The following message is from a men's conference hosted by Capital Community Church and Finding Purpose Ministries featuring Dr. Owen Strand. It's based on his recent book, The War on Men, and explores the crucial God-given role men play in society and how to stand firm against the current assault on the biblical teaching of masculinity. Thank you men for having me. Thank you for coming out on a Friday night. It's a joy to be with you and to think together about consequential matters. Here are three words that sum up the spirit of the age regarding manhood. Masculinity is toxic. Toxic masculinity. This brutal little sentence captures the spirit of our age. As Grant said, traditional manhood and strong manhood today are alike seen as problematic, deeply problematic. All this is bad today. The following, risk-taking, aggressiveness, compartmentalizing to focus on tasks, enduring hardship without emoting, being Shall I? Oh, whoa. Oh, okay. We're back. We're back with a vengeance. If you think about compartmentalizing, that may even have been a conversation at some point in your marriage if you are married. Not everyone here is, but this idea that it's effectively a bad thing today in our society to focus for a long time on the task at hand, that is now read as part of toxic masculinity according to different sources. being a compartmentalizing focuser who zeros in on a task for a long time is, it's true, it's seen as bad, it's seen as a toxic trait. Now, let's just say very quickly, We men can focus on one thing before us to the detriment of others. We understand that there can definitely be a weak form of what I just talked about. It can be bad to hold away for hours and hours and hours and not love your loved ones and fulfill your obligations and these sorts of things. But fundamentally, at the outset here tonight, beginning our three sessions together tonight and tomorrow, we have to ask this question. Is compartmentalizing to focus on tasks, to get essential tasks done. Is that inherently bad? Or is that inherently necessary? If there is a war that has to be fought to defend a civilization, do not, at least traditionally, men have to go for eight months to a year and focus on hard tasks and close themselves off, at least in part, emotionally while they do the task in order to get the job done?" I think we could answer, at least many of us would answer, yes, you have to go and you have to do that. That is not bad. That is not evil for you to focus on a task. It's not evil for you as a provider. Many of you are providers of your home. It is not bad for you to go to work and focus on the task at hand. How can you multitask in the way that's expected of us men today and yet get the job done as you're expected to do. You see, our wives, women, have a much more porous emotional life. They are much more able to handle lots of different things on a kind of rotational basis. They excel at that. It's because they're made for that. That's a key part of a woman's nurturing capacity. In a real sense, though this definitely taxes our wives, she is supposed to be able to have questions coming at her at all times, bandage something, cook something, figure this out, put flowers on the table in just the right way. That's because she is made with a makeup that allows her to interface across multiple tasks on a moment-by-moment basis. Men can do that, of course. Some men better than others. But in general, men have to compartmentalize. That's part of what you have to do in order to get jobs done. But I am not making this up when I say That capacity is said to be toxic. You see, the essential traits of manhood today are considered by the secular left, by many in academia, many in the entertainment industry, many in politics, on it goes. These traits are seen as negative. And female traits are seen as positive. So if you are inclusive, if you are a good listener, if you are empathetic, if you are kind, if you don't like a whole lot of authority accruing to you, those sorts of things are very positive. And if you are the traditional CEO model, for example, in a masculine way, that is seen as negative. We want to say that, of course, we men—we're going to talk about this tonight and tomorrow—we men have the same problem that every woman has. It's called a sin problem. So we have the same problem. We manifest that differently in some ways, but we have the same problem. And sin attaches to everything we do, so we can lead too strongly. We can be not very empathetic. Many of us husbands do have to grow in listening well and being kind and being gentle. And we're going to talk about this. We're going to see that even Jesus modeled that for us men. So that's not unmanly, by the way, to talk like I'm talking. Sometimes men do only talk about being courageous or something like this. And we have to talk about being courageous, but we also have to talk about being kind. That's not wrong, that's not bad, that's not modern inclusivity or something like this. That's biblical manhood. Biblical manhood is multi-dimensional manhood. It's not one thing. It's many things. You see that in the character of an elder, for example, in Titus 1, 5-9 and 1 Timothy 3, 1-7, among other places, you see that modeled in Jesus. And we'll look at Jesus tomorrow morning. We're gonna close the conference with a study of the manhood of Jesus, something you don't often hear about. When you hear about it, you often hear his manhood equated to not very much of any significance in terms of actual manhood. Okay, that's all prologue, though. Today, many of us would be branded as toxically masculine, even for confessing the very basic views we hold, for believing, for example, in the local church, that a man should be a pastor and elder of the church, and a woman should not be. Welcome, my brothers, if you didn't know you were initiated into this club, to toxic masculinity. You are that, just for believing that. If you are toxically masculine, you have a living death warrant signed to you and turned in terms of your cultural prospects. There is no gospel in the worldview that is against toxic manhood. There's no redemption for men. There's no forgiveness for men. And really, there's no Christ in this worldview that militates against manhood. This broader worldview has already been alluded to already. It's a woke worldview. And it's really a Marxist grid. It's a Marxist system. It's not a Christian one. It's not a system that seeks the redemption of wayward individuals. It's a cancel-based system. And if you have the wrong views, and if you are toxic, you get canceled. You get pushed to the side. You get outmoded. You know of what I speak. You know of how corporate HR departments are organized today. You know the speech codes that exist. Many of you had emails this week that would fit what I'm talking about in your inbox along these lines. And so you know what I'm talking about already. In the new gender paradigm, you've got to unlearn toxic manhood. And that means that your entire way of thinking and living has to change. Included in your re-education would be things like these. And this is, I'm saying to you, if you're going to overcome your toxicity. You ready? You ready to overcome this together tonight? Here we go. You need to not protect women. chauvinist. You need to not try to stop adult men from entering women's restrooms after your wife or your daughters. It's toxic. You need to not, if your child comes to you and says, Dad, though I have the body of a boy, I'm actually a girl, you need to not do anything. And I do mean anything. that would stand against that. All you can do as a father or mother today, if you're following the modern gender ideology, is affirm your child's decision. You can hold their hand. You can walk them through that. But they are the ones who are going to drive that process. That is entirely up to them. You have nothing to say about it as a father or mother according to the new gender ideology. And you see the headlines. Many of you, you listen to the podcasts. I know many of you do. You know that this is live. This is live ammo. This is happening to fathers and mothers across America now. If you try to help your child and take them to, say, a pastor at your church for counseling through the real condition of what is called gender dysphoria, it's something that does hit kids. It's not fake. It's not pretend. But it needs what? It needs a biblical worldview, right? It needs biblical counseling. Kids need to be helped through this and walk through this with great tenderness and love and care. But even that, all that is wrong. You need to not raise your son or your daughter in any sex-specific way, in fact. If you bought blue for that baby shower for that little boy, or I guess your wife maybe did, or pink for the girl, whatever it may be, that's toxic masculinity. Those are the old stereotypes operating. And you are a caveman, just so you know. In fact, you need to not speak or think as if there's anything to be assigned to manhood and anything to be assigned to womanhood at all. Some of you are still holding to these values and convictions stubbornly, but I'm telling you, you're not where our culture is, and you're not on the leading edge of it, and you're on the wrong side of it. You're on the wrong side of history now. How's it feel? How's the air over here? It's OK. We're making it, right? We're going to survive. In sum, then, here is what we are told today. We are told that we have to live by lies. If we live by lies, everything will be fine, right? You live by lies. You use the new gender playbook. You abide by the speech codes. you offer no challenge to the ideology that is now reigning in our culture, you're going to be fine. you're gonna do great, you're gonna do great. You're gonna have a great livelihood and family's gonna thrive and flourish. If you're in the Christian church and ministry, it's gonna go great. If you're in the business world, no problems, no checks or hitches in your career, acceleration, all that's gonna be good. All you have to do is simply this, live by lies. speak and act as if the lies are true and the truth is a lie. That's where we are. In this kind of context, men are not doing well because men are those who have to figure out in general terms what the system is, what the rules are, and go from there. Men have to figure out the boundaries, right? What does, what precedes every pickup basketball game or every fun football game in a park somewhere among guys? What precedes it? 10 to 12 minutes of arguing about the rules. The same guys who think that they're such an independent rule breaker, bro, when they get out to a court or a field, they spend 8 to 10 to 12 minutes becoming lawyers. That's a wonderful thing to be, of course. But then everyone goes into lawyer mode, including people who would never think they're lawyers. And you haggle, well, what's the boundary? No, no, that's the boundary from last year, the revised boundary. OK, what's the three-point line? Well, no, he was traveling in that possession. No, he did not snap the ball correct. That was not a seven Mississippi count. That was a six Mississippi count, right? And arguments ensue. Yes, have you ever been to a court where guys are playing sports? It is like a rules fest. Sometimes you spend more time arguing about rules than you do actually playing the game. What does that tell you about the nature of men? It tells you many things, but it tells you you have to figure out men need the system. Men need the structure and then they can go. But all of that is being very much undermined today. The structure, the principles, the worldview, it's all being attacked and we're being called to live in a world with no structure, with no paradigm, with no direction. In this kind of context, men are doing badly. So here's what I want to do with you in tonight's session. This is not a heavy exegetical section. We're not diving into scripture deeply, okay? First, what we're doing in a kind of wannabe Francis Schaeffer type way is we're diving into our culture. We're trying to understand the times. We're trying to be men of Issachar. You understand? We're trying to know the times. Tomorrow we dive into a whole bunch of scripture, just so you know, if you're like, I thought this guy was doing biblical manhood. I want to first assess where we are. I want us to understand what we're facing. This isn't just so we can take notes and sit together for an hour. This is so that you and I are prepped. This is us. figuring out the rules, you understand? So that we can be effective Christian witnesses in this context. We need to understand, though, six ways that men are struggling today. I want you to think with me first here tonight about six ways that show that men are struggling. Because, you see, it's argued that the problems of men are their own failings. You see, men today get caught on the way in and the way out. The door hits us both ways. We are indicted for our toxicity, and then when we start to fail and struggle in a poisonous culture, we get indicted for our failures. I'm not here to offer a group session saying, yay, men are great and women are bad. That's not the point. Men have a sin problem. I've already said that. But our culture is fundamentally putting men in a terrible place. It is telling men we are bad in our nature in a way women are not. And then when men struggle and drop out and fail and commit suicide at spectacular rates, everyone blames the men. And so there's a double wickedness operating today, and I intend to speak against it in this time with you. I intend to try, in my humble part, from the Word of God, standing on the Word of God, to equip you. That's my goal. My goal is to equip you to be part of a culture, I'm guessing many of you already are, to help men and rebuild them with the gospel of divine grace. That's our goal. Our goal isn't just to sit together and stew over the bad stuff people say about us. Our goal is to put men back together by the power of God's grace and mercy through the person and work of Jesus Christ. That sound good to you? Can we do that together? Amen. I got these guys with me, okay? The rest of you, you're sorting this out. You're not sure. You need some more time to haggle over the rules, okay? We got to figure out the three-point line. That's okay. That's all right. I get it, bro. I get it, bro. All right, six ways that show that men are struggling today. First, men are struggling economically. Economically, men are dropping out of the workforce in shocking numbers. Let me give you a stat. I'm going to give you some metrics that show the case we're making. In 1960, 93% of men aged 25 to 34 were in the labor force. 93% of men, working, prime working years. 2021, 60 years later, that number was 68%. So out of 100 guys, just gather 100 guys, 93 of them had work some decades ago. Today, 68 of them have work. 25 guys have disappeared. They're gone. You say, wow, that's an economic reality. How interesting. No, if you show me men not working, in many cases not of their own choosing, you will show me men struggling. If you show me men not working, you will see men not doing great in many cases. And that's what's been so tragic. To get into political issues just for a second, I do try to speak into public square stuff, but I'm not in politics myself. But I can say this. It's shocking to me how so many jobs left America over the last 50 to 70 years. You drive across the heartland of America, for example, small towns, small cities, and you see so many that have just been decimated in terms of industry and business. Raleigh is not part of that trend. Thankfully, this place seems to be absolutely booming. And hey, you got the Wolfpack as well, by the way, so that was cool. How amazing was that? That was insane. Watching from Arkansas? What happened? Okay, I don't know, but it was glorious. It showed up. Men, right? Strong men. Okay, anyway. Sorry, I just derailed the whole conference. But anyway, you drive across America and you see one town after another that's been gutted as jobs moved overseas. A complex issue. I'm not saying any corporation that would move overseas because of punitive taxation is evil. You understand why they would do that, but I am gonna say that's gonna have an effect. And you know who that's going to affect first? Men. And you know then who gets affected after that? Do women and children stay unaffected if men struggle? Not one bit. No, women and children then end up struggling. So you can't do this thing where you say, stupid men, you're toxic, and you're not showing up, and you're killing yourself, and you're just all bad, and our boys need to be like girls, and then we'll solve our problems. No, you can't do that, friends. That is a toxic solution, if anything ever was. Part of what you have to do, I know this is a church conference, we're not in D.C. making policy or something like this. Part of what you have to do if you want to help men is you have to get them work. And part of what you have to do with boys is you have to train them to work. You have to train them in the goodness of work. Work is not the curse. Work was not assigned to men or to humanity because of the fall. Work existed before the curse. Good work is part of human flourishing. So much more to say there. All this to say, if you have a political climate and an economic climate in which men are not working and jobs are disappearing or have disappeared from America and men have nothing to do, what do you think men are going to do? Are men going to turn to drugs? Are we going to have an opioid crisis? Are we going to have families blowing up left and right? Are men going to be killing themselves because of mental health issues? Yes. Yes. And who is going to suffer tremendously as men suffer tremendously? Women and children. We have an epidemic of this. And few who seem to notice it in terms of cultural and public leadership, and fewer still who seem to have any kind of solution for it. It's actually not that hard to address, is it? It's not really that complicated. Get men work to start. Don't send jobs overseas. Keep them here. Help men. and yet the will to do so seems very low indeed. Second, men are struggling educationally. You don't have to go to college as a young man. 18 to 22, you don't have to. The Bible doesn't say, thou shalt go to college. But many young men should go to college, and many young men should stick with it through college and university. Should not drop out. Should, if they can, not take seven to eight years to complete it. Should be trained, should have already been trained by the grace of God to work hard and stick with something. things that are very much up in the air today. And it's easy here again to blast the rising generation. They won't stick to anything. When we shut down the world for a year, basically, and we didn't stick to what was before us, and we were told if we did show up, we would be in grave danger. So why are young people struggling today? Lots of reasons, yes? Well, however you read the background and lockdown culture and all these terrible things that we've all lived through, the enrollment decline has reached epic proportions among men. It is, I repeat myself, a crisis. For every one young woman who drops out of college or university today, seven young men drop out. You understand? For every one young woman who goes, I've had enough of state, I'm out. I just can't do this. Seven follow her. Seven men follow her out the door. And it's not like we're talking about transferring. We're not talking about the transfer portal here. We're talking about men who leave and don't come back. We're talking about many young men who leave and get lost and, and don't end up working either. So we have not only an economic crisis among men, we have an educational crisis among men. Here, there's a similar problem, yes, in the second area. Young men have to be trained to work and have to be trained to stay with things. And sure, you quit that program. Yeah, he didn't like that instrument, or he didn't like that sports program. We want to give our kids some flexibility, of course. But we also have to train our boys and our young men to stay with things, yes, even if it's not wonderful, even if every minute is not a highlight minute, ending up on ESPN. But I'm telling you, that kind of culture has just very much receded in America in general. Sometimes you go to a fast food restaurant today and you think to yourself, would it be easier for them if I went around the counter and just did this order myself and then made the Panera, guacamole, and whatever turkey sandwich? As a dad, do some of you dads out there go into dad mode now on a regular basis as America has transitioned to a second world country? It's not really a first world country in terms of our public services anymore. And you think, all right, guys. You got a dad on premises, I'll just come around and I'll help you with that. Because I got things, my list gave me a honey, my wife gave me a honey do list this morning and I got things to do. I have places I have to go. So I know you have a reduced staff. You three workers are the ones who actually would show up to this restaurant. So thank you for showing up, but you need about eight more. And I hereby offer my services. I will work for Panera for 20 minutes in order to get my family the food we are needing to get. It's amazing how folks just aren't showing up. And if you compare that to the greatest generation, as it's called, for example, and you think about how our grandfathers and great grandfathers, or fathers, depending on your age, saved the West And you think about how the generation prior to that also saved the world. Two generations, two or three generations that saved the world twice, right? In battling, in two world wars. And you compare that to how young men today are doing. We are in trouble, are we not? We can't even get a sandwich at Panera in under 30 minutes, bro. Let alone save the world from tyranny. Islam is building 6,000 mosques across Europe. Their young men have purpose. And yet, even in many Christian churches, we are weak as a dishrag. This isn't a matter of shouting at each other in a red-faced circle, but we do have to be honest about how things are if we're going to rebuild, because that's what we're here to do. We're not here to be depressed. We're here to rebuild. through the gospel of Jesus Christ, through the truth of God, all the truth of God. But in order to get there, we got to get the diagnosis, don't we? And we got to understand that we have breakdown way before we get to a young man or seven of them walking into a guidance counselor at your local university saying, I'm done, I'm out. We've got a whole system of breakdown before that. And those are real young men who we care for deeply as Christians, image bearers, all of them, made in God's image, all of them. So we can't toxify them the way woke voices can. And we care about them. We want their good. But we do have to recover that culture starting in the church of hard work, of sticking to things, of doing hard things, of gospel-powered grit, and you know who models it? Husbands and fathers, right? Starts with us. Starts with us. And that's where things get real, don't they? Because we all stumble in many ways, me included. So we need that grace of God that we keep mentioning in a very serious way. By the way, many young men from fatherless homes, how are they going to do with sticking to things? Have they seen an example of a man who stuck it out? Or have they had a man through no fault of their own, walk out of them and break the family in half? And some of you have had this experience. There are broken families by the minute in this country. It is, I repeat myself, a crisis and an epidemic. And so it's easy to look at the young men who fail and lash out and are angry and are struggling and are ending up in the statistics that I'm citing here and go, look at how bad young men are. and not realize they're set up for failure. It's hard enough to make it through this life if dad stays all your childhood, let alone if dad leaves. But there's grace even if that occurs. That's the wonder of Christianity. Third, men are struggling spiritually. There's a lot we could put under this category. How much time do you have? How long do you want to be here? I'll just reduce it to a few quick stats. Men aged 18 to 24, a bunch of them here tonight. Love that. Praise God. So thankful they're here. 70% of that age group views pornography on a monthly basis. And I know from the time I got these statistics from my book, The War on Men, that you so graciously were given by Jim and the church. I know that that stat's higher. I just know it is because I know what this does, right? I know what this represents. Do you know what this represents? This is a lot of temptation in a little bit of real estate, isn't it? Now, I have one. I'm guessing most of you do as well. My son will have one at a certain point. At least, I think he will. He doesn't have one yet. I would say delay, as long as you can delay giving your kids those smartphones. But here's the point. Seven out of 10 young men have a porn problem. It's not like some, oh, really? He struggles with pornography? How strange. We already know our nature as men. Many of us already wired to have a real problem with lust in our sin, I mean. And then you ramp things up in our digital culture and our image-driven society with collapsing standards of modesty for men, but especially for women. I marvel that any guy makes it through NC State as a Christian man, or the University of Arkansas. I praise God, because I see college culture when I take my son to a game or whatever it is, and I am taken aback, let me put it that way. It is not 2002 out here anymore, Toto. So a lot of challenges there, and a lot of men failing there, let's be honest. Pornography use, by the way, has a massive effect on men and women alike, and it's a rising problem for girls and for women, by the way, not in a small way. You know that argument that used to be really big? like 10 to 20 years ago, what matters what I do in my bedroom? You know, what someone does in the privacy of their bedroom. That has no effect on anybody. I went to a very secular college, Bowdoin College in Maine. And I was around a lot of smart kids, secular kids, unsaved kids. And as I and my friends very imperfectly tried to witness for Christ, we would frequently get a form of that argument. What do you care what I do? and the privacy of my home. Kind of a individualized libertarianism, right? And here's just one stat about porn. You ready? Pornography use increases the marital infidelity rate by more than 300%. It's like a one-way ticket to infidelity, adultery, divorce, and destruction of the family. Do you want to blow up families? Look at porn. It's a Japanese bullet train. to a destroyed family, to a destroyed soul. And yet we live in a culture where, for example, in lockdowns, do you remember when Pornhub opened up access for free? Do you remember this in COVID? They gave anyone who wanted it of adult age free access because it was such a hard time. I mean, that is devilish, diabolical energy if you've ever heard it. Men are losing the battle with pornography. What you do in the privacy of your bedroom matters tremendously beyond that little private space. At the same time that many men are losing the battle with temptation, they're not going to church. For example, a commonly cited survey from 2001 found that the average American congregation is 61% female and 39% male. So men aren't coming to church. They don't see it as having value. In many cases, there aren't men leading the church in a biblical way, according to the design of God, with the husband being the head of his wife and elders being the head of the church, men who are called to be elders, and so men don't go because it doesn't fit them. But that is no good thing for men, is it? It's hard enough to make it spiritually with the church for many of us, let alone without it. Fourth, men are struggling physically. Yet another dimension of male weakness is male weakness. The average grip strength of college men has declined from 117 pounds of force in grip strength in 1985 to 98 pounds of grip strength in 2016. So your average college guy now has no more hand strength than a 30-year-old mom. And if there's a tough situation, I might just say, I'll take the mom, because she's got that mama bear thing. So if we've got to fight some criminals off or something, maybe we'll just tag team it. I don't know. Seriously, men aren't caring for their bodies physically. This is in part because we're living in a plastic world, yes? Now, I have a job where I sit on a computer a lot of the day, so don't think I'm taking shots at someone who does. I certainly can't justify that biblically, but we are on screens a ton of the time, right? A lot of us, yes, in one field after another. We pursue pleasure now increasingly on screens. We are drawn to video games and sports and these sorts of things that are unserious, that are not happening in the real world, but they're happening on screens. We don't even have to walk anywhere to get food now. You can just order that from a device. You can live your life entirely on screens and never go outside and never challenge yourself and never have to troubleshoot anything and never figure anything out. Now, there's a lot of wonderful innovation, I think, that actually has happened in our world that I'm thankful for. I am not a very handy guy, so don't misunderstand the point I'm trying to make, but I can say that, like, as I watch my son, I am aware of the plasticity, the screen-dominated nature of modern life, and it unsettles me. And so it is a context where it makes sense that grip strength has gone down. And I see a broader strategy of the devil to make us men lazy, out of shape, perpetually entertained, again, not doing hard things, not being challenged, not taking dominion of our body, Most of us are not going to look like Schwarzenegger in the 80s. It's a good thing he was on steroids. But anyway, I digress. We're not going to look that way, right, even if we do take dominion of our bodies. But we're not taking dominion of our bodies. And young men, in particular, are getting weaker and weaker and weaker at the time when America has the best food supply we've ever had and the most economic prosperity in relative terms any country in history has ever known. So what's going on? What's going on? Not good things are going on. Men don't need to be bodybuilders for Jesus, OK? And put that on a t-shirt. I guess the more common form of that would be CrossFit, yes? But men, if you do CrossFit, great, great. But men should take dominion of their bodies, 1 Corinthians 9.27. Paul didn't say bodily strength or bodily training was of no value, did he? He said it was of some value. So it's definitely not the top. Spiritual training is of far more importance. I say that to my son. My son is 12. I have three kids, 15-year-old daughter, 12-year-old son, Gavin, 10-year-old daughter. And Gavin is very excited right now by basketball. And I'm working with him to understand genetics. I don't mean like Stanford laboratory genetics or research triangle genetics. I mean very simple layman's genetics. And I'm like, just so you know, look at dad. Just take a good look at dad. This is probably best case scenario. That's a pretty sad phrase, as you could tell, in physical terms. So I am encouraging this boy to become the best basketball player he could be, or baseball player, whatever. He was playing second base last night before I flew here this morning early. I want that for him. I want him to develop his capacities, and yet I want him to understand what he's up against, which his father was up against as well. But he's very excited to come to me and say, Dad, At the end of the day, when I come home from work, providing for my family, dad, I did 45 minutes of dribbling today and I did left hand layups. And I say, yes. And then I say, now, just remember, buddy, just remember, you know, spiritual discipline, you know, being in the word each day. physical discipline, right? So this matters. I was his assistant basketball coach for his homeschool basketball program this whole year. We had seven-month homeschool basketball season. It's longer than the D1 season. I was like, seven months? It was great. It was such a fun season. So we're having a blast doing that. I want to help Gavin understand. Take dominion physically. But we have to rank that and prioritize that rightly, don't we? And that's a challenge. That's a struggle in some ways. Fifth, men are struggling in fatherless homes. I've already mentioned this, so I won't belabor the point. But fatherlessness is really, honestly, basically the central problem in America. Outside of gospel famine, that would be. One out of every three children in this country is in a broken home now. Do you understand that stat, men? One out of every three children is in a broken home now. 80% of single parent homes are headed by mothers. Sixth. And this will have some sub points. Sixth factor for the struggles of men. Men are targeted. Men are targeted today, openly targeted. I've already mentioned toxic masculinity. Let me break down three quick forms of attack. This is why my book is titled The War on Men. Three forms of attack that have come against really God's design broadly, manhood, womanhood, the family, but also on men, okay? So three, these are sub points, three forms of attack under this sixth struggle men have. Targeter number one, Marxism. Marxism. Many people know about the Communist Manifesto of 1871, Marx and Engels. Engels did all the work, basically, right? But Marx got all the branding. Do you know, though, what the Communist Manifesto trains its guns on alongside the glorious free market, fully consonant with the biblical worldview? Do you know what else they train their guns on? the family. Here's a sentence from the Communist Manifesto. Nobody knows this. I didn't know this. Somebody else pointed this out to me. Abolition of the family. Huh? Excuse me? I thought this was a book about which economic system is better. Abolition of the family? Not editing, not updating. Abolishing the family? You want to abolish it, bro? Yes. Here's what they said. On what foundation is the present family, the bourgeois, family based? On capital, on private gain. In its completely developed form, they wrote, this family exists only among the bourgeoisie. So Marx and Engels wanted to destroy, yes, capitalism, better term, free market, right, free enterprise, but they also wanted to destroy nothing less than the natural family. which tells you something about the paradigm of Marxism. It's not a gentle program, is it, that Marxism has. It offers, it is willing to destroy basically everything good God has offered in his common grace to the world he has made. That's basically what Marxism opposes. We are in war now with Marxism. Many Christians are not interested in Marxism, but Marxism is interested in them. Your kids probably aren't interested in Marxism, at least a lot of ours aren't. Mine aren't particularly interested in it. Marxism is interested in them. Our corporate workplaces There's not a lot of positive engagement if you start talking against Marxism or something. Marxism is very interested in all of those workplaces. Marxism is very interested in all of our universities. Marxism is very interested in all of our cultural institutions, and Marxism is very interested in our churches. And Marxism seeks the destruction of the God-made order. That's all. That's all it seeks. It is an absolute wrecking ball of a system. I don't have time to spell this out in terms of major commitments and that sort of thing, but you see not simply Marx and Engels militating against the family and thus manhood with men being at the head of the family. Yes. If you're against the family or against traditional manhood, you see this in the 20th century, mid 20th century with the Frankfurt school. Here, for example, is what Philip Reif, a cultural critic, wrote about the family. The chief institutional instrument of repressive authority is the family. As a political revolution must overthrow the power of the state, moral revolution must overthrow the power of the family, all families. I don't think many people knew these words were being written, but they have been taken seriously. This explains why we are where we are in 2024. It's Marxism. It's not the only ill force in our world. Don't misunderstand me. There's tons. I'm going to name a few to come. But this is a massive problem. And the modern Democratic Party, for example, is not really like the Democratic Party you and I grew up with. You know, in the 70s or 80s or something like that, blue dog Democrats and all this and pro-life Democrats. Basically, modern democratic policies are Marxism. Socialism. Honestly, they are. I don't mean that to plunge us into the political fray here and upset delicate sensibilities. I mean, genuinely, it's basically Marxism now. It may not be called that, of course. AOC and others are savvy and call it democratic socialism and that sort of thing, but it's It's just Marxism. It seeks to destroy basically what you and I would think of if someone said, what do you think is good in this world and is a sign of God's common grace? That's what Marxism wants to destroy. That's what it wants to demolish. You think of what Black Lives Matter wrote on their platform of their own free will just a few years ago before they edited it. This is what they said. This is in perfect keeping. There's a through line from Marx to BLM. We disrupt the Western prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and villages, their air quotes, that collectively care for one another, especially our children, also air quotes, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable. Did you hear that? To, let me repeat, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable. Who was not named in that vision of the family? Say it again, please. Fathers. Just a mild omission there. Only the head of the family, according to scripture, according to God, from time immemorial, from the Garden of Eden, it's gone. Father's gone. This isn't new. This isn't new. This isn't a political rally tonight. And this certainly isn't about skin color. We want the flourishing of every human being and we want people of all backgrounds and ethnicities and skin colors to thrive. But if you want that, the way forward is not this Marxist paradigm. No one flourishes when families are destroyed. No one of any color, of any background, of any country, no one flourishes. This is a horrible program. This is the way to destroy the world, even as you seize control of it. This has to be resisted. We're not all called to, you know, be an academic and write a book about Marxism per se. I don't think that. I'm not foisting that upon you. I don't think the pulpit in a church needs to be hijacked and every other week it's about Marxism and how bad it is. I don't mean that exactly, but I do mean there needs to be a widespread inoculation in the Church of Jesus Christ against this system. And all too often Christians are just sort of Laissez-faire about these things? We've been caught sleeping, haven't we? Church has been caught sleeping over and over. Conservatives, by the way, in the political world, keep getting caught sleeping. And I've tried to think about why that is the case. I think it's because a lot of times, conservatives and Christians actually are enjoying their life. They like their life. Whereas many leftists, sadly, don't like their life. And they want to tell you how to live your life. We more want to stand for what's true and then just kind of live our life. Just sort of, OK. We're happy in the world. We're thankful for what God has given. The problem, though, is that you have to fight in this world. Brothers, we have to fight for what is good. It's fragile, isn't it? You get a little taste of this, those of you who enjoy fantasy and literature. the arts and the Lord of the Rings. I'm not into Catholic theology myself, but what a vision of how there's not many people who will stand up against evil and what is good is fragile and has to be fought for. And that's true. And there aren't many who will fight. So by the grace of God, you're not fighting flesh and blood. You're not, that's not our enemy. In fact, we're called to. love our enemies as Christians, right? Which is a crucial form of Christian witness. It shows you that the gospel has overtaken you. It differentiates you from people who agree with you on cultural issues, but they're attacking the other side as if this is blood sport. And you're going, I'm not going with them one bit. I'm going to oppose what my neighbor is saying and standing for without flinching. but I love them, right? So we're not fighting flesh and blood that marks us as Christians. We look distinct when we do that, when we pray with those we disagree with or treat them with dignity, even as we do not surrender to them. Love of neighbor got hijacked a few years ago in the church, didn't it? Love your neighbor. Do whatever your neighbor wants you to do, basically. Do whatever the government tells you to do. Well, we are people who try to submit to government as much as we possibly can, but loving your neighbor doesn't mean surrendering to whatever your neighbor wants of you. Love of neighbor means standing on the truth of God and then doing all you can to reach out to those around you. Love of neighbor is not neighbor. What would you tell me to surrender of Christian truth and then doing that? It's not loving anybody. The only way you love anybody in this world, man, is you stand for God's truth. We need men like that. Targeter number two, theological feminism. We're winding to a close here, just so you know. Not super long to go. Theological feminism. Grant mentioned this earlier. We were in this unique little ministry that was extremely fun to raise funds for. Please support the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. People are like, what? I'm sorry, what did you just say? Please support complementarianism, the longest word anyone's ever invented. It's a wonderful organization started by tremendous men Grant and I look up to so much, but it was a challenge because we learned then, 10 years ago, there wasn't actually that much will in the church to defend the truth of God, a lot less than we thought as bright-eyed, idealistic seminarians. Theological feminism, though, is real. It's had a powerful effect in our circles. I could talk about this for hours and bore you, but I'll just give you one example of how feminism has invaded the church. You know the Lord's Prayer? Disciples come to Jesus, Matthew 6, and say, teach us to pray. It's a fairly important question, isn't it? How do you pray? Asking Jesus, the Son of God, truly God, truly man. And how does Jesus start? Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done. On it goes. Starts our Father. Now think about this with me for a second. Jesus could have said, you pray, Father, Son, and Spirit, And so on. Jesus could have said, you're free to pray to any of the three of us, you know, this whole Trinitarian thing I've been trying to teach you and you're not getting. One of many things you guys are not getting. Do you get anything? He could have said that. He didn't say choose father, son, or spirit, right? He didn't say, thirdly, pray to a generic divine essence. Just pray divinity in the world, right? Who did he say to pray to? Do you know that God the Father is a real Trinitarian person, a living personal being? Do you know that there is a Heavenly Father over you? Do you know that Jesus came to do His will according to Jesus' own words? Jesus loved to do His will. Jesus came to put that obedience on display to his Father's authority, in no way making Jesus' life bad, in no way meaning that submission entails that Jesus is a lesser being or something like this, but Jesus came to actually show us that a divine person, the second person of the Godhead, can be humble and can serve Now our world, even the evangelical world, does not understand service and obedience and submission, does it? It thinks those things are bad. When's the last time Christianity Today or some evangelical publication put servant of the year and put some no-name volunteer at a local ministry who faithfully and humbly serves? When's the last time they got a podcast dedicated to them? Never. Even in the modern church, we talk a big game about humility and service and obedience, but we don't value it. And when it's attached to Jesus in the theological world, I can tell you, people freak out. You're saying Jesus obeyed the Father? That's horrible. No! It's beautiful. It's beautiful. Jesus came to exalt his Father. He's in no way and not any shape or form a lesser deity or lesser being than his Father. He's equal with the Father and the Spirit. Trinitarianism is glorious, even as it's very hard to understand. And yet Jesus didn't say, pray to any one of the three of us or pray to me." He said, pray to the Father. Because you see in Ephesians 1, 3 to 14, Paul is going to identify God the Father as the one who's planned all salvation. The Father is the one who is so good and so kind and so loving that he would send his Son for us, for our salvation. So against the stereotype that Jesus is loving and our heavenly Father is wrathful and angry and mean and malevolent, in a sinful way, he is wrathful, even as the son is wrathful, in a right way. The Bible teaches us that the father is the one who sets up atonement from the very beginning. The father is the one who looks the serpent in the eye after Eden has just been ruined by the serpent's attack and says, I am sending one who will crush your head. That's the father. The father is one who fights for his people and defends his people and protects his people when no one else can fight for them. The Father is the one who sets up a system of atonement all through the Bible. Day of Atonement in the book of Leviticus. The Father sets up that system so that his people can be clean. The Father is the one, Isaiah 53, who sends his Son so that we can be saved. So don't let your young people in the church be peeled away by this horrible heresy that has been operating for about 1,900 years now that God the Father is wicked and raging and God the Son is loving. You understand? You understand the point? Jesus understands that his Father is good. It's good. But the feminist theologians don't like that. Here is the Lord's Prayer as revised by feminist theologians. I'm not making this up. This is real. Our Mother, who is within us, we celebrate your many names. Your wisdom come, your will be done unfolding from the depths within us. Our mother, blasphemy. Anyone who writes such words should be struck down on the spot alongside all of us sinners who have wronged our holy God. The point here is this. It's not simply manhood that is targeted. You understand? It's God the Father who isn't allowed to be God the Father. Everyone's identity gets affirmed today except God's. You understand? Everyone's pronouns get used except God's. Isn't that interesting? Shows us a little bit of the rebellion of the human heart, doesn't it? Targeter number three, wokeness. I won't go at length on this because we're almost out of time. I've written a book, as Grant mentioned, called Christianity and Wokeness that spells this out more. I reference this in the book you have now. But basically, wokeness has seeped into every facet of our public and private lives. And you can't have a lot of daylight, of course, between Marxism and wokeness because that's basically what wokeness is. But there is a specific project that you can identify that I do think is right to call out as wokeness. And specifically, anyone who has any kind of power or advantage in a woke system is bad. And anyone who is bad is oppressing those who are not like them, of necessity. So straight people today are oppressing sexual minorities. Able-bodied people are oppressing the disabled. White people are oppressing racial minorities. The wealthy are oppressing the poor. Parents are oppressing their children, and on it goes. So this is a system anchored in hate. It is anchored in division. It is a system like the orcs in the aforementioned Lord of the Rings trilogy that are bred for one purpose, to divide. That's what it's bred for. It's not bred to unite. There's no unity in wokeness. There's just division. There's just division. Men do very badly in a woke climate. where they cannot communicate, they cannot speak freely, they cannot think, and so this is having tremendous effects on younger men and younger women today. Now, of course, oppression is a reality in our world. The Bible has a category for oppression. Oppression is real. There's wicked ruler after wicked ruler in the books of the kings, right, for example? So we know there's oppression that takes hold, and we know that lots of people get affected by it. But that's not the same thing as Marx's social justice, which is destroying really our country, destroying our institutions, and very much influencing the church. All of this speaks to what men are up against today. And the stakes are high. One thing I didn't mention. is the suicide rate among different groups of men. I've alluded to it, but I didn't give it. This isn't about white men, this talk, this message, but the suicide rates of white men who have been altogether demonized in America in the last five to eight years. I don't believe in the category of race. Race is an invention. Race is a fiction. There's different skin color. There's different background. There's different culture. There's different ethnicity. But there's not a thing called race. There's one human race, Act 1726. But if you are breaking down those who have been targeted because of their skin color, white men, who are really the worst of the worst in a woke system, you see that the suicide rates are higher than they've ever been. They're terrible. So all of this poisonous ideology, brothers, is having an effect. It's not having an effect only among that group, but that is one feature, sadly, of living in this society. Everything I put on paper thus far can leave us with a sense of despair. But we are in conclusion. We've got to have a word of hope here. You ready? Luke 15. Go with me there. I'm not about to expose it at all. I'm just going to give you a word of conclusion. Luke 15. In verses 11 to 32, we find probably the most famous story in the Bible. Story. The parable of the prodigal son. In this parable, what do you find? You find a totally ruined young man, don't you? Just like we've been talking about. All those factors, those six struggles. Prodigal son hits a lot of categories, doesn't he? Prodigal son should be, according to secular thought, ruined. Just kill yourself. I mean, just end it. Your life has no value. You've squandered everything you have. Your relationships are smoldering. This is a Jewish boy in a pigsty in verse 16, Luke 15, 16. That's not where he's supposed to be, right? If you know anything about that world. I mean, he is the lowest of the low. We talked about porn. We talked about addiction. We talked about struggling marriages. We talked about not having work. The prodigal son is as low as you can go. Some of you here may be low. Your marriage may be struggling. You may be struggling as a father. You may not have work. You may have what are now called mental health struggles, genuinely. You may not have purpose. You may struggle to get to church. You may not be committing to anything. You may have dropped out of stuff. I don't know. There's sort of blue-collar forms of struggling men, and there's white-collar forms of struggling men, by the way. You may have the corner office and a million dollar salary, but your life can be in a terrible place, by the way. So the prodigal son can apply to you, even if you're flying high, and how the world sees you, and how the world sees you. But you can be as low as you can go. So what happens to the prodigal son? What happens to the prodigal son is by the grace of God, verses 17 to 19, he comes to himself. We would say, in theological terms, he understands his sin. Yes? He squares with his sin. He stops making excuses. He stops numbing the pain with lustful pleasure and things of the flesh. And he realizes this isn't giving joy, the world, the flesh, nothing. He's ruined. He's got nothing. He's lost his inheritance. He's among pigs. He's as unclean as you can get for a young Jewish boy. And then we read these verses again, not expositing the passage late on Friday night, but let's just read a few verses, comment and close. Verse 20, and he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. At this point, knowing earthly fathers, being earthly fathers, we might expect the father to go, you stupid idiot son. You've disgraced me. I'll welcome you back, but we've got a lot to sort out. That's not what the father says. Verse 22, but the father said to his servants, bring quickly the best robe and put it on him and put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet and bring the fattened calf and kill it and let us eat and celebrate for this my son was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found. And they began to celebrate. Here's what I would leave you with tonight, wherever you are, that is the character of God. You may not be a believer here tonight. There is infinite hope and love for you if you will trust in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. We'll be talking more about that explicitly tomorrow. I've got a whole session on Christ tomorrow, and then I'm preaching on Sunday, and I'll be preaching about Christ on Sunday, and I can't wait. So if you're not a believer, and you've sat here through this presentation, know that the gateway to hope and renewal is very simple. It's in one man, Jesus Christ. And if you're a believer, you've been a believer for a long time maybe, but you need healing and you need renewal and you need divine compassion. As a man, those aren't feminine things. The father felt compassion for his son, didn't he? And if you never had a father on earth who said, I love you, you would be shocked at how many men come up to me at these men's conferences and tell me that. My dad was a good man. He was there for me. He never said, I love you. And they have dealt with that. They've continued to function, which is the right thing. But there's a wound there, honestly. It's deep. It doesn't easily heal. Know this. The Heavenly Father does not fail you. This is the God. who tells us, behold, I am making all things new. This is the God who will work in your life. And wherever you fit on the spectrum of struggling men, he will make all things new for you. You cannot be too low for God to work in you. In fact, it is when you are low that God comes to you. and puts His best robe on you, the righteousness of His Son, and says, come, let's celebrate. This one was lost, and now He is found. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we've talked about such weighty things tonight. Probably some hearts out here are heavy. It's been a long week. These men have worked. They have a lot on their plate. I thank you for their attention and I pray, Father, I pray for these men. I pray that you would do a great work among us. All we bring to you, Father God, is need. all you bring to us is grace. I pray, Father, that through Christ you would do work in us. I pray for the men who are not sure, the young men, the boys here, who are not sure of their spiritual state. I pray they would run to Jesus. And I pray for those who are Christians and have been Christians for a while, but are struggling with different things, as we all do, and those who are needing encouragement, and those who are needing your compassion, and those who are needing your rebuilding mercy and grace, I pray that you will give it to them. Thank you that you are a good father. Thank you that you are the one who welcomes home sinners like us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus Christ. Amen. Thank you for listening to this message from the War on Men Conference held at Capitol Community Church in April, 2024. To learn more about Capitol Community Church, please visit capitolcommunitychurch.com. For information about Finding Purpose Ministries, please visit findingpurpose.net. Owen Strand's book, The War on Men, was published in 2023 by Salem Books.