What led to the first generation of American men raised by women?
Marriage & FamilyBible & Theology
Show notes
0:00 - 15:00. Matthew 19:4-6. Family, with marriage at the center, is God’s first institution. 15:00 - 31:00. What led to the first generation of American men raised by women? 31:00 - 48:00. Getting the family right is a matter of priority.
Full transcript
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Transcribed with OpenAI Whisper (base.en). Timestamps are approximate. Lightly cleaned for readability; quotations from on-air callers may include filler words. Use the audio player above for the authoritative recording.
0:00Darkness is not an affirmative force.
0:02It simply reoccupies the space vacated by the light.
0:06This is the Hamilton Corner on American Family Radio.
0:10It should be uncomfortable for a believer to live as a hypocrite.
0:15Delivery people out of the bondage of mainstream media.
0:18And the philosophies of this world.
0:20God has called you and me to be his ambassador.
0:23Even in this dark moment.
0:26Let's not miss our moment.
0:28and now the Hamilton Corner.
0:33Good evening, everyone.
0:34Welcome to the Hamilton Corner.
0:35Abraham Hamilton III is my name.
0:38And we are ready to rock and roll with today's edition
0:40of the program.
0:41Of course, we have the Purdue extraordinary of the Rio J.
0:44Mac holding down the fort for us as we are ready to proceed
0:47with today's program at this very moment.
0:49Many of you, if not most of you, are making your transition
0:52from your part-time jobs where you generate an income
0:55to your full-time jobs where you generate an outcome.
0:58And as you do so, I want to remind you to do so with intentionality, understanding the
1:02primacy that God places on family and welcoming his view to govern, to guard and to guide your
1:09view as you engage.
1:11I say this repeatedly and I will continue to do so.
1:15We will never out politic, out vote, out Supreme Court opinion, especially if you read that
1:20opinion from this week concerning male and ballots.
1:23Oh my goodness.
1:26We will never outpace the deficiencies that abound in the home.
1:31God established the family with the marriage at the center as his first institution intentionally.
1:37That is not a casual coincidence of creation.
1:40It is God's divine design.
1:42He did that intentionally.
1:44It is why the family is the fundamental building block of the church.
1:48Yes.
1:49And it likewise is the foundational and fundamental building block of society.
1:53And if you evaluate the encroachments of the ever expanding, you know, Leviathan state,
2:01it corresponds with retrenchments that have transpired in the family.
2:06You know, it is as a result of families disintegrating to a degree, we have an expansion of things
2:11like nursing home facilities and other things like that.
2:15If you survey our nation's history, that is a relatively recent phenomenon.
2:19is something that did not happen in a general sense in terms of the majority of the population
2:25historically in our nation's history. But as the family has retrenched and as the family
2:29has been disintegrated, then the state has stepped in in various places in various ways.
2:35And it is also, it should not be lost on us, that God has given commands that apply within
2:42the familial context. I say this and this in no shade to youth pastors, but the Lord did
2:47not say youth pastors, rear other people's children in the
2:50nurturing admonition of the Lord.
2:51That is not in the scripture.
2:54Of course, the church has a role,
2:56pastoral staff can aid the family,
2:59but the family is the first institution.
3:00It is my responsibility as a father to lead in the evangelizing
3:05and the catechizing and the discipling of the children
3:08that God has blessed my wife and I with.
3:11That is my primary responsibility.
3:13Now the church's role is to equip the saints
3:16for the work of ministry.
3:17One of the foremost components of that equipping is for churches to inform parents.
3:21Hey, by the way, do you realize that God is ordained you as a first line responder
3:27to what transpires in your home?
3:29Do you realize that?
3:31Secondarily, are you equipped for that task?
3:34You know, it's one of the things we talk about in our local church.
3:36I know people familiar with the concept of baby dedications, but we often discuss
3:41parental commitments.
3:43God has blessed you to conceive a new image bear.
3:47So God has blessed you to adopt an additional image bearing in your family.
3:51Are you committed to obeying what God requires of you as a parent?
3:55Are you husband and father committed to meeting and obeying God's responsibility?
4:01As Ephesians 6,4 says, fathers do not exasperate your children,
4:05rather rear them in the nurturing admonition of the Lord.
4:07Are you committed to obeying that scripture?
4:10Because family and parenting is not merely a relational context.
4:16It's a station of mission.
4:18And if we can understand that and embrace it
4:22and apply the scripture starting first and foremost in our homes,
4:26then there's no question as to what could transpire in society.
4:29So as you are making your way, transitioning from your part time job
4:33to your full time jobs, do so with insight, biblical revelation and intentionality
4:38and understanding that that is your first outlet
4:42to light up the darkness.
4:43It's your first external outpost to execute the King's commission.
4:49And as you've heard me say numerous times, husbands and wives don't allow the presence of
4:54your children to cause you to neglect your spouse because that is the first thing.
4:59My first responsibility for my children is to demonstrate to them what Christ like love
5:04for my wife looks like in practical application because in so doing, I set a foundational guard
5:12really, if you will, for both my sons and my daughters, as to what they should expect to
5:16meet should God bless them to be able to forge a family on their own.
5:22To the word of God, we go.
5:23We're going to begin the program today in Matthew chapter 19.
5:26And this is going to contribute to what we are going to discuss throughout today's program.
5:32And Matthew 19, I want to go here because it's sadly stated quite erroneously that, well,
5:41Abraham, Jesus never said anything about family and marriage.
5:46Jesus never condemned homosexuality.
5:48Jesus never did any of these things.
5:49And I was like, Medantin, saw your sadly, mistaken, why?
5:56Sidel and mustier, can you not read it Bible correctly?
5:59You're not rightly divided in the word of truth.
6:03The first error that is committed when that type of assertion
6:07is made is the erroneous assertion that Jesus
6:10has no bearing on the Hebrew scriptures, the Old Testament,
6:13Hebrew Bible. The Hebrew Bible is a part of the word of Jesus Christ. When the Bible says
6:23in the beginning God, the Hebrew word for God there is Elohim, which is a plural word,
6:29in fact, that reflects the triune Godhead, Father, Son, and Spirit. This is why the apostle
6:36John explains in John 1 that in the beginning, the word was God, the logos was God. He was
6:43there in the beginning. This is why the apostle Paul says all things were created.
6:47They were created through Jesus and created for Him. So everything from
6:52Genesis to Malachi is included in the word of Christ. Not only that. When
6:58specifically asked about marriage, Jesus affirms the incarnate Messiah during his
7:04incarnate ministry in his first Advent. Hey, hey, because another one's on the way.
7:09In his first Advent, Jesus, in answering a question concerning marriage, affirms the biblical
7:18creation narrative and affirms his definition that he announced in Genesis as to what a marriage
7:24consists of.
7:25All right?
7:27And that's what we're going to read in Matthew chapter 19.
7:30So when Jesus is asked a question about marriage, he responds, if you look at verse 4, it says,
7:37He answered, meaning Jesus answered,
7:39He answered, have you not read?
7:42That he who created them from the beginning
7:45made them male and female,
7:49and said, therefore a man shall leave his father
7:53and his mother and hold fast or cleave to his wife,
8:00to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.
8:04So they are no longer two, but one flesh.
8:08What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.
8:13Now it may not be obvious that when Jesus offers his answer,
8:17when he says in verse four, have you not read
8:18that he created them from the beginning,
8:20made them male and female, that is a direct quote from Jesus,
8:24quoting Genesis chapter one verse 27.
8:27So when Jesus is presented with the question concerning
8:29marriage, he doesn't just immediately go,
8:31so well, let me tell you all about marriage.
8:32He begins by affirming what he already said.
8:37Some of y'all, y'all catch up to that in a moment.
8:41What he already said in Genesis chapter one.
8:45All right.
8:46Then when he goes on to say in verse five,
8:47and therefore a man shall leave his father
8:51and mother and whole fast to his wife
8:52and the two shall become one flesh.
8:54That is a direct quotation from Genesis chapter two,
8:57verse 24.
8:59So Jesus affirms the creation account
9:02of what maliness is, what femaliness is,
9:05and what marriages.
9:06Notice he says, a man shall be joined to his wife.
9:09That's not my word, that's his word, his wife.
9:13So let's dig a bit deeper.
9:14Why is that important?
9:16Well, when he says, therefore, a man shall leave his father
9:21and mother and hold fast to his wife,
9:23the Greek word there literally means an adult male
9:26for man, an adult male, a mature male.
9:30Arrain is the word in Greek.
9:32And he says, and this man, Arrain shall leave
9:36his father and mother.
9:37Isn't that interesting?
9:38Adam and Eve have no biological parentage.
9:40God nevertheless announces that the origin source, if you will, for candidates for marriage
9:48will derive from a familial unit that is comprised of a father and a mother, a potter and a
9:54mataire, which also is, you guessed it, a man and a woman.
10:00A man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife.
10:03The Greek word there for wife is guine, which forms a root word for a particular medical
10:07discipline that we have currently called gynecology.
10:11All the sisters, y'all know what I'm talking about, right?
10:13Some of the fellows are like,
10:13gahna who?
10:15Gahna galakna's?
10:17Gahna galapatoh, gahlapagos.
10:19Gynecology, goonay.
10:21There's only, I wanna be gentle here in kind,
10:25but there's a certain kind of plumbing
10:26that would make one conducive
10:30to the medical practice of a gynecologist, all right?
10:33Y'all with me?
10:34And here's the thing, Jesus announces this,
10:36for this cause shall a man leave his father and mother
10:38be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. Jesus affirms that the only physical
10:46conjugal complementarity that would comprise a union between a eryn and a gunne will lead to a
10:54one flesh union that's reflecting the physical conjugal reality. Also the spiritual reality,
10:59which is why he goes on to say, and what they're no longer to but one flesh of what therefore
11:04God has joined together, let not man separate. Now, here's something that is a radical revelation,
11:10especially when you consider its contrast with previous societies, like medieval societies and others,
11:18because in previous societies, even in patriarchal societies, historically, whenever there was a
11:24marriage, there was an expectation that only the wife would leave her family and become a part of
11:29of the husband's family. But notice, God didn't do that. God places a particularized affirmative
11:35duty upon the man and say, no, no, no, it's not only the wife who's leaving her family,
11:40it's also the man shall leave his father and mother. Turn his attention, direction and
11:45focus to his wife and they are forming a new familial unit or a new band. The band for
11:52which the husband is the house band. The new primary physical natural investment is the husband
12:02into his wife and the wife into her husband and what God is joined together no longer to but one
12:09and what God is joined together let no man not families of origin not in law sometimes called out
12:17outlaws, not the culture, not the world.
12:22Would God is joined together?
12:24Let no man, Tera Sunder, let no man separate.
12:29Would God is conveying to us there, brothers and sisters,
12:32is that there is an elevated responsibility,
12:36an elevated attention, an elevated priority
12:40that must be placed upon that union
12:43between the man and the wife,
12:48the husband and the wife.
12:51But in many ways, we've suffered kind of an injury by a thousand blows
12:58to the familial institution, to the marital union, allowing it to be kind of
13:03relegated to a secondary posture.
13:08But we have to reverse that. The biblical ad is to leave and to cleave. It's not just
13:13a sounding, not just poetic verbiage. It's not just something that sounds good.
13:19It's not this all, yeah, go on your honeymoon child and y'all will be all right.
13:23No. It's meant to convey a transition in life priority, which is why this union between a husband
13:33and his wife that is a lifelong union with capacity to bear offspring is the only institution,
13:40the only human institution that's been described in scripture as illustrative of Christ and his bride.
13:48It really is a big deal, guys.
13:52It really, really, really is a big deal.
13:56And I know there's a lot of noise around us.
13:58There are lots of things that are transpiring.
14:01But as I've been saying repeatedly,
14:03I don't want to be among the ranks of those who just diagnose the darkness.
14:07I want to be a part of the ranks that put the light on the lampstand.
14:12And one of the central features of the light being put on the lampstand
14:15is that we embrace God's perspective
14:20as it pertains to marriage and family.
14:22So when Jesus affirms the creation account
14:25and describes to the exclusion of any counterfeits
14:28that the marital union is comprised of a mature male
14:34and a mature female.
14:36There's a reason why both Adam and Eve
14:38were created full-grown. They were not created as adolescents.
14:40They were created and stayed in the state of maturity intentionally
14:45In that is the state that the two were joined as the first couple in human history, the first
14:50married couple in human history, there's a reason for that and we would be served well
14:55to embrace God's view on this vital first institution.
14:57Hello, I'm Abraham Hamilton III.
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15:29Shining light into the darkness, this is the Hamilton Corner, an American family radio.
15:36Welcome back to the Hamilton Corner, Abraham Hamilton the third here.
15:39I'm delighted to be joined by my lovely wife here in studio.
15:42Last time we were together, we were having a conversation really following the tragedies
15:49with the trial in Massachusetts where this wife and mother who was a nurse herself murdered
15:59three of our young children and how the culture has really turned in a general sense really
16:07towards a hostility at certain levels towards children but in a more particular sense to
16:13really persuade women largely as a result of, you know, second wave feminism thereafter,
16:20to scorn really childbearing and child rearing as, you know, something to be rescued from,
16:27as opposed to recognize that it's one of the, the God designed unique features that apply
16:32to women that men cannot do cannot be a part of and how so many of women in our society
16:40who are image bearers of God, but they've been seduced into the lie that will get them to
16:46forego or entirely abandon, or at worst, even if they don't abandon it, they will lie in
16:51eyes, all of the things that transpire outside of the home, but to diminish the gloriousness
16:57of following the Lord and to recognize the home and central to God's vision for His Kingdom
17:03and the family is central to God's vision for his kingdom.
17:06And to scorn that in favor of doing what?
17:11Punching the clock somewhere else,
17:15embracing the kind of boss babe kind of phenomenon.
17:19And it's had quite a deleterious effect.
17:22And as I kept saying that you have people protesting
17:25in favor of a woman who murdered children,
17:27I haven't seen anybody doing any type of public lament
17:31or anything in favor of the children.
17:34Like the children seemed to be just a footnote in the story.
17:37And even I played audio on the show.
17:38One of the jurors was, you know,
17:40astounded that the one male juror who was a holdout
17:43and I learned he's a father and all kinds of things,
17:46he just couldn't get past that the defendant
17:49had viciously murdered her own children.
17:51Yeah, that's kind of the point.
17:53That is kind of the point.
17:54But in light of that, I wanted to have a conversation today
17:58on the flip side because as I've explained numerous times,
18:02people say things, you know, there's a war on masculinity.
18:06And I'm saying, well, really,
18:07it's a demonic attack on God's image bears in total.
18:10It's an attack on masculinity.
18:12It's a demonic attack on femininity
18:14because it's an effort to try to reverse God's design
18:18for his image bears and to cause us to forfeit
18:20and abandon what God has ordained for us
18:22and to embrace a countervailing narratives
18:25and treat them and alignize them.
18:27And I was doing some reading as a researcher on my own.
18:30And I came across a book by Nancy Pierce that we're going to get into.
18:34And she posits a thesis in the book.
18:37And this is the thesis.
18:39What happened to children when fathers left home all day for it.
18:48And factories were in offices corresponding to the industrial revolution.
18:52Well, the short answer, and this is Nancy Pierce's short answer.
18:55Her short answer is, they were the first generation of American men to be raised by women.
19:05We'll go a little bit further.
19:09She writes, quote, boys found themselves with a great deal of unstructured time to spend
19:13with their peers free from their fathers, guidance, and supervision.
19:16What structure they did have was largely enforced by women, by mothers, and female teachers.
19:23The best known psychologists of the time, G. Stanley Hall wrote a groundbreaking tone titled
19:28adolescence, which was published in 1904, in which he deplored the lack of
19:32fathering, never has the American boy been quite so wild as now.
19:37And never in the world have so many young cubs been so half orphaned and
19:42left to female guidance in school and home and church.
19:50Over time, with this reality setting in, our culture and boys are
19:57particularly began to regard godliness, virtue, and things that are taught in scripture and
20:06to associate them exclusively with femininity.
20:10And so boys began to adopt this notion of being wild in an effort to reject the concept
20:18of being associated with femininity.
20:20When you hear me read those things from Nancy Piercy's book, and I'm talking about her book
20:24titled the toxic war on masculinity and how Christianity reconciles the sexes.
20:31We hear me read that, Maria, what comes to your mind?
20:34Yeah, you know, I hadn't really considered the impact on the young boys, you know, growing
20:40up in the era that we've grown up in where we are raised by our moms, you know, all, you
20:46know, all the children are primarily, and I know in my culture growing up in Puerto Rico,
20:50when others went to work and mothers stayed home,
20:52and we were raised by our moms.
20:54And so I didn't ever consider it about how that would impact
20:57the sons to not have that masculine presence
21:04for the majority of their day.
21:05And I can see that.
21:08I know that God has created us in his image and likeness,
21:11and he's given us specific personalities.
21:15And you have the boys who are strong-willed,
21:18and then you have the boys who are rural followers.
21:22And so we can see that,
21:23and we can see that both girls and boys,
21:25but we can see that in boys,
21:26but I never considered that rebellious streak
21:30or that wild, let boys be boys,
21:33be a rejection if you're, or somewhat of a rejection,
21:36to the feminized home environment.
21:40And it's important that fathers understand this
21:43because we know in our own very own home,
21:47in our own experience, how I can, not wanting to, right?
21:53But like be a somewhat of a detriment to our boys.
21:56Either moms wanna coddle the boys too much,
22:00we wanna protect them too much,
22:02or we want to, we don't trust them because they're wild.
22:08You know, quote unquote, that we want to like,
22:12kinda house them, kinda keep him controlled.
22:15And that stifles their development as masculine men.
22:18And so it's incredibly important
22:19that husbands understand their role.
22:21Man, there's so many incredible insights in this book.
22:24She goes on to say, quote, let's set the stage.
22:27Prior to the Industrial Revolution,
22:29children worked alongside their parents,
22:30siblings and extended family most of the day.
22:39Children knew they were indispensable partners
22:41in the family's economic enterprise.
22:43But after the Industrial Revolution,
22:44social commentators began to lament
22:46the loss of children's chores,
22:48especially for boys whose fathers were no longer available
22:51to supervise daily tasks.
22:53Fathers could no longer include their sons
22:55in their own work either,
22:56because it took place outside the home.
22:58As a result, work no longer offered a way
23:01to connect fathers with their sons.
23:04And without a role model provided by fathers,
23:06boys became unsure about what it meant to be a man.
23:10I in quote now want to be clear about something obviously there were benefits from the industrial revolution was one of the major things that led to America becoming an economic superpower on the world stage.
23:20Of course, but we also should not be callous toward unintended consequences that might have developed and the massive societal shift that it that occurred with the industrial revolution and how it impacted.
23:38Children. Yeah.
23:39You had some thoughts that for the fella.
23:41Yeah, I mean, I'm just thinking about the family unit, you know, and how weak it has become
23:48as the generations continue, right, as the decades go on and how weaker and weaker and
23:52weaker.
23:53We know that the work of the enemy is to completely sever us from Christ from the Lord.
23:57And one of the best ways, one of the most strategic ways for him to do that is to destroy
24:00the family.
24:01And he's been doing that in many different ways, not only with divorce, right, that's
24:04high right now.
24:07And not only with the disdain for having children and for growing the family when once upon
24:12a time God said children are a blessing.
24:14Now we're seeing them as a burden societally.
24:17But also the concept of what a man's role in the home, what does that bring?
24:24What does it truly bring on a day-to-day basis?
24:26I'm not saying that you have to come home and do the chores that I should do.
24:30I'm not saying come home and clean.
24:33So they'll be, you know, blessing if you were to do that, whatever.
24:35But it's not that we're saying men become feminized and come under the authority of the
24:41keeper of the home, right?
24:42Because women are keepers of the home.
24:44We're not saying, let's not to a scripture, right?
24:45We're not saying that the fix to the problem that Nancy Piusy is highlighting is that men
24:51come under the authority of the keeper of the home.
24:54No, no, no.
24:55The husband remains the house ban, like you've always explained, where women are keepers
24:59of the home.
25:00But the husband sets the tone for the home.
25:02He continues to be the leader of the home, even if he has chores and things and outside
25:07of the home, if you will, today we don't live in a greater society any longer, or at least
25:10most of us don't.
25:13Could we homestead for sure?
25:14And that's wonderful.
25:15But when husbands have things to do outside of the home, like in our example, for example,
25:20you have still the authority by God, the right of responsibility to set the tone as leader
25:26of our home and for your time to be demonstrated there.
25:31And what does that look like regularly?
25:32Yeah, the point of this is,
25:36I don't have Martin McFly's DeLorean.
25:37We're not trying to go back
25:39and pre-industrial revolutionize.
25:42But the data following what the truth of scripture says,
26:01was never meant to be solely the province of moms.
26:05So the issue that needs to be brought to the fore
26:09is that we need to get our marching orders
26:11for what is masculinity from the scripture
26:12and not from a culture that does not embrace the scripture.
26:16All right?
26:17So within our modern context,
26:19how can we in light of the data that we have,
26:21in light most importantly of the scripture that we have,
26:24how can we govern ourselves
26:27to execute what God requires of me?
26:30I'm not on the farm. I'm not a farmer.
26:32I wouldn't mind of learning to be a farmer, though.
26:34I just, I just, I didn't get that certain set of skills.
26:37But how do I, in my modern context,
26:40take advantage of the time that's given me
26:42so that I am a constantly present,
26:46an actively engaged participant
26:50in the rearing of my own children?
26:51That is a question.
26:52So let me ask you a question, right?
26:54Let's flip the script.
26:55You can't answer.
26:56No, no.
26:57I'll host for a second.
26:59Oh, I'm scared, yeah.
27:01He's scared, ladies and gentlemen.
27:03Listen, how do you describe your role,
27:08practically in our home, to set the tone?
27:10Like how do you set the tone in our home
27:13with this shift of mentality, not shift,
27:15because we've been living in it,
27:15but you know, like where you embrace the idea
27:17of you being present intentionally in our home?
27:20Like what does that look like?
27:21Yeah, well, and I would add not merely setting the tone,
27:24but actively engaging as a father
27:26has got requires me to be engaged,
27:27not just like setting a tone and going away.
27:29Correct, yeah.
27:30The simple reality is, as I endeavor,
27:32and I know everybody has different circumstances,
27:34but I endeavor to build my schedule around my family,
27:36and not my family around my schedule.
27:38Does that make sense?
27:39That's good, yeah.
27:40So, you know, we have six children.
27:42We've discussed the reality that we do a lot of things
27:45corporately, you know, I lead devotions
27:46in the evenings for our families,
27:48but the majority of our family time is spent together.
27:51And so I intentionally set out time to take time
27:54to be with each of our children individually,
27:57individually to communicate to them that they are individually important to me.
28:01They're not just important to me as a member of the Hamilton clan, but they are important
28:05to me as individual bears of God's image with individual callings, individual giftings,
28:09individual cares and concerns.
28:11And my interest in them is who they are, not merely what they produce.
28:14And so I want to schedule and structure my time to reflect that in my affirmative communications
28:21to the children as well as how my schedule is structured and make sure the children are
28:24aware of that schedule.
28:25So I would say that our children know that something we say in our family makes sound
28:30cheesy to other people, but there's mommy daddy town.
28:33And the children know when it's mommy daddy time, y'all don't come knock on the door,
28:36leave us alone.
28:38Because I need them to understand that as much as they are a priority, mommy comes first.
28:42So that was the two things that I seek to establish and then build out our family dynamics and
28:48family orchestration around the fact that family is first and everything else comes after
28:53that.
28:54important having four boys.
28:56Yeah, we have four boys or two girls.
28:57Yes, so the four boys, for the girls too,
29:00because the girls have to see what it looks like
29:02to be a man, right?
29:03Like up close.
29:05For the longest in society, and I know what happened
29:08in my culture growing up, where it was traditional
29:11that the husbands left the home in the morning,
29:14with their briefcase going off to work,
29:16maybe probably more like the 70s and 80s and 90s
29:18in the United States, and they go out.
29:20Actually, dates back to further than that.
29:21I'm gonna get into that in a moment, but go ahead.
29:23Okay, we'll go ahead.
29:23So then I grew up understanding that manhood meant you go out, you bring the bacon and that's
29:29really all you do.
29:31You just provide, right?
29:32And so then boys grow up.
29:34Material provision.
29:35Yes, that's right.
29:36And there were so many gaps, so so many gaps that we grew up with all kinds of issues as a
29:41result, right?
29:42So our boys are getting the blessed, I'm just so grateful to the Lord, are being blessed
29:48by seeing what it looks like to be a biblical man.
29:51to grow up to see biblical manhood in action.
29:55That is an intentional, loving, priest, cover,
30:01provision, like provider, like all these aspects of manhood
30:05that God has so clearly expressed in his word
30:09through all the accounts, you can see his character
30:11and how that man is supposed to emulate that.
30:14The boys are growing up understanding that, right?
30:17That they don't just check out,
30:18they don't have a man cave
30:20where they just get to check out, you know,
30:21I know there's, you know, anyway, so that's a blessing for boys to be able to grow up and
30:26see that.
30:27Mm.
30:28Speaking of the man cave, when you say something early, I wanted to mention.
30:31So respond to you mentioned about the prevalence of divorce.
30:34It's interesting that the data shows that the divorce numbers actually are not as prevalent
30:39when you have a committed husband and wife who frequently worship together in corporate
30:45worship.
30:46Yeah, praise God.
30:47That when you have a committed husband and wife who worshiped together, the data shows at
30:51at a minimum three times per month,
30:53that the divorce rates are severely low.
30:57The divorce rates increase when you have nominal Christians
31:02who profess to be Christians,
31:04but don't really worship the Lord together.
31:06Don't really go to church.
31:07And then when you have non-Christians,
31:10the divorce rates are similar.
31:12Actually, the divorce rates are higher
31:13amongst nominal Christians.
31:14Christians don't worship together
31:16even than their second-rise counterparts.
31:18But when you have committed Bible-believing Christians,
31:20when the husband and wives worshiped the Lord together
31:22and demonstrated in church attendance,
31:24the divorce rates acted really, really low.
31:25Yeah, that makes sense.
31:26So I'm saying we gotta get rid of this lie,
31:28that diversions as high in the church as in the world,
31:30actually that's not true,
31:31because you have to distinguish between nominal Christianity
31:35and committed Bible believing, active Christianity,
31:39it's an entirely different ball game.
31:41Then you also mentioned about the phenomenon on the man cave.
31:44I was surprised to learn,
31:46and I'm gonna share this with you guys,
31:47You might think it is start with the advent of college football and the SEC versus Big Ten
31:53rivalries.
31:54No, no, no, no.
31:56It actually started much earlier before that because it was a continuation of the uninitiated
32:04masculine repudiation, what they viewed as feminine virtue.
32:09Godly this was associated with feminine virtue and men wanted to retreat from that to have
32:14an isolated pursuit of wild masculinity.
32:19We're going to get into it on the other side of this break.
32:25Building a strong biblical worldview
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32:53The Hamilton Quarter podcast and one-minute commentaries are available at aFR.net back to the Hamilton
33:06Quarter on American Family Radio. Welcome back to the Hamilton Corner Abraham Hamilton the third
33:12here with my lovely wife Maria Hamilton and we're having a conversation about biblical manhood and
33:18And in addition to that kind of as a subscript, what happened to the formation of families following the Industrial Revolution and what was the impact, particularly upon boys with the transition in the way that fathers earned a living.
33:34And we started a conversation which is something to introduce a topic that was somewhat surprising
33:41to me to learn that the phenomenon of the man cave is something that is not a recent
33:45phenomenon.
33:46It actually dates back quite a ways.
33:49And I want to share a little bit of that with you back to Nancy Piersi's book.
33:54She begins now to say, well, what happened to these boys when you have the first generation
33:59of men who are raised by women.
34:04And as I mentioned earlier, there was an effort to begin to repudiate what they described as
34:08civilized, being civilized and saying that that was associated with femininity, you know, acts
34:15that's where the term sissy came from.
34:17The term sissy initially came from that was a term that was used to address one's sister,
34:22but boys began to describe one another in that term by saying you were acting like a girl
34:27by being honorable, by being respectful, uh, by having manners, those things were no longer
34:34deemed to be virtuous. They were identified overly as being feminine. So that's how the
34:40term began to be utilized. But the Nancy Pearsy writes this quote, what happened as these boys grew up?
34:46They brought boy culture with them. Now think about these, the boys growing up in the men,
34:50but they're bringing boy culture with them. They bring boy culture, they brought boy culture with
34:54them. As adults, they continued to protest against the imposition of what they saw as women's
35:00standards. A new word into the English language, over civilized. People began to worry that city
35:07boys were becoming soft and emasculated. They were no longer the strapping young men produced
35:11by harsh pioneer days or rugged farm life. The three principal institutions that dominated
35:16early childhood socialization, family religion, religion and education were increasingly staffed
35:21and run by women. Men began to feel that to retrieve a sense of robust manhood, they needed to escape
35:27from women and the home and even from civilization itself. Philosopher and poet Henry David Thoreau
35:34became famous for living a semi-hermit life at Walden Pond. Why did he feel compelled to leave town
35:40and live alone by a lake? In his words, a civilized man's house is a prison in which he finds himself
35:47oppressed and confined. To avoid stagnating, Thoreau said, we need the tonic of wildness.
35:54The drive to escape was at first expressed in small ways. Most men did not have their own
35:59walled in pond, but they began to seek ways to withdraw even within the home. Around the
36:041850s, houses began to be built with a separate den for the husband as an escape from the pressures
36:12of family life, the proverbial man cake."
36:16Well.
36:17In quote, y'all that dates back to 1850, where you then had a theme that in order for something
36:25to be masculine, the man had to be away from family, away from wife, away from children,
36:29out in the pioneer, alone at sea, in different places.
36:33And adventures, yeah.
36:34The adventure, though, was viewed as something that had to be away from family, which was
36:38a contrast.
36:39you read literature prior to the Industrial Revolution,
36:43it would discuss man, husbands,
36:46and men's adventures would include the whole,
36:48that it was a central feature,
36:50but that began to turn the structure to the degree
36:54to where even now, even as a travel to homeschool families,
36:57the homeschool conferences and minister,
36:58one of the things that's a frequent question is,
37:00well, I'm a dad, what do I do?
37:02Yeah, without an include, a review, yeah.
37:04With the expectation that this is something
37:07that is outside of what should be my jersey.
37:11But the question is, what does the scripture say?
37:14You wanted to react to that.
37:15Yeah, I mean, I'm just thinking about the whole adventure
37:19perspective where the adventure is fun and thrilling
37:24and it pleases the man and the family is boring,
37:29their shackles, these ideas are demonic.
37:31That's from the devil.
37:32I think one thing though that we have to make sure
37:34we reiterate is in modern America,
37:38because a lot of times, especially for those of us
37:41that are stay-at-home moms,
37:43if we embrace the idea that our husbands,
37:45quote unquote, come home or have more of an intentional,
37:48dedicated time in the home,
37:50sometimes we cringe at that, right?
37:52Because we're like, man, this is my domain.
37:55I run this.
37:56I'm the one that's been called to be a keeper of the home,
37:58and rightly so.
38:00But we don't want any interruptions.
38:01We want the man cave.
38:02Go over there and play your little video games,
38:04I'm gonna be over here running the show where that's ungodly on both fronts, right?
38:09The man wants to check out and the husband don't want the man to come in and be the leader of the home
38:14because we want to be the leaders, you know, and it's unfortunate because that's the demonic deceit.
38:19So we as wives also we need to understand that our rightful role as helpers is a blessing from God for the health of the family.
38:28Like our role is extremely pivotal, but in the right way in the right place, right?
38:32Likewise for you guys as husbands,
38:35I say set the tone, but it is an intentional living in the home
38:40and providing that atmosphere and culture of leadership
38:45in the home so that the wife and the children can function
38:49and be as fruitful as possible according to the way
38:52that God designed it.
38:54I think when everybody embraces the role properly in the home,
38:57it becomes a strong and healthy home that impacts
38:59in the church and in the society and in our culture at large.
39:03But I think as wise we have to remember
39:05to step back and let the husbands lead.
39:11Yeah, and I wanna reiterate a point that I made earlier
39:14and I think it's important to reiterate this.
39:16I am not hankering for,
39:19we gotta go back to Yeodendate.
39:21That's not what I'm saying.
39:22What I'm saying is that what we should see
39:25as Christ followers and Bible believers,
39:29we should seek to employ what God requires of us in his word.
39:33Amen. And not taking our marching orders
39:36from what is prevalent in the culture and a fallen world,
39:40but we go back to ground zero, which is God's word.
39:43What does God's word say and seek to construct
39:46within our modern context,
39:48but to construct our operation consistent
39:51with what the scripture says?
39:53Because it's not to, there's a reason like,
39:56Men, we're larger than normal.
39:58We have more bone density, we have more testosterone.
40:01We have more of the chemical makeup to make us risk takers.
40:03None of that needs to be tapped out or eliminated.
40:07But how do we exercise that in a biblical man?
40:11And I've often said, there's been no greater adventure
40:14than following the Lord's will
40:16and leading my family in that regard to see,
40:18there's no greater thing to do with your life
40:20than to put it in the center of God's hand and say,
40:23Lord, what do you wanna build in the life,
40:25in this life and through this life,
40:27and then carrying a family with me in that direction.
40:30This is the way walk you therein.
40:32This is what it looks like to follow the Lord,
40:34because the reality is he calls us to be peculiar.
40:37So one of the major indicators that what God calls us to do,
40:39it ain't gonna look like what's popular
40:41on the broad road of the world.
40:42That's right.
40:43It's gonna be swimming against the current.
40:44Yeah.
40:45It's gonna be swimming upstream and having that reality,
40:47not something we pursue in isolation and segregated
40:51from what we do in our families,
40:53but that being a central feature of what it means to be
40:55a godly man in our families.
40:57And then we execute what God calls us to do,
41:00the cultural mandate, the creation mandate,
41:02subduing the earth and subjecting to the Lordship of Christ.
41:05That is what I am advocating for
41:09and encouraging in us to have an objective
41:11and honest conversation and look at what's happening.
41:14As you're hearing me talk, do you think
41:16the cultivation of the hearts and minds
41:17is something that's just a woman's job, your wife's job?
41:20Do you see that authority to her exclusively?
41:24You know, have you not considered that the scripture says, again,
41:27fathers, you're nice to ask about your children rhythm in the discipline and
41:30instruction of the Lord.
41:31Do you think it's a coincidence that mom can say something a certain way,
41:35but that is says it one time and there's a different response.
41:38You think that's a coincidence?
41:39Because it's not.
41:40And also also the reality that wives get so, um, or can't get so like
41:46emotionally frustrated with those moments where the children are, you know,
41:52just not behaving and they need to be disciplined
41:55and they need to be, you know,
41:57character needs to be reformed and all those things.
41:58And we feel the weight of like,
42:00I'm raising them again, for those of us who are saying,
42:03home moms, that's our full time, you know, investment.
42:06And so we're here and we're working and working.
42:08And then man, when husbands get home,
42:10we're like, man, tag, you're it.
42:11Like I need to go and shower, you know?
42:14But those moments shouldn't be,
42:16and I'm not talking about a utopia, right?
42:18I'm talking about a reality of working together
42:20on what is the culture of the home
42:23and what should it reflect, right?
42:25The character of God.
42:26So when the scripture say the discipline
42:29and instruction of the Lord,
42:30it is a cultivation of the heart and the mind.
42:33How will you do that father, husband?
42:36If you are elsewhere, majority of the time
42:39or not involved, let's say it that way, right?
42:41You have to be able to inspect the heart of the children.
42:45You have to have the time to see how your wife is doing,
42:49to be able to lead and say,
42:51this is what we're gonna do with this child.
42:53And we do this all the time.
42:54We have what we call debriefings.
42:55Well, we're like, man, this child is exhibiting
42:57this type of heart condition.
42:59And I've been telling them this and this and that.
43:02And I have an anecdote, if you don't mind,
43:04if you want me sharing.
43:05So earlier this week, our kids have chores, right?
43:10And so they had-
43:11Darn it's that, they have chores.
43:12Yes, yes, we all school up in here.
43:14So every Saturday, they're supposed to clean their bedrooms
43:19and their bathrooms.
43:20They do their own laundry as well.
43:22Like literally I do not clean their bedrooms
43:24or their bathrooms and I do not wash their clothes.
43:26I only wash my husband's years and our little baby son,
43:30cause he's too little.
43:31And so they're supposed to do these things.
43:33I don't have to.
43:34I mean you say this, you're not saying
43:35you have to be identical to us.
43:37That's how we're doing it.
43:37That's how we're doing it.
43:38Yeah.
43:39So I should not have to stay on top of them to do this
43:41because we have explained how this is to be done, right?
43:45So Monday, I go to, yeah, Monday I go to their bathroom
43:51and it looks like a murder scene.
43:53It's legitimate, it looks like a murder scene, okay?
43:55It looks like it has not been touched.
43:57Now, I could take the blame
43:59that I should have probably been on top of it
44:01a little bit more, right?
44:01But I was trusting my kids, era on my part.
44:05And I was like, Lord, if you don't help me Holy Spirit,
44:10I'm gonna sin against these children
44:12Because I'm like on nine right now.
44:15What is this, right?
44:17So I was very firm in explaining to them and coming here
44:21and look at this mirror and look at this sink.
44:23And it's not about I want a spickenspan catalog,
44:26house that I can put on Pinterest.
44:28That is not it.
44:29I want their character.
44:30I want them to honor God with what is required of them.
44:33When we say I'm gonna clean my room,
44:34we do it heartily as unto the Lord and not unto men.
44:37It is not to please others.
44:38Nobody goes into their bathroom.
44:39So it's not for others.
44:40It is not even for a mountain that is approval.
44:42for them to glorify God in all that they do.
44:44Now, I don't understand their children,
44:45but I'm not going to excuse at their children and say,
44:47oh, because they're children, therefore I should expect sin.
44:50No, sin is to be casted out.
44:52We defeated it.
44:53It is death.
44:55So, yeah, so we are not going to give into that idea.
44:58So I felt like I was being come in Godzilla,
45:01and I was like, oh, Lord.
45:03So I went to my room and you were there,
45:06and I was like, you ever have hands on the third?
45:08Listen to me carefully.
45:09These boys.
45:11What 11 and nine.
45:13I'm sorry, you are old enough to understand the instruction
45:17and to clean a mirror.
45:18Come on.
45:19So I know the character can lean toward laziness
45:22and bear minimum so they can get to what they wanna really,
45:24really do, right?
45:25So I am like emotionally like angry
45:28because I'm like, how do I get these children's hearts
45:30to be right with God, you know?
45:31And I'm already like borderline like, oh God, I don't wanna sit.
45:34So you.
45:36That's the spirit of God that does that.
45:37But anyway, go ahead.
45:38Amen, amen.
45:39And so you, very calmly, don't even,
45:43you don't even like go and like,
45:44boy, come in here, none of that, none of that.
45:46Hours go by, I'm over here venting,
45:48like I can't just believe it, I don't understand it.
45:50And all these things.
45:52And then you later on say, okay, I know what I gotta do.
45:56I gotta, I'm gonna talk to them tonight.
45:58Very calmly, very, I'm like already like, you know,
46:00coming down off my anger because I'm like, okay,
46:03I know that you're going to, because it's not only on me.
46:07And I can very easily, you know,
46:09get really emotionally invested in this.
46:12And again, my emotions are rightly placed
46:14in their character, right?
46:15And they're, I don't want them to be, you know, and send,
46:18but your help, you come in and you're like,
46:21okay, let me talk to them.
46:23And y'all, I was blessed to be in the room
46:27when you talk to our boys.
46:28And it blessed me, it blessed me to no end
46:31because this man sits these two boys on the bed.
46:34And the two boys, they look like twins, right?
46:36but they're sitting there.
46:37We got the table.
46:38No, this isn't the bed.
46:39This is in the room.
46:40And they come and they sit close to you in the bed.
46:43In my bed, yeah.
46:44And I'm over here, like I don't listen,
46:46but I do listen and listen.
46:47And you literally gave them a whole lesson on manhood,
46:50on responsibility, on doing everything hardly
46:53is unto the Lord, on making sure they understand
46:55that this is a training ground for manhood.
46:57It's not, you did not say to them,
46:59clean your room because your mommy said.
47:01You see what I'm saying?
47:01Like that's like what Nancy Pius is talking about.
47:03We don't feminize them.
47:05What we're saying is like do you set the expectation
47:08of for them to understand what manhood really looks like?
47:12Obedience, respect, responsibility.
47:14Reliability and trustworthiness.
47:16Reliability, integrity, truthworthiness.
47:18Those are things that these boys were rebelling against,
47:21that's civility.
47:22But we're talking about biblical manhood.
47:24So for you to sit them down and talk to them
47:26man to man, if you will, right?
47:28Letting them know like I'm expecting you to understand
47:31that these things that are implemented in our home
47:33because we expect you to clean your bathroom
47:35and your room every week,
47:37is that you are growing to be becoming a man.
47:40Yeah, well, I don't know if you're gonna share that,
47:42but well, glory to God for that.
47:44But that's a part of it.
47:46And God has given us as men a particular grace
47:50and an anointing to convey to our boys in particular
47:55what is required of them.
47:57And while we want them to enjoy their adolescence,
47:59my job is for my boys to become men.
48:02And if the Lord terries, they will be men far longer on this side of eternity, then there will be boys.
48:08And they need to understand the things that we're implementing in them is to prepare them for manhood,
48:13not to have them having a protracted adolescence.
48:16And so they identified with that.
48:19And here's the thing, boys want to become men.
48:23So when we speak to the men in them and call the man in the king to arise,
48:27we're often find that our boys will meet that moment.
48:34The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American
48:39Family Association or American Family Radio.
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