J. CHASE DAVIS | Offensive Christianity (Ep. 958)

Let's be honest, most men drift. We wake up, we scroll, we work, and then we just rinse and repeat. And we know we're softer than we should be. That's why I built the 31-day resilience reset. This is not a devotional. It is a field manual for men ready to stop drifting and start fighting back. So, for 31 days, you'll train your spirit, mind, and body with scripture, prayer, and daily challenges that forge real resilience. Go to www.undaunted.life/31. life/31day to download this resource for free. That's undaunted.life/31day. Start your reset today. This is Undaunted Life a man's podcast. I'm your host, Kyle Thompson. Let's get into it. All right, guys. We got a special guest on the podcast today. His name is Chase Davis. So, he is the pastor of the Well Church in Boulder, Colorado, the host of the Foolproof Theology podcast and author of this book, Offensive Christianity: Restoring the Strength of Men in a Feminized Age. And so, we start out talking about, you know, how he became a Christian, how he became a pastor, but also how in the world did he come to plant a church in Boulder, whereas, you know, a lot of I think he mentioned in the podcast that's where a lot of church plants go to die. And so what it's like doing ministry in a progressive area. But then when we get into the book, he's talking about how our modern age that we're in has reduced manhood and manliness down into things, called it toxic. And men have been all too eager to say, "Yep, that's it. I'll accept my new role." And men have abdicated their responsibility to the people in their lives. They've abdicated their responsibility to other women in their life. And really how churches and kind of weak need pastors have left a lot of congregations in a place where the emotions of the women in the church trying to keep them satisfied and and not angry and all that have led to a place to where there's not strong men and strong virile men in these churches. And with Islam pushing into the west and pushing into America and all these other different places, we can't have weak need pastors with a bunch of really subservient men in their flocks, right? You need strong men, men that are worried about glory, not their own glorification, but you know, he talks about glory in the book. We talk a lot about uh how in the churches the the pulpits really need we need more guys hitting the pulpit like gavels and really challenging the men and calling the men up into a different um dynamic as men. And then he we talked about how pyotism and evangelicalism has led to some issues uh around this this overall idea that we should just be nice all the time. we should be winsome and these people that really are just concerned about your tone. And then we got into some other subject matters about the modern seminaries and the state of those and why they became the way that they are and how the long house applies there. He elucidates that. We talk about the failings and how all men need that kind of stuff. And so really really enjoyed the book. It was a tremendous book. One of the the better books that I've read this year and really enjoyed my conversation. So I'm not going to keep them from you any longer. So without further ado, let's get into it. Chase Davis, welcome to Undaunted Life of Man's podcast, but I didn't I didn't know if I got your first name right because like on your fancy website and on the front of your fancy book, it's Jay Chase Davis. So, there's a little bit of mysterious nature going on there. So, what am I supposed to call you? Chase is great. Yeah, there's a baseball player out there with the name Chase Davis. I think he's in the uh Arizona minor league system, but yeah. No, J. Chase Davis is my pin name. Uh stands for Joshua Chase Davis. My parents were going to call me JC when I was born. and that never stuck around and they just have always called me Chase. So, I go by Chase, but yeah, you'll find my website JC Chase Davis and anywhere else JC Chase Davis. >> Okay, very good. Well, and uh that's one thing that we know about you, but another thing we know about you is you sir are a professional Christian and I talked to a bunch of professional Christians here on this show, but normally people aren't growing up when they're four or five years old. you know, they're usually in the backyard playing like commandos or they're, you know, pretending they're hitting the walk-off grand slam to win game seven of the World Series. Most people don't grow up thinking, I'm going to be a pastor one day, but you ended up being a senior pastor. So, how did you kind of, how did your trajectory take you in that direction? >> Yeah. Well, I got saved by the Lord when I was 8 years old in a Baptist [clears throat] church in Dallas, Texas. Was baptized there. And as I grew up in the church, I had a lot of questions. I had kind of an aptitude for asking difficult questions, hard questions, and I wanted to know more about the scriptures. So, I kept volunteering for Bible studies and signing up for things. And over the years, when I was about 15 years old, I sensed a call from the Lord upon my life. I come from a line of preachers in my family. My great-grandfather was a I think the president of Southwest Assemblies of God University. Now, it's something else down in Wahhatchee, Texas, but all of his brothers were pastors and ministers in the Assemblies of God uh denomination. And uh we'd always grown up going to church. My dad always had a sermon on in the car. And I felt like I should uh go into ministry. So I kept volunteering all throughout high school. Uh getting involved. Uh worked at summer camps, Christian summer camps. Uh went to Texas A&M. Uh got into a fraternity where I was the chaplain of the fraternity and just always sense a call to ministry. One of my mentors in high school, he said, "Look, before you go into ministry, make sure you work a real job first." And so I took his advice and I worked in construction for a little bit because that was my undergrad degree was construction management. So I worked for a general contractor in commercial contracting and then went into seminary. So it was really by the Lord's mercy and kindness that he called me into this particular vocation. And I've been a pastor now since 2011. So I guess that's 15 years. Uh so got some reps under my belt. And I'm privileged to serve up here with Matt Patrick. We actually do a unique style of ministry where we have two lead pastors and uh we share the pull pit. So, it's a great time. He's my best friend and we planted the church together. >> Okay. So, let's talk a little bit about that because I was going to ask you about the difficulty of doing church in a place like Boulder, which is uh kind of a progressive hell hole if you, you know, just basically take a smattering of the population there. But I've I've heard of some different situations and I know some guys that are in that. And every time I hear about this like co-passer thing, I think about the office when uh Mike Michael and Jim were like uh co-managers and then the person came in from the new company. It was like that's ridiculous. Like one of y'all has to be able to make a call so who's the manager kind of a deal. And so I guess that's the thing is if there are two people that are both leaders but you have opposing opinions on something, who the heck wins out? >> Yeah, it's a great question. It's something that we we work through every day. It's and it's not really a contentious thing for us. So, I'll give you a small example. Uh, we're blessed to, uh, be able to improve our site. We got a building here in Boulder, which has never happened for a church plant before. All by God's mercy and grace and the generosity of God's people, we're able to do some landscaping. And so, I'm making some landscaping decisions at the church. And I called Matt up and I was like, "Hey, get over here. I want I want to make sure I get your opinion on this." And he's like he shows up and he's like, "Yeah, it looks great." And and he does the same. So, there's a a lot of difference and humility you have to have to work in that kind of environment. I will say this, you know, every church planter in kind of a progressive town talks about how difficult it is to plant in their town. And I have no doubt any any kind of church plant uh particularly in progressive areas can be difficult. It can be difficult in any area. But Boulder has a reputation uh as being a church plant graveyard. And we can attest to that. We've seen about 100 church plants over the last that we know of before we got here, the last 30 years come and go. And so a lot of uh people have come and gone. And for some reason, we are an exception to that. And the same is true for how we lead the church. You know, you you typically will will be uh advised not to plant with your friend because that will go bad for you. Uh but for us, it's just been a wonderful opportunity to work out uh our sanctification. You know, my my friend, my pastor uh Matt Patrick, he grew up in an unc non-Christian home. And so his stories are much more fun than me for a lot of people because he grew up up in Kentucky and Ohio and Indiana and uh he came to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ when he was 18. And so we just have a very different approach to things many times, but we find it to be uh complimentary rather than contentious. >> Okay. And so how long have y'all been doing the co-roll thing? >> Yeah. So we started with Matt as the lead pastor alone and I was coming along to help with the church plant, me and my wife. and our kids. And then 5 years into the church plan, we're like, "Hey, Chase, you're preaching enough and you completed your seminary degree. We're just going to make you a lead pastor, too, and you're going to have your particular gifting that you bring to the church. I'm more detail oriented and Matt's more visionoriented, and we're both going to work together on it." And it's just been great ever since. >> And so, the one thing I don't think you actually skirted my question. I just think, you know, you answered a lot of other things I was going to ask. So, I appreciate that. when you disagree. It's one thing to say, "Yeah, I like the shrub being there in that corner. Oh, me too. Okay, let's go to lunch." But whenever it's something that's like, "Hey, I don't think that's what the Bible says. I don't think that's what that means." Like, do y'all have an odd number of elders? Cuz if you have, you know, six elders, well, we're right back where we're at. You know, you got three guys on your team, three guys on his team. Who breaks the tie? >> Sure. Yeah. I mean, that that has uh happened maybe once or twice. Uh but yeah, we have elders. We have seven elders and so we can always defer to them. Typically, it's just a matter of we know each other well enough 15 years in where it's like we kind of know how each other think, what makes us tick and what our giftings are. And so if it comes to big communication issues, vision issues and I'll give you example since we're going to talk about my book. You know, I'm happy to go to Matt and be like, "Hey, this is what I'm going to talking about my book." And I know you have a better eye for how people hear things. Sometimes I'll say things and really not weigh the consequences of my words as well as you do. uh and so I I'd love to get your opinion on this and he's like yeah I would cool it down here and I'm like happy to defer to him on that. Whereas if it's more of like hey this is going to take some conviction we need to say the truth about this matter. Uh he's going to want to come to me and make sure we're dialing that in. >> Okay. And so it may even come down to personality types a little bit uh in terms of how you say things because one of the things as we transition into talking about uh your book is everyone loves to tone police everything and you know uh there are people that will refuse and I've ran into this a lot. People will refuse to engage with your point because they want to stay behind this veneer of oh well you're offending me and I don't really like your face that much and you know things just seem kind of aggressive and it's like at no point did you actually engage with my point. And so the book that we're going to be talking about today is your book, Offensive Christianity: Restoring the Strength of Men in a Feminized Age. So I want to read a quote as we get into this. And I'll be reading a lot of quotes from the book today. My central thesis is this. Christian men stripped of their God-given power by a culture that reduces manhood to ideas and demands endless empathy must embrace an offensive Christianity that boldly asserts authority and action over passive reflection. So Chase, why this book? Why now? Why you >> Yeah. [snorts] There's a lot of Christian men who are wondering what's the way forward in our nation, in their communities, in the church. And I think there's a hunger and an appetite to know some things about what God says about men that's a little bit different than what we've been fed over the last 30, 40 years. For a for a long time, we've kind of been plagued by these perceptions of masculinity, what it be means to be a man's man. And so you'll get a lot of men who kind of adopt kind of outward like, hey, what it means to be a man is go hunting, go fishing, you know, you got to protect, you got to provide, you got to be fit, all this kind of stuff. All of which I talk about in the book, all of which I enjoy. But when we reduce it to kind of posturing, um, we're missing the essence of manhood. We're missing really the biological realities that God has made. And so we have to reject these kind of tropes. What it does for a lot of men, especially in the church that I've seen, is it makes them uh confused about like, well, I don't necessarily like those activities, those hobbies. I'm interested in that sport. Does that make me less of a man? It's like, not necessarily. But we want to get down to the essence of manhood. Look, the essence of manhood is living according to your purpose by God's design to pursue glory, his glory, in everything you do. And that that looks like all of your embodied realities, that testosterone you've got coursing through your body, that desire to dominate on the field of competition, the desire to win, the desire to be the best. These things are not necessarily inharmonious with Christ's teaching. And I think for a lot of men, they get confused on this topic. And we live in a culture that really calls men, you know, toxic. uh they they have movie producers out there saying that testosterone is like a plague essentially that needs to be eradicated. Um and and that's just not movies. That's just not general culture. This is what men are experiencing in classrooms, in public schools, in universities, in workplaces, through HR trainings, everything you see around them. Uh men are experiencing this hostility against their very nature. And so my hope is to chart a course forward and say, "Hey, how can we not just survive in this kind of culture, but how can we reassert ourselves against a culture that really hates men?" >> Well, it's certainly a culture that hates men and it wants men to continue to defer to women. And I guess in our modern era, Chase, that that men are all too willing to allow that to happen. And I mean, you go into this in the introduction of the book, I'll read this quote. Men take ground, assert themselves, establish families, and build legacies. Sometimes men will platform women to say the things that they know to be true because they realize that if they say them, it will be offensive simply because they are a man. That is shameful. And that is why we need an offensive Christianity for our times. And so I've thought about this a lot. Every time you see an advertisement for a women's conference, a Christian women's conference, and then it lists the speakers, almost 100% of them are women. And I understand the pool like you know a room full of women all that estrogen. They want to hear some estrogen filled messaging and empathy filled messaging from the stage. The the truth can kind of get a little bit pnicity. It doesn't feel as fun as oh girl you're you're good enough and God loves you just the way you are. But it's like, wait a minute. Like, if men are called to be the heads of churches and the heads of households, then why wouldn't they be called to speak to that room full of women and to inform them? Like, hey, I understand this is the vessel for the message and you may not prefer it. However, the message is focused on truth and not your feelings. What's your read of that? [snorts] >> Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. I mean, when we host women's nights at our church, we have Pastor Matt and his wife uh helping to lead those conversations and address those topics. everything from, you know, things that are really plaguing women today, like being overwhelmed, anxious, these kinds of things. How we deal with it from the Bible when when it involves Bible teaching in the church, we're going to have a pastor of the church uh equip the women. But yeah, a lot of times, I mean, my wife has seen this in the kind of the women's conference circuit. A lot of times it just kind of goes off the rails a little bit. Uh not to say that men don't have their own problems. I get into that in the book. Uh but a lot of times there's a lack of appetite for truth uh because there's more of a preference for kind of these feelings of hey we're tolerant, we're encouraging uh very much like Christian radio kind of postures itself positive and encouraging. uh and instead like men are are naturally fitted by God with the authority uh and the makeup and the duty and the responsibility to divide the word rightly as in the office of elder but also in the home where where they're called to rule and lead in the home and provide spiritually not just materially for their family. And so yeah, there there's a tendency and I you know it's funny as a pastor I've gotten lots of feedback over the years. One of the things that I got early on in my ministry was that Chase, you just need to smile more. And a lot of times as a man in the pull pit, uh, you know, there's there's this perception of like, well, in order to be a good communicator, you have to make sure you're catering to all audiences. You have to make sure you're doing the right things to message to people. And that's always irked me a little bit. You look back on like the first Great Awakening with Jonathan Edwards. Uh, Jonathan Edwards was just reading manuscripts up in the pullpit. He wasn't obsessed with performance necessarily, of preaching. He wanted to make sure he was doing a good job. But there's a a really unique challenge we face today where if you say things and put the emphasis on the wrong syllable for people uh somehow they get offended by that. And really at our church and what I'm trying to promote in the book is let's let's not focus on that. Let's focus on what is true. Let's pursue what is true and let's not be so easily offended by things that are you know uh either true or just uh subject to interpretation whether it's preferences or whatever. We want to be men of truth, men of courage, uh who can stand strong because that's the way the world is getting to Christian men. Uh the world is getting to Christian men by manipulating them, by getting them down, by making them afraid, by trying to uh inculcate them with an attitude where they're not allowed to say the truth, where they're not allowed to speak their mind, where they can't be honest about what's going on, what they see, and h how they want to make a difference. Instead, they've kind of been cajjol into believing that, look, we can't say these things here because that might upset some people. You see this in the church, too. Um, it kind of relates to church life. A lot of times, you know, a pastor may get up and say something in the pullpit that could upset women. And a big a big challenge in the church today is a lot of the churches because they've been feminized largely is the women actually control the church. The women control the church attendance. A lot of uh churches are oriented towards making sure the women stay happy and if women get upset and you know I talk about this in the book as well that good Christian men want their wives to be happy but that's not the end goal of marriage. We want to be glad in the Lord together. And so the temptation for any Christian man in our day is to almost defer and they can use all sorts of pious language to do this. defer to their wives mood or feelings about a topic in order to determine truth and loyalty. And that's very unhealthy, very damaging. And I've seen many churches harmed by this attitude. >> I've seen it uh be harmed as well. And it's this overall idea that we need to be as nice as possible. And you get into this in the book to where it's, you know, Vodie Bacham talked about the 11th commandment, thou shalt be nice. We keep being uh told about this winsomeness that we need to have. And you know, for my message, it's interesting. I'm I'm doing a speaking engagements this weekend and it's a men's conference which I'm typically booked to speak at. And the guy asked me, he's like, "Hey, some of the wives that are going to be helping out at the event, they they'd really like to sit in. They [clears throat] want to sit in the back and just kind of hear what you have to say. Is that okay?" And I literally told this guy, I'm like, "The women that are interested in what I have to say are very likely, the least likely to become offended." Uh because it's the 5enters. Shout out to the 5enters, the women that listen to this show. They're gangsters. They're the ones that are sending this show to their their husbands and their sons and their their, you know, nephews and things like that because this is the type of masculinity that's, you know, built on the the gospel that they want to see. It's the soft, squishy, go along to get along. I want to be known for what I'm for, not what I'm against. I'm not going to yell about the things that the Bible only whispers about Christians. It's those guys that are like, "E, that's a little rough. I don't It just doesn't make me feel good." And here's the deal. You get into this a little bit in in the introduction. [clears throat] And yes, guys, we're still in the introduction here, but do you think that approach is going to win against Islam as we have Islam pushing into the West ever more violently? Mind you, it's it's part of initially it's, hey, let's just be nice. Let's pretend like we're assimilating. Let's just, you know, invoke tea where we pretend to assimilate and be nice and we're just going to wait for you to turn around before we slit your throat or chop your head off. And then now it's like, okay, no, actually, we want power. and thank you to all the liberal progressives that gave us power. Oh, hey uh now that we're all uh outnumbering you on the city council. Pride month's canceled and then they're like, "Oh my god, what happened?" Right? And so it's just like this shocking thing for these individuals. But that's the thing that they don't understand and that these women that love the fact that they're in control of essentially what's happening in the pulpit or happening in their churches. It's like when Islam starts to push more violently, they're going to be looking around for the warriors in their congregations. There just won't be any left. That's exactly right. And Islam is just one example. It's obviously one of the hottest examples right now, I think, in my home state, Texas, where there's a lot of Islamic and Muslim influence. And it it makes my heartbreak because I don't see Christian men rising to the occasion to get involved politically uh to do what needs to be done to defend our homeland against this invasion. Um, and so yeah, the what basically a lot of this book came out of my uh discernment and going to the Lord in 2020 and seeing these forces of wickedness ravaging our land, whether it be through draconian measures with uh global health scare, whether it be through rioting in the streets, whether it be through madness and sexuality, those three things. And I looked around and I said, "Where are the Christian men?" And I I wanted to find other Christian men who were willing to say the truth, speak the truth out without without fear, and also equip congregations because one of the hardest things for me to grapple with. I'm a like you said, I'm a minister, and so I have the privilege and honor of of getting up in the pullpit and speaking the word of God. My days are are filled with uh you know, getting to study the scriptures. I'm preparing a sermon this week, and so I get to spend time with the Lord as part of my job. And I have men in my church that go into workplaces where on their lunch break, HR is hosting a drag queen to come in and lecture them about drag queen and pride. Meanwhile, I'm safe and cloistered in the church. And if I get in the pull pit and I sense fear and trepidation to speak uh clearly from God's word on matters of sexuality and why this transgender madness is is demonic in origin, has its roots in paganism and why it deviates from God's word? If I can't do that in the pull pit, how am I going to expect that Christian man in the pew to be courageous and stand strong in the workplace? And so that's what really gets me going is we as ministers have a duty before the Lord to fear him most of all, he is the one we aim to please and to equip the men in our church to stand strong. And if we can't speak clearly on issues pertaining to manhood, and if all we give them is this winsome kind of uh squishy attitude towards evangelism, disciplehip, cultural engagement, all this kind of stuff, you're exactly right. That's a recipe for disaster for our nation, for our heritage, for our families, for our churches. And I think there's different ways we can look. We can look back to church history. We have a history replete of examples with Christian men who have stood courageous against evil all throughout history. And it's going to take that kind of vigor and remembering who we are as men as God designed us and kind of getting a getting away from more of the pragmatic strategies to kind of just survive and carve out you know what really you brought up the Muslim example under Muslim rule they have dimitude for those that aren't Muslims and sure you can exist but you're a secondass citizen you're uh you know you have tons of taxes you have lots of restrictions on your freedoms of movement and that essentially is the playbook that the the kind of squishy winsome uh faithful presence model leads to. It's like they've designed a playbook that says how can we get into dimitude under Muslim occupation? Oh, we'll adopt these strategies for Christian witness and evangelism and that's what will get us to dimitude. And that frustrates me a lot and that's what animates a lot of the book as well. Hey guys, real quick. I know a lot of you train for very specific things. So maybe you've got a mud race coming up, a mountain hunt, a 5K, or maybe you just want to keep up with your kids, or you just don't want to let the old man in. But for a lot of you guys, whether you're working out at the Glowbo gym, or even in your garage gym, you get there and you just don't know exactly what to do. And so you just kind of settle for the same old workout routine, maybe some bench press, bicep curls, a walk on the treadmill, and you know, you're not really getting the most out of your workout plan. And I want you guys to stop wasting time at the gym. No more settling. It's time for you guys to get a guide to help you reach your fitness goals. And that's why I want to remind you about my good friends at Mountain Tough. Mountain Tough is a fitness and mental toughness app developed by military special operators and mountain hunters that's becoming a global movement for building mentally tough athletes on and off the mountain. Mountain Tough is a native app ready to be downloaded on all platforms. So that includes iPhone, Android, Apple TV, Roku, and there's more. Once you sign up and download the app or access the website, you immediately have access to hundreds of exercise programs and literally thousands of workout videos. Thousands. So that includes structured hybrid strength and endurance programs, daily workouts, the full exercise library, mental toughness training, the Mountain Tough community, and accountability. And you can use it all on the go online or offline, no matter where you decide to train. So if you're just getting started, that's great. They have programs for beginners. If you have minimal or no gear where you train, that's not a factor. They have minimal gear and body weight programs. And guys, if you're wanting to get into or maintain elite level fitness, they've got you covered with programs for top tier athletes, too. And for a limited time, Mountain Tough is extending undaunted lifers like you an incredible offer. Go to mountaintuff.com. That's mtnuff.com and enter the code kyle when you sign up for a monthly plan to receive your first month free after your 14-day trial. So, that's 6 weeks free to make sure this is for you. I'm sure it will be. That is six weeks free on the best-in-class physical and mental training app in the world. So stop wasting time. It's time to get real fitness results. Let my friends at Mountain Guide the way again. Go to mtntuff, that's mountain.com, promo code kyle. Well, Chase, I remember as you were saying that one of my good buddies, he's in my Sunday school class. I I train with him in jiu-jitsu. He's a black belt. Uh, I call him Trooper Joe cuz he's a Oklahoma Highway Patrol. Very, very capable man. Has been able to use violence for good in a lot of different circumstances and occasions. And he was, you know, we were doing like a self-defense night for our Sunday school cuz, you know, our Sunday school class has got some guys that are maybe a little little soft and uh maybe not as prepared as they would like to be. And so, we're trying to address that a little bit. And I remember him telling the story about being in a shady part of town, uh, running out of gas. He's got his family, so he had to pull off and, you know, get gas. And there's a guy with his hood up walking straight at him from across the street. And his way of going about it was not pulling his firearm and shooting the guy, you know, getting ahead of the threat or doing any of those things. It was to look at him directly and in a stern voice say, "Hey buddy, what's up?" Basically, I see you. You may just be a random uh civilian, random citizen just walking around and it's cold outside, but he's like, "Hey, it's middle of summer. This dude's wearing a hoodie. This doesn't feel good. We're not in a good place in town." And it was like, "Hey, I see you." Right? Most of these squishy pastors, the the the goalong to getalong crowd, the you know, the hey, we're just going to open our doors to anybody, which again, the church should be open to anybody, but where they're so focused on the non-believer, not really worried about the brethren. For those individuals, when Islam [clears throat] comes calling, they may see them, but they're going to cower. They're going to enable gaze. is they're going to look down and [clears throat] they're going to allow the push to happen and the push to happen and they're going to be looking around for other men to save them. That's why I encourage guys in my life, it's like not everybody, you know, should be a, you know, not every man should be a Swiss Army knife or a pro MMA fighter or any of those kinds of things, but it's like if your best case scenario for your family's protection is outsourcing your violence to other more capable men, it's like my god, I don't know that that's a a very good uh very good strategy overall. Um, I do want to get into chapter one of the book. The chapter is called Flesh and Blood. Uh, I want to read a fairly lengthy quote from chapter 1. It might be my favorite quote from the entire book. So, here we go. Men should be genuinely challenged when they come to church. Our culture could stand a little more Bible thumping and fist-hitting pulpits like gables. Men should be treated not as subhuman but as rulers of homes and world conquerors. They should not be con uh conceived of as deficient women and then treated as such. When the preacher stands in the pulpit talking to men, he is not talking down to them as though they are beneath him. Regardless of the height of the pulpit, he is preaching to men with the potential for greatness and glory. Glory being a main theme of your book as well. The modern church culture of niceness, sentimental uhization, and feminization are essentially neutered many have essentially neutered many men and have darkened the doors of many churches. to encounter these churchgoing men as often to encounter women, but by all intents and purposes. They will be warm and hospitable. They will ask you if they can get your coffee and to hold your story or hold space for you, whatever that means. They will check on your heart and they will fiercely decry any masculine impulses of aggression or assertion. However, they themselves become the enforcement arm of the feminized church. They have no problem white knighting, zealously defending women without regard to legitimacy of arguments in order to gain approval or moral superiority and disavowing men who question the feminization of the church and culture. All of their suppressed maleness gets unleashed upon those men who kick against the cultural goats. And so, the reason why I wanted to key in on this chase is because you see so much of this, and I was going to ask about it later, but we can even get into it now. This is what you see in a lot of quote unquote men's ministries. That's like when people ask me to consult or ask me questions about men's ministry. I'm like, man, I don't even like that language anymore because it's so loaded with the same thing, which is, hey, let's get a bunch of random dudes in the door. We're going to put you in a circle with men that you don't know, that you don't trust, that you've never done anything shoulder-to-shoulder with. And then we want you to pour your heart out. Like, and I know this is a long setup, Chase, but I remember being in my own Sunday school, and this guy was trying to get people to show up to like the 5:00 a.m. Thursday morning men's Bible study. He's like, "Hey, if you just want to if you just want to go deep with a bunch of men and if you just want to like pour your heart out and if you just want to man, if you just really want to lay it all out there for the Lord and and you know, get to know these men in an intimate way, come join us at 5:00 in the morning on Thursdays." And I was like, there probably isn't a worse sales pitch on planet Earth to show up anywhere than that. But then, you know what that gets from the church, from uh not necessarily my church, but from a lot of churches? Oh, isn't that so good? Isn't that so precious? these men, [clears throat] they're getting together, they're holding hands and they're crying and they're being intimate. It's just like there's no steel in the pencil or lead in the pencil. There's no steel in the backbone in these kinds of things. And it's just like again it like we get patted on the head. It's like, "Oh, that's real nice." But it's like no, a men's ministry should be ferocious. The church should be man friendly. Not so that it devours the women and children, but that it protects them. But I'm preaching now. That's your job. Ready to go. >> Yeah. There's a huge problem in men's ministries today with uh this particular issue because and I've been to these men's retreats. I like I said, I've worked at summer camps. I've been in men's on men's retreats where it's essentially like we're going to do outwardly masculine things. We're going to have the horseback riding, the meat, you know, we're going to throw axes, >> all that stuff, which is fun. That's great. But then when we get in the room, it's very therapeutic. And that's the big challenge is our spirituality and how we conceive of Christian maturity has become a standard that pairs like one for one with what women say they prefer. And so that's why they get patted on the head when they give these announcements is it sounds very womanly. What men need to do like you said is stand shoulder-to-shoulder. The best men's ministry could be like let's start a business together. Let's go work on a project together. Let's go conquer something together. Let's Hey, you want to you want to lift weights more? Let's go work out together. Let's Hey, you want to learn how to shoot guns? You want to be more proficient with a firearm? Let's go to the range and spend some time together doing that. And as we do those things, life comes up. We can talk. We can make fun of one another. We can challenge one another. We can pray for one another even. Those are great opportunities. But a lot of men's ministry, like you said, honestly, it's about fattening the calves for the slaughter, it seems like, and making them soft because it's like we're going to feed them unhealthy food and we're going to try to get them to uncover some deep dark father wound that they have inside them that's driving what they perceive to be uh undesirable traits about them. And so men do need to be challenged and they need to be challenged with their duties and responsibilities. And that's a lot of what's lacking today. I'm, you know, not to give away my sermon for this Sunday. People who are listening will probably hear it later, but this is a big uh uh challenge for evangelicals and for Christians to understand. The humble man isn't the one who sounds pious and who has no cares and is just kind of this carefree uh floating spirit in the world like a hippie and boulder. Okay? He's not he's not a man who lacks desire, ambition. The humble man is the one who aims to please God in everything he does. Whether he's starting a business, making a bunch of money, having a large family, influencing culture, whatever, his eyes need to be on the Lord. He needs to be submitted to him. And he's have an open hand about any opportunities he has and says, "Lord, it's all yours. Do with me what you will." And unfortunately, they have a false dichotomy in their mind. For a lot of men, they feel that if they become a Christian, that somehow that means they basically can't have a job, have to basically wander the streets, have no home, uh they can't really live for anything greater. They can't aspire to anything greater, they can't ask for a promotion, they can't want more out of life. They have to basically kind of become a hollow empty shell. Or on the other hand, they could not become a Christian and become rich. And that's that's a false dichotomy. That's not what the Bible teaches. That's not what we see from Proverbs, from Jesus, from many other places in the Bible. Instead, what we see is a man who is capable of greatness, pursuing excellence, has submitted his whole being to the Lord, body and soul to the Lord, has submitted himself to the Lord Jesus Christ. And then he is capable of carrying weight, of carrying loads, and pursuing glory in all of life, submitted to the glory of God. [snorts] >> Well, and I think as well what what men don't understand is they do have the power to work these things from bottom up. And so a lot of people, we kind of walk into churches, Chase, and we just turn our brains off and it's just like whatever ministries are available or the ones that are available. And if there's no opportunities that are built with men in mind, we're just going to do the women's things. And so we're going to go hold the babies. We're going to go do the different things. But like I I use this example all the time, like if your church is in tornado alley, right? You know, we're the belt buckle of tornado alley here in Oklahoma. And so like the the the church should have like a shed full of chainsaws for when that big tornado comes through and there's somewhere in your community and people need limbs cut down and you know there are women that need uh you know single women need help like gathering their things or their kids being taken care of and the men just go all right it's my time right and I'm okay if you want to hold babies but that's where men really shine and the question this is a question I actually get a lot Chase I I want to get your your feedback on it and it's it's some variation of, hey, my church doesn't have a men's ministry and I want it to have one. Uh, hey, the church has a men's ministry, but it's just kind of like a once a quarter thing where we eat meat and listen to a guy come and scream at him or whatever the thing is. And then they think they feel stuck, right? Maybe maybe the pastors and elders are kind of, you know, weak need uh mushy middle kind of guys like not really courageous, not really brave, not really modeling masculinity. They're modeling more pyotism, which we'll get to in a second. But like what are those men to do? Cuz I basically tell them I'm like, "Well, that looks like an opportunity. Lead upward. Lead your pastor. Lead your elders. Help your shepherd to shepherd you and others in a better way." And if you get a lot of resistance or completely shut out, it's maybe a good indication that you're not in the right spot. >> That's exactly right. And you see the same thing politically. I mean, politics by nature is a very masculine sport, you might say. And so a lot of Christians will wait on the sidelines for their pastor to kind of give them wisdom and direction as far as what to do. And you don't need to do that. You can just get involved. And so, you know, we'll get this in Boulder even because American evangelicals are very wired to see the church as kind of one-stop shop to kind of scratch the itches that they have. And so for for a man entering into that church, it's like, I want a men's ministry. Well, brother, you can just start one. You can do whatever you want. You don't even have to have the the sanction of the elders necessarily to do that. just find some other guys that have a common interest with you, uh whether it's in business or recreational, whatever, and just go do things with them. And you've got yourself a men's ministry. You don't even need to call it a men's ministry. You say, "Hey, I'm getting together with the guys. Uh we're going to go on a backpacking trip. We're going to go rock climb. We're going to go do things that guys do that they're naturally doing already, and we're going to pursue those things and pursue the Lord together." And it's really not complicated. But yeah, we have to do a lot of retraining in terms of how people perceive uh what the church is for and what the job of a pastor is. And like I said, a lot of Christians are kind of waiting for the pastor to like lead the charge politically. Pastors don't need to be leading the charge politically. They're they're they're trained and equipped and have the unique responsibility to help you understand the things of God and apply them to your life. And you can get involved politically even if your pastor remains silent. You don't have to wait for him or agitate him uh to get involved. It would be great if we had more pastors speaking up about some serious issues that are going on. I think about my state in Colorado where we've got open communists being elected into the Democratic party. And it would be great if a lot of pastors would speak clearly about the evils of communism. However, Christian men don't need to wait around until the pastor says something to go vote to get involved to get involved with their local precinct. And so Christian men just need to understand that they have freedom in Christ to do a lot of things and they don't need to wait for permission from a from a church to necessarily start some kind of men's ministry. [snorts] >> And I think uh where winsomeness could come in is if you just operate like with the attitude of like I'm not going to you know you know I I'll say sorry later if if I trampled on anybody's toes but we're just going to be men of action. We're just going to go. And if someone later is like kind of pushing back on you like hey who gave you the authority to do this blah blah all that just kind of be like turn your winsomeness on and just kind of have this a shucksy approach where it's like oh I I thought this church was okay on on men doing man things and and doing ministry in a certain way and man we would love your input on some of the things that we're doing but this is the direction we're going. Would you like to be a part of it? Right. And again, just, you know, look for the signs along the way that, you know, your manliness is being like shuttered out as opposed to elevated. But then when we get into chapter 2, this is called men without chess. Anyone that's a fan of CS Lewis would recognize that in the title, but you talk about some of the philosophical roots of immaterialism and in modern Christianity. You you elucidate six, the enlightenment romanticism pyotism German higher criticism, nianism, and evangelicalism. And so I want you to really key in on a couple of those. Pyotism and evangelicalism because pyotism and evangelicalism. Well, first of all, you might want to define those so that everyone knows what we're talking about. But those have really not done us as Christian men in modernity any favors. >> Yeah. Pyotism is one of the things that's kind of plagued and it kind of has gnostic roots. By which we mean it it separates the soul and body and pretends that somehow the soul is not just higher as in like it's it we have an eternal uh aspect and immaterial aspect to our life but it's the only aspect to our life. So it downplays the body. Impotism has a tradition uh kind of started in the German Moravians in like the 17th to 18th century and it infected the Methodist movement, the Baptist movement which are very large in America. Had a big influence in America. But we're not talking about pyotism of course is piety and and being a pious person, holiness. We we should pursue holiness as Christians. We should not be men of impiiety. Pyotism is a mindset that basically says nothing in this world matters. In fact, it it doesn't just not matter. It's inherently evil. Material creation is is wicked. And to get involved with any kind of either politics, culture, embodied existence, this stuff is inherently corrupt. And so, we can't focus on that. Basically, the best thing you can do is become kind of this monk. Uh I don't know if I me I forget if I mentioned in the book, they used to have these monks that were called stylites. They were they were monks that sat on top of pillars and in order to get food and dispensive waste they would have buckets uh lifted up to them. And somehow back in kind of the monastic culture of the early church this was perceived as like very serious and very spiritual. And a lot of the pyotist they kind of view it that way. They refuse to touch uh worldly things or what they perceive to be worldly things because they think that's evil and corrupt inherently and they won't engage in the body, in the family, in the city, in the community, in the nation because those things will get their hands dirty. So, of course, you see this politically with people who are very trepidacious about getting involved. They don't want to either offend people or they have really serious doubts about our government. All of which could be real or not, but they refuse to do anything about it because they're like, "Well, that's not my concern. This world is going to burn and we really shouldn't have any worldly concerns anyways." This again goes back to the false humility I talked about earlier. And so they have kind of this pitotistic retreatist framework from the world. Um, evangelicalism. Um, there's kind of two ways we can use it. A lot of people like to dump on evangelicals today. I found that quite unfortunate. I myself is am an evangelical and evangelicals are a large population of America whether they're truly born again or not. There's a lot of people who attach themselves with let's say Christian culture. But evangelicalism as a concept was goes back to the reformation. We we have been evangelicals as long as we've been Protestants, you could say. But evangelicalism in the 20th century was kind of a social movement uh formed out of like Christianity today, Carl FH Henry and then Billy Graham and then became the moral majority. And over time what what what it started was was a way to not just retreat from the world like the fundamentalists were kind of doing kind of putting up walls and saying we're not going to engage on anything. We're just going to have a holy bunker where we huddle huddle together and don't get contaminated by a degeneracy. Evangelicalism was trying to engage. But as they engaged, they adopt worldly methods for church growth. Like the secret sensitive movement, they adopted worldly methods for managing people, for how the church should be run. And eventually it became such that evangelicalism and the leaders in evangelicalism themselves became very liberal. It's very funny when you look not just at evangelicals but many denominations, even if you look at Catholics, the clergy is often more liberal than the ley. And this is very confusing but it makes sense once you understand kind of spirituality in America in the last 40 years is because the seminaries got captured. Uh just like the public universities got captured by critical race theory and a lot of these ideas. The seminaries have always kind of had an inferiority complex about their relationship to public universities and the seminary professor wants to be respected by the public university. And so they adopt those mindsets too. They train the pastors in these radical ideas, these neo-Marxist ideas, and they send them into rural areas to pastor good bibleelving Christians and for some reason they're more liberal. Well, that makes sense. They've been trained that way by their seminaries. And so evangelicalism as a whole today where it stands today is you've got a lot of grassroots good bibleelving guys who are eager to hear about the nature of men, how we should engage politically, but the clergy is often liberal and been trained liberal and don't want to engage in these things all because they've kind of adopted this seeker sensitive uh mindset. The way you can pick up on it is is the church or is the pastor posturing such that the people outside the church are the most important let's say target market more than feeding the flock right in front of them more than equipping the families the children the husbands the wives the fathers and mothers in their own congregation are they more concerned for the lost outside the church now that's not to make a false dichotomy or anything like that of course you want to see people saved out of darkness out of their sins and come to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. We want to put an emphasis on evangelism, but for a lot of churches, there seems to be a huge emphasis on making kind of the end all beall of their ministry kind of a salvation center, right? It's a revivalistic kind of strain in evangelicalism where it's like the main thing we do on Sundays isn't worshiping the Lord, isn't equipping the the the saints for the work of ministry. It's making sure we have a message that the lost understand. And so, think about my context. I live in Boulder. There's a lot of progressives. And the temptation when you plant a church or lead a church in that context is to identify who are the most hostile to the gospel and and kind of work the message, work the gospel to try to reach them, which on paper may sound nice as a strategy because you're trying to win people for Christ. But in practice, what it leads to is the softening of the message in the pull pit. And it leaves the sheep vulnerable to incursions from the world and to worldly ideas because you're not feeding them the word of God in all its fullness. You're not giving them meat. You're not giving them the riches they need to stand against forces of darkness. >> Well, I think it's it's also anti-gosspel. When you do that, like when you soften the gospel, you you make it anti-gosspel. I had Seth Gruber on the show. We were talking about his latest book, and he he told the story about how Tim Keller, there was a super liberal woman in his church who had been there for a few years, and she came up to him to ask him about uh the church's official position like on abortion. And it's like, you were in the church for that long now? He was doing church in New York City and you know he did some great things like Reason for God I think is a spectacular book. It does kind of meet people where they're at if they have a reason-based philosophical brain all the things. Uh ultimately net positive what he did over the the lifetime of his ministry. But obviously there were some things that he did where he softened his approach so it would be more palatable which is actually antithetical to the gospel chase because the entire idea I mean you go back to the woman at the well like Jesus didn't ignore her sin. And he didn't skate around it. He didn't, you know, tutt it and say it was okay. He said, "Hey, go get your husband." That's him like covering his thumb in salt and jamming it in the wound. One of the deepest wounds of her life, right? And he [clears throat] didn't do it to condemn her. He did it to save her. Right? And so looking at these people and saying, "You know what? We're not going to talk about your depravity. That's a little pnicity. It's going to cause you uh to not have the feels the happy feels inside of you. So we're just going to talk about happy things. how Jesus is going to be your savior, but as many pastors have rightly pointed out, Jesus can't just be your savior. He also has to be your lord because if he's not your lord, then he is not your savior either. That's that's not really how that works. But you brought up seminaries and if we go to chapter six of the book where you're talking about making war, you talk about, you know, seminaries and uh you talk about the long house, which might be something that people aren't really familiar with. And so talk about the long house and how that relates to what's happened in a terrible way to modern seminaries. Yeah, the long house is a concept coined by uh somebody goes by the pen name Lomez. It's his real name is Jonathan Keeperman in First Things magazine. And it's basically a kind of a a mind game and an analogy to describe the way society functions today. So it's all about safety. It's all about protection. It's mainly run by women um who are are are really concerned with making sure people don't feel hurt, don't have hurt feelings. And so the long house is kind of a a concept that per uh permeates modern American society. Everything from workplaces to government to your kids playground at the park. I mean, I grew up going to playgrounds where, you know, you get splinters and there were rocks and all this kind of stuff. And now it's all very soft. Uh when I take my kids out there on the playground, but uh that's kind of an example. So, it's very much like safetyism, um, tone policing, making sure no one's upset, ult, uh, like endless empathy like I talk about in my thesis of the book. And that's kind of the concept of the long house. The seminaries have really been uh, you know, captured by the spirit of our age, if we want to call it the feminized age or the long house, whatever you want to call it. Um, in two ways. One, like I talked about earlier, they have an inferiority complex. They're always trying to like posture that they are as legitimate as secular public universities. You know, they they want to be perceived as like the Harvard of seminaries. They want to be perceived as all this kind of stuff. And so they're going to mirror how they speak about social issues, how they train pastors based on the approval of public universities. And if a public university looks down at them, they're going to be like, "We must be doing something wrong. We have to re-evaluate what we're doing." The other thing that's a real challenge and I talk about in the book is that uh you know based on God's word we understand that pastors are designed to be men. Men are to be pastors like that that's pretty clear from God's word. And yet what seminaries have done because uh as American Christianity has kind of declined in population and the appeal of uh becoming a minister has declined for many men. They brought in a lot of women to these MD programs, these pastoral degree programs. I think in my own seminary, I I'm no stranger to kind of like uh criticizing it. Denver Seminary, I got two degrees from there, but they started a counseling program which naturally appeals to women more. And that counseling program is basically what's keeping the seminary afloat financially. And so, a lot of seminaries have started these counseling programs. And so, the the the environment of the seminary is no longer a place where like if you and I went to seminary together, we could argue about, you know, uh Armenianism, Cal, Calvinism. We could argue about dispensationalism versus postmillennialism. We we could have robust dialogues. We could bring all the sources. We could have uh fights in the seminary, so to speak, about these very serious theological issues that we're about to have we're about to have to go train other men on. Instead, it becomes a place where we we can't upset people. Let's just cater to the lowest common denominator to make sure no one's upset. And so, pastors aren't getting equipped. when they are getting equipped, they're getting equipped on climate change, gun control, all these kinds of issues in America, uh racial relations, ethnic tensions, uh all these kind of things. I remember in one of my seminaries classes, we were talking about uh the Puritans in New England, and the Puritans New England actually had a great ministry uh to the Native American, the Indian population there. They were translating John Elliot famously translated the Bible into one of the native languages so they could hear the gospel. They started Indian churches for them. All this kind of stuff. But I remember talking about Jonathan Edwards and some of the some of my classmates were like, "Well, they were just bad people and they hated Indians." I was like, "I don't think that's true. I just think that their culture was better than the Indian culture." And they're like, "You're not allowed to say that." And I'm like, "Why am I not allowed to say [laughter] that?" Like that's that's like not even debatable. It's just >> a validity judgment. That's pretty obvious. >> Yeah. [laughter] And so, but that's the kind of environment a lot of uh seminaries have kind of adopted. And so, like I said, the it's it's very similar to the most the most damaging departments at public universities are typically the college of education and critical race theory and neo-Marxism and these radical transgender and LGBTQ whatever ideas are taught in the college of education for prospective public school teachers who who are who come in whether they're activist or not. They get trained to be activists to go into places like I think in my state, Lamar, Colorado, out in the middle of nowhere, Pueblo, uh, Montros, Grand Junction. They're going to go get jobs in rural conservative contexts and then inject those ideas and make little activists in the classrooms. The mirror is in the seminaries. The seminaries are taking grant money from major institutions. They have an inferiority complex. They're training their pastors to essentially be social activists. And then those social activist pastors go into these places and twist the words of scripture, change the message of the gospel and pray on kind of naive and goodme meaning Christian evangelicals desire to see the lost saved in order and they say to their congregation in order to see the lost saved we've got to parrot what the local news station tells us to say. We've got to do what the world around us expects us to do. And that's what's happening in a lot of evangelicalism today. >> Hey guys, real quick. I just wanted to remind you that we have an official Undaunted Life store. You can go to shop.unaunted.life or check it out in the show notes. Guys, we're always going to have hats and shirts and a bunch of other awesome stuff. Go there, support us, wear the mission. Again, it's shop.undaunted.life. Check out the link in the show notes. Shop.undaunted.life. Well, Chase, I've asked this of a lot of people this year, but Legionir and Lifeway got together last year in 2025 and did the did the 2025 state of theology. And so in order to be a part of this, and we've talked about evangelicalism and evangelicals a lot in this podcast, we've had in order to be a part of this survey, you had to answer these like four or five questions in the affirmative to be considered an evangelical. So the Bible had to be your highest uh moral authority. You you had to share your faith with others, that Jesus uh was the only way through faith and uh to faith and salvation. But then when you got into the data, it was absolutely heartbreaking because [clears throat] about 50% of the so-called evangelicals that were surveyed said that most people are are generally good. Uh we just sin a little bit here and there. Also, it said about half of them said that God will accept the worship of all religions ultimately including Islam and Judaism. And also only about half of the respondents said that marriage was between one man and one woman for life. And then there were other places as well. Those are just the three that stuck in my brain. And [clears throat] so in order for these people to get to that place, the you try to think of, okay, why? Here are their answers. Here's what the data say, but why? And it's that we own Bibles. We just don't read them. And for whatever reason, we don't read them. Well, we don't read them because our pastor does, and he gets to do that for a living. thing and so we'll just listen to what he says. He'll summarize it for us. We kind of think we already know what it says, right? Or we've read it before and we kind of understand that. But the further you get away from the word of God, the more downstream you become of the culture and society that you're living in. And I think people are just giving short shrift to that and not really understanding it. And it just leads to an overall insanely crippling level of biblical literacy. What's your read on that? Yeah, we need pastors who are willing to equip the saints and also rebuke where rebuke is necessary because if a pastor's up in the pullpit and he's nuancing to death topics that are very clearly discernible from scripture, let's say about marriage, right? And he instead he's really catering to kind of like, hey, you've probably got a gay person in your life and here's how you need to minister to them. And he never really gets to the heart of the matter and says, no, homosexuality is an abomination. it's wicked and evil and we cannot tolerate it within the church. People are naturally going to have questions about that. They're going to go, "Well, what should I do?" You know, they want to come to Christmas. That that calls for a pastoral meeting. We can we can figure some stuff out there and the pastor can can offer some wisdom in that situation. But if he's constantly dodging crucial moral questions that many people are asking today, um then those sheep are not going to be fed. And yeah, we need people to be invol uh get involved in in studying the word of God to know the word of God, but many times when they go to the seminaries, like we mentioned, they're not getting the truth. I actually started a website, commonplace.st study, if anybody wants to go check it out, where you can go back to the reformers, and you can ask any question via AI. What do the reformers think about abortion? And it will pull up firsthand accounts like not AI generated nonsense where you type in chat GPT and it makes a Calvin quote up. I'm talking about I've got hard-coded sources in this database where you can go ask any question about any theological issue, moral issue, and you can see what our tradition, what the Christian tradition has taught for hundreds of years. Because the fact of the matter is Christians today are kind of being hoodwinkedked by a lot of this stuff. They're not being fed from the pullpit in strong terms. And pastors are often scared to enact church discipline on congregants who sign a statement of faith saying, "This is what I believe." But then when they get in the voting u or they mail and vote in a lot of places when they find fill out the ballot or they they speak on social matters anywhere they're not going to discipline them. So like I think about back in gosh when were the women's marches where they were wearing these pink hats. Do you remember this event? >> Yeah. Yeah. The hats a few years ago. Yep. >> So um we had congre congregants at our church. This was shocking to me that were going to these things. And so what do I do as a pastor? Do I ignore it? No. I go to the family and I'm like this is not appropriate. The same thing with any kind of thing. They speak out online. You are a member of this church and when you go out there you march in these things, you post online about these things. You are representing the Christian faith. And according to our our documents, our statement of faith and what we believe, you are promoting a message that runs contrary to our statement of faith. And so you have a choice. You can either leave or you can stay and we're going to call you into church discipline for walking out of step with our statement of faith. And that's not done out of hate. That's not done out of like uh we we don't love you. That's actually done out of love because we want the best for you because we want to call you to something greater, which is the love of God and the obedience to all that Christ has commanded because that's what Christ said we would do if we loved him. And so pastors need, we need manly pastors who are capable of that kind of wisdom and application from God's word instead of kind of shaking in their boots about, oh no, uh, this woman is really worked up or this man is really worked up cuz his wife is worked up or this man is worked up about this social issue and I can't talk to him about it otherwise it'll cause lots of drama and then it we may lose a giving unit and if they leave they're going to take five families with them. Stop all the noise. Get to the heart of the matter. What's the deal here? What do we need to tell this person? And and get some wise counsel on it. You're not alone. You've got other pastors in this nation. You've got hopefully other elders, other men in your life who speak the truth. Uh but we need pastors of courage who know the times and can speak to these issues to feed the flock. >> Well, the reason why we should understand the times that we're in is because we are in a culture where everything is catered to you. And so, like we all have our own individual algorithms, right? And so if I scroll Instagram on my phone or if I pick up someone else's phone and scroll their Instagram, it's not going to show us the same things, right? And so we're so individualized and we're so kept to a particular thing to keep us happy, to keep us pacified. We expect our church to do the same thing. And so we this we expect the church to go along with what we're doing or at least not challenge us. And so the idea of church discipline is like insanity. Like wait, what? Church discipline? And again, here in Oklahoma, the joke is you trip and fall. And in the process of catching your balance, you land on seven churches. So, I'm just going to go across the street, right? [clears throat] Which is why most churches don't even have why I say most churches, a lot of churches, especially modern mega churches, don't have membership. It's not because it's too hard. It's not because they don't have the apps in place or the logistics in place to, you know, keep track of all these people. It's because it doesn't really mean anything. It's such a cheap experience. You come in, you get your coffee, you get your cookies, and then you go to the light show. you you go listen to the the concert, you get your TED talk, you get your spiritual Skittles, and then all that wears off uh before you leave the parking lot. So, why in the world would we even want you to be a member? What does membership even mean? But for those churches that do have membership, I feel like a lot of people within the church, whether it's the lay leaders, the elders, or even the pastors on staff, they will see things specifically that are contrary to the word of God, and they won't even think these people need to be under church discipline. And part of it is the inherent nature of knowing that they're just going to go right across the street. And um to [clears throat] just transition because we're we're getting close to having to close here. I think the thing that's important for this and it really is a through point of everything that we talked about in a lot of areas, but in chapter 5, you talk about find your failins. Whenever I present live, you know, I talk about all the different kinds of buddies you should have. You should have your foxhole. You should have your Mac carriers, your king's table. You should have your 3:00 a.m. friends. You should have the whose car are we going to take friends. If you've watched the town, you know what I'm talking about. But then there's also the failins. You know what they would do in these uh Greek citystate days is they wouldn't just put a random smattering of individuals into the failins cuz if the failins, you know, if if one person left the failins, it would start to shatter. And so they would put you there, and they'd put your dad to your left, your brother to your right, your uncle on the other side of him because the odds of you running away like a coward when you were protecting your father with your shield and your brother was protecting you with his went down considerably. But most guys don't even focus on it, Chase. They don't think they need a group of guys. Ah, they played football in high school and they run into those guys here and there. That's good enough. Hey, we go on a once a year fishing trip. or hey, you know, I got buddies that will golf every couple of months or so. So, they got fellas, but they don't got foxhole. They got fellas, they don't have a failins. And so, let's get your pitch for why men should really focus on getting a fails of men around them. >> Yeah, it's it's crucial for maturity. It's crucial for development. It's crucial for protection. You need a bunch of guys in your life. It could be five, it could be 10, it could be more, but you need guys who know you uh know you well enough. That doesn't mean they need to know every uh every secret in your life or anything like that. You know, guys are notorious for not knowing details about each other's lives. I'm in lots of group chats where I'm like, I don't even know their wife's name or anything like that. Sometimes I've never met them. But these guys are warriors. These guys can give you feedback. These guys can stand beside you. These guys can network you. These guys can advantage you and protect you. And they can connect you with other men of of uh virtue, other men who are pursuing excellence. But you also need it embodied. Now, a lot of men are finding it online. uh which can be helpful, but you need it in person, too. A lot of men today, I mean, there's been a lot of literature written about the male loneliness epidemic and all this kind of stuff, which isn't uh untrue. Um, but if men would go to church and find other guys who have a common interest with them and just start there and they don't have to go like all weird evangelical like, "Hey, brother, would you be in my failings?" Like, they don't need to get weird about it. Just like start start doing stuff with guys uh that you naturally want to do. uh taking interest in other guys and what they're interested in. I think about I have a privilege as a pastor. I get to be interested in a lot of different stuff. We had a guy his job was driving snow plows for a living and it was night shifts. And so one night just to get time with him cuz I never got to see him. I went and rode in the snow plow with him for 2 hours. I sat in the passenger seat and it was pretty scary going over these mountain passes on that snow snow plow. But that's a way to connect with another guy, right? Is you're you're getting uh to know kind of his life, his vocation, the skills he brings to the table. And then when a crisis comes, I think about something like in our state where we had the Democrats pushing a radical transgender bill that would strip parents from parental rights if they didn't go along with their child's perceived gender based on transgenderism. Well, I alone couldn't do anything. But me and other pastors who had been talking for years and seen the problems in our state said, "We can do something. Let's just host a rally. Let's get involved. Let's speak from the pullpit. Let's let's Hey, what are resources we can go to? Are there outside is there outside counsel? Can we go to focus on the family? uh family uh uh Alliance Defending Freedom, Heritage Foundation, anything like that. And we're getting connected. We're forming kind of a loose organization, a failink, and we're defending one another. We have common messaging. And you need that already baked in because by the time the fight comes, it's often too late. So, you need to be preparing now with com with guys that have common interest, common convictions, biblical convictions on social, political, cultural matters. You can have all sorts of differences of opinion about sports. I mean, Matt, who I serve with as a pastor, he likes the Cincinnati Bengals, which I don't think I had ever heard of being from Dallas. You know, they were like nobody. And I went to Texas&M and he thinks we're we're nothing compared to Ohio State. That's totally fine. That doesn't shape at the end of the day what we're about and what we're doing together as brothers in arms, brothers in Christ. And so, you need a failank to encourage you, uh, to help you, to give you wisdom. Proverbs speaks about this. You need to have a council, uh, of guys that you can go to, hey, did I mess up here? Hey, this is what I tried, you know, to leave my wife. It didn't go well. Help. What did I What am I not seeing here, right? Help help me do better here. Hey, this I'm having a trouble parenting my teenager. Here's what I'm trying. Here's what's not working. What have you y'all tried? And they can pray for you. They can encourage you, but you can also do stuff together. And y'all can get active. And that's a lot of the emphasis of the book as well. We need to get active and not just focus on ideas so much. Well, hey, uh, we'll make this maybe the last question of the day because you keep mentioning Texas A&M, which hasn't been relevant in football since like the 30s. Uh, but like [clears throat] you can't you got to explain these videos, these dorks in all white doing these chants that are and I mean these aren't the manliest dudes that you've ever seen in your life. They seem a little light in their loafers. It seems very cultlike. You know, everyone's talking about that gal what out in California that's got everybody in this new cult. They're all calling her mama. It kind of feels like that in a macro sense at Texas A&M. And every time I ask an Aggie about it, they're like, "Oh, you just don't understand. You didn't go blah blah blah." They just use words that aren't attached to anything. And so, could you maybe explain to me what in the world is going on down there in Agguiland? >> I'd love to because this is the biggest critique I get and so I'd be happy to. I actually released a Twitter thread a couple years ago. >> It's warranted, Chase. It's warranted. No, here's the deal, man. Here's the deal. Texas&M was a military allmale school up until the 60s. And a lot of things happened in the 60s. Up until the 60s. My granddad, there's a picture on the wall over here. You can't see it. He graduated in 1938 from Texas&M. All male. And the yell leaders were those men who were in charge of not cheering, not not cheerleaders. They were in charge of leading yells, like war chants. We have a war him. And you may see them today and they may not have this the stature other that we would appreciate in men but the the yell leaders are in charge of leading the school and yelling against the enemy and chanting against the enemy. It's actually like when we talk about the failins this is what's funny about the critique of yell leaders and kind of that kind of culture. It's like the one of the only institutions at Texas&M that is a woman has never been elected by the student body to the position of yell leader. It's all male has always been all male. And so we have an institution, Texas&M, love it or hate it, whatever it is, it's kind of a cult where we have a appointed office, an elected office, all male, leading uh the student body and yells against their opponents. Uh and I think this is very masculine. I one one great example because there's not some some not great examples. Grant Castleberry, pastor out in North Carolina. He was a yell leader. He was a couple years ahead of me at Texas A&M. A great man. Joined the Marines. Uh but typically traditionally what it was was like military men leading other men in yelling. You think about like bag pipes and braveheart and this kind of stuff. This is what it's supposed to be. However you guys, however the listener or the viewer sees it today, that's what it is and that's what it was designed to be. And uh may you know maybe we can get some more strapping young men in there for you to make it appeal to you more. But that's that's the way yell leaders function today. >> Well, maybe that's what it was designed to be. But I just got to say the yelling isn't working. The enemy isn't scared. When's the LA [laughter] WHEN'S THE LAST NATIONAL TITLE? WAS WHAT? 1939 or something like that was the last national debated, but yeah. 1939. >> Okay. [clears throat] I mean, we're coming up on a century. Y'all y'all are in Chicago Cubs territory right now. You're >> What you're saying is we're due. >> No, what I'm saying is you're relevant once a century. That's that's what I'm saying. It's not that you're due. You're due nothing. And the SEC ain't getting any lighter for you guys. But Chase, I really appreciate all the commentary. We've gotten into a lot of different subjects, but that's all for me. Is there anything else you want to get off your chest? >> No, man. This has been a great conversation. Uh men, get your tea levels checked. Uh that's a huge part of the book as well. You know, you really need to focus on your embodied health. Get fit, get strong. Um and that that does not run contrary to you becoming mature in Christlikkeness. Pursue Christ. Pursume in every avenue of life, including your physical fitness. >> Amen. Thanks again, Chase. >> Thank you. There you go, guys. Hope you enjoyed my time with Chase. But before we let you go, we are going to do a quick resilience boost at Undaunted Life. Our mission is equipping men to push back darkness with content that forges spiritual, mental, and physical resilience. So, I've got some links for you. I've got some links to where you can listen to Chase's sermons. A link to where you can buy your copy of Offensive Christianity. He mentioned Common Place, that like AI thing for the reformers. I put that link in there as well. And also a link to his website. Thank you everyone for listening to this episode. Wherever you're listening to this, please subscribe, rate, and leave us a positive fivestar review. If you want me to come speak live at your event or on your podcast, just shoot me an email to info@undaunted.life. Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook. And check out our website for everything else, including how to donate to keep more content like this coming. www.undaunted.life. The music on this podcast is the song Conqueror by the Christian metal band Void Awaken. Be sure to stream their music on Spotify, Apple Music, and wherever else you get your music. I'm your host, Kyle Thompson. Remember, keep pushing back darkness. Keep forging spiritual, mental, and physical resilience. Keep seeking the Lion of Judah. [music] Heat. Heat.