Point of View April 29, 2024 : The (Young) Men We Need

[00:00:00] Across America Live.

[00:00:06] This is point of view, the edition of Point of View and the last couple of days here of

[00:00:24] April and then on into May.

[00:00:27] I think you really will enjoy some of the conversation we're going to have this week

[00:00:30] here on Point of View, culminating on Friday where once again we'll have Kelly Shackleford

[00:00:35] and Pennedexter.

[00:00:36] As you might imagine, we're going to spend a fair amount of time in the first half

[00:00:40] of the hour talking about the protest on campus, but we will move on to some other issues because

[00:00:46] that is certainly not the only thing happening in the community and in the world.

[00:00:49] So we will cover some of that.

[00:00:51] Next hour we're going to have our good friend, Brant Hanson with us.

[00:00:54] He has a new book out called The Young Men We Need.

[00:00:58] You might remember we've done an interview with him before about The Men We Need.

[00:01:03] This one relates more to young men, has some of the same structure and material,

[00:01:08] but has much more focused on young people, especially young men because there's whole sections there

[00:01:13] about video games and pornography and a number of other things that are certainly very relevant

[00:01:18] to young men.

[00:01:19] And again, God's Purpose for Every Guy and How He Can Live It Out is the subtitle

[00:01:24] of the book so we will cover that next hour.

[00:01:27] But I guess it is time once again to talk about what is happening on the campus

[00:01:32] if for no other reason that right now has been the deadline.

[00:01:35] Two o'clock Eastern time was what was given to the protesters at Columbia University to clear out.

[00:01:43] There's no evidence they are going to clear out, so we'll see what is next.

[00:01:47] Is that an idle threat? Will the police move in?

[00:01:50] We may even have an answer for that before the end of this hour,

[00:01:53] but I certainly wanted you to be aware of that as well.

[00:01:57] Our good friend Jim Dennison put it this way, nearly 900 protesters have been arrested on US campuses

[00:02:05] in recent days. 275 of them were arrested on Saturday.

[00:02:10] There was a large event outside of the White House Correspondents Association Dinner.

[00:02:15] This is a gathering they bring together from people in the press and lots of jokes told

[00:02:21] and they protested outside of the Correspondents Dinner on Saturday night as well.

[00:02:27] Of course Columbia University has become, as he calls it, the epicenter of the movement

[00:02:32] due to its proximity to national media and also of course its status as an Ivy League institution.

[00:02:39] And a third reason is it is the home for a lot of Jewish students

[00:02:44] who have faced of course harassment and attacks and all the rest.

[00:02:48] To put some of this in perspective, let's recognize that one of the leaders

[00:02:53] is an individual who was banned but nevertheless posted,

[00:02:58] Zionists don't deserve to live.

[00:03:01] And of course he is an individual which I will say more about in just a minute

[00:03:07] because that relates to our first article about the return of mostly peaceful protests.

[00:03:13] But let me add just one or two other things that are part of the Jim Denison commentary today.

[00:03:19] By the way, that's his daily article and if you're not subscribed to it,

[00:03:22] I would highly recommend that you do so.

[00:03:24] He has a quote from Foreign Affairs.

[00:03:26] Now Foreign Affairs is written by the Intelligence and Defense Establishment.

[00:03:30] There are times when we find ourselves not necessarily in agreement with them.

[00:03:34] Is that fair to say? Of course it is.

[00:03:36] And yet there is an Israeli historian that is written in Foreign Affairs that put it this way.

[00:03:42] He said to Israelis, October 7th, 2023 is the worst day in their country's 75-year history.

[00:03:49] Never before have so many of them been massacred and taken hostage on a single day.

[00:03:54] Thousands of heavily armed Hamas fighters managed to break through Gaza Strip's fortified border

[00:04:00] and into Israel, ramaging unimpeded for hours, destroying several villages

[00:04:05] and committing gruesome acts of brutality before Israeli forces could regain control.

[00:04:10] This is from a historian from Israel and it has been repeated time and time again

[00:04:16] by other people that have been over there or in the case of people that are actually over there right now.

[00:04:24] Certainly, that is what they have found.

[00:04:27] It is interesting too that since a lot of this has to do with Jewish students and anti-Jewish ideas,

[00:04:35] there is what is called the World Holocaust Remembrance Center.

[00:04:40] And the chairman of the World Holocaust Remembrance Center has written an open letter

[00:04:47] to the president of Columbia University.

[00:04:50] We talked about her on Friday and I talked about it yesterday in my Sunday school class.

[00:04:55] And he called for the president of Columbia to take a stand as he says,

[00:05:01] Thousands of Columbia faculty, staff and students call for the elimination of the state of Israel

[00:05:07] and the abolition of Zionism.

[00:05:09] A little bit later he says,

[00:05:11] A political stand, I want a moral stand where it becomes crystal clear that abolishing the existence

[00:05:17] of the Jewish state is a prevalent ideology in Columbia

[00:05:22] and the president of the institution cannot remain silent.

[00:05:27] What I think is so interesting is to make his point, he quotes two individuals,

[00:05:32] actually one document and an individual.

[00:05:35] The document is the Talmud, but the writer in the Talmud says that silence is admission.

[00:05:42] And so by not speaking out, that is his argument, admission.

[00:05:47] But then he quotes of course Martin Luther King Jr.

[00:05:50] We'll be talking about Martin Luther King Jr. on Wednesday,

[00:05:53] especially when we are talking about some issues about race relations in the country.

[00:05:58] Brandon Washington will be with us then.

[00:06:01] But Martin Luther King Jr. said,

[00:06:03] Silence inevitably will be interpreted as tolerance or even consent.

[00:06:08] Martin Luther King Jr. went on to in that famous quote say that,

[00:06:12] The hottest place in hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict.

[00:06:19] And then of course you have some other quotes from the individual as well,

[00:06:23] people like Elie Wiesel and a variety of others.

[00:06:26] But nevertheless, this is sort of what's going on, if you will, in the background.

[00:06:31] So I wanted you to know about that even though we haven't posted that.

[00:06:36] But the first article we have posted is by Beckett Adams,

[00:06:40] A Return of Mostly Peaceful.

[00:06:43] And if you don't get the context, well, you weren't around four years ago

[00:06:47] because what we saw oftentimes is when we were having full scale riots burning down buildings,

[00:06:54] you had people standing in front of cameras saying,

[00:06:57] Well these are mostly peaceful protests.

[00:07:00] And we're starting to see this again.

[00:07:03] It has a picture here of a fire at New York University and pro-Palestinian students,

[00:07:08] in which he says the American news media are here again once again to tell you

[00:07:13] that you aren't hearing what you're hearing and you aren't seeing what you're seeing.

[00:07:17] Sure, you may see a bunch of pro-Hamas activists on American campuses

[00:07:21] wearing kifflas and frothing them out for a worldwide antifa, and to fight, excuse me.

[00:07:28] And sure, the demonstrations enjoy endorsements from Hamas and the supreme leader of Iran.

[00:07:36] But be assured that these various pogroms, which we talked about on Friday,

[00:07:42] are largely or mostly peaceful according to some people in the media.

[00:07:48] So when I come back, I want to, if nothing else, go through this because

[00:07:52] when we are in the midst of any kind of conflict,

[00:07:56] we would expect that the media would tell the truth.

[00:08:00] And if you made that expect comment, you would be disappointed many times.

[00:08:05] And we certainly saw that four years ago and I'm sure we're going to see this again.

[00:08:10] And so we're going to give you examples so that rather than just waving our hands saying,

[00:08:15] you know, have some discernment, we're going to give you examples from the New York Times

[00:08:19] and from the Washington Post and a variety of other sources as well as some like CBS News

[00:08:25] and a variety of others where these have been attempts to say,

[00:08:29] this is just a bunch of kids getting together expressing their concern

[00:08:33] about what's happening in Israel and Gaza.

[00:08:37] And I think you're going to find out very quickly that, nope, there's a lot more there.

[00:08:41] That's why we need, as always, to exercise discernment.

[00:08:45] Let's take a break. We'll continue that conversation right after this.

[00:08:58] This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson.

[00:09:23] Many Christian parents do not have a biblical worldview as determined by the decades of surveys

[00:09:28] conducted by George Barna. As he reminded us on the radio program,

[00:09:32] it is difficult to pass on what you don't have.

[00:09:34] The obvious first step is for parents to make sure they have a biblical worldview.

[00:09:38] His first few chapters describe the importance of children and the need for parents to disciple them.

[00:09:44] The second section details what it takes to make a disciple

[00:09:47] and lays out four practices that characterize genuine disciples of Jesus.

[00:09:51] In the final section is a warning about how media and church-based ministries are affecting our children.

[00:09:56] We cannot delegate disciple making to the church for two reasons.

[00:10:00] First, it is the parents' responsibility to disciple a child.

[00:10:04] Second, pastors may not be equipped to teach a biblical worldview.

[00:10:08] We talked about his latest research showing that many pastors,

[00:10:11] and especially youth pastors, do not have a biblical worldview.

[00:10:14] It appears that most of what our children will be as adults is essentially determined by age 13.

[00:10:20] Their core beliefs, morals, values and desires have become established by that time,

[00:10:25] though we can always have an influence on our children.

[00:10:28] His book is a reminder that we need to be intentional in the teaching and modeling

[00:10:32] that parents and grandparents provide. We need to be raising spiritual champions,

[00:10:36] and we need to begin today.

[00:10:39] I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my point of view.

[00:10:43] Go deeper on topics like you just heard by visiting pointofview.net.

[00:10:53] That's pointofview.net.

[00:10:56] You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth.

[00:11:03] Once again, if you want to understand what's going on in campus,

[00:11:05] I hope you'll stay tuned each day where we try to bring you a little bit more news and information.

[00:11:10] Certainly some of the things we posted on Friday during our weekend edition

[00:11:14] are still available on our website, pointofview.net.

[00:11:17] But I might recommend a couple of articles we've posted today, this one by Beckett Adams

[00:11:22] and another one in which Matt Vespa quotes from Bill Maher.

[00:11:26] I took the time to watch Bill Maher, and I'm just amazed how many times Bill Maher says

[00:11:31] the kinds of things we talk about here on Point of View.

[00:11:34] I don't play any of his clips because he uses a lot of words that I know we would not appreciate.

[00:11:40] But nevertheless, the structure of his argument is one that we would agree with.

[00:11:45] And I'm also going to talk about how in many cases people tried to shut down some really good common sense

[00:11:51] being articulated by Jonah Goldberg.

[00:11:54] We live around here, we like Jonah Goldberg, don't we?

[00:11:56] Steve will probably shake his head on that one.

[00:11:58] And yet that's what's happening right now.

[00:12:01] People trying to insert a little bit of common sense into the midst of what's happening.

[00:12:07] Certainly you're getting shut down occasionally.

[00:12:10] But let's go back to this article because Beckett Adams gives you all the quotes.

[00:12:15] As they say these days, he brings the receipts, and here are the receipts.

[00:12:19] Washington Post, all sorts of rallies taking place,

[00:12:23] and they were merely characterized as anti-war demonstrations.

[00:12:27] Matter of fact, New York Times said,

[00:12:29] At Columbia, the protest continued with dancing and pizza.

[00:12:33] Well that sounds like a pretty good time.

[00:12:34] Why would I be upset about that?

[00:12:37] To give you the fuller quote from the New York Times,

[00:12:39] At a moment when some campuses are aflame with student activism over the Palestinian cause,

[00:12:45] at least they use the word aflame,

[00:12:47] that a kind that has disrupted awards ceremonies, student dinners and classes,

[00:12:51] college administrators are dealing with the questions that Columbia considered this week.

[00:12:56] Will more stringent tactics quell protest or fuel them?

[00:13:00] The report goes on to cite academic freedom experts,

[00:13:03] and Beckett Adams says,

[00:13:05] Now that's kind of a fun business card.

[00:13:07] I'm an academic freedom expert who believe it sets a dangerous precedent

[00:13:11] for Columbia University administrators to break up a pro-Hamas encampment

[00:13:15] that cropped up this month on campus.

[00:13:17] You might remember 103 were actually arrested in that event,

[00:13:21] and then they sent the trespassing students packing.

[00:13:24] But not in a million years, Beckett Adams says,

[00:13:27] With the Times or even the Washington Post,

[00:13:31] or experts question the wisdom of Columbia or Harvard

[00:13:35] in deciding to forcibly remove say a pro-Kuklux Klan rally,

[00:13:40] one replete with slogans cheering for the murder of Jews, Catholics and Blacks from university grounds.

[00:13:46] And I think this is one way to help you think through this issue.

[00:13:50] Change the name, change the group.

[00:13:54] For example, just the other day, and we talked about this on Friday,

[00:13:58] Joseph Massad, who is one of the professors at Columbia has tenure.

[00:14:03] He is somebody that Alan Dershowitz really opposed getting tenure.

[00:14:07] But nevertheless, Massad was the one that after the October 7th Hamas attack

[00:14:15] said that that was awesome and intuitive and inventive.

[00:14:20] And the question was asked of the president of Columbia University in a meeting

[00:14:28] in a particular hearing in the House of Representatives, what the president had done.

[00:14:33] Have you removed him from teaching classes?

[00:14:35] Have you removed him from his chairmanship?

[00:14:38] No, she said we've talked to him.

[00:14:40] Well, first of all, he later said nobody's talked to him.

[00:14:44] So I'm not even sure he was talked to.

[00:14:46] But just imagine instead if Joseph Massad had said,

[00:14:52] I think it is a great thing that this white police officer killed this Black student

[00:14:57] because it just gets rid of one more Black person in America or something like that.

[00:15:02] Would then he only be talked to?

[00:15:05] Of course not.

[00:15:06] So whenever you hear people talking about anti-Semitism,

[00:15:10] talk about anti-Black, anti-homosexual, something like that,

[00:15:14] and you know what the university would do if somebody did something like this.

[00:15:18] And so there is almost a tacit assumption that you can say just about anything you want

[00:15:24] about Jewish students or about Israel or about Zionism with pretty much impunity.

[00:15:32] And yet when it comes to really pointing out the problem,

[00:15:37] that's a little more difficult.

[00:15:39] So let me get to Jonah Goldberg.

[00:15:41] I read him quite often.

[00:15:42] I'd like to get him on.

[00:15:43] It's been a while since we've had him on.

[00:15:44] I know we're trying to see if that will work out.

[00:15:46] But on CNN the other day, you have the New York Times reporter.

[00:15:51] This is Lulu Garcia Navarro who actually just jumped all over Jonah Goldberg

[00:15:58] because he was suggesting that these Columbia demonstrators are pro-terrorist.

[00:16:04] And so she launches to this comment and it's in this article that you can read.

[00:16:08] Columbia chose to bring police to clear the encountment.

[00:16:11] That inflamed the situation to where we're now seeing these protests spread to Yale,

[00:16:15] to New York University and beyond.

[00:16:17] Many people said that the action of bringing police into a group of people

[00:16:20] are already feeling that they're sort of representative of the oppressed

[00:16:24] and who are inspired by what happened with George Floyd in 2020

[00:16:28] and seeing what happened in Gaza that they really only act as a catalyst here.

[00:16:32] And so the argument is Jonah Goldberg, these individuals, they're just,

[00:16:36] they're the victims, the ones that are calling for the death of Jews

[00:16:40] and let's kill the Jews and let's promote a global intifada and all the rest.

[00:16:46] And this is the kind of pushback that you're getting in this case from,

[00:16:51] of course, a reporter that is with the New York Times

[00:16:55] and was not going to put up for a second the argument that by saying those things

[00:17:01] they're really supporting Hamas.

[00:17:03] Fortunately, common sense is breaking out in some places, but not so much on CNN

[00:17:09] but even on CBS, the morning show, Gayle King bemoaned that there maybe were

[00:17:15] some unfortunate anti-Semitic incidents, but overall these were mostly peaceful protests.

[00:17:22] And if you think about this, you know, they talk about shortage and mostly.

[00:17:28] The one thing that seems to be short is not mostly peaceful,

[00:17:32] but what seems to be shorted is the fact that largely absent from these coverages

[00:17:38] are the mentions of the threatening and anti-Semitic rhetoric.

[00:17:42] And he gives you a whole list of those.

[00:17:44] I'm only going to read a few because they're all inflammatory.

[00:17:47] Oh Hamas, how I loved one strike and strike Tel Aviv,

[00:17:51] which means take your action now to the very heart of Israel and Tel Aviv.

[00:17:57] From the river to the sea, Palestine is Arab,

[00:18:00] deaths to America, of course some of those were deaths to Jews,

[00:18:04] but you also have some death to America.

[00:18:06] Of course you have to go back to Poland and go back to Belarus.

[00:18:09] And the reality is that there has been almost no media coverage,

[00:18:15] as we've mentioned, of the fact that you have one Jewish faculty member

[00:18:20] who actually was blocked from even being able to make its way on campus.

[00:18:24] They deactivated his pass, his badge, whatever you want to call it,

[00:18:30] because they wanted to keep him safe.

[00:18:32] So look at this.

[00:18:34] The students have to stay home.

[00:18:36] They have to be huddled.

[00:18:38] They have to be protected.

[00:18:40] Professors that are Jewish are encouraged not to come to campus,

[00:18:44] and in this case this badge was deactivated.

[00:18:48] And you kind of get the idea that that is the case.

[00:18:51] Meanwhile, let's go back to some of these chants.

[00:18:54] Never forget the 7th of October a protester scream.

[00:18:57] That will happen not one more time, not five more times,

[00:19:01] not ten, not a hundred, not a thousand, but ten thousand times.

[00:19:04] The 7th of October is going to be every day for you.

[00:19:09] And then of course you have the idea of fight for worldwide intifada,

[00:19:13] globalize intifada, burn Tel Aviv to the ground.

[00:19:18] Well, you can see the list.

[00:19:20] It's pretty amazing.

[00:19:22] And again, back to that one student, Kamani James.

[00:19:26] He has been an enrolled student and he's been one of the leaders.

[00:19:31] And he said more than once about wanting to kill Jews.

[00:19:36] In one particular media social post he said,

[00:19:40] Zionists don't deserve to live comfortably,

[00:19:43] let alone Zionists don't deserve to live.

[00:19:47] Later on in one of his posts he said,

[00:19:49] Be glad, be grateful that I'm just going out,

[00:19:52] that I'm not going out and murdering Zionists.

[00:19:55] I've never murdered anyone in my life and I hope to keep it that way.

[00:19:58] I feel very comfortable, very comfortable calling for those people to die.

[00:20:02] Okay, this is one of the student leaders.

[00:20:05] And again, imagine, flip it around,

[00:20:08] somebody is saying those kinds of things about going out and killing,

[00:20:12] I don't know, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans.

[00:20:17] You know how that would be accepted.

[00:20:20] And so again, these are the kinds of phrases that are really being used

[00:20:25] in most of these so-called mostly peaceful protests.

[00:20:30] So again, this is our first article.

[00:20:33] I've read portions of it.

[00:20:35] It's four pages long so you can get some of the context

[00:20:39] that I had to jump over quickly.

[00:20:41] But when we come back from the break, just real quickly,

[00:20:43] I do want to give credit for Bill Maher because this weekend

[00:20:47] he was having none of this idea that this is just an anti-war protest

[00:20:52] and actually started by talking about those individuals that were blocking traffic,

[00:20:57] but then talking about those who were protesting,

[00:21:00] then talked about even those who were using some of these same tactics

[00:21:04] to promote the concern about global warming

[00:21:09] by destroying some of the paintings in museums.

[00:21:12] He was on quite a roll and at the end had to insult them by saying,

[00:21:17] if there's anything you guys remind me of, it's Donald Trump.

[00:21:22] That was kind of interesting.

[00:21:24] But let's take a break.

[00:21:25] We'll hear from some of his comments and we'll be back right after this.

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[00:23:10] And now here again is Kirby Anderson.

[00:23:13] Back once again and we'll spend just a few more minutes

[00:23:16] just mentioning real quickly that our second article is by Bill Maher.

[00:23:19] And we'll be watching, of course, over the next couple of days

[00:23:22] the reaction of the student protesters to the actions

[00:23:26] which are being planned by Columbia University.

[00:23:29] So far I've checked the news feed, nothing happening,

[00:23:31] but of course there has been the ongoing negotiations.

[00:23:34] And think about this, we're having negotiations with students

[00:23:37] that have disrupted campus.

[00:23:39] And when you talk about some of these student protests

[00:23:43] you almost have to put students in air quotes

[00:23:46] because as we shared on Friday, Kelly Shackelford shared that,

[00:23:51] that of the students that were arrested

[00:23:54] in University of Texas at Austin,

[00:23:57] 50% of them were not students.

[00:24:00] So again recognize that is the case.

[00:24:03] And there is going to be a real concern about growing violence

[00:24:08] for those of you in the state of California.

[00:24:10] I'll just mention one, Cal Poly.

[00:24:13] This would be Cal Poly up in Humboldt,

[00:24:15] but that's where students staged a sort of a January 6th like event

[00:24:19] storming one of the buildings on campus, occupying the building.

[00:24:24] And that campus has now been closed

[00:24:26] through the rest of the spring semester apparently.

[00:24:29] And that just again shows you that it can get violent or chaotic fairly quickly.

[00:24:36] So with that as background, Bill Maher decided to get on the last part of his program

[00:24:41] and talk about some of these tactics that were being used.

[00:24:46] And he said, for example, if you have to block traffic in the name of a cause,

[00:24:52] no one likes you, which led to quite an applause as well,

[00:24:57] because he says, you know, what you are doing is making people late to pick up their kids,

[00:25:03] late for work, and it doesn't help your cause or bring attention to it.

[00:25:07] And talked about if anything this illustrates your sense of privilege,

[00:25:12] which of course is the argument always being used by these protesters

[00:25:16] about white privilege, male privilege, whatever it might be.

[00:25:20] And so that was pretty interesting and talked about how they're really not interested in the cause.

[00:25:26] They're interested in war-earing.

[00:25:28] And if they were interested, they would then be protesting Hamas, Hezbollah,

[00:25:34] the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps that prop up gender-based apartheid

[00:25:41] and all sorts of things and points out that that is not Israel

[00:25:46] because that Israel does not have such a system

[00:25:49] because Arab Israelis can vote, hold office, even sit on the judiciary.

[00:25:53] So some great material that was related to that as well.

[00:25:58] And of course, later on he talks about Boko Haram.

[00:26:02] He talks about the fact, you know, if you really want to protest,

[00:26:05] I don't know, about North Korea, China, Myanmar,

[00:26:09] but again, you're not really going to win people over with that kind of mindset.

[00:26:15] And then talks about this individual that set himself on fire in front of the Israeli embassy

[00:26:21] and another one set himself on fire in front of the Trump trial and all the rest.

[00:26:28] And, you know, I just thought it was interesting because then he even takes on the issue of the tactics

[00:26:35] not only being used by the pro-Hamas protesters,

[00:26:38] but even by those concerned about climate change.

[00:26:42] And he said no one sees mashed potatoes on a Monet and thinks,

[00:26:46] he's got a point, I should recycle my cans, which again brought an enormous amount of laughter.

[00:26:52] And he says, you know, where are the protests again of North Korea, Chinese concentration camps,

[00:26:58] Boko Haram kidnaps whole villages of women,

[00:27:01] the president of Burundi wants to stone gay people to death.

[00:27:05] He said if the left really understood what was going on,

[00:27:08] they would certainly focus their attention.

[00:27:11] And I do have a commentary coming out about a week from now

[00:27:14] that just simply reminds us that first of all,

[00:27:17] there are individuals that have exercised some common sense that are pushing back.

[00:27:22] The president of the University of Texas said Austin is a good example,

[00:27:26] although then he was criticized by the Austin faculty, but that's not surprising.

[00:27:31] Or you can think of the decision by Google the other day to actually fire 28 employees

[00:27:37] who are protesting the company's cloud computing contract with Israel.

[00:27:42] And that's because they took over the office spaces,

[00:27:45] defaced property, just really in a sense impeded work.

[00:27:50] And they were all basically just shown the door.

[00:27:53] So my commentary is the fact that we just need more people in charge who have common sense.

[00:28:00] And we also need to tell the protesting students they're focused on the wrong cause.

[00:28:05] I mean, if you want to protest, I give some other examples.

[00:28:09] I've mentioned this before, the concern about the death of Muslims.

[00:28:14] Well, how about Syrian President Bashar al-Assad who used poison gas to kill his own people?

[00:28:23] And thus, I think millions of Syrians have fled to Europe and have no chance of coming back.

[00:28:30] You have, of course, the Muslims that have been killing individuals in Sudan, in Nigeria,

[00:28:38] which we've talked about in this program, and even the one in Boko Haram.

[00:28:42] Yeah, we had some outrage about the kidnapping by Boko Haram of some of these women 10 years ago.

[00:28:50] I even had Michelle Obama write an open letter, but haven't seen anything since.

[00:28:56] So if you really want to talk about some injustices,

[00:29:00] if you really want to talk about genocide properly identified,

[00:29:05] those are just a few examples there as well.

[00:29:08] Well, let's move on to some other issues because, as you may have known,

[00:29:12] just the other day we were talking about an energy crisis.

[00:29:16] Now, there is always the possibility of an energy crisis for various reasons,

[00:29:21] bad weather, various kinds of energy production facilities going down.

[00:29:27] But a lot of this has been actually created by this administration.

[00:29:33] So our third article is one from the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal

[00:29:38] in which you can see a picture of the head of the EPA, Michael Reagan.

[00:29:43] And the Biden administration's regulations, according to the editors of The Wall Street Journal,

[00:29:48] are coming so fast and furious they say that it's hard to even keep track of what they're trying.

[00:29:54] On Thursday, they said, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed its latest doozy,

[00:29:59] that's their word, rules that will effectively force coal plants to shut down

[00:30:04] while banning new natural gas plants, which by the way are much more efficient

[00:30:09] and produce much less CO2. That's my statement up there.

[00:30:13] And with this, it says, with this announcement today,

[00:30:16] the power sector can make planning decisions with a full array of information.

[00:30:20] The translation they say is, get moving with green energy transition

[00:30:25] because we're going to get rid of fossil fuel power.

[00:30:29] Of course, the Barack Obama administration's regulations started some of that

[00:30:34] and led to some of these coal plant closures.

[00:30:39] But now this administration under President Biden is trying to finish the job

[00:30:44] by using disposal standards as a result to close them down

[00:30:49] and then actually encouraging what is called carbon capture.

[00:30:54] Now I've talked about this before. We'll get into the fine details of that.

[00:30:58] We'll leave that to people like Dr. Mero Matthews, who studied even more than any of the rest of us.

[00:31:03] But it turns out that, first of all, carbon capture isn't really being used very effectively

[00:31:11] except on one commercial scale coal plant and no gas-fired plants are using them.

[00:31:17] And as a result, they argue that the latest piece of legislation,

[00:31:22] the so-called Inflation Reduction Act, which actually had very little to do with inflation,

[00:31:28] but that's what they called it, would incentivize and facilitate the deployment of carbon capture.

[00:31:34] But the subsidies would have to be, as the editors of the Wall Street Journal point out,

[00:31:39] two or three times larger to make it even cost effective for these plants to do so.

[00:31:45] So the argument is, well, if you're not going to use carbon capture,

[00:31:48] well then you can just close down and you can see where that leads.

[00:31:51] At a time when we're talking about having less and less energy all the time

[00:31:57] and the concern that I surfaced just the other day,

[00:32:01] that Texas actually told the various people to not engage in any kind of maintenance

[00:32:08] because there might even be a bit of an energy crisis.

[00:32:12] And of all places, April, when the temperatures are in the 80s, not in the hundreds,

[00:32:17] that is the case. And this article reminds us that Texas power demand will nearly double

[00:32:24] over the next six years due to things like data centers, manufacturing plants,

[00:32:29] and of course just population.

[00:32:31] And of course I did in my commentary point out the reason why so much of that has been increasing

[00:32:38] is those data centers, especially if they use artificial intelligence,

[00:32:43] draw much more power than before.

[00:32:46] And of course a lot of those data centers are just chock full of things like pornography

[00:32:52] and cat videos.

[00:32:53] There were some ways we could very easily, if we were serious about trying to scale down

[00:32:59] the amount of energy being used, say maybe some of these data centers need to go offline

[00:33:05] because they're just full of junk that maybe we really don't need in the first place.

[00:33:11] But nevertheless we are in the midst of a potential energy crisis

[00:33:16] and I think it's clear to illustrate the fact that much of that has to do with some

[00:33:21] of the regulations, including some that came down last Thursday from the Environmental Protection Agency.

[00:33:28] So I wanted you to know about that. It's hardly front page news, but you know what?

[00:33:32] It affects you and your family, and those are the kind of things I want to talk about

[00:33:36] on Point of View along with many others.

[00:33:38] We'll come back with some final comments right after this.

[00:33:41] You're listening to Point of View, your listener supported source for truth.

[00:34:02] Once again my commentary today is about raising spiritual champions

[00:34:06] and you may have heard the interview we did with George Barna, but I wanted to post that.

[00:34:11] One because that would remind you of the fact that we did the interview.

[00:34:15] You might want to get a copy of the book.

[00:34:17] But two because the reason I did the interview and the reason we wanted to cover that

[00:34:22] is because when I have been traveling around with Jana Weidler, we have actually had people say,

[00:34:28] you know, this is an interview you need to do.

[00:34:30] Now the plan originally was to do the interview back in February.

[00:34:33] Something happened and it took till I guess April to get him on the air.

[00:34:38] But nevertheless, I thought it would be really important for you to know about this very good book,

[00:34:44] which would be a real encouragement to you as a parent or a grandparent to know about.

[00:34:49] It's also something you might want to send this a particular commentary to pastors

[00:34:55] because it's also a comment about the fact that so many pastors and especially youth pastors

[00:35:00] do not have a biblical worldview and you can't pass on what you don't have, as George Barna said.

[00:35:06] So that is the case.

[00:35:08] But while I'm talking about this, as we travel around, we get to meet you

[00:35:11] and you give us ideas for radio programs.

[00:35:14] And I want to again encourage our listeners there in the state of Michigan

[00:35:18] that we will be with you at Traverse City.

[00:35:21] This will be taking place on Thursday, June 6th.

[00:35:25] You can get all the information that you need on the website.

[00:35:29] Simply scroll down, you'll see in our section there the clarity in chaos events.

[00:35:35] You'll see the one where it says get tickets.

[00:35:37] They might say, well, what is the cost?

[00:35:39] No charge.

[00:35:41] All we need is for you to say you're going to be coming.

[00:35:44] And so we give you all the information necessary.

[00:35:47] But it would be helpful to us even though we're not charging for that,

[00:35:51] although we certainly would encourage a donation if you'd like to make it.

[00:35:55] But I certainly would encourage you to let us know so we can plan accordingly.

[00:36:00] So again, how do you find that?

[00:36:02] Well, as you scroll down on the left-hand side,

[00:36:05] you're going to see the Viewpoints commentary I just mentioned,

[00:36:08] Spiritual Champions.

[00:36:10] And if you aren't already receiving my commentary,

[00:36:13] we send it to you Monday through Friday.

[00:36:15] We send you Penedexter's weekly column on Saturday.

[00:36:19] There's a place where it says never miss a viewpoint.

[00:36:22] Sign up here.

[00:36:23] So that is on the left-hand side.

[00:36:25] On the right-hand side, you'll see a thing that says events registration.

[00:36:30] It's right above the point of view highlights for Spotify.

[00:36:33] I might encourage you to sign up for that as well.

[00:36:35] But if you click on the events registration,

[00:36:37] the one that we have located there is in Michigan.

[00:36:41] But you know what?

[00:36:42] We're going to be coming to other parts of the country,

[00:36:45] and we may be in your area,

[00:36:47] and we would love to meet you face-to-face.

[00:36:49] So all of that is available at our website today, pointofview.net.

[00:36:53] Brant Hanson will be with us next hour as we talk about the young men we need.

[00:36:57] But let me, if I can, get to Jerry Newcomb.

[00:37:00] We will probably come back to some of this when we meet him

[00:37:03] and talk to him later in the week.

[00:37:05] But he has a great piece called More God, More Peace.

[00:37:09] He says, you know, these are crazy times.

[00:37:11] How does one retain sanity in these tumultuous days?

[00:37:15] Read the world's bestseller and read it often, obviously the Bible,

[00:37:19] and it will give you a great deal of comfort.

[00:37:21] Indeed, he then talks about many American leaders have found comfort

[00:37:24] and solace in the Word of God.

[00:37:26] Of course, he gives that later on.

[00:37:28] But what he is encouraging you to do is something I've encouraged you to do as well,

[00:37:33] and that is in addition to any kind of personal Bible reading and study,

[00:37:38] he says I read a chapter of Proverbs for that day.

[00:37:42] There are 31 chapters in Proverbs, just as many months have 31 days.

[00:37:46] So he was, when this came out on April 19th, reading Proverbs 19 verse 23,

[00:37:52] fear the Lord leads to life, then one rests content untouched by trouble.

[00:37:56] But he says many are troubled today because they have rejected God and the church.

[00:38:01] And then talks about a recent article which I probably will do a commentary on in the future

[00:38:05] by Ira Stoll who actually has been looking at the relationship,

[00:38:11] are you ready for this, lack of church attendance and mental health.

[00:38:17] And as you might imagine, as church attendance drops,

[00:38:22] mental health issues increases.

[00:38:25] Now I think there are a couple reasons we've talked about this.

[00:38:28] I have a commentary coming out this week, for example,

[00:38:30] on the whole issue of the anxious generation,

[00:38:33] which is of course a book talking about the smartphones.

[00:38:37] But it is interesting that if you look at some of these things,

[00:38:41] there's another non technology contributor to mental health crisis.

[00:38:46] Obviously the smartphone and social media is one.

[00:38:50] But it's not the only one.

[00:38:52] And again, I wouldn't expect Jonathan Hyde who's looking at that

[00:38:55] from primarily a non-Christian point of view,

[00:38:58] but Ira Stoll looking at that,

[00:39:00] that has seen some very interesting things that as church attendance goes down,

[00:39:04] mental problems go up.

[00:39:06] And he cites the Harvard Public Health Study,

[00:39:10] which suggested that the decline in church service attendance from 1991 to 2019

[00:39:17] could account for nearly 30% of the rise in depression among teenagers.

[00:39:23] So is it a majority? No.

[00:39:25] Is it significant? Well, yes it is.

[00:39:28] Let's get into the study a little bit more because what they found,

[00:39:31] and now this is a quote from this study,

[00:39:33] quote, weekly religious service attendance is longitudinally associated

[00:39:39] with lower mortality risk, lower depression, less suicide,

[00:39:45] better cardiovascular disease survival, better health behaviors,

[00:39:50] and greater marital stability, happiness, and purpose in life.

[00:39:55] They put it another way.

[00:39:56] Well, that's the title of Jerry Newcomb's piece, More God, More Peace.

[00:40:01] Now Ira Stoll adds, now these are his quotes,

[00:40:04] plenty of mental health clinicians I know see in religious service attendance

[00:40:09] some of the habits and attitudes that can help to combat depression and anxiety.

[00:40:16] He says there's the supportive community, the face-to-face interaction,

[00:40:21] the sense of purpose and meaning, and expressions of gratitude and humility.

[00:40:29] And so again, these are just some very significant studies

[00:40:33] which illustrate that certainly we should be concerned about social media.

[00:40:38] We should be concerned about the tremendous amount of influence

[00:40:42] smartphones have on our children and grandchildren.

[00:40:46] But there's another factor, and that is simply getting them out of bed

[00:40:50] and getting them to church and hearing a spiritual message,

[00:40:55] interacting with other individuals I think is very helpful.

[00:40:59] And one last quote that he gives us is in a blog for Psychology Today,

[00:41:04] Harvard professor of epidemiology Tyler VanderWeele notes the downturn for today's youth.

[00:41:11] He says, quote, relatively speaking, young people are not doing as well as they once were.

[00:41:17] They report being less happy and less healthy, having less meaning,

[00:41:22] greater struggles with character and poor relationships,

[00:41:26] and less financially stable compared to their older counterparts.

[00:41:32] The differences in well-being with age were in fact much larger

[00:41:36] than they were for gender or for race.

[00:41:39] Some of the issue may also pertain to what? A crisis in meaning.

[00:41:44] So as again, Jerry Newcomb reminds us, life can be painful.

[00:41:48] Life without meaning and purpose can be unbearable.

[00:41:51] But life has meaning because there is a God

[00:41:54] and he has revealed himself in creation and the holy scriptures.

[00:41:58] He goes on to then give us some incredible stories of George Washington

[00:42:02] reading the Bible, Thomas Jefferson's daughter Polly

[00:42:05] finding him with a Bible on his lap, and Abraham Lincoln,

[00:42:10] of course all the way to Ronald Reagan and many others.

[00:42:13] And so again, it's just I think very intriguing that in this secular age,

[00:42:19] multiple studies show that good things come from walking with God,

[00:42:23] being in prayer, through his word and attending church.

[00:42:27] And it's no surprise that on Thursday during the National Day of Prayer

[00:42:31] we're going to talk more about some of the things we can do

[00:42:34] not only to pray for this nation, but also just to pray for our culture

[00:42:38] and to pray for individual families as well.

[00:42:41] So this piece is also posted by our good friend Jerry Newcomb.

[00:42:44] He'll be with us later in the week. I just thought I'd mention that.

[00:42:47] When we come back from the break, we're going to be talking with our good friend,

[00:42:50] Brent Hanson. He's been on the program many times before.

[00:42:53] We've talked about his book, The Men We Need,

[00:42:56] the new book, The Young Men We Need,

[00:42:59] and some very important things that need to happen

[00:43:02] if we're going to have godly men for the 21st century.

[00:43:06] These young men need some encouragement.

[00:43:09] We'll talk about that right after this.

[00:43:12] In 19th century London, two towering historical figures did battle,

[00:43:17] not with guns and bombs, but words and ideas.

[00:43:21] London was home to Karl Marx, the father of communism,

[00:43:25] and legendary Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon.

[00:43:29] London was in many ways the center of the world,

[00:43:32] economically, militarily, and intellectually.

[00:43:36] Marx sought to destroy religion, the family, and everything the Bible supports.

[00:43:41] Spurgeon stood against him, warning of socialism's dangers.

[00:43:45] Spurgeon understood Christianity is not just religious truth,

[00:43:50] it is truth for all of life.

[00:43:52] Where do you find men with that kind of wisdom

[00:43:55] to stand against darkness today?

[00:43:57] Get the light you need on today's most pressing issues

[00:44:01] delivered to your inbox when you sign up

[00:44:04] for Point of View.

[00:44:38] Some of the issues facing men

[00:45:01] and whether maybe we've got the wrong vision for biblical manhood.

[00:45:05] If this sounds familiar, you might remember the interview

[00:45:09] that we did with Brant Hanson on his book I'm holding up right now.

[00:45:13] The Men We Need, God's Purpose for the Manly Man,

[00:45:16] the Avid Endorsement, or Any Man Willing to Show Up.

[00:45:20] It's an interview we did a while back,

[00:45:22] and then more recently, just about a month or two ago,

[00:45:25] we actually re-aired it because it was such a very good interview

[00:45:28] and we thought you would like to hear it again.

[00:45:31] Even as we were doing this, I was thinking,

[00:45:33] this is really good for men, but wouldn't it be nice

[00:45:36] if you had something for younger men, some in their 20s and 30s,

[00:45:40] really coming of age because there may be Generation Y

[00:45:44] or now Generation Z.

[00:45:46] And lo and behold, here's the book I'm holding up right now,

[00:45:49] and that is The Young Man We Need, God's Purpose for Every Guy

[00:45:53] and How You Can Live It Out.

[00:45:55] It has a similar format, gets into some of the biblical material,

[00:45:59] and then has six decisions that will set you apart.

[00:46:03] It is a fascinating book, one that I think is so needed

[00:46:07] in light of some of the facts and figures and statistics,

[00:46:10] some of which I'm going to share with you as the interview goes on,

[00:46:13] about the real crisis right now of manhood for the younger generation.

[00:46:18] And Brant Hanson is an individual who's been on this program many times before,

[00:46:22] best-selling author, syndicated radio host.

[00:46:24] You probably know him from The Brant Hanson Show,

[00:46:27] which is on many of the top radio stations around the country.

[00:46:30] Also there's The Brant and Sherry Oddcast,

[00:46:33] which is a podcast that has been downloaded.

[00:46:35] Of course we talked about his book The Men We Need,

[00:46:38] but we're going to focus today on this new book

[00:46:40] published by our good friends at Baker Books,

[00:46:42] which is entitled The Young Man We Need, God's Purpose for Every Guy

[00:46:46] and How You Can Live It Out.

[00:46:48] Brant, welcome back to Point of View.

[00:46:50] Man, it's great to talk to you again. Kirby, how are you doing?

[00:46:52] I am doing well and missed having you around,

[00:46:55] although we get to hear your voice because once we record it,

[00:46:58] we play it again.

[00:47:00] So people have actually heard you recently talking about The Men We Need.

[00:47:03] You've done that before on radio, so don't tell me you don't do that as well.

[00:47:06] All the time.

[00:47:08] But if it's a good book, we often times tell the author and the publisher,

[00:47:12] we're going to make it evergreen so we can hear it again,

[00:47:15] and we'll see if this one works out.

[00:47:17] But get us into this whole issue.

[00:47:19] Let me use one statistic, which is arresting.

[00:47:22] I did a commentary a while back where I was first quoting Mike Rowe.

[00:47:25] Of course, you know who he is.

[00:47:27] And he was actually quoting an economist who I also know

[00:47:30] at the American Enterprise Institute, Nicholas Eberstadt,

[00:47:33] who says that if you look at men ages 25 to 54,

[00:47:37] there are seven million men who not only are not working,

[00:47:42] they're not looking for work.

[00:47:44] This is what some people have called the flight from work.

[00:47:48] So we're dealing with a number of young men who aren't working.

[00:47:53] They're not looking for work.

[00:47:55] Even if they are working, even if they're trying to support themselves,

[00:47:58] maybe even if they're married and supporting their family,

[00:48:01] they have some really crazy ideas about what it means to be a man

[00:48:06] because of this cacophony of voices telling them that on one hand,

[00:48:13] you can't have toxic masculinity.

[00:48:16] On the other hand, you can't be a wimp and they don't know what to believe.

[00:48:20] And that's really why you wrote the book, isn't it?

[00:48:22] 100%.

[00:48:24] But the real tragedy to me isn't just the culture.

[00:48:27] I expect the culture to be chaotic and confused,

[00:48:30] but the fact that even church folk don't know how to articulate

[00:48:35] what's specifically awesome about masculinity,

[00:48:38] specifically life-giving and beautiful and good.

[00:48:42] It's just like, hey, let's do a camp out or let's make some steaks

[00:48:48] and do some axe throwing.

[00:48:50] And there's nothing wrong with that stuff, but that's not the essence of masculinity.

[00:48:55] You have to give people a vision for what it is, not just deconstruct it.

[00:49:00] So in Christendom or whatever you want to call it,

[00:49:03] like in our Christian culture, we have books that tell us,

[00:49:05] yeah, don't confuse Jesus with John Wayne. That's great.

[00:49:09] But what is the specific thing? What is the awesome thing about masculinity?

[00:49:13] If you don't give people a vision, they're adrift.

[00:49:16] And that's true of even guys in church. You get no clue.

[00:49:19] Like you saw the big hole of blue about the men's conference or whatever.

[00:49:25] I was wondering if you were going to get into it. Go for it.

[00:49:27] Well, yeah, but it's the same thing.

[00:49:29] Like sword swallower, somebody jacked with his shirt off.

[00:49:33] Okay, that's weird.

[00:49:35] But even behind the pulpit thing, it's just a giant picture of a motorcycle.

[00:49:42] Like what is the same tropes and cliches,

[00:49:46] and it doesn't get at the heart of what masculinity really is.

[00:49:49] So guys don't, if they're not given a vision even in church,

[00:49:53] like what are you supposed to do?

[00:49:57] Well, let's get into, of course, your first chapter is, of course,

[00:50:01] The Keeper of the Garden.

[00:50:02] And you've done some of this with us before, but it's worth mentioning again,

[00:50:05] because you're taking a different look at it.

[00:50:08] And that is masculinity is about taking responsibility.

[00:50:12] Of course, you even talk about this poster that everybody had of this man

[00:50:15] holding a baby and all the rest, because there is just a sense in which

[00:50:20] we have an intuitive notion of what it is,

[00:50:23] and it hasn't have to do with going to a promise keeper,

[00:50:26] throwing an axe, swallowing a sword,

[00:50:28] or a variety of other things that we can talk about.

[00:50:31] It has something to do with responsibility, doesn't it?

[00:50:35] Right.

[00:50:36] So this is the job that Adam was given, is The Keeper of the Garden.

[00:50:41] And I think that that's the template.

[00:50:43] I think that that's the thing.

[00:50:45] So you think about what that means to watch over, to protect,

[00:50:50] to cultivate, to make order out of chaos.

[00:50:54] There's something deeply wonderful about that.

[00:50:57] I think that's the thing about that when you tell a young guy, in fact,

[00:51:00] and I give the example of when I told my son,

[00:51:02] I wasn't even thinking about it clearly.

[00:51:05] But when he was picking on his sister when he was little,

[00:51:08] I said, Justice, I'm not supposed to defend her against you.

[00:51:13] You're supposed to be her defender.

[00:51:15] She's a vulnerable little girl.

[00:51:17] You're supposed to provide security, and you're betraying your role.

[00:51:22] Well, he understood that.

[00:51:23] He was eight or nine years old.

[00:51:25] And I don't think we had that problem again.

[00:51:28] It's like, guys understand it, but you've got to tell.

[00:51:31] We're to be Keeper of the Garden to provide security in the midst of chaos.

[00:51:36] People around us should feel more secure because we're there.

[00:51:39] They shouldn't be threatened.

[00:51:42] And everything follows from that.

[00:51:44] When you realize what good masculinity is and what the truly toxic stuff is,

[00:51:49] it follows from that.

[00:51:50] All toxic stuff is really truly toxic.

[00:51:53] It's just when you're betraying your role as somebody who brings security,

[00:51:57] you're making people feel insecure, innocent people feel insecure because of you.

[00:52:01] You don't get it.

[00:52:02] You're betraying your role.

[00:52:03] Right. And so part of it is responsibility.

[00:52:05] The other part is commitments.

[00:52:06] And I love the way you say don't be afraid of making commitments

[00:52:09] because that's also part of what it means to be a man, isn't it?

[00:52:13] It is.

[00:52:14] So here's something alarming.

[00:52:16] I'm hearing from people saying that Andrew Tate has a big following

[00:52:20] with Christian guys in Christian schools and colleges.

[00:52:25] And if you know anything about Andrew Tate, he's just incredibly selfish.

[00:52:31] Just the fast cars and I get all the women and I'm rich and who cares?

[00:52:37] It's awful.

[00:52:38] It's just hedonism and it's stupid.

[00:52:41] But like if you don't give guys a vision, they go for that.

[00:52:46] Right.

[00:52:47] So this is the problem.

[00:52:49] Well, he's not making a commitment to any woman.

[00:52:52] That's just part of his credo, just take advantage of people.

[00:52:55] It's ethos.

[00:52:56] Yeah.

[00:52:57] That's right.

[00:52:58] Yeah.

[00:52:59] So I'm telling younger guys like he's the unmanliest man in the world

[00:53:03] when you realize that we're supposed to be keepers of the garden.

[00:53:07] He actually victimizes people.

[00:53:09] Yes.

[00:53:10] Rather than protect them.

[00:53:11] So when you understand that, a lot of this falls into line

[00:53:14] about what we're supposed to be doing.

[00:53:16] Well, that's part of the keeper of the garden.

[00:53:18] We'll come back and talk about the six decisions that will set you apart.

[00:53:21] And as we go through this, I think you'll find some great insight.

[00:53:24] You might even want to take some notes.

[00:53:26] We'll be right back.

[00:53:36] This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson.

[00:54:22] This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson.

[00:54:52] I'm Kirby Anderson.

[00:55:17] And that's my point of view.

[00:55:25] Go deeper on topics like you just heard by visiting pointofview.net.

[00:55:31] That's pointofview.net.

[00:55:35] You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth.

[00:55:40] Continue your conversation today with Brent Hanson.

[00:55:42] And again, if you would like to know more about him,

[00:55:44] we have a link to his website.

[00:55:45] We also have information about the book, which has been out for a while.

[00:55:48] So you might be able to find it in your local bookstore.

[00:55:51] But if you'd like to get it in paperback or Kindle,

[00:55:53] we also have a link for that as well.

[00:55:55] I thought since we have six decisions that certainly are going to be important,

[00:56:01] you might, if you're taking some notes, number from one to six,

[00:56:04] we'll try to cover maybe two each segment.

[00:56:06] And we'll be able to give you a pretty good overview of the book.

[00:56:09] But, Brent, one of those is decision number one,

[00:56:12] forsake the fake and relish the real.

[00:56:16] And of course you talk about video games and a variety of other things,

[00:56:20] including pornography.

[00:56:21] But it reminded me of something that has come out recently in this book

[00:56:26] by Jonathan Haidt on the anxious generation,

[00:56:29] because he was trying to figure out why we see this spike

[00:56:33] after the smartphones came out for girls in terms of increase

[00:56:37] and suicide ideation, depression, anxiety.

[00:56:40] Didn't see it with the boys as much.

[00:56:43] Well, that's because that happened years before.

[00:56:46] They were more attracted to things and they were involved in video games.

[00:56:50] And by spending time in this so-called virtual world of video games

[00:56:54] and watching pornography,

[00:56:56] it was preventing them from actually being good role models

[00:57:01] and good fathers and husbands.

[00:57:03] And that's really kind of the premise in your first decision

[00:57:06] that actually we need to make in the right way.

[00:57:09] Yeah, and I'm trying to tell guys too,

[00:57:11] even if it's a completely benign video game,

[00:57:13] and I love video games.

[00:57:14] It's not that they're evil necessarily.

[00:57:18] The problem is they give you this dopamine hit

[00:57:22] and you haven't really accomplished anything.

[00:57:25] That's the problem.

[00:57:26] So that's why it's so compelling is because you can level up

[00:57:29] and in real life you don't just level up all the time.

[00:57:32] You don't get the dopamine hits in real life like that very easily.

[00:57:37] So what I'm telling them, guys, of course they have this mentality

[00:57:40] that they inherit it from our larger ethos and our culture,

[00:57:43] but it's like, hey, as long as I'm not hurting anybody,

[00:57:45] what does it matter?

[00:57:47] Like if I'm happy, I'm playing video games,

[00:57:50] I'm smoking some pot, I'm playing video games all day,

[00:57:53] but I'm not hurting anybody, what's the problem?

[00:57:55] My point with them is you are hurting people because we needed you.

[00:58:01] You were created with certain gifts to be a blessing to people around you,

[00:58:05] to add value to people's lives.

[00:58:07] There's probably a woman that would have appreciated you becoming a mature man

[00:58:10] and a good husband and father.

[00:58:12] You probably would have appreciated that too,

[00:58:14] had more poetry in life had you done that.

[00:58:17] But the other thing is like in the end, you have this desire for work,

[00:58:22] you have a desire for adventure, you have a desire to do things.

[00:58:25] Video games are essentially work.

[00:58:27] Like you're actually organizing things and doing things

[00:58:30] and accomplishing things and protecting people

[00:58:32] or doing some adventure or something.

[00:58:34] It's just a big fake job and you wind up not actually living.

[00:58:39] We needed you, but if you don't have a vision,

[00:58:42] like if the church isn't giving guys a vision for what they're supposed to be doing with their lives,

[00:58:46] this Keeper of the Garden thing, no wonder they go for this fake stuff.

[00:58:49] Like why not?

[00:58:51] You need a larger vision to give up something else.

[00:58:54] So I think that is at the root of this.

[00:58:57] And when I talk about pornography, it's not a guilt trip,

[00:59:00] I'm just saying like you're allowing evil to sucker punch you.

[00:59:05] That's not a real woman.

[00:59:07] It gives you dopamine hits,

[00:59:09] but that pixelated image is not going to call you out to be a man.

[00:59:14] It's not going to help you grow up into the guy we needed you to be.

[00:59:17] It's going to stunt you from that.

[00:59:19] It's going to make you depressed.

[00:59:21] It's going to make you feel meaningless because it is meaningless.

[00:59:25] You wind up like just being morose and tired and boring.

[00:59:30] Like that's what it does to you.

[00:59:32] And that's a loss for all of us.

[00:59:35] Well, again, one of the things you quote is Gary Wilson, a TED Talk.

[00:59:41] Again, you have people that aren't even looking at it from a biblical point of view,

[00:59:46] just looking at it in terms of what is healthy for you,

[00:59:49] warning you about those dangers.

[00:59:51] I've had many people, for example, Brandt, saying,

[00:59:54] when you give us those statistics about the fact that we have 7 million men who are not working,

[00:59:59] not looking for work, what are they doing?

[01:00:01] I said, well, that's the first major chapter in your book right there

[01:00:05] because they are playing games of some sort or another.

[01:00:09] And before we move on to the next one,

[01:00:11] the other aspect is not only do you identify the problem,

[01:00:15] but you give us a solution, and that is to get a bigger vision and get busy.

[01:00:21] And that is the things that you need to do to replace what you're doing right now

[01:00:27] that's keeping you from actually getting in the game and making a difference.

[01:00:31] Yeah, this is a problem that can be solved more easily than we think.

[01:00:38] Here's what I mean.

[01:00:40] I took a group of guys that I was discipling years ago on a mission strip,

[01:00:43] and I can't remember if I talked about this in the previous episode,

[01:00:46] but I thought this was so interesting.

[01:00:49] Of course, like any high school guys, they struggle with lust

[01:00:52] because that's the struggle for guys and women too.

[01:00:55] But we did this mission strip in Mexico.

[01:00:57] We were building a house, and we were camping, and it was hard work,

[01:01:01] and we were busy morning till night, and then you just drop dead tired,

[01:01:06] and you laugh, and you play, and you work and work and work.

[01:01:10] Well, I asked the guys at the end of the week,

[01:01:12] and I'm like, have you guys struggled with lust like usual?

[01:01:16] And they started laughing, and they're like,

[01:01:18] oh my gosh, we haven't even had a chance to think about it.

[01:01:23] So a lot of it has to do with the way our lives are set up.

[01:01:26] We're so isolated, unlike previous iterations of human beings,

[01:01:30] where you're integrated in other people's lives,

[01:01:33] you don't have time by yourself.

[01:01:36] You have things you have to do that family needs you to be productive.

[01:01:39] You've got to provide value in some other ways out in the field,

[01:01:43] and you've got to help your dad with his craft or whatever.

[01:01:46] This is a very difficult time to be a guy,

[01:01:49] but I'm trying to tell guys, look, if you change your schedule,

[01:01:54] that solves a lot of the problems.

[01:01:56] There's things that you can do.

[01:01:58] So you don't have to be just summoning your willpower all the time.

[01:02:01] You just set up your life differently so that it's just not a thing.

[01:02:04] So good.

[01:02:05] Well, second decision is to protect the vulnerable,

[01:02:08] and of course you've already illustrated that with your child,

[01:02:11] but there are some other very important principles there as well,

[01:02:14] because after all, if you want to really understand what it means to be a man,

[01:02:20] there are times when a man needs to step up to be the protector,

[01:02:24] and that comes all the way from the Garden of Eden.

[01:02:27] Absolutely.

[01:02:28] Here's something we think, okay, protect the vulnerable,

[01:02:30] that means I've got to be good with guns or good with self-defense.

[01:02:34] Self-defense can be part of defending people physically,

[01:02:38] but what's underrated that people don't talk about are your words.

[01:02:43] Your words are incredibly important at protecting and building up the vulnerable,

[01:02:50] like being good at encouraging people who are vulnerable.

[01:02:55] That includes the people in your household.

[01:02:58] I tell guys, like they're young guys, like your mom's vulnerable to your words.

[01:03:04] Your sarcasm could cut her down.

[01:03:07] Same thing with your future wife.

[01:03:09] Your words make people insecure.

[01:03:12] Your lack of building them up, your lack of saying kind things,

[01:03:16] tears them down, makes them feel insecure.

[01:03:19] Conversely, you can use your words to defend them

[01:03:23] and build them up and make them stronger.

[01:03:26] Underrated, your tone of voice even.

[01:03:30] I've had to work on that in my marriage.

[01:03:33] My tone of voice can make my wife feel insecure.

[01:03:36] People should feel secure when we're around.

[01:03:39] Innocent people should feel secure,

[01:03:42] and that is something we do in a hundred different ways.

[01:03:45] It's not just the most obvious ways.

[01:03:47] It's every day with our words.

[01:03:50] You also talk about the most vulnerable,

[01:03:52] and I would be remiss if we didn't talk about cure once again.

[01:03:56] Could you mention that real quickly?

[01:03:58] Yeah, so I work with this hospital network that people should know about.

[01:04:01] It's cure.org.

[01:04:02] They do pediatric neurosurgeries, pediatric orthopedics, plastic surgeries

[01:04:07] for kids around the world who have nothing,

[01:04:11] and they've got some sort of a correctable disability.

[01:04:14] They might be five or 15 years old,

[01:04:16] but it's stuff like they're not able to walk,

[01:04:18] and now they can walk, and it's all done in the name of Jesus.

[01:04:21] These are full-on surgical hospitals, permanent hospitals,

[01:04:25] I get to work with them.

[01:04:27] The neat thing about that, I'm not a surgeon.

[01:04:30] I'm also not – this is the whole point about writing a book about masculinity.

[01:04:33] I'm not the guy who scales mountains, runs with the bulls,

[01:04:36] or throws axes and stuff.

[01:04:38] I'm just not good at this stuff.

[01:04:40] That's not my thing.

[01:04:42] I'm not good at fixing cars,

[01:04:44] but I get to use whatever skills I have.

[01:04:47] Well, it turns out I'm a radio host or whatever,

[01:04:49] but I have words I can use to help defend these vulnerable kids,

[01:04:55] and they've been mocked their whole lives.

[01:04:57] That's just the universal.

[01:04:58] If you've got any kind of disability in a traditional culture,

[01:05:01] you're isolated, you're left out, you're ostracized, you're brokenhearted.

[01:05:07] Well, I get to travel the country or travel the world

[01:05:10] and let people know about Cure

[01:05:12] and build awareness and funding to pay for these surgeries.

[01:05:17] I get to play a role in defending these kids.

[01:05:20] Well, my wife thinks that's really awesome and attractive.

[01:05:25] But once we understand that masculinity is actually being the keeper of the garden

[01:05:31] and protecting vulnerable species so that they can bloom and flourish,

[01:05:36] we can use whatever skills we have.

[01:05:39] You don't have to be some Jackson Abie Seal guy.

[01:05:41] Use what God has given you.

[01:05:44] He could be me, a nerdy guy.

[01:05:45] Yeah, he's given you some skills and you can use it for that purpose.

[01:05:50] So good.

[01:05:51] Let's take a break and when we come back,

[01:05:52] we'll continue our conversation with Brent Hanson.

[01:05:54] And again, if you are just joining us, The Young Men We Need,

[01:05:57] I'm holding up a copy of the book.

[01:05:59] And if that sounds familiar, of course, we've talked with him in the past

[01:06:02] about his book, The Men We Need.

[01:06:04] All of that material is on our website.

[01:06:06] We'll be right back.

[01:06:08] Where does moral truth come from?

[01:06:10] According to 58% of Americans, individuals determine moral truth.

[01:06:15] A quarter of Generation Z says society determines moral truth

[01:06:20] and morality can even change over time.

[01:06:22] Only 42% of Americans believe that truth comes from God.

[01:06:27] I don't know about you, but I find these numbers extremely troubling.

[01:06:31] It really is a crisis of truth and that crisis has consequences.

[01:06:35] Look at society.

[01:06:37] Evil is called good, good called evil.

[01:06:40] People with biblical beliefs are called bigots or worse, they're canceled.

[01:06:44] But there is hope.

[01:06:46] The Bible promises the truth will set us free.

[01:06:49] And that's why Point of View is relentless in our commitment

[01:06:52] to the ultimate source of moral truth, God's Word.

[01:06:56] At Point of View, we know that God's truth is eternal.

[01:07:00] And if we stand together, we can help more Americans apply his truth

[01:07:04] in their daily life.

[01:07:06] Help Americans find truth again by giving at pointofview.net

[01:07:11] or call 1-800-347-5151.

[01:07:15] That's pointofview.net and 800-347-5151.

[01:07:23] Point of View will continue after this.

[01:07:34] You are listening to Point of View.

[01:07:38] The opinions expressed on Point of View do not necessarily reflect

[01:07:42] the views of the management or staff of this station.

[01:07:46] And now here again is Kirby Anderson.

[01:07:49] Continue our conversation today with Brent Hanson as we talk about his book,

[01:07:53] The Young Man We Need, God's Purpose for Every Guy, and How You Can Live It Out.

[01:07:59] We've talked about some of these really important questions

[01:08:02] and decisions you need to make.

[01:08:04] We've talked about a few having to do with, for example,

[01:08:07] forsake the fake and relish the real, protect the vulnerable.

[01:08:12] Another one, Brent, is be ambitious about the right things.

[01:08:16] And you open the story by talking about an Uber ride to a restaurant.

[01:08:20] And it was a guy from New York.

[01:08:23] And of all things, after you having a little bit of a conversation with him,

[01:08:27] he wants to know what reality is.

[01:08:29] And you came up with a wonderful statement that really caught his attention.

[01:08:33] Well, the reason I wrote about that is because it's so rare.

[01:08:37] You know how you think later you should have said something?

[01:08:40] Yes. Oh, yes.

[01:08:42] So for one time, one shining moment in my life, I said the right thing.

[01:08:46] It's because I had just heard Dallas Willard talking about it.

[01:08:49] But we're having this conversation.

[01:08:51] He found out I'm like this believer.

[01:08:53] He was this guy from New York.

[01:08:55] He went deep instantly.

[01:08:56] He was asking me about stuff.

[01:08:57] Like, how do you know what's real?

[01:08:59] What is reality?

[01:09:00] And I was stepping out of the car and I paused and I looked at him and I said,

[01:09:05] reality is what hits you when you're wrong.

[01:09:08] And he's like, whoa, thanks.

[01:09:12] I said, no problem.

[01:09:13] I shut the door, walked off like a Western hero or something.

[01:09:17] Drop the mic.

[01:09:18] I had, I totally did.

[01:09:20] But it's true.

[01:09:21] Again, I got that from Dallas Willard.

[01:09:23] But it is.

[01:09:24] And like you can blow, I'm telling young guys,

[01:09:28] like if you're ambitious about the wrong things, you can destroy yourself.

[01:09:32] So it's good to be ambitious.

[01:09:35] You're made with an ambition, but it's not to be stupid.

[01:09:39] It's not to take advantage of people.

[01:09:41] It's actually to take risks in favor of protecting people.

[01:09:45] Like you're given, you're in your athletic prime when you're a young man.

[01:09:50] You're strong.

[01:09:51] You're fast.

[01:09:52] You're given a desire for risks.

[01:09:54] This is why you look at any crime.

[01:09:57] You can see a headline.

[01:09:59] Someone's arrested for driving 190, you know, and on the interstate.

[01:10:03] Who do you think that is?

[01:10:05] Huh?

[01:10:06] 50-year-old woman?

[01:10:07] Don't think so.

[01:10:09] No, I know it is.

[01:10:10] It's going to be a 20-year-old dude.

[01:10:12] I know that it's going to be a young guy, 22, 23.

[01:10:15] Like you have this desire for risk, but that's stupid.

[01:10:19] You're supposed to use that in the service of protecting people because you're supposed to be a keeper of the garden.

[01:10:26] Like imagine, imagine people looking down the street and seeing a group of young guys walking together and going, oh man, I'm glad they're in the neighborhood.

[01:10:38] We've got guys in their prime who are here and the vulnerable.

[01:10:44] Like that's what it should be.

[01:10:46] If guys are told this, if they're actually given this vision, they get it, but they're not told this.

[01:10:51] Yeah, they're allowed to be irresponsible instead.

[01:10:55] You see them walking down there and you wonder if they're going to knock something over or just do all sorts of stupid things, which teenagers and 20-somethings tend to do sometimes.

[01:11:05] Or rob you or take advantage of people, like prey on people.

[01:11:11] No, that's a betrayal of your role.

[01:11:14] You're now the enemy in the garden.

[01:11:16] You're supposed to be the protector of it.

[01:11:19] Again, if you don't give guys a vision for what masculinity is, they will fall for a whole bunch of stupid things that we're suffering from desperately.

[01:11:29] Especially young guys need to be told this because, man, they got the rest of their lives to be a blessing to people, to a future wife potentially, to generations following them.

[01:11:38] They can be the source of life and protection and security, but if we don't give them this vision, then they take advantage of people.

[01:11:45] You can also talk about ambition and work, and I love that.

[01:11:49] Even terrible jobs are great because, for example, if you're a server at the restaurant, you're being paid to help people.

[01:11:55] If you're stocking shelves at a grocery store, you're helping busy moms and dads find the food they need.

[01:12:00] If you're doing lawn work, you're helping people who are maybe not physically able or flipping hamburgers.

[01:12:06] You're providing somebody's meal.

[01:12:08] Even in the most mundane, you can have a real vision for what God might want to do through you.

[01:12:16] Yes, and I'm telling guys that too.

[01:12:18] Look, pour yourself into your job no matter what it is.

[01:12:21] It makes the time go faster, number one.

[01:12:24] But number two, realize what you're doing is adding value.

[01:12:28] All of those jobs, almost every job adds value for people's lives.

[01:12:32] The fact that you're being paid for it shouldn't take the joy of that from you.

[01:12:36] It still matters.

[01:12:37] What you're doing matters, and there's a beauty to it.

[01:12:41] I'm saying if you're mopping floors at a retirement home, I'm just mopping floors.

[01:12:47] Well, guess what?

[01:12:49] If that place isn't clean, people die.

[01:12:52] Same thing at schools.

[01:12:53] If it's not clean, diseases spread.

[01:12:55] People suffer.

[01:12:57] If you just go, I'm just mopping floors, that's one thing.

[01:13:00] But you can also say, I'm working because God has given me this role for now, and I'm going to do it to the best of my ability.

[01:13:07] As a result, you will continue to grow up as a man rather than being somebody who is just shiftless and lazy.

[01:13:14] Go ahead and be passionate.

[01:13:16] It's good.

[01:13:18] So good.

[01:13:19] Well, let me take another decision point.

[01:13:21] And this one's one you've already sort of mentioned, but I think you have some other great illustrations.

[01:13:25] Make women and children feel safe, not threatened.

[01:13:29] And the example you use as a young kid by the name of Bridger, just a little guy.

[01:13:34] But it came at a time when there was this German shepherd.

[01:13:40] And so he's with this young boy, young girl.

[01:13:44] And so as a result, he steps in.

[01:13:46] And after he got out of the hospital, 90 stitches later, he told his dad, I thought if someone should have to die, it should be me.

[01:13:54] This is a six-year-old understanding more about what it means to be a defender.

[01:14:00] Amazing story.

[01:14:02] Right.

[01:14:03] That's because his dad had obviously told him and he got it.

[01:14:06] Now, he was defending his three-year-old little sister.

[01:14:09] Yes.

[01:14:10] That's what he did.

[01:14:11] He stepped in front so that she wouldn't be attacked.

[01:14:14] And what happened was, and this is so interesting to me, in a culture that doesn't, can't seem to articulate what masculinity is,

[01:14:22] in this culture, when this happened, it went viral.

[01:14:26] And Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans from Avengers sent him a Captain America shield that they used in the movies.

[01:14:34] They had a Zoom live with him.

[01:14:37] Millions of people shared the story.

[01:14:39] Why?

[01:14:40] Because it resonates.

[01:14:42] There's something deeply good about a boy in particular realizing, I'm supposed to protect people.

[01:14:51] It resonates with everybody.

[01:14:53] Even if they act like they don't know it, they do know it deep down.

[01:14:56] That's why that resonated so much and went so viral.

[01:15:00] And the fact that his dad had already equipped him and he already understood it at six years old,

[01:15:06] he already understood his role is to be for others and defend the vulnerable.

[01:15:11] That's pretty cool.

[01:15:12] There's another aspect of that, and you mentioned it just real quickly about the idea of using your words,

[01:15:18] because I've heard people say, you know, men don't send women into war.

[01:15:23] Okay, we are now, but you know where we're going with this.

[01:15:26] And we're in the midst of a culture war.

[01:15:28] And it does seem to me that oftentimes when we're talking about should we actually allow kids to go and sit in front of drag queen story hour,

[01:15:38] should we actually allow these children that maybe have gender confusion to actually change that?

[01:15:46] And oftentimes, if you will, the people on the front lines of some of these issues are moms

[01:15:53] and nothing more motivated than a concerned mom with an email.

[01:15:57] But nevertheless, I sometimes and maybe you wonder about this, Brent, where are the men in some of this?

[01:16:03] When they have these city council meetings, where are the men?

[01:16:06] Oftentimes it's a very motivated and angry woman speaking out against some issue.

[01:16:12] But where are the men?

[01:16:13] It seems to me that's another part of defending, isn't it?

[01:16:16] Well, yes, yes.

[01:16:20] And it's not out of anger.

[01:16:21] It's out of grieving evil that's happening and like showing up.

[01:16:27] Honestly, there are a lot of these how to say institutions or places in culture where we've abandoned them.

[01:16:36] City council is being an idea, school councils, so that people who have kind of boutique views

[01:16:43] or things that used to be completely unheard of, like they occupy those positions.

[01:16:48] So they have an outsized influence.

[01:16:51] And if we're going to protect kids, we do need to protect them from a toxic culture that wants to destroy them.

[01:16:56] And it does want to destroy them.

[01:16:58] I mean, that's the running theme, right?

[01:17:00] We want to make sure you don't even procreate.

[01:17:04] Like it's straight out of the evil, the spiritual evil that we see in the Bible that's against kids.

[01:17:15] So I agree with that.

[01:17:16] Something else happened that I thought was really neat.

[01:17:19] And it also went viral.

[01:17:21] It was a story from Louisiana, and you probably saw this, Kirby, where there was a high school that was beset with just fights constantly.

[01:17:28] It was just chaos.

[01:17:29] Yes.

[01:17:30] Fights, fights, fights.

[01:17:31] Well, so some dads said, you know what? Enough. We're showing up.

[01:17:35] Yeah, that's right.

[01:17:36] So the dads show up at school every day and they laugh and they wear matching t-shirts and they joke and they greet the kids on the way in

[01:17:44] and they see them in the hallway and, you know, they kid them and have a good time.

[01:17:49] No more fights.

[01:17:50] No more fights.

[01:17:51] No more fights.

[01:17:52] So the men show up.

[01:17:54] The dads come.

[01:17:55] Just by virtue of providing security, chaos turns into order.

[01:18:01] So good.

[01:18:02] Well, men realize that.

[01:18:05] Like everybody applies that.

[01:18:07] For sure.

[01:18:08] Let's take a break and we have a couple more decision points to make.

[01:18:11] Let's take a break and continue with our good friend, Brent Hanson, right after this.

[01:18:15] For listening to Point of View, your listener minutes, let me just mention that we do have a link to branthanson.com.

[01:18:41] I would encourage you to go there to find out more about all of his books as well as the Brent and Sherry odd cast and so many other

[01:18:48] resources that are available there.

[01:18:51] Last two decisions.

[01:18:52] One, choose today who you will become tomorrow.

[01:18:56] Brant, in some respects you said you could have also maybe titled it something like choose to be the old man we need right now because in

[01:19:05] some respects you have to be intentional about the future, don't you?

[01:19:09] Totally.

[01:19:10] And that trajectory starts now.

[01:19:12] Like if you want to wind up being a miserable, lonely old man, an angry, you know, balled up inside, you can start now with your

[01:19:20] decisions.

[01:19:21] And if you want to be like a wise man that people come to and he can listen and he's jovial and he's at peace, that starts now too.

[01:19:31] And it's based on what you're paying attention to.

[01:19:34] What you pay attention to is everything.

[01:19:38] It determines who you're becoming.

[01:19:40] What you pay attention to today determines who you're going to become tomorrow.

[01:19:44] That's just a fact.

[01:19:45] You're literally paying.

[01:19:46] You only have so much attention.

[01:19:48] Right.

[01:19:49] Everybody wants to get a hold of it.

[01:19:51] It's very valuable.

[01:19:52] Marketers pay.

[01:19:53] Everybody's paying to get your attention.

[01:19:54] They desperately want it.

[01:19:56] But you decide what you're going to pay attention to, but that will determine who you're becoming.

[01:20:03] So I just can't even emphasize that enough for younger guys, but it's true for even older guys like me.

[01:20:11] We had a guy that was a counselor and kind of an individual that was helping us with fundraising.

[01:20:17] And he used a phrase that I sometimes use, planned neglect.

[01:20:21] At a time when you have overchoice, and we have overchoice like never before, never have individuals been actually able to make more choices.

[01:20:32] And we're talking about everything from media to just go down the grocery aisle for a cereal.

[01:20:38] Just overchoice everywhere we go.

[01:20:40] And so if you're going to be intentional, you have to be engaged in planned neglect.

[01:20:46] An Olympic athlete is going to have to exercise that in ways that probably hurt their heart to say so many good things I could do.

[01:20:56] But if I want to press on to the upward call using a Jesus phrase or Paul phrase and really even the emphasis of Jesus,

[01:21:04] and we really want to reach that kind of pinnacle of success, whether it's spiritual or physical,

[01:21:11] you have to engage in planned neglect because there are just too many things that are vying for your attention.

[01:21:17] So that's of course a good lead into the last one, and that is take responsibility for your own spiritual life.

[01:21:24] Because in some respects, what you choose right now both spiritually is going to determine what kind of spiritual man you're going to be in the future.

[01:21:31] True?

[01:21:32] Yes. I really want people to read this book.

[01:21:35] And because, and I know it's my books, but I'm not actually good at self-promotion.

[01:21:40] But like if you think, wait, I do need to give this vision to a guy in my life.

[01:21:44] Like there's a great excuse.

[01:21:46] I'm glad you're doing the interview now at this particular time.

[01:21:49] Graduation or just moving up from one grade to the next.

[01:21:53] You're going from eighth to ninth or from 12th to college.

[01:21:56] Like what or whatever.

[01:21:58] Like this is a great excuse because I want guys to hear stuff like this about the take responsibility for your own spiritual life.

[01:22:06] They need to hear that spirituality is not emotion because guys, particularly some analytical women too,

[01:22:13] but they're not feeling God around and they can think something's wrong with me.

[01:22:20] Like I'm supposed to be having this emotional reaction like everybody else is having.

[01:22:23] Like what's wrong with me?

[01:22:24] The truth is spirituality is not emotion.

[01:22:27] God is looking for loyalty.

[01:22:30] And you can give that whether you're feeling him around or not.

[01:22:34] You can be a sinner and still instead of shrinking away in shame, you stay loyal.

[01:22:40] You keep talking with him about what you and God are doing in life together.

[01:22:43] You keep going back to him.

[01:22:45] You don't hide because he still loves you and he still wants to do life with you.

[01:22:50] And it's not your emotions don't determine whether he's around or not.

[01:22:53] Like your emotions are determined by whether you got a nap or whether your team just won or lost.

[01:22:59] Like that doesn't determine God's presence.

[01:23:02] He's there. He's loyal to you.

[01:23:04] He's looking for loyalty from us.

[01:23:06] And when guys hear that, something clicks.

[01:23:08] It's a huge relief, number one, because instead of thinking something's wrong with you or God doesn't exist,

[01:23:13] you're like, wait, yeah, emotions come and go.

[01:23:16] He's not looking for that.

[01:23:17] He's looking for loyalty.

[01:23:19] You guys understand loyalty.

[01:23:21] Yes.

[01:23:22] Let me just before run out of time mention that as people want to obviously get a copy of this book,

[01:23:28] and I suspect many people think and I really want to get a couple of these and hand them out to maybe a grandson or a son or a friend or neighbor,

[01:23:36] whatever you have a section in the back on discussion questions.

[01:23:40] And it seems to me that well, certainly any young boy, young man could read through this and benefit the fact that you have usually five

[01:23:50] or six discussion questions means this could be an outstanding small group or Bible study or life group.

[01:23:58] So talk about how people could use that.

[01:24:00] Yeah, I mean, I would in churches, I would like everybody would be great girls profit from this book to believe it or not.

[01:24:08] Like because well, for several reasons you can imagine it helps them understand like, wait,

[01:24:12] that is what I wanted in the husband potentially.

[01:24:14] That's what I'm actually looking for in a man.

[01:24:17] But the other thing is Christian schools, you can have classes on this.

[01:24:21] And why not?

[01:24:23] This is such a huge crisis and it would be such a mercy for guys to actually have a vision because like you're right,

[01:24:31] you talked about the choice anxiety and stuff like it's very difficult to give something up unless you have a bigger vision with anything.

[01:24:39] Like I'm not going to eat cake because I want to do this triathlon or I want to be fit.

[01:24:44] So you have a bigger vision that helps you say no to stuff.

[01:24:47] If you don't have a vision that is compelling and inspiring for what it means to be masculine, if you don't have that as a man,

[01:24:55] how do you say no to all this stuff?

[01:24:57] The easy stuff, the porn, the video games, the blah, blah, blah.

[01:25:01] Like you have to give that up.

[01:25:04] You have to have this vision.

[01:25:05] And that's why I'm like, please, Christian schools and churches, this should be, it's not my book.

[01:25:10] It's got to be something like it to give people a vision.

[01:25:13] And again, you talk about this dangerous myth all the way through as long as it's not hurting someone else.

[01:25:18] But the bottom line, it is hurting you and we need you to get in the game and get involved and not be in the background.

[01:25:26] And when you're talking about millions of individuals that are not in the workforce,

[01:25:31] not looking for work and probably just content to play video games and just kind of vegetate,

[01:25:36] that's the crisis that we've identified so many times before.

[01:25:40] So, Brant, first of all, let me just mention again and I'll hold this up for people watching online

[01:25:44] the book that we have talked about in the past.

[01:25:46] And again, we have those interviews available on our website at pointofview.net.

[01:25:51] The Men We Need, God's Purpose for the Manly Man, the Avid Endorsement or Any Man Willing to Show Up.

[01:25:58] And then this new book, and they're both published by, of course, Baker Books.

[01:26:02] The Young Men We Need, God's Purpose for Every Guy and How You Can Live It Out.

[01:26:07] And of course, we have a link to BrantHanson.com.

[01:26:11] You can find out more about his books about Cure, which is an organization I would point you to,

[01:26:16] the so-called Brant and Sherry Oddcast and all sorts of other great resources.

[01:26:22] So, Brant, it is always great to have you on the program.

[01:26:24] And thank you for writing these books.

[01:26:26] And I know you're a busy guy, so thank you for giving us an hour today here on Point of View.

[01:26:30] My pleasure. So fun. Thanks, Kirby.

[01:26:33] Let me just, before we say goodbye, recognize that again, this book is really addressing a very crucial need.

[01:26:40] The culture is confused, but you know, oftentimes Christian men at churches are confused about what it means to be a man.

[01:26:48] And so, of course, we've taken this and dealt with a lot of the more serious aspects.

[01:26:53] If you know Brant Hanson, he's got a great sense of humor.

[01:26:56] So there will be some laugh-out-loud sections of the book as well.

[01:27:00] But this idea of focusing on what is real, forsaking the fake, so important, protecting the vulnerable,

[01:27:08] being ambitious and having ambitious ideas and visions about the right things, so important.

[01:27:17] And also taking responsibilities we talked about just a minute ago for your spiritual life.

[01:27:23] You cannot live your life on autopilot.

[01:27:26] You have to be intentional.

[01:27:28] And I believe this book might be something that would really begin to turn your life around.

[01:27:33] And so let's encourage you to do so.

[01:27:35] It's all part of this great series, The Men We Need, The Young Men We Need.

[01:27:40] They're published by Baker Books and you've been listening to Point of View.

[01:27:44] Have you ever met a child you knew would do great things?

[01:27:52] They displayed remarkable imagination, understanding, and a zest for learning.

[01:27:57] Now imagine someone takes that child and instead of fostering their potential with a real education,

[01:28:02] they feed them nothing but lies.

[01:28:05] You know, that scenario isn't so far from reality.

[01:28:08] From a young age, Americans are fed a consistent stream of distorted facts,

[01:28:13] from the secular indoctrination they receive in many public schools,

[01:28:17] to the biases presented as fact in many colleges and universities,

[01:28:21] to the barrage of misinformation from the mainstream media and the lack of moral grounding in our society.

[01:28:28] It's not that Americans aren't capable of understanding the truth.

[01:28:32] It's that they aren't exposed to it enough.

[01:28:35] You can expose more Americans to the truth when you give to Point of View,

[01:28:39] where listeners receive facts, perspective, and biblical truth they don't get from society.

[01:28:45] As long as we have truth, we have hope.