Masculine Christianity | Zach Garris & Doug Wilson

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:00]Greetings. I'm Douglas Wilson. I wanted to let you know that we're releasing an episode of Man Rampant, the episode where where I interviewed Zack Garris.

[00:00:10]Uh, and we're doing this because Zach Garris was recently in the Twitter news.

[00:00:15]All the internet people were talking about him. Uh, and this is because he's a minister down in the southwest and the Rio Grand Presbyter has indefinitely suspended him. Uh, and they did this because of what they considered some sort of unoured uh, rejoinder that he made to Anthony Bradley on Twitter. And all the people that I've seen that are looking at what he said and what they uh, alleged him to have said and the scriptural standard that he supposedly violated, everybody is sort of uh, befuddled about the whole thing. you know, uh, the Rio Grand Presbytery made their decision to indefinitely suspend him and then King Ahazeras and Hmon sat down to drink and the city of Susa was puzzled, befuddled. Um, this is one of those things where the the process is the penalty. I'm sure that there's a process for Zach Garris to appeal. Um, but by the time the appeal is done, uh, the process will have worked him over good.

[00:01:19]And so this is uh this is an opportunity for you to watch this episode with Zach Garris. You can see what a bombthrower he is. Uh he's a gracious Christian gentleman. The PCA has reached some high points before, but this is one for the ages. Enjoy.

[00:01:37]Welcome to Man Rampant. My name is Douglas Wilson. Let's talk about masculine Christianity, shall we? The subject is a fascinating one in its own right as well as being a challenging one because of the rampant feminist dogmas that dominate our age. The fascinating aspect is one that could have occurred to any believer down through church history. And it goes this way. The Christian faith is undeniably masculine when it comes to her leadership. The Lord Jesus chose 12 men to be his disciples even though there were devout and available women in his entourage.

[00:02:06]Why wouldn't Mary Magdalene have served instead of Judas? And the records of the early church show that the leadership was entirely male with James and Peter and Paul being the only ones recorded as having spoken at the Jerusalem Council.

[00:02:17]And then we have Paul's prohibition of women speaking at church. 1 Corinthians 14:34. Not to mention his prohibition of women teaching or having authority over a man. 1 Timothy 2:12-15.

[00:02:28]So the whole thing seems pretty clear.

[00:02:30]What could be the problem? Well, it goes back to the fact that when describing this exclusively male leadership, I referred to it as her leadership. And the chances are pretty good that you didn't even notice that the male leadership is the male leadership of the bride of Christ. The image that the New Testament gives us of the church as a whole is entirely feminine. What are we to do with the fact that 50% of this feminine entity, a bride, is male.

[00:02:54]Ironically, the heart of the feminine demeanor is on display here. When the church faithfully excludes women from leadership, she is submitting. She is modeling for the world what feminine submission is supposed to look like. Not only so, but the men who are doing this are accepting their assigned role and they are doing so submissively. Women who try to grasp authority in the church and the men who connive with them in it are being unsubmissive. It is no small wonder that they do not understand submission on the micro level because they are refusing to display it on the macro level. But I mentioned the pressure of our egalitarian age also because we are experiencing a full court press seeking to get us to abandon our commitment to the scriptural standards in these matters. This has an ironic tendency to reduce opportunities for women in areas that scripture would allow them to operate. Note, scripture does not require them to operate in these areas, but it does allow it. But because conservative churches don't want even to look like they might be thinking about going feminist, those opportunities dry up. For example, the New Testament allows a woman with a gift of prophecy to exercise that gift in church. 1 Corinthians 11:5. But because the gift of a supernaturally given prophetic word is no longer extant, this is a moot point. But women were allowed to pray publicly in their services provided her head was covered in a manner that showed submission in deference to her husband. Also 1 Corinthians 11:5. And it appears that Phoebe was a deaconist for the church at Sria. Romans 16:1. What about that? The mistake here is that of thinking that a deaconist was simply one of the deacons, only a woman. But the office of deaconists was a separate and distinct office, one that did not wield any authority over men. It was a ministry of mercy. And in order to be qualified even to hold this office, a woman had to be a widow, at least 60 years old, and a devoted wife and mother over the course of years. 1 Timothy 2:11, 1 Timothy 5:5-16.

[00:04:39]The deeper issues in play here would become obvious if a conservative church allowed a woman to offer up a prayer in the congregation, but on the condition that she arranged her hair in a certain way or wear a head covering to make sure everyone knew that she was a sweet wife and not a heritan. The progressives would not hail this as a step forward in human rights. No, they would freak out.

[00:05:14]>> Well, we'd like to welcome Zach Garris to Man Rampant. Thank you for coming.

[00:05:18]Um, uh, Zach is the pastor of Bryce Avenue Presbyterian Church in the Los Alamos area. Is that right? And I'd like to start by talking about your book uh masculine Christianity. Uh whatever possessed you to to write a book like that. Tell us how that book came together.

[00:05:41]>> Well, I had read u a number of books over the years on gender roles, masculinity, uh feminism, and the like.

[00:05:49]And I I decided basically that there wasn't the one go-to book uh out there to recommend to people on on the subject that was comprehensive and especially dealing with a lot of the Bible passages related to these things. So uh I decided to write it myself essentially. Okay.

[00:06:10]>> Um >> something that >> about when did you decide this?

[00:06:15]Well, I'd been reading books on the subject for a while, but um maybe uh I don't know, 2017 or 18, I decided I was going to start jotting some notes down and eventually it it kind of came into a a book book idea.

[00:06:32]>> Okay. So, um we live in tumultuous times. is are these things that you grew up knowing and you've always believed and you were looking around. Why isn't anybody teaching us what we all used to know? or was it um I red pilling is overused, but were you in another place and then something happened that brought you to these convictions or is this uh are you uh the kind of arch conservative who's simply a moderate who didn't move?

[00:07:09]Well, I I think I always had some conservative inclinations and essentially I I was influenced by of course the Bible. The more I was reading things on teaching male headship and the like.

[00:07:23]>> You grew up in Christian home and >> well uh I grew up in a Eastern Orthodox uh church. Okay.

[00:07:29]>> Attended with my grandparents. Became a Protestant in high school and uh kind of bounced around in college. I eventually ended up in uh the Dutch Reformed Church and now I'm in in the PCA, the Presbyterian Church in America.

[00:07:43]>> So I uh I was I was certainly influenced from Christian teaching uh Christian books on the subject. Um but yeah, something always seemed out of out of place with our culture. Uh feminism always struck me as uh going against nature. So, so it's kind of both the Bible and just reality. Uh, something seemed out of place.

[00:08:09]>> That's a tough combination to beat.

[00:08:12]>> The Bible and the Bible and reality.

[00:08:15]>> Yeah.

[00:08:18]>> So, um, it didn't add up. Now, when you looked when you were looking around at okay, who can who can I recommend? What book can I recommend to people? Now there were there have been plenty of um we call them complimentarians. What what did you find lacking in the in the complimentarian approach?

[00:08:40]>> Yeah. So so there's definitely been uh there have been good books on uh the these subjects. Obviously you've written some I think good books on um >> family >> family things you know father rule and things uh like that. Um I think the complimentarian works I mean the most famous one is recovering biblical manhood and womanhood which is I think overall a good book.

[00:09:09]It's a combination of uh essays from a variety of authors and um it was mostly a response to evangelical feminism from the 1970s and ' 80s. And so in that sense I think um it and this is where I think some of the problems came in. It ended up taking a fairly narrow view of uh gender roles.

[00:09:37]So, um, what I mean there is they're probably not going to talk about things applying outside the home and church.

[00:09:45]So, they're going to defend two points especially male headship in the home and then uh male rule or leadership in the church >> and not uh men preaching only men preaching and on on the elder board.

[00:10:00]>> Right. Well, maybe so. So, >> yeah. And this is where I think uh some of the problems came in with complimentarianism is over time you realized that there was a diversity of views within complimentarianism. Some that would be broader and closer to maybe traditional historic reformed views. Mhm.

[00:10:25]>> Um but then you had some who were taking a very narrow view of uh male headship.

[00:10:33]And so so this is where and you have this today that I think there were maybe cracks in the dam and they've played out over the last 10 or 20 years. Mhm.

[00:10:42]>> And so an example would be there's there are churches today pastors who would call themselves complimentarian >> and yet they would allow a woman to preach to men because it um it doesn't they don't think it falls under the prohibition of 1 Timothy 2. So as long as it's under the >> authority of the elders male elders in the church. So that's probably that's probably the one of the narrowest views of complimentarianism you can hold.

[00:11:11]And yet people are allowing that and calling themselves complimentarian.

[00:11:17]>> And and also the limiting it to those two issues means that someone could call himself a complimentarian and have no problem with a woman flying fighter jets >> right >> into combat. And well it does it's not a headship issue. Not a gospel issue. Not a headship issue.

[00:11:35]>> Doesn't come up in the New Testament.

[00:11:37]>> Not at all. Not a single word. Um, and yet, but let's go back to that combo you said earlier of the Bible and reality. So, if if the biblical if Christian the Christian faith is a world and life view, if it's all of Christ for all of life, then the things the Bible teaches about the home and the church would have relevance elsewhere. and what nature she teaches us about a woman's makeup and physiology and inclinations would also indicate the same sort of thing.

[00:12:12]>> Absolutely. And and that's where I think one of you have one of the problems with complimentarianism as a movement and it's this is not to say no complimentarians hold a broader view.

[00:12:22]Some of them do, but um but many of them don't. And so they they don't apply these principles um understanding the distinctions between men and women, which is wrapped up in our our very bodies, right? God's design for us >> and and that's how you're going to uh arrive at a position. I I think that women should not serve in combat roles, >> right?

[00:12:45]>> Right. You have you have to hold you have to be getting that from I mean there are Old Testament passages I think in in Deuteronomy >> 22:5. Yeah.

[00:12:54]>> Yes. Yes.

[00:12:55]>> Uh but we shouldn't just go there. We should also be making these arguments based on God's design and natural law and just looking at uh you know God has not designed women's bodies for combat.

[00:13:11]Mhm.

[00:13:12]>> Um, it's not to say we want war, but when war does take place, we shouldn't be sending our women to fight it, >> right? There's a delicious little passage in Thusidities where he's talking about a city that was under siege and they were under manned and things were desperate and so they dressed women up in in uh warriors uniforms to line the ramperts to make it look like they had more men than they did. But the women were under strict instructions not to throw anything.

[00:13:45]That that's just a historical fact. It may be illegal, but it's a historical fact. Um so when I hear someone generally speaking say, "Well, I'm a complimentarian." What what I tend to hear is they're identifying as a right-wing egalitarian.

[00:14:05]would is that harsh or is that do you think that's fair?

[00:14:10]>> I I I think it depends. I I think that may very well be the case. Um some some people may mean they hold a more comprehensive uh broader view of complimentarianism. But um unfortunately I think the term has almost become meaningless today where where in many cases yes it it means I hold a uh essentially egalitarian foundation or principles, but I don't think women should be pastors. It might be that narrow.

[00:14:44]>> And if called upon to explain why they can't be pastors, uh they would say something like, "Well, I don't know why God did it. It makes no sense to me, but but we just got to we because we subscribe to inherency, >> right?" Or or I'm in a church that doesn't allow it.

[00:14:59]>> It might it might just be their rules and so they don't want to push against that.

[00:15:03]>> Okay. So um and this is particularly tough because uh over the years and this is this might open up another subject but over the years um feminine virtues have been exalted in the evangelical church um such that um we've had women in pulpit for a long time. They're just male versions of women pastors. And the the problem is if you have exalted feminine virtues of empathy and relatability and relationship and that sort of thing instead of proclaiming the word of God. And um if someone says, "Well, hey, why don't we let women be pastors? If all your virtues for the pastorate are feminine virtues, then why not let the women do it because they're going to be they're going to be better at feminine virtues than the men are, right? So, it's like we've given up the given up the argument early on.

[00:16:09]>> Yeah, I I agree. I think it's important here that we understand preaching to be a masculine task. it just the way God has designed it. Uh it's exhortation.

[00:16:22]And so uh it's fitting that um men do this, but not just men, but um courageous masculine men. It really is tied up with God's design for a man. Um a sermon should not be just a talk. I we often hear these words today. It's a talk or a message. Well, >> it's a TED talk. Yeah, it's a it's a TED talk. It is it is a message, but it's a divine message and it's carrying the God's authority. It's an authoritative message.

[00:16:58]>> And if we understand preaching in that way, I think um it it makes sense why God has given this task only to men and not all men of course, but some men, >> right? It's an authoritative office. So Peter says the one who speaks should speak as the very oracles of God. Um see he should be able to get in the pulpit and say thus sayaith the Lord. These are the words of God. And a woman shouldn't be in that role uh declaring authoritatively what the word of God is that way. So if um so so if the term is not that reliable, you don't know what the the person might be uh true, you know, solid citizen and really understands the word and he calls himself a complimentarian because that's what he started calling himself 30 years ago. Uh and someone else might be indistinguishable from a feminist and call himself a complimentarian for political reasons. So, what would you how would what how would you describe the position? What word would you use to describe where you're coming from?

[00:18:07]>> Well, I do think the best word um to use is patriarchy.

[00:18:12]And >> but I thought we were supposed to smash that.

[00:18:15]>> Well, some people want to and I understand it's a it does have its baggage, >> right?

[00:18:21]>> Um but my thought now is well so does complimentarianism, >> right?

[00:18:25]>> Right. So there's no perfect term and I I'd rather redeem patriarchy than uh a word like complimentarianism which is I think pretty clunky anyway. It's uh it's not easy to say or spell. And so I think patriarch patriarchy makes sense because it's it's not just male rule but it's father rule. And so it's rooted in >> in God's uh design and God himself being our father. And so, um, since we have to redeem a term, to me, that's the, uh, most suitable one to describe scriptures teaching.

[00:19:02]>> Okay. All right. So, we're still tracking. That's good. I think that patriarchy is, um, people will say, well, there have been abusive patriarchal well, but this is a fallen world. Find me something that isn't hasn't been abused or or misused. So um that being the case, if we if we have a uh if the Christian faith is ineradicably patriarchal, meaning that Jesus brings us to the father, no man comes to the father when he teaches us to pray. He teaches us to pray to our father in heaven. Uh so if there's a if the hurdle if there's a hurdle to be gotten over, it's the hurdle of fathers.

[00:19:47]is, in other words, patriarchy is not the only stumbling block word. Father is a stumbling block word. If someone grew up with an abusive father or an absent father or, you know, um, a heretical father, some, they're going to stumble over the Lord's prayer, but the Lord's still gave us the Lord's prayer. Um, and so we should learn, we need to learn how to navigate that, right? So, so if we have um u patriarchy, this is going to lead into not just we're not egalitarians, but in your book uh masculine Christianity, you make a point something like um Christianity is inescapably hierarchical.

[00:20:31]Would that fair representation?

[00:20:33]>> Yes.

[00:20:33]>> Um so tease that out a bit. What do you mean by hierarchy? Well, I mean there's uh different ranks and uh authority structures in life and I think it's inescapable because uh that's just the way God has designed this world. U of course God is an authority himself.

[00:20:55]He he's at the top and so all authority structures, earthly authority structures have been instituted by him. And so I mean that that's why the scriptures command these things. They command us to obey those in authority over us, whether they're civil authorities like Romans 13.

[00:21:15]Um, wives are to submit to husbands, Ephesians 5. And, uh, also children are to obey parents. And so, you you see a variety of these authority structures.

[00:21:27]They're divinely instituted. Uh, many of them are natural. they're going to just um come about naturally when communities uh settle a place. You're going to have some sort of government uh evolve. You have to. And so um we have scriptures teaching on these things. Of course, marriage, there has to be a head. I would say that's just it's inevitable.

[00:21:50]There's going to be someone if you have two people, there has to be one person die.

[00:21:55]>> Yeah. Exactly. At least, right? So >> Okay. Um yeah so um I don't want to go too meta here but the a good book on this general topic is Leon Podless wrote the church impotent and he blames a lot of our uh difficulties of in the in the west his argument is that um men stay away from church generally uh which is not a problem with Judaism or Islam. It's not that men are less religious than women, but there's something about piety and devotion in the West that has sort of put men off.

[00:22:40]And and this is true in Protestantism, Protestantism generally, and also in Roman Catholicism. And Podless's argument is that he blames everything on Bernard of Clairvo.

[00:22:53]So this is promising. Uh he says that Bern um up until Bernard the the church is the bride of Christ which is a feminine image. Half of the bride of Christ is male. Right? So but as a corporate entity the church is the bride and Christ is the bridegroom and corporately we can function that way.

[00:23:16]But what Bernard did was he sort of individualized the devotional language of the church and you uh brought it down to each individual and the church preparing herself as a bride for her husband. That's out of the end of the book of Revelation. But if you're in your at your prayers in your private devotions and you're a solitary male trying to prepare yourself as a bride for her husband, there's two problems.

[00:23:44]One is that you're going to be no good at it and and you can't it's going to be distasteful to you and you're going to leave. And the other is that you're going to be good at it. And that's the other problem. That's the other problem.

[00:23:57]So if a man is no good at it, he's going to want to check out. If he's good at it, then it's he's he's giving way to a feminacy. So the meta thing or trying not to be meta would be something like the church by having male leadership and by having the pulpit reserved for men proclaiming the word of God. That is submission.

[00:24:18]That's the bride doing what the bride was told to do. So the most feminine thing the bride can do is to have masculine leadership because we're obeying.

[00:24:29]>> Right.

[00:24:31]>> That have you Have you any additional thoughts on Podless's the thesis or uh do you think he's on to something?

[00:24:40]>> Yeah, I I think that um that makes sense. I scripture I I'm just think reflecting on scripture doesn't um use this imagery of the bride individually. So that we shouldn't think that way. Um I guess what I would say is that there are other passages and I I think these are important that that do call men to act mainly. I even think of um 1 Corinthians 16:13 and uh I think the the reformers like this verse >> which was uh be watchful uh stand firm in the faith act like men be strong and and so that act like men it can also be translated be courageous >> right >> but there is a and that's even given to the whole church that's not limited just to men but >> um certainly the men should act manly and courageous so so we have to have a a balance here right >> of >> in proverbs a virtuous woman is a good thing to find, but she's a courageous woman, like a warrior-like woman, but she's doing what she's called to do. So, courage is what God wants some gives us to uh as we are take up our stations, our appointed stations. So, I should find out what I was made for and try to get there and not be at war with um my DNA. be at if I'm at war with my chromosomes, then it's going to turn out ugly, which is we're in the middle of that right now with the the whole transsexual thing where people want the right to sort of veto what God did.

[00:26:13]>> Yeah. And I think there's definitely a um tie here between feminism and transgenderism and that both are fighting against nature. Um, feminism was a rejection of God's design for women uh to be a helper to their husband and uh really homeward oriented and domestic, right? Things that traditionally have always been associated with womanhood and godly womanhood. What we're seeing now with transgenderism has some connections to feminism, especially the the second wave of the 1960s.

[00:26:48]feminism really was aimed at uh pushing women outside of the home. It was an attack on women um really as homemakers um helping their husbands being domestic uh domestically oriented caring for children.

[00:27:07]So the very idea of u homemaker was demonized uh degraded and so you have this this uh really ideology of feminism pushing women outside of the home uh which I would say is against God's design in scripture and also just you know design seen in their their very bodies.

[00:27:27]And then transgenderism is just I think taking that to another level. Uh it's so if a a woman is rejecting God's design for her behavior, why not go further? Uh there is a good reason not go further. But they take it this direction is >> uh well I can just not only act like a man but I can even look like one or change my body at least to appear like a man or or vice versa.

[00:27:55]>> It begins with clothing. It begins with an androgynous look and then roles in the workplace and then well why not go whole hog? Why not um um s why not surgery? Why not all those things? It's also worth pointing out that both first first wave feminism and secondwave feminism happened. They had a similarity in in that um uh and Douglas argues in the feminization of American culture that the industrial revolution threw a bunch of women out of work. They used to be an integral part of the economic household. Uh they had a job to do and the family wouldn't make it through the winter if they didn't do their job.

[00:28:39]husband had to work the fields and the wife had to um spin and and sew and manage the household and it was a survival thing. Uh and the industrial revolution sort of um took over like you used to be able to say, "Oh, that's a homespun outfit." But textile uh manufacturing all of that all of a sudden this wealth uh was a blessing for women but they they didn't have defined roles anymore and they they didn't turn to scripture for what I'm going to do and so they um got into uh writing sappy novels and and uh like the El L Elsie Dinsmore kind of thing or in his steps where the woman was the Holy Ghost the converting influence and and then but you had something very similar after the Second World War with that burst of uh um prosperity and all the labor saving devices, dishwashers and um uh you know refrigerators and all of a sudden there was a lot of uh competent woman could find herself done at 10 in the morning and now what's what am I for now? Well, then you add on to that the birth control pill where you can prevent children uh reduce the number of children you're having and and the workload goes down significantly. And so really, yeah, it's it's because of these technological changes that women are able to do what they do today, especially which is go work a full-time job outside of the home where the the husband does the same. That just wouldn't have been possible in prior ages.

[00:30:19]>> Yeah. You Yeah. However, somebody might have thought it was to be desired, but you just couldn't make it happen.

[00:30:25]>> That's right.

[00:30:25]>> And now you can make it happen. And it's a it's a folly that where the bill comes due late. So Paul says that some people's sins go ahead of them and other people's sins come behind them. And it seems that this whole thing that we're playing with, it's the the bills are coming down. The bills are coming due now. um everything's falling apart and uh people who are arguing something like what you're arguing are finding receptive audiences that you would not have had 20 years ago, right? You you would have been a dangerous extremist 20 years ago and you're still going to be labeled that by the extremists. But a lot of regular normal people are going to say this makes sense.

[00:31:16]>> Yeah. I think obviously for Christians appealing to scripture uh should appeal to them. But even beyond that, I think a lot of people today are just realizing something's wrong. Uh you know, our our families are are broken. We have high divorce rates. Uh you know, ch high rates of children out of wedlock.

[00:31:37]um just some something's wrong and um so so by appealing to uh God's design, you know, even as as seen in nature, but um also, you know, this is how people used to raise families uh which was uh the wife being more home oriented and and having children and the like. I think that yeah that that just should fit with kind of reality and and so I I do think it's appealing to a lot of people who are um especially the more radical our culture gets, right? It's it we Christians are looking a lot more normal.

[00:32:16]>> Yeah. You can be the way to become a a hardcore right-wing conservative is to be a moderate who doesn't move. If if you say, "Okay, I'm going to be an H here's the thing. Um the position that we hold on marriage, for example, um one man, one woman for life, that was Obama's position running for president.

[00:32:40]That was Hillary's position running for president, and it's now a hate crime.

[00:32:43]All All you have to do is all you have to do is articulate something like that and then don't budge." Uh so um this might segue into another u area entirely but I think there's some overlap. Um there's a there are there's a particular kind of Christian that doesn't think in terms of principles. They just say give me the verse you know show me the verse and it spells it out in black letters and I'll okay I'll go along with it. But there are other thinkers who have the ability to sort of distill the principle. They they see the root issue.

[00:33:20]They're they're radical thinkers. Not in this sense of extreme thinkers, but they radics means root. They they're radical thinkers. They go to the root. And I I'll never forget the sensation I had when I first read some of Arnold Dabney's essays. He died I think in 1899, something like that.

[00:33:39]>> 1898.

[00:33:40]>> 1898. Um, and and yet when I was reading his essays, I was thinking, how on earth did he know this?

[00:33:49]How on how on earth did he uh predict this? So, one of his essays was called women's rights, women. Uh, he was writing about women's suffrage, women um having the right to vote. And when we when we talk about feminism and egalitarianism today, uh that issue is going to come up as sort of a reductio. Oh, I bet you want to take women's right to vote away, right? Does that um how did Dabney see how do you think that Dabney saw what was at stake and where this was all going?

[00:34:26]>> Yeah. reading Dabney on uh uh on these issues of uh really what was progressivism back in the day in the late 1800s, he was prophetic. He he saw exactly what was going on and he was often able to like you said pinpoint uh the problem and predict things that really are coming to fruition today, right?

[00:34:50]>> You know, 100 150 years later. So in his uh essay women's rights women he's attacking firstwave feminism which as he said was pushing for u the the right to vote for women but Dabney you know he I think probably he was reading widely and so he's he's seeing the things that they're arguing and saying and but he's also just uh you know he's a sharp mind he he's able to see where it's going to go and so I think he understood that part of what was happening there was that uh these the the leaders of the women's rights movement were radicals themselves. Uh you look at Elizabeth Katie Stanton and um and and so they're undermining male headship, but even they're advocating other things. And so I think he saw that like if you read uh Stanton, she's she's pushing for no fault divorce even in the late 1800s, right? This this doesn't come about until 1970 in California. I think it's the first year uh where it actually you know became a law. So Dabney says something funny about Stanton um because she was the most radical and he says uh well she's the most consistent and he says uh uh you know some of her hoodwinged advocates uh may not see it but but he said but she you know she's the most consistent. She's arguing for no fault divorce. She says marriage should only be kept together for love. Um she was she even wanted uh equality even in the church even though she was not a practicing Christian. Uh she seemed to be a atheist later in life >> and uh so Dabney saw through all of it.

[00:36:33]>> So if um well let's talk about let let's grab the third rail here. Um if someone says um so are you against women voting?

[00:36:43]uh in our uh I'll just uh use the illustration of our our church's polity.

[00:36:50]Um we don't have uh we don't have men voting. We don't have women voting. We have household households vote. And if you are the head of the household like Lydia was presumably in Philippi um because she and her household were baptized um that household would have a vote. So when we call a minister or install an elder, all our households vote and a handful of women who are heads of their own households, widows and that sort of thing, vote. So it's you're not prohibited from voting if you're a woman. Um but when the men and when the men vote, they're not voting as a male. They're they're voting as the head of the house. So um so what happened in the women's suffrage movement was it looked like I think there was a Trixie move. It looked like we are infranchising women now. What we were doing is disenfranchising households. We were it's no longer it's no longer a unit. And then that was sort of radically reinforced in the row decision because Rose said um the decision to have an abortion is between a woman and her doctor and if she was married the father was irrelevant. He had no legal stand. So it was not just the abortion of children that followed.

[00:38:16]It was the abortion of the American family as a decisionmaking unit. Is there do you see any places where you'd want to poke at that or?

[00:38:26]>> Yeah. No, I I think that's right. Is it's um in both these cases they're they're undercutting legally undercutting uh men. And so in in the case of uh women's suffrage in some cases you have it where the the wife would vote the same as the husband.

[00:38:45]And so they're doubling up, but they're also allowing the wife to vote against her husband, >> which means you canceled out. They might as well stay home, >> right? U also possibly encouraging women not to marry u uh because they they get their vote as a single woman. So I think there's maybe something there. Um but yeah, so uh that's I think part of at root what was what was going on is undermining this god uh designed uh concept of of male headship really the the covenant family and and like you said it's it's not that we can't have women voting there there are situations where a widow especially she is the head of her household there's no there's no man >> so um we live in a we live in inflamed times so if I say Dabney was a great theologian, which he was, and a great thinker, which he was, a political cultural thinker, which he was, and a representative of the Southern Presbyterian um school of thought. All that's true, but if I just We live in times where I say, "Well, Dabney said, people start yelling because, yeah, he was he was on Stonewall Jackson's staff for cry for crying out loud. do you want to do over at Gettysburg and all everything gets um people start throwing things at your head. How do you handle that kind of thing?

[00:40:11]Well, I think uh there's a couple uh things to to say there about Dabney is uh one, he's living through reconstruction in the south in the late 1800s, so after the the war and uh his society is being attacked from u you know northern or I guess interference from the >> Yeah. All of that. but the changing the very lifestyle that they had and so he was of course I think upset with what's going on um you know so he ends up writing devoting a lot of his writing to attacking this progressivism whether it's uh public education uh feminism so variety of things um you know most people would want to attack him for his defense of slavery and his racial views uh I think one thing to say there and we're kind of seeing this play out is that uh Dabney might have written written more on these things than other theologians. But we're finding a lot of these same things come up with uh other American theologians, whether it's Jonathan Edwards, John Witherspoon, a lot of these men owned slaves and uh and did not hold uh racial views that are acceptable today. So I don't think we should just throw Robert Lewis Dabney out uh because of these things. He says somewhere, it might be in defense of Virginia in the south where he says, "Be sure the old issues are dead before you bury them because," and I think that's another prophetic statement. We are still haunted by all of the issues that were going on then because we didn't address them biblically or properly. Um, and and we think, well, we settled that, but but so why are we still why are we still here? Why is um why why are racial sensibilities so inflamed? Why why is the war between the sexes so inflamed?

[00:42:10]What you know it's not like we have our act together and we can lecture him, right? So with um with people like that, I've I I've had that same experience reading other writers. CS Lewis does that to me also in the um in that hideous strength. There are a number of prophetic things that he he wrote in the 1940s that are coming to pass now. Uh Dabney's had that influence and a lot of the anti-revolutionary thinkers um uh Kyper uh is that kind of a thinker. Uh Van Prinster the the the people who are sort of staunch against the egalitarian leveling. So the 19th century was a century of egalitarian revolutions beginning maybe with the French Revolution. I would exclude the American Revolution as being a conservative movement, but the French Revolution at the tail end of the 18th century and the Russian Revolution at the beginning of the 20th and then the 19th century. just this u mayhem of u egalitarianism and and now we're trying to sort it out downstream and it just doesn't work right. The human family can't stay together if you put the pieces that way.

[00:43:33]>> Yeah. And and Dabney was predicting these things. Um he he and he did tie in u what he called the the Jacaban u aspect of the enlightenment which is the most radical I think part of the enlightenment and he contrasted that with the British and and hence the American view of equality which was equality before the law >> not an u sameness where where we have to all do the same thing in order to um you know be of equal value or something which is essentially what egalitarianism says.

[00:44:08]>> Yeah. Egalitarianism wants equality of outcome and the Anglo-Saxon common law tradition is equality of opportunity. If you have equality of opportunity, somebody's going to lose the race or somebody's going to have at the end of the day someone's going to have more money or more acreage or someone's going to be successful. But if you say equality of outcome, then the state's got to come in and make it all make it all even.

[00:44:35]>> So this even ties in not only with Dabney's uh critique of feminism, but also his uh critique of public education. He saw the uh state education system as coming in and wanting to essentially try to force uh sameness on everyone, their sense of equality. But he he knew it would uh you know people are coming from different families and you you can't have sameness. Uh same with religion he understood it would uh the system would become secular. It would have the lowest common denominator.

[00:45:10]>> And so that's that was really I think uh part of his uh critique of it. He his son uh Charles said he was that Robert Lewis Dabney was an aristocrat. Mhm.

[00:45:21]>> And so yeah, his uh egalitarianism was, you know, entirely against his aristocratic sensibilities.

[00:45:29]>> I remember when when I first read on secularized education. Um there's a line in there, a passage in there where he says, "Christians then must prepare themselves for the following results.

[00:45:42]All Bibles, catechisms, and prayers will ultimately be driven out of the schools." And we look at that and say there were catechisms in the schools.

[00:45:53]You know, I I went to public school and I still remember being led in prayer at the beginning of the school day. Um so I went to lower grade grade school when before prayer was exiled. But before that there were Bibles, King James Bibles, Protestant Bibles and Protestant catechisms. And the Roman Catholic parochial system began not because the public schools were uh secular at the time. It's because the public schools were Protestant and evangelical at the time. And Dabney looked at that and said that's not going to last. The the principles of leveling are going to work their way out. And then he said and then when they do, your education is godless.

[00:46:36]And that's like trying to conduct education in a dark cavern or under the water or something. you can't do it. And then we look at today where this the mayhem in the streets, all those people were educated somewhere. So I would argue the public schools that Dabney warned us about over a century ago are the lymph nodes from which the cancer is spreading. Um the K through 12 and the higher educ universities, it's spreading everywhere. All these people got their education somewhere, right?

[00:47:06]>> Yeah, absolutely. And it it is interesting, Dabney in his uh debates in the 1870s, he's actually debating other Presbyterians, right? They're they're defending the which was a new public school system, >> right?

[00:47:22]>> Um not just schools for the poor, which they had had for a while, but but an actual system for everyone.

[00:47:31]And he so he he saw the logic in it and where it was going to lead. And so like you said, that was his argument is uh well well one he's saying there's going to be kids from good and bad families and then they're going to influence one another and that's that's not going to go well for the the kids from good Christian families. So that's one argument. But yeah, he also says it's going to um end up getting lowest common denominator secularized and uh and that's what we're dealing with today. And so, um, I mean, I think it's it's it's, uh, it's not good, but in in one sense, I mean, Dabney's arguments really were vindicated, uh, the more time has gone by.

[00:48:12]>> And so, we're not, uh, I don't anticipate any public apologies to him anytimes, anytime. You were right about everything. You were right about everything. Um, but at some point this this uh revolution that we're going through, I I I think that we're in the beginning of a an attempted cultural revolution. So, it began with um it began with cultural tensions u in the row in 73 and the sexual revolution in the late60s, cultural fment and tension. And then Pat Buchanan in the 90s g gave us the phrase culture wars. So it went from cultural tensions to cultural wars. And I think we're now at the cultural revolution.

[00:49:02]I'm wondering who the red guards are going to be. But it's that's where it appears to be where you you cannot you can't as we're recording this, we just had the a few weeks ago there was the shooting of the Christian school in Nashville and the White House press secretary statement on it was the trans community is under siege. And I think okay this is guar this is gaslighting par excellence.

[00:49:30]The problem clearly is the Christians, right?

[00:49:35]So, um, how can let's, uh, land it with this. How, how would you say, um, as we look at this frenzy, clown world? Well, it's not clown world anymore. It's creepy clown world. The clowns have chainsaws now.

[00:49:53]So, so uh how would you encourage Christians to think straight about these things, keep their sanity and not to overreact, not to panic? Um how what would be your word to them in a time like this?

[00:50:09]>> Well, I um obviously we need to uh first and foremost trust the Lord. Uh it can, you know, feel like uh the world around us is crumbling. So we have to look to uh the Lord our refuge, right? As the Psalms speak. Uh we have to um I think order our lives according to his his word. And so trying to be a um example for for the chaos in the world.

[00:50:39]So that that that even ties with in with these things of male headship and and uh you know seeking to have children and raise them in the Lord and uh withstand withstand the the chaos around us.

[00:50:53]>> And circling back to the earlier point, Bible and reality, that's a formidable team.

[00:50:59]>> Exactly. And so I mean the revolution, it it it may win short term, but it it can't win long term. It's fighting against reality. Uh it's fighting against God's world, right? Amen. Well, thank you