Does Society Hate Strong Men? | The Owen Strachan Interview
Dr. Owen Strachan is fighting back against Drag Queen Story Hour by becoming involved in Pastor Story Hour and so can you! He's also got almost 100k followers on Twitter without engaging in aggressive conduct—an absolute legend! He's also a talented freestyle rapper! We had him freestlye rap some theological terms, yo! His latest book is The War on Men, Why Society Hates Them and Why We Need Them. Owen is a cinema connoisseur who believes this era of filmmaking dismisses the need for strong male leads. Dr. Owen Strachan is a Provost and Research Professor of Theology at Grace Bible Theological Seminary. He earned his Ph.D from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He has authored numerous books, including Christianity and Wokeness: How the Social Justice Movement is Hijacking the Gospel - and the Way to Stop it. Check out his new book The War on Men, Why Society Hates Them and Why We Need Them: https://a.co/d/940vJ9V This is episode is brought to you by Samaritan Ministries: samaritanministries.org/thebabylonbee Become a premium subscriber: https://babylonbee.com/plans?utm_source=PYT&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=description
We have our special guest here today, Owen Strand.
And this, and with me, as always, is Sam Greer.
We're very happy to have you on.
Owen, thank you so much for joining us.
Thanks.
You're a professor.
You're a sometimes rapper.
You're a movie expert.
You do a lot of different things.
Who are you?
How are you?
Yeah, I'm just kidding.
Yeah.
Yeah, I'm well.
I'm a child of God.
That's all I have to say.
End interview.
This beautiful end interview.
And now it's time for another interview on the Babylon Bee Podcast.
We've got a question about something that you made headlines for recently.
Pastor Story Hour.
We want to get into your whole career, but this made a splash and it's worth going into.
What was it a response to?
How did it go?
What was the feedback like?
Go ahead.
Yeah.
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I didn't start pastor story hour but um, a bunch of guys did.
They did it in response to Drag queen story hour which uh, you might have heard about.
Uh, in libraries I i'm actually the son of a librarian.
My mother was a librarian all my childhood.
So who knew that like libraries, which could be kind of seen as a boring place yeah, where not a lot happens, have actually become like the center of the culture war.
Yeah like, sit in a weird pastel colored classroom and well, have you I mean, have you ever i've been a library recently?
We have kids yeah, and every book that they are pushing is something woke.
So it's always something like you know, some Democrat or some kind of progressive person, or like Che Guevera, like a children's book, like you know, i'm like what?
Like what's going on here?
Yeah, it's really kind of ground zero for a lot of the progressive agenda.
So, turns out, that's the thing.
So um, I just saw that and some guys in my church in Arkansas were like, would you be willing to do a pastor story hour?
So i'm not, i'm not a pastor at this time, but I was like I love children.
As a Christian, we want to extend the love and grace of God to children every chance we can get.
We also want to protect our children.
We want to be a presence in society that's like hey, we're not giving our kids Up or anyone else's kids, if we can help it.
So it wasn't like a protest event on our part, but it was a statement.
We were trying to make a statement like, we're here, we're Christians, and we're not intimidated, but ultimately we're about love in this event.
So we did it.
We came together, I don't know, a month or two ago.
I read a couple books.
What books did you read?
I read a book from Kevin De Young about basically just the narrative of scripture, the gospel, the biggest story, it's called.
And then I read a book by Sally Michael and a co-author, Gary Stewart, Created in God's Design, or something like that.
And I didn't read all that book because it's longer, but it was about what it means to be a boy and a girl.
And I was just, the room got completely jam-packed.
All these precious little kids in front of us.
At the end, we had prayer time that the kids asked for after reading.
I didn't plan on that.
It was just stories, just reading.
And then one kid prayed that we would have good sins, which is maybe the cutest prayer request I've ever heard.
Help us have good sins.
Yeah.
Just go out there and try them, kid.
Let's go try them.
So you did attract some protesters or at least a counter event.
What was that like?
We announced the event.
And then two, three days later, the Faulkner County for Social Justice group or something like that announced they were going to have drag queen story hour, inclusive story hour with a drag queen.
So they came.
We were 10 feet apart from each other, the two events, Pastor Story Hour and Inclusive Story Hour.
And a drag queen came.
And I mean, the two groups were totally mingling in the hallway.
And it was fantastically awkward.
And I loved it.
I loved it because I wanted us to be not angry and red-faced and shouting at them, but like, we're totally here.
We're doing our thing.
And then we wanted to, I wanted to have conversation with that group.
And so I tried to share the gospel, but then also just engage them.
Why are you doing the things you're doing?
To quote the office, you know, and we had some good conversation.
I think it surprised some of them because they were like expecting a just, you know, arm up and fight kind of approach.
You were going to have a story hour off.
Yeah.
That's what you did.
Going to read hard in this classroom.
They call it a Mexican story hour.
Reading louder than each other.
So I'm glad we started off just getting into the thick of it with a distinct event.
Zooming out.
That event is telling of your broader influence or your broader ministry, we could call it.
You've got the seminary side where you're teaching at a seminary and you've got the online thought leader side.
Can you tell us about how, I guess, how that event, you know, the pastor story hour, how was that part of your broader philosophy of ministry, both to your seminary students and to the broader culture that reads your books and reads your tweets?
Yeah, I feel a certain level of call from God to try to be out in public because I think the church in particular in this era is like on its heels.
A lot of Christian thought leaders don't want a bad brand.
They don't want to be known for the tough issues and stuff.
And I'm no solution to the world's problems.
But I'm like, if our Savior is a great Savior who has died for our sins and conquered death, hell, and Satan through his work on the cross, I'm not supposed to be the fearful one.
I'm not the one playing with a bad hand here.
You're the one playing with a bad hand world.
So I just want to be out there, not against anyone in particular.
We're supposed to speak the truth in love, Ephesians 4, 15.
But that's what I want to do.
I want to be salt and light in whatever small and inadequate way I can be.
Matthew 5.
So this was just an opportunity.
Honestly, it wasn't my idea, this particular one, but it was an opportunity to try to show people like bold Christianity.
And when you see it, you're like, we can do that.
And you can.
Like the great need of the church in our day is just not superstar Christians, just loving Christians who are bold in public.
That's really it, by the grace of God.
By the grace of God.
And sometimes being bold means that people are going to label you as unloving just because you're bold.
I mean, standing up, even doing this thing, you know, Pastor Story Hour, it's just a response to what they're doing, which then looks like it's not loving, you know.
And we get criticized for being unloving, even by progressive Christians.
You know, you speak about these things, though, and these things that are happening in culture.
What do you think about, like, and how would you do this in love?
What do you think about the, this is another thing that's happening.
Andy Stanley, you had a tweet about Andy Stanley recently.
What happened there?
What do you think is going on?
Is he frogging kettling his church?
Like, what's happening?
What's happening there?
You know what I mean?
Like, I want to know.
Here's the deal on Andy Stanley.
Andy Stanley is deconstructing before our eyes.
Yeah.
I'm dead serious.
He is just taking apart whatever faith system is operative in his heart and mind.
He's just taking it apart piece by piece.
And he's running really the liberal Christian air quotes playbook, which is basically marches under this banner.
To save the faith, we've got to destroy the faith.
Or said differently, to save the faith, we've got to take apart, you know, the unsaleable elements of our faith, the parts the world doesn't like.
And then we'll have a palatable Christianity that in particular, the next generation, it's always premised on the youth, the kids.
We've got to help them.
They will find it appealing.
So nobody's really against the resurrection, right?
That's why Andy Stanley.
That's his big thing, right?
He's always like, we just got to focus on the resurrection.
Right.
We just got to focus.
Forgive the Bible, only the resurrection.
Right.
He was saying that what, what, like six, seven years ago, a catalyst, like already, like seven years ago.
Yes.
So it's a hilarious move in a sad way because he pits the Bible against the resurrection, as Sam just referenced.
And so actually, there is no resurrection that you can know for certain without the Bible, right?
And by the way, it's not a resurrection in our hearts.
It's not a fairy tale, make-believe bedtime story hour resurrection that didn't really occur, but it kind of did.
No, it's a real flesh and blood coming back to life resurrection.
But if you give up the Bible, you don't have that left.
So again, I think sadly, we should pray for him.
But Stanley is deconstructing.
He's losing his faith in public one piece at a time.
And it's one thing for Stanley to do that.
It's one thing for your buddy to do that who you went to Bible college with.
It's another thing for a pastor who is globally influential to lead people to do this.
But the times, the times are hard.
We're in what's called, sociologists call Charles Taylor, the philosopher, Aaron Renn, others.
They call it a negative world.
I'm sure you heard about that, talked about it.
But like we're in the negative world.
We're not in the neutral world.
We're certainly not in the friendly world in terms of where the culture is with Christianity.
Used to be like, oh, it's great you're a Christian.
Then it became like, oh, it's fine you're a Christian.
Now it's it's bad you're a Christian.
And Andy Stanley's trying to get around that focus on the positive doctrines, the resurrection.
He doesn't want the cross because the cross is where the wrath of God is poured out on the sun for all who trust Christ.
He doesn't want that.
He just wants the positive stuff.
He wants the good brand.
So, I mean, you're trying to save people from a similar fate in your own thought leadership, whether it be on Twitter or elsewhere.
Tell us about your target reader.
You've got, well, you've got a percentage of people who are going to read your tweets and they're just going to, you know, they're woke, so they're upset.
You've got a percentage of people who are the tone police.
They're saying, oh, there's no qualifications.
There's no nuance.
There's no caveats.
This is terrible.
Clear statement of your beliefs.
But then you've got probably a third category of people who are reading your tweets and being encouraged to not deconstruct.
Can you tell us who you're writing for, especially when it comes to Twitter?
Yeah, I can say, you know, his shoes are white and I'll get like, I'll get smashed for it.
They are.
They're true, though.
They're kind of off weight.
Actually, while we're talking about that, they're kind of a creamish white artist.
Well, they used to be white is kind of the truth.
And your tone was way off.
That was unloving.
You can't do anything right now.
Not true.
So, yeah, I mean, false.
Fact check, bro.
I don't really have like somebody in mind, but I just try to be a young-ish guy as a Christian theologian.
I'm age 41, so I'm clinging with my last fingernail.
Yeah.
You made it.
For as long as you're still rapping, you're young.
Yeah, congratulations.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Yeah.
With a fingernail to young-ish.
But just an adult now.
Yeah.
Not a young adult anymore.
It's time to adult.
Thank you.
You know, just trying to encourage Christians in the truth.
Like, there's a lot of encouragement out there.
There's a lot of spiritual uplift.
But my thing seems to be like engage the world boldly on its terms as God blesses and allows and state truth.
Don't apologize for it.
Don't nuance it to death.
Don't overdo it.
You know, we all sin.
We all stumble in many ways, me included.
I can heat the kettle too hot for sure.
But that's my goal, just to encourage the church to stand on truth, basically.
And then whoever shows up, shows up.
It seems like young people in particular love that because they're in a deconstructed world.
They're in a postmodern or post-postmodern world.
They're in a woke world where they go to colleges and nobody says anything that's true anymore.
And we're all being deluded into believing in anti-reality, like at every single level, anti-reality.
So I don't have some genius insight by far to offer, but when you stand on God's word and you say true things, people respond to it, including young people.
That's beautiful.
There was a Vodi Baccum quote like two days ago, I was able to hear him preach and he said, your sermon will die the death of a thousand qualifications if you're not careful.
Speak the truth.
Be bold about it.
Don't backpedal just because you know, just because you're, you know, you're not picturing your congregation anymore.
You're picturing the online people who are going to have bad things to say about it.
I just wanted to commend you for your truth telling in love, but also you seem to be a unifier.
We don't see you getting into many online spats, Twitter or elsewhere.
Is that by design that you're not really punching right?
And you're not even necessarily punching left.
You're just punching with the truth.
Is that by design?
I try to do that because I have a little Joab in me from the Old Testament where Joab's just like, should we cut his head off?
Sure.
Let's do it.
You want him dead?
Okay.
He should die.
Exactly.
So I'd rather, I have some of those instincts and I'm trying.
I try not to let my Twitter account loose in that way.
I feel you on that.
Because we're here at the B, you know, obviously our brand is not to be mean or hateful or hypocritical.
Like what we're trying to do is unify in general, you know, make people laugh, hopefully.
Yeah.
You know, and say some true things, you know.
Yeah.
But when you start doing that, you inevitably get backlash just because you're saying true things.
So it's like you can't really win for losing on some level if you're going to start speaking truth.
Like, I love that you are doing what you're doing.
And I like that voice, though.
Like, let's try to be unifiers.
Let's try.
Let's at least try.
You know, we don't have to stand up and just tell everybody what terrible people are.
Be a firebrand and say the thing that's the most controversial at the time.
Like, I don't think we need to be doing that.
Yes.
You know, and if there is something controversial, like the best thing that we figured out to do is to, you know, make fun of it.
Yeah.
You guys have a vital role.
You guys have a vital role.
And you honestly, you, you're weird language is in my brain that's being suggested to me, but you perform a service.
I don't know why.
I don't know why that comes to mind.
It's the most formal phrase ever, but we perform a service.
You perform a service, my friends.
Your satire, my liege.
Here you are.
We desperately need it, though, because in evil days like this, there can be a tendency, especially for the truth brigade, to like arm up and fight only.
And we do have to take stands.
We've got to, but we should take those stands in love, hopefully as much as we can with a smile on our face.
And we don't want to become just angry, just perpetually angry.
That's not a win.
One more thing I'll say is I was trained by theologians like Al Moeller, Bruce Ware, these figures, Mark Dever.
And those men were serious Christians who were men in public.
And what we desperately need too is what I call in a book I'm publishing this fall, The War on Men, strong men.
We need strong men.
And I'm not strong in myself.
That's the Apostle Paul's point in a bunch of his letters, especially 1 and 2 Corinthians in the New Testament.
He's like, I'm the weak one.
Jesus is the strong one.
And that's true for me.
I'm not the strong one.
Jesus is the strong one.
The Holy Spirit is the strong one in this partnership.
But we do need men who, by the power and grace of God, stand up.
Not that we can't or shouldn't have women in the public square.
Of course we should.
But we've got to have strong men punch back against the idea that young men in particular are toxic.
And so they should just step back and have nothing to say and contribute nothing and shut up.
And that's what wokeness is telling young men in general, conservative young men, religious young men, white men to some degree, who cares about skin color, but that is what it's saying.
It's shutting down young men in general.
And we've got to say to young men, for example, you are not toxic.
There is nothing about you that is toxic.
You're a sinner.
You're a sinner.
You need the grace of God through Jesus Christ, just like I do.
You need to be redeemed.
You need to be born again.
That's a pretty strong thing to say.
But you're not toxic.
Toxic is a therapeutic category where with no hope of redemption, you're just perpetually therapeutized.
We offer something way better than a therapeutic worldview.
We offer redemption in Christ.
So we need to say some of these things.
In the public square.
In the public square.
Yeah, I love that because you're engaging in the public square.
That's like a John Stone Street or the guys from World or the Moeller Report.
I actually listened to the Moeller Report.
I love that guy.
Yeah.
And this is it.
It's the engagement with the culture and politics, but also just philosophy and having these conversations out loud where we don't have to be worried about being canceled.
And, you know, it's great, man.
And that's the best thing to do.
Seth always says that.
He's like, just keep speaking, keep speaking.
He's like, that's the only way you got to do it.
You just did Christianity and Wokeness.
Yeah.
That was your book last time that you were here.
You were with us how long ago now?
Like it's like a year or something.
It's been a minute.
It's been a while.
Yeah.
So Christianity Wokeness came out.
How did that do?
And like, what was the basic premise of that book?
It did amazingly well in terms of what expectations we had for it.
I had to kind of talk my way into the baseball game to get it published.
But we got on the field and it was kind of a surprise bestseller.
What position did you play?
Utility left bench.
But I was for one week in Publishers Weekly.
My book was four slots below Oprah's.
Oh.
I'm not saying that to brag, but it was like a moment, you know?
Like Oprah had approximately seven years on that list.
I had one week.
But anyway, God was very kind.
Christianity Wokeness went, the publisher Salem, Salem has really stepped up.
They published Babylon B's book on guide to wokeness.
Same editor, my editor.
So doing excellent work in that space.
Salem's like, oh, all these other publishers, including many evangelical publishers and even conservative publishers, you guys don't want to take the hard ones.
You don't want to take the high heat in the batting cage?
We'll take it.
That's right.
Isn't there a category?
We talked about it before.
There's a category for Christianity light, right?
Isn't there kind of a.
Yes.
Yeah.
So like you can either be Christian or Christian light.
And if you go Christian light, you're going to make a lot more money.
But if you go to Christian, just Christian, yeah, you're probably not going to make that much money.
That's how they think.
And that's probably usually true.
But the weird thing is they published my book, Christianity and Wokeness, in summer 2021.
And you made buckets of money.
I retired.
Maybe it's not true.
That's why he's not wearing a suit tonight.
I'm independently wealthy.
But then they published, they had published Vodi Baukam's book, Fault Lines, three months before that.
Vodi's book was not accepted really by any evangelical publisher, for example.
My book was accepted by one out of like 12 we tried for.
They wouldn't even give it the time of day, really, most of them.
Vodi's book went on to sell hundreds of thousands of copies.
Mine sold far below that, but hit bestseller.
Both books hit bestseller.
So this is the weird thing.
All those publishers were like, that's not going to sell.
It's too strong.
It's too hot.
And instead, because people are in a woke culture, by the way, everywhere they turn, and they have no idea how to handle it, think through it.
They don't know the background.
They don't know much about Marxist philosophy.
Bless their hearts.
They shouldn't.
But anyway, it's trash.
But anyway, they wanted those resources and they responded.
So there's a like spiritual lesson there.
Like when you step up to the plate and you take the high heat, the 102 mile an hour fastball, people will respond.
I don't know how that works out on the metaphor, but people will cheer.
I don't know.
That's weird.
Yeah.
So 1 Corinthians 1 comes to mind.
The wisdom of God is foolishness to the world.
God has chosen the foolish and the low things of the world to shame the wise, at least in the world's eyes.
Do you think that your book, obviously for some, it's preaching to the choir, but it's strengthening the church and they're learning to articulate their beliefs afresh.
But do you think there was also a readership of people for whom the gospel was foolishness, but it gave them fresh eyes for it in kind of a common grace way?
Do you think it was a runway for any?
Totally.
I am bullish about the truth.
I believe like when we as distinctly Christian people speak the truth from scripture, I believe that there will be a lot of Christians who respond.
Not that we're a big deal, we're not, but because it's God's truth.
My sheep hear my voice, Jesus said.
They'll hear it.
They'll respond.
But then because there are so few sources, not speaking like gospel doctrine, but just speaking reality.
Just saying things like boys are boys and girls are girls and boys can't become girls and you can't change your gender and things like that.
And you shouldn't abort babies in the womb and things that people know.
Men should be strong.
When you say those things nowadays in 2023, the bad thing is that you get a lot of flack, right, from the left.
The good thing is that people on the right, including a lot of people who may not be religious at all, they're like, somebody's saying something.
That's true.
I agree.
I agree.
So we're seeing that effect.
Like Vodis had crazy opportunities to speak in all these settings that are not just Christian.
I've had a few too.
The point I tried to make in the book is basically this.
Wokeness is a different system than Christianity.
I'm a professor of systematic theology at my tiny seminary in Arkansas.
You have to think about the world in terms of systems.
Satan wants the world blended and mushy and no distinctions and everything's porous and weird.
Christianity comes in and announces itself as a clear system.
Wokeness is a different system.
It tells white people they're white supremacist and things like this, and they need to repent of their whiteness.
And I saw this creeping into the church.
It took me time to get my arms around the system because you got to read it.
We all saw that, man.
We saw it coming.
But in order to understand the system, you got to read books.
You got to take time.
So I tried to make that argument and tried to help people see.
No, you don't combine, you know, Ibram ex Kendi with Jesus.
With Jesus.
It doesn't work.
Different system.
Yeah, that's interesting.
We call that squishianity.
Yeah.
Because you can't combine philosophies.
These things are exclusive.
Exactly.
These things are exclusive.
Like Christianity is its own thing.
And you can't just try to shoehorn something in like this, like this, like neo-Marxism or whatever just doesn't fit.
And so it's weird that you say that about people just responding to these big, these statements, right?
Like these truth statements, truth claims.
We were just at Bee Live in Dallas, Fort Worth, Texas.
Yeah.
It was so much fun.
We had such a great time.
Great, great audience.
There was like, gosh, I mean, over a thousand people there.
And they were like rabid B fans.
It was like the craziest thing.
And so, but we ended up, I mean, you just get on stage and say, men are not women.
And everyone would be like, you know, like, yeah, that's right.
You know, you just have to make one claim.
You know, like all the jokes about that were just like met like this uproarous applause.
Like it was just crazy.
I think the response is like that among Christians and non-Christians who are at least sensitive.
You know, common grace has softened them to at least be sensitive to the truth and receptive to it.
I think, so people will sometimes call us a ministry.
They'll say, we're so grateful for your ministry.
Yeah.
And we'll say, let's take up a collection.
No, I'm kidding.
We won't say that.
What we'll say is, oh my goodness, backpedal.
We're not a ministry.
We tell jokes on the internet.
But then in the back of my mind, I think, you know, there's it's a joke works, it clicks, and it gets a laugh because it sparks the truth in your brain because there's a mismatch between your joke and the truth.
And I think our jokes have a way of bringing the truth to the surface.
Well, they're saying the opposite.
It's kind of like an apologetic ministry in a way because it is doing exactly that.
It's highlighting untruth and it's highlighting truth and it's comparing the two and showing one to be true and one not to be true.
Sometimes you need to get over some of those humps in order to really accept the truth too.
If you want to receive Christ, you have to be able to acknowledge that reality is reality sometimes.
Like that's it.
Repentance is kind of acknowledging reality.
You have to, people today will, they will respond like you guys just said, like at the convention, but there's often a pause.
That's what I've noticed when you're like, men, you're like, listen to me.
You're at a church or something.
Like, men are men.
Women are women.
Can't change.
There'll be a pause because we're so in the era of indoctrination and lies like Orwell, like Huxley, right?
That people are like, wait a minute, did he say that?
Can I respond?
And then there is the, oh, yes, that's, wait, that's reality itself.
That's not a view.
That's not an ideology.
That's truth.
So you see people pausing, but the truth frees, the truth liberates.
And satire, satire is where it depends on the truth, right?
It's like right with preaching, actually.
It doesn't seem that way, but it depends on something stable being the truth and then mocking that which is not truth.
So the satirists have become almost the preachers, the prophets of today.
Not that they're trying to be, but because they're willing to say, that's ridiculous.
You mentioned that you teach at a small seminary in Conway, Arkansas.
Do they have prerequisite classes like Banjo 101?
Banjo 102.
Is that an Arkansas joke?
I'm not sure.
Who knows?
I could say that.
My folks live in Pennsylvania.
Wow.
Pennsylvania.
And Virginia.
I know, I know, I know.
That's the north.
My father's folks live in Virginia.
I've got a background in banjos.
Hey.
Yeah.
Empty moonshine bottles.
You're from Maine?
I'm from coastal Maine.
Are you where?
Machias, Maine.
So a Maine man transplanted to Arkansas.
Yeah, so I keep finding myself.
I'm ruralizing myself, though I love cities and stuff.
But yeah, Arkansas, I'm at this small seminary called Grace Bible Theological Seminary.
It's a Baptist school, Reformed Baptist school.
And yeah, a lot of the trends we've been talking about have even hit, they've hit the church, as you're well aware, and they've hit even seminaries and stuff.
There's still some good ones out there, but we've got a lot of young men in particular.
That's who we train.
And they're like, they just want, like, they don't want anything fancy.
They don't want a climbing wall.
You know, they don't need a hug room or something like this.
They just want like truth and grace.
John 1, that's what Jesus came to offer.
So, and you know, we don't have to talk about this.
Did you hear about the new appointment of Ed Stetzer?
That's the name too, Biola.
Did you hear about this?
I heard about it.
Okay.
Do you have an opinion about this?
Like, I feel like Christianity Today, like he's kind of associated with Christianity today, like, which is a problem for me.
Like, you know, like, I'm just going to say it.
Like, I think it's a, Christianity is a bunch of crap.
But yeah, like, yeah.
But I think, you know.
Yeah.
It's sad.
We're so thoughtful here at Christianity today.
Yeah, it's sad because CT.
They're the thoughtful ones.
CT was founded with good aims.
Sure.
It's done good over the years, kind of drifted some, seems to continue to drift today.
I wouldn't be where Stetzer is on a bunch of things.
Loved by a lot of people.
But yeah, I would have some concerns.
Okay.
To be honest.
We don't want to be like Fire Brandy or say anything like super negative.
I probably shouldn't have said Christianity today is a bunch of crap.
You're probably right.
It's probably just drifted a bit.
Whenever I read an article, I'm like, I don't really trust this.
I don't think you're going to say it.
You say what you want to say, bro.
It's your show.
But no, I have concerns too for sure.
What's needed in every generation is a group of individuals and institutions that are going to boldly stand on the truth that aren't trying to cater to the masses, the elite crowds or whatever.
And so there's a real need for that in evangelicalism today.
And some of those older legacy properties are struggling a lot to find the courage of their convictions and not be worldly and not be just kind of passing down the talking points of whatever the culture or the government is.
And not try to find the third way.
Like this is the other thing.
You know what I'm saying?
Give me a break, right?
The third way.
The third flipping way.
The third way.
Give me a break about the third way.
But yeah, I do think with, and I love, there's a lot of people I love at Biola.
Like we've got good friends there.
And I think it's always been such a good conservative theology.
It has.
You know, seminary.
Yeah.
So anyway, I know there was concerns with some of our more conservative folks.
Yeah, I'm thankful for a lot of folks at Biola.
It's done good work over the years.
Sean McDowell and William Lane Craig on the Pelageric side.
Yeah, he's amazing.
He's great.
Yeah, he's done some interesting stuff in the last few years.
Like he's dehistoricized Genesis 1 through 11.
He's a good person.
I did see that.
You don't want to do that.
Our friend Eric Thaunas is really great.
Yeah, Eric Thaunnis is a baller.
He's the man.
Yeah.
He totally is.
He's like football player and he's like gets in your space and you're like, is he about to tackle me as you two seem to do to each other?
Yeah.
And he's like, he's like, I just want to encourage you.
I just want to encourage you, man.
And he's like, and he's handsome.
We always say that.
He's just awkward, but he's good looking, dude.
He's the type who would have had a Roman profile cast of him.
They would have people would have been like, sorry, sir, Roman senator, you're getting, you're in marble now.
I love it.
Yeah, we're going to chip this away until it looks like Eric Donis.
Some guys just sort of demand, they sort of demand Liam Neeson.
You know, you're like, somebody should sculpt you in marble.
Does anyone offer that for you?
It's true.
She's got a Roman nose.
Yeah.
We're going to hear about this on the people are going to, oh, you guys are, oh, you're eroticizing your.
No, it's just.
Say what you want.
It's just actually that, you know, I don't know.
There's nobility in the world, bro.
And you just and Eric Thanis has it.
He's got it.
There's a, there's a, I think it's a Lewis quote that says, must we always picture Noah drunk and naked and never building the ark?
Like he's got a nobility to him, the Noahic character, but there's a modern impulse to cut him down to size.
And the Bible does both, so you can have both, but nobility is not popular now.
That is some heat.
It's heat.
Must we always picture that?
I don't ever picture Noah that way.
Naked.
I don't think I've ever pictured him that way.
That was a terrible image of Noah.
Now we're all picturing Noah and our minds.
I have to feel like we should take a moment.
Put clothes on.
By the way, I mean, not to hang out on it forever, but Christianity today, sometimes they're just slippery.
Like the Rise and Fall of Mars Hill, there's a billion things that could be said about that podcast.
Like, you know, it is kind of salacious.
It's kind of TMZ.
But one thing that I want to say is it'll slip in jabs at good doctrine and associate it with bad behavior.
It'll say Driscoll did X, Y, and Z bad behavior.
Now there were other issues with complementarians in his ecosystem.
And you'll want to pump the brakes, but they don't.
They just, they'll weave these things together.
Yeah, people want to do that with complementarianism, with men being the head of the home and the head of the church and very influential in society.
They really want to find reasons to toxify it.
They want to tie all the bad behavior to it.
When men sin, we were talking about Noah a minute ago.
When men sin, they want to say, the sins of men, look at the sins of complementarianism.
It's so much worse than other sins.
And we're like, men who are complementarian, men who are leaders, are going to sin.
When they sin in outsized ways, like Driscoll did, hold them to account, fully to account, but don't make men like three times the sinners women are.
The Bible is very clear with pictures like Noah, with pictures like Moses, David, on it.
We go on and on, that there's no perfect man but Jesus Christ, but you're not supposed to come away from scripture going, men are the worst.
Men have 2,000% more testosterone on average than women.
So men's sins are outsized sins in some cases.
But the Bible doesn't present us with men or blaming sin on testosterone.
Yeah.
I'm not sure if there's a real connection there.
There really is.
Tell us more.
Yeah.
Well, people want there to be a connection.
Oh, yeah.
People want there to be.
I'm saying men do sin.
Men commit like, you know, 90% of the violent crime in a given society.
Most societies, that holds steady.
What does that tell you?
If men have 2,000% more testosterone than women on average, if they have 40% more upper body strength on average than women, they're going to sin in destructive ways.
You've got to know that.
But that doesn't make them more sinful than women.
Men are also the ones who are restraining the evil, strong guys, right?
If you've got evil men arming up, what do you need to face them down?
You know, a feeling seminar where you tell them to confess their privilege or something?
No, you've got to have strong men.
A hug room.
A hug room.
You've got to have strong men to oppose that.
Carve them out of marble.
Have them wrestle.
So we talked about, we talked about Liam.
I like that.
We talked about Liam Neeson earlier.
Yeah.
Which kind of is a good transition to this next thing.
You're a movie guy.
So, like, you like to talk about movies.
I like to talk about movies.
You've been an open.
We have a, let's, you, you openly like Kevin Costner, yeah, which I think everybody does now.
There was a period where nobody liked Kevin Costner, but that was a controversial thing to be of a Kevin Costner fan for a while.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Kevin is on the Renaissance, but for Kevin Costner.
Yeah, no, he is really with the advent of Yellowstone.
I think he's really come out as like this hero in the last like, you know, blue collar.
I'm sorry, is this movie club?
Yep.
We're in a hard pivot.
We're in the movie club segment now.
I think Liam Neeson was a pretty good, that was a pretty good transition.
It was a pretty solid transition.
It was a good transition.
But now you called it out.
My heart is beating fast.
So, Costner, tell us about Costner.
Why do you like Costner so much?
I like the late stage Costner, like you were just saying.
In The Guardian, he made a turn or somewhere around there.
I haven't watched all his films, but he made a turn.
He was the swoony dream boat, which I'm using in sarcastic terms in the 90s, right?
He was soft focused, his close-up, you know, some of which I'm sure he called for on the shot list.
Oh, yeah.
But it seemed like it.
But then he switched and he's like, all right, I'm old.
This is my read on him.
I'm old.
He's, you know, handsome guy, but he's not, he's not 22, right?
But he reckoned with that.
He grappled with it.
And he was like, okay, it actually can be good to mature and age.
So in The Guardian, he's this self-sacrificing figure, but he's tough with Ashton Kutcher, right?
He cuts him no slack.
And you're like, who is this?
And then there's that three days to kill that, where he's like, again, I was like, I'm not a film critic.
I'm an amateur, but I was like, that's, he's a cool character.
And, and, and again, modern manhood, not to drive everything back to this, but men are supposed to be nice.
That's what manhood reduces to.
Be nice.
Be nice.
Right.
Wear your khakis.
They're pleated and just nice.
Tuck in your shirt.
Tuck in your shirt.
Wear the braided belt.
No waves, braided belt.
Lean back.
Ladies, lean in.
And so then you're watching films, certain films, not the mainstream ones usually.
And these guys are like, I'm not enfranchising meanness or something stupid, no.
But they're tough, they're grizzled.
They've got an edge to them.
And you're like, what is going on?
I like this.
So I've been.
They're decisive.
A lot of times they're decisive, these characters.
And that's a big change, I think, in character.
It's like they're these decisive men that make sometimes even violent choices for the sake of the good, which I think is a really interesting kind of shift.
You know, Kevin Costner, I was in an acting class with Kevin Costner, I was telling you about.
Oh, small world.
And small world.
How's he doing?
Yeah, Kevin and I. Kevin and I.
He taught the class, though.
And he's such a blue.
You know, it's funny because this was in the period, I think, when he was not as popular.
Like he was right before he kind of came back into the spotlight as these old grizzled guys.
Yeah.
And people were very critical of his acting because they were saying that he just wasn't a good actor.
Like everyone was like, oh, he just, he's so terrible and blah, blah, blah, blah.
And he said in the class, he was such a blue-collar guy.
Like, is this what he came from?
He came from this blue-collar kind of Baptist background, which is interesting.
And he was in the class and he said, you know, he was very honest.
He's like, I'm terrible at acting if I don't have preparation.
So he was saying these things.
He was just very honest.
He's like, I'm just awful.
He's like, there are times like on JFK, like he was saying, like they would try to shoot, which was an Oliver Stone joint.
I don't think that's what he calls it.
But yeah.
So Oliver Stone, anyway, he tried to push the day.
Like they had scheduled a certain amount of scenes and they were going to push the day and have like a couple more scenes.
He had to do some memorization really quick.
And so Kevin was trying to say these lines.
He couldn't get him out.
And he's like, he just couldn't, because he didn't have any prep.
And so he's like, I'll never do that again.
He told Oliver, he's like, I'm never, you have to give me time.
Like, I have to be able to memorize the day before.
Otherwise, I'm going to suck.
And so he was very kind of self-aware of his own sort of shortcomings as an actor.
And on stage, it's too, he was giving, people were giving him a hard time about being a quality actor.
And then when I watched him on stage, I was like, this guy is amazing.
Like, what's wrong?
Like, what's wrong with those folks?
So I think Kevin Costner is a really, he has a special place in my heart.
I really like that guy a lot.
And Yellowstone is incredible.
If you can watch with Vidangel, please do.
Yeah.
So Kevin Costner is at one end of a spectrum.
And we can talk about the Taylor Sheridan little revolution.
Yeah, Taylor Sheridan.
There's an other end of the spectrum where there's, you know, 007 is now going to be a woman.
And then in the middle, there's Timothy Chamolet, you know, and then there's even Robert Pattinson's Batman isn't as bulky as prior Batman's.
No offense, Rob.
You could pass it along if you were in an acting class with him.
Tell Rob, I said he's plenty bulky.
What do you make of the future of the male hero?
Do you think it's going to be something, dare I say more androgynous?
Or do you think the male hero is going to go the way of the dinosaurs in mainstream film and it's going to be 007 getting replaced?
What's your instinct?
You got something similar, it seems like, seems to me, amateur, going on today, 2020s, post-woke, you know, nice manhood, sit back, say nothing, shut up.
You've got something going on, I think, in cinema with guys like Costner, with Taylor Sheridan, whose politics aren't actually conservative, but he understands strong men.
He understands men with edge, and he understands people like that.
And by the way, they do.
There's a ton of people who want to watch traditional heroes.
I think Taylor is like that.
Like he's a cowboy.
He's a real cowboy.
And so even if he's kind of progressive, maybe to some degree in his worldview, he understands cowboy manhood.
And like, there's not 10 people out there who like that.
There's a ton of people who like that.
There's a ton of people who like action heroes and stars.
And our hearts are even in a common grace way conditioned to want heroes, right?
And want men to be strong and protectors and die for others.
Ultimately, that's realized in Christ.
Anyway, 60s, you've got all this weird, squishy cinema out there, you know, hippie movies being made.
And then you got Sergio Leone, who casts Kevin Costner, Kevin Costner, who casts Clint Eastwood in his Dollars trilogy.
And by my lights, I've read a fair bit on Leone.
He's not like trying to spark a manhood renaissance or something like this or action hero renaissance.
He's just an Italian director who I think likes, I think he likes traditional manhood, but he's trying to make good films and make money.
And he casts Eastwood and Eastwood does things like cut his lines, wear the same poncho, like Eastwood's cutting dialogue.
And that's very Costner, too, as I perceive him.
You've been in the same room.
I will never be in the same room, but he seems like he's never, you know, Never say, never say.
He seems like he is probably cutting lines at this stage and like saying less rather than more, but he's actually saying more.
So I see us in a similar, to bring this little jag, overheath little jag to a close.
I see us in a similar moment where the culture is so far out there beyond what not just Christians, but a lot of people want to see on the screen that there's a real lane for, you know, like, oh, like you got Leone doing these close-ups of Angel Eyes and the man with no name.
And it's just this toughness and quietness.
But it's visceral and it speaks to something.
Highwaymen.
Sorry, one thing.
I'm way too long here.
You can edit as you see fit.
Highwaymen, another Costner film with Woody Harrelson.
Netflix film didn't get a lot of press.
Didn't get, not a ton of people watched it.
The Netflix algorithm can bury stuff, right?
We all know this.
But in that film, it's the same kind of character, Costner, kind of an Eastwoodian character.
And he has few lines, and it's all about like the old ways versus the new exciting ways of J. Edgar Hoover and his science-driven FBI.
And Harrelson and Costner like find clues on the ground where these guys are doing ballistic and they got helicopters.
And it's a brilliant script by John Fusco.
And then there's this one part where this young cop, Dallas cop, is like, oh, Bonnie was such a sweet girl and she wouldn't hurt anybody and she's so pretty.
And Costner has been quiet.
He's quiet most of the film.
He's just taking this in, not really responding.
And then he wheels on the kid and he's like, wake up.
Something like this.
He's like, wake up.
Doesn't do this in the rest of the movie.
And he's like, that girl you knew is gone.
And it's a moment.
I think this is what it is.
It's a moment of moral realism in a pretend world.
And it's glorious.
It's amazing.
This has been beautiful.
Yeah, we're probably hip-hop time.
Oh.
We've heard that you're a rapper and that you do freestyle rappage.
Is that what they call it?
And that's what the kids are calling it.
Yeah, so what we're going to try to do is, and this was actually Sam's idea, so I don't mind me introducing you, but we are going to do a little rap challenge for you.
The only criteria is it has to have theology.
No heresy allowed.
No heresy allowed.
No heresy submitted.
Okay, great.
So we are going to start a rap beat.
that's what they call those and uh then we're that's what the youth are calling them these days The youth say.
So we're going to start a rap beat, and then you are going to take some, we're going to call out theological concepts.
Okay.
And you're going to be rapping about incorporating it.
Okay.
It's like Eminem.
That's like Eminem.
Min M's known for doing this, by the way.
It's like the eight mile.
It's like eight mile.
Of Babylon B. Of Babylon B. Your starting marker is limited atonement.
There we go.
Oh, my word.
But you can go wherever you want from there.
Oh.
Okay.
Yo.
I flow six days a week on the seventh of rest.
Every single day, I know that I'm blessed.
I got Christ in me and his atonement is definite.
And check it out.
You know that I'm checking it.
I can't stop.
My soul is redeemed.
I can't stop.
And this is the life I've always dreamed of.
I need another word.
Keep it going.
Yo, that's because I am flowing.
My name is Owen.
Just a little bit of a title.
So eschatology.
Final answer.
Yeah.
Yo, eschatology.
Check it out.
You got to acknowledge me.
When I'm in the booth, you know I'm dropping.
See, I can't stop rapping off the top.
Jesus Christ is coming.
And it's going to be, it's going to be something coming in the clouds.
And you've never seen it like this.
He's coming so loud.
Every trumpet blaring.
Everybody seeing.
And he is the all-seeing.
Justice.
We are.
We are dreaming.
We are living.
We're justified by the blood of Jesus Christ for our sins.
Check it out now.
And you know you're going to win.
The verdict has been transferred to the guilty.
I used to live so filthy.
Now his righteousness fills me and I can't stop spilling the spilled tea.
Women, women in ministry.
Ministry.
Uh-huh.
Yo.
Can't be pastors.
Never been one.
But check it out.
We need their gifts, son.
We need them serving all through the church.
And you got to find it.
Your neck's not in a lurch.
When I speak this, you may not like it.
But check it.
What I got to do is excite it.
What I got to do is speak the truth.
Keep the words coming.
Keep the fruit.
The covenants.
The covenants.
God makes promises to his children.
It starts with Abraham.
It extends all through the Old Testament.
And you've got to check it out.
And I'm testing it.
You got to see David.
You got to see Moses.
You got to see everybody coming to fruition in the new covenant.
That's the blood.
That's where the blood spilled.
That's where the sun killed.
That's where the all die.
That's where we all die.
And you know we all fly up to the most high.
And it's all because the realization of the new covenant.
Amen.
The essence of the father.
Y'all, essence of the father.
The essence of the father is all deity.
You got to be believing me, see?
Because it's all this truth.
The father is the essence of divine.
He's not like us.
We're a creature.
He's the creator and you can't stop.
But I'm going to be the preacher.
I'm going to tell you this.
Doesn't matter what you think.
He's God the Father Most High, exalted.
And that's it.
The track has been assaulted.
Yeah, there we go.
Well done.
All right.
Wow, that was impressive.
I am super impressed.
Well done.
Thank you.
That was more intense than I thought it was going to be.
That was really good.
No, you really handled that pretty well.
What more can you want?
Well, anyway, thank you so much for coming on, Owen.
This was such a blessing.
This was awesome.
I loved this.
Great conversation.
Thank you guys.
Yeah.
Seriously.
So much fun.
Well, tune in next time and check out Owen's book, his new book.
What do you got?
Yeah, I got two coming out, Warrior, Savior on the Cross, and I got The War on Men coming out on Manhood.
Both of those come out fall 2023.
Great.
Coming up next for Babylon Bee subscribers.
The modern bond is tortured in a way that no other bond was, right?
Many people have observed that.
And so, yes, part of actually, I think, what is happening, they do still glamorize sex and violence to a degree, pretty serious degree, but it's not the same.
It's not filling Bond up, right?
It's not bringing him happiness.
And so that, there's truth there.
This has been another edition of the Babylon Bee Podcast from the dedicated team of certified fake news journalists you can trust here at the Babylon Bee, reminding you that fake news of the people, by the people,