August 7, 2025 • 59 mins
Join Cory Wing and Dr Ben Merkle of New Saint Andrew's College as they discuss men in higher education, christians in public spaces and mora
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:22):
Heritage.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
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guest today is the president of New Saint Andrew's College
as well as a senior Fellow of Theology. He holds
a dfhil in Oriental Studies and an mst in Jewish
(01:54):
Studies from Oxford University in England, Greyfriar's letter, an MBA
from Washington State Universe, an ma A degree in English Literature,
and a BS in Education Secondary Education with chemistry and
a minor in history, both from the University of Idaho.
He's a teaching elder at Christ Church in Moscow and
regularly preaches that they're downtown service. Doctor Merkle is the
(02:15):
author of The White Horse King, as well as defending
the Trinity in the Reformed Palatinate. I want to make
sure I try to pronounce that right. He and his wife, Rebecca,
have five children and a growing generation of grandchildren. It
is my pleasure to welcome specifically minded for the first time,
doctor Ben Merkle. Thank you, sir for joining us today.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Thanks so much for having me pleasure to be here.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Well, I'm excited and I've enjoyed so much of what
you've done from a distance. Of course, we're on two
opposite sides of the country. And of course it's the
first time that we're meeting, but I've known of your
work for a while and have really admired what you've done.
I've known a couple of children, children, young people. I'm
pushing fifty, so they seem like kids to me. And
(02:56):
I'm sure when you spend every day at a college
you're thinking the same thing of they keep getting younger.
And of course, so I understand. I've known a couple
of students that have come out to your university. I
serve with a gentleman with the last name of Oldham,
and you have some Oldhams out there who he's their
(03:16):
father is in my presbytery and a dear friend, and
and so the Oldhams are wonderful, wonderful people. And Meredith
used to work at the daycare where our first child
went to daycare, so we've known Meredith since my first
was just a little little thing, so wonderful. We've enjoyed
them and and and apparently you've kept a few of them,
(03:38):
so we're we're grateful for all that you're doing to
continue looking after the Oldham family. So I wanted to
discuss today stuff that's really right in your wheelhouse. So
I'm going to start right off kind of talking about
just some some raw stats. I know, for folks that
are into statistics and number crunching, this will be their jam.
(04:00):
Some of my audience, they'll kind of tune out until
we start talking at about what all of this means.
But I was looking around and was looking at a
website called Bestcolleges dot com, and it said that there
are just over nineteen million students that enrolled in US
college's last fall in twenty twenty four, and that roughly
sixteen million of those students were enrolled in undergraduate programs,
(04:21):
making about three million in graduate programs, and about eight
point eight million of those were bachelor degrees. My biggest
question with all of that, you know, number crunching, is
it does seem like from the statistics that I read,
college enrollment is up just a little though it had
been down for about ten years. What do you think
(04:44):
is causing some of the slight uptick that you're seeing
in a renewed interest in college.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
That's a really interesting question, you know, I do think
that one of the I'm just I'm just shooting from
the hip here, so i'd have to dive in deeper.
But if I, if I, one thing I suspect is
that we have made the bar to entry to college much.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Lower over the last few years. I say we, I
just mean colleges in general.
Speaker 4 (05:21):
Particularly in pushing things into online kind of mass produced
classes and whatnot. It's it's easier and easier too to
get in to log credits and all of that. That's
not to say it's better. I think that there's a
(05:42):
real problem with that. But there's such a there, there
is such a there's a strong conviction that somehow a
college degree is this just really important sort of equalizer.
Like if you have a college degree, it allows you
entrance to the job market, and so there's this economic
(06:05):
value to it. And I think particularly for people who
are struck, who are stuck in the sort of ideological
battle over different oppressed people's you know, and finding a
need to give them a leg up, the answer is
almost always we need to make the entrance into a
(06:25):
college program.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
Easier and easier for them.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
Somehow this will equalize this sinful inequity.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
So that's kind of my suspicion. But that's just me
shooting from the hip.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
No, I mean you certainly know more about that world
than I do, but I tend to agree with you
that and I think that again could be statistically born
out that we're seeing high school graduates that are far
less equipped than they were ten twenty thirty years ago.
They're coming out not being able to read or not
being able to do basic arithmetic. I mean, things that
(07:02):
are really quite shocking. And what used to be outliers
in a couple of maybe the worst states in the
country really have seemed to become endemic across the nation.
And it's small pockets that are doing well, and usually
those would be your private schools, Christian schools, things like that.
The public education system is really tanked, and in the
(07:26):
last ten years.
Speaker 4 (07:27):
That probably also contributes to that inflation of numbers, because
what's happened is what as public education has tanked and
a good chunk of private education as the CA to
twelve standards have lowered, Students are graduating their senior year
with an education that's the equivalent of what a sophomore
(07:48):
or a freshman would have had twenty thirty years ago.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
And so what has.
Speaker 4 (07:53):
Happened is colleges have had to had to compensate so
that essentially the freshmen and sophomore year of most colleges
is now remedial. It's the work that you would have
done in high school. But as colleges have remade themselves
and they've made this kind of remedial freshman and sophomore year,
what's happened is a lot of people have then said, well,
(08:14):
hang on, we could pull that into our high school.
So you have a lot of high schools that are
now doing these running start whatever programs. So you have
a lot of college students that are juniors and seniors
in high school doing both high school and college at
the same time, and that's going to massively increase the
number of credits that are being logged across America. College
(08:38):
credits are being logged, but that's not the same thing
as a lot more people going to college right right.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
And I've had Robert Borton's on my program before as well,
and his numbers as far as the increase in people
doing whether it's a full home school or homeschool co
ops has really significantly taken a bite out of that
public set as well. And states like yours and others
(09:04):
that are starting to say, hey, you can have credit,
some kind of taxational credit where you can apply the
tax dollars that you would have spent as a husband
or wife on public school system, we can now pour
it into some other alternative school. Again, there's a debate
on whether that's good or bad. I tend to not
be a huge fan of that, because once government money
(09:25):
gets involved, it's hard to ever root it back out.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
But I am somewhat encouraged that at least there are
sectors of the government that are admitting we're not succeeding
extremely well, and maybe there's time and place to look
for some alternatives. The other statistic as I was looking
through things that really I don't know that surprised me
is the right word, but that I just I'm almost
(09:53):
disturbed by is that roughly sixty percent of all currently
enrolled students are women. I don't think that's a big shocker,
of course, And that about sixteen percent of all undergraduate
students are over thirty. You know, those were two numbers
that I was like, Okay, and so again, as someone
who lives in this world of education, higher education, not
(10:15):
only as just a college president, but obviously as I
was reading your bio earlier. You've went to a lot
of higher education as well, so you've spent most of
your adult life in higher education. What do those figures
say kind of about what we're seeing culturally in higher education.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
Yeah, I mean, I think that the sixteen percent of
adults moving down into their undergraduate I think that that's
really a feature or a function of again people thinking
that somehow the undergraduate degree is the entrance into the
job market, and so these are people who feel like
they've got to go back and they've got to do
this in order to get this piece of paper that
(10:55):
will open certain doors for them. There's also a little
bit of a perpetual well, you know, it's it's it's
nice to be a student and not to be a worker.
You know, there's a perpetual I don't know if it's
a peter Pan thing or perpetual childhood or something like that,
but I do think that some people struggle to grow
up in a college plate. A college campus can be
(11:17):
a really good place to sort of, I don't know,
preserve that that weird little moment of of your youth.
So there's that on the on the disproportionate representation of
women in higher ed. That's something that has been uh,
(11:37):
it's been climbing for the last.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
I don't know, forty or fifty years.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
And and because if you go back, you know, fifty years,
it's very different, it's a very different world. Some of
that is a reflection on just the nature of America
changing its understanding of what is a man or what
is a woman? Uh, and particularly what is a family.
I think that our young ladies are indoctrinated to despise
(12:04):
the home and to think that they're only worth something
if they're competing with men in the in the workforce.
And I think that's a real and so so they're
going aggressively after the college degree because they are looking
to create professional lives from themselves rather than looking to
you know, start a family and whatnot. So there's that
(12:25):
that's that's kind of like a nationwide phenomena. If you
look at our institutions themselves, I think one of the
other things you notice is this is this is an
observation I picked up from my father in law, is
the way that institutions really can gravitate towards being sort
(12:47):
of female friendly. It's really easy as an instructor to
to gravitate towards preferring the way, the feminine way of
inner acting with authority, the classroom structure and all of that,
because uh, and I'm obviously speaking in the broadest, you know,
(13:09):
a broad pining with broad strokes here, but in general,
my it's easy to have your star students being those
girls who sit at the front and who who write
down every word is not going to be on the test.
When you go and you you give them the exam question,
they repeat back to you. They've studied very carefully everything
(13:31):
you've said, and they repeat it all back to you,
because they are they are made to please, they're made
to to try to give you what you want, and
they and it's very easy for a classroom to become
sort of female coded, and for an institution to become
very female coded, where that's the thing that is prized.
I remember. But but that's not how a school has
(13:53):
to be. That's not how a college has to be.
I remember this one moment when I was at Oxford
doing my my men master's degree, had this master's in
Jewish Studies, and we were moving, we were getting close
to the finals for the whole program, and in Oxford
it's you do all of your finals at the end
of your degree. So no matter when you took the course,
(14:14):
no matter when in the program you took the course,
your final is not until that last month of the
whole program. Wow, you might have taken that class two
years ago fall semester, but you're you have to have
it all still here and you have to be ready
for this final. And the Oxford Finals are this very
distinctive kind of quality to them. And so as we
were getting ready for it, that program brought somebody in
(14:36):
to talk to us about how to prepare for an
Oxford final and how to.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
Do this really well.
Speaker 4 (14:41):
And it was this lady who was explaining all this
to us. And most of the finals, you'll go in
to this big room. There'll be one hundred students or
something from all different classes, and they'll just hand you
one essay question and you know your little blue book
and you've got a right for two or three hours.
You know your answer to this question and your.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
Essays.
Speaker 4 (15:04):
These things will be graded double or triple blind, meaning
your name is not on it, it's just a number.
So and it's sent to two or three different instructors
who all grade it and have to.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
Agree on the final grade.
Speaker 4 (15:17):
So there's a level of objectivity to it. You can't
just pick your favorite student or whatever. You have to
really examine the essay and multiple people have to agree
on that grade. And they were explaining that they were
getting us ready for this final and this lady was
explaining to us how years ago they were having a
problem because they kept noticing that Oxford disproportionately was grading
(15:41):
men higher than women and they couldn't figure out why
was that happening because everything was graded double and triple blind,
and so how are the instructors knowing how are the
graders knowing this is a man or a woman? And
so they had this whole study to try to figure out, like,
you know, what this gender inequity. And what they realized
is that basically Oxford and Cambridge were these flagship institutions
(16:04):
of British culture, you know, is founded in the thirteenth century,
and over that time certain standards have become deeply ingrained
about how they how they graded, how they interacted with people,
and one of them was, you know, as Oxford and Cabridge,
they're graduating the young men who are going to fill
the British diplomatic core. You know, like in the nineteenth century,
(16:28):
you graduate from Oxford, one day you could be leading
troops in India or an ambassador to you know, some
foreign country in a moment. And what they started, what
they were really doing, was they were trying to create
decisive people. And so their essays, they disproportionately preferred an
essay that said something like, you know, here's the question,
(16:52):
here's the answer, and here's why I'm right. And that
tended to be how men would engage with an essay question,
whereas their female students tended to say, here's the question.
There are multiple perspectives, and we can see how from
each of these we can learn something, you know, but
it's it sort of reads the room, and it's really
(17:13):
attentive to detail, which can be I think, a real
female gift. But it doesn't have that sort of brash,
assertive and this is my position and this is why
I'm right, and the greaters preferred that kind of masculine
answer because that's how these institutions had operated for almost
a thousand years. I say all that to say it's
(17:35):
not necessary that a classroom, a college classroom, be like that.
It's that a college classroom be female coded. I think
it's possible to actually have an education that's very masculine coded.
I still remember one of my favorite moments in Oxford
was I was taking this one Hebrew class and I'm
with It's a small class, five or six students. The
(17:57):
instructor is the Regius Professor of he meaning his his
his chair had been appointed by Henry the eighth, you know,
in the sixteenth century.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
He's He's in the world of Hebrew scholarship. This is
is like the top, you know, he's the pinnacle.
Speaker 4 (18:11):
And I'm sitting in his class and I think we
were reading Psalm twenty three and he said something about
how you know the valley of the shadow of death.
He took issue with that as a translation, and he
makes his argument, and I'm sitting there and I just
and I was like yeah, but and I pushed back.
I was like, I don't think so, because and I
(18:31):
started to make my argument and then suddenly I look
and I realize who I'm talking to, and it was like,
oh shoot, and and I just like I just clammed
up because I was like that I don't want to
be disrespectful.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
I'm not going to push against something like that.
Speaker 4 (18:47):
And I just still remember him looking at me with
like big eyes and the biggest smile on his face
and him going like this, and he was just saying,
come come at me, you know, come on, come on.
And it wasn't he wasn't like he wasn't trying to
challenge me or something like that. It was more just
like he just delighted in a student who would who
(19:11):
would push against him and have an argument. And and
and when you are a confident scholar, you delight in
the students who bring a challenge to you. And so
you can have a classroom that that that actually favors
that kind of masculine presence, but it takes a very
(19:33):
careful cultivation on behalf of the faculty, Whereas if you
don't do that, what you start to get is a
faculty who would just promote this this whoever gives them
the answer that makes them feel good as instructor.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
And then you.
Speaker 4 (19:50):
Start to get this very sort of female coded classroom,
which is i'd say, how most of our college campuses
are the It was a long answer.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
No, No, that was that was a great answer, because
what I appreciate you taking the time to kind of
walk us through that, because we didn't get here overnight,
right And again I said earlier, I've had doctor Rigney
on and I can't help, but hear your answer, And
here's some of that emoting. You know that doctor Rigney
talks about so very much with again, empathy not being
(20:23):
a bad thing on the surface, but it can be,
you know, it can become very very unhelpful, very toxic,
because he says in a hurry. And so the difference
between and again, I've got two daughters and I have
a son, and can I parent them the same? I
suppose I could, but I would I would be doing
(20:43):
harm to either my two daughters by trying to expect
them to be masculine like my son, or to my
son expecting him to be feminine like my daughters. So
there's either going to be this kind of innbred emotive
nature that most women have again broad brushstrokes, as you said, yeah,
this kind of natural gravitas that men have. And yes,
(21:05):
at eighteen you don't have a ton of it, but
but you're starting to learn to have it, and and
so and and my experience has also been what you
just shared and That's not just true in the classroom.
It's true any of the best leaders at companies, at
churches and colleges, in nations, you know, presidents or kings.
A confident leader is not afraid of someone who is
(21:29):
exhibiting their own gifts because they want to pull those
gifts out of you. They're saying, hey, you only make
all of us better by, you know, strengthening the whole unit.
The weakest leaders I've ever known are are the folks
that that cannot abide being questioned and and they're constantly,
(21:51):
you know, pushing back on anyone that would that would
give them, you know, any flack. And that's that's a
terrible place to be. So so it's it's encouraging to
know that there are still some places in higher education,
or at least there were back in your time of
taking your masters, where where there were men that said,
I'm not intimidated by you, young man. If anything, I
(22:13):
want to hear how you're processing the information. And I think, again,
I'm on pastoral staff at a PCA church. I think
the same thing with our people. You know, at least
I know you're engaging with the Bible. You know, even
if you're wrong. Even if I disagree, I would rather
you engage with scripture than just let me spoon feed you.
(22:35):
You know that's that's not helpful for me, and it's
not helpful for you so well.
Speaker 4 (22:40):
And one of the things you just said is you
said something about it makes it better for everyone when
you can structure insitution like that. And I think that
that's an important point because it's not about saying, Okay,
we want we want all male students. We don't want
female students. We want we want female students as well
as male. I want my I wanted my daughters all
day have an NSA education, and they I've all all
(23:03):
three of my daughter's got bas at NSA and I
want that for them. But one of the things I
noticed is when that that that male coded space versus
that female coded space. Women thrive inside of a male
coded space. When when you when you have men being men,
women thrive inside of that. When you have a female
(23:25):
coded space, men don't thrive in that. They wither inside
of that, and ultimately the women start to wither as well.
It's it's this is just what is what makes a
society healthy. One of the really interesting demographic studies or
whatever bits of data that we've pulled out of NSA
is just noticing when we've had a class where where
(23:49):
the majority, more than fifty percent of the class was female.
When we had that, our our male degree degree completion
rate in that class, basically, the percentage of guys that
finished with their bachelor's degree dropped. If you had if
you had a female prominent, you know, dominant class, the
(24:14):
male completion dropped. When you have a male majority. That's
when the male completion rate stays solid and the female
stays solid. It's it's funny if if it's if it's
masculine dominant, the men can last, they can't last. When
(24:35):
it's female dominant. When it's female dominant, the men can't last.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
The women do.
Speaker 4 (24:40):
And that's the funny thing is that the female degree
completion rate stayed the same in either, but the male
fluctuated dramatically based on like what is the what is
the prominent vibe of this classroom? And so I think
that it's just it's a healthier place for everyone when
you can cultivate that kind of culture.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
Well, which gets back to that initial statistic of if
all universities in colleges are roughly sixty percent female. That's median, right,
you know, So that means there are some universities where
it's probably seventy seventy five.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
You know.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
And then what you're talking about that you've seen from
real data, real numbers from your school, that's going to
come into play in a very significant way, you know,
and not just in so much as graduation and things
like that, but the degree programs that they're going to
cater to, the tenured professors and teachers they're going to
(25:31):
bring in. You know, the the dei quotients are going
to increase, I mean, and I think that's again, I
think the data would bear that out. The dei quotions
are going to increase as those numbers kind of go up.
But you know, to your credit, and I say, you're
(25:51):
as the president of an I say, I'm kind of
letting you be federal head for your school, which, let's
be honest, in many ways, you are to your credit.
N Essay has produced some uniquely masculine and somewhat targeted
commercials over the last couple of years, and they feel
more like ads from like the Army from say to
nineteen nineties, you know, where it was the be all
(26:12):
you can be generation. And I'm pushing fifty years old.
So those are the Army ads that I graduated high
school ninety six, So those are the Army ads I
knew where it was like all these really cool guys
dressed in you know, all the army gear and it
was night time and they had, you know, all the
kit that they.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
Would use, and it was like, I want to go
do that, right, you know?
Speaker 2 (26:32):
And so you guys have put out these these kind
of again not fully masculine there. It's not like there's
no females in these ads, but they are somewhat produced
towards a masculine, more masculine audience. And I've got to
say that they've been something I've enjoyed watching them. I've
I've I've always when you guys have a new commercial
(26:53):
com out, I'm kind of like, oh, I got to
see what this one's gonna gonna be. Of course, the
Johnny Cash one started a little bit of a kerfuffle,
but you know it that again on PCA we just
had our general assembly there, there was a kerfuffle there,
you know, So so I mean it's it is what
(27:13):
it is. We we always you can't stay completely safe.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
All the time. How boring would that be?
Speaker 2 (27:19):
So I got to ask, kind of whose brainchild you know,
or who was the brain child behind some of some
of these really exciting ads, because they've they've had to
have moved the needle in some ways, I would think, yeah.
Speaker 4 (27:35):
So yeah, So the I would say about ninety eight
percent of the credit goes to my brother in law,
Nate Wilson, who's an author. He is a part on
the faculty for our MFA program here. He's an NSA
grad himself and is a prominent and prolific writer, producer
and whatnot. So we have a contract with his company
(27:58):
for some of our ads, some of them, some of
them are some of them are from completely in house,
our own marketing team. But probably the ones that have
gotten the bulk of the tension really come out in
Nate's pen. Although probably the first one that really kick
things off actually goes back to Gay Brench from Cross Politic. Yeah,
(28:18):
remember the old bathroom ad that was that was his
original brain tatitle that was massaged down.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
Down the road. But that would that would be a
gay wrench one.
Speaker 4 (28:28):
So yeah, and and then so they'll propose something, and
then I'll green light.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
I'll give a little bit of feedback and say let's
do this, let's not do that.
Speaker 4 (28:38):
So just yeah, just to be clear, there are breaks.
There are many things I've said no, we're not.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
Going to do that. We do, We're not always.
Speaker 4 (28:45):
It's it's not like I think people feel like most
of the marketing at NSA comes out of like a
two am, you know, video session where everybody had way
too much mountain dew or something like that. It's actually
a very sober and deliberate process where we you know,
we'll think tank it well, all sudden some suggestions, he'll
(29:07):
come up with something, We'll go back and forth for
usually like up to about a month of us going
back and forth. I'll I'll shoot it to other people,
get everybody else's take on it, and then finally all
do give the thumbs up green light. So so if
if there's any you you mentioned, I'm I'm the the
federal head there. So if then and it's true, so
(29:28):
if there's any like blame, uh, that's on me.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
I'm I'm the one that made the call on all
of them.
Speaker 4 (29:35):
And uh, but but the original sources is a few
of those guys, but mostly meat.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
Ye.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Again, that just proves your your solid leadership because I've
said for years that another great quality of a good
leader is sure they're willing to take credit when it's deserved,
but they're also willing to take blame if and when needed.
And and so I'm not saying there is any blame
that's needed, but but the fact that you, you know, imediately
kind of spoke them and said, hey, if there is,
(30:01):
it's it's me, you know. So you know, but what
I will say to your credit, you know, and again
I use you as again figurehead, is that most of
those commercials have tried to speak to something going on
in our cultural moment, you know, that what's happening in
the cultural zeitgeist, and and you guys are trying to say, look,
(30:23):
it doesn't have to be this way, you know. And
one of the things in the pc and it's not
a pc A school, but it is a lot of
PCA pastors come from Greenville Seminary. Greenville Seminary is is
got a very similar kind of vibe. They have one degree.
You know, if you go to Greenville Seminary, it's because
you're going to get an MDiv. It's a four year
(30:45):
MDV and their motto is we train pastors. That's it,
you know. And and there's something very refreshing about whether
it's a church, a person, a school you know, that
knows who they are and doesn't make apologies for it
and just kind of says, look, we're not trying. We
(31:05):
understand this is gonna limit to some degree. How many
people will you know ever come here? You know, but
we're not making the tent any bigger than this. The
tent's plenty big because you know, we've counted the cost.
Like you said, was this was all done intentionally. We
(31:26):
want people that this speaks to, you know. So so
Greenville has said we're not taking women because well women
shouldn't be getting himdivs because women can't be pastors. So
you know, I mean, and does that irritate some people?
And beyond irritate, does it just downright tiss some people off? Well, yeah,
(31:46):
yes it does.
Speaker 4 (31:48):
I got to spend a couple of days out at
Greenville this past year. I have very high regard for
what they're doing and for their leadership. I think it's
it's everything you're saying there is very apt and true.
I'm very I'm very supportive of what they're doing. And
I think that you're reminding me of the old I
think there was an old like Saturday Night Live commercial
(32:08):
about it was you know, it was something like it
was a commercial for this little product. It was it's
a floor wax and it's an ice cream topping.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
You know. Uh, and it you could do so many
things with it.
Speaker 4 (32:21):
And what you discover is it does nothing well what
it does is it? It just it. It blunts all
the edges. It it takes all everything less sharp, it
makes everything dull. And so a lot of times I
noticed this just I think a lot about how do
you keep an institution on on track and how do
(32:41):
you keep an institution on its mission?
Speaker 3 (32:43):
And what you'll find is.
Speaker 4 (32:44):
A lot of the the proposals too that will ultimately
undermine your mission. They're not proposals that say we shouldn't
do that, we should do this.
Speaker 3 (32:55):
They don't usually say that.
Speaker 4 (32:56):
They'll say saping like, yeah, you can do that, but
wouldn't it also be okay to do this? And then
and then they start just bringing in you know, and
I think that's how egalitarianism has come in, where you
try to you try to draw this line. I mean,
I I appreciate the complimentarian impulse, and I think it
(33:20):
roughly stated. Just if you just roughly stayed the complimentarian position,
I think I fully agree with it. But what you
discovered was right away people say, well, that's true, but
can't we also do this? And then couldn't we also
have a master's degree for women in counseling who aren't
necessarily pastors, but who are. And then you start like, like,
I guess, I guess that's possible. So you allow that,
(33:43):
and then you allow this, and what you discover is
thirty years later, you have lost your mission without ever
having a direct conflict over the mission. You just slowly
got told I have to also worry about this, and
I have to also worry about this, And I just
think it's it's okay to be aggressively ambitious for your
(34:05):
mission and to say no to everything else. And you
do have to do that if you want to stay
on track. You have to do that just day in,
day out. You have to stay aggressively on your mission.
It's I find so many times people come in with
great ideas. That's a great idea, somebody could do that.
I'm not going to because I'm I'm doing this over here.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
Yeah. We one of the things I appreciate about the PCA,
and we have our problems. Lord knows, we are simple Refermanda.
You know, we need to continue reforming. I'm grateful that
for the last three four five years we have been
shifting back right word, you know. We we we have
rooted out not all, but a lot of the revoice stuff,
a lot of the side b stuff. You know, we're
(34:47):
attempting to root out the rest of it. We've tried
to address again an egalitarian drift that was, well we
can have deaconses. No, no, you can't have deacon asses,
you know. So I appreciate that that, even within my
owns a nation, we are attempting to be very aware
that the Overton window, just by nature, because we're sinners,
(35:10):
because we're east of Eden, the Overton window always shifts left.
You know, it's there's always mission drift, and if you're
not careful and conscientious and really intentional, you just drift.
I mean it's like again being out at sea and
you kind of fall asleep. You wake up and you're like,
where in the world have I you know. I mean,
you have no idea where you're at, and so we
(35:32):
have to be sober minded. And again, of course scripture
speaks to this, you know, be on guard, be sober minded.
The devil is a roaring lion.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
You know.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
I mean, he's not taking naps. So it's it's very
important that again, whether higher education like what you do,
or within the church, which of course you also do
and I do professionally. Even on something like this, this
channel that I run, I have to kind of know
this is this is what I do, you know. I
mean my channel is called Civically. I talk about civics
(36:01):
and the ecclesia, which of course you and I know
is the church and the family and kind of yeah,
I get into a lot of cultural stuff and political stuff.
But I don't do like movie reviews, you know, And
I don't do you know. I went to culinary school
when I was a much younger man. But I'm not
doing videos on you know, how to make the best salsa,
(36:22):
you know. I mean that's not what I do. I
do what I do, and I have to be very
intentional about that, and that means sometimes I talk about
things that people don't like that's okay, you know, I mean,
because I have to count the cost of what it
is I'm trying trying to do what I'm trying to build,
and so I appreciate that whenever I see that in
an institution. And again I've watched from Afar and really
(36:46):
been encouraged and impressed by the way that NSA has
went after a definition of who they're going to be.
And these are the kind of students that we want
to come here and become. Kind of know, to borrow
one from your father in law, which, by the way,
if you're watching and you don't know who his father
in law is, who is your father in law?
Speaker 4 (37:06):
My father in law is Doug Wilson. So I buried
his oldest daughter, Beca.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
So your father in law says, you know, uh talks
a lot about slaying dragons and and and takes that,
of course from a lot of historical both Christian and
non Christian literature, but Christian literature especially, and uh and
and says, look, God raises up dragon slayers in every generation,
you know. So, so you have been very intentional about
pursuing young people that want to come and learn how
(37:35):
to slay dragons in their own world, and I give
you immense credit for that. I think that's a good thing.
So to that end, where do you see, not say,
of course, where do you see NSA, but not just
inn essay, where do you see, say, the future of
Christian higher education considering the struggles with woke ideology, DEI
critical theory, all of those things, as well as like
(37:57):
the anti semitism that we've been seeing university campuses, and
you know, some have become almost hotbeds for anti semitism lately.
Where do you see Christian universities, colleges, grad schools, including
but not limited to nsay, where do you see us
as Christians being able to kind of pick up the
pieces from some of these secular universities that have dropped
(38:21):
the ball. And how do we differentiate ourselves enough to
maintain our own distinctives and and keep as you said,
focused on mission.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
Yeah, that's a that's a big question.
Speaker 4 (38:33):
So I think part of it, well, there's a difference
between me predicting what will happen versus me prescribing what
should happen.
Speaker 3 (38:42):
So i'll, i'll, I can, I can tell you what
I think should happen.
Speaker 4 (38:46):
Whether God is kind, and blesses us with this kind
of reformation at this time is another question. We wait
to see what he's going to do. But I would say,
you know, what really has to happen is we have
to wake up and see and understand how bad and
how compromised things have become. And my concern is that
(39:09):
we are in our work to reform what is going
on in America and conservatism in the Christian world, in
Christian hi red, and our work to conform to reform
all of that, we are satisfied with far, far, far
too little, the slightest little correction. Everybody acts as if
(39:31):
the whole thing has been fixed. I noticed this with
with just I noticed, okay, I remember reading a Wall
Street Journal article in December or January this year, this
last year, and they were noting how gun sales in
America had plummeted immediately after the election, and they were
(39:54):
referring to it as the Trump slump, because basically, you
have conservative America, that's that's frantic and nervous, and so
they buy handguns, you know, and then Trump steps into
the White House and all that that nervousness just dissipated,
and the sales plummeted. I think that ministries that are
(40:14):
trying to radically reform our institutions, like our institutions of
higher education, are I what I'm concerned is that people,
We've got this big, huge task in front of us,
and then what happens is.
Speaker 3 (40:31):
Trump steps in and.
Speaker 4 (40:33):
Now all the DEI offices are being closed down, and
everybody's acting as if Higher ed has been fixed. It
has not even remotely been fixed. And in fact, even
that DEI office that was closed and everybody's oh so
excited because we've removed this thing that was toxic. Those
people weren't fired. They one office was closed. Those people
(40:55):
were just moved into different departments, and they're still doing
all the same things. These colleges are exactly the same.
And I see our even Christian colleges that have been
failing for decades now aping or mimicking certain kind of
conservative talking points and everybody thinking that these institutions have
been fixed and flocking back to them when no, it,
(41:18):
all the rot is still there. And I think we
need to get a lot more bold and a lot
more aggressive and a lot more realistic about how bad
things are. So I think that the thing that I
would love to see is first of all, for Christian
institutions to drop all of the secular arguments for college,
and we need to make a distinctively Christian argument for
(41:40):
why you ought to come to a Christian college, which is,
we are completing your Christian formation and we are setting
you up for a lifetime of faithfulness to serve Christ.
And there is a Christian cultural identity that four years
at a robust Christian institution so deeply on you that
(42:01):
it will massively change your life. It will change your family,
it will change your church, it will change every vocation
that you have from here on. And I've seen it
happening time and time again with NSA grads, where these
four years so completely imprinted on them an instinct and
an impulse and a love for a certain way of
living and serving God and wanting to make all of
(42:23):
life serve Him, that they have a massive impact on
their culture around them. And I just don't think we
have enough Christian institutions who get that.
Speaker 3 (42:32):
Or who are are are.
Speaker 4 (42:34):
Authentically committed to that kind of mission. So we need, honestly,
I think we need a lot of We need to
see a lot of our colleges fail and close down.
It really is as bad as that. We need to
see a lot of them fail and close down. And
I think we need to see a lot more robust
accountability required for these colleges for what they're actually doing.
(42:55):
So if you have an institution that last year had
a GLBTQ whatever office and was promoting all of these
different things, and then this year they can just smell
which way the wind is blowing, and so they're sort
of quietly closing those things down. But you haven't changed
the leadership. You haven't changed anything there there. It's still
(43:16):
that same milk toast education and we need to just
purge all that out and have like, really truly robust leadership.
Speaker 3 (43:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
Now I couldn't agree more. I I often tell our
people at my local particular church that I serve at,
but also my friends within. You say the PCA, And
I keep going back to that because again I'll speak
to my own You know, I've got I grew up
in the SBC, so I've still got family and friends
in the SBC, and I speak to them too from
time to time. But I serve and I'm ordained in
(43:48):
the PCA. So I say to my friends within my
own denomination, and certainly, like said at our particular church,
you know, pray what Joshua prayed. Lord, let the sun
stands still ill, you know, give us, give us more
time and the tenacity to chase down the enemy and
really win the day, you know, not just take these
(44:11):
small w victories and kind of go hey, all right,
you know, because I mean, while I was at GA
and and celebrating some of the victories that I was
happy to see while I was there. This year, by
and large, I think we had a good a good
General Assembly. By and large, I think it was far
less contentious than the last few. You know, New York
(44:32):
City elected, I mean, and it's presumptive, but it's no
Republicans going to beat him because it's New York City.
So New York City elected a socialist Shia Muslim as
their next mayor. I mean, so so, you guys, it
ain't fixed. There's real problems, you know. And and and
this is I am seeing a nation that is dividing
(44:53):
almost geographically, you know, to where there are states and
municipalities that are very Christian and Christian, and there are
states and municipalities that are very liberal and just as
committed to that worldview as you and I are to
the worldview of Christ being king. And that's a little scary,
you know, as far as when you say that we
(45:15):
are a nation that is one nation under God, indivisible,
well that's not very indivisible. That that is a lot
of division, actually, And so I want to see Christians
who really do, as so often has said these days,
know what time it is, and not mistake a small
victory for something that you know needs to be chased
(45:39):
down much further. And I say to that. Your father
in law recently had Stephen Wolf on an episode of
Man Rampant, and I sat and listened to the whole
two hour episode. I thought it was very helpful, especially
because there had been some back and forth and they
had both kind of been on opposing sides of what
you know, Christian nationalism is or should be. And I
(46:02):
found it exceedingly helpful to see men that don't agree
on everything fit down and say, okay, I see this
from the top down, Okay, I see this from the
ground up, and then both kind of go. I can
live with that, you know, because because we meet in
the middle, right, I mean, if the grassroots guys are
working from the ground up and the top down. Guys
(46:22):
are working from the top down. Then God willing, we
meet in the middle and America becomes a much more
healthy Christian reformed place than it's been in my lifetime. Yeah,
you know, to go back to Aaron Wren's idea of
positive world, you know, neutral world, negative world. I mean,
right now, neutral worlds looking great, But of course I
want positive world. I want true Christian reformation.
Speaker 4 (46:47):
I agree, and I think that there's there is a
well this is this is just another way of describing
how we need to cultivate masculinity, because I think truly
mature masculine men and know how to know how to
keep everything in the right perspective in proportion. Where where
(47:10):
I can you know, I can argue with somebody like
where like if you're a reform brother and we disagree
on something, I can I can have that. I can
have that pointed, perhaps even heated, you know, argument as
we as we aggressively address something. But I need to
(47:30):
also keep really clear on what my boundaries of fellowship
are that actually this guy who he and I disagree
over this one little thing are closer to one another
than we are to almost anybody else in Christendom. And
if I have to pick anywhere, you know, if I'm
in his town and I need worship on Sunday morning,
I'm at his church because that's the one I'm actually
(47:50):
closest to. I think of my my It's funny over
the last couple of years, as my kids end up,
you know, graduating from college and moving out and going
to different places and seeing them them and their cousins,
you know, attending churches faithfully of pastors that I think
(48:13):
if you were watching public kerfluffles, you would think, oh,
you know, they would never darken the door of that.
But like, no, you're actually my closest brother. And when
we have this conflict, that's why, because because we want
to respect the integrity of this position that we hold,
and we want to have this out, but we need
to not be that kind of divisive as a result
(48:35):
of it.
Speaker 2 (48:36):
Now, thank you. That's incredibly incredibly not that's helpful. It's
encouraging to hear. Because again the Katie Katie Why or
Kevin de Young for those who may not know who
kat Why is Kevin de Young who was our moderator
this year, of course, and who what twelve eighteen months ago,
whatever it was, wrote the article on the Moscow mood,
(48:58):
you know, And but again I look at that exactly
the same terms that you're saying. You know, if we're
looking at a zero to one hundred scale, those of
us on the reformed side of the page are ninety
two to ninety three plus in agreement. You know, we
are disagreeing on such a relatively small amount of things.
(49:21):
Yet we have incredible amounts of grace for the Mormon,
incredible amounts of grace for the Muslim, incredible amounts of
grace for you know, this person or that person who
could be lost, you know, oftentimes are completely you know, pagan,
and yet we have in just nothing. But it seems
at times, and I don't think it really is, but
it does seem at times vitriol for one another. And
(49:44):
it's like the onlooking world kind of goes, wow, these
guys don't even get along, and it's like, well, then
we need to do better about not talking past one another.
Which is why I was so encouraged by that sit
down on man rampants. So recently, I was at the
American Reformer event and Steven was there. Just recently at
GA and a couple of other guys from other worlds.
(50:10):
William Wolfe was there, who's a friend of mine from
the SBC, who of course you know who William is.
And so that there was this room full of guys
of that bent, you know, kind of kind of a
very masculine, very robust, almost Christian or again what would
be historically referred to as Christian nationalistic bent. But I
(50:30):
had literally before I walked in the door at that event.
Went to the GRN banquet that was at the at
the Chattanooga Convention Center, which is the Gospel Reformation Network,
and the keynote speaker at the banquet this year was
Ligan Duncan. I think, and I don't think I'm crazy.
I don't think I'm some weird cock eyed optimist. I
(50:52):
think those two groups, while different, while very different, and
you could see that in the men who attended each
they have are more in common then they do even
their own PCA brethren that may have been in the
Assembly hall who would still espouse revoice. Yeah, you know, so,
so I go, guys, if you could ever trust one
(51:16):
another and not not always kind of have that that
cross eye, you know what, what's this guy going to
do next? Then I think the future for the reform
movement in America, whether you're talking to PCA or CREC
or or you know, Reform Baptist is only going to
grow because we are offering something that most the young
(51:40):
men in this nation are so thirsty and hungry for.
You know, this, this masculine alternative to feminized, woke weak church.
Speaker 3 (51:50):
You know.
Speaker 2 (51:51):
So, so the guys that are listening to Andrew Tate,
you know, or that are listening to Joe Rogan or
listening to guys like that, who just are begging for
someone to say say, not only is it okay to
be a man, you should celebrate it. It's great be
a man. God made you a man, you know, and
lean into what it means to be a man. Just
be a Christian man, be a decent man. The reformed
(52:15):
world has something to say to those men. So I
am very ambitious and hopeful and bullish about where we're
headed as a movement, whatever denomination espouses that. With our
time remaining, and I know we've only got a few,
maybe ten minutes left. I loved The White Horse King
(52:36):
so much. I thought that was one of the best
books I've read, honestly in a few years, and I
would be remiss if I had you on my show,
and one I didn't tell you that, and two I didn't.
Just for the fewer minutes we have remaining, discuss a
little bit about that book and kind of how maybe
(52:58):
studying historical exam of practical Christianity like King Alfred, and
he's one of many, you know. I've recently completed Defenders
of the West, and I had read Sword and Scimitar
prior to that, and I'm eagerly awaiting his forthcoming book
that I think is coming out in November, you know,
(53:20):
And all these wonderful Christian examples of practical men who
took Christianity seriously, and you may disagree with everything they did,
but they at least looked at the world around them
and said, I'm not okay with letting it slide. You know,
I'm going to be a man for God in challenging times,
(53:41):
and even if it cost me, I'm still going to
do it. So as we finish up here, how do
we study historical examples of those practical Christians and their
faithful application in the public square and then use that
to help us formulate ways to engage in shape culture,
certainly now, but also as we move into the future.
Speaker 3 (54:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (54:02):
Yeah, I remember my my wife's grandfather, so this would
be Doug's dad, Jim Wilson, who was an extremely gifted evangelists,
would always have He's always be surrounded by young Christians
because he was evangelist, so he was he was making
young Christians all over the place, and they would always ask,
you know, like, how can I mature in the faith
(54:25):
when I don't have people around to mentor me?
Speaker 3 (54:28):
How do I mature the faith?
Speaker 4 (54:29):
And his his answer was always read Christian biographies, and.
Speaker 3 (54:32):
That was he was notorious for.
Speaker 4 (54:36):
I'm not exaggerating when I described like whenever he left
the house he had his pocket stuff with Christian biographies
and you could I can remember where at pizza Hut
and the waitress, you know, he's so do you like
to read?
Speaker 3 (54:48):
And he's he's working.
Speaker 4 (54:51):
He was in the hospital for a bit and family
had to keep going down to him bringing boxes of
Christian biographies because of which.
Speaker 3 (54:57):
He's handing them out.
Speaker 4 (54:58):
Anyhow, I think reading Christian biography is just really helpful
because it gives you that that Hebrews, you know, great
Hall of Faith, that the the.
Speaker 3 (55:10):
Hall of witnesses and their testimonies. It brings that.
Speaker 4 (55:14):
Alive and helps you to see it lived out. So
I think it's just really healthy to be reading Christian biographies,
which I was. I had hoped the the Alfred the
Great and the White Horse King would be one good
example of it. And then just you know, as you
study their lives, think about what were the what were
the foundational principles and their assumptions about how the world
(55:35):
works that produce the kind of greatness in their life.
I mean, I think with Alfred, the thing that I
was really struck by was how much he accomplished as
a military leader, as a as a civic administrator, the
infrastructure that he built as an academic, and the literary
(55:58):
renaissance that he provoked. What was really interesting was how
at the foundation of all of it was just a
conviction about the Gospel, the Word of God, and the
necessity of studying it. And and it was really funny
how it odd.
Speaker 3 (56:14):
Peculiar, how he saw the Viking invasion that he had
to defend England from as the as the fruit of
England having not studied the Word of God, and that
he he believed we needed to return.
Speaker 4 (56:30):
To Scripture as a as a like policy of national defense.
Like if we're not, if we're not Christians who are
sincerely in the Word, then we're going to be invaded
by Pagans. And so we have to actually be serious
about about our.
Speaker 2 (56:45):
Faith, which means, boy, oh boy, what would he have
to say about the England of today that has been
overrun by Pagans.
Speaker 3 (56:55):
So I was.
Speaker 4 (56:57):
Living, we were living in England. I wrote that biography
while we were at Oxford, and I I had the
Muslim takeover in England in mind the whole time. When
I'm writing about Alfred and the Vikings, I'm looking at
England falling before the Muslims, because it was, it was
ever present, so a lot of how as I wrote that,
(57:20):
the immediate application to me was obviously this this Islam,
islamification of England that needs to be addressed.
Speaker 2 (57:29):
Yes, needs to be addressed. And and now it's coming
to New York City. So so it's yeah, you know,
lest we fall asleep at the wheel, it can happen here.
I mean we saw the Hindu God, you know, that
was immortalized there in Houston.
Speaker 3 (57:44):
What last year earlier this year.
Speaker 2 (57:45):
I mean that we are we're ripe for it, and
and so so, Men of God, if you're hearing this today,
rise up, ask God like Joshua for the sun to
stand still metaphorically of course, and and and and chase
down the enemy. And I know language like that makes
(58:05):
us uncomfortable in the modern era, but you know Christ
was not uncomfortable with such language. He said, you are
either for me or you are against me. And and
so it's it's we we only harken back to our
savior when we say that. You know, Christianity is an
exclusive of you know, there's an exclusivity about Christianity. It
is not a big tent that everyone gets to stand underneath.
(58:28):
So well, thank you to my guest, doctor Ben Merkle.
It exceeded every expectation. And I've been excited about this
interview for for a couple of weeks, So thank you
so much for doing it. I again celebrate your victories
there at NSA again, got got connections through our local presbytery.
And so tell the Oldhams that that we say hello
(58:49):
and we certainly love them and appreciate all that they
are doing.
Speaker 3 (58:51):
There, and that thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 2 (58:54):
Oh, it's been my pleasure. And for all of you
that watch and support what I do here at Civically Mind,
thank you as well. Be sure to like, subscribe and
share the content with someone else. Leave me a comment
below on how the ministry is blessed or challenged you.
I really do read every single one of them, and
so until next time, I'm your host, Corey Wing, and remember,
be brave, be bold, and be civically minded.
Speaker 1 (59:17):
God bless you did at my ride, and the Lord
to my Lord command for col eady that I will
make fucking leaf food stool for your shame.
Speaker 3 (59:38):
Lord,
Heritage.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
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and get ten percent off your first curriculum plan when
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that's code Eschatology at Living heritage dot Info. Well, my
guest today is the president of New Saint Andrew's College
as well as a senior Fellow of Theology. He holds
a dfhil in Oriental Studies and an mst in Jewish
(01:54):
Studies from Oxford University in England, Greyfriar's letter, an MBA
from Washington State Universe, an ma A degree in English Literature,
and a BS in Education Secondary Education with chemistry and
a minor in history, both from the University of Idaho.
He's a teaching elder at Christ Church in Moscow and
regularly preaches that they're downtown service. Doctor Merkle is the
(02:15):
author of The White Horse King, as well as defending
the Trinity in the Reformed Palatinate. I want to make
sure I try to pronounce that right. He and his wife, Rebecca,
have five children and a growing generation of grandchildren. It
is my pleasure to welcome specifically minded for the first time,
doctor Ben Merkle. Thank you, sir for joining us today.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Thanks so much for having me pleasure to be here.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Well, I'm excited and I've enjoyed so much of what
you've done from a distance. Of course, we're on two
opposite sides of the country. And of course it's the
first time that we're meeting, but I've known of your
work for a while and have really admired what you've done.
I've known a couple of children, children, young people. I'm
pushing fifty, so they seem like kids to me. And
(02:56):
I'm sure when you spend every day at a college
you're thinking the same thing of they keep getting younger.
And of course, so I understand. I've known a couple
of students that have come out to your university. I
serve with a gentleman with the last name of Oldham,
and you have some Oldhams out there who he's their
(03:16):
father is in my presbytery and a dear friend, and
and so the Oldhams are wonderful, wonderful people. And Meredith
used to work at the daycare where our first child
went to daycare, so we've known Meredith since my first
was just a little little thing, so wonderful. We've enjoyed
them and and and apparently you've kept a few of them,
(03:38):
so we're we're grateful for all that you're doing to
continue looking after the Oldham family. So I wanted to
discuss today stuff that's really right in your wheelhouse. So
I'm going to start right off kind of talking about
just some some raw stats. I know, for folks that
are into statistics and number crunching, this will be their jam.
(04:00):
Some of my audience, they'll kind of tune out until
we start talking at about what all of this means.
But I was looking around and was looking at a
website called Bestcolleges dot com, and it said that there
are just over nineteen million students that enrolled in US
college's last fall in twenty twenty four, and that roughly
sixteen million of those students were enrolled in undergraduate programs,
(04:21):
making about three million in graduate programs, and about eight
point eight million of those were bachelor degrees. My biggest
question with all of that, you know, number crunching, is
it does seem like from the statistics that I read,
college enrollment is up just a little though it had
been down for about ten years. What do you think
(04:44):
is causing some of the slight uptick that you're seeing
in a renewed interest in college.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
That's a really interesting question, you know, I do think
that one of the I'm just I'm just shooting from
the hip here, so i'd have to dive in deeper.
But if I, if I, one thing I suspect is
that we have made the bar to entry to college much.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Lower over the last few years. I say we, I
just mean colleges in general.
Speaker 4 (05:21):
Particularly in pushing things into online kind of mass produced
classes and whatnot. It's it's easier and easier too to
get in to log credits and all of that. That's
not to say it's better. I think that there's a
(05:42):
real problem with that. But there's such a there, there
is such a there's a strong conviction that somehow a
college degree is this just really important sort of equalizer.
Like if you have a college degree, it allows you
entrance to the job market, and so there's this economic
(06:05):
value to it. And I think particularly for people who
are struck, who are stuck in the sort of ideological
battle over different oppressed people's you know, and finding a
need to give them a leg up, the answer is
almost always we need to make the entrance into a
(06:25):
college program.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
Easier and easier for them.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
Somehow this will equalize this sinful inequity.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
So that's kind of my suspicion. But that's just me
shooting from the hip.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
No, I mean you certainly know more about that world
than I do, but I tend to agree with you
that and I think that again could be statistically born
out that we're seeing high school graduates that are far
less equipped than they were ten twenty thirty years ago.
They're coming out not being able to read or not
being able to do basic arithmetic. I mean, things that
(07:02):
are really quite shocking. And what used to be outliers
in a couple of maybe the worst states in the
country really have seemed to become endemic across the nation.
And it's small pockets that are doing well, and usually
those would be your private schools, Christian schools, things like that.
The public education system is really tanked, and in the
(07:26):
last ten years.
Speaker 4 (07:27):
That probably also contributes to that inflation of numbers, because
what's happened is what as public education has tanked and
a good chunk of private education as the CA to
twelve standards have lowered, Students are graduating their senior year
with an education that's the equivalent of what a sophomore
(07:48):
or a freshman would have had twenty thirty years ago.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
And so what has.
Speaker 4 (07:53):
Happened is colleges have had to had to compensate so
that essentially the freshmen and sophomore year of most colleges
is now remedial. It's the work that you would have
done in high school. But as colleges have remade themselves
and they've made this kind of remedial freshman and sophomore year,
what's happened is a lot of people have then said, well,
(08:14):
hang on, we could pull that into our high school.
So you have a lot of high schools that are
now doing these running start whatever programs. So you have
a lot of college students that are juniors and seniors
in high school doing both high school and college at
the same time, and that's going to massively increase the
number of credits that are being logged across America. College
(08:38):
credits are being logged, but that's not the same thing
as a lot more people going to college right right.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
And I've had Robert Borton's on my program before as well,
and his numbers as far as the increase in people
doing whether it's a full home school or homeschool co
ops has really significantly taken a bite out of that
public set as well. And states like yours and others
(09:04):
that are starting to say, hey, you can have credit,
some kind of taxational credit where you can apply the
tax dollars that you would have spent as a husband
or wife on public school system, we can now pour
it into some other alternative school. Again, there's a debate
on whether that's good or bad. I tend to not
be a huge fan of that, because once government money
(09:25):
gets involved, it's hard to ever root it back out.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
But I am somewhat encouraged that at least there are
sectors of the government that are admitting we're not succeeding
extremely well, and maybe there's time and place to look
for some alternatives. The other statistic as I was looking
through things that really I don't know that surprised me
is the right word, but that I just I'm almost
(09:53):
disturbed by is that roughly sixty percent of all currently
enrolled students are women. I don't think that's a big shocker,
of course, And that about sixteen percent of all undergraduate
students are over thirty. You know, those were two numbers
that I was like, Okay, and so again, as someone
who lives in this world of education, higher education, not
(10:15):
only as just a college president, but obviously as I
was reading your bio earlier. You've went to a lot
of higher education as well, so you've spent most of
your adult life in higher education. What do those figures
say kind of about what we're seeing culturally in higher education.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
Yeah, I mean, I think that the sixteen percent of
adults moving down into their undergraduate I think that that's
really a feature or a function of again people thinking
that somehow the undergraduate degree is the entrance into the
job market, and so these are people who feel like
they've got to go back and they've got to do
this in order to get this piece of paper that
(10:55):
will open certain doors for them. There's also a little
bit of a perpetual well, you know, it's it's it's
nice to be a student and not to be a worker.
You know, there's a perpetual I don't know if it's
a peter Pan thing or perpetual childhood or something like that,
but I do think that some people struggle to grow
up in a college plate. A college campus can be
(11:17):
a really good place to sort of, I don't know,
preserve that that weird little moment of of your youth.
So there's that on the on the disproportionate representation of
women in higher ed. That's something that has been uh,
(11:37):
it's been climbing for the last.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
I don't know, forty or fifty years.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
And and because if you go back, you know, fifty years,
it's very different, it's a very different world. Some of
that is a reflection on just the nature of America
changing its understanding of what is a man or what
is a woman? Uh, and particularly what is a family.
I think that our young ladies are indoctrinated to despise
(12:04):
the home and to think that they're only worth something
if they're competing with men in the in the workforce.
And I think that's a real and so so they're
going aggressively after the college degree because they are looking
to create professional lives from themselves rather than looking to
you know, start a family and whatnot. So there's that
(12:25):
that's that's kind of like a nationwide phenomena. If you
look at our institutions themselves, I think one of the
other things you notice is this is this is an
observation I picked up from my father in law, is
the way that institutions really can gravitate towards being sort
(12:47):
of female friendly. It's really easy as an instructor to
to gravitate towards preferring the way, the feminine way of
inner acting with authority, the classroom structure and all of that,
because uh, and I'm obviously speaking in the broadest, you know,
(13:09):
a broad pining with broad strokes here, but in general,
my it's easy to have your star students being those
girls who sit at the front and who who write
down every word is not going to be on the test.
When you go and you you give them the exam question,
they repeat back to you. They've studied very carefully everything
(13:31):
you've said, and they repeat it all back to you,
because they are they are made to please, they're made
to to try to give you what you want, and
they and it's very easy for a classroom to become
sort of female coded, and for an institution to become
very female coded, where that's the thing that is prized.
I remember. But but that's not how a school has
(13:53):
to be. That's not how a college has to be.
I remember this one moment when I was at Oxford
doing my my men master's degree, had this master's in
Jewish Studies, and we were moving, we were getting close
to the finals for the whole program, and in Oxford
it's you do all of your finals at the end
of your degree. So no matter when you took the course,
(14:14):
no matter when in the program you took the course,
your final is not until that last month of the
whole program. Wow, you might have taken that class two
years ago fall semester, but you're you have to have
it all still here and you have to be ready
for this final. And the Oxford Finals are this very
distinctive kind of quality to them. And so as we
were getting ready for it, that program brought somebody in
(14:36):
to talk to us about how to prepare for an
Oxford final and how to.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
Do this really well.
Speaker 4 (14:41):
And it was this lady who was explaining all this
to us. And most of the finals, you'll go in
to this big room. There'll be one hundred students or
something from all different classes, and they'll just hand you
one essay question and you know your little blue book
and you've got a right for two or three hours.
You know your answer to this question and your.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
Essays.
Speaker 4 (15:04):
These things will be graded double or triple blind, meaning
your name is not on it, it's just a number.
So and it's sent to two or three different instructors
who all grade it and have to.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
Agree on the final grade.
Speaker 4 (15:17):
So there's a level of objectivity to it. You can't
just pick your favorite student or whatever. You have to
really examine the essay and multiple people have to agree
on that grade. And they were explaining that they were
getting us ready for this final and this lady was
explaining to us how years ago they were having a
problem because they kept noticing that Oxford disproportionately was grading
(15:41):
men higher than women and they couldn't figure out why
was that happening because everything was graded double and triple blind,
and so how are the instructors knowing how are the
graders knowing this is a man or a woman? And
so they had this whole study to try to figure out, like,
you know, what this gender inequity. And what they realized
is that basically Oxford and Cambridge were these flagship institutions
(16:04):
of British culture, you know, is founded in the thirteenth century,
and over that time certain standards have become deeply ingrained
about how they how they graded, how they interacted with people,
and one of them was, you know, as Oxford and Cabridge,
they're graduating the young men who are going to fill
the British diplomatic core. You know, like in the nineteenth century,
(16:28):
you graduate from Oxford, one day you could be leading
troops in India or an ambassador to you know, some
foreign country in a moment. And what they started, what
they were really doing, was they were trying to create
decisive people. And so their essays, they disproportionately preferred an
essay that said something like, you know, here's the question,
(16:52):
here's the answer, and here's why I'm right. And that
tended to be how men would engage with an essay question,
whereas their female students tended to say, here's the question.
There are multiple perspectives, and we can see how from
each of these we can learn something, you know, but
it's it sort of reads the room, and it's really
(17:13):
attentive to detail, which can be I think, a real
female gift. But it doesn't have that sort of brash,
assertive and this is my position and this is why
I'm right, and the greaters preferred that kind of masculine
answer because that's how these institutions had operated for almost
a thousand years. I say all that to say it's
(17:35):
not necessary that a classroom, a college classroom, be like that.
It's that a college classroom be female coded. I think
it's possible to actually have an education that's very masculine coded.
I still remember one of my favorite moments in Oxford
was I was taking this one Hebrew class and I'm
with It's a small class, five or six students. The
(17:57):
instructor is the Regius Professor of he meaning his his
his chair had been appointed by Henry the eighth, you know,
in the sixteenth century.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
He's He's in the world of Hebrew scholarship. This is
is like the top, you know, he's the pinnacle.
Speaker 4 (18:11):
And I'm sitting in his class and I think we
were reading Psalm twenty three and he said something about
how you know the valley of the shadow of death.
He took issue with that as a translation, and he
makes his argument, and I'm sitting there and I just
and I was like yeah, but and I pushed back.
I was like, I don't think so, because and I
(18:31):
started to make my argument and then suddenly I look
and I realize who I'm talking to, and it was like,
oh shoot, and and I just like I just clammed
up because I was like that I don't want to
be disrespectful.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
I'm not going to push against something like that.
Speaker 4 (18:47):
And I just still remember him looking at me with
like big eyes and the biggest smile on his face
and him going like this, and he was just saying,
come come at me, you know, come on, come on.
And it wasn't he wasn't like he wasn't trying to
challenge me or something like that. It was more just
like he just delighted in a student who would who
(19:11):
would push against him and have an argument. And and
and when you are a confident scholar, you delight in
the students who bring a challenge to you. And so
you can have a classroom that that that actually favors
that kind of masculine presence, but it takes a very
(19:33):
careful cultivation on behalf of the faculty, Whereas if you
don't do that, what you start to get is a
faculty who would just promote this this whoever gives them
the answer that makes them feel good as instructor.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
And then you.
Speaker 4 (19:50):
Start to get this very sort of female coded classroom,
which is i'd say, how most of our college campuses
are the It was a long answer.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
No, No, that was that was a great answer, because
what I appreciate you taking the time to kind of
walk us through that, because we didn't get here overnight,
right And again I said earlier, I've had doctor Rigney
on and I can't help, but hear your answer, And
here's some of that emoting. You know that doctor Rigney
talks about so very much with again, empathy not being
(20:23):
a bad thing on the surface, but it can be,
you know, it can become very very unhelpful, very toxic,
because he says in a hurry. And so the difference
between and again, I've got two daughters and I have
a son, and can I parent them the same? I
suppose I could, but I would I would be doing
(20:43):
harm to either my two daughters by trying to expect
them to be masculine like my son, or to my
son expecting him to be feminine like my daughters. So
there's either going to be this kind of innbred emotive
nature that most women have again broad brushstrokes, as you said, yeah,
this kind of natural gravitas that men have. And yes,
(21:05):
at eighteen you don't have a ton of it, but
but you're starting to learn to have it, and and
so and and my experience has also been what you
just shared and That's not just true in the classroom.
It's true any of the best leaders at companies, at
churches and colleges, in nations, you know, presidents or kings.
A confident leader is not afraid of someone who is
(21:29):
exhibiting their own gifts because they want to pull those
gifts out of you. They're saying, hey, you only make
all of us better by, you know, strengthening the whole unit.
The weakest leaders I've ever known are are the folks
that that cannot abide being questioned and and they're constantly,
(21:51):
you know, pushing back on anyone that would that would
give them, you know, any flack. And that's that's a
terrible place to be. So so it's it's encouraging to
know that there are still some places in higher education,
or at least there were back in your time of
taking your masters, where where there were men that said,
I'm not intimidated by you, young man. If anything, I
(22:13):
want to hear how you're processing the information. And I think, again,
I'm on pastoral staff at a PCA church. I think
the same thing with our people. You know, at least
I know you're engaging with the Bible. You know, even
if you're wrong. Even if I disagree, I would rather
you engage with scripture than just let me spoon feed you.
(22:35):
You know that's that's not helpful for me, and it's
not helpful for you so well.
Speaker 4 (22:40):
And one of the things you just said is you
said something about it makes it better for everyone when
you can structure insitution like that. And I think that
that's an important point because it's not about saying, Okay,
we want we want all male students. We don't want
female students. We want we want female students as well
as male. I want my I wanted my daughters all
day have an NSA education, and they I've all all
(23:03):
three of my daughter's got bas at NSA and I
want that for them. But one of the things I
noticed is when that that that male coded space versus
that female coded space. Women thrive inside of a male
coded space. When when you when you have men being men,
women thrive inside of that. When you have a female
(23:25):
coded space, men don't thrive in that. They wither inside
of that, and ultimately the women start to wither as well.
It's it's this is just what is what makes a
society healthy. One of the really interesting demographic studies or
whatever bits of data that we've pulled out of NSA
is just noticing when we've had a class where where
(23:49):
the majority, more than fifty percent of the class was female.
When we had that, our our male degree degree completion
rate in that class, basically, the percentage of guys that
finished with their bachelor's degree dropped. If you had if
you had a female prominent, you know, dominant class, the
(24:14):
male completion dropped. When you have a male majority. That's
when the male completion rate stays solid and the female
stays solid. It's it's funny if if it's if it's
masculine dominant, the men can last, they can't last. When
(24:35):
it's female dominant. When it's female dominant, the men can't last.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
The women do.
Speaker 4 (24:40):
And that's the funny thing is that the female degree
completion rate stayed the same in either, but the male
fluctuated dramatically based on like what is the what is
the prominent vibe of this classroom? And so I think
that it's just it's a healthier place for everyone when
you can cultivate that kind of culture.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
Well, which gets back to that initial statistic of if
all universities in colleges are roughly sixty percent female. That's median, right,
you know, So that means there are some universities where
it's probably seventy seventy five.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
You know.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
And then what you're talking about that you've seen from
real data, real numbers from your school, that's going to
come into play in a very significant way, you know,
and not just in so much as graduation and things
like that, but the degree programs that they're going to
cater to, the tenured professors and teachers they're going to
(25:31):
bring in. You know, the the dei quotients are going
to increase, I mean, and I think that's again, I
think the data would bear that out. The dei quotions
are going to increase as those numbers kind of go up.
But you know, to your credit, and I say, you're
(25:51):
as the president of an I say, I'm kind of
letting you be federal head for your school, which, let's
be honest, in many ways, you are to your credit.
N Essay has produced some uniquely masculine and somewhat targeted
commercials over the last couple of years, and they feel
more like ads from like the Army from say to
nineteen nineties, you know, where it was the be all
(26:12):
you can be generation. And I'm pushing fifty years old.
So those are the Army ads that I graduated high
school ninety six, So those are the Army ads I
knew where it was like all these really cool guys
dressed in you know, all the army gear and it
was night time and they had, you know, all the
kit that they.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
Would use, and it was like, I want to go
do that, right, you know?
Speaker 2 (26:32):
And so you guys have put out these these kind
of again not fully masculine there. It's not like there's
no females in these ads, but they are somewhat produced
towards a masculine, more masculine audience. And I've got to
say that they've been something I've enjoyed watching them. I've
I've I've always when you guys have a new commercial
(26:53):
com out, I'm kind of like, oh, I got to
see what this one's gonna gonna be. Of course, the
Johnny Cash one started a little bit of a kerfuffle,
but you know it that again on PCA we just
had our general assembly there, there was a kerfuffle there,
you know, So so I mean it's it is what
(27:13):
it is. We we always you can't stay completely safe.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
All the time. How boring would that be?
Speaker 2 (27:19):
So I got to ask, kind of whose brainchild you know,
or who was the brain child behind some of some
of these really exciting ads, because they've they've had to
have moved the needle in some ways, I would think, yeah.
Speaker 4 (27:35):
So yeah, So the I would say about ninety eight
percent of the credit goes to my brother in law,
Nate Wilson, who's an author. He is a part on
the faculty for our MFA program here. He's an NSA
grad himself and is a prominent and prolific writer, producer
and whatnot. So we have a contract with his company
(27:58):
for some of our ads, some of them, some of
them are some of them are from completely in house,
our own marketing team. But probably the ones that have
gotten the bulk of the tension really come out in
Nate's pen. Although probably the first one that really kick
things off actually goes back to Gay Brench from Cross Politic. Yeah,
(28:18):
remember the old bathroom ad that was that was his
original brain tatitle that was massaged down.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
Down the road. But that would that would be a
gay wrench one.
Speaker 4 (28:28):
So yeah, and and then so they'll propose something, and
then I'll green light.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
I'll give a little bit of feedback and say let's
do this, let's not do that.
Speaker 4 (28:38):
So just yeah, just to be clear, there are breaks.
There are many things I've said no, we're not.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
Going to do that. We do, We're not always.
Speaker 4 (28:45):
It's it's not like I think people feel like most
of the marketing at NSA comes out of like a
two am, you know, video session where everybody had way
too much mountain dew or something like that. It's actually
a very sober and deliberate process where we you know,
we'll think tank it well, all sudden some suggestions, he'll
(29:07):
come up with something, We'll go back and forth for
usually like up to about a month of us going
back and forth. I'll I'll shoot it to other people,
get everybody else's take on it, and then finally all
do give the thumbs up green light. So so if
if there's any you you mentioned, I'm I'm the the
federal head there. So if then and it's true, so
(29:28):
if there's any like blame, uh, that's on me.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
I'm I'm the one that made the call on all
of them.
Speaker 4 (29:35):
And uh, but but the original sources is a few
of those guys, but mostly meat.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
Ye.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Again, that just proves your your solid leadership because I've
said for years that another great quality of a good
leader is sure they're willing to take credit when it's deserved,
but they're also willing to take blame if and when needed.
And and so I'm not saying there is any blame
that's needed, but but the fact that you, you know, imediately
kind of spoke them and said, hey, if there is,
(30:01):
it's it's me, you know. So you know, but what
I will say to your credit, you know, and again
I use you as again figurehead, is that most of
those commercials have tried to speak to something going on
in our cultural moment, you know, that what's happening in
the cultural zeitgeist, and and you guys are trying to say, look,
(30:23):
it doesn't have to be this way, you know. And
one of the things in the pc and it's not
a pc A school, but it is a lot of
PCA pastors come from Greenville Seminary. Greenville Seminary is is
got a very similar kind of vibe. They have one degree.
You know, if you go to Greenville Seminary, it's because
you're going to get an MDiv. It's a four year
(30:45):
MDV and their motto is we train pastors. That's it,
you know. And and there's something very refreshing about whether
it's a church, a person, a school you know, that
knows who they are and doesn't make apologies for it
and just kind of says, look, we're not trying. We
(31:05):
understand this is gonna limit to some degree. How many
people will you know ever come here? You know, but
we're not making the tent any bigger than this. The
tent's plenty big because you know, we've counted the cost.
Like you said, was this was all done intentionally. We
(31:26):
want people that this speaks to, you know. So so
Greenville has said we're not taking women because well women
shouldn't be getting himdivs because women can't be pastors. So
you know, I mean, and does that irritate some people?
And beyond irritate, does it just downright tiss some people off? Well, yeah,
(31:46):
yes it does.
Speaker 4 (31:48):
I got to spend a couple of days out at
Greenville this past year. I have very high regard for
what they're doing and for their leadership. I think it's
it's everything you're saying there is very apt and true.
I'm very I'm very supportive of what they're doing. And
I think that you're reminding me of the old I
think there was an old like Saturday Night Live commercial
(32:08):
about it was you know, it was something like it
was a commercial for this little product. It was it's
a floor wax and it's an ice cream topping.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
You know. Uh, and it you could do so many
things with it.
Speaker 4 (32:21):
And what you discover is it does nothing well what
it does is it? It just it. It blunts all
the edges. It it takes all everything less sharp, it
makes everything dull. And so a lot of times I
noticed this just I think a lot about how do
you keep an institution on on track and how do
(32:41):
you keep an institution on its mission?
Speaker 3 (32:43):
And what you'll find is.
Speaker 4 (32:44):
A lot of the the proposals too that will ultimately
undermine your mission. They're not proposals that say we shouldn't
do that, we should do this.
Speaker 3 (32:55):
They don't usually say that.
Speaker 4 (32:56):
They'll say saping like, yeah, you can do that, but
wouldn't it also be okay to do this? And then
and then they start just bringing in you know, and
I think that's how egalitarianism has come in, where you
try to you try to draw this line. I mean,
I I appreciate the complimentarian impulse, and I think it
(33:20):
roughly stated. Just if you just roughly stayed the complimentarian position,
I think I fully agree with it. But what you
discovered was right away people say, well, that's true, but
can't we also do this? And then couldn't we also
have a master's degree for women in counseling who aren't
necessarily pastors, but who are. And then you start like, like,
I guess, I guess that's possible. So you allow that,
(33:43):
and then you allow this, and what you discover is
thirty years later, you have lost your mission without ever
having a direct conflict over the mission. You just slowly
got told I have to also worry about this, and
I have to also worry about this, And I just
think it's it's okay to be aggressively ambitious for your
(34:05):
mission and to say no to everything else. And you
do have to do that if you want to stay
on track. You have to do that just day in,
day out. You have to stay aggressively on your mission.
It's I find so many times people come in with
great ideas. That's a great idea, somebody could do that.
I'm not going to because I'm I'm doing this over here.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
Yeah. We one of the things I appreciate about the PCA,
and we have our problems. Lord knows, we are simple Refermanda.
You know, we need to continue reforming. I'm grateful that
for the last three four five years we have been
shifting back right word, you know. We we we have
rooted out not all, but a lot of the revoice stuff,
a lot of the side b stuff. You know, we're
(34:47):
attempting to root out the rest of it. We've tried
to address again an egalitarian drift that was, well we
can have deaconses. No, no, you can't have deacon asses,
you know. So I appreciate that that, even within my
owns a nation, we are attempting to be very aware
that the Overton window, just by nature, because we're sinners,
(35:10):
because we're east of Eden, the Overton window always shifts left.
You know, it's there's always mission drift, and if you're
not careful and conscientious and really intentional, you just drift.
I mean it's like again being out at sea and
you kind of fall asleep. You wake up and you're like,
where in the world have I you know. I mean,
you have no idea where you're at, and so we
(35:32):
have to be sober minded. And again, of course scripture
speaks to this, you know, be on guard, be sober minded.
The devil is a roaring lion.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
You know.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
I mean, he's not taking naps. So it's it's very
important that again, whether higher education like what you do,
or within the church, which of course you also do
and I do professionally. Even on something like this, this
channel that I run, I have to kind of know
this is this is what I do, you know. I
mean my channel is called Civically. I talk about civics
(36:01):
and the ecclesia, which of course you and I know
is the church and the family and kind of yeah,
I get into a lot of cultural stuff and political stuff.
But I don't do like movie reviews, you know, And
I don't do you know. I went to culinary school
when I was a much younger man. But I'm not
doing videos on you know, how to make the best salsa,
(36:22):
you know. I mean that's not what I do. I
do what I do, and I have to be very
intentional about that, and that means sometimes I talk about
things that people don't like that's okay, you know, I mean,
because I have to count the cost of what it
is I'm trying trying to do what I'm trying to build,
and so I appreciate that whenever I see that in
an institution. And again I've watched from Afar and really
(36:46):
been encouraged and impressed by the way that NSA has
went after a definition of who they're going to be.
And these are the kind of students that we want
to come here and become. Kind of know, to borrow
one from your father in law, which, by the way,
if you're watching and you don't know who his father
in law is, who is your father in law?
Speaker 4 (37:06):
My father in law is Doug Wilson. So I buried
his oldest daughter, Beca.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
So your father in law says, you know, uh talks
a lot about slaying dragons and and and takes that,
of course from a lot of historical both Christian and
non Christian literature, but Christian literature especially, and uh and
and says, look, God raises up dragon slayers in every generation,
you know. So, so you have been very intentional about
pursuing young people that want to come and learn how
(37:35):
to slay dragons in their own world, and I give
you immense credit for that. I think that's a good thing.
So to that end, where do you see, not say,
of course, where do you see NSA, but not just
inn essay, where do you see, say, the future of
Christian higher education considering the struggles with woke ideology, DEI
critical theory, all of those things, as well as like
(37:57):
the anti semitism that we've been seeing university campuses, and
you know, some have become almost hotbeds for anti semitism lately.
Where do you see Christian universities, colleges, grad schools, including
but not limited to nsay, where do you see us
as Christians being able to kind of pick up the
pieces from some of these secular universities that have dropped
(38:21):
the ball. And how do we differentiate ourselves enough to
maintain our own distinctives and and keep as you said,
focused on mission.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
Yeah, that's a that's a big question.
Speaker 4 (38:33):
So I think part of it, well, there's a difference
between me predicting what will happen versus me prescribing what
should happen.
Speaker 3 (38:42):
So i'll, i'll, I can, I can tell you what
I think should happen.
Speaker 4 (38:46):
Whether God is kind, and blesses us with this kind
of reformation at this time is another question. We wait
to see what he's going to do. But I would say,
you know, what really has to happen is we have
to wake up and see and understand how bad and
how compromised things have become. And my concern is that
(39:09):
we are in our work to reform what is going
on in America and conservatism in the Christian world, in
Christian hi red, and our work to conform to reform
all of that, we are satisfied with far, far, far
too little, the slightest little correction. Everybody acts as if
(39:31):
the whole thing has been fixed. I noticed this with
with just I noticed, okay, I remember reading a Wall
Street Journal article in December or January this year, this
last year, and they were noting how gun sales in
America had plummeted immediately after the election, and they were
(39:54):
referring to it as the Trump slump, because basically, you
have conservative America, that's that's frantic and nervous, and so
they buy handguns, you know, and then Trump steps into
the White House and all that that nervousness just dissipated,
and the sales plummeted. I think that ministries that are
(40:14):
trying to radically reform our institutions, like our institutions of
higher education, are I what I'm concerned is that people,
We've got this big, huge task in front of us,
and then what happens is.
Speaker 3 (40:31):
Trump steps in and.
Speaker 4 (40:33):
Now all the DEI offices are being closed down, and
everybody's acting as if Higher ed has been fixed. It
has not even remotely been fixed. And in fact, even
that DEI office that was closed and everybody's oh so
excited because we've removed this thing that was toxic. Those
people weren't fired. They one office was closed. Those people
(40:55):
were just moved into different departments, and they're still doing
all the same things. These colleges are exactly the same.
And I see our even Christian colleges that have been
failing for decades now aping or mimicking certain kind of
conservative talking points and everybody thinking that these institutions have
been fixed and flocking back to them when no, it,
(41:18):
all the rot is still there. And I think we
need to get a lot more bold and a lot
more aggressive and a lot more realistic about how bad
things are. So I think that the thing that I
would love to see is first of all, for Christian
institutions to drop all of the secular arguments for college,
and we need to make a distinctively Christian argument for
(41:40):
why you ought to come to a Christian college, which is,
we are completing your Christian formation and we are setting
you up for a lifetime of faithfulness to serve Christ.
And there is a Christian cultural identity that four years
at a robust Christian institution so deeply on you that
(42:01):
it will massively change your life. It will change your family,
it will change your church, it will change every vocation
that you have from here on. And I've seen it
happening time and time again with NSA grads, where these
four years so completely imprinted on them an instinct and
an impulse and a love for a certain way of
living and serving God and wanting to make all of
(42:23):
life serve Him, that they have a massive impact on
their culture around them. And I just don't think we
have enough Christian institutions who get that.
Speaker 3 (42:32):
Or who are are are.
Speaker 4 (42:34):
Authentically committed to that kind of mission. So we need, honestly,
I think we need a lot of We need to
see a lot of our colleges fail and close down.
It really is as bad as that. We need to
see a lot of them fail and close down. And
I think we need to see a lot more robust
accountability required for these colleges for what they're actually doing.
(42:55):
So if you have an institution that last year had
a GLBTQ whatever office and was promoting all of these
different things, and then this year they can just smell
which way the wind is blowing, and so they're sort
of quietly closing those things down. But you haven't changed
the leadership. You haven't changed anything there there. It's still
(43:16):
that same milk toast education and we need to just
purge all that out and have like, really truly robust leadership.
Speaker 3 (43:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
Now I couldn't agree more. I I often tell our
people at my local particular church that I serve at,
but also my friends within. You say the PCA, And
I keep going back to that because again I'll speak
to my own You know, I've got I grew up
in the SBC, so I've still got family and friends
in the SBC, and I speak to them too from
time to time. But I serve and I'm ordained in
(43:48):
the PCA. So I say to my friends within my
own denomination, and certainly, like said at our particular church,
you know, pray what Joshua prayed. Lord, let the sun
stands still ill, you know, give us, give us more
time and the tenacity to chase down the enemy and
really win the day, you know, not just take these
(44:11):
small w victories and kind of go hey, all right,
you know, because I mean, while I was at GA
and and celebrating some of the victories that I was
happy to see while I was there. This year, by
and large, I think we had a good a good
General Assembly. By and large, I think it was far
less contentious than the last few. You know, New York
(44:32):
City elected, I mean, and it's presumptive, but it's no
Republicans going to beat him because it's New York City.
So New York City elected a socialist Shia Muslim as
their next mayor. I mean, so so, you guys, it
ain't fixed. There's real problems, you know. And and and
this is I am seeing a nation that is dividing
(44:53):
almost geographically, you know, to where there are states and
municipalities that are very Christian and Christian, and there are
states and municipalities that are very liberal and just as
committed to that worldview as you and I are to
the worldview of Christ being king. And that's a little scary,
you know, as far as when you say that we
(45:15):
are a nation that is one nation under God, indivisible,
well that's not very indivisible. That that is a lot
of division, actually, And so I want to see Christians
who really do, as so often has said these days,
know what time it is, and not mistake a small
victory for something that you know needs to be chased
(45:39):
down much further. And I say to that. Your father
in law recently had Stephen Wolf on an episode of
Man Rampant, and I sat and listened to the whole
two hour episode. I thought it was very helpful, especially
because there had been some back and forth and they
had both kind of been on opposing sides of what
you know, Christian nationalism is or should be. And I
(46:02):
found it exceedingly helpful to see men that don't agree
on everything fit down and say, okay, I see this
from the top down, Okay, I see this from the
ground up, and then both kind of go. I can
live with that, you know, because because we meet in
the middle, right, I mean, if the grassroots guys are
working from the ground up and the top down. Guys
(46:22):
are working from the top down. Then God willing, we
meet in the middle and America becomes a much more
healthy Christian reformed place than it's been in my lifetime. Yeah,
you know, to go back to Aaron Wren's idea of
positive world, you know, neutral world, negative world. I mean,
right now, neutral worlds looking great, But of course I
want positive world. I want true Christian reformation.
Speaker 4 (46:47):
I agree, and I think that there's there is a
well this is this is just another way of describing
how we need to cultivate masculinity, because I think truly
mature masculine men and know how to know how to
keep everything in the right perspective in proportion. Where where
(47:10):
I can you know, I can argue with somebody like
where like if you're a reform brother and we disagree
on something, I can I can have that. I can
have that pointed, perhaps even heated, you know, argument as
we as we aggressively address something. But I need to
(47:30):
also keep really clear on what my boundaries of fellowship
are that actually this guy who he and I disagree
over this one little thing are closer to one another
than we are to almost anybody else in Christendom. And
if I have to pick anywhere, you know, if I'm
in his town and I need worship on Sunday morning,
I'm at his church because that's the one I'm actually
(47:50):
closest to. I think of my my It's funny over
the last couple of years, as my kids end up,
you know, graduating from college and moving out and going
to different places and seeing them them and their cousins,
you know, attending churches faithfully of pastors that I think
(48:13):
if you were watching public kerfluffles, you would think, oh,
you know, they would never darken the door of that.
But like, no, you're actually my closest brother. And when
we have this conflict, that's why, because because we want
to respect the integrity of this position that we hold,
and we want to have this out, but we need
to not be that kind of divisive as a result
(48:35):
of it.
Speaker 2 (48:36):
Now, thank you. That's incredibly incredibly not that's helpful. It's
encouraging to hear. Because again the Katie Katie Why or
Kevin de Young for those who may not know who
kat Why is Kevin de Young who was our moderator
this year, of course, and who what twelve eighteen months ago,
whatever it was, wrote the article on the Moscow mood,
(48:58):
you know, And but again I look at that exactly
the same terms that you're saying. You know, if we're
looking at a zero to one hundred scale, those of
us on the reformed side of the page are ninety
two to ninety three plus in agreement. You know, we
are disagreeing on such a relatively small amount of things.
(49:21):
Yet we have incredible amounts of grace for the Mormon,
incredible amounts of grace for the Muslim, incredible amounts of
grace for you know, this person or that person who
could be lost, you know, oftentimes are completely you know, pagan,
and yet we have in just nothing. But it seems
at times, and I don't think it really is, but
it does seem at times vitriol for one another. And
(49:44):
it's like the onlooking world kind of goes, wow, these
guys don't even get along, and it's like, well, then
we need to do better about not talking past one another.
Which is why I was so encouraged by that sit
down on man rampants. So recently, I was at the
American Reformer event and Steven was there. Just recently at
GA and a couple of other guys from other worlds.
(50:10):
William Wolfe was there, who's a friend of mine from
the SBC, who of course you know who William is.
And so that there was this room full of guys
of that bent, you know, kind of kind of a
very masculine, very robust, almost Christian or again what would
be historically referred to as Christian nationalistic bent. But I
(50:30):
had literally before I walked in the door at that event.
Went to the GRN banquet that was at the at
the Chattanooga Convention Center, which is the Gospel Reformation Network,
and the keynote speaker at the banquet this year was
Ligan Duncan. I think, and I don't think I'm crazy.
I don't think I'm some weird cock eyed optimist. I
(50:52):
think those two groups, while different, while very different, and
you could see that in the men who attended each
they have are more in common then they do even
their own PCA brethren that may have been in the
Assembly hall who would still espouse revoice. Yeah, you know, so,
so I go, guys, if you could ever trust one
(51:16):
another and not not always kind of have that that
cross eye, you know what, what's this guy going to
do next? Then I think the future for the reform
movement in America, whether you're talking to PCA or CREC
or or you know, Reform Baptist is only going to
grow because we are offering something that most the young
(51:40):
men in this nation are so thirsty and hungry for.
You know, this, this masculine alternative to feminized, woke weak church.
Speaker 3 (51:50):
You know.
Speaker 2 (51:51):
So, so the guys that are listening to Andrew Tate,
you know, or that are listening to Joe Rogan or
listening to guys like that, who just are begging for
someone to say say, not only is it okay to
be a man, you should celebrate it. It's great be
a man. God made you a man, you know, and
lean into what it means to be a man. Just
be a Christian man, be a decent man. The reformed
(52:15):
world has something to say to those men. So I
am very ambitious and hopeful and bullish about where we're
headed as a movement, whatever denomination espouses that. With our
time remaining, and I know we've only got a few,
maybe ten minutes left. I loved The White Horse King
(52:36):
so much. I thought that was one of the best
books I've read, honestly in a few years, and I
would be remiss if I had you on my show,
and one I didn't tell you that, and two I didn't.
Just for the fewer minutes we have remaining, discuss a
little bit about that book and kind of how maybe
(52:58):
studying historical exam of practical Christianity like King Alfred, and
he's one of many, you know. I've recently completed Defenders
of the West, and I had read Sword and Scimitar
prior to that, and I'm eagerly awaiting his forthcoming book
that I think is coming out in November, you know,
(53:20):
And all these wonderful Christian examples of practical men who
took Christianity seriously, and you may disagree with everything they did,
but they at least looked at the world around them
and said, I'm not okay with letting it slide. You know,
I'm going to be a man for God in challenging times,
(53:41):
and even if it cost me, I'm still going to
do it. So as we finish up here, how do
we study historical examples of those practical Christians and their
faithful application in the public square and then use that
to help us formulate ways to engage in shape culture,
certainly now, but also as we move into the future.
Speaker 3 (54:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (54:02):
Yeah, I remember my my wife's grandfather, so this would
be Doug's dad, Jim Wilson, who was an extremely gifted evangelists,
would always have He's always be surrounded by young Christians
because he was evangelist, so he was he was making
young Christians all over the place, and they would always ask,
you know, like, how can I mature in the faith
(54:25):
when I don't have people around to mentor me?
Speaker 3 (54:28):
How do I mature the faith?
Speaker 4 (54:29):
And his his answer was always read Christian biographies, and.
Speaker 3 (54:32):
That was he was notorious for.
Speaker 4 (54:36):
I'm not exaggerating when I described like whenever he left
the house he had his pocket stuff with Christian biographies
and you could I can remember where at pizza Hut
and the waitress, you know, he's so do you like
to read?
Speaker 3 (54:48):
And he's he's working.
Speaker 4 (54:51):
He was in the hospital for a bit and family
had to keep going down to him bringing boxes of
Christian biographies because of which.
Speaker 3 (54:57):
He's handing them out.
Speaker 4 (54:58):
Anyhow, I think reading Christian biography is just really helpful
because it gives you that that Hebrews, you know, great
Hall of Faith, that the the.
Speaker 3 (55:10):
Hall of witnesses and their testimonies. It brings that.
Speaker 4 (55:14):
Alive and helps you to see it lived out. So
I think it's just really healthy to be reading Christian biographies,
which I was. I had hoped the the Alfred the
Great and the White Horse King would be one good
example of it. And then just you know, as you
study their lives, think about what were the what were
the foundational principles and their assumptions about how the world
(55:35):
works that produce the kind of greatness in their life.
I mean, I think with Alfred, the thing that I
was really struck by was how much he accomplished as
a military leader, as a as a civic administrator, the
infrastructure that he built as an academic, and the literary
(55:58):
renaissance that he provoked. What was really interesting was how
at the foundation of all of it was just a
conviction about the Gospel, the Word of God, and the
necessity of studying it. And and it was really funny
how it odd.
Speaker 3 (56:14):
Peculiar, how he saw the Viking invasion that he had
to defend England from as the as the fruit of
England having not studied the Word of God, and that
he he believed we needed to return.
Speaker 4 (56:30):
To Scripture as a as a like policy of national defense.
Like if we're not, if we're not Christians who are
sincerely in the Word, then we're going to be invaded
by Pagans. And so we have to actually be serious
about about our.
Speaker 2 (56:45):
Faith, which means, boy, oh boy, what would he have
to say about the England of today that has been
overrun by Pagans.
Speaker 3 (56:55):
So I was.
Speaker 4 (56:57):
Living, we were living in England. I wrote that biography
while we were at Oxford, and I I had the
Muslim takeover in England in mind the whole time. When
I'm writing about Alfred and the Vikings, I'm looking at
England falling before the Muslims, because it was, it was
ever present, so a lot of how as I wrote that,
(57:20):
the immediate application to me was obviously this this Islam,
islamification of England that needs to be addressed.
Speaker 2 (57:29):
Yes, needs to be addressed. And and now it's coming
to New York City. So so it's yeah, you know,
lest we fall asleep at the wheel, it can happen here.
I mean we saw the Hindu God, you know, that
was immortalized there in Houston.
Speaker 3 (57:44):
What last year earlier this year.
Speaker 2 (57:45):
I mean that we are we're ripe for it, and
and so so, Men of God, if you're hearing this today,
rise up, ask God like Joshua for the sun to
stand still metaphorically of course, and and and and chase
down the enemy. And I know language like that makes
(58:05):
us uncomfortable in the modern era, but you know Christ
was not uncomfortable with such language. He said, you are
either for me or you are against me. And and
so it's it's we we only harken back to our
savior when we say that. You know, Christianity is an
exclusive of you know, there's an exclusivity about Christianity. It
is not a big tent that everyone gets to stand underneath.
(58:28):
So well, thank you to my guest, doctor Ben Merkle.
It exceeded every expectation. And I've been excited about this
interview for for a couple of weeks, So thank you
so much for doing it. I again celebrate your victories
there at NSA again, got got connections through our local presbytery.
And so tell the Oldhams that that we say hello
(58:49):
and we certainly love them and appreciate all that they
are doing.
Speaker 3 (58:51):
There, and that thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 2 (58:54):
Oh, it's been my pleasure. And for all of you
that watch and support what I do here at Civically Mind,
thank you as well. Be sure to like, subscribe and
share the content with someone else. Leave me a comment
below on how the ministry is blessed or challenged you.
I really do read every single one of them, and
so until next time, I'm your host, Corey Wing, and remember,
be brave, be bold, and be civically minded.
Speaker 1 (59:17):
God bless you did at my ride, and the Lord
to my Lord command for col eady that I will
make fucking leaf food stool for your shame.
Speaker 3 (59:38):
Lord,
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Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!