May 29, 2017 Show with Christopher Wiley on “Man of the House: A Handbook for Building a Shelter That Will Last in a World That is Falling Apart”

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Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

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Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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Now here's our host, Chris Arntzen. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet

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Earth who are listening via live streaming. This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Monday on this beautiful Memorial Day, May 29th, 2017, and I'm so delighted to have back on the program a guest that I haven't had on the new

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Iron Sharpens Iron Radio as of yet, but he had been a guest on several occasions on the old

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Iron Sharpens Iron, broadcasting out of Long Island, New York on WNYG and WGBB radio.

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I am speaking of Pastor Christopher Wiley, also known as C .R.

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Wiley. He is an ordained Nazarene pastor and urban missionary for 20 years, a former adjunct professor of philosophy at Eastern Nazarene College in Quincy, Massachusetts, but he embraced the

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Reformed faith and he is a senior contributing writer at TheImaginativeConservative .org,

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and he's a writer and blogger at Patheos and MortimusClay .com. He currently serves as the senior pastor of the

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Presbyterian Church of Manchester, Connecticut, which is a congregation in the PCA denomination, also known as the

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Presbyterian Church of America, and he is the author of a book we are going to be discussing today,

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Man of the House, a handbook for building a shelter that will last in a world that is falling apart.

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Quite a mouthful, that title, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron after a long absence,

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Pastor Christopher Wiley. Well, thanks, Chris. I'm really glad to be here. I'm glad to have you here and in studio with me is my co -host, the

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Reverend Buzz Taylor. Hello once again. Good to be here. Hey, Buzz. And before we go into the subject,

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I think that we have to at least give a summary of your journey from Arminian theology when you were in the

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Church of the Nazarene, and this is not meant to be a slam against my brethren and friends in the

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Church of the Nazarene or the Wesleyan denomination or Arminians in general.

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It's just a matter of fact that our guest went through a transformation, and since I happen to be personally a

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Reformed Baptist who is a Calvinist, and I think that this was a progression in his theology, so I'd like you—we had

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Pastor Chris years ago on Iron Sharpens Iron give a full one -hour version of his testimony, but perhaps you could just give us a summary, starting with the theology or religion that you were raised in, if any, and how that progressed from that to becoming a

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Nazarene pastor and then actually coming to the doctrines of Sovereign Grace. Well, sure.

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I'm happy to share that story. I was born into a home that was very nominally

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Episcopalian. My father was an academic, and he was at the

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University of Buffalo in New York and then later at Washington University in St.

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Louis, and this was the 60s, early 70s, when things were pretty crazy, if you recall, in terms of people looking for answers and so forth.

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It's crazy now, but it was a different kind of crazy. Yeah, and I was one of those crazy people. Right. So he began a quest that took him through Mormonism, the

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Baha 'is. He was a Unitarian Universalist for a very brief time, and then he became a

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Scientologist, and that's where he still is today. He actually lives in Clearwater, Florida, kind of down there in the

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Mecca of Scientology. But he was involved with that, and if you know anything about Scientology, you know it's pretty expensive to be a

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Scientologist. Yes. It takes a real toll on you and your family and so forth. It led to the breakup of our home, and my mother became mentally ill, and I ended up in a housing project with the ward of the state and spent some time in a foster home.

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But it was during that period of time that I was befriended by a Nazarene preacher's kid.

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So I'm grateful for that friendship, and it was through that friendship that I ended up going to church, mainly just because he had to go to church.

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He wasn't a very pious kid or an exemplary Christian or anything like that.

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We were just friends. We were just buddies. He was a teenager, I was a teenager, and he had to go to church because his father was the pastor, and because I enjoyed being around him,

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I went to. But over the years, I heard the

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Christian message and was eventually converted in a revival setting, and not long after that,

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I believed that I was called to the ministry. That was something of a struggle.

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I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to go into the ministry. That's probably a good indication that you're supposed to, but the thing

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I was struggling with is I had some dreams of my own I wanted to pursue. But anyway,

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I relented and said yes to the

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Lord and went to school. My college experience was as positive as my high school experience was negative.

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My high school years were really very bleak. My college experience was very rich, and I had a lot of opportunities to grow.

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I'm, again, grateful for that. I was in the Nazarene educational system and trained for the ministry and got a lot of really strong, positive feedback along the way and made many good friends that I'm still friendly with to this day.

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I went to the Nazarene Seminary out in Kansas City and ended up actually writing the Sunday school curriculum for them and writing some books for youth.

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So things were really quite good for me there. Then I went to serve in Boston, as you noted, when you introduced me as an urban missionary.

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I was involved with really leadership development. Because when you're in an environment like that, you're interacting with people from a wide range of denominations.

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I made friends with people from other denominations, other backgrounds, other theological traditions, and found myself gravitating most of the time to the

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Reform Guys. They had a way of thinking about the world and Scripture and God's purposes in the world that were really new to me and fresh.

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They challenged me to think about things in ways I hadn't thought about. After my time in the city of Boston, I ended up going to Cape Cod to pastor a

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Nazarene church there and had a great time. But it was during that period of time that really those ideas began to really take root in my heart.

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I began reading Reform Theologians. I read Calvin and so forth.

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It wasn't terribly long before I realized that, to be honest, I had to leave the

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Nazarene world. They make you make a promise, just like we do in the PCA, that if you ever change your views, you let folks know.

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I had changed my views. I couldn't preach the things that I thought I should preach. I was asked to preach things that I didn't think were correct.

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And consequently, I said, for the sake of conscience, I need to resign. So I did.

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It didn't happen overnight. Like I said, I had spent some time making my plan, my transitional plan to leave that world and then moved to Connecticut and got involved in a

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PCA church here, became a member. And before long, I was on the session as a ruling elder.

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And then not long after that, this church, our sister church, not too far away from the church

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I was attending, needed a pastor. And so at that point, I thought, well, maybe that's where I should go.

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So I know I prayed about it. I threw my hat in the ring, as they say, and there are about 50 other people they told me that had done the same thing.

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But in the end, they called me, so I've been there ever since. Yes. And my co -host, the

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Reverend Buzz Taylor, has something in common with you in that he began, at least after his rebirth, he began an independent fundamentalist circles, fundamentalist

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Baptist circles, although not identical to a Nazarene experience. He was certainly

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Arminian, although never using that term, I'm sure. Right. I never thought of myself as an Arminian.

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And perhaps not as full -blown an Arminian as you were, as I'm assuming you were a five -point

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Arminian when you were a Nazarene, were you not? Yeah, I would say that's right. And can you believe in eternal security or perseverance of the saints as a

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Nazarene? No, no, you really can't. It's quite explicit that you believe that you can lose your salvation, sure.

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And Reverend Buzz Taylor eventually became a Presbyterian. Well, now,

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Chris, there's a little part of that story you didn't even know. That was right after I was a Baptist pastor.

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I was being considered for some Nazarene churches in my area as where I was going to go from there. It just didn't work out.

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Well, you believed in eternal security, at least back then, right? Yes, yes. And let me announce our email address.

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It's ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

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For any listeners who would care to join us on the air with a question for Pastor Chris Wiley, either involving his own transformation from Arminian to Reformed, or even involving the book that we are going to obviously get more involved in upcoming very shortly.

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But before we even go into the book that you've written, I'd like to tell our listeners something about the

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Presbyterian Church of Manchester, Connecticut. Oh, well, yeah, I'm happy to. We're a very traditional

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Presbyterian church. I think anybody who would have attended a

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Presbyterian church that was sound and adhered to the

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Westminster Confession of Faith a hundred years ago would recognize us. So we've got a great group of ruling elders and deacons, a number of excellent lay leaders and lay -led ministries, and we're a happy group.

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The church has enjoyed great peace, and we've seen people come to Christ over the years, and we've got a kind of a baby boom going on right now.

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We've got, it sounds like a nursery in the sanctuary. So it's great. So we do have people who are older who are, you know, in need of, as I mentioned earlier, physical care, but we also have a lot of younger families and children, lots of little people running around.

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And you describe yourself on your website as an old -fashioned Presbyterian church.

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How do you, what do you mean by that specifically? That could mean different things to different people. Well, I think that, you know, the

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Westminster Confession of Faith is one of the things that we're trying to imply by that.

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But the other thing is our style of worship. I mean, we're straight hymns, no overheads, anything of that kind.

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We don't, you know, go on a campaign against any of those things, but that's just the way we do things.

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And we want people to have a sense of what they should expect when they come, and that's what they get.

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Well, praise God for that. I find that refreshing, and I'm not meaning by my response that I disdain those who have a different approach to the worship style and music and so on, but it is refreshing to hear in this day and age.

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And in fact, I'll very quickly give you a story that surprised me recently. Some of our listeners have heard this before, but the daughter of the woman who led me to Christ contacted me recently, and although she actually admits that she does not believe that she is born again, she does not believe she is saved yet, it's obvious God is drawing this young lady, who's a married mom now, and she called me, or actually emailed me, and asked me to help her find a church near where she lives in Orlando.

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And her husband, who's not a believer of any kind, maybe perhaps even an agnostic, but he doesn't really want to travel any more than 15 minutes from where they live.

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So I started calling different Reformed churches I was aware of in Orlando, and I got a recommendation of a church.

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She and her husband and baby Mickey went to the worship service, and she contacted her mom, and she said,

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Mom, I hope Chris Arnzen's feelings aren't hurt, but the church he recommended to us, even though they may have very sound teaching there,

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I don't feel comfortable there. They're using modern music that almost feels like I'm being entertained, and everybody's very casual, and I don't get the sense that people are taking the worship of God seriously, and I really would prefer to find a church that is more traditional.

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So that actually blew me away for a woman who's about 28, and not even really regenerate, even to her own admission, making that kind of a request.

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Isn't that pretty remarkable? Yeah, that is, and that's great to hear. My own experience corroborates that.

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I think I can only think of maybe one or two people who said to me, the reason

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I'm not coming to your church is because the music isn't peppy enough or something. Generally, the people who are converted and coming out of the world don't have those kinds of expectations that the music is supposed to be anything.

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They just want to know how they're supposed to worship. So they're pretty open, in my experience, to whatever they're told is a good way to go about things, and we've gotten a lot of young families who like it the way we do it.

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I mean, I was with my son. We went to a men's conference here, one of these big events, and afterward, he said to me,

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I thought it was okay, but I hated the music, and it was that sort of 1970s sort of pop style, and it wasn't as though he was looking for something that was more along the lines of what kids his age were listening to.

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He just didn't think that it should even work that way at all. He was kind of disappointed that it was the way you described it, kind of a hyped -up entertainment experience.

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And one of the things that I was pleased to hear is that you are having a conference, although all the details are not yet worked out.

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You're having a conference, or at least you're having a speaking engagement featuring

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Dr. T. David Gordon, who is one of my favorite Christian authors, and in fact a couple of my favorite interviews from the

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Old Iron Sharpens Iron program were with Dr. T. David Gordon, who wrote the book

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Why Johnny Can't Preach, and also Why Johnny Can't Sing Hymns, among others.

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Quite controversial and provocative books, and the interviews were equally as controversial and provocative and enjoyable for me.

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But tell us anything you can about that, that event that you're having. Right, that's going to be the first weekend in November, and so it'll be on Saturday, November 4th, so that's the weekend after the 500th anniversary of the

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Reformation, after that Reformation Sunday. So the following weekend we'll have T.

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David Gordon, and he'll actually be preaching for me on that Sunday as well, on the 5th. So the conference, we're still in conversation with him and the other speaker about the theme and the outline and so forth, and I'm just a little reticent to talk about it because I don't want to promise things that end up being changed.

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But if you know T. David Gordon and you're familiar with his books, it'll be right up that line.

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I mean, it'll be in the spirit of those things. Amen. And for anybody who would like to attend that conference or visit the

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Presbyterian Church of Manchester, whether you live there or whether you're going to be visiting there from out of town, the website is manchesterpca .org.

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That's manchesterpca, for Presbyterian Church in America, dot org. And we'll be repeating that information a little bit later on and throughout the program.

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And tell us something about the Imaginative Conservative. Well, the

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Imaginative Conservative is a website that was inspired by the writings of Russell Kirk.

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Russell Kirk was a prominent conservative thinker in the 40s and 50s and 60s.

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He wrote for National Review and was a friend of William Buckley and was also an advisor to Reagan.

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And he coined that term,

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Imaginative Conservative. And what he was getting at with that is the notion that there is an imagination that we possess that can be shaped morally.

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That when we, you know, through the reading that we enjoy, the entertainments that we enjoy and so forth, that they're morally wholesome and sound, they shape us in a positive way and they shape our imagination in a positive way so that we can see the world in a way that a person who's a virtuous person should see the world and consequently encourage people to behave in morally upright ways and sound ways.

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So he is often associated with Hillsdale College in Michigan and a number of people who were kind of in that circle of people who were associated with Hillsdale and so forth.

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They established this website, Imaginative Conservative, and it publishes at least a couple of pretty serious essays every day.

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So it's got a highbrow social conservatism, you could say. And I was asked to contribute to it maybe four or five years ago, and I was designated a contributing writer, and a number of the early essays that eventually led to the book that we're going to talk about a little later were published there.

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So there are some early versions of some chapters there. But I'm really happy to be associated with it.

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There's a bunch of great guys. And now tell us something about Pathios, where you write and blog, and also

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MortimusClay .com, which is perhaps the most interesting of everything that I've mentioned.

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Right. Well, as you probably know, Chris, Pathios is kind of a collection of all sorts of things.

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It's either the first or second largest blogging, religion blogging site in the world.

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And it's got about 500 to 600 bloggers there. And they're of every different stripe.

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I mean, you've got what they call the atheist channel, the Buddhist channel, the Hindu channel, and so forth. Then there's the evangelical channel.

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And so that's what draws all the traffic. And what ends up happening is there are these very interesting conversations that develop between the writers on the different channels and so forth.

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And the people who run the website are always selecting their favorite posts and promoting them through emails and on their main website and so forth.

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But anyway, I was actually invited to be part of that, too. The editor of the evangelical channel is a guy named

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Bart. Bart Gingrich is his name. And he asked me, would you be interested in being part of this?

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And initially, I was, I'm not so sure. And then the more I thought about it, the more

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I thought that I was supposed to do it, because it's really a place where a person like me, conservative, theologically reformed and so forth, can actually write and be read by all sorts of people, feminists, radical feminists, communists, you name it.

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So that's why I'm there. I figured, well, if I wrote for some place like,

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I don't know, a gospel coalition or something like that, I'd have a lot of other guys who think the way I do reading me.

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But if I publish there, then on any given day, I've got atheists and Hindus and Muslims reading what

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I write. So that's why I write there. And I was invited to do it. And Mortimer's Clay, of course, that needs the most explanation.

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Right. Well, that's a pen name. I have a young adult series that's been picked up by Canon Press.

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I don't know if you're familiar with Canon Press. Yes, wasn't that Douglas Wilson's publishing company? Yeah, that's right.

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So anyway, the first book in the series was actually published a number of years ago under different circumstances.

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And then the series just kind of didn't go anywhere. I had a lot of other things going on. I couldn't continue it.

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And anyways, it sort of languished. It did get picked up and went into foreign rights. And it was published in Turkey of all places.

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So I've got fans in Turkey. But it's been just picked up this past year by Canon Press.

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And so they're going to reissue the first book in the series. And then every book after that on a yearly basis, there's four in the series.

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Second book's written. So I've got two years to write the third book. But the name Mortimer's Clay is my pen name.

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And the reason I chose to have a pen name is I knew that my apologetics and so forth were going to be controversial.

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And I didn't want necessarily people to prejudice the books, the fiction, in this young adult fiction, before they had a chance to read it, sort of prejudge it and then, you know, and not read it.

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So I said, I'll kind of have two writing names, you know, one for my fiction for young people and another one for, you know, my real name for stuff that I'm writing for places like PPS and then this book that we're going to talk about.

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And so anyway, that's the story behind that. And the name Mortimer's Clay, it's mortimus from the

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Latin mort, which means to die. And clay, the body, you know, as Paul talked about, the idea of being a dead guy is kind of an inside joke, but it's also intended to say something about the fact that we are mortal, and that the mortality that we live with is something that we shouldn't forget about.

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So it's meant to be kind of tongue in cheek, but at the same time, serious. Great. And we're going to our first break right now.

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If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

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USA. If this is about a personal and private matter that you're asking a question about, then you may feel free to remain anonymous if it makes you feel more comfortable.

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But if it's not regarding something like that, we would appreciate at least your first name, your city and state and your country of residence.

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Don't go away. God willing, we'll be right back with Chris Wiley. One sure way all

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Welcome back. This is Chris Arnsin, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. If you just tuned in, our guest today for the full two hours with about 90 minutes to go is

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Pastor Christopher Wiley of the Presbyterian Church of Manchester, Connecticut.

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We are discussing his book, Man of the House, a handbook for building a shelter that will last in a world that is falling apart.

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If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnsin at gmail .com.

32:44

ChrisArnsin at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence if you live outside of the

32:54

USA. I'm going to read a description of this book that we are discussing that is provided by the imaginative conservative.

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What is your plan for the end of the world as we know it? How will you protect the people you love?

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What will you leave to them when you are gone? The good news is this is not the first time the world has ended.

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What's more, men were made for times like these, and the men of the past, the good ones anyway, have left us a plan to follow.

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They built houses to last, houses that could weather a storm. This book contains their plan.

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Quite a provocative description that makes you wonder what the book is really about, because one at a cursory glance at the cover might automatically think this is another book on biblical husbanding or parenting, and it may involve those things, but this seems to have eschatological elements to it.

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Are you there, Chris? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm happy to respond to that, sure. Yet the eschatological elements, you could say, are both kind of near -term and long -term, and what

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I mean by that is when we look at the the term or the name

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Antichrist in the Bible, the scriptures are referring to Antichrists, plural, but also to an

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Antichrist, the singular person. And I think that in that description that you read, it's really kind of alluding to both.

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There are crises that happen in the course of human history, the fall of Rome, the

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French Revolution, those sorts of things, that are kind of an end of a world. There are things that no longer exist that people took for granted and thought would never end, and what follows that is a time of rebuilding.

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Obviously, in the scriptures, we have the ultimate example of that, Noah and the

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Ark, so I think that before the final end, there have been penultimate ends, and things that come to an end that people don't think will ever end, and they take for granted.

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So both those things are what I'm getting at with that description. And why don't you share with us some of the good guys from the past that you actually allude to in the book?

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Well, of course, Abraham, from a Christian's point of view, and as someone who believes in the

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Bible, would be a real lodestar. I mean, he's the greatest human house builder there's ever been.

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His house is still with us, you could say. Of course, he didn't do it on his own, and it's because he responded to God's promise, and it's really

35:59

God's house, but in terms of who God used at the start, it's Abraham. But if we were to look outside, you know, scripture, and look at other examples in the past, you could think of a person like Cincinnatus, who was a

36:15

Roman leader who was respected by his countrymen and was a farmer, and when

36:24

Rome was in crisis and was under siege, from the enemies of Rome, the

36:33

Senate called Cincinnatus to essentially lead the

36:39

Roman people, and they gave him absolute power and authority to do so. He was able to see them through the crisis and then voluntarily handed back the power that he had been given.

36:50

He only held it for 16 days and went back to the farm. And that's why

36:55

George Washington, the great founder of our country, was called the

37:03

American Cincinnatus, because he helped to bring our nation into existence.

37:11

He had tremendous authority. There were some people who wanted him to become a king, but after he was done with his term of office, he handed back the power that he had been entrusted with and went back to his farm.

37:25

So in both those stories, I think the thing to keep in mind is that both

37:30

Cincinnatus and Washington knew what really mattered was their households. They served the public interest, they served the common interest, but they knew where their first allegiance was, and their first allegiance was to their own households.

37:48

And so they returned home. So those are some examples of men of the past who

37:54

I think are worthy of our consideration and emulation. We have RJ from White Plains, New York, who has a question for you.

38:04

He says, I was wondering if your guest would be willing to admit what his eschatological position is.

38:12

Specifically, I know that some people have a very pessimistic understanding of the end times, so much so that they believe that people should not really waste their time trying to transform the culture around them.

38:28

Others, perhaps on the other extreme, are overly optimistic and have their efforts to transform the culture, eclipsing the gospel message to those around them.

38:39

If you could have your guest respond to those comments and questions. Yeah, I would say that I'm a non -millennialist.

38:46

I think that the question that your caller or the writer asks is right on the money.

38:56

I think that you can go too far in either direction. Kind of the spirit of his question,

39:04

I think I'm in harmony with. As a Christian, we have a role in this world to be salt and light and to hopefully have a leavening influence in our culture in a positive way.

39:20

At the same time, we know that this isn't the kingdom of God. Augustine talked about the city of God and the city of man.

39:29

As long as this world doesn't know the fullness of Christ's revelation until he returns and so forth, we're going to see a mix of things.

39:40

We need to be prepared for bad things, but even now we hope to make positive contributions.

39:50

I hope that answers the question. Well, thank you very much, RJ. Guess what?

39:55

You have won a free copy of Man of the House, a handbook for building a shelter that will last in a world that is falling apart by our guest,

40:06

Pastor Christopher Wiley, also known as C .R. Wiley. Please make sure you give us your full mailing address so our friends at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service can ship that off to you.

40:17

Keep your eye open in the mail for a package with a return address on the shipping label that says

40:23

CVBBS .com. That's CV for Cumberland Valley, BBS for BibleBookService .com.

40:33

Who is basically your target audience in mind when you wrote this book to begin with?

40:40

Young men, specifically young men who hope to start a family and are looking for a way to understand how they are to conduct themselves and build a household that will glorify

40:54

God and also serve the interests of their family. So that's what I have in mind. We have

41:02

C .J. in Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York, who asks, a part of those who would be the overly pessimistic group that would not only include

41:14

Christians but even unbelievers are those that are building bomb shelters in their home and stockpiling their homes and basements with food to last through a

41:26

World War III. Is this kind of behavior commendable for a Christian or do you have any warnings about it?

41:35

Well, you know, it's funny that that question is asked, and I mean funny in a good way. That's how I actually start the book.

41:41

I begin with a contrast between that sort of person and what I have in mind.

41:47

That sort of person goes to Montana, lives in a bunker, and eats canned food for the rest of his life.

41:54

But eventually, even that guy, if he survives this terrible thing that he thinks is going to happen, he's got to come out and rebuild.

42:02

And when you look at Scripture and you think about it, I think in a more,

42:07

I think, biblically informed way, you see that where our shelter lies is with the

42:15

Lord, of course. But also we are in our households called to really shelter one another, to serve the members of our households in very practical ways.

42:28

So the kind of shelter I'm commending that young men build are the shelters that I just described.

42:37

Shelters that ultimately look to God for all of the things that we need, but also look to build up the household in such a way so that it's productive, so that it's looking after the interests of its members, and also is making a net contribution to the church and the local communities that these households are located in.

43:03

So I hope that answers the question. But I think the spirit of this question, again, as I said,

43:09

I think it's very much in harmony with what I'm trying to talk about. Well guess what, CJ in Lindenhurst, Long Island, you've also won a free copy of Man of the

43:19

House, a handbook for building a shelter that will last in a world that is falling apart.

43:26

And perhaps if you could, I mean this may seem like an obvious question here, or an obvious real thing that's going on in our world, but what do you specifically mean by a world that is falling apart?

43:43

If you could give us some examples of why you believe this world is falling apart. Well, we turn on the television, we surf the internet, we see lots of social decay.

43:56

It's just simply wrong, I think. There are some people who say things have always been bad, and things are no worse than they've been in the past.

44:06

Well, yes and no, and like I mentioned before, there have been ends before, but I actually think that's instructive.

44:14

We can see that social decay in the Roman Empire, social decay in other great civilizations, give us signals, or should have given the signals to those people who live in those civilizations, that their civilization was in trouble.

44:33

And we see the same signals in our own situation, in our civilization. And just like people in those times, those other civilizations, there were people who saw things coming, and tried to warn people, and tried to call them back to the virtues that helped to make those civilizations prosperous and successful.

44:54

We have those people in our civilization, and just like those people were laughed at, and scorned, and ignored, we have the same thing in our time.

45:06

There are people who think that things are just going to continue to get better and better, even if they have plenty of evidence all around them that things are not getting better, in fact, they're getting worse in many ways.

45:16

And I think in our civilization, because of technical progress and scientific advancements, we can miss the ways, or we can be diverted from the ways in which we're really in deep, deep trouble, economically, morally, and so forth.

45:33

So, just an example, I think our national debt is something that is a tremendous problem.

45:42

And I think that there are other indicators concerning household dissolution, craziness, the sexual behavior, and so forth.

45:53

And people who are trying to make arguments to excuse these things and even call evil good, as scripture condemns.

46:01

All of these things, I think, give us some strong indication that things are falling apart.

46:10

If we were to identify, and again, I'm not a person who can tell you what's going to happen tomorrow, but I just think that, like I said, common sense can guide us a bit here and help us to see that things are in trouble.

46:26

For example, if you think about Social Security, how many people take that for granted, that it's going to be there for them?

46:32

If it were not there for them, what would they do? There's no guarantee that it will be there for them, and it's possible that it won't.

46:42

So, what do you do in light of that? Those sorts of things. Now, my co -host, Reverend Buzz Taylor, is post -millennial, and I'm sure you would agree,

46:52

Buzz, that post -millennialists, at least those that are biblically sound, don't believe that progression and improvement and things that are developing on the earth that are wonderful and evidence of the gospel spreading and souls coming to Christ in mass, those aren't things that are in a typical post -millennial paradigm, something that is a straight upward arrow that doesn't have any turns and twists.

47:25

In fact, don't you believe that there could be a century of horrific future?

47:30

I believe we are in one, for sure. I believe if you were to graph it out, it would look like maybe a business that had good and bad years, but ultimately, or maybe like the stock market, you know, you invest after a while and it looks pretty good over the long haul, but you might have had some bad times, and I think we are definitely in the midst of one of those right now.

47:52

Yeah, I think Buzz, that you and I would agree completely about that. In fact, I was with Doug Wilson just a few weeks ago, and that was one of the things that I know was talked about there, this very sort of rocky sort of up and down kind of thing, and I know post -millennialists understand that and that the overall trajectory is positive.

48:16

It doesn't mean that there won't be a dark age or terrible things.

48:22

Well, I think one of the most post -millennial books ever written wasn't intended to be a post -millennial book, and that was written by D.

48:30

James Kennedy, What If Jesus Had Never Been Born, where he shows the impact that Christianity has already had on the world in the last 2 ,000 years, and you know, like I said,

48:39

I don't know what actually his position was, but I believe that progress is going to continue.

48:45

Well, I certainly agree with you that if Jesus hadn't been born, we would be in a much worse world, right?

48:53

And we have a listener, a first -time questioner, I don't know if she's a first -time, actually she had told me in a recent email that she had been listening to the program for many years, going back to the old days in New York, but this is the first time we're receiving a question from her.

49:12

Jenny in Ben Salem, Pennsylvania, I had never heard of that city before, she asks, what is the biggest obstacle that young professing

49:22

Christian men face when starting a family, and how do they overcome this obstacle?

49:30

That's a great question, and I think it's something that many of the people

49:36

I know who are looking at young men today wonder about.

49:43

I think many young men really don't believe that they have what it takes to provide for a family, and I think that's one of the reasons why they're slow to commit, even some of the best of them, some of the best young men are slow to commit and form a household.

50:08

I also think that we live in a culture that discourages grown -up behavior, it encourages and rewards juvenile behavior.

50:19

So those two... Hey, that's how I make a living, pal, so don't knock it. I'm only kidding.

50:25

Yeah, I know what you mean, but I think that, so we've got the larger culture, and it's message that gets reinforced all the time through television and advertising and so forth, to just kind of care about yourself and try to live a hedonistic life.

50:44

And then the serious doubts that many young men have that they can rise to the occasion and do what they deep down really want to do and believe they should do.

50:54

So as you can tell by the way I'm addressing this, I give many other young men more credit than I think that some other people do.

51:03

But it's still, they're not following through, they're not behaving in ways and acting in ways that we wish they would.

51:11

I think that's the sort of man, young man, that my book is addressed to, that guy that wants to know how do

51:20

I go about it and help me understand the steps. And it's really kind of a throwback book in another way.

51:28

The guy who wrote the afterword to the book is a guy named Alan Carlson, and Alan is one of the premier socially conservative sociologists and historians of the family in America.

51:43

He's one of the founders of the World Congress of Families. He's written dozens of books. And really solid guy.

51:50

He's a Lutheran guy, conservative Lutheran. And he described what

51:56

I did as something that a person like Cotton Mather did back when the

52:05

Plymouth Colony was established in early colonial New England. This is really a handbook to help a young Christian man understand what his duties are and responsibilities are and how to go about the work of establishing a household.

52:24

And as you noted, Chris, this is not the sort of thing that we often, in fact,

52:30

I think the book is, I don't know of any other book quite like it, and I'm not trying to toot my own horn, but most of the books for young men today are fine.

52:40

But they're directed more at personal piety and your

52:46

Christian walk and resisting temptation and those things. And those are all great. Those are great things.

52:53

They're about shouldering responsibility, manning up, and those sorts of things. And that's great, too. But again, they tend to be focused in on your devotional life, your personal conduct, and so forth.

53:07

Whereas the book that I wrote is more about how you build an institution, and I mean institution in the good sense of the word, an institution that can shelter the people that you care about.

53:18

And there's some very practical things that go with that. And we have to go to a break right now. If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

53:27

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the good old

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That's not the best recipe for popularity, but since that wasn't the apostles priority, it must not be ours either.

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Iron Sharpens Iron Radio is sponsored by Harvey Cedars, a year -round Bible conference and retreat center nestled on the

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01:05:12

And while I have your attention, I must tell you that there's a number of special events coming up that I hope you attend with me.

01:05:22

In fact, tomorrow starts the 2017 U .S. Ministers Conference that Banner of Truth is conducting in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania at the

01:05:33

Elizabethtown College. And the speakers of this event include

01:05:39

Dr. Joel Beakey and Jeff Thomas from Wales, who

01:05:44

I had the privilege of interviewing, William Vander Waard, Mark Johnston, Jonathan Master, and Carlton Wynn.

01:05:53

The theme of the conference is the Living and Enduring Word. It starts tomorrow and concludes

01:05:59

Thursday, June 1st. If you'd like to register, go to banneroftruth .org,

01:06:05

banneroftruth .org, click on events, and then click on U .S. Ministers Conference. After that,

01:06:11

God willing, I will be attending Sermon Audio's conference in New York City called the

01:06:17

Foundations Conference. And that is going to be held June 22nd and 23rd in the

01:06:25

Chelsea section of Manhattan. And speakers include Dr. Stephen J. Lawson, Dr.

01:06:30

Joel Beakey again, Phil Johnson, the Executive Director of John MacArthur's ministry, Grace to You, Todd Friel, who is the host of Wretched TV and Wretched Radio, and a number of other speakers.

01:06:42

If you'd like to register for that conference, go to thefoundationsconference .com, thefoundationsconference .com.

01:06:51

And then there's going to be a conference in Reverend Buzz Taylor's old stomping grounds in Maine, and that is

01:06:58

Fellowship Conference New England. That's going to be held at the Deering Center Community Church in Portland, Maine, August 3rd through the 5th.

01:07:07

And the speakers at this event include Pastor Don Curran, who is the

01:07:13

Eastern European Coordinator with HeartCry Missionary Society, the organization founded by Paul Washer.

01:07:19

Pastor Mac Tomlinson, a dear friend of mine, who is a pastor at Providence Chapel in Denton, Texas.

01:07:26

He's also an author, and I've interviewed him on a number of occasions. Pastor Jesse Barrington, who you've had on this program recently, who is the pastor of Grace Life Church in Dallas, Texas, is one of the speakers.

01:07:39

And last but not least, Pastor Nate Pickowitz, pastor of Harvest Bible Church in Gilmanton Ironworks, New Hampshire.

01:07:47

He is going to be one of the speakers, and he is also going to be addressing a book that he wrote in just a matter of a few weeks on Iron Sharpens Iron, a book on revival in New England.

01:08:00

In fact, I'm sure that Pastor Chris Wiley might want to get a copy of that book since he is also in the

01:08:06

New England area, being in Connecticut. But if you'd like to register for this conference, you can go to fellowshipconferencenewengland .com,

01:08:15

fellowshipconferencenewengland .com. Then, November 17th through the 18th, in Quaker Town, Pennsylvania, the

01:08:23

Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals is having their conference, the Quaker Town Conference on Reform Theology, titled,

01:08:30

For Still Our Ancient Foe, which is obviously a line from A Mighty Fortress, the great hymn by Martin Luther.

01:08:38

The speakers include Ian Hamilton, Kent Hughes, Peter Jones, Dennis Cahill, and Scott Oliphant.

01:08:45

And if you would like to register for that conference, go to alliancenet .org, alliancenet .org,

01:08:51

click on events, and then click on the Quaker Town Conference on Reform Theology, For Still Our Ancient Foe.

01:08:57

And that's going to be held at the Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Quaker Town, Pennsylvania, November 17th through the 18th.

01:09:07

And then, last but not least, in January of 2018, the

01:09:13

G3 Conference returns to Atlanta, Georgia, featuring Paul Washer, Stephen Lawson, Votie Balcom, H .B.

01:09:20

Charles, Jr., who is the new president of the Southern Baptist Convention, and perhaps the first black president of the

01:09:28

Southern Baptist Convention. If he's not the first, he's just a number, he's just one of a very small handful.

01:09:35

And he's also a believer, a firm believer, in the doctrines of sovereign grace. Tim Challies, Pastor Josh Bice, who is orchestrating this event, my dear friend of many years,

01:09:44

Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries, my dear friend Tom Askell of Founders Ministries, Michael Kruger, who is a brilliant scholar and president of Reform Theological Seminary, Paul Tripp, Todd Friel, Derek Thomas, and more.

01:10:00

If you'd like to go to the G3 Conference, which is being held January 18th through the 20th in Atlanta, Georgia, go to g3conference .com,

01:10:10

that's g3conference .com. And if you register for any of these events or merely contact the websites or the phone numbers or email addresses associated with these events, please let them know that you heard about them from Chris Arnzen and Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

01:10:31

Now it's time for me to ask for money, something that I don't like doing.

01:10:37

But for those of you who have listened to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio for years, going back to late 2005, 2006, you know that I've gone years without making any public appeal for contributions.

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But we have reached a stage where it is very urgent that we make these appeals because we are in desperate times and my advertisers have also asked me to make these public appeals to you because they want

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Iron Sharpens Iron Radio to remain on the air. If you also enjoy this program and you want it to remain on the air, go to ironsharpensironradio .com,

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ironsharpensironradio .com, click on support, and then you will be given a mailing address where you can mail a check of any amount made out to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

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If you'd like to advertise with us, we would also love to receive the finances that come through your advertising.

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So just email me at chrisarnzen at gmail .com, chrisarnzen at gmail .com and put advertising in the subject line.

01:11:55

So I look forward to hearing from many of you, not only with your donations but also with your requests for advertising.

01:12:04

And please, I must repeat this, never ever siphon money out of the regular giving to your local church if you want to give to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

01:12:15

And if you are struggling to make ends meet as a family, please do not siphon money off of your own dinner table.

01:12:21

This request is only for those who are blessed above and beyond their ability to comfortably provide for their church as they always have and provide for their home.

01:12:33

So I hope to hear from many of you soon. And we are back now to our interview, the second half of our interview with Pastor Christopher Wiley of the

01:12:44

Presbyterian Church of Manchester, Connecticut. We are discussing his book, Man of the House, a handbook for building a shelter that will last in a world that is falling apart.

01:12:55

And Pastor Chris, the last listener that we had asked you a question.

01:13:03

Jenny from Ben Salem, Pennsylvania, she wanted to tell you thank you,

01:13:09

Pastor Wiley, for your answer and it is spot on. You have confirmed my suspicions. And Jenny, you have also won a free copy of the book that we have been discussing,

01:13:22

Man of the House, a handbook for building a shelter that will last in a world that is falling apart.

01:13:29

So we need your full mailing address though, Jenny. We don't have that yet. So please email us your full mailing address in Ben Salem, Pennsylvania.

01:13:38

Now, Pastor Chris, we have a listener in Slovenia, Joe, who says, sorry for joining a little late.

01:13:45

This question may have been already asked. What does Brother Wiley think about our society's destruction of healthy images of the husband and father, especially in media and education?

01:13:58

And what specifically should local churches be doing to disciple young men to counteract this trend?

01:14:06

Thank you for ministering to us today. That's Joe in Slovenia. Wow, that's a great question.

01:14:13

I agree with Joe's observation completely. I think you can summarize the trend pretty well by just simply identifying a couple of media images of fatherhood.

01:14:29

In the fifties, we had Father Knows Best, and today we have Homer Simpson. I think that contrast tells you something, and I think what it tells you is that there's something very subtle that's going on here that I think is insidious.

01:14:51

The father, the biblically informed pater familius, the father of the house, the man of the house, is the biggest obstacle to the agenda of the cultural

01:15:08

Marxists. And the cultural Marxists can't attack him directly.

01:15:16

They have to undermine his credibility and insidiously impugn his character.

01:15:27

Because if they can do that, then there's no one to keep the various institutions that want to isolate people from their households and alienate them from biblically sound churches so as to manipulate them and pursue their own agendas.

01:15:50

So the father is the obstacle, and so he's the target of all of this stuff.

01:15:59

Now, that's the first part of the response. The second part of the response is we have to find ways to reeducate men and help them understand that this is what's going on for one thing, but also help them recover their sets of calling and give them some direction in terms of how to go about the task of building sound households.

01:16:29

Households that I describe in my book that I think that any biblically informed person would recognize.

01:16:36

Don't have to read my book to know what I'm talking about. So I think those are the things.

01:16:42

And we have to be willing to be made an object of scorn in this process.

01:16:52

We have to be willing to have our own work attacked, and this is something that I see a lot, particularly since this book has come out, but because I've met

01:17:05

Patheos and because I've caught the attention of people who are the people that I described a moment ago,

01:17:14

I'm attacked. But that's just part of the, I'm not complaining,

01:17:20

I'm just saying that you need to be ready for that kind of stuff. And if churches and men are unable to deal with that, unable to live with that, then they're not going to be able to rise to the occasion and do the sorts of things that we need to see leaders do, particularly pastors and other community leaders do, to encourage young men to shoulder the responsibilities that they're supposed to take on and in the task of establishing the households that God wants them to establish.

01:17:51

So that's a kind of lengthy answer, but I think I needed to say it that way in order to respond to that great question.

01:17:59

Well, thank you, Joe, in Slovenia. And guess what? You have also won a free copy of the book we are discussing,

01:18:07

Man of the House, a handbook for building a shelter that will last in a world that is falling apart by our guest,

01:18:14

Pastor Christopher Wiley, who writes under the name C .R. Wiley. And thank you very much for giving us an

01:18:22

American address where your daughter lives in Georgia to save on the shipping costs that our friends at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service so generously take care of when they ship out these books,

01:18:38

Bibles, DVDs, and CDs to our listeners who submit questions. And we thank

01:18:43

Todd and Patty Jennings for their faithful support of Iron Sharpens Iron through shipping out all of these items to our listeners through cvbbs .com.

01:18:56

That's Todd and Patty Jennings, owners of cvbbs .com, cv for Cumberland Valley, bbs for BibleBookService .com.

01:19:04

And we thank you for always contributing such insightful questions, Joe, in Slovenia.

01:19:09

Keep spreading the word about the program in Slovenia and beyond. And also, I forgot to mention before that Jenny in Ben Salem, Pennsylvania, not only did you win a free copy of Chris Wiley's book, but since you are a first -time questioner, you're also going to be getting a free

01:19:29

New American Standard Bible, compliments of our friends who publish the NASB, who have been sponsoring

01:19:36

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio ever since we began broadcasting. And so please give us your full mailing address.

01:19:43

We still have not received that, and we'll have those two things shipped out to you as soon as possible.

01:19:51

Pastor Chris, this is going to be a controversial question that may get people angry at me, it may get people angry at you, maybe get you angry at me,

01:20:02

I don't know. But I see more and more

01:20:11

Christians, especially well -known ones, and even from our own Reformed circles, who are, in my opinion, becoming softer on their views and their approach to the sin of homosexuality.

01:20:27

It seems to me that perhaps to overcompensate for the crazed cultic individuals involved in the

01:20:39

God hates fags movement and other folks like that who spew hatred and have no interest in seeing those involved in homosexuality be saved from their sin and actually be rescued and to enter into eternal life, they seem to delight in the fact that unrepentant homosexuals will be damned.

01:21:00

But I think that there is a trend going on where it seems some very notable people are starting to soften and bend and treat those involved in that activity as if they are a part of a community, just as the liberals often categorize them.

01:21:20

You get the image of someone identifying themselves as homosexual in the same way that somebody identifies themselves as Norwegian, Mexican, or Finnish.

01:21:36

It's just a category of humanity, and at least that's what we are being led to believe by many in even professed conservative

01:21:48

Christian circles. I was wondering if that bothered you as much as it botherss me. Oh yeah, it bothers me tremendously.

01:21:55

I agree with your observation 100%. I think there are different reasons that this has occurred.

01:22:05

I think you've identified one of them very well. I think, though, that because we've lost sight of a biblical understanding of creation, that we have more or less come to see the

01:22:25

Christian faith as sort of this kind of an internal thing that doesn't necessarily have something to do with this world and our bodies and how we conduct ourselves and our bodies to the glory of God.

01:22:40

I never apologize in any way or try to avoid giving any kind of indication that there's something that we should be embarrassed about as Christians when it comes to biblical teaching on the sinfulness of homosexuality.

01:22:59

I think it's a sin and it needs to be treated that way.

01:23:09

I think you noted that, of course, we want everyone to come to Christ.

01:23:16

People who are thieves, we want them to come to Christ. People who have murdered other people, we want them to come to Christ.

01:23:22

People who are just liars and gossips, we want them to come to Christ. And we want homosexuals to come to Christ, people who practice homosexuality.

01:23:29

And I agree with you, we shouldn't, by using the term homosexual, imply or somehow lead people to believe that this is just another category alongside being

01:23:40

Swedish or Mexican or something. So I agree with all those observations.

01:23:46

And I think, too, that we've lost sight of the goodness of male -female complementarity.

01:23:54

And because we've lost sight of that and we've begun to doubt its goodness, we have found we've been unable to point people who are dealing with homosexuality to that goodness in a convincing and fully convinced way.

01:24:13

So what we ought to be saying to these people who are struggling with this sin is you're missing something beautiful.

01:24:21

Not just you need to give up something. It's both those things.

01:24:27

You need to give up something, of course, because it displeases God, but it's also something you need to give up because you're killing yourself.

01:24:34

This is something that's destructive to you as well as to other people. You need to rediscover the goodness of God's creation and how he ordered it and learn to love the complementarity of the sexes, male and female.

01:24:50

We were made for each other. Amen. And there seems to be an ambivalence even about gender distinctions today, even within professedly evangelical churches and perhaps even professedly conservative churches, that is seemingly problematic to those of us who find this very troubling.

01:25:20

Would you agree with me also that it's not only homosexuality, but even the blending or blurring of gender distinctions between heterosexual men and women is becoming something that's kind of acceptable within Christianity?

01:25:35

Well, I think you're right. I think it is becoming more accepted even in ostensibly conservative churches.

01:25:44

But again, what I think is the real shame to it is that we're missing something that's kind of obvious.

01:25:54

Our ancestors knew it. Even non -Christian people in the past knew this, that men and women need each other and we should raise our boys and our girls in such a way so as they need to depend upon the other sex for things they can't give to themselves, can't do for themselves.

01:26:15

That's not a bad thing. That's a good thing. We've overemphasized autonomy, individualism, and equality, and we've made people miserable in the process.

01:26:25

When I look at young people and I see the fads for cutting themselves and tattooing themselves and piercing themselves,

01:26:32

I look at that and I say that's indicative of a kind of self -hatred. You don't maim yourself in this way and it doesn't reflect a healthy outlook on the human body.

01:26:46

What that does is it demonstrates some kind of deep conflicted state of mind and heart and soul that really ought to elicit our pity and we should be reaching out to people.

01:27:00

That's another matter, but I think it's related. I think the failure to accept our bodies as male and female is

01:27:07

God's gift to not only ourselves but to the opposite sex. I look at myself as a man and I see myself as a gift to my wife, who is a woman, and I see my wife, who is a woman, as a gift to me as a man.

01:27:23

There are things that she can do I can't do. There are things I can do she can't do and we need each other. We should structure the way we raise our children so as to help them see that need and see that as a good thing and that these differences are intended to bind us together, not separate us.

01:27:40

Have you noticed that the more we emphasize sameness, the more conflict there is between the sexes?

01:27:47

That's because we've created this competitive environment where each sex is trying to prove it's better than the other.

01:27:54

That's ridiculous. It's stupid. It's a rejection of God's creation. Yes, and there is an internal struggle or tug of war within the minds of feminists because they really are not very consistent, typically, because while on the one hand they want to be treated, they want women to be treated equally in all spheres of life, they very often react negatively when they are perceived, and I'm not speaking in the

01:28:33

Christian church of course, but perceived as sex objects and things like that. There seems to be a desire for them to have a being considered a protected group of people who are not to be treated with the same coarseness that men might treat other men.

01:28:53

Do you follow what I'm saying? I'm kind of rambling here. No, no, I think you're absolutely onto something here,

01:28:59

Chris. This is something that ties in nicely to the theme in my book. Human beings are not self -sufficient creatures.

01:29:07

Aristotle said something, he's a pagan of course, but he was made in the image of God like we are, and there were things that he said that were pretty sound, and one of the things he said was that human beings are social animals, and what he meant by that is that human beings need other human beings.

01:29:26

We need each other to live, and one of the things that we look for in our fellow human beings is protection, shelter, and security.

01:29:35

Now what's happened in our society is because we no longer look to our households for the security and the shelter that they once provided, we now look to other institutions, primarily the state, but also large corporations and other large institutions to protect us from other people, and so we've seen a shift in our attitudes toward fatherhood because we no longer think of fathers in our society as protectors, we think of them as predators.

01:30:10

We think of them as dangerous. We need to protect women from men, even from their fathers and husbands.

01:30:18

So where do they find that protection? They find it in the state, and who happens to be the people that they look to in the state?

01:30:25

They're the fathers of other kids, and the husbands of other women. So they're still men, but then now they have a badge, and they have the law, and all of that.

01:30:41

That's just one example, but the idea that I'm trying to get at is we have lost the

01:30:48

Christian order of our civilization, and we've, I think because of the

01:30:54

Frankfurt School, the cultural Marxist, and so forth, and their influence in the academy, and in the major institutions of our society, we now have people who are isolated and vulnerable and don't feel like they have any protection.

01:31:07

And so these women, these feminists, they are kind of talking out of two sides of their mouths, but at the same time, we need to be sympathetic.

01:31:14

We need to remember that many of these women are vulnerable, and they do have some things to complain about.

01:31:20

Men do behave badly, but in the past, what you did is when a man treated you badly, you went to your father, or you went to your brother, or you went to your husband, and he knew what to do.

01:31:35

Now, women find that to be somehow insulting, you know, that they should rely on men that they know, and instead, they rely on men they don't know, who have badges, and live in bureaucracies, and have corner offices, and all that stuff.

01:31:51

In fact, I would love for you to look up at some point, either later today or some other day, a

01:32:02

YouTube by a friend of mine. You mentioned cultural Marxism a couple of times. That happened to be the theme of my friend,

01:32:10

Dr. Tony Costa. He's the professor of apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary.

01:32:18

He's a Reformed Baptist, and he not only debated a

01:32:23

Roman Catholic out here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, at an event that I orchestrated, but he also was the speaker at my most recent

01:32:30

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Pastors Luncheon, and that was his theme, the influences of cultural

01:32:37

Marxism on American society, and or actually North American, because he was including

01:32:42

Canada, where he is from. And you could see that on YouTube. Just type in Tony Costa, C -O -S -T -A, and cultural

01:32:52

Marxism, and you could see his whole lecture there. Sounds great. I'll definitely do it. And we have to go to our final break right now.

01:32:59

If you'd like to join us on the air before we run out of time, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com. chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

01:33:07

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01:37:27

This is Chris Arnzen. If you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours with just about 20 minutes to go is

01:37:35

Pastor Christopher Wiley of the Presbyterian Church of Manchester, Connecticut, which is a congregation in the

01:37:42

Presbyterian Church in America, also known as the PCA. We are discussing his book,

01:37:47

The Man of the House, or should I just say Man of the House? A handbook for building a shelter that will last in a world that is falling apart.

01:37:57

And if you'd like to join us on the air with a question while we still have time, our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

01:38:04

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. And Pastor Chris, we have a listener in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, BB, who says,

01:38:14

Do you think that some churches actually undermine the authority of the husband and father in the home by making the family go to the church and the elders for all of their important decisions?

01:38:32

Shouldn't that be done primarily by the father and husband, and can a church that's overbearing with its authority really rob the masculinity from the husband and father?

01:38:46

Wow, that's a great question, and I think the answer is absolutely. I think the way, sometimes, churches function is they behave as though there's, they're almost like what

01:39:07

I was criticizing before with the cultural Marxists and the socialists. It's almost as though those in authority in a local church feel like they have the right to have complete and unimpeded access to every member of a household.

01:39:26

I think there are conditions, of course, when the head of the house is not doing his job and things need to be done in order to help a household in that circumstance.

01:39:41

But I think our starting point ought to be that, ideally, the father is the authority in his home, and one of the things that he's charged to do is to minister to his family.

01:40:00

So that being the case, as elders in the church, we ought to reinforce and support him in that role.

01:40:08

Now, of course, if he's overbearing, if he's doing things in ways that don't honor Christ and so forth, we hold him accountable, but our primary task is not to undermine him, but to equip him for that work.

01:40:22

So in my church, for example, when it comes to catechesis, when we're talking about young people who are coming before the session to make their profession of faith and so forth, the catechesis that goes on before that, you know, the education, the doctrinal education and so forth, when it's possible, our approach is, ideally, that ought to be done by the father, and only done without the father if the father's not a believer.

01:40:52

We give the father the material. Of course, we, as the elders, examine the child when the father says the child is ready, but we work through the father, not around him, and that's,

01:41:07

I think, the biblical model. Well, thank you, B .B., in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, and you have actually won our final copy of the book that we are giving away today,

01:41:18

Man of the House, a handbook for building a shelter that will last in a world that is falling apart, by our guest,

01:41:25

Pastor Christopher Wiley, also known as C .R. Wiley, and keep spreading the word about Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and keep sending in those very good questions.

01:41:37

You make a distinction in your book between, since we've been talking about household, you do make a distinction in the book between a household and a home and a house and so on.

01:41:50

What specifically is unique about a household? Well, when I think about the distinction primarily between, say, a family and a household, one of the ways that I think is helpful to think about it is, when we think about a family, of course, we're talking about both the biological genetic connections, you know, between parents and children and so forth, and the legal connections when there's adoption, and, of course, a marriage is something that is a legal institution.

01:42:24

So it's a combination of those things, but in our culture today, the word family has become associated with kind of a loving feeling.

01:42:33

You may have heard the phrase, love makes a family or something like that, often used by cultural

01:42:39

Marxists to try to break down norms and standards and so forth. But the idea, I think, still is okay.

01:42:46

You know, we certainly want love in our homes, and families ought to be places where there are people who are connected and belong to each other and love each other.

01:42:57

But that is distinct from the social institution of a household.

01:43:03

Social institution of a household is a legal and a political and an economic thing.

01:43:08

It's a very objective thing. And historically, the father's task was to establish the household, make it a viable institution.

01:43:18

I know in our society, we have this sort of this bias against institutions, and we're kind of anti -institutional in American culture.

01:43:25

But that's kind of crazy, because institutions have been with us forever, and they're going to be with us forever.

01:43:32

The Supreme Court is an institution. Boston Celtics are an institution. We have institutions all over the place.

01:43:39

So we're going to always have them. And a household is an institution. And the relationship between a household and the family can be sort of envisioned like this.

01:43:48

A household is there to let in the good and keep out the bad. And you can think of it like a greenhouse.

01:43:56

And the family, that tender and very sort of emotionally latent thing, is like a flower.

01:44:06

And so the institution of the house is intended to serve the family and not be confused with the family.

01:44:12

What we've lost in our society is the institution. We still have people who think of themselves as members of families, but they don't have the kind of shelter that a household should provide them.

01:44:24

When you have that kind of shelter, you have a more secure family.

01:44:30

So that's why the book makes that distinction between a household and a family. And now here's something off topic, since you brought up the

01:44:38

Celtics. Why is it that Connecticut has never had their own ball team? You're always borrowing from Massachusetts or New York.

01:44:48

Well, that's our problem. We live halfway between those places. So as you know, the Connecticut River is the thing that divides

01:44:54

Yankee country from Red Sox country. Yes, I learned that from my friend, Pastor Vinny Sawyer, who was raised in Connecticut, and he was a

01:45:01

Red Sox fan. Yeah, well, he must still live in that river then, yeah. But I think, yeah,

01:45:09

I know we're just having fun. But anyway, those are my thoughts on family and household and so forth.

01:45:14

Yes, and I want you to basically let, right now in this question,

01:45:21

I want you to let our fathers and sons and husbands -to -be know what you want them to be equipped with as far as taking this program and getting your book, hopefully, and moving forward with the task at hand.

01:45:39

Well, the book is designed to be something that could appeal to anybody, even a person who is outside the church.

01:45:49

Because where I start is I don't assume a whole lot. And the only thing

01:45:56

I assume is an openness and willingness to learn about what a household is and what a man's job is in relationship to a household.

01:46:04

But what you learn in the book, the book has four sections. The first section deals with the foundation of a household.

01:46:11

And there I deal with covenant. Then I also talk about being one flesh.

01:46:17

Then I talk about something that I refer to as the economy of love, what is going on inside the household as the members of the household give to each other.

01:46:26

And then the second section of the book is economics. And I begin with productive property. And then

01:46:31

I go to work. And then I go to what I call help. And what I mean by help is wife and children and extended family and friends and so forth that help you establish a household and support it.

01:46:44

And then I get into the section that follows what I call polity. And what I mean by that is any institution is going to have an authority structure.

01:46:54

The reason why we have a hard time thinking about authority and households today is because all the productive work, all the productive things that we do are now outside the home.

01:47:04

So people will say, why should I submit to my husband? A woman will say that, why should I submit to my husband?

01:47:09

And then she'll go to work and do exactly everything her boss tells her to do without question. And the reason is because she knows, okay,

01:47:16

I do something productive at work, but at home, I'm just relaxing and just hanging out and watching television. We don't do anything productive.

01:47:22

We got to change that mindset. The home used to be the center of productivity in our society.

01:47:30

The word economy is a Greek word. It's a compound word, oikos meaning home from the

01:47:37

Greek and nomos meaning law. In other words, the law of the house. So the law of the house is intended to order the household so as to make it productive so it could take care of itself.

01:47:46

Think about a family farm or an old -fashioned business where a husband and wife work together in a mom and pop kind of operation.

01:47:53

That's the way it was for everybody, with the exception of slaves perhaps, for all of human history up until the

01:48:00

Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution took productive work and moved it out of the house.

01:48:06

We need to get it back in the house. Once we get it back in the house, then things like the authority structure of the house will begin to make sense.

01:48:14

So in the authority structure, I talk about justice. I talk about gravitas. Gravitas is weightiness.

01:48:20

What makes a man someone you should take, you know, what makes a person someone that is a person who can be taken seriously.

01:48:27

And then I talk about piety. And when I talk about piety, I talk about it in a much larger sense than we normally associate with the word today.

01:48:36

Then in the last section of the book, I talk about the outside of the house. How do we relate to the principalities and powers, those in authority and secular positions of authority, and think about friendships and other institutions in society, and then finally legacy, what we intend to leave behind to our children, our loved ones.

01:48:54

So that's the book in a nutshell. And before we run out of time, I'd want you to address the women listening, the mothers and the daughters and the wives -to -be, what they should be specifically trying to equip themselves with in regard to the subject at hand.

01:49:15

Well, I think that the chapter in the book in which I talk about wives and so forth is the chapter entitled

01:49:24

Help. And what that chapter is dealing with is really the situation that women find themselves in today.

01:49:30

Many women are married to their jobs. Many women are relying on institutions outside the household to provide them with the significance and their place in the world.

01:49:42

And in a way, it's understandable. Because back in the old days, we had a situation where people found their significance within household economies.

01:49:52

Now they look for their significance outside the household. But if a man and a woman working together can make a going concern of their household, they'll work together and they'll rediscover their

01:50:05

God -designed purposes in a household. You know, the first household was established by God in Adam and Eve.

01:50:12

And they were told to be productive, working together to be productive. And initially, the fruit of their own bodies, bearing children, and who were made in the image of God, filling the world with God's image that way.

01:50:26

But it also meant working with the environment that they found themselves in, to make a domus, to make a household, to take dominion.

01:50:34

That's really what we're talking about here. And so when the man, this is my conviction, when a man rediscovers his purpose and pursues it, a woman will rediscover her purpose and pursue it in collaboration with him.

01:50:52

So I put most of the stress on men in the book because I think that's where the cultural

01:50:58

Marxist in our society are most viciously attacking.

01:51:04

They're attacking the role of the paterfamilias, the man of the house.

01:51:12

But I think Proverbs chapter 31, we're looking for the biblical image of a productive and virtuous woman that's right there.

01:51:20

Well, obviously that leads you to obviously want to warn women, single women, about the men whom they pursue as permanent mates, those women who are desiring to be married.

01:51:38

Sometimes when the right Christian man doesn't come around quick enough, they may start to compromise and think that they can change a man, that they could lead him to Christ after they've been married or something.

01:51:53

And even among Christian men, not every man is necessarily a suitable husband for your daughter.

01:52:02

So why don't you pursue that area for a little bit? Right, yeah. My heart goes out to a lot of these young women.

01:52:09

I think that we've let them down, and I think we need to do a better job of equipping men to do the things that we should expect men to do in a productive and healthy household.

01:52:23

And if we do a better job of providing these young women with the men that they can rely on, they'll be happier for it and our churches will be healthier and stronger and they won't feel the temptation to compromise.

01:52:34

But I think you're right. I mean, there's always going to be a temptation. We all face temptations, not just these young women, but we all do in different ways to compromise, to take the easy route, to take the shortcut.

01:52:48

My advice to these young women is don't do that. We have Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania, who asks, must not we as men be very careful not to overstep the biblical boundaries of our leadership in the home and rob our wives from all decision making, especially when it's in areas where they have more experience or more talent, and we can become fools if we think that we should make every decision when the wife might have a better insight than we do.

01:53:22

Oh yeah, I think that's right. I think that there are spheres of competence.

01:53:32

There are matters in which my wife is more informed and has better understanding than I do.

01:53:41

And when those areas are in need of being addressed, then the wise thing as a leader is to take advice, to give the space that she needs, do what she needs to do.

01:53:57

I think when we think about leadership, we shouldn't confuse leadership with dictatorship.

01:54:05

A good leader is someone who knows his limitations and celebrates the abilities of the people who are around him, is not threatened by them.

01:54:14

I wonder about some of these guys who are too controlling. I wonder whether or not they aren't demonstrating a measure of insecurity in their being too controlling.

01:54:27

If you really understand your role as the head of the house, what you want to see happen is everyone to prosper and flourish in their gifts.

01:54:37

Just like a pastor. If we have a pastor who is overbearing and puts his finger into every little thing and is just, you know, do it because I said so, and so forth, everyone will remain, no one will grow up, no one will develop into the kind of person that God intends that person to be.

01:54:56

They won't mature, they won't flourish. So likewise, in a household, a husband and a father ought to delight in the flourishing of the gifts and talents of the people under his care.

01:55:12

In fact, the word husband is a very good word in a couple of ways. One is it means housebound, it's husband, which is a compound word in German.

01:55:25

It means a man who is bound to his house. But it also, when we think of husbandry, we think about someone who is a farmer who is a caring for those creatures that are there, and he wants them to be fruitful.

01:55:45

And of course, we're just making a rough analogy here, but what we want is we want the members of our household to be fruitful.

01:55:54

And we want our wives to be fruitful, not just physically, but in a wide range of ways.

01:56:01

Now, I'd like you in about two minutes time or so to summarize what you most want etched on the hearts and minds of our listeners today in regard to our subject.

01:56:12

Well, I think, just to summarize, I think the heart of what I'm getting at is that the household is the fundamental, it's the first institution in our society.

01:56:25

If it goes bad, the entire society is going to suffer. If it prospers, the whole society prospers.

01:56:32

If the household is prospering and sound and spiritually rich, it'll benefit our churches.

01:56:38

And likewise, our churches ought to see themselves as institutions that support the development of households and are not threatened by them.

01:56:52

And we have, let's see, we have a listener in Eastern Suffolk County, Long Island, New York, Ronald, who says, you've mentioned a few times about the danger of government intruding upon the private lives of households.

01:57:11

What do you make of the libertarian movement, not those that would be believing in the atrocity of abortion and things like that, but those that would be endorsed by Christians who have a godly moral base but also believe in a small government?

01:57:31

Well, I'm certainly on board with libertarians who believe in small government. And I've got many friends who are just like the type, just like the person that the caller is describing.

01:57:45

They're morally trustworthy, sound people, and they believe in small government. I guess,

01:57:51

I'd have some quibbles about certain aspects of libertarianism. But by and large,

01:57:58

I think I'm on the same page with those folks. Well, I want to make sure that our listeners know how to contact you.

01:58:07

I know that the Presbyterian Church of Manchester has a website. That's Manchester, Connecticut.

01:58:13

They have a website, which is manchesterpca .org. That's PCA for Presbyterian Church in America.

01:58:24

You also, as we said earlier, write for the imaginativeconservative .org.

01:58:32

imaginativeconservative .org. You write for Pathios, which can be found at pathios .com.

01:58:42

And your blog specifically can be found at pathios .com forward slash blogs forward slash gloryseed forward slash.

01:58:57

And we also have mortimusclay .com, mortimusclay .com.

01:59:03

Do you have any other contact information that you care to give? Well, folks can reach me if they want to write me through our church website.

01:59:11

You've already given that. And I know that there's a link there to the different elders at the church for email.

01:59:19

And so I'm happy to receive any communications that folks want to send my way.

01:59:25

But I think you pretty much covered them. I write for different publications, but the ones that I'm most frequently at, you've already noted.

01:59:34

And I think that's it. Great. Well, I hope everybody has a wonderful remainder of your

01:59:41

Memorial Day. And I hope you all always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater