Welcome, my friends, to the Generations broadcast. Kevin Swanson, your host, coming to you from my basement out here in the eastern plains of Colorado, homeschooling father of five, son Daniel in studio with us, manning the controls, also debutner here, right across the table from me. We've been doing this kind of thing for eight to nine years, trying to put things back together in the demise of Western civilization, the breakdown of faith, family, and freedom, and the family is a mere shadow of what it was. And when we say 42% of kids born without fathers up from 6% in 1960, we're just talking about the tip of the iceberg, friends. We're looking at the entire system. I mean, it doesn't matter what church you go into, it doesn't matter what community you're from, it doesn't matter whether you're rural or in the middle of some city, urban area, you're going to see the demise of your family in some way, shape, or form. That's the zeitgeist, the spirit of the age, and it's seeping in everywhere. Well Bill Bennett has a very important article coming out CNN online and Bill Bennett says basically the same thing we've been saying for a long long long time. Why men are in trouble. You remember the Newsweek article we talked about some two years ago came out and said 70 percent of young men are not grown up by 30 years of age, up from 30% in 1970. That is, things are two and a half times worse than they were in the last generation, and not bound to get much better. Well, Bill Bennett starts out the article with something rather shocking. I mean, you know, I mean, he's not necessarily a man given to hyperbole, but here he is. For the first time in history, women are better educated, more ambitious, and arguably more successful than men. now society has celebrated the ascension of one sex we say you go girl they went we celebrate the ascension of women but what will we do about what appears to be the very very real decline of the other sex by the way david doesn't put it together that when when you run around saying you go girl you go girl you're also saying hey you get down boy you get down boy because we fragmented the family and the The men see no real function for themselves. They're not heads of the home. There isn't a unity in the family. There is no unity. These are fractured individual people who are just walking around in their own little hermetically sealed systems and maybe they're plugging into the big fascist state, but they don't see themselves as part of families anymore. The unity of the family, unity of the marriage is dead, dead, dead. Because there aren't different gender roles. We don't have different gender roles in the marriages. And because we're not emphasizing different gender roles in the marriage, there is no unity. The unity is shot through. And men have hardly a purpose anymore. The data does not bode well for men. This is, this is according to Bill Bennett. Men were earning 60% of all college degrees in 1970. Now it's 43%. Women are surpassing men in college degrees by almost three to two. And by the way, I think a statistics is even more important is the one I've used many, many times before that your average 23 year old woman, she's got a college degree and there's twice as many of these 23 year old college degreed women than men, twice as many, not just a three to two, it's a two to one. when it comes to 23-year-old college graduates. So right now, for 23-year-old college graduates, women are more with it, women are more focused. Now, not to say that college degrees are really going to get you all that much anyway, But in terms of the average person wanting to achieve something out there, the average woman twice, twice as motivated as the average man, according to the recent statistics. He also says that in 1950, 5% of men at the prime working age were unemployed. As of last year, 20% not working. All right, that's four times the unemployment rate for men at prime working age than in 1950. We have fallen off the edge, my friends. And of course, the solution, according to the bookie of virtues, is to buy his new book of virtues. That's the end of the thing. That's the end of the article. You got to go out and get his book of virtues. And you'll fix it. That's what William Bennett says? Yeah. That's a gamble. That's what it's all about, yeah. Dave, I mean, you talk about solutions that are not even Band-Aids, but blowing on the wound. I mean, just... You know, blowing on the wound a little bit. And these guys are not going to heal the gaping wound of their social systems that have broken down since the Industrial Revolution fathers left the farms in the 1830s, 1840s, 1880s, 1890s, 1920s, 1940s. Hey, guys, we're seven generations into this morass and you're not going to fix it by getting the Book of Virtues written by the bookie of virtue. Ain't going to happen. You remember Bill Bennett had a problem with gambling a while back. I still refer to him as the bookie of virtue, I don't know if it's fair or not. I don't know, but odds are it's good. Dave, we're not going to fix this problem any time too soon, the way things look, and the reason is we've got to fix fatherhood. And you know, it's funny. I mean, everybody knows the problem. We get the problem from Newsweek, from CNN, from Bill Bennett. But where's the, where's the solution? The solution, according to Bill Bennett, is, you know, he quotes, I think it's Aristotle, Plato or somebody like that. I mean, the solution is, yeah, continue. Yeah, Plato, Plato. Plato brings out the solution for him. It's ridiculous. I mean, he quotes Plato as if Plato's going to solve the problem for us. Plato is the problem. Plato configured a society where no son would know his father and no father would know his son. Read it. It's in the Republic by Plato. Dave, I mean, this is the problem. Bill Bennett is the problem. Bill Bennett's not the solution, he is the problem. Why? Because he's Greek. He thinks in terms of the Greek system of thinking. The classical system of thinking where the family, who needs it? Develop a system where you've got these socialists that raise the kids and of course there's no marriage in the platonic republic and so there's temporary liaisons where the women have children, the children come out of the womb and professionals take over from there. Thank you very much. and no son will know his father, no father will know his son. This is the corrupt, evil, horrific system that we've built in through Plato, through Rousseau, through the classical studies, through the Marxists of the world. This is the socialist approach, the family, the nuclear family. the family where the parents raised the children unimportant to these institutionalized systems that have come down through the humanist renaissance into the universities through the reformation period into the enlightenment of course some of the reformers were concerned about the universities I mean guys like John Knox, his dying words were, beware of the universities. So, I mean, you have John Knox who had a clue that this Greek form of classical education through the universities would eventually corrupt our systems and break down our churches and destroy our families. And that's what's happened over time. Friends, we've got to get back to some very radical, radical changes And back to some biblical approaches to education through discipleship, through fatherhood, through family. And these things have to be emphasized by God's people, especially those who are involved in Christian education like ourselves. Dave, I mean, I'm just talking about radical solutions. I mean, can you think of anything that needs to happen? You've got young boys that are completely directionless, unmotivated, etc. I mean, granted, our worldviews have moved us in the direction of nihilism, escapism, and we've talked about that, materialism. has shifted into more of a nihilistic way of thinking. We're crossing over. In 1950, the average young man, 23 years of age, got out of bed at 6 a.m., got his suit on, combed his hair, put his hat on, shined his shoes, probably polished his shoes every day, got out there and he was motivated, motivated, motivated. He was going to build the greatest nation. He was going to build the greatest economy the world has ever known. That was 1950. I'm sorry, that doesn't work anymore. The average 23-year-old guy gets out of bed. I mean, he doesn't get out of bed. He slaps his clock down. He turns on his iPod, listens to his iPod for a little bit, checks his email, goes back to bed, eventually grabs a dirty shirt, some tennis shoes. He barely gets a chance to comb his hair, maybe combs his hair, and then he kind of crawls out of the house and goes off to his part-time job. That's the way it works today in 2011. These people aren't motivated anymore. Why? Because they're not materialists. At one time people were motivated by materialism. Now they're not hardly motivated at all, except for some of the young women out there that are trying to get jobs and kind of retain the structure of the empire. Dave, I think it's kind of a nihilistic metaphysic that's taken away the purpose. And you know, hey, there's way, way more escapistic ways of life today than ever before. You can get on the internet. You don't have to raise children. You don't have to have a vision for the future, for future generations. I mean, you can just escape, escape, escape. And a lot of these guys are doing that. And Kevin, I think the problem is far, far bigger than just what the current symptoms of boys are. But let's look at it. Boys today. are being raised more and more without fathers. They don't have role models. They don't have men in their lives. They're raised in public schools where, by and large, they're either young ladies or women teaching them or fairly effeminate men. I mean, it's just that there's not much for role models. And if they do find a male teacher, he's not going to be there through the real issues of life. So he doesn't know what real men look like. The church is, by and large, not giving positive biblical male role model images, a vision for manhood. What's more is as feminism has risen, there has been a certain new pathology. It's called boyhood. Boyhood is seen as a disease. These kids have to be drugged, so forth. The whole public school environment is based around a female's way of doing things. So you have a lot going on here, but Kevin, the big problem here is the breakdown of the family. Now, you want to know what the solution is? I think God's working on it already. He's going to destroy a society that destroys family. I just don't see that this society can stand with the breakdown of the family. We're betting on the fact, friends, that the family is basic to human social systems. We're betting on that fact. Now, as it turns out, Rousseau didn't care. Plato didn't care. Marx had destroyed the family, and they've succeeded at that. They've stripped it down. They've broken it down. They've disintegrated it through their churches, through their economies, through the way they do politics, through their voting, through their entertainment systems. They've done everything they possibly can to disintegrate the family in the 21st century. And it's far, far, far worse than it's ever, ever been, I think, in all of human history. I can't think of another time where you had people so disintegrated, so shuffled away into large, large institutions where they've had very, very, very little contact with parents. You think about entertainment, Dave, and for 6,000 years, for 5,900 years, people didn't have television sets. They didn't have their own iPods. They didn't have earphones. They had to sit in the living room with Pa and Ma as Pa played the violin, Ma cooked the popcorn. And they were there for three, four hours every single evening, every single day. And they were there as families entertaining each other. And that's the way it worked for 5,900 years until we isolated ourselves into our own little our own little entertainment forms. Things have changed so dramatically over the years. Dave, I think it's going to take something radical, something very, very radical, like a family economics conference at Wheaton College, March 8th through 10th of 2012, friends. I mean, that's why we're doing this, Dave. I mean, I think we're trying to salvage not just an economy, and the economy is busting up big time, and I don't know what's going to happen there, but we have got to reconstruct the basic social unit. If we're going to reconstruct anything, including economies. No, we've got to get back to building family economies. Dave, I think this is the key. I mean, I think this is really where we got to begin. Now, granted, you can't build a family economy without fatherhood, without discipleship, without mentorship of young men, without, without, without. We've got a lot of other things involved in this conference besides just developing a family economy. But Dave, I mean, we have got to reintegrate the family in terms of its economy. I think that's the key here. I think all you're trying to do is rebuild the family that has an economic unit. Yeah. It's not that we're trying to build Wall Street. I mean, we'll leave Wall Street to the Wall Street tycoons and we'll let them do what they do. What we want is to have families that work together for a single purpose, and that purpose is to glorify God in all that they do. And I think what you can see is when families disintegrate economically, that is, dad has his checkbook, mom has her checkbook, the kids are They draw off of both checkbooks. They don't contribute to it. What you're going to end up with is more broken homes because children are seen as liabilities. You'll see more divorces. Economically, they're already separate. God has joined them together, but not their finances, apparently. And I think, Kevin, this is a scary thought. You look what's happening in black communities where you have a high population of of black people. You have the loss of fatherhood by and large. The social system has destroyed fatherhood in these black communities. And young men in these black communities are not getting an education, at least not a school education. What they're doing is they're joining gangs. They're doing sports, hopefully, something else, but they're not becoming economically productive by and large. And I'm painting with a very broad brush here. It's not because of the color of their skin. It's because of what we've done to fatherhood in these communities. This is our future as a nation. If we don't do something, we're going to end up having to start wars just to start killing off all our Yeah, you're looking at anarchy, and Dave, again, it's not a skin color issue, it's not a race issue, it's an inner city problem, and it's a problem of the lack of fatherhood, and of course, it's a problem of LBJ and his great society. And Dave, I just read an article, 48.5%, 48.5% of Americans are on welfare. 48.5% of Americans on welfare, which means that the government becomes the big daddy and they don't have fathers that are providing the very very very basic basic requirements for fatherhood which you'll find in first timothy 5-8 which is providing a living and providing sustenance for your family ladies and gentlemen it's time to rebuild our systems And you're not going to start with the Book of Virtues, you're going to start with the Book of Wisdom. You've got to start with the Book of Proverbs. Start with the Book of Wisdom. Start with the Book of Proverbs, not the Book of Virtues. You've got to start with the Book of Proverbs. And that's why I spent two and a half years working on a three-part series on the Book of Proverbs available at our website, kevinswanson.com. By the way, if you'd like that family Bible study guide, for the book of Proverbs. And this is the only way we're going to rebuild our social systems, our relationships, our families, and understand the role of moms and wives and mothers in the household. And that's Proverbs 31. I spent a lot of time working on Proverbs 31 available in our third volume of our Bible study guides. on the Book of Proverbs, available at kevinswanson.com. So let's start with the Book of Proverbs. Let's build family economies and check out our Family Economic Conference. Right now, it's there. We've got a deadline coming up for the early registrations. I think it's about a week or two from now. You're going to have to check it out right now, friends, if you're interested at all in rebuilding your family and a family economy and hopefully rebuild a fatherhood, a mentorship, and the raising of young men in a proper way. Friends, if you want to, hey, take a look at some of these really radical concepts we're bringing back. They've existed for many, many thousands of years. But we're bringing them back in the postmodern industrialized age. And if you're interested in any of this information, friends, go to familyeconomics2012.com. Again, that's familyeconomics2012.com. And friends, again, how do we rebuild our systems? We've got to rebuild fatherhood. Not mentioned in the article about the breakdown of young men by Bill Bennett, but this is very, very, very basic. We've got to rebuild fatherhood and that's why the movie Courageous is so important. I think the most important movie that these guys have brought out so far And again, these are the Sherwood producers out there at the church in Georgia. If you're interested in this movie, I encourage you to watch it. We're gonna have an interview with Kevin Downs, one of the major actors in this movie in just a moment. So stay tuned for the Kevin Downs interview. But friends, right now that movie is doing very well across the nation. I understand some $15 million in the box office thus far. So doing very, very well and perhaps one of the most important movies for the family, for fatherhood that has ever been produced. And we're going to talk with Kevin Downs in just a moment. And how do we rebuild our systems, friends? Again, rebuild fatherhood. That's what this movie Courageous is about. We're going to get back to that in just a moment. Stay with us. The program is Generations. Kevin Downs is next. Hey, church leaders, are the parents in your church doing the basics in the home? I'm not talking about changing their children's diapers and feeding them three square meals a day. I'm talking about the basics, the Word of God. I'm talking about the book of Proverbs. If this is God's curriculum for kids, if this is God's book for providing knowledge, wisdom, and understanding to a young man or a young woman, then the parents in your churches need to be inculcating these lessons into their children. That's why I produced a three-volume family Bible study series on the Book of Proverbs specifically for parents who, by the way, are the God-appointed teachers according to the Book of Proverbs. All right, pastors, elders, leaders, I'd like to encourage you to take this challenge. Instead of purchasing Sunday school materials this year, as most churches do, why not distribute our family Bible study guides on Proverbs to every family in your church? We'll be happy to provide you with bulk prices at GenerationsWithVision.com. Churches all over America are providing family Bible study guides to their families as a means of encouraging families to this vitally important responsibility. Contact us through generationswithvision.com for bulk prices or order your copy today at generationswithvision.com Welcome back, friends, to the Generations broadcast. Today we want to talk about a wonderful movie that's out in the theaters today, addressing one of the most important subjects of the day. I mean, you cannot think of a more salient, more relevant topic that really needs to be impressed upon the consciousness of a nation, and that is The message of fatherhood, and we talk about this a great deal on the program, but the movie is courageous, as many of you know, and box office receipts for the first week was nine million dollars. And this has taken the nation by storm right now, and I believe it could have a tremendous impact on many, many, many families out there as that message is communicated through the means of a dramatic story. And with me to talk about this is Kevin Downs, who's part of the movie. He plays one of the police officers. He plays the part of Shane Fuller, the divorced father in the movie Courageous. And he is now with me on the program. Hey, Kevin, welcome to the program. Hey, thanks for having me. Hey, Kevin, this is not your first movie. You've been a movie director, a producer, an actor. Why'd you get involved in films like this? well first and foremost you know my passion in the act and uh... it's just but i think on the cake that i can crop my faith into uh... what it is i'd like to do with the fact and uh... courageous it certainly a film that uh... you know it's had important themes for all of them fatherhood And it's just a film that I'm passionate about and hopefully people are out there supporting it and going to see it. It's a powerful message and good acting and a good storyline can communicate a very powerful message in an emotional way and hopefully transform lives. Is that one of your personal goals? I mean, would you like to see families, fathers transformed by a message like this one? Yeah, certainly it's our hope that Courageous will turn the hearts of men towards their home and their families. And for me personally, it's done that. I'm a new dad, I've got a two- to three-year-old, and I was just so excited about the message of Courageous, not only for everybody else out there to see it, but for my own personal journey as well. uh... that being the fatherhood are still important uh... for dad to really be important and be present in the home and scripture calls for us to uh... teaching train our children and so i'm just excited about film and i hope we have been kidnapped or that's a great story a tremendous story who who wrote the uh... screenplay for this uh... courageous was written by alex and steven kendrick uh... they wrote fireproof and faith in the giant uh... of course through sherwood pictures and sherwood baptist church And they're just talented screenwriters and just a wonderful, wonderful ministry out there in South Georgia. Now you're a professional actor, you've done this before, but you team up with a lot of other people who really aren't professional actors. How does it come out? Is the acting working for the Kendricks? Well, you know what? First of all, the Kendricks are really talented filmmakers, and they're able to tell a story and get just the right people that God brings into their life to act in their films. And so when I was out there acting on the set, we have an extremely talented cast, and I was just really blessed and fortunate to be a part of such a talented group of actors and individuals. What's the feedback you're getting? I noticed a 93% rating on Rotten Tomatoes this afternoon. What's the general feedback you are getting from this film? Well, a lot of people are just in tears. Obviously, Courageous is a rollercoaster ride. You'll be laughing one minute and you'll be crying the next minute. You know, people are just really, really encouraged. I think that's the common theme that I'm getting as far as the feedback goes, that people are really encouraged and thankful and they hope that more movies like Courageous can get made. And that's how we get them made is by going and buying tickets at the box office and letting Hollywood know that these are the types of films that we want to see made. You know, Kevin, you play the part of the divorced father, and you're playing the part of a father who probably represents an awful lot of families in this country today, meaning that it's not an intact situation. This is somewhat of a dysfunctional situation, and yet God still speaks through these situations and can restore the years the locusts have eaten in these sorts of situations. How difficult is it to play the part of somebody who's flawed and yet needs redemption? Well, you know, I think, first of all, all of us are flawed. We all have sin and we all need a savior. And so I was really thrilled that they developed this character that was flawed. First and foremost, when I was doing my background study form. I wanted to make Shane somebody likable that everybody could really relate to, and hopefully that point comes across, obviously without giving his storyline away. It's somebody that you can go, yeah, I can relate to this guy and kind of what he goes through, and maybe things don't work out so perfectly for him. Kevin, you're a father. in fact in fact you're a disneyland with your kids that i have a habit that you have a kid right now that's not a factor what did you learn about fatherhood from this film of that that you will apply in your own home well uh... the biggest thing i learned i mean especially being and uh... dad with young boy that that they grow so fast and i learned it really treasure the moment that you have because uh... you know you just don't know how how long you have with them and they grow so fast and and you just want to be able to to love them as much as you can and i think that's what courageous does is kinda makes you want to go home and love on your children if you have them or if you don't you you certainly have a father because we all have a father story and uh... makes you want to go home and call your dad and and just spend some time with him if he's still around Kevin, I want to get you back to your kids here, but before we're done, I'm just really encouraged myself with what's happening with Christian filmmaking over the last five, six, seven years. I mean, it seems to me a virtual Copernican revolution in the area of film for Christian involvement. What's your perspective? You've been at this now for 15 years. Yeah, I think there's some talented talented people out there that are in the arts that are in filmmaking and that are believers and what I'm encouraged about is that we continue to raise the bar in these films that glorify God and bring people to a closer relationship of who he is and who Jesus Christ is. And the talent will continue to come out and it's encouraging to see the box office performance that Courageous did. I think it took a lot of people by surprise. I wasn't necessarily surprised, but It's good to see that there's still some surprise out there for these types of films, and it shows that there's a need for these types of films, and I think that's encouraging, and I think the bar will continue to get raised, and that will continue to increase the production values and the stories that we continue to create in the future. Amen. Kevin Downs with Courageous. Friends, you've got to see this movie at a theater near you. Kevin, hey, thanks again for joining us. Hey, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. And folks, as we wrap up this edition of Generations, may I recommend to you one more time, God's Book of Wisdom. Much, much better than a humanist book of virtues. Go with God's Book of Wisdom. That is the book of Proverbs. It's got 900 lessons inspired by God, communicated through Solomon in the Old Testament. And I have a three-volume series on God's Book of Wisdom. a family Bible study series on the book of Proverbs available at kevinswanson.com. We recommend that to you as the core curriculum in the education of your child. Ladies and gentlemen, you can get our resources at our website kevinswanson.com or generationswithvision.com. This is Kevin Swanson inviting you back again next time as we continue to lay down a vision for the next generation. you