← All episodes

JOSH HAWLEY | The Masculine Virtues America Needs (Ep. 481)

July 18, 2023 48m 19s Full transcript available
JOSH HAWLEY | The Masculine Virtues America Needs (Ep. 481)
0:00 / 48m 19s
In this episode, Kyle Thompson sits down with Senator Josh Hawley to discuss his new book, 'Manhood: The Masculine Virtues America Needs.' They dive deep into the current state of masculinity in America, the importance of fatherhood, and the cultural challenges men face today, all while emphasizing the biblical foundation for manhood.
Transcript
1217 segments
0:00 (dramatic music)
0:02 - This is Undaunted Life of Man's Podcast.
0:23 I'm your host Kyle Thompson, let's get into it.
0:25 All right guys, today we've got a special guest
0:28 on the podcast, his name is Josh Hawley.
0:30 So he is a United States Senator
0:31 representing the state of Missouri.
0:33 He's a New York Times best-selling author
0:35 of the book, The Tyranny of Big Tech,
0:37 and his latest book, which is out now,
0:38 which is really the center point of our entire talk today,
0:40 which is Manhood, The Masculine Virtues American Needs.
0:44 And before he was elected to the US Senate in 2018,
0:47 he worked as a First Amendment lawyer
0:49 and a law professor and served
0:50 as the attorney general of the state of Missouri.
0:53 But the thing about this book in this interview today
0:55 is, yes, he's a politician.
0:57 Some of you don't like politicians.
0:58 I don't really care, I'll talk to you, whoever.
1:00 But this is a guy that is a legitimate Christian.
1:02 Now, there are politicians out there
1:04 that love to put scripture verses on some of their mailers
1:07 and they'll go to churches and go to rallies
1:09 and things like that, but they don't actually believe.
1:12 They don't believe that in Middle Eastern Jew,
1:14 2000 years ago, died on the cross as a full payment
1:17 of their sins so that they could be before an almighty
1:20 and all just God.
1:21 They just don't believe that, right?
1:23 They believe in morality.
1:24 They believe in a Judeo-Christian ethic,
1:26 but they don't believe in Christ, but Josh Hawley does.
1:29 And so he writes a book about manhood.
1:31 And here's the thing, and I mentioned this in the interview.
1:33 I've gotten a lot of manhood books sent to me.
1:36 I've had a lot pitched to me for the show,
1:38 some of which I've made it onto the show, some have not.
1:40 But the majority of the ones that I've read,
1:42 and it is a majority, I'm not being hyperbolic,
1:44 they're just vapid, they're just empty.
1:47 It's just platitude after platitude after platitude
1:51 with no real connection to any type of a cogent philosophy,
1:55 much less to a Judeo-Christian ethic,
1:58 much less to a theologically adept
2:00 and correct understanding of Christianity.
2:03 But somehow, United States Senator,
2:05 who should be in these Senate meetings,
2:07 throwing policy stuff around,
2:10 he wrote one of the best books on manhood
2:12 that I've ever read in my entire life.
2:13 As I was reading it, I was in the back of my head like,
2:16 okay, this isn't that upper tier.
2:18 This isn't that wild at heart tier of manhood books.
2:21 And it was a complete surprise.
2:23 I mean, I thought I was gonna be getting a policy book,
2:25 and here I was, I get this book on manhood.
2:28 So in this particular interview,
2:29 I don't really wanna set it up any more than I already have.
2:31 We're gonna talk about manhood and masculinity in America,
2:34 and how the current state of manhood
2:36 and masculinity in America is actually at threat
2:39 of really ending our republic.
2:41 So guys, I really enjoyed my time with him.
2:43 So without further ado, let's get into it.
2:46 - Josh Holly, welcome to Undaunted Life of Man's podcast.
2:49 - Thank you for having me.
2:50 - I'm so excited to talk to you today,
2:52 specifically about your book,
2:53 but I just gotta be honest with you right out of the gate here.
2:56 Your staff did the right thing.
2:58 They asked me before this interview,
2:59 "Hey, are you gonna ask about anything else?
3:02 "And you think about policy, anything in the news?"
3:04 And I both faced light to them.
3:06 I said, "No."
3:07 But the world needs to know your answer
3:10 to this following question,
3:11 and I hope your soul is prepared for it.
3:13 So here you go, it's a two part question to start out.
3:15 - Oh boy, all right.
3:16 - Do we have aliens and UFOs in our possession?
3:19 And secondary question, how many aliens and UFOs
3:23 have you seen personally?
3:24 - No, I thought the second part was gonna be
3:26 and is Joe Biden one of them?
3:28 So first, I don't know the answer to the first question.
3:33 I really don't.
3:33 In fact, I was in a briefing with a bunch of military people.
3:37 It's now been, I guess maybe six months ago,
3:39 maybe it was nine months ago.
3:40 And I still remember this part,
3:42 they're kind of glossing over.
3:43 They don't like to say UFO anymore, by the way.
3:45 - Yeah, UAP.
3:47 - Yes, UAP. So I'm listening to this and I can say,
3:50 well, UAPs and there have been numerous sightings
3:55 over decades in the number they threw out
3:56 was a huge number.
3:57 So I actually interrupted and I said,
3:59 I'm sorry, wait a minute, can we just back up?
4:01 Did you just tell me that there was X number
4:03 over how many years at all of our military installations?
4:06 And they said, yeah, that's right.
4:07 And I said, that's kind of a problem, don't you think?
4:10 - Yeah.
4:10 - They said, well, we're studying it.
4:11 We're studying it.
4:12 So the answer is, I don't know if we have them
4:14 in our possession.
4:15 Nothing would surprise me at this point.
4:17 And what was the second one?
4:20 - Well, I just, you know,
4:22 I figured you were gonna lie about the first one,
4:23 which you just did.
4:24 You said exactly what they want you to say, right?
4:26 I just asked how many aliens and UFOs
4:29 have you seen personally, which, you know.
4:30 - Have a personal scene, who knows?
4:31 Well, none that I know of, but you know what?
4:33 Who knows what's real anymore?
4:35 - Hey, they might be running the White House
4:36 for all we know.
4:37 So I appreciate you indulging me
4:39 with that ridiculous question.
4:40 You wouldn't imagine the people in my audience
4:42 and their interests and that kind of stuff,
4:44 but we'll leave that up to them.
4:45 But the main thing I wanted to talk to you about today
4:47 is your new book that is out now, guys.
4:49 It's called "Manhood, the Masculine Virtues American Needs."
4:53 So I just finished this book within the last few days
4:55 and I told you off air that I thought it was a fantastic book.
4:58 I get sent a lot of manhood books.
5:00 I read a lot of manhood books because that's kind of,
5:03 you know, our thing here,
5:04 trying to equip men to be able to push back darkness.
5:07 I feel that most of them though are fairly vapid.
5:09 It's kind of the same, you know,
5:12 pull yourself up by your bootstraps
5:13 and you're gonna be fine and eat some meat and work out.
5:15 And it's like, okay, all that stuff's fine,
5:17 but there's a deeper meaning to all this.
5:19 But I guess the easiest question is,
5:22 why'd you write this book and why should we care?
5:24 What a U.S. senator from the state of Missouri
5:26 thinks about manhood?
5:27 - Well, I wrote the book because I've got two little boys
5:30 at home, Elijah is my older son who's 10 and Blaze,
5:33 who's my younger son who's eight.
5:34 I also have a baby girl.
5:35 I say baby, she's two years old now,
5:36 but she'll forever be my baby.
5:38 So we've got my wife and I have these three kids
5:41 and really the book started as me as a father
5:43 thinking about for my boys,
5:45 what is it that I need to do as a dad
5:47 to help them grow into being the men
5:49 that God has created them to be?
5:51 And I love your slogan, your mission statement
5:54 about pushing back the darkness
5:56 because that really, if you look at Genesis,
5:58 if you go all the way back and you look at the scripture
6:00 and you look at Genesis,
6:01 you look at Adam in the garden, we're all started,
6:03 what is it God told him to do?
6:05 God told him to go and push back the darkness.
6:09 There's something in that call to men
6:11 that it's goes right to the soul and core of who we are.
6:14 So why should you care what I have to say?
6:16 You shouldn't, but you should care,
6:18 I hope about what the scripture has to say,
6:19 what the Bible has to say.
6:21 And if you're a Christian, then you know why that's true.
6:22 If you're not a Christian, you can at least get on with this,
6:25 that this book is the single most influential book
6:28 in our culture or human history.
6:29 So it's probably worth a look at it.
6:31 - Yeah, even if you don't believe it,
6:33 even if you thought it was written by Emperor Constantine
6:36 and his buddies a couple thousand years ago,
6:38 you should probably look at it and see it for what it is.
6:41 I think one thing you made click for me
6:43 as I was reading through the book, Josh,
6:44 is I talk about equipping men to push back darkness
6:47 and pushing back darkness spiritually, mentally and physically
6:49 and all that, but it's like, what did God do
6:51 whenever he, you know, he was the big banger.
6:54 Like he pushed back the darkness,
6:56 the void that was everything and put something there
6:59 and cause it to be light.
7:01 And so at that kind of clicked for me and I was like,
7:03 okay, that's big.
7:04 I'm gonna totally steal for that from you
7:05 and put it in a book of my own here down the road.
7:08 So, but in the second paragraph of the book,
7:11 which by the way guys, if you're gonna write a book out there
7:13 in your first chapter as garbage,
7:15 just throw the rest of the book away
7:16 because your first chapter, it really grips the reader
7:18 and kind of carries them through so bravo on that.
7:20 But in the second paragraph of the book,
7:23 you give this quote that haunted me
7:26 the rest of the time I was reading the book, okay?
7:28 So to set it up, you're talking about conversations
7:31 that you were having with your students
7:33 when you were a law professor in Missouri years back.
7:36 And when talking with a particular male student
7:38 or with I guess just a bevy of male students,
7:41 here was the quote from your book.
7:43 One after another said, in one way or another,
7:46 "I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with my life."
7:49 And yet they felt that they were failing
7:51 at whatever that was.
7:53 The reason why that's so haunting
7:55 is 'cause they don't even know why they're sad and empty,
7:59 but they know that because they're sad and empty
8:01 that they're failing.
8:02 And so talk to me a little bit more about that
8:04 because if you keep that in mind as you read the book,
8:07 I feel like the content is even more juicy.
8:09 - To me, I think what that really speaks to
8:12 is the lack of purpose that young men,
8:14 probably men of all ages,
8:15 but particularly young men feel in our culture right now.
8:17 And I've just seen it over and over and over.
8:20 They don't have any sense of what their life
8:22 is supposed to be about.
8:23 And yet they want their lives to matter.
8:25 Every man wants his life to matter.
8:27 I mean, every man wants to leave a legacy,
8:29 wants to make a difference,
8:31 wants to do something purposeful with his life.
8:33 But I think young men, especially today,
8:34 hear constantly from the left and the media
8:38 that their lives as men, A, don't matter,
8:41 B, to the extent they do matter,
8:43 make the world a worse place.
8:44 To be a man is to be toxic.
8:46 It is to ruin everything around you.
8:48 So don't be a man, don't be masculine.
8:51 Just try to make yourself happy,
8:52 but don't be a man in doing it and hope for the best.
8:56 And it has left them with such a sense of purposelessness
9:00 that I think it has become for many a prison.
9:02 And they don't know what to do.
9:04 And yet they know they're supposed to be doing something.
9:06 They long to do something that matters.
9:08 They don't know what that is.
9:09 And really, this book is my attempt to try
9:12 and work back through, for me,
9:14 what is the foundational truth of my life,
9:16 which is what does the Bible say
9:18 about what God has called men to do?
9:20 And how does that vision empower us
9:22 and call us towards something great?
9:24 - Well, let's actually go a little bit deeper on that
9:26 because there's another quote earlier in the book.
9:28 It's this all is not well with men in America
9:32 and that spells trouble for the American Republic.
9:35 So there's a lot there in those two sentences.
9:38 But specifically, we are told by reliable sources, Josh,
9:41 like MSNBC and Vox and all these other places
9:45 that we live in a patriarchal system dominated by men.
9:49 But then we're also, at the same time,
9:51 told that men don't really matter.
9:54 But if they do matter, then that means they're toxic,
9:56 which means they're patriarchal,
9:57 which means here, let me just run around
9:59 in this gigantic circle for the rest of my life.
10:02 That's a leading to a sickness that pervades our culture
10:05 and we'll get more into the actual specifics of that later.
10:08 But why would you say even more to elucidate your point
10:12 that all is not well with men in America?
10:15 - Well, just look at the numbers.
10:16 Look at some of the data, for instance.
10:17 We have record high numbers of suicides among men,
10:20 especially young men.
10:21 We have record high numbers of drug abuse.
10:23 We have record high numbers of alcohol abuse.
10:27 We have record high numbers of depression, generally,
10:29 and then a record high level of fatherlessness.
10:31 More men and women today, kids in America,
10:34 grow up without a dad in the home
10:36 than ever before in our history, number one,
10:38 but also more than almost any other country in the world.
10:42 I mean, let that sink in.
10:43 The United States has fewer fathers in the home
10:46 than just about every other so-called developed country
10:48 and most every other country in the world.
10:50 It is an astounding figure.
10:52 So you look at that and you think about,
10:54 "Man, what does this say about men? I'll throw one more at you."
10:57 There are fewer men working today who are able-bodied.
11:00 I'm not talking about those who are seriously injured,
11:02 able-bodied, fewer men working
11:05 than at just about any point in American history.
11:08 Those are not good trend lines.
11:10 So you look at that and you think something is not right here
11:13 and that is not good for our country
11:15 because we live in a republic,
11:16 which means we live in a nation that is governed by the people
11:19 and it depends ultimately on the character of the people.
11:22 And if you've got the men of this country
11:25 who are unable to support themselves,
11:27 let alone wives and children and neighborhoods and communities,
11:32 you're not gonna have a republic for very long.
11:34 - No, you won't.
11:35 And if you're constantly surrounded by people
11:37 that are abdicating their responsibility,
11:39 you can't throw your hands up in shock
11:40 when things don't get done in a timely manner
11:43 or in a positive manner.
11:44 And we'll dig more into specifically that stuff
11:47 as we go into part two of your book
11:48 'cause your book split into two parts.
11:50 But one of the themes that is really prevalent in part,
11:53 one of the book, but also throughout the entire book
11:56 is you talk about, I guess you frame the arguments
12:00 and philosophies that are downstream of Epicureanism, okay?
12:04 So I'm assuming there are some philosophers in my audience,
12:07 but for the most part, guys do not know about Epicureanism
12:10 or any of those types of things.
12:11 So can you give us a little bit of a primer
12:13 on what that is and specifically how that has a direct impact
12:17 on the discussion of modern manhood?
12:19 - Absolutely, it's an old idea that really now
12:21 has incredible relevance for today.
12:23 Epicureus was an ancient Greek philosopher
12:25 and he was an atheist.
12:27 His view of life was that the universe is empty,
12:29 that your life is meaningless,
12:31 that the whole world is governed by atoms.
12:33 He's one of the first people to actually discover
12:35 that the atom, so he was right about that,
12:37 but he thought they moved totally randomly,
12:39 history was totally random, your life is totally random,
12:41 what did he draw from that?
12:43 He said, just live to make yourself happy.
12:45 I mean, in the short time you have on earth,
12:47 try to make yourself happy,
12:48 try to be tranquil, try to avoid conflict,
12:51 put yourself at the center of the world.
12:54 If that isn't the modern left mantra for today,
12:58 I don't know what is.
12:59 So Epicureus, I think, is maybe the philosopher of the age.
13:02 How does that relate to men?
13:04 That is the same philosophy men are told
13:07 from the time they're little,
13:08 that your life doesn't matter, that the universe is empty.
13:11 The best thing you can do with your life
13:12 is try to put yourself at the center of it.
13:14 Just don't be a man though
13:16 or pursue the masculine virtues
13:18 because that's gonna ruin everybody else's life.
13:20 - So as you're describing that now,
13:23 and as I was reading the book,
13:24 I was reminded just of the overall concept of libertarianism.
13:27 And so there are a couple of different ways
13:29 to define libertarian or libertarianism.
13:31 One of that is to be a free thinker,
13:33 of which point I think everybody with a functioning brain
13:35 would say, yeah, that's a good idea.
13:37 You should be a free thinker to a degree.
13:38 Don't just be a dogmatic individual,
13:40 challenge things, think things through.
13:42 But another way of describing libertarianism
13:45 is living without any moral restraint whatsoever.
13:49 And so I feel like we've lost the thread
13:51 on epicurianism or libertarianism
13:53 and gotten away from, hey, let's just think,
13:55 let's question everything,
13:56 let's make sure we think things through to where it's just like,
13:59 hey, live however you wanna live
14:01 and anyone that says you shouldn't do that is a bigot.
14:04 - Yeah, I think the problem what you see with this,
14:05 this leftist philosophy, this epicurian philosophy today
14:08 is that it doesn't produce people who stand up in question.
14:11 It produces docile androgynous consumers.
14:15 That's the end goal of it.
14:16 So what's the message today that men are told?
14:18 It is, go to your basement, boot up that computer,
14:21 sit in front of a screen, buy some stuff,
14:23 entertain yourself, don't ask any questions,
14:24 do as you're told, be a consumer.
14:27 And that's your end goal in life, be a consumer.
14:29 Well, what do consumers do?
14:30 They do what they're told, they're constantly entertained
14:32 and then other people run their lives
14:34 and run the government.
14:35 What we need in this country are men who say,
14:37 you know what, I'm gonna turn off the screen,
14:38 I'm gonna come out of the basement,
14:39 I'm gonna get a job, I'm gonna take on responsibility
14:42 and I'm going to think for myself.
14:44 That is exactly what a man does,
14:46 that's what the biblical picture of manhood is
14:49 and much more.
14:50 But that's what I think today's left
14:52 in particular doesn't want.
14:54 - Okay, so I want to veer way off
14:56 and then come right back to where we are.
14:58 So again, no one in the staff get nervous.
15:00 All right guys, I'm gonna stick to the script here.
15:02 Guys, there's not a script, that's another joke.
15:04 Okay, you mentioned androgynous or androgynous.
15:07 That's basically you have both female and male characteristics
15:10 like it's just basically there's no gender.
15:12 Do you think that part of the push,
15:15 'cause there's a lot of pushes for transgenderism
15:17 and there's a lot of reasons for that
15:19 in terms of like breaking down the pillars of society
15:22 and the cornerstones of society.
15:24 But is part of what you're talking about this androgyny,
15:28 do you think the trans movement is kind of like rocket fuel
15:32 for that because again, LGBTQ,
15:35 those letters don't technically mix together.
15:37 There are a lot of gay and lesbian folks right now
15:39 that are like, wait a minute, transing kids,
15:41 what are y'all doing?
15:42 Like this is insane or am I potentially
15:44 drawing a connection that's a little bit too broad?
15:47 - Oh no, I think you're right.
15:48 No, I think the radical trans ideology,
15:50 which you see the left now trying to push everywhere,
15:53 literally everywhere.
15:54 You can't turn on the television without seeing it.
15:56 It's in school curriculum, says that.
15:58 There is no male and female that there are no,
16:01 it's really part of the overall leftist view of the world
16:03 which is there are no eternal truths.
16:05 There is no eternity at all.
16:06 There's only the here and now
16:08 and everything is a social construct.
16:10 I mean, there's nothing permanent.
16:11 It's all just made up as we go along
16:13 and that includes male and female.
16:16 So those aren't real and if you think they are real,
16:19 you're deluded and oppressive
16:20 and this is where we get to the patriarchy point.
16:22 If you're a man and you say, wait a minute,
16:23 no, there is such a thing as male and female,
16:25 they say you're an oppressive part of the patriarchy.
16:28 If you're a woman, then they say,
16:30 you're alienated from your true consciousness or whatever
16:33 and the message is at the end of the day
16:36 that we ought to just do as we're told
16:38 that when they tell us that there's no such thing
16:40 as men and women or when they tell us
16:42 that biological men ought to be playing women's sports
16:45 or ought to be in women's locker rooms,
16:46 we're just supposed to go along with that.
16:48 And my answer to that is that you are totally out of touch
16:50 with reality.
16:52 If you believe that and it's time to say,
16:53 hard no, there is such a thing as male and female.
16:56 There are eternal truths and we have to stand up for them.
16:59 - So literally, just this morning,
17:01 we have a section of our show called The Forging Table
17:04 and so The Forging Table is every Sunday,
17:06 me and a group of guys, we get together,
17:08 we're all laymen, none of us are pastors
17:09 or professional Christians
17:11 and we just go through books of the Bible.
17:13 So it's basically a men's Bible study
17:14 and I just happened to put some microphones up
17:16 and hit record and here in a minute,
17:18 we're gonna do a couple of proverbs.
17:20 So this morning I was reviewing Proverbs 1, all right?
17:23 So the kickoff to this wisdom literature
17:26 and Proverbs 1 is soaking in its description
17:30 of fools and simple people.
17:32 And by simple people, we don't mean people
17:34 that like vanilla ice cream and whittling a stick
17:36 on their porch.
17:37 We literally mean people that are simple-minded,
17:39 that are almost impenetrable with the truth.
17:42 And so I'm kind of stuck, Josh,
17:44 a little bit between wanting to yank these people
17:47 to the right side and to be like,
17:49 shake their ears until it's like be logical, you weirdo.
17:52 And there's another part of me that's like,
17:54 hey, this is pearls before swine.
17:56 Like there's just going to be people like that in the world.
17:58 So I just, do I throw my hands up and do nothing?
18:02 - Oh no, we can't do that.
18:03 We can't afford to throw our hands up and do nothing girl.
18:05 So we're going to end up with our kids being taught
18:09 that the gender that God has made them is wrong,
18:11 that they need to take drugs that will sterilize them.
18:13 We're going to end up with our girls
18:15 not able to play sports
18:16 'cause they won't exist any longer for girls.
18:18 I think I would just say that particularly Christians
18:20 out there, if you think that, hey,
18:22 if I just go to church, I'm in a nice person
18:24 and keep my beliefs inside the church
18:27 and keep to myself, they'll be nice to me
18:29 and won't hurt me, you're very wrong.
18:31 You're totally wrong.
18:32 I wish that were true, that's not true.
18:34 What the left wants,
18:35 what the radical sort of atheistic agenda wants
18:38 in our society is to eradicate all of the influence
18:42 of the Bible.
18:43 They want to totally dominate this new,
18:46 frankly, Marxist, cultural Marxist agenda.
18:48 They want to impose that as a new religion
18:50 on the whole of our society and they're not going to stop.
18:53 I mean, that's why there's such a radical push,
18:55 whether it's the transgender movement or CRT
18:58 or whatever the latest sort of Marxist cultural thing is.
19:02 It's an alternate religion that they are pushing
19:04 and they want to use government to push
19:05 and we just have a point where, listen,
19:07 it's our obligation to stand up for the truth.
19:09 That's my view, you don't have to be harsh about it,
19:12 although sometimes you do have to be a little harsh
19:16 to get your point heard, but we've got to be willing, I think,
19:19 to stand up for the truth and to say, this is right,
19:22 this is wrong, this is real, this is false,
19:25 and you can call me whatever name you want,
19:27 but I'm not gonna be moved off of that.
19:30 LinkedIn is pretty amazing at helping you grow
19:32 your small business.
19:33 We cannot make your email response time faster.
19:36 We can help you sell market and hire in one place.
19:41 We cannot help you find space for your three desk drinks.
19:44 Why do you have three?
19:45 And while we can't help you find the perfect volume
19:48 for your presentation video,
19:50 LinkedIn can help you find the perfect audience
19:52 for your business.
19:54 Grow your small business on LinkedIn.
19:56 Learn more at linkedin.com/smallbusiness.
20:00 Well, I was hoping my question was gonna set you up
20:02 for an easy spike and thank goodness you spiked it down
20:05 because I tell that to my audience all the time
20:07 because I run into Christians
20:08 that kind of fit a couple of different categories.
20:10 You have to kind of the Benedict option,
20:11 Christians that are like, you know what,
20:13 we're just, we're not supposed to be parts of this world,
20:15 like we're fish on land, like we just need to take ourselves
20:18 out of it, at which point you have to ask,
20:20 you know, if you're not a preservative,
20:22 if you're not preserving the culture,
20:23 how can you be salt and light
20:24 'cause salt's a preservative anyway?
20:26 But then the other side is the,
20:28 I wanna be known for what I'm for,
20:30 not what I'm against, Christians.
20:32 And these are people that apparently don't know
20:33 how words work because if you say that you are for something,
20:36 you are automatically simultaneously communicating
20:38 that you are against other things.
20:40 Like if I am for protecting unborn babies in the womb,
20:43 I am against sucking them out
20:45 with a vacuum tube and pieces.
20:46 And so like, do you feel like Christians,
20:49 I mean, I guess you could make a more broader category
20:52 of conservative Christians, do you feel like they're doing,
20:56 doing the work of actually pushing back now?
20:59 Do you feel like they've been pushed
21:00 and pushed and pushed for so long
21:02 that they're finally starting to fight back a little bit?
21:04 'Cause that's the sense I get.
21:05 - I do too.
21:06 I think that's right.
21:07 I think that's certainly true for Christians
21:10 who are living their lives.
21:11 You know, moms and dads out there
21:12 who have just finally had enough.
21:14 And listen, I think there's a real sense
21:15 that as believers, our obligation is to witness
21:19 to the Lord in every sphere of life in which He's called us.
21:22 So you just think for a second, for those who are like,
21:24 well, politics doesn't matter or that's kind of a mess
21:28 or the business world, like that's outside of the church.
21:31 So what are we saying?
21:32 Are we saying that Jesus is not Lord
21:34 in the sphere of government?
21:36 Are we saying that Jesus is not Lord
21:37 over the sphere of business and commerce?
21:39 Are we saying that Jesus is only Lord
21:41 within this little building
21:42 that we go to on Sundays and Wednesday nights?
21:44 That's not, find that for me in the Bible.
21:47 You won't find that anywhere.
21:48 So I think we've got to recover as Christians
21:51 since that God is Lord, Jesus is Lord over every sphere of life.
21:55 And therefore, we have an obligation to witness to Him
21:58 in every sphere of life.
22:00 And to do that, especially when it costs us
22:02 and we're living in a moment now where, yeah,
22:04 if you take a stand and say, no, actually,
22:07 I think there is such a thing as male and female,
22:09 or you say, no, I don't want biological boys
22:12 in my girl's locker room, it might cost you something.
22:15 It's sad that that's the case, but that is the case.
22:17 But hey, it is a great and noble thing
22:21 to be willing to pay something
22:23 and to have to pay something in defense
22:24 of the gospel and of truth.
22:25 And that's the time we're at now.
22:27 - Well, I would certainly agree with that.
22:28 And I forget who said it,
22:29 'cause I saw it here in the last couple of weeks,
22:31 but to the Benedict Option Christians
22:33 or the be known for what I'm for,
22:34 not what I'm against Christians, I would ask them,
22:37 so are you okay with only atheists running the government
22:40 or only atheists running your school board
22:42 or only atheists running Fortune 500, Fortune 100,
22:45 Fortune 10 companies?
22:46 Because that's when it's like, oh,
22:47 the rubber's meeting the road now
22:49 and your question just made me uncomfortable.
22:50 It's like, yeah, that was the whole point.
22:52 So section one of the book or part one of the book
22:54 really does set up section two,
22:56 because part two, you list six identities
23:00 or virtues that men should be or strive for.
23:04 And that's husband, father, warrior, builder, priest, and king.
23:09 Now, I have questions prepared for each one of those,
23:12 but I'm feeling generous today, okay?
23:15 I'm gonna actually let you choose
23:16 which ones we talk about or at least the order
23:18 that we talk about them in.
23:20 We may hit them all, we may not.
23:22 So which one do you wanna discuss first?
23:23 - Well, let's start with husband.
23:25 And the reason is A, it's first in the book,
23:28 but also I think that for young men,
23:30 one of the most important messages that they can hear
23:33 that is directly contrary to what they're being told
23:35 now in the culture is, that it is a wonderful thing
23:38 to be married and have a family.
23:40 And that's something you should aspire to.
23:41 It's not like second best.
23:42 It's not, oh, delay that as long as you can.
23:44 If you wanna leave a legacy in this life
23:46 and you should, you should want to.
23:48 If you wanna do that, the best thing you can do,
23:51 besides following Christ with all of your heart,
23:53 mind, strength, and soul, is get married and have a family.
23:56 So maybe let's start there.
23:58 - Yeah, let's start with husband
23:59 because I got married when I was 22,
24:01 but my wife and I didn't have kids for 11 years.
24:03 And so we have two sons right now,
24:04 a three-year-old named James and a one-year-old named Elijah.
24:08 But part of the reason why there's this problem
24:12 with what you just described is another thing
24:14 that you mentioned earlier in the interview, Josh,
24:16 and that's trading the real thing for porn and video games.
24:20 Because in video games, I'm the master of my universe.
24:25 Like I've prestige five times in Call of Duty,
24:27 or I've won 17 seasons in a row on Madden
24:30 or whatever the game is that you're playing.
24:32 So you don't have to dominate in the real world
24:34 because you can dominate with your thumbs.
24:36 And then you can act like a real hero
24:38 with your pants around your ankles
24:39 while sitting at your computer as opposed to going out
24:42 and asking a young lady if she'd like to go
24:44 with you to coffee or to go to lunch or something like that.
24:47 Talk to me a little bit about,
24:50 I guess how great Satan is at giving you the counterfeit.
24:53 So he's giving you this idea that you're in control
24:56 by playing video games.
24:57 He's also giving you the idea that you're the man
24:59 by showing you porn and what it's causing you to do
25:02 is push off the true and difficult path of being a husband.
25:06 - I think that my basic message in the book or one of them is
25:09 is that the journey to manhood, the full manhood,
25:11 to biblical manhood is the journey of character.
25:14 And that means forging your character.
25:16 It means acquiring these virtues of soul.
25:19 And that's hard work.
25:19 But you know what, anything that is worth doing
25:22 is going to be hard and that's for sure true
25:24 of acquiring the character of a husband,
25:26 becoming someone who can make a commitment and can keep it,
25:29 becoming someone who is willing to sacrifice his life
25:32 for the good of others.
25:33 And the problem with the things you just mentioned,
25:35 video games and porn, let's take the second one
25:38 in particular is, yeah, it just deals an unreality.
25:40 I mean, the porn industry sells its product
25:43 as like supposedly the ultimate example of masculinity.
25:46 You're never more a man than when you're using their product.
25:49 But in fact, what all of the data shows,
25:51 and there's now a lot of it, what it shows is,
25:53 is that porn usage, especially in any kind of quantity,
25:57 makes men less confident, it makes men less outgoing,
26:00 it makes them less likely to go out and ask a real woman
26:03 on a date, it makes them less able to form relationships
26:05 and keep them.
26:06 So the truth is, is that it works in your soul
26:09 in a corrosive fashion, it does just the opposite
26:13 of what really, of what true risk taking would look like.
26:17 And I guess I would just hone in on this,
26:19 is that a key part of being willing to be a husband
26:23 and to form the character of a husband
26:25 is willing to put yourself out there and take a risk.
26:28 And that's what you do when you go ask a real woman
26:29 on a date, you risk that she may say no to you,
26:32 she may reject you, that's what you do throughout your marriage,
26:34 when you sacrifice and put your wife first,
26:36 that's gonna hurt, there's gonna be conflict,
26:38 there's gonna be difficulty.
26:40 Hey, guess what, that's life.
26:42 But being willing to risk yourself and face it
26:45 is how you form that character and continue to grow
26:47 into manhood and you can't do that
26:49 if you're sitting in front of a computer screen
26:50 in your basement.
26:51 ♪ Ooh, that face, quantum fiber internet loves that face ♪
26:55 ♪ That's Jamele ♪
26:56 ♪ Hey, Jamele ♪
26:57 ♪ She's thinking outside the box from inside the box ♪
27:00 ♪ One and five her wife, I keeps her meeting game strong ♪
27:02 ♪ From the back door to the front lawn ♪
27:04 ♪ Russian, all of the video calls ♪
27:06 ♪ Back to back to back video calls ♪
27:09 ♪ One and five her internet blowin' the taxis ♪
27:11 ♪ Upon those people in all those boxes ♪
27:13 ♪ The AGU ♪
27:15 - Switch today at quantumfiber.com.
27:17 Additional pods may be needed to achieve
27:18 Wi-Fi coverage in some locations,
27:19 limited availability, service and select locations only.
27:22 - Well, and the same thing is if you don't take the chance,
27:24 you're losing out on an opportunity to build resilience.
27:26 We talk about building spiritual, mental and physical
27:28 resilience on a daily basis.
27:30 That's the ability to bounce back.
27:31 So if you get told no, all right,
27:33 well, go back to the drawing board.
27:35 Maybe you gotta do something else or no, no, no, no.
27:36 This girl, she's something special.
27:38 I need to ask her again, but do it better.
27:40 Like you, you're missing out on that opportunity,
27:41 but also with pornography in particular.
27:44 Probably the most nefarious thing,
27:45 and I just talked to a father of three kids yesterday
27:48 about this in his son's getting to that age,
27:49 where you really gotta start checkin' the phones
27:51 and checkin' everything else.
27:52 But it's the scripting that children learn,
27:55 because when I was a little kid,
27:56 the first porn I was exposed to was still images
27:59 on a magazine hidden in my buddy's closet.
28:01 And now it's in elementary school,
28:03 they're seeing hardcore, violent rape porn,
28:07 and the girls that are watching it are thinking,
28:09 oh, this is what I'm supposed to enjoy,
28:11 and the boys that are watching it are like,
28:13 oh, this is what she's gonna want me to do.
28:16 And so there's an nefarious thing,
28:17 but the scripting that happens,
28:19 and I don't necessarily need you to comment on that,
28:21 but I did just wanna point that out
28:22 that that is something additional.
28:24 So we described husband, let's go in and go into father.
28:26 So I'm gonna take the reins away from you,
28:28 but don't worry, I'll give him back,
28:29 because I think those two are very much in tight,
28:33 not contention, but that they shouldn't be anyway.
28:36 But you pointed something out earlier in this interview,
28:38 but also in the book, that never really occurred to me,
28:41 and it's like, well, duh, of course that's the reality,
28:44 but the United States has the highest rate
28:46 of children living in single-parent households in the world,
28:50 and no, guys, that's not mainly living with dads,
28:52 single dads, it's mainly with single mothers.
28:55 So talk to me a little bit about that,
28:57 because you do have these people
28:58 that never wanna get married,
29:00 because they don't wanna potentially get married
29:02 and have to give away half their stuff
29:03 to some woman somewhere down the line,
29:05 or they wanna be as far away from kids as possible.
29:08 I know of men that are single,
29:10 that have gotten vasectomies,
29:11 so that they don't accidentally get a girl pregnant
29:14 and have to marry her and have to deal with the kid
29:16 and pay for the kid and all those types of things.
29:18 But the epidemic of fatherlessness,
29:21 I think most of our issues as a country
29:24 and as a people group can go back to the fact
29:27 that in every racial group except for Asians,
29:29 for the last 50 years,
29:31 fatherlessness has gone through the roof
29:33 and it doesn't seem like it's stopping.
29:35 - No, that's exactly right.
29:36 And you look at what comes along with that,
29:38 look what comes with the fatherlessness.
29:40 It is huge increases in crime, especially for young men.
29:43 It is huge increases in abuse,
29:45 especially toward young women.
29:47 It is huge increases in mental health,
29:49 depression, and suicide.
29:51 So I often say, hey, you wanna address the problem
29:54 of childhood poverty in America put dads back into the homes.
29:57 I mean, the data is just really clear on this.
29:59 The poverty rate among two parent families
30:01 where dad is present and working and contributing,
30:04 the poverty rate is extremely low.
30:06 That doesn't mean something to me, the rich.
30:07 It just means that you put a dad in there
30:10 who's actually providing for his family
30:12 that he has helped to create
30:13 and it is amazing what that does to alleviate poverty.
30:16 On the other hand, take a dad out of the equation
30:18 and you get all of these other dysfunctions.
30:20 So I think it's absolutely critical,
30:22 just from a social point of view,
30:23 but I just say this to the men who's like,
30:25 I don't wanna deal with kids, it's a hassle.
30:28 They're gonna take over my life.
30:31 Listen, it's no mistake that if you look at the story
30:34 of the Bible, when God decides he's going to change the world,
30:38 he's gonna fix the problem of sin and darkness
30:40 and evil in the world.
30:41 Genesis chapter 12, what does he do?
30:43 He calls Abraham, what does he call Abraham to do
30:45 to become a father?
30:47 Now think about that.
30:48 He could have done any number of things.
30:50 He doesn't call him to become a warrior,
30:51 though he will be that.
30:52 He doesn't call him to go out and start a company,
30:54 though Abraham is gonna be very prosperous,
30:56 it turns out very good at business.
30:58 But foundationally, God says to him,
31:00 you're going to be a father.
31:03 Now there's something about that
31:04 that I think men should take note of.
31:07 Something about investing your life in somebody else's
31:10 and making somebody else the center and focus of your life,
31:13 not yourself, that is profoundly, profoundly fulfilling,
31:18 liberating and also biblical.
31:19 And I think that we should embrace that reality.
31:22 One, I think the way you described in the book was you're,
31:25 as a father, you're trying to replace yourself.
31:28 And so, you know, if you've read any business book
31:30 or gone to business school,
31:31 like the very first day of the first class
31:33 they're talking about, hey, if you're a mid-level manager,
31:35 before you can get that next promotion,
31:37 you need to prepare a couple of your underlings
31:39 to be able to replace you
31:40 so that you can more easily ascend the ladder.
31:42 Well, the same thing happens within your small village
31:45 or household, which is you're trying to replace the things
31:48 that you've done by setting a foundation of morality,
31:50 perhaps financially, those types of things.
31:53 So I'm looking at the clock here
31:54 and we've got four things left
31:55 and we only probably have time to probably hit two of those
31:57 'cause I have a couple other questions.
31:58 So you get to choose Warrior Builder Priest King.
32:01 Give me the next one.
32:02 Well, I feel like we gotta talk about Warrior
32:04 because that's so central to what you do and to your focus
32:08 in terms of pushing back the darkness.
32:09 So let's talk about that.
32:10 So specifically within that,
32:12 and guys, this is probably a good time for me to mention,
32:14 we are barely scratching the surface on this book.
32:17 And you guys know that I've read a myriad
32:19 of men's books and the manhood
32:22 and this is how you're supposed to do it.
32:23 Most of them are just nonsense.
32:25 This is not one of those.
32:26 This is when you need to pick up,
32:27 it is in the show notes, do your duty, okay?
32:29 But the thing about that chapter
32:31 that almost made my skin crawl,
32:33 because I, this is probably gonna come as a shock to you,
32:36 but I was a fairly loud and bombastic and energetic kid,
32:40 but my parents never even once even considered
32:45 putting me on any type of medication.
32:47 If our teachers were having problems with me
32:48 because I was a knucklehead.
32:49 I wasn't setting things on fire.
32:51 I was trying to make people laugh.
32:52 They're like, look, we're not gonna drug our kid
32:54 because you suck at your job.
32:55 This is essentially what they told our teachers.
32:57 But right now in 2023, we drug the warrior
33:02 out of our young men because we're like,
33:04 oh, you have ADD or you have ADHD.
33:06 Otherwise known as being a boy.
33:08 And they're like, here's this little pill that,
33:10 oh, it's no big deal.
33:11 It's a brain altering drug,
33:12 even though we haven't done a brain scan
33:14 to see if your boy even needs it.
33:16 And then we expect these young men
33:18 by the time they're 18, 19 or 20
33:20 to potentially go and fight and die for our country.
33:22 And then you look at the back end
33:24 and you see all of these military agencies
33:27 and these branches of the military
33:28 that are so far behind on their recruiting.
33:30 There are a lot of reasons for that.
33:32 But one of the reasons is that our boys are too fat,
33:34 too out of shape and too sick
33:36 to even go into the military and get through basic training.
33:39 So you can take that wherever you wanna go with it
33:41 'cause you talked about all those things in that chapter.
33:43 So fire away.
33:45 - I think one of the reasons that we see
33:48 so many of the professional class,
33:50 the professional educators,
33:51 it's usually the bureaucrats actually in the left.
33:54 Why they want to drug boys
33:57 and they want to suppress the boishness
33:59 is because they don't really believe
34:00 in the reality of evil anymore.
34:02 Here's what I mean by that.
34:03 If you think that there really is evil in the world,
34:06 if you think there really are dangers
34:08 that have to be faced,
34:09 then you look at that boy who's got all of that energy
34:12 and all of that ambition,
34:13 and let's just call it for what it is,
34:14 all that aggressiveness.
34:15 You look at that and you think,
34:16 that's gonna save lives one day.
34:18 That guy's gonna go out and stand on the line.
34:21 Or even if he's not gonna be a soldier professionally,
34:23 that guy's gonna be willing to put himself at risk
34:25 to help other people in ways large and small.
34:28 And you look at that, you think, man,
34:30 there's something I've got to channel.
34:31 I don't wanna suppress that.
34:32 I wanna nurture it, I wanna channel it.
34:34 But I think today in our dominant culture,
34:38 we're told not evil, there's no such thing.
34:40 The only thing it's evil is capitalism.
34:42 The only thing that's evil is American history.
34:44 That's what's evil.
34:46 People are inherently good.
34:47 And so this rambunctious kid, you gotta settle him down.
34:50 He's disrupting stuff.
34:51 He's making it hard for you to do your job, just drug him.
34:53 I think we've gotten completely backwards.
34:55 And what we've gotta do for our young men,
34:57 our boys is say, listen,
34:59 God made you that way for an incredible purpose.
35:01 Part of your job is to push back evil.
35:04 And you're beginning in your own heart, by the way.
35:06 And then your family and in your community,
35:09 you were born to do that.
35:10 So we gotta take that aggression and that ambition
35:12 and that drive and we gotta push it and forge it
35:15 and nurture it.
35:18 So it can be that kind of positive force
35:20 that is willing to confront the darkness.
35:22 - I can't say anything back to that, aside from amen.
35:25 So we get one more and you get three choices.
35:27 So you wanna talk about builder, priest or king.
35:30 - Let's talk about priest.
35:30 'Cause I think that one is one,
35:32 a lot of guys would look at it.
35:33 And it's like, huh, that seems unusual to me.
35:35 - Well, let's look at this quote from that section.
35:37 Here lies the deeper meaning of the statement
35:40 we first encountered in Genesis
35:42 that God made man quote in his own image, unquote.
35:45 That means to do something certainly
35:47 as we have seen to husband, to father,
35:50 to fight and build, to rule.
35:52 But it also means more fundamentally
35:54 to become someone, a man of a certain kind of character,
35:58 a man who reflects God, a man whom God knows.
36:02 So why does that man need to be known by God, Josh?
36:04 - Here's the deal I think that is the fundamental,
36:09 fundamental baseline call of manhood.
36:12 It is to reflect the image of God.
36:15 And you talk about a high calling.
36:17 There's no higher calling available in the world
36:20 than to think that the creator put me here
36:24 and he wants me to reflect him into the rest of the world.
36:29 To the point that he wants to use me
36:31 to accomplish his purposes in the world.
36:33 And I just wanna say this,
36:35 this is one of the reasons I wanna talk about priests.
36:36 I just wanna say this to every guy out there
36:38 is that there are things God will do through you,
36:41 through your work, through your fathering,
36:43 through your marriage, through your coaching,
36:46 that he will not do through anybody else.
36:49 You have a unique destiny that's on your life.
36:51 And that's part of the incredible privilege
36:53 but also responsibility of being someone
36:56 who God made in his own image
36:57 and is supposed to take that image of God out in the world.
37:00 Which is that if you don't do that, there'll be real loss.
37:03 If you don't do that, people's lives around you
37:06 will be different than they could have been
37:07 and the world will be different, unless then it could have been.
37:10 So I think that's an incredibly high calling
37:13 that men need to hear today
37:14 is that they're made to bring God's image,
37:17 God's very presence with them out into the world.
37:21 And boy, that is an incredible purpose
37:23 and incredibly high calling.
37:25 - Well, if not you, then who, if not now, then when?
37:28 Most men are just looking around waiting for some sheep
37:30 dog to come in and save them or waiting for the government
37:32 to come and take care of them and change their diapers.
37:34 And it's like, at the end of the day,
37:36 you might wanna look internally
37:37 before you look at all the external
37:38 or extrinsic forces that are happening in the world.
37:41 Now, Josh, we've had a lot of fun.
37:43 These last 30 minutes or so.
37:45 But I'm actually kind of mad at you.
37:46 Do you wanna know why?
37:47 - Okay, tell me why.
37:49 - Okay, you spend the entire book
37:51 talking about how the Bible lays out, you know,
37:53 a clean roadmap for moral masculinity.
37:56 You do a great job.
37:57 You talk about Adam and Abraham and David and Solomon.
38:00 Solomon, and here I am.
38:03 I'm getting all excited.
38:04 You've been setting it up.
38:05 You've been setting it up. You've been setting it up.
38:07 And then the book just ends.
38:08 And you don't even mention Jesus of Nazareth
38:12 as the perfect model of manhood.
38:14 And in fact, I counted it,
38:15 you only mention the name of Jesus eight times in the book.
38:19 And five of those were actually in an excerpt
38:21 that you pulled from one of Blaze Pascal's writings.
38:23 And so it's like, wait a minute.
38:24 You technically only mentioned Jesus three times.
38:27 I know you've gotten this criticism before,
38:29 but it was like, all right,
38:30 you were all about the Old Testament
38:32 and I was just waiting for you to just hit the ball off the tee.
38:35 And you didn't.
38:36 So my benefit of the doubt here is,
38:38 is there a manhood part two around the corner
38:40 that you're just lying to us about yet?
38:42 Or is this just really how you wanted to end it?
38:44 - No, I think that, well, here's the thing I would say
38:47 that I say both at the beginning and at the end of the book
38:49 is that there's only one ultimate man capital M.
38:54 And that is Jesus Christ.
38:56 And for Christians, we know that the story
38:59 really begins and ends with him, right?
39:01 Because it's not just that Jesus comes on the scene
39:03 at the end, it's that we are created
39:04 in his image to begin with.
39:06 So we are all men, including Adam,
39:09 actually in the image of Christ.
39:10 And we see Christ bringing that mission,
39:13 the mission of Adam to fruition in the end.
39:16 But the other reason I wrote the book as I did
39:17 is that I wanted people who don't consider themselves
39:21 to be Christians, who don't know the Lord,
39:23 who maybe don't consider themselves believers of any kind
39:26 to be able to pick up the book and say,
39:27 okay, I'm kind of drawn in by this and I'm curious.
39:30 And then they get to the end and they're like,
39:32 wait a minute, I wanna know more.
39:34 Like who is this as I leave it at the end
39:37 talking about the one perfect man, who is that man?
39:41 What does that mean for my life?
39:42 I wanted to leave them leaning forward into that.
39:46 So maybe I'll just have to write another book.
39:48 - Okay, and if you write the other one,
39:49 just send it to me before you release it.
39:51 And all of course, just mark it all up and improve it.
39:53 I'll do what I can, okay?
39:55 But I don't want your staff to get mad at me.
39:56 So we'll make this the last question of the day.
39:59 So in the book, and obviously you write the book
40:01 about what you wanna write about,
40:02 you're not writing it about
40:03 what you don't wanna write about it.
40:04 But there was almost no mention whatsoever
40:07 of the paltry state of masculinity inside the church today.
40:12 You rightfully point out how the Epicurean society
40:15 that we're living in fights against masculinity
40:17 in all of its forms, but you don't address
40:19 how the church is not teaching boys how to become God
40:23 honoring men either, how men aren't being discipled
40:27 so that they're not, and they don't even feel capable
40:29 to catechize their families in the ways of God
40:32 and those types of things.
40:33 And that's part of why I'm here on this planet
40:35 is not to teach churches how to build men's ministries.
40:38 Men's ministries just put on one event per year
40:41 where they bring in an ex-football player to come and speak
40:44 and say, "Well, I used to chase women and do coke,
40:46 "but now I love Jesus."
40:48 And then they eat a bunch of meat and go home.
40:50 I wanna teach churches to be man friendly,
40:52 where from the moment a guy walks in,
40:54 whether he was a tier one operator
40:56 or just got off of an oil rig or something like that,
40:58 he walks in and goes, "Hey, I think this place is for me."
41:01 That music isn't a key I can actually sing.
41:03 These men around here look a little rougher
41:05 than the doughy men I grew up with,
41:07 but I guess just talk to me about the state of masculinity
41:10 in the church 'cause I feel like most people
41:12 had this dichotomy that I did when I was younger,
41:14 that all the godly men are inside the church doing,
41:17 God stuff and all the manly men are outside
41:19 the church doing man stuff.
41:21 - Yeah, I think that one of the reasons for that,
41:23 I agree with that assessment.
41:25 And I think just statistically, you look at evangelical
41:28 Christianity in America and it is very female dominated.
41:31 On the one hand, it's like, "Hey, praise the Lord.
41:33 "I'm glad there's so many women who are in church
41:35 "and wanna get their families to church,
41:36 "but you do have to ask where the men."
41:39 And I do think that part of the reason for that is,
41:41 is that men don't often hear from the pulpit.
41:44 Sermons and messages and teaching
41:48 that is directly relevant to them and challenges them
41:51 and calls them to be the men that they're meant to be.
41:53 I mean, it just, it is not directed towards
41:55 that kind of vision and purpose.
41:56 And I would just say this, I mean,
41:58 I think that there's no mistake that the proverb says
42:03 that without a vision, the people perish, right?
42:06 I mean, without a vision, without a sense of purpose,
42:09 men in this country right now are perishing.
42:12 And so the church is the place where above all,
42:15 we should be supplying that purpose, that vision,
42:18 that calling.
42:19 So I'm glad you're doing what you're doing in your ministry.
42:21 I'm not a pastor, I'm not, I wouldn't give any advice
42:25 to pastors how to run their church,
42:26 other than that, I would just hope they will preach
42:28 the gospel in all of its fullness.
42:30 And part of that is, is giving them in a vision
42:32 for their lives as men and helping them to see
42:34 that God calls them as men and wants to use them
42:37 in every sphere of their life as men,
42:39 as fathers, as husbands and their work,
42:42 in their business and their mentoring,
42:44 and that he's got an incredible plan and destiny for them.
42:46 I think if you preach that and see that,
42:48 you'll see men respond to it.
42:50 - Well, I'm not a pastor either,
42:51 but I have no problems giving pastors advice.
42:53 And my advice to some of them would be,
42:54 the fear of the Lord is the beginning of all knowledge.
42:56 That's Proverbs one as well.
42:58 When you talk about boyfriend Jesus,
43:00 or you talk about cute and cuddly lamb of God,
43:02 and you ignore justice, and you ignore the lion of Judah,
43:04 and you ignore judgment,
43:05 you're only giving your congregation part of the picture.
43:08 And so I think that that's a good thing
43:09 for everyone to consider.
43:10 But we're up against time here.
43:12 We've talked about everything again, guys.
43:13 The book is manhood, the masculine virtues, American needs.
43:16 But that's all for me.
43:17 Is there anything else you want to get off your chest?
43:19 - No, not at all.
43:20 Thank you for having me.
43:21 - All right, Josh Hawley.
43:22 Thank you for coming on "On Daunt to Life" a man's podcast.
43:25 - Thanks so much.
43:26 - All right, guys.
43:27 I hope you enjoyed my time with Senator Josh Hawley.
43:29 But before we let you go,
43:29 we are going to do a quick resilience boost.
43:31 Add on Daunt to Life.
43:32 Our mission is equipping men to push back darkness
43:34 with content that forges spiritual, mental,
43:36 and physical resilience.
43:37 So I've got a couple of links for you today.
43:39 I've got a link to his personal website,
43:41 and also a link to where you can pick up
43:42 this manhood book.
43:43 Guys, it is well worth your time and worth your effort.
43:45 Go ahead and pick it up.
43:46 It's right there in the show notes.
43:48 Thank you, guys, for listening to this episode.
43:49 Wherever you're listening to this,
43:50 please subscribe, rate, and leave us a positive five star
43:52 of you.
43:53 If you want to come speak live at your event
43:55 or on your podcast, you shoot me an email
43:56 to info@andontin.life.
43:58 That's i-n-f-o @andontin.life.
44:01 Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook
44:02 and check out our website for everything else,
44:04 including how to donate to keep more content
44:05 like this coming your way.
44:07 Just go to www.andontin.life.
44:10 Also, we want to thank the band Holy Name
44:11 for allowing us to use their music for our content.
44:14 The music on this podcast is our song "Perpetua,"
44:16 which is off their self-titled debut album
44:19 on Face Down Records.
44:20 The links are in the description.
44:22 I'm your host, Kyle Thompson.
44:23 Remember, keep pushing back darkness,
44:26 keep forging spiritual, mental, and physical resilience.
44:30 Keep seeking the lion of Judah.
44:33 (upbeat music)
Key quotes
2
Josh Hawley
If you want to leave a legacy in this life and you should, the best thing you can do is get married and have a family.
Kyle Thompson
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of all knowledge.
Free Resource
31-Day Resilience Reset
If this episode hit, the next 31 days will be the reset. Free PDF, instant download.
START FREE →
Brotherhood
Apply to Dominion
Six pillars. Application only. The men's program Kyle built around the show.
APPLY NOW →
Dig Deeper
Ask the Archive
"Which episodes cover this topic?" Get answers grounded in all 940+ episodes.
START A CHAT →