:55

But but I do think that's the thing. I you know, a lot of these a lot of these people just there.

33:01

You know, why should I why should I think why should I, you know, look to a woman who has never really faced physical hardship, who's never really faced any kind of significant physical challenge as a guide.

33:18

For how I should live my life as a man. Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Woman, you don't have any. You don't have anything to tell me.

33:25

If if the if the, you know, things really got bad, you'd be hiding behind me.

33:31

Yeah. Yeah. So why should I look at you as a source of, you know, an authority when it comes to what it means to be a man?

33:39

You have nothing to tell me. Hmm. Yeah. So good. And I know we're kind of focusing on men here, but I kind of think we had it in our head to kind of make it a more for for men kind of episode.

33:52

Yeah. If we could. I know we talked about masculinity. Did you have something you wanted? No, no, no. Go ahead. I was going to see if we could shift gears a little bit.

33:58

So we talked a little bit about masculinity and kind of what it means and define. So going to that, then we look at what is biblical fatherhood, because I even know of some brothers in the

34:10

Lord who are self -professed Christians who understand what masculinity maybe should be, but don't understand the role, the role of a biblical father, right?

34:21

Biblical man and a biblical father. And they're almost getting caught up in this. And it's usually the younger generation, the guys younger than me.

34:29

It's happy wife, happy life mentality, right? That's not a bad mentality to have, though, you know, but you can't be your only mentality, right?

34:39

So so maybe we talk a little bit about maybe you can give out some a couple of bullet points, too, of how you view biblical fatherhood and biblical manhood, then.

34:50

Chris, what do you think? Well, I think that barring some kind of physical problem and barring a call to celibate life like the

35:02

Apostle Paul, then every man should aspire to be a father. And if that's something that you you understand, then, you know, naturally, you're going to look for a wife that, you know, you want to to be the mother of your children, a woman that possesses the kind of virtues and and character traits and that will complement you is, you know, as the mother of your children.

35:33

So, you know, those things in mind, if that's if that's kind of the starting point, then, you know, it kind of proceeds from there.

35:41

I think a lot of the guys that I suspect a lot of the guys you're referring to, Greg, these young guys who are kind of looking to understand, say, masculinity or fatherhood or manhood, almost in a vacuum without reference to children and or a wife are kind of a kind of kind of living in their own heads, you know, or they're living with a kind of red pill, you know, manosphere set of definitions.

36:13

One of the things that's been encouraging to see in the manosphere, I don't know if you guys ever gotten into that world or thought about it at all.

36:19

So a lot of those guys are coming to Christ. A lot of them are, you know, moving in a direction where they've, you know, they've they've, you know, had about as many women as you can have.

36:31

They've done about as many things as they as you can do. And they're empty. Yeah. They've had all the experiences they've, you know, they've done all the things that they that they learned you could do in a

36:41

James Bond movie. Yeah. And now they're finally like, well, you know, I feel empty.

36:47

Why is that? Well, it's because, you know, you were made to be a father and a husband, you know, that's, that's part of God's, you know, sort of purpose for all of those masculine things that you were engaged in without kind of an actual purpose to serve that bigger than your own ego.

37:08

Yeah. So, yeah, I'd say that, you know, when you get in touch with that, then it, then it takes you on a journey.

37:15

How do my masculine virtues serve somebody beside my own ego? And then when you get to that point, then everything changes.

37:25

And women can actually look at, you know, masculine traits as a gift rather than a threat. Because I think most women or many, many women in our society today, whether they, because they've been raised to think this way, or just because of bad men they've known, think of those masculine sort of characteristics as being ways for men to kind of take advantage of them.

37:47

So, you know the only way you can address that is kind of live it down and, you know, and that's by doing it the right way.

37:56

Correct. Yeah. Yeah. No, he's so right. Yeah. Yeah. No, this is awesome. I feel like I'm listening to the theology podcast right now.

38:04

I love it. If you guys haven't heard the theology podcast, it's one of our favorite. Glenn Sunshine.

38:10

Yeah. It's C .R. Wiley and Dr. Thomas Price. Just such a great podcast.

38:15

I'm always listening to it. Rewinding. What did he just say? Oh my gosh. These guys are so smart. But yeah, no,

38:23

I was going to ask, can you kind of speak on the traits of a biblical man, you know, just like the, that side of, you know, the role of a man, you know, it used to be cool to be, to, to seek after holiness, you know, but now it's like, it'll look out of vogue.

38:42

Yeah. Yeah. It's like, what are you trying to do now? God's going to forgive you for everything. Just keep going.

38:48

You stamped your ticket. You do a pretty good Joel Osteen. Hey, thank you.

38:53

I got 600 grand in this wall over here. Right. Right.

39:00

But yeah. Yeah. All these we're looking for. Yeah. We got to spend listening. Yeah. I think certainly pursuing holiness is important, but we expect our wives to do that too.

39:11

So that's a, that's the thing that we're all supposed to do men and women. Yeah. Um, I think the, that my friend, uh,

39:18

Aaron Ren reflects on this a lot. I don't know if you guys are familiar with Aaron, but you know, he, he noted that there were these guys, uh, you know,

39:26

I won't name any names, but they, they, they kind of peddled this idea that if you were, you know, uh, a really, you know, uh, kind of sensitive

39:35

Christian guy that girls would find you attractive. And, uh, what that was, it was a ticket to the friend zone for many, many guys.

39:45

What girls are looking for is not, uh, you know, along that line, what girls are often looking for.

39:52

They don't necessarily know how to put into words. It's not like they are like got a list of character traits and they're checking them off or something like that.

39:59

It's kind of a feel. Um, and so I've talked to my daughter about this. I've talked to my daughter -in -law,

40:05

I've got two daughters, daughters -in -law and I've, you know, just kind of said it, you know, it kind of taught thinking out loud with them about, about this whole thing.

40:12

And one of the things that my, but all, all three of the young ladies that I'm related to say is that they really want a guy who's got a plan, you know, and the plan is not them.

40:26

It's not just kind of living for them. It's, it's, it's more like, like the dude on the bike who says,

40:32

Hey, babe, I'm going somewhere. Nice. Want to come with me? That's the kind of guy.

40:39

That's it. Those are the kinds of guys girls like with a plan who's going somewhere and he's got enough confidence to, to say, this is what

40:49

I'm going to do. And I'd like some, some, someone to go with me. Uh, would you like to come with me?

40:54

Now that doesn't mean that a woman necessarily has nothing in her life that has to, uh, anything to do with, uh, or nothing to do with, with a guy, you know, a woman's can still have her own interests in her own, you know, pursuits and stuff like that.

41:08

But, but, uh, what, what, what, what a, what a woman finds attractive is a, is a man who's moving somewhere.

41:14

If you think about it this way, when you're sitting like on your, on your front porch and you're looking out over a big field and you see some movement in the distance, it catches your eye.

41:24

And you know, the same thing with a woman and a man, she sees some movement, he's going somewhere, it catches her eye.

41:32

And so, you know, she's like, well, what's, what's he doing? Right. You know, what's, what's he up to? Uh, is it look like he's going to actually be able to pull it off?

41:42

Those kinds of things. So, you know, she's thinking about this now, like I said, she doesn't necessarily spell it all out or have it written all down.

41:53

It's kind of a feel. And a lot of guys, uh, have failed to kind of, uh, well, they failed to pick up on those, those things.

42:02

And so they're not, they're not behaving in ways that make them attractive.

42:08

Uh, and when it comes to this, the matter of submission, I think one of the things we lose sight of when we talk about that is what do we want women to submit to us for?

42:19

Hmm. Get me a beer, baby. Is that, is that, is that where it stops?

42:26

Is that, is that a, is that all we're talking about? Are we talking about our household has a mission and we're going someplace.

42:35

And, uh, there are certain things I know to do that. I need some, I need you to support me in, and, uh,

42:42

I'm the only person who can do these things. So, uh, come along and, uh, and submit to me and, and, you know, in this matter.

42:49

So I think that, you know, the larger picture is the thing. So it's not about the obliteration of a woman's personality or interests or gifts or anything like that, or always feeling like she's like put down or anything like that.

43:02

It's, it's about, okay, what are we doing here? Like when you're in the army, you know, and you're given a command, you know, there's, you know, there's no need to justify it because we have a mission and the mission is to win.

43:16

We want to win. If we're going to win, we all have to work together. And that means that there has to be somebody in charge to kind of sort of direct us in the, in the effort and all that kind of stuff.

43:25

And just because you're in charge too, doesn't mean you, you can't take advice. Yeah. Yeah. It's just going to say that.

43:30

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. You know, your, your wife might have an insight into something that you have no clue about.

43:36

And if she says, Hey, I really think that you need to keep this in mind. Don't just dismiss it and say, ah, you know, you're supposed to just do what you're told.

43:47

No, you're like, Oh really? Okay. What am I missing here? Explain it to me. Uh, that kind of stuff.

43:52

And then if she's right, you know what leadership does? Leadership says, this woman is right.

43:58

We're going to do this. That kind of thing. So yeah.

44:05

Yeah. Go ahead. I'm sorry. No, I was just going to say you're absolutely right. Because even Doug Wilson talks a little bit about like CEO verse kind of executor, right?

44:12

He gives that analogy. And I've been in some positions before where I've had to lead team members and most successful CEOs or leaders of teams usually are in a consensus style management to where you do take into account, uh, the, the advice and maybe the plans of others.

44:27

Ultimately it is up to that team leader, but a good leader does take advice. And a man,

44:33

I, if there's any young men out there listening or people who, you know, men who have just gotten married or young in their marriage, absolutely a, a, a, a, uh, you know, a godly woman will give godly advice.

44:45

And I've always said, my wife has the perfect trick because I'm one of these guys that get real excited about something, a project we're going to do it.

44:51

Let's go, you know, and I should go, no, you know, maybe give some pushback or some advice. And then if we kind of are still, you know, not set on where we go, she goes, okay, well just go, go to the

45:02

Lord in prayer. And if he says we're to do it, then we could do it. It's like, oh man, excited about something you want to do, you know, but if we're the head of the house, the wife's definitely the neck because the neck has to turn the head.

45:18

Oh yeah. Happy wife. It's, it's fun that you mentioned

45:24

Doug. Doug's a friend of mine. You may know. And I've been in Doug's house several times. I've had my wife and, and I, and he and Nancy have had dinner, you know, several times.

45:34

And I've said, I've been in situations where I've been with his entire family. I've seen him with his kids, his grandkids and all that kind of stuff.

45:40

And he is not what people think. Everything you think is the case is not the case.

45:49

I've been in settings where everybody else is talking and Doug is just sitting there smiling, kind of like watching what's going on.

45:56

And, and, and when you're with Nancy and Doug, Nancy's talking about 80 % of the time just so people know.

46:07

Well, let's, as we kind of finish this out here, I did want to get onto one more subject here because entrepreneurship, because I know in your bio, you said you're a commercial real estate investor.

46:19

I'm a commercial and residential broker for about 10 years. Jason is an investor in day trade day.

46:27

Can I say, yeah, so we both own our own businesses.

46:32

That's why we, so we can do weird stuff like this, which all glory to God. But that kind of piqued my interest when you said,

46:39

Hey, woman's looking for a man with a plan. Um, we kind of both jumped, you know,

46:44

I left a six figure job with health insurance to go home and let's go start a real estate business in 2010 when real estate, you know what

46:51

I mean? But it's a long story. There was a certain reason why we did it. Um, but at the same time had a plan, had a wife who supported it, just like how you have a wife that supports what you're doing now.

47:03

So you're talking to two guys who kind of jumped off the cliff into the deep end. And then I saw that you're doing a dabbling in some investment.

47:10

So did, well, I guess one, I'd like to know about your investment a little bit, just kind of talk about that on a personal level, but to like having a plan, right?

47:18

Like, like Jason and I kind of, uh, said, well, yeah, we have a plan. Let's do something crazy.

47:23

And our wives were more than supportive because either, I don't know, they saw the, the, the, the twinkle in her eye.

47:34

I can't work at Ford motor company anymore. Right. No. Right. But what's, so what, what's your, uh, what do you got going on in real estate right now?

47:41

That's just a personal interest since I'm in real estate too. Yeah. Well, I've, I've, I've kind of dialed back over the years.

47:48

At one time I had 18, uh, tenants in three States in new England. So I was pretty deep in, um,

47:55

I sold everything before the crash in 2008. So I, I saw it coming. Anyone who tells you that no one saw it coming is, is, is clueless.

48:05

A lot of people saw it coming, people on the ground, by the way, Greg, you got back in at a good time in 2010, that was exactly the time you should get in.

48:14

So, uh, but I think, um, you know, so I still have properties back in Connecticut.

48:19

My, my second son, uh, manages them for us. And, um, so, uh, you know,

48:26

I'm still gotta, gotta, uh, you know, my, my feet in the water there, I'm actually involved in something that may develop into something out here in Washington.

48:34

I'm actually a, uh, I'm actually on the advisory board of a pretty significant, um, property, uh, development company in Seattle.

48:45

I'm actually, I'm actually the theological consultant. Oh, that's awesome.

48:51

Wait a minute. How does this work? Yeah. They, they, they even pay me, but it's one of these things where I'm like, you know, like you remember the old bat

48:57

Batman show, you know, with the bat phone, you got like the, the theological consultant phone. Yeah.

49:04

It's, it's a, it's a lot of fun. All the, obviously the, the, all the principals are believers and, um, and they approached me because they had read my books.

49:12

So, um, uh, so I'm involved in some things that may develop into some fairly significant stuff, uh, with those guys.

49:20

So, uh, that's kind of where I am now, in terms of how you guys got into it. The fact that your wives said, sure, let's go for it is great.

49:27

Yeah. Um, the thing that kills a lot of entrepreneurial drive for, for men is when their wives don't believe in them and to say, no,

49:37

I can't, I can't go with you. Now there can be different reasons why it may not have anything to do with the guy. It may have to do with her background.

49:43

It may have to do with her own fears, those kinds of things. Um, but it's huge.

49:48

It's really huge. So like my wife, she came from a family of real estate investors. So my wife is like the uber feminine type.

49:56

You know, she, she actually literally is, she actually is kind of a cross between a beautician and a kindergarten teacher. So she's like the ultimate, you know, and she teaches piano.

50:04

So she's got, oh, you know, this, this, and she's a, she's a pastor's wife. And, and she's a very loved by the churches that we've served.

50:12

But, you know, for her, you know, when I said, Hey, this is back in like 1994,

50:18

I said, yeah, we're going to buy a two family. She was like, right. Uh, of course that's what you do.

50:30

Right. Right. So that gives you a little bit of background on me. Yeah, no, no.

50:39

I I've enjoyed this a lot. Um, uh, Glenn sunshine may have a little bit competition here.

50:44

I think you may have turned into the favorite over here. We love Glenn and he is so cool, but no, thank you so much for your time,

50:53

Chris. We really appreciate it and we would love to have you back on. I know we, we dug into a lot there guys, and you know, hopefully, uh, we can have him back on maybe, maybe do a two part, something.

51:05

I don't know. We'll see. We'll see if he still likes us or not. Well, I'd, I'd love to,

51:10

I'd love to come back. Uh, thanks for having me. I think one of the things would be fun to talk about is how you can be a pastor and do all this other stuff.

51:17

Yeah. So I really do think that over the years, my, uh, my involvement in these other, uh, spheres has actually, uh, benefited my ministry, not take anything away.

51:32

Wow. That's awesome. Well, that's a good, nice teaser for another episode. We had out, uh, we'll link this up on our pages and everything, but tell people where they can get ahold of you on social media.

51:41

Um, any new books you got out, anything you need them to go check out that you have on the horizon. Yeah, well,

51:46

I've got a number of books that you can get, you know, anywhere you buy books, but, uh, I got a new one that should be coming out this week called in the house of Tom Bombadil.

51:55

And, uh, it's obviously a Tolkien thing and it's supposed to be out in all formats, or it was supposed to be out in all formats on the 14th, uh, which is

52:04

Tuesday this coming week. But it turns out because of the supply chain stuff that only the audio book and the digital book will be available.

52:12

The other physical book is like on a boat. So, so, so you don't know what

52:19

I'm talking about. Well, that just means our listeners need to go by both. Right.

52:24

Right. Go by the audio and then go by. Yeah, there you go. Absolutely. How about social media?

52:30

Are you active out there anywhere? Well, yeah, I'm on Facebook. I don't do anything on Twitter.

52:36

Um, I, I got tired of being awakened, you know, in the middle of the night with lesbians trying to, uh, get me canceled.

52:42

So I said, I said, I'm done with this. Awesome. Well, Chris, we appreciate you coming on.

52:52

Uh, it was such a good conversation. I know we went a little bit long, but it was worth it. Um, guys, as always, we appreciate you listening.

52:59

Uh, be sure to check out some of the stuff and we'll link up to Chris's books and in his, uh, stuff on our page.

53:06

And then make sure you check out dmwpodcast .com too. We have all kinds of new merch out there. I can still get to you in time for Christmas and we appreciate you listening, sharing the podcast.

53:14

That's the only way, uh, that we grow. We don't do any advertising here. Uh, just strictly you guys hearing the guests and hearing us talk and then sharing it with a friend and hopefully bringing glory to God in the process.

53:25

Jason, anything before we're out? Thank you guys. All right, guys, as always, God bless. Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Instagram at dead men, walking podcast for full video podcast episodes and clips, or email us at dead men, walking podcast at gmail .com.