Best of BAM: The Toxic War on Masculinity with Nancy Pearcey

On today’s Bible Answer Man broadcast, we present an episode of the Hank Unplugged podcast. Hank’s guest is Professor of Apologetics and Scholar-in-Residence at Houston Christian University Nancy Pearcey, author of The Toxic War on Masculinity: How Christianity Reconciles the Sexes. Hank and Nancy discuss The Toxic War on Masculinity vs. toxic masculinity, the importance of Christian apologetics, whether masculinity is toxic or a good thing, what it means to be a good man, and if there are real differences between men and women.

Episode Transcript

(00:07):
From the Christian Research Institute in Charlotte, North Carolina. You are listening to
the best of the Bible Answerman Broadcastwith Hank Hanagraph. We're on the air
because truth matters, life matters more. On today's special edition of the Bible
Answerman Broadcast, we present a previouslyrecorded episode of the Hank Unplugged Podcast.

(00:28):
Hank's guest is Professor of Apologetics andscholar in residence at Houston Christian University,
Nancy Pearcy, author of The ToxicWar on Masculinity, How Christianity Reconciles the
Sexes. Here now is Hank Hanagraph, and welcome to another edition of the
Hank l Podcast, a podcast committedto bringing the most interesting, informative and

(00:54):
inspirational people on the planet directly toyour earbuds. And today we're not only
talking about someone who is interesting,informative, and inspirational, but someone who
has brought a book to us thatis the quintessence of those three parts of
our mission statement, and it's abook that is directly needed for our epic

(01:15):
of time. Now, before Iintroduced Nancy formally, I want to read
something that Jay Richards said about thebook that is the topic for today's discussion.
The title of the book, TheToxic War and Masculinity, How Christianity
reconciles the sexes. Jay Richards saysthis. And when Jay Richard speaks,

(01:38):
I listen. I've had him onthe podcast, on the broadcast, I've
featured him in the Christian Research Journal. He is someone that I have such
great respect for. And he saysthis about the book, The Toxic War
and Masculinity. The first thing hesays is this is the very book we
need right now. The world andfar too much of the Church are confused

(02:05):
on the question of our sexual naturesin general and manhood in particular. Nancy
Pearcy provides the decisive defense of masculinityrightly understood against distortions to the left and
to the right. She shows whyChristianity not only gives the best account of
manhood, but also serves to formthe sort of men the world and families

(02:34):
need. And then he ends withthis line everyone should read, indeed study
this book. So at the veryoutset, before I've even introduced the guest
and the author of this book,let me say that The Toxic War and
Masculinity, how Christianity Reconciles the Sexesis must reading. It's written by Nancy
Pearcy. It's available for anyone whostands shoulder to shoulder with us in the

(02:59):
battle for life and truth. Youcan get your copy on the web and
equip dot org. You can writeme at box eighty five hundred, Charlotte,
North Carolina, zip code two eighttwo seven one. But make sure
you get this book and read thisbook. As is my habit. I
go through the book one time ina cursory fashion, kind of speed read

(03:19):
the book. Then I go throughwith a pentel and later with a highlighter.
And when you do this with abook like this, you will have
so many aha moments, not onlyones that are fleeting, but stick in
your mind and then equip you tomake a difference while there is yet time.
So I'm a big fan of thebook that we're talking about today,

(03:42):
The Toxic War and Masculinity. Theauthor Nancy Piercy. Nancy shares so many
credits to her name. She's aprofessor of apologetics, one of the great
apologies of our era. She's ascholar in residence at Houston Christian University.
She's the bestselling author and speaker.Her books have been translated into myriad languages.

(04:04):
Some of the books that we featuredon the Bible Instrument broadcast and on
the hank On podcast Total Truth,Love thy Body, and this book of
course, The Toxic War and Masculinity. We appreciate the work of Nancy Piracy.
She's making a difference while there's yettime. And very very pleased to

(04:26):
have you on the hank On Plugpodcast. Thank you very much, it's
good to see you again. Itis great to see you as well.
I guess the first thing I wantto say about this book is it's a
very clever title. We hear thephrase toxic masculinelinity, but this book is
the Toxic War and Masculinity. Wheneveryou come up with a title, there's

(04:48):
always a story behind it, soI'm sure there's a story here as well.
Well. It's true I wanted toget the words toxic and masculinity in
there, because of course that isthe phrase of our day. But I
didn't want to use the term toxicmasculinity because I do not agree that there
is toxic masculinity or that masculinity initself is toxic, and so I did

(05:11):
try to come up with some playon words, and I'm glad you liked
it, because not everyone quite getsit, Like, wait a minute,
what do you say that people alwaysdo sort of a double take, though
that's not bad either. So Idid want to catch people's attention with the
two words toxic and masculinity, butto say that, actually, men are
doing much worse today than they werein the past, and there was a

(05:34):
problem now with hostility that's being shownagainst men. I'll just give you two
examples. When I told my classI was writing a book on masculinity,
a male student shot back, whatmasculinity? It's been beaten out of us.
So even Christian people feel that masculinityis being demeaned and demoted today.

(05:58):
And I also quote such a therapistwho writes regularly for the Wall Street Journal,
and I was really impressed with astatement she said, the young men
coming into my practice today all feeldemoralized and defeated because they feel like they're
growing up in a culture that's hostileto masculinity. So that's what I wanted
to capture in the title, isthat we do have a problem with outright

(06:23):
hostility against masculinity today. Yeah,Nancy. Before I actually get into the
subject matter of the book, Iwant you to talk a little bit about
your background, particularly the way you'vebeen impacted by Labris and by Francis Shaeffer.
Oh, yes, very much.So it is why I'm a Christian
today. So I grew up ina Lutheran home. I don't know if

(06:47):
you know this, but all Scandinaviansare Lutheran. My dad's Swedish, my
mom's Norwegian, and it's a statechurch it was in the past, and
it's like all Catholic. So asa result, the weakness of that is
that often people rely on the ethnicityto hold you, and in my home

(07:09):
there was not a lot of reallyfirm, authentic personal conviction. And so
when I was in high school,I started asking questions, actually just one
question. I started asking, howdo we know Christianity is true? I'm
attending a public high school. Allmy textbooks are secular, all my teachers
are secular. And I started simplyasking, how do we know Christianity is

(07:30):
true? And unfortunately, none ofthe adults in my life could answer that.
I ask a Christian university professor pointblank. I just said, why
are you a Christian, he said, works for me. That's it.
You're a university professor. And Ihad a chance to talk to a seminary
dean and I thought I would geta more substantial answer from him, and

(07:54):
all he said was, don't worry. We all have doubts sometimes, as
if it were a psychological phase thatI was going through. And so about
halfway through high school, I veryintentionally walked away from my Christian upbringing.
I decided, I guess Christianity doesn'thave any answers, and it's up to
me to find out what is reallytrue. And I literally started walking down

(08:15):
the hallway at the public high schoolI attended and pulling books off the philosophy
shelf because I thought, if Ican't get any people to talk to me
about this, maybe these dead guys, right, these philosophers have some answers,
because that's their job, after all, Right, A philosophy first supposed
to answer questions like what it's truth? And how do we know it?
And is there a foundation for ethics? Or is it just true for me

(08:37):
true for you? Is there anymeaning to life? And I quickly decided
if there is no God, theanswer to all those questions is no there
is no meaning to life where achemical accident on a rock flying through space,
there's no foundation for morality if there'sno transcendent standard. You know,
I even realize there's no foundation forknowledge itself, because the way I thought

(09:00):
of it was if all I hadwas my puny brain and the vast scope
of time and space, what makesme think I could attain some kind of
universal, objective, absolute truth.Ridiculous. That's how I thought of it
as a sixteen year old. Ridiculous. And so in my science classes I
also picked up determinism. In otherwords, I was taught that we're just

(09:22):
complex biochemical machines, so there's nofree will anyway. So by the time
I graduated from high school, Ihad absorbed all of these secularisms. And
it was a few years later Iwas in Europe. We had lived in
Europe when I was a child,and so all through high school I saved
up my money so I could goback, and in Europe I stumbled across

(09:43):
Labris, the ministry of Francis Schaeffer, which is known as an apologetics ministry,
and I had never heard any apologeticsbefore I was blown away. I
was so impressed. I had neverfound countered Christians who could engage with the
secular isms that I had absorbed bythat time, and who could show that

(10:05):
Christianity he had solid, good answers, that Christianity could be defended by good
reasons and arguments and evidence and logic. So I was amazed. It took
a year and a half. Ididn't I didn't want to give up the
fight immediately, but I did eventuallybecome convinced that Christianity was true. Because

(10:26):
Christianity he had let me down alreadyonce before as a child. I didn't
want to rush into it quickly.I wanted to be absolutely intellectually convinced that
it was true. And it tooka year and a half, but I
did finally come to that position.And that's why I teach apologetics now right.
I teach it, I write it. I really have a heart to
reach out to young people who havethe kind of questions that I had when
I was young. Stay you're rightthere. We'll be back soon to rejoin

(10:50):
Hank Hannah Graph's conversation with Professor NancyPiercy. Why can't we hate men?
Ask a headline in the Washington Post, a trendy hashtag as Kill All Men.
Books are sold titled I Hate Men, No Good Men? And are
Men Necessary? How did an ideologyarise that condemns masculinity as dangerous and destructive?

(11:15):
Best selling author Nancy Piercy takes readerson a fascinating romp through American history
to discover how the secular script formasculinity turned toxic and what action we can
take to fix it. Be sureto read The Toxic War on Masculinity,
How Christianity Reconciles the Sexes. Toreceive your copy, call eight a D

(11:35):
eight seven thousand c r I andmake a gift to support the Christian Research
Institute's Mind shaping, life changing outreachesa day D eight seven thousand c r
I, or go online to equipdot org. That's equip dot org.

(12:00):
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(12:24):
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(12:46):
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(14:03):
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(14:26):
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(14:50):
three download from equip dot org orcall eight eight eight seven thousand Curi here
again or Hank Hannagraph and his guestprofessor Nancy Pearcy as they continue their conversation

(15:13):
I have found as I travel theworld that people desperately want answers, and
that's why I'm so excited to haveyou on the podcast, because I mean,
you've given your life to giving answersand equipping people to always be ready
to give a reason for the hopethat lies within them with gentleness and with
respect, which is part of themission statement of the Christian Research Institute.

(15:37):
I want to get back to thesubject matter of your book and something that
you said at the very beginning ofthe podcast, or if you think masculinity
is the problem, then emasculation becomesthe solution. You alluded to that,
but I want you to expand onthat a little bit because I think that's
the heart of the book in essence. Yes, Well, what reason I

(15:58):
wrote the book? It is becauseI was noticing how it has become socially
acceptable to express extreme hostility against men. The Washington Post had an article titled
why can't we hate men? Butreally in a respected mainstream publication. A
Huffington Post editor tweeted hashtag kill allmen. You can buy t shirts to

(16:22):
say so many men, so littleammunition. There are actually books with titles
like I Hate men, No goodmen and are men necessary? And even
some men are jumping on the bandwagon. There's a male author whose book has
quoted sometimes who said talking about healthymasculinity is like talking about healthy cancer.

(16:48):
And you may have seen this one. It's not my book because it came
out more recently. It was justin the news a couple of weeks ago.
The director of the movie Avatar,James Cameron, was quoted in the
news because he's testosterone is a toxinthat you have to work out of your
system, so no wonder. Arecent survey found that forty six percent of

(17:10):
American men agree with the statement.These days, society seems to punish men
just for acting like men. Andthere was an even more recent one,
again, the more recent ones notin the book. It was done in
Britain. Fifty five percent of menagreed with that statement. So it's going
up. And so it's clear thateven if you don't agree with that,

(17:33):
that is a large percentage of thepopulation who now think men are getting a
bad deal. And so it issomething that we need to pay attention to
and find solutions to. And you'reright, it's not emasculation. We have
to find ways to affirm masculinity asa good thing. Obviously, God created
men to be masculine, as hecreated women to be feminine, and so

(17:56):
we need to find ways to affirmthat even in our culture. You know
well said talk about the problem ofstereotypes, the real man versus the good
man. That would be a stereotypicalstatement that you would hear. It's a
narrative, but there's a problem withthat stereotype. Yes, I put this
right at the front of the book, and I'll give you some of the

(18:17):
back onto this. This has turnedout to be the most controversial book I've
written, which surprised me. Ireally thought my earlier book Love Thy Body
would be the most controversial book becauseit deals with abortion, homosexuality, transgenderism,
which is such a cutting edge issuetoday. But this one actually was
more controversial, and I lad classeson it. I led reading groups on

(18:37):
it to catch all the rough edgesright and when they would tell their friends
and family about this manuscript we weregoing through invariably, the first question was
whose side is young with that tone? Whose side is sheng Men tended to
think she's probably some male bashing,feminist and progressive thought, which is probably

(19:02):
some defensive, angry, reactionary,and so I put that study the study
of the good man versus a realman. I put that right at the
beginning, because it kind of diffusesthat hostility, that opposition. This was
a study done by a sociologist.He's not a Christian, but he's well
known, and so he gets invitedto speak all around the world, and

(19:22):
so he came up with this cleverexperiment. He asked young men two questions.
First, she asked them, whatdoes it mean to be a good
man? And he said, allaround the world. Young men had no
problem answering that. They answered thingslike honor, duty, sacrifice, integrity,
do the right thing, be aprovider, be a protector, be

(19:42):
responsible, be generous. And hewould ask them, or would you learn
that this is well, it's justin the air we breathe, or if
it was in a western country,they would say, it's part of our
Judeo Christian heritage. And then hewould follow up with a second question.
He'd say, does it mean ifI say to you, man up,
be a real man? And theyoung man would say, no, no,

(20:04):
no, no, that's completely different. That means be strong, be
tough, never give up, wouldat all costs, suck it up,
be competitive, get rich, getlaid. I'm using their language, and
what it means is that men areactually caught between these two opposing scripts.
We would say, because men aremade in God's image, they do know

(20:27):
what it means to be a goodman. The sociologist said he was finding
the same thing with Brazil, Sweden, Australia. Young men have an in
eight inherent knowledge of what it meansto be a good man, or we
would say romans too right. Weall have a conscience, but they do
feel social pressure to live up tothe script of the real man, which

(20:52):
does include traits that we might considermore toxic, at least if it's decoupled
from the moral ideal of the goodman, can easily slide into traits like
entitlement and dominance and power and control, and so it gives us. I
would suggest a fresh way of dealingwith these issues. Instead of calling men
toxic. You know, not toomany men respond well to being called toxic.

(21:15):
Nobody would, so instead, whatwe should do is try to tap
into their innate knowledge of what itmeans to be a good man, support
and affirm and encourage that inherent knowledgeof the good man, and that gives
us a much more positive way toapproach these issues. Yeah. Wow.

(21:36):
You know, when you talk aboutthe stereotypical idea of men today and the
culture at the bashing of maleness andso forth, you get anti male sentiment
in the institutions that control our culturetoday. Educational you're in the educational field.
That's a hotbed for anti mail sentiment. Oh yes, absolutely. This

(21:57):
is something I also had to inthe first chapter of the book because people
will often challenged me. But well, what do you think the differences between
men and women are then, becausethat becomes a hot point. Right as
soon as you say those differences,people will challenge you because, well,
it is true that once you acknowledgea difference, it is typical for people.
Let's say, well these traits areless, then these traits are inferior,

(22:21):
And so I start with just biology. Biology gives us the bare basics,
right, Men are bigger, stronger, faster because of testosterone. They
do tend to be more aggressive,more risk taking. They even have more
fast twitch muscles. That's the termI had to learn. It means they
can react more quickly. And sothese are good gifts from God. Some

(22:45):
men are made and we need toaffirm that God made men with these qualities,
with these characteristics. And the reason, like I say, that many
people don't want to acknowledge differences isbecause they're afraid that if we set the
same these are good strengths of men. You talk about education, Even in
a Christian university, most of myfemale students identify as feminist. And the

(23:08):
minute I said anything positive about men, even men are strong, they would
say, well, women are strongtoo, and so you'd have to immediately
say yes, yes, yes.But women to some degree have different strengths
and it's important though that we describethem as strength. In other words,
take for example, our superpower,of course is that we can have children,

(23:30):
and having children also leads to certaincharacter traits. We have more oxytocin,
which is the bonding hormone which makeswomen on the whole more nurturing and
taking care of an infant is incrediblydemanding. You have to be willing to
be interrupted any time of the day, even three o'clock in the morning.
No matter what you're doing, youhave to be willing to put it aside

(23:52):
and meet the infant's distress. Whenan infant's distress, you don't reason with
them, you don't scold them.You meet their distress, no matter what
you wanted to be doing at thattime. And women become incredibly patient.
They have to be incredibly sensitive tononverbal cues because the babies aren't talking yet,
and of course they become very sensitiveto thus in the environment, so

(24:15):
they become mama bears. So itis important that when we talk about the
differences, we talk about them bothin terms of strength, you know,
the male strength and the female strength, So that kind of reduces some of
the hostility that you know, likeI say, I get it. Even
in a Christian school, you haveto make sure that you are presenting both
sides as strengths, as God givengifts, that we should be thankful for

(24:37):
these differences because they're from God,and that we serve one another through these
differences. Nancy, you mentioned oxytocin. I found a fascinating part of your
book where you mention that the levelof oxytocin rises in men when they're bonding
with their children. The biological changethat takes place obviously is evident in a

(25:02):
woman. But I was absolutely fascinatedon father twelve children. I did not
know that that was a biological reality. Yes, I'm not averse to appealing
to self interest in asking men tobe more involved fathers. You know,
often that message comes across in sortof a scolding tone, right. I

(25:22):
have a graduate student who's the leaderof the women's ministry at a large Baptist
church, and she said, onMother's Day, we hand out roses and
tell the women how wonderful they are. On Father's Day, we scold the
men and tell them to do better. So that's why I said, I
have a section in there on howmen benefit from becoming fathers. Thank you

(25:45):
for listening to the special edition ofthe Bible Answerman Broadcast with Hank Hannah Graph
and his guest, Professor Nancy Piercy. To hear this Hank Unplugged podcast interview
in its entirety, go to equipdot org, guide tunes, or wherever
you listen to your favorite podcast.In appreciation for your vital gift to help

(26:06):
strengthen and expand CRY's mind shaping,life changing outreaches, Hank would like to
send you a copy of The ToxicWar on Masculinity, How Christianity Reconciles the
Sexes by Nancy Piercing. Call aresource consultant at eight eight eight seven thousand
CRII eight eight eight seven thousand CRII, or visit our website equip dot org.

(26:32):
Once again, that's equip dot org. You can also write CRI at
Post office box eighty five hundred,Charlotte, North Carolina, zip code two
eight two seven one. The BibleAnswerman Broadcast is funded by listeners like you.
We're on the air because truth matters, life matters more. If you're

(27:00):
not horrified, you should be,because the relentless assaults of wokeism on sanity
and common sense have now reached afevered pitch. In fact, some astute
observers see more than deranged ideologies atwork. It's as though the gates of
Hell have been opened, and alarmingly, the speed of this mindless rush to
chaos in potential civilizational collapse is gainingmomentum daily. That means Christians need to

(27:26):
wake up and wake up fast.One of the best alarm clocks is the
upcoming special Woke edition of the ChristianResearch Journal. It contains sobering articles with
penetrating analyzes of a social disease thatis reaching a flash point. To receive
your copy of this special edition ofthe Christian Research Journal, visit EQUIP dot

(27:48):
org. That's EQUIP dot org,or call eight eight eight seven thousand c
r I. That's eight eight eightseven thousand c r I.