Men Are Struggling. Here's the Conversation We Need.

The Role of Masculinity in Society

And make no mistake about it, the direction of the home, it flows through to men. And that's not just for us to be showvinistic about. It is a responsibility and a mandate that quite frankly, we see that ball's been dropped and society as a whole is reflective of that. And when I think of toxic masculinity, I don't think for the strong man, I think of the man with no chests. You know, I think they see a sluice talked about that the chest quite a bit. I think about the weak man because weak men have the ability to do more damage in society than the strong man. They're more of a threat because there's no identity, there's no confidence, there's no meatiness, which is that controlled strength. And it's often the weak man, the one who don't feel heard, who don't feel understood that end up going out and carrying out some of these crazy acts of violence that we've seen in our culture over the years. It's typically the loner, the isolated guy, has no friends, has no family, and then one day he just snaps and goes out and goes crazy and masculinity, true masculinity is the antidote for that. Godly masculinity, it is the antidote for that type of, you know, stuff that we're seeing in our culture.

The Father Crisis in America

I saw Patrick Bet David, I don't know if you're familiar with him. He's got a huge podcast. He started out with leadership and entrepreneurship. And now he does a lot more stuff like cultural events and current events. And he put a video up just a couple of days ago talking about the father issue in America and the father crisis really. And now the father absence in our country is, I mean, some of the statistics, and I can't recall them off the top right now, but they're at an all-time high of children that are being raised in the home without dads. And then you start to look at guys in culture kind of come into the surface and you know, Andrew Tate is a name that's on everybody's lips right now. Yeah, if you're not familiar with Andrew, either you've been living under a rock because I'm certainly probably seeing him somewhere. I mean, people, not you, we talked about Andrew before the show, but in general, he was one of the most Google-searched men on the planet. And you see a guy like this kind of come to prominence and create so much popularity in such a short period of time. And you know, very type A macho masculine, you know, I got all the cars, I got all the girls, I'm making all the money, type guy, and how much a guy like that resonates with the young men in our culture. And I was just, you know, interested to try to connect the two, right? You know, is one a symptom of the other, you know, and you maybe just kind of, we'll just start there and share some of your thoughts.

The Shift in Family Structures

Yeah, definitely. We definitely have a void, particularly, definitely in my ethnic background, definitely in my ethnic family, as far as Black Americans, with the advent of the great society, you know, we went from 77% of two-parent homes to now probably in the low 20s and how that's affected children and how it's just totally shifted the culture as far as Black culture. So I mean, and obviously the other ethnicities have caught up as far as that dysfunction goes of not staying, not being committed to our families, not being committed to the vows that we take when we get married. So, you know, a strong, a strong man, because of that void, you know, there are guys that can come in like an Andrew Tate that, and also, I mean, you know, as another issue, you know, we're in an increasingly effeminate society where feminism is being promoted. We have a term called toxic masculinity now as we're trying to persuade people away from authentic manhood. The rugged John Wayne figures of our movies from the 70s, the Clint Eastwoods, all those things, we've moved away from those things. We're seeing more and more, if you will, beta-type males in society now, rather than alpha males like an Andrew Tate. I'm sure you've probably even heard of Kevin Samuels, who passed away recently, and some of the straight shooting things that he said to women that call in and question him. And, you know, so I mean, those types of straight shooters are, they don't really, people don't really know how to receive them, but there is an attraction that draws people to that. I think a lot of men probably look at an Andrew Tate or Kevin Samuels wishing that they could be that way privately, even if they don't really want to admit that, because that is, again, that's what we came from. We came from strong male types.

The Crisis of Authentic Manhood

I mean, you know, there's a reason we love football, you know, we love the contact, we love the competition. I mean, that's just innate in our makeup as men. And so we see, you know, we've seen a gradual softening of society to work in. You know, men are being pushed away from the table as we see more and more females take leadership roles, be more vocal. You know, I still, I admit, and you know, I have trouble sometimes when I watch a sports show, maybe on TV, and I see a whole panel of women debating football, and I'm like, wait a minute, where are the guys at? I mean, you know, I'm, you know, not a showvinist at all, but I mean, you know, I'm from way back when we had maybe one woman back in the early days of CBS, Phyllis George, be on there with Brent Musburger and some of these other guys. And now we see so many women. And again, you know, I don't have a problem with seeing women rise to the forefront and do some things like that, but I think there's just an underlying push away from authentic manhood. I was just thinking about this morning, you know, we've got, we've had a void really, you know, we used to have the Promise Keepers movement back in the 90s where men got together and went to stadiums and worshipped together, ate together, and talked about male things. Fathers would take their sons. And, you know, we've kind of, we have a void there because of, again, there's an outright war that can't be argued against manhood, against masculinity. And we're seeing it with the rise of the transgender thing, the rise of genders is four-year and all these different things that are coming from the fact that we, we’re now preaching non-binary, we’re preaching, you know, subjective decisions based on what you think you are.

The Dangers of Abandoning Masculinity

You're feeling the moment, yeah. We get a series on that at my church back in the fall, on there's a book by a God by the name of Chase Replogle. It's called The Five Masculine Instincts and really talks about the crisis that men are going through in general because, you know, all masculinity has been labeled as toxic and gender on gender is so fluid now, you know? It's against the cultural current to celebrate the distinct differences in men and women. And if, you know, we celebrate even traditional gender roles, like in my home, you know, I work and my wife is home with the children. And it's not to say she couldn't go out and get a job if she wanted to, but we both find deep value in doing what we feel like God has designed us to do, you know? And, you know, she can do things that I can't do. I do things that she can't do. And, you know, I think there's some of this mindset whereas if you embrace any type of masculinity in today's culture, it's really pushed back one. And Andrew Tate is the extreme. And I think a lot of people do, he gets the attention because I think he just says what's on his mind. And he's very clear, he's very direct. And I'm almost wondering if some of it isn't for the clicks, right? And some of it isn't a show as extreme as he goes sometimes. But, you know, even saying things like he said in the past where I'm, you know, it's my duty to protect my wife. Well, that's showvinistic. No, no, it isn't. Like, it's my duty. You know, now there's a lot of controversy around him now. Apparently, he's been hemmed up on some charges. And I don't want to say that I'm a fan of any of that. If the dude has been convicted of human trafficking, and he's guilty of it, then he needs to be put in jail, you know? And so there's no question there. I don't want anybody listening to get the wrong idea that my conversation about him is an endorsement of that type of behavior.

The Challenge of Modern Masculinity

But, you know, even guys like Jordan Peterson, when he came on the scene, I mean, he was initially, you know, just speaking out about, you know, masculine issues and encouraging men to make their beds and stand up with their shoulders back. He was drug through the mud by the left leading media. Like, you know, as toxic masculinity and why are you so angry? And, you know, conversely, when you get into some of the comment feeds on his videos, you're hearing young men, you know, thank you, Jordan. You saved my life, you know, and in some of his books. And so it's just, you're right, there is this huge push in culture, just really just discount masculinity. And it's not, it is difficult, I think, in today’s culture to try to, you know, find our places, men, when everything's been so blurred, you know? It's, you know, raising three young men now, you know, three boys, you know, my wife, like your wife, when you're raising young kids, you know, she didn't work, she eventually took some work as the kids got a little older and gave her a little more freedom from mothering. But, you know, that's a role that, you know, nowadays, you know, whether opening a door for a woman, you know, do women even want that anymore? I would like to. Paying for dinner, paying for dinner, you know, they're like, I could pay for my own dinner. I mean, that sort of thing used to be how it was ingrained in us that the man is supposed to take care of things. And trust me, I believe there comes a point in relationships, you know, whether it's marriage or not, where women want that, whether they can really articulate it or not, whether they really think through with it. I think they want it deep down. I think they would appreciate it over time versus a husband that, well, he's playing PlayStation all night long and sleeping all day and I'm working. After a while, that relationship's not going to work. So, again, they're going to step back into a biblical worldview at some point because that's the way God designed it. And that's God designed human relationship. God put those, God built us that way for a reason. And no matter what's going on in the culture, it comes back to what the way God does things is what works. It's proven, it's time-tested. And, you know, we're going to see challenges more and more as we go as we continue to venture away from what his original design was for us.

The Impact of Fatherlessness on Identity

So, do you think that some of this battle on masculinity and the culture has led to some of the fatherlessness in homes? I mean, you know, is there a tie in there? What do you think is contributed to, you know, if you had to put your thumb on it and solve this problem in just a moment in a conversation, if you know, what do you think? What do you think causes that? I think probably the boomer generation that ended around the 60s, you know, they were committed to marriage, you know, they were committed to the original, you know, whether their marriages were great or not, they did not divorce, and they raised their kids with those values. And so, I believe as we started to see more and more breakups, you know, the husband is the cover, the spiritual covering for the wife and the children. And so, as you take that covering away and the woman takes on a role that's not hers, she's not equipped for it spiritually or physically. So you have single moms raising kids, those kids are without a male, I mean, and, you know, we can, you know, I've seen a lot of statistics on the fact where father absences, you know, men are more likely to be incarcerated, women are more likely, girls are more likely to have teenage pregnancies and all those different things. And then you have an epidemic where you've got, now you've got teenage moms. And so that next generation behind them is compromised. And then, you know, so down through the years, we've seen to where we, you know, where we are now, where kids are questioning their identities, well, you know, your identity, where's our identity as Christians come from? It comes from God, our father, you know, so fathers in a home, you know, are very key for sons, very, very key for daughters, you know, not to offend any of our female listeners, but it really is important that identity is really passed down through the father, you know, we are the seat, we are the carriers of the seat, you know, we're the ones that, you know, we’re the ones that set the tone for our homes. We're the ones that we should be the role model. We should be what our daughters are looking to find when they want to mate. We should be what our sons aspire to be. Again, you know, I'm not taking away the role of moms, their nurturing role is very, very key, but the direction, make no mistake about it, the direction of the home, it flows through to men, and that's not just for us to be showvinistic about, it is a responsibility and a mandate that quite frankly, you know, we see that ball's been dropped and society as a whole is reflective of that. I mean, it really is.

The Importance of Celebrating Gender Roles

Yeah, you know, I think that's the challenge of not being able to celebrate or the loss of celebration around, you know, each individual gender and, you know, what God designed each gender to do. And, you know, this whole toxic showvinistic, you know, mindset and really just trying to silence that debate. It's life. This isn't about freedom. A woman, you know, a woman and a man can choose to do whatever they want. They have the same opportunities, you know, but, but just because they can, doesn't mean there aren't some things that God uniquely gifted each of us to do. And so I think when we take that away from one gender or the other, you know, we're really missing the beauty and what God created us to be, you know, as male and female. And, you know, some of these situations, you know, I think you've seen, you've heard stories of people that have come up, you know, in single-parent households and have done really well. And it's certainly able to be done, but just because it can be done in the exception, does it mean it has to be the rule, right? And that's what we've kind of said. It's like, by celebrating, you know, the fact that a two-parent home is going to ultimately be the best scenario for a child. It's like, well, what about the people that only have one parent? Well, I'm not knocking that and I believe that God can work and that child can be raised up and be successful in a one-parent home. But just because that's happened by certain circumstances, does it mean we should want that to happen in every scenario? You know, it's not taken anything away from those people. And that seems to be like an issue in culture as well today. You know, it's like, you know, I think if I speak out and I say yellow is my favorite color, you know, it's in culture today, it's like, you know, well, what about the other colors? Why do you hate them all? It's like, no, it's just my favorite, you know, it's just my idea of what a good color is. I like yellow and a lot of people don't like it. But, you know, it's like, of course, there's the ability for us to move and be successful in the exception. My words are, you know, I'll jump it up, excuse me. But there is a design. I think we should seek to follow that design that God has laid out. The original design in the garden wasn't for man to sin, not to eat from a tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So once that sin was unleashed, didn't mean that God had some great examples of grace all throughout the Bible where, I mean, we had Noah who walked uprightly. We had Abraham, we had a lot of these guys that did it right. But then the midst of dysfunction. But God's original will was not, was not for sin to enter into the world.

The Need for Strong Male Figures

And so yeah, I mean, I'm the product of a single mom, but I had some solid, my grandfather, my grandmother, they really poured into me. And so I made the determination, you know, when I met my wife that, you know, we're gonna have to start, we're gonna have to start with our kids. And the tragic part of it is that whatever generation drops the ball really forces the next generation to have to find those values out in society. I found fathers in baseball coaches, I found fathers in teachers, the scary thing, which, you know, obviously isn't our topic for the day, but, you know, where do people go now because you've got teachers that are booming, you've got all kinds of those situations in the schools that you really can't count on anymore to find solid role models. So, I mean, you force your kids into a culture when you abandon them, you force them to try to find their identity in a place that's incredibly broken. And so we find, you know, things like gender dysphoria, kids struggling with identity, suicide, all those different things. They come because those kids have been uncovered. And when they're uncovered, you know, the enemy just, you know, he's hated life from the beginning, you know? And so he wants to come, obviously, at the most vulnerable society to tame it before it ever gets started. And so, again, you know, part of our mandate is men, is we've got the guard and we've got the govern, we've got the shepherd, we've got to protect. And when there's no shepherd there, the, you know, when the sheepfold is left unguarded, the wolves come.

The Urgency for Strong Masculinity

Yeah, I mean, and they kind of circle back to when the identity piece will be originally, you started this top, this section of the conversation was, I mean, you know, you look at an audience of a guy like Tate or Peterson, and it's predominantly young men. And it tells me that despite what society is trying to push down our throats and trying to push, you know, that the masculinity is not important and everything was just fluid and you do what you want, yada, yada, yada. There's a hunger in these young men for somebody to speak identity into them. They wouldn't be watching if there wasn't. They want somebody to tell them, you know, even I go back to Peterson, because one of his viral clips in the beginning was him telling you to get up out of bed in the morning and make it. You know, and people kind of joke about that, you know, make your bed, but it's a starting point. And simple, practical advice like that. Those are things that we get from our parents. We get from our fathers. They tell us that. And when there's that vacuum, somebody like Peterson comes along and just says the common sense thing that we all know, but for some of these young men, it's life changing, because somebody's speaking instruction into them. And so if it's king to men, we're not, you know, whether that be in our own homes or going beyond that, you know, and as you were mentioning, you had other men in your life as you were being raised that spoke identity into you. Like we have to understand that as a kingdom mandate, you know, there is a vacuum in this culture for strong male figures. And if we're not filling that void, then these men will find somebody, and then masculinity and that regard, when it's not filled with godly masculinity, does become toxic, right? It does become toxic masculinity.

The Consequences of Weakness in Masculinity

And when I think of toxic masculinity, I don't think for the strong man, I think of the man with no chests, you know, I think they see a sluice talked about that, the chest quite a bit. I think about the weak man, because weak men have the ability to do more damage in society than the strong man. They're more of a threat because there's no identity, there's no confidence, there's no meatiness, which is that controlled strength. And it's often the weak men, the one who don't feel hurt, who don't feel understood that end up going out and carrying out some of these crazy acts of violence that we've seen in our culture over the years. It's typically the loner, the isolated guy, has no friends, has no family, and then one day he just snaps and goes out and goes crazy. And masculinity, true masculinity, is the antidote for that. Godly masculinity, it is the antidote for that type of stuff that we're seeing in our culture.

Reflection on Society's Evolution

Yeah, I mean, you know, once upon a time, you know, we'd have policemen come to schools for a clear day or, you know, they were highly thought of, you know? I mean, and that's a symbol of security in our society that's, you know, someone as a young kid, you run to a police officer when you feel threatened. So, I mean, that's what we came from to where we are now, where we again, where we, because of the fatherless absence, and, you know, the whole thing of just baby daddies that are just planting seeds, you know, doing the knitting can and thing of just having to see and having kids you can have, but not really stew except like not really stew or do you think he's up to 12. But the whole set of deciding of the fact that we can be a father doesn't mean that we should be a father. And so, you know, again, it's back to, you know, we've been kind of dancing around the whole thing about stewardship, which is what masculinity really is about, because we've been made, you know, we're called the head, not because we're dominating, but because that's a place of responsibility. That's a word that, you know, it's a challenge, responsibility and accountability, I've probably preached that so often are just two of the really hard words for people to really want to embrace today because it makes them have to be responsible. You know, they can't just, they can't just say, we're ups, you know, you've got to have a plan. You've got to have a way of doing things if you're gonna bear fruit. I mean, you know, the greatness of Jesus, you know, throughout the Bible of talking about what simple things, you know, talking about seed, talking about rocks, talking about building your house on, on, on rock versus sand, all those things break down into all of life that if we just pay attention to those simple little stories and realize that they're, while they're simple, they're talking about deep, deep truths that, that if we perk our ears up, we can hear what he's saying. I mean, he's given, he's given us the pattern throughout all of, out of his word to deal with all human relationships.

Concluding Thoughts on Masculinity and Society

And, and so I mean, you know, as you said earlier, you know, men are given a certain role, women are given a certain role. You know, if we're the head, it doesn't mean that, well, I'm gonna dominate my wife and she's got to, you know, he's got to do what I say and she's under my feet and do it. Yeah, it's not. But no, I'm, yeah. I was gonna say it's not glorious from a biblical standpoint. Like, like, it's not, it's not authoritative. It's not a control thing because the Bible tells me that I have to love my wife as Christ loved the church. And that means being willing to give my life up, even to the point of death for my wife and my family, you know? And it's a position of service and sacrifice. And so a lot of times, you know, these biblical models, it's all about control, it's all about authority over women. Not at all. It's about me being willing to say, I'm willing to put myself, you know, aside and serve my wife, just as Jesus did for me. And if that comes with insol, if that comes with revolve, comes with persecution or even potentially death, it's my mandate to love Christ as Christ loved the church. And I made this comment when I preached on this a few years ago, a few months ago, when we talked about masculinity, I said, if our job as men is to love Christ as Christ loved the church, then I have to understand that even if there's a conflict, that I'm 99.9% right, it's still my responsibility to initiate reconciliation. It doesn't mean that my wife can't do it, but if I think about the way Christ handled reconciliation, he made the decision to go. Even when we were 100% wrong, he was still willing to go and do what was necessary to reconcile our sins.

A Call to Young Men

Terence, as we wrap up, I just wanted to ask you one question to kind of close things out. Let's just say there's a, you know, if a 16 to 20-something young man listens and do us kind of have this conversation around masculinity, maybe catches this clip and whatever form it ends up on social media. What would you say for a young man like that that's struggling to find this identity? And, you know, if you just had to give one piece of encouragement, I can't really make heads or tails. I don't know who I am, what type of advice or what of encouragement would you give to him?

Well, I would hope if he's not in a church community, that’d be my first suggestion for him to, to find a place and look for him. Look for a man. I mean, if he's a child that doesn't have, if he's a young man that doesn't have a father influence in his life, look around and see who's doing it, see who's fathering their children well, who's consistent at working. And try to connect and try to glean from someone who's done it. What I was struggling to articulate earlier, some of the things that Jesus said, talked about, fathers and sons, mothers instilling in daughters, that kind of society prepares. I mean, we don't have mothers with daughters in the kitchen anymore. So girls going to marriage and you might be lucky to get something made in the microwave for dinner or you're going out to dinner. And again, because the definitions have changed in our society, now, what do you want me barefoot and pregnant and staying in the kitchen? No, but you know, learning how to be a wife, you know, the Bible says he who finds a wife finds a good thing. And I don't want to get away from the, get on a tangent away from what you originally said. And I feel myself going there. So let me, let me, let me reel myself back. What would we say to that young man again? We need to find someone who looks solid to you, and the scary thing is what does solid look like for that young man? Again, I guess being in the church and being in a solid church and, you know, you know, I'm hearing you talk about that you're doing, you've had sermons about masculinity. I don't know if you know how incredibly rare that is in today's day and age to even broach those subjects. I think we need to once again go back to having more and more, more and more older mothers are coming alongside young, young married daughters and young married women and just kind of shepherding them through marriage, you know. What would happen if a woman who's struggling in her marriage has an older female that's got an established relationship for years of being able to go to her and say, look, you know, how do I navigate through this? The same way with young men having older men, you know, the older men are to teach the younger men, the older women are to teach the younger men there. Again, there's that void where that's, there's that void of stewardship. And so we get the fruit of what we see in society because, because we have not stewarded, properly stewarded. And so that young man, you know, 16 to 20, you know, and I would say, you know, because of being a Christian, obviously I'm going to point you to the church, but I found solid, solid role models through athletics. I found them in other places other than the church. And, you know, I guess I could say I was blessed. I found really good role models because I didn't have a father. But they really, you know, I would really suggest the church first and also find, find a man who's in a long-term marriage that's, that's solid and it's, his employment, solid in his values of upstanding and latch on to him, and let him, you know, it's tough out there, I understand. And, you know, I know you do as well as I want to be that, you know, as my kids grow older, you know, I want to make myself available to be a part of that process for someone else. Hopefully someone's watching my life and saying, you know, I want to be, I want to be more upright like this, like, like, like, parents is, hopefully, I believe my sons are, you know, watching me. And so that's what we have to do. And that's what I hope any young man who may watch this, you know, go find someone who's doing it, someone who's solid in their relationship, you know, not someone that's going from woman to woman, someone that's going from job to job, someone who's got children all over the place, find a person who's in a solid, established family and latch onto them, that's what I would say. And then, yeah, that's really good.

Where to Connect

So, parents, where can people find you if they want to connect with you on social media? I'm on Facebook, I'm on Instagram, I'm on Twitter. I'm definitely not hard to find. I'm pretty vocal, I'm pretty out there. Quite a bit, everyone.