What does it mean to be a good man? In this episode, Dru Johnson talks with Professor Nancy Pearcey about masculinity, toxic masculinity, feminism, fatherhood, Christianity, and the cultural forces that have shaped modern ideas about men.
Pearcey explains why she wrote her book on masculinity after seeing increasingly hostile portrayals of men in popular culture and explores the deeper history behind these attitudes. Rather than tracing hostility toward men only to second-wave feminism, she argues that its roots extend back to the Industrial Revolution and changing ideas about work, family, masculinity, and human nature.
The conversation examines how Darwinism and evolutionary psychology have contributed to negative cultural scripts about male aggression, sexuality, and dominance—and how those ideas can help explain the appeal of figures such as Andrew Tate. Pearcey also discusses research suggesting that Christian men can be loving husbands, engaged fathers, and committed family members.
The episode explores the importance of recovering a healthier vision of biblical masculinity centered on responsibility, virtue, service, protection, provision, fatherhood, and family. It also considers how working from home, integrating family and work, and reconnecting fathers with their children could help reshape modern family life.
Order Professor Nancy Pearcey's book here: https://bakerpublishinggroup.com/products/9780801075735_the-toxic-war-on-masculinity
Professor Nancy Pearcey's website: https://www.nancypearcey.com/
Contact us at The Biblical Mind: Click Here
We are listener supported. Give to the cause here: https://thebiblicalmind.org/give/
For more articles: https://thebiblicalmind.org/
Social Links:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HebraicThought
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hebraicthought
Threads: https://www.threads.net/hebraicthought
X: https://www.twitter.com/HebraicThought
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/hebraicthought.org
Chapters
00:00 — Covenant, new Christians, and the intellectual questions nobody knew how to answer
02:19 — How the conversation will work and why the book matters
04:04 — Why Pearcey wrote the book after seeing anti-male rhetoric everywhere
06:38 — Abuse, feminism, and moving from blame to healing
09:06 — Anti-male language before the 20th century
11:50 — Darwinism, social Darwinism, and the “beast within” script
13:44 — Andrew Tate as a popularizer of older intellectual ideas
16:16 — The universal “three Ps” of masculinity: provide, protect, procreate
18:11 — The difference between the “good man” and the “real man”
21:23 — Why empirical research matters for claims about Christian men
22:21 — What the studies say about evangelical husbands and fathers
25:26 — Why churches often discourage men instead of encouraging them
27:24 — How the Industrial Revolution changed fathers and family life
34:39 — Pandemic remote work and fathers getting closer to their children
36:24 — Work, family, and the real-life benefits of flexibility
40:36 — Men on the daddy track and the cost of choosing family
43:08 — Bringing work home for women and the recovery of integrated family life
47:16 — Millennials and Gen Z want a more integrated life
48:45 — What Pearcey means by secular and how the split developed
50:55 — The historical reversal that made women seem morally superior
53:13 — The double standard in dating and the pressure on women to police men
55:25 — Why the title is controversial and how people misread the book
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
