Building Better Men, Raising Pirates

00:03 - Speaker 1 Here with my friend Chris Harper. Harp, you are a minister extraordinaire. Is that a word? 00:11 - Speaker 2 I think it's a word, man. I'm just trying to be like Andrew out here, bro, bringing people to Jesus. 00:16 - Speaker 1 We met and I thought, man, this guy's got a gift on his life. You've got a gift of being able to speak, to be able to speak into people's lives as a minister but also a writer, and that's what kind of spurred this conversation today. You wrote something recently about sociotropy. Is that right? Yeah? 00:34 - Speaker 2 Yeah, you got it. Sociotropy, that's right. What is it? It's a diagnosis, it's a real thing, okay, and it's basically the clinical term for people-pleasing. It's when you care too much or think too much about what others think, and it affects how you behave, how you live. It can cause anxiety, fear. It can do a lot of things Well it can change how you do your Instagram. 01:01 - Speaker 1 That's exactly right. It can change how you preach a sermon. Oh man, see, there you go, okay. So it's interesting that a lot of people, when you think about that, you think about the Pharisees talking with Jesus and how many of them, like Nicodemus, comes to him at night Like he's trying to believe, he's trying to do the right thing, trying to go after faith. 01:26 Yeah, it's like I gotta be with my boys during the day I got a position right, oh yeah, so he's still he's, he's trying to get there, but he's still got this. People pleasing yeah thing, I looked it up. I looked it up to see if you were right that's great personality trait, trait which means it's, it's endemic, it's just part of you, it becomes your identity. Wow, yeah, it comes out easily. Excessive focus on relationships and social approval. Yeah, so, in other words, even your relationships are based on what other people may think about who you're hanging out with. 02:04 - Speaker 2 Absolutely, absolutely. It'll drive everything and it can be deeply affected by past relationships. So, for example, if you did not get the affirmation, if you did not get approval, growing up you'll start to look for that. What's that old country song Looking for love in all the wrong places? 02:26 - Speaker 1 Yeah, don't sing, but we know the song. You did it. I mean it was good enough that we got the gist. We know where it's coming from. 02:39 - Speaker 2 So it's all driven by deficits. It's driven by void. Everything about it is negative. There's nothing redeeming about it at all. 02:51 - Speaker 1 Let me pull this up. I'll show you. This is an article that was in the New York Times. I'm always researching, as you are. That's how you came up with this. This was actually a word, yeah, when you wrote about it in your. You've got a. Is it a daily email that comes out from Chris Harper? 03:14 - Speaker 2 No, I have. So the organization I serve at, Better man, does a daily men's devotional, but I've got a weekly newsletter. Okay, weekly newsletter yeah, it comes out twice a week. It comes out on Tuesdayuesdays and saturdays, where I typically write about weekly so what is that called? 03:29 - Speaker 1 what is that? It's like? 03:30 - Speaker 2 twice weekly. Twice weekly dose weekly twi weekly. It's twi weekly and uh, but I I write about current cultural issues. 03:39 - Speaker 1 Yeah, no, they're great articles, and so where do we find that? 03:42 - Speaker 2 Yeah, it's at, uh, it's on, uh, substack. Yeah, dr Chris Harper, on Substack, it's actually called good trouble. Uh, it's something I picked up, uh, from Dr King and the men that marched with him, uh, they would always say if you're going to be trouble, be good trouble. Good trouble, and and I'm trying to help men, specifically young men culture has long said you know, you're the problem, you're trouble. So I say we redeem that, let's be good trouble Come on man. 04:10 - Speaker 1 So this is interesting. The headline in the Times was it says we can solve the boy crisis. Of course, their solution is apart from Christ. So it's all external solutions, correct? It's like let's change their hands. Yeah, hopefully that'll change with their hearts. 04:29 - Speaker 2 Yeah yeah, exactly, and it also plays into what we're talking about, because typically the answer is be kind, be nice, be pleasant. 04:42 - Speaker 1 So this says lonely, detached, isolated. Today's young men are adrift. So that's the boy crisis, and I've got a book over there, the Boy Crisis. Warren Farrell wrote with John Gray, that's right. And also I want to mention and you're wearing one of Brett Klemmer's shirts- no, this is Tom Cheshire, ISI Iron Sharpens. 05:02 - Speaker 2 Iron, oh, Iron Sharpens. 05:03 - Speaker 1 Iron Tom Cheshire yeah you're wearing somebody else's shirt. You're just egalitarian. You're just a good guy. You just like everybody Right. You hang out with all kinds of good guys. 05:14 - Speaker 2 I've never been called egalitarian. That's strong, I like it. 05:19 - Speaker 1 But the fact is that you speak into people's lives, you speak into men's lives. That's your focus. Yeah, you've got how many children? Four, four children. And I want to get to the youngest, because that's part of what's hit this whole thing off. For sure, your oldest is in Eighth grade. Eighth grade Daughter. 05:37 - Speaker 2 Yeah, she's a daughter. 05:39 - Speaker 1 And they have three boys after that and then three boys after that. So she's well protected, she's going to be well protected. 05:43 - Speaker 2 She's a saint man. She's incredible. 05:46 - Speaker 1 That's awesome. And then you work with an organization now called Better man. Yeah, you also work with help a lot of other friends that are in men's ministry right, I do. 05:56 - Speaker 2 I do a lot of writing, do a lot of speaking, host a couple of podcasts, but anything that really has to do with the heart of man. 06:02 - Speaker 1 Yeah, and you speak at a lot of churches and do a lot of events and that kind of stuff Do, conferences, churches do a little international work. 06:09 Yeah, thanks for being on Brave Men today with us, with Christian Men's Network. We've got a team I was mentioning to you. We've got a team leaving in a couple days to Uganda. Come on, you were mentioning to me this is really something I'm going to stay right in that. But you were telling me a few minutes ago one of the most impactful places you ever spoke. Somebody asked you. They said, hey, what's one of the most remarkable places you ever spoke? 06:37 And they were thinking you'd say well, in front of these 20,000 people at this particular famous place, yeah, and what did you tell them? 06:45 - Speaker 2 I was in Kenya Nakuru, I believe, is the name of the city and it was under a tent. It was a tent church Really. There was probably 85 people there. It was incredible. The worship was spirit-filled, spirit-led. The pastor was so hospitable. You could just tell that the countenance of the Lord was on him. The countenance of the Lord had filled up that place. It was amazing. It was my most favorite place I've ever preached ever. 07:17 - Speaker 1 Really yeah, that's really something, man. 07:22 - Speaker 2 Yeah, and the reason you would feel that way is because what Well, I think when I go and speak other places, especially places that are more or well-resourced? I don't have to lean on the Spirit that much Like. I've got big screens and I've got notes and I can click through and the sound's just right and the mic is fine-tuned and the backlit is, you know, the glow and the ambiance is perfect. There's nothing wrong with that? Nothing wrong with that. 07:50 But what that does is I can lean more into those things that will help carry, you know, whatever it is we're bringing to the table that day. But here, man, it was like I was spiritually naked, yeah, and it was just. Hey, it was me, it's raw, man. It was like I was spiritually naked, yeah, and it was just. 08:05 - Speaker 1 Hey, it was me, it's raw man, it was God's word, as they say in New Jersey. It was real, real it was real. 08:10 - Speaker 2 Real, it was God's people and apart from, him man, nothing could be done, so I just leaned into that bro. 08:17 - Speaker 1 Now, the first time I met you and we hung out a little bit. You were working on a paper and were you doing a master's? Were you doing a? I was doing a doctorate, you feel. So you're finishing up a doctorate program. Yeah well, congratulations. Thanks, man. That's fantastic, it's good, and you did the paper, you did the oral, did all that, defended it, wrote the dissertation, had it published. 08:39 - Speaker 2 Um, it was good, it was. Uh. I studied the puritans so I'm a puritan guy. Uh, specifically, the father as the chief priest of his home, okay, and how the church suffers when he fails to fulfill that role. Yeah, it's good so the puritans? 08:56 - Speaker 1 not everything was great coming out of there, right, right, right. 09:00 - Speaker 2 I mean what they got a little narrow yeah, nobody's perfect, nobody's perfect, but they had some things right though. 09:07 - Speaker 1 Yeah, no, question what were those? 09:09 - Speaker 2 They probably had the best theology of suffering. They would say things like I love it when God throws me into the cell of affliction because it's there he keeps his best wine. Wow, Like, we don't talk like that anymore. Wow, so they knew how to suffer for the Lord well. Like we don't talk like that anymore. So they knew how to suffer for the Lord well. And they also knew that if you wanted strong communities and strong churches, it began with strong homes. 09:37 - Speaker 1 And there was a strong emphasis on men leading their homes well and a strong home starts with a strong man who's willing to accept responsibility for being the spiritual leader. 09:43 - Speaker 2 Yeah, and it starts with a wife, it starts with children. You know, prior to 1975, the family unit was looked at as cornerstone to civilization. So if you wanted to build a civilization, you had mom, you had dad, you had children, they would start their life together, et cetera. Well, around 75, I think it was a guy out of John Hopkins University he came up with this theory and said no, marriage should be capstone. Actually, boy meets girl. But they should wait, they should go to college, get a degree, save up money for a down payment on a house and then eventually get married. And what that did. And then eventually get married. And what that did. 1970, the average marriage age was 23. Today it's 31. So it basically extended adolescence for about eight, nine years, which has killed the birth rate. I mean, it's killed a lot of things. But marriage as an institution went from being cornerstone to capstone and really flipped society on its head. It sure did. 10:43 - Speaker 1 You know, whenever you want to change the definition of something, you change the name. Come on. So it's the right of possession, right when God named Adam, so when you name your children, yeah, so right. At that same time and it may have been out of those same studies they came up with a new name for the family and they call it the nuclear family. And we've adopted that and we say, well, the nuclear family. Well, the reason they came up with a new name is so they could redefine it, and it came up as two adults who had children. Wow, so it didn't matter if they were married, didn't matter if they were same sex, that's right, it was nuclear, so the reason you changed the name is so you can change the definition. 11:29 Yeah, that's a word, man. And when they did that, what you're talking about because here's the thing we talk about, prayer in schools. We talk about it was 62, 64, madeline O'Hare and all that stuff and we think, wow, that was prayer in school. You know, kids still pray in school, that's right. You know my children still. My granddaughter at one point had a child that got hurt at her school, public school. They ran over, prayed over her. Yeah, right, okay. So there's still, in that sense, prayer in public schools. 12:01 The issue is that most of the public schools have young people who have no father in the home. That's right. So, just a few miles from where you and I are right now in the DISD, what Tony Rory's told me, he said in all of the things they're doing in the public schools, he said over 80%, that's eight out of 10. Yeah, eight out of 10 young men in junior high have no father figure in their home. That's right, all right. So if that's the case, they're not being taught how to be men. No, they're not being taught those things. 12:31 And so what happens is they move towards what you're talking about, which is how do I gain? How do I get through life? That's it. Well, I've got to please somebody because that's the way the thing works, that's right. So Well, I've got to please somebody because that's the way the thing works, that's right. So now I'm pleasing my peers, or I'm pleasing the head of this local gang, or I'm pleasing this person or that person, and pretty soon we have no true north. No, that's right. So this article that you wrote in Sociotropy, when it came out, the story that went with it, I thought was just well, it's a double-edged deal, man, because these are good people that were involved in this, and yet at the same time, it had to do with your youngest child. Tell me the story, and then let's I want to pull that apart a little bit. 13:20 - Speaker 2 Yeah, it is comical, if not sad. Yeah, tragic comedy. And it's my most read article and the impetus is young men, families. We're moving young men to fit in and. 13:35 I'm trying to get my young men to stand out. I don't want my kids to fit in. I tell my kids all the time if you're the smartest guy in the room, find a new room. If you're going with the current, you're already going in the wrong direction. We got to swim against it. 13:51 So I've got a four-year-old. He's in a private Christian preschool and my wife gets a call one day and says hey, you have to come pick him up. And he can't come back. And she's like what do you mean? He can't come back. They're like, yeah, he can't come back. And of course she calls me crying. She thinks his life's over because the number three raccoons have rejected him. And I tell her to calm down. That's definitely not the case. We'll figure this out. But basically what happened was he couldn't regulate himself, according to his teachers. And what does that mean? Well, I asked, and it meant that he basically wouldn't do what he was told. He wouldn't eat lunch when the other kids ate lunch. He wouldn't take a nap at nap time. Probably a bit defiant, as a lot of four-year-olds are, but he wasn't fighting, he wasn't biting, which is what I thought. That's what most kids get kicked out of preschool for right. They just said he doesn't. He doesn't really do what he's told it wasn't smoking in the bathroom no, yeah, he wasn't vaping, right. 14:53 I mean. So, uh, I had a conversation and I just told my wife hey, listen, you know, the difference is they're they're trying to train up a pacifist and I'm trying to train up a pirate. Come on, man. I mean that's the difference. I mean we can't expect a four-year-old to regulate himself. Matter of fact, I told my wife, I said I've got a million-dollar idea. I said I'm going to start a preschool just for boys. And Monday is Nerf gun day. Bring your Nerf gun to school. Bring your Nerf gun to school. 15:21 - Speaker 4 Tuesday is superhero day. I'm in man. 15:23 - Speaker 2 Come dress. I said Wednesday is Brazilian jiu-jitsu day. I said the whole thing is going to be a big mat and there's a sign on the wall that says nap or tap One of the two baby Nap or tap, right. I said we'll have people lined up around the block to get into this thing Totally Because we want. You know, I'm not saying like, I'm not excusing bad behavior, like the whole. 15:43 - Speaker 1 boys will be boys. I'm not excusing Boys will be boys is excuse guys for doing some really bad stuff. 15:48 - Speaker 2 A hundred percent which? 15:49 - Speaker 1 kind of gives rise to the whole toxic thing. 15:53 - Speaker 2 What I'm saying is. But what I'm saying is naturally, and I would even say, God ordained. He's made little boys with a curious spirit. There you go. He's made them to be explorers and adventurers. They want to go looking for hidden treasure. Man. 16:09 - Speaker 1 I love John's book Wild at Heart when he wrote that part where it said you know you can take your son and take the guns out of the house and you can do all these things right, and he'll still take his piece of graham cracker and chew it into the form of a gun and go shoot things with his graham cracker gun. 16:33 - Speaker 2 Or anything, becomes a sword. I mean, it's amazing. 16:36 - Speaker 1 Everything. Yeah, if you, that's true. If you hand a couple of young boys anything. 16:43 Hand them a broom. Hand them a broom. It's a lightsaber, it is a lightsaber. And if the brother or one of the other kids has something, it's on, it's on man. It's like I'm going to hit you, dude, I only have a baseball glove. Well, so what? Absolutely, boom, absolutely, yeah. Everything is that. But that's part of that, if you will, that that ability to protect, that's good right. The village, like where does that come from? That's good right. That has to come from inside, that's right. It has to come. It's innate. It's that protection, it's that guide, guard and govern. 17:18 That God told Adam yeah the very first thing God told Adam was hey, guard this place, then govern it. That means, take things and take it in order my oldest son. 17:30 - Speaker 2 So I was a boxer, so about two years ago I started getting him boxing lessons. 17:36 - Speaker 1 Okay. 17:37 - Speaker 2 And people may look at that and say he's nine. Why does he need boxing lessons? Well one, it's the best cardio in the world. 17:43 He's in shape but anyways, I want him to know how to defend and protect himself, and so he does it for a while. You know, he's getting pretty good. He starts having some of these little amateur you know pre-amateur matches and whatnot, and I think it was the third one. We show up that day and it's a at this time he's 10, and it's a 10-year-old girl in his weight class and he looks at me. I'm so proud of him. He says Dad, what's happening? I said well, I guess that's who they've asked you to box today. And he said we don't punch girls, we defend girls. Wow, and I said go tell them that. Yeah, yeah. 18:24 - Speaker 1 And that's it, like I'm not that was not going to work for him. It wasn't in his dna it's not. 18:27 - Speaker 2 He doesn't. He doesn't want to get in a ring and start beating up on a girl or worse, get beat up or get beat up right. 18:33 - Speaker 1 I mean my gosh and at that age, at that age there's a lot of evenness. There's a lot of evenness, man, that girl could have been boom, you're like dude seriously lights out man yeah crushes and, and the fact is, those in his dna. When we talk about eight out of ten young men that don't have that, yeah, in their lives and hearts, they wouldn't have any problem. They go ahead and knock her out yeah, that's right, because it it wasn't. 19:00 It isn't part of of their texture, of of who they are. Yeah, you know, and you think about that thing and you think about when you know this crisis we're talking about the boy crisis. Okay, if we don't solve that, yeah, then you can have and let me just speak to, if you will, general market. You can own a toyota dealership and to be doing fantastic, but if, if you look at where it's headed 20 years from now, you're not going to have buyers for your product because those guys aren't going to have jobs. Right now, I think it's between 5% and 10% of the young men in their 20s are not in the job market in the United States. Abled bodied oh no, they could actually work. 19:41 - Speaker 2 They could actually work. 19:42 - Speaker 1 They're choosing not to no, they're just working deals. They're scuffling. It's unbelievable. Yeah, they're scuffling. It was one out of every four men who were 30 years old are living with their mom. Yeah, now I understand if people are in transition. I understand, you know. Okay, I'm going to work a thing. You know my son, brandon, and his wife lived for four years with her grandfather in their mid-20s as a married couple and rented a back bedroom. That's right, man, it was so small, they had to sit down to open the drawers of their bureau. Can't stand it. And they saved up the money to buy a house. Yeah, four years. Yeah, you know. And today they're in that stream, you know, if you will. Well, that was in his DNA. It was like you just got to do hard stuff in order to arrive at something. 20:34 - Speaker 2 And that's, you know, today. I want you to think about what our young men are growing up in today, and I'm not throwing the baby out with the bathwater here, but this is the reality. So you have AI you have artificial intelligence and, for all the good it does, it tells men that their wisdom is no longer needed. So why do I? 20:53 need your wisdom when I have chat GPT Automation throughout the centuries has told men your strength is no longer needed. I can automate that. I can get a robot to pick that up. Culture has been shouting for decades now your gender is not needed. Right, gender is a social construct. It's not even a real thing. Culture says it's a social construct. I love that whole thing, and then the church, with its conscious and unconscious catering to women and little girls has told men that their presence is not needed. 21:25 So you've got AI, you've got automation, you've got culture, you've got the church to some degree. No wonder we've got young men growing up thinking man, I have no purpose in the world, I have no position in the world I have no position in the world. The leading feminist thought literally says the world needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle. 21:44 - Speaker 1 I mean, that's her famous quote, and there's a lot of young men, younger and younger, believing this. So when Warren Farrell wrote the book the Boy Crisis, which I have on the desk here, when he wrote that, when he first did the research he was working with the National Organization of Women. He was their spokesperson for sure. He was their dude, he was their guy and he's doing all this research. So he sits in a board meeting with all these well-known women who are part of this and he had worked with them for, I think, a decade. He's an academic, he's a great guy, him for, I think, a decade. He's, he's an academic, he's a great guy and he's doing his research. And he sits down he says, hey, I've come up with some research. It's really interesting, he said. He said young men will not become well adjusted in culture. They will not know how to act, they will not know boundaries, they will not know what their giftedness is unless they have a father. And he says gender-specific in their lives. And he said he gave this little report a little speech, got done, crickets, right, crickets. So then he comes back around to it. Discussion goes, what are we talking about? And he comes up with it again because he's incredible stats Boy Crisis. He wrote it with John Gray, the eminent psychologist, and so he says he told me this story. 23:01 We were sitting at coffee out in Mill Valley near his house, and he says and he said this again, and finally one of the ladies stopped me. She said, warren, you don't understand. We're trying to get rid of men. We don't want men in the equation. Wow, okay, rid of men. We don't want men in the equation, so they can be sperm donors, but we'll take care of everything else. So if that is a man's purpose, then what is the purpose of man on earth, of men and we know it's to glorify God, establish the kingdom of heaven. Now, what does that mean? That means you do the thing you were called to do. True success is to glorify God, establish the kingdom of heaven. Now, what does that mean? That means you do the thing you were called to do. True success is to satisfy your personal design. Love that, right. 23:42 Some guys write music, some guys write plays, some guys string. I mean we had PowerPole back here, the whole. What's that thing? Condenser, whatever thing, compressor, thing, no doubt, whatever Blows up, boom. You can hear it all over the neighborhood. Coldest day of the year, right. Coldest day of the year, the thing blows up. No power, I call up. Fortunately, encore's got some trucks in the area. 24:06 A couple guys that actually live in my neighborhood are working it One young man who had actually worked on this property. So they come over, it's freezing. There's these dudes, they're all come out, they got their trucks, they're pulling in stuff, they're doing all those things freezing cold and it's like I'm thinking this is what men do. Yeah, it's what men do, that's it. It was not an easy thing to do and just get out there, they grunt it, they get it done and and you know what, that guy doing that line work. Because I talked him, the guy that was doing the poll and uh, I said, man, that's great stuff, he goes. Yeah, I love it, I love it, I go. Do you really he goes? Yeah, he said he was telling me some other job he used to do. He goes. Man, I got in with these guys about five years ago. That's incredible. 24:51 - Speaker 2 Man. 24:52 - Speaker 1 I love this. I said, yeah, and everywhere you go, you're helping somebody. That's it. He goes, yeah, and he's thriving. Yeah, he's doing fantastic, he's loving it, he's in the company of men. 25:02 - Speaker 2 That's it. And it's interesting because when a thing like masculinity, like femininity, like marriage, like the family, when a thing isn't rightly defined, or rightly understood, the abuse of that thing is inevitable, and that's what we're seeing. You and I had a previous conversation about culture and society, renaming things and changing the names of things, and they do that because of confusion, because they know if something is not properly understood, the abuse of or by that thing is inevitable. If you don't know how to properly use a hammer, something's going to get abused. Something's going to get hurt. 25:40 That's it. Something's going to get hurt. Wow, that's really good. So look at masculinity. When the form and function, when the purpose of a man isn't rightly understood, the abuse of or by men is inevitable. 25:53 - Speaker 1 And it's what we're seeing today. 25:55 Wow, that's really strong man, people pleasing. It reminds me of Jairus and Eli. And Eli was this man in the first covenant, the Old Testament, that mentored Samuel, right, like he was Samuel's mentor, who ended up being one of the greatest men ever. And so he's the head of this. He's the head of, he's a religious leader, he's the head of the synagogue, but he's got two sons that are using their dad's position. Hang on, didn't we have a president who had a son that did that? Okay, I digress. So so, yeah, so these two sons are doing the same thing. They're working deals with people. It actually says they're living immorally, they're ripping people off for money and they're doing all this stuff right, and Eli never, never stops his sons. He never reprimands them, because if he were to say, if he were to recognize, hey, we got a problem here. I'm going to have to resign my position in order to take care of this. The issue was his position was more important than his children. 27:04 - Speaker 2 Yeah, his standing, yeah, being in the community, in the synagogue, whatever. 27:08 - Speaker 1 And his sons ended up getting killed, yeah, and when they got killed in this battle, that's right. The word comes back to Eli and he dies of a heart attack because of what happened to his sons. But he killed them, it's his deal because he didn't disciple them. And you contrast that with Jairus in the second covenant. And he's a religious leader, head of a synagogue, but his daughter's sick, that's right. Right, his daughter's sick and he comes to Jesus. I mean, it must have been a last thing, like we've tried. Everything Comes to Jesus. Now, coming to Jesus meant he was willing to absolutely lose his position, his standing in the community, and he came to Jesus to get his daughter healed. His daughter gets healed. It's a cool story, but the fact is is that Eli's position was worth more to him than his children? That's right. Jairus' daughter was worth more to him than his position. 28:02 - Speaker 2 It's because J understood so the definition I give on masculinity. It's super simple. But masculinity and I think this comes right from Jesus is the joyful pursuit of sacrificial responsibility. Wow, that's what masculinity is. Say it again, it's the joyful pursuit of sacrificial responsibility, Jairus. He was going to lay down whatever he needed to sacrificial, you know, and he did it in all. He did it with gladness in his heart. Man, I want to save my daughter right. So what we're seeing today is we've got about two decades now of toxic masculinity hyper alpha masculinity under our belt, like the Andrew Tates of the world, these idiots. 28:45 So, where the pendulum swung so far, right, we're seeing it now swing way left, where we're going from hyper-masculinity to emasculating boys. Right, because we're so afraid that they're going to become like Andrew Tate, we're so afraid that they're going to become misogynistic. We're so afraid that they're going to become this alpha male that just burns and scorches everything he touches. Well, so we make sure he doesn't become that. We're going to cut his nuts off, right, we're just going to emasculate him and just make sure he can never become that. 29:20 So, it's be polite, be kind, be appeasing, right, be quiet, sit down. 29:29 - Speaker 1 You know I mean it's, and you're saying it's everything that is counter to what? Okay, you, okay, you know, if you got a nine-year-old boy, you wanted to behave, for sure, okay, so there's certain times where you've got to discipline him. He's got to do the right thing. Now the fact is, then, that true discipline comes out of love. Right, because you want that son to live a better life. He's going to live a better life if he's not outside the boundaries of righteous living, right, that's right. So you build that into him and you want him to be kind, you want him to be gracious. At the same time, you want him to be able to kill stuff. 30:10 - Speaker 2 Absolutely. That's it, you want him to be a pirate. I love that whole picture. It's a pirate man. You want to be a pirate? I love that whole picture. It's a pirate man and the way I describe it is Matthew 5, 8, sermon on the Mount. Jesus says blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. That's a bad translation in our English. The actual Greek says blessed are the peace creators. I don't just make peace when I walk into the room, I create peace. 30:39 That's what a man of God does. So I'm always asking my young sons sons, are you causing chaos? Are you creating peace? Wow, right, because we're agents of peace. But that can mean if everybody in the room's sword fighting man then pick up a sword and sword fight like like there's nothing chaotic about that, like you're now, if they're, if somebody's given a presentation and you're in the back of the room sword fighting, we're gonna have to sit down for a minute right, like you know you know, we will bring control and order into the situation. 31:11 God's got an order, but the point is, man, we're gonna let boys do, naturally, what boys need to do. Think about the diagnoses, this ADD, adhd, the medications prior to 1970, brother, these things did not exist. No, they didn't exist. No. I heard one author say uh, men, um, we basically, we basically created the, we, we basically created these diagnoses to, to, to feed our, our depression, right, um, because seeing a young boy be a young boy and live the dreams of a young boy make us depressed because we're no longer able to do that. Oh, wow, right, uh, because secretly, we all want that. 31:59 I'm 43 years old and I still want to hunt for treasure, Paul. Yeah, I still want to do that. Well, it's out there. 32:05 - Speaker 1 That's it, I know it, I'm looking for it, I'm looking for it, baby, and and, and it's just. 32:10 - Speaker 2 You know we have, we. We're not playful anymore. You, you know, I'm so convicted because more times than not, I'm too serious. 32:18 - Speaker 1 Yeah, my professor, in this most recent doctorate, leonard Sweet, he wrote a book called the Well-Played Life. It's my favorite book he's written. He's written 75 books or something it it says this this book is an apology for the previous 16 books I wrote in which I was just way too serious about myself and about God. Come on, and he's beginning to describe God as a playful God and throwing the stars and creating. You know, I mean, think about it creating giraffes. Yeah, what's the point? 32:55 yeah you know, it's just, it's right, and it's all the beauty of creation and and that's what we need to be like. Yeah, as men and women, we need to enjoy the beauty of of his presence, and that's also going to be how we create peace. Peace is not the absence of conflict, it's the presence of Jesus in the middle of the conflict. 33:16 - Speaker 2 That's it. And to your point earlier, it's knowing your purpose and living that purpose. So today we're telling little girls, if you want to be thriving, you have to become like boys. And we're telling little boys, if you want to thrive, you have to become like little girls. It's crazy. It's absolutely crazy, and we're seeing it all over. We're literally seeing role reversals and gender reversals. I mean it's nuts right. And not only are we seeing it, but we lot it and celebrate it. 33:51 - Speaker 1 The Bible describes it Thinking ourselves wise, we become as fools. Come on, you know it's the king's clothing Worshiping the creator. 33:59 Yeah exactly it's. God created us in his image and ever since then we've been trying to return the favor. That's right, you know. Create him in our image, that's right. And so where are we headed now? Let me just land this in this place what is it as men of God? What's our action steps? What do we do? Because here's the thing If we're a dude, we want to hear about this stuff, we want to be informed, I want a revelation. Some things you've said, like okay, makes me think about stuff. Yeah. 34:33 You know, kind of okay. I got to lift my head up from the stuff I'm doing to think about it. Now give me a cta, right? What's the yeah, what's my call to action? What do we do, Chris? 34:44 - Speaker 2 yeah, yeah, we need. We need guides. So when a when a young man doesn't know what it means to be a man because he's never had a guide, he's never had anyone show, he's never had anyone show him, he'll do one of three things. Okay, he'll either guess at what it means to be a man and 99 out of a hundred times he's going to guess wrong and break a ton of stuff behind him. 35:06 Secondly, he'll listen to the loudest voice in culture, which is why Jordan Peterson, Joe Rogan, Andrew Tate millions and millions of followers right. Or third, and this is the sad one, he'll just slow quit his purpose and destiny and he'll fade into the background. You know, this is the. I often say that. You know, most men die by the time they're 26, but they're not buried to 78. You know, I read that somewhere, but I see it all the time. I'll be walking around the shopping mall or even in church and it's the 26-year-old dad who's typically eight feet behind his wife with his head down, carrying a diaper bag, doesn't think for himself, doesn't speak for himself, doesn't lead in any way. He's just given up. And they don't have a guide. They didn't have anyone show them what it means to be God man. So the CTA would be. 36:00 There's some older men out there listening to this and maybe you feel like you don't have a lot left in the tank. Well, I'm telling you, brother, your experience alone. There's this beautiful Acts 2.17. There's this beautiful passage. It says in the end days, the Lord's spirit will be poured out on the earth and young men will prophesy and old men will dream dreams again. And what he's describing is this symbiotic relationship that, as an older man, I'm passing wisdom to a younger man so that he can speak truth and prophesy, and that younger man passes zeal and passion to me and I get to begin to dream dreams again. And it happens in this symbiotic relationship. So some of you older men, you need to sit down with these younger men and say, hey, I know the way. I'm not perfect as a matter of fact, I've screwed up a few times, but that's made me stronger. 36:49 - Speaker 1 And it's also going to help you. 36:51 - Speaker 2 That's it. And that younger man, as he follows you, he's going to be transferring passion and zeal to you and you're going to start dreaming dreams again, Right? So so the call to action would be older men and age is relative, but older men, you know, look for these younger men to invest in. And younger men, die to some of that pride and realize, man, you've got a lot to learn. You know, somebody asked me not too long ago what would you, what would you tell 20 year old Chris Harper? 37:19 - Speaker 1 And without hesitation, I said to shut up and just listen more I didn't know anything, man, and I thought I knew everything, that's that old meme about hire a 16 year old while they still know everything old meme about hire a 16 year old while they still know everything. 37:40 - Speaker 2 It's so true man, I would go back 23 years and just say, bro, shut up and um, you know that, but you would also say, hey, watch out for this. 37:47 - Speaker 1 Yeah, right, watch out for this. Yeah, because this is going to be a detour and and watch out for this distraction. Distraction is the devil's hammer, that's right. And so watch out for this. And that, for me, is is, when I talk to young guys, young men, it is it has to do with focus, isn't about focus, isn't about greater intensity yeah it's about greater intentionality, that's it. 38:13 Clarity. So it's cutting away the things that don't belong. So when you're focusing light, it's not about turning it up, it's about cutting away the distribution so that the amplification of that light is, that's good. Focused, that's good. So focus comes not because you press the gas. That's what most of us are like push, you know, like new year's resolutions, man, that's right. Yeah, I gotta push this thing, this thing, push it. You know, dude, what about cutting away some of your distractions? That's it. What about some of your addictions? That's what about some of the stuff that causes you to? 38:45 - Speaker 2 yeah, that's that way, that's warren buffett. Warren buffett said the number one question he gets asked is how do I get rich? And he said everybody asked the question. The question you should be asking is what's keeping you poor? And then, once you figured that out, you start to cut that away and you can start gaining wealth. He said the same thing when you work out how do I lose weight? Well, no, what's making you fat? Identify that. Identify that, that and start there. 39:16 - Speaker 1 That's really true. Brandon, who's our producer? We were talking about that a little earlier. We were talking about so much. Diet is almost like we want a pill, blue pill, red pill. We want a pill. We want something that changes stuff rather than you know, because brandon's lost. How much weight have you lost, brandon? He's lost 150 pounds. Come, come on, be new. 39:36 - Speaker 2 He looks healthy, doesn't he? He's a good-looking dude. 39:39 - Speaker 1 Fantastic. So the thing is that, in order to lose 150 pounds, there was not a pill. Yeah, it was like you have to identify the things that make that happen. That's it. Cut those things out. 39:53 - Speaker 2 Yeah, and that's hard work. Cut those things out. Yeah, and that's hard work. You said it earlier brother, it's hard work man. You want to know what the enemy is using on young men today. It's simple comfort and convenience. 40:01 - Speaker 1 Comfort and convenience. 40:02 - Speaker 2 That's it. That's his greatest weapon comfort and convenience. Right, there was a study done. They asked I think it was 24-year-olds what do you need to survive in this world? The number one answer was a smartphone. The number two answer was a credit card. You give me a smartphone and a credit card, I can make it you know how pathetic that is, it's unbelievable, it's unbelievable, and it's convenience and comfort and it's just crippling young men. 40:33 - Speaker 1 Yeah, it's because they don't have a true north, they don't have conviction, which they don't have conviction, yeah, which means they don't have courage, hey. So leave us with a couple of quick thoughts. What are you thinking about right now? What have you been writing on, what have you been riffing on? What's been like the center of stuff? 40:47 - Speaker 2 Yeah, so I've been thinking a lot about the absence of ministry to men, specifically in the West. 40:54 You of ministry to men, specifically in the West. You know writing a lot about that Matter of fact. I have some articles coming out in the next few weeks about that and why I think that is. You know how we begin to solve for that. I've also been looking globally recently. You know the boy crisis, the manhood crisis. We think it's a Western thing, absolutely not. 50% of sub-Saharan Africa is under the age of 30. And 50% of the population they've grown up without a guide. 41:23 I mean these young men are running just wild because they've had no one to correct and to lead and to teach right. This boy manhood crisis, whatever you want to call it, it's a global deal and that's because the expressions of masculinity can change over time. I fully believe that, whereas 100 years ago, if you were going to be a man, you had to be a lumberjack and you had to work in the oil field and yada, yada, yada, but today I firmly believe, man, you can be a poet and be a man. 41:59 You can be a painter and be a man. The expressions can change. What can't change are the principles of manhood because, they're based on God's timeless and changeless word. 42:09 His word never changes. There is no shadow nor variation with God. He is unchanging. He is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. So the principles he's laid forth, his good order, his design has not changed and it's those principles we have to get back to. Jeremiah called them the ancient paths and he said here is where you find life, not these new paths, not this novel. To your point, let's change the definition of everything, right, so we can redefine it. Change the name so we can redefine it. No, no, no. We got to get back to the ancient past, where the true life is. Yeah. 42:46 - Speaker 1 And that's following the word of God 100%. Yeah, it's amazing how we find out that maybe God knew some stuff. 42:52 - Speaker 2 Yeah just a little bit. I mean, he did design us. 42:57 - Speaker 1 Some of the things hey, we shouldn't do this, shouldn't do that, and yet we're rebellious by nature. Yeah Right, so when you talk about raising a pirate, what you're talking about is you're raising somebody who's a dangerous man, who's dangerous to the enemy, and my friend, joel Brooks, said it this way one time. He said you know, God is love, but he's killed some people. 43:20 That's so good you know, and he basically described it this way. He says you know I love you, man, I love you, I love everything you're about. Yeah, I got five children. You know I love you. Love my children, yeah, but if you mess with my children, you'll begin to understand how much I love my children. That's right, I take you out. Amen, right, yeah, so true discipline comes out of love. 43:42 - Speaker 2 That's right. 43:42 - Speaker 1 True guardianship comes out of love. So love is the basis of these things, and so when you talk about the emasculation of manhood, what you're really talking about is we're taking away the love of adventure, absolutely love of things that that hurt, you know. 43:59 - Speaker 2 I mean, unless you've fallen down and skinned your knee, bro, you have not skateboarded yeah, yeah, and and you said it earlier, courage is not the absence of fear, it's moving forward in the face of it. 44:09 - Speaker 1 Yeah, there you're never say it that well. 44:11 - Speaker 2 Well, you're anyway, that's the way I heard it, yeah you're never more fully alive than when you're on the bull, than when you're standing on the wall. That's when you're most alive. And I tell my kids, my boys, all the time what I want for you is I want for you to live and move in such a way that heaven applauds you and hell knows your name. That's what I want. I want heaven to cheer you on and I want, I want hell to be thinking who is this guy? 44:41 - Speaker 1 Who is this guy? Yeah, because he's dangerous. Jesus was a dangerous man. That's it, man, right. I mean, I follow a Jesus who healed this woman in her pain when she's caught in adultery, healed her heart, looked at her with love. She looks in the eyes of the first time. She looked at a man who looked at her without lust but with love and affection. And you know what. You can be something more. And at the same time, that same guy goes in and beats up a bunch of guys in church. That's right, because they're ripping people off. 45:09 Come on right yeah yeah, that's my Jesus man and he was. 45:12 - Speaker 2 He was a lion and a lamb. The way I say that is uh he was a lion. 45:14 - Speaker 3 he was a lion and a lamb, a lion and a lamb. 45:15 - Speaker 2 The way I say that is he was a lion, he was a man of conviction, but he was a lamb, he was a man of compassion and he never divorced those two things. Today we want to major in one or the other. We want to major in conviction and forget about the compassion, or we want to major in compassion and forget about the conviction. Either of those are wrong. No no no, we can major in both. You can be a double major. You can major in conviction and compassion. 45:42 - Speaker 1 Yeah, in other words, what was the athletics? What was it called Beanball? No, what's the deal with the baseball analytics? Huh, moneyball, yeah, but it was the analytics, that whole thing. Oh yeah, it changed the way we do baseball. And you don't have to be a good defensive guy as long as you can jack home runs, so just get on. 46:02 So the fact is is that is the, is what we've gone to in everything in culture is hey, be really good at being a lamb yeah or be really good at being a lion yeah, or be really good at being a lion the problem is or be really good at being a lion. 46:16 - Speaker 2 We love the extremes. 46:17 - Speaker 1 The problem is neither extreme is healthy. 46:20 - Speaker 2 Yeah, and neither fully reflects Jesus. Yeah, right. So again, these are just principles in my house. But a big principle in my house is say what you mean, mean what you say. Never be mean when you say it. Wow, that's so good, it's a big principle in my home. You're, you're allowed to say what you mean, like don't say something, oh well, I didn't mean it, no, no, no, no, no. We're men of conviction. Say what you mean and mean what you say. Don't ever be mean when you say it. Right, you know. And that's that balance. That is a balance. That's what we're talking about here, and a lot of men they don't have that today. 47:01 - Speaker 1 But balance isn't about being 50-50. Balance is about being 100%, who you are, 100-100 all the time. 47:11 - Speaker 2 I can tell you, Paul, right now I am convicted about this, but I can say it in a kind and pleasant way I can be a hundred hundred. What I don't have to do is change my speech or change my language or change who I am just so I can get you to think highly of me. 47:29 - Speaker 1 Oh, that would be sociotropy. 47:31 - Speaker 2 That's a hundred percent. 47:33 - Speaker 1 See the way we brought that back. Just the plane, yeah. Yeah. It. Yeah, it was kind of an abrupt. You're right, it did kind of skid. It was kind of an aircraft carrier landing. I like it. Yeah, boom. Anyway, Chris Harper, thanks for being on. Brave Men today, man, I love you. 47:48 - Speaker 2 I love you brother. 47:50 - Speaker 1 So how do we find your stuff? Is it chrisharpersomething? 47:53 - Speaker 2 Yeah, so Good. Trouble is the name of the blog Good Trouble. Good Trouble on Substack. You can find the blog there. A lot of my writings and videos are with bettermancom. You can find it there, bettermancom, and then on YouTube it's the Dr Chris Harper Show. 48:10 - Speaker 1 The Dr Chris Harper Show. It's like the Ohio State. 48:12 - Speaker 2 I can't stand Ohio State, but yeah. I can't stand Ohio State, but yeah. 48:15 - Speaker 1 Yeah, that's right, so, but okay, so that's how we can find your stuff and find out where you're at. And you know, Harp, I just so appreciate the fact that men like you have given our hearts and lives towards raising up a generation of men who love Jesus Christ with all their heart, yeah, who are passionate about what they do and passionate about being a man of God, passionate about raising up the next generation. And I don't care if you're married or single. This is one of the things that we have a tendency to do in the church. We all minister to men. Oh, it's a bunch of married guys, that's right, and you got to wear khaki, so there's that whole thing. But the fact is is that is that young men like brandon is single, brandon, but brandon's mentioned he took that book, their identity and he's mentoring a bunch of dudes. Love it, right, just go. 49:10 Hey, let's, let's read this book. You know, you sit down and go through it. You, you go coach little league and you could impact for for the rest of their lives. Some young men 100, we're short. In the united states, where you and I live, we're short somewhere around 600 000 coaches for youth sports right now. Wow, now, because what we've done is do that whole extreme thing. You got travel ball and then you get all the other guys, that's right. And they don't have enough coaches. And these guys are traveling, you know, in jets, matching warm-up suits, right yeah, with matching 500 bats? 49:44 yeah, and the thing is, is that the bats that I used when I was a kid was because the guy in front of me last year left it? 49:52 - Speaker 2 and, by the way, our batting averages were higher. Like they still can't hit the ball that's interesting, it's unbelievable. 50:00 - Speaker 1 Now, on the other hand, okay, so you're a baseball guy, okay, but on the other hand, uh, we weren't. You know, sandy kofax, don dry's or whatever one, marisol, all these guys, bob gibson, um, you know naming guys that were before you were born, but the? 50:16 fact is is that these guys could all throw the ball, but not like they do today. Right, so you do have pitching where we're all into the rotation, we're all into the spin, sure, and you've got analytics hey, what the spin is and we're putting 285 kids into Tommy John surgery this year. You know in college and pros. That's crazy. 50:37 - Speaker 2 Well well, Paul and I know we we tried to land a plane, but let me say it like this yeah, 0.01% of all youth sports kids right now will be a professional athlete. Yeah, there you go. 0.4% of all kids today will go to an Ivy League school. 0.1% will be a millionaire one day. 100% will stand before a holy God one day. We have to be careful with what we give our energy, time and focus to. Not that those things are bad, but as guardians, as guides, as stewards of these young souls, man, what are we prioritizing? What are we putting up first as the most important thing in our life? And if it's not to glorify King Jesus, if it's not to lay down our lives for him, then we're not heading in the right direction. Period. 51:28 - Speaker 1 Harp, thanks for being on Brave Men today. 51:29 - Speaker 2 Love it bro, love you bro. See you soon, man. Okay, bless you man. 51:34 - Speaker 4 Brave Men is a production of Christian men's network, a global movement of men committed to passionately following Jesus on the ground and over a hundred nations worldwide. You can receive the brave men motivational email, find books and resources for discipleship and parenting at cmn.men. That's cmn.men. Your host has been Paul Louis Cole, president of Christian men's network, and if you haven't yet, please make sure you subscribe to the Brave Men podcast wherever you find podcasts are downloaded. Thanks for hanging with us today. We'll see you next time on Brave Men.