Prefer to listen? Listen to the episode here.
Men get a lot of mixed messages about masculinity. Some say it’s toxic. Others say it doesn’t really matter anymore. It’s no surprise guys are left wondering, “What does it even mean to be a good man?”
This week, Juli sits down with Brant Hansen, author of The Men We Need, to get honest about the struggles men face and why true strength looks very different from the stereotypes we’re used to. This conversation is an invitation to see manhood not as a problem to fix, but as a calling worth stepping into.
Juil
Hey friends, welcome to Java with Juli. I am Juli Slattery and this podcast is an outreach of Authentic Intimacy, a ministry dedicated to helping you make sense of God and sexuality. Today we are going to tackle the topic of men. As a culture, we seem to be really struggling with the concept of what healthy manhood is supposed to look like. My guest today is Brant Hanson. He’s the author of a book called The Men We Need.
Brand argues that it’s easy to point out what men are doing wrong, but it’s a lot harder to construct a healthy, compelling vision for what it looks like to get masculinity right. And that’s exactly what he sets out to do. In this conversation, we talk about why men are so confused about their purpose, how commitment creates meaning, and why true masculinity is about becoming someone who protects the vulnerable and helps others flourish.
Juli
Whether you’re a man trying to figure out your purpose or you’re married to a man or maybe you’re raising one, this conversation is going to offer clarity and really a great vision for what men can become. And I know many of you listening right now are women and this is an important conversation for us too. I mean, let’s face it, we have men in our lives, husbands, brothers, sons, friends who we influence. And if we have a wrong vision or maybe no vision for God’s design for masculinity, well, that impacts how we interact with them. So grab your coffee and let’s dive into my conversation with Brant Hanson.
Juli (01:38.37)
All right, well, Brant, you have written a book that we talked about on a previous episode called Unoffendable. And now we’re going to enter into a topic where I think a lot of people can be offended. So it’s good that you sort of had the segue of how do we talk about this in a way that isn’t offensive. But we are going to talk about manhood, masculinity. Boy, this has been a topic I’d say over the last five or six years has been kind of in the cultural conversation, in the news, nobody really knows how do you talk about manhood without being offensive. So maybe we can start that way.
Brant (02:16.974)
Well, I mean, my thing is about how I’m offended when I talk about unoffendable. There’s no way you can avoid being offensive. Someone can be offended, right? You can take offense if you want. But my whole Java with this book, I was like, it’s easy to deconstruct masculinity. People do it all the time. So we’ve got books about masculinity and masculinity and Christianity and Jesus and John Wayne and all that. Yeah, deconstructing’s fine. It has a role, but what’s the construction?
That’s my question. It’s easy to tear things down or take things apart, but are we actually telling young guys or men in general, actually this is the way to be? Is there a vision for masculinity? I don’t think in the church circles even, there’s been a coherent idea that we show guys. Instead, it’s lot of tropes about what masculinity is. And every time we do a men’s night, it’s like, let’s throw axes, let’s have some steaks. There’s nothing wrong with any of that, but it doesn’t actually show what masculinity actually is. So what I tried to do in this book is say this is what it is. And I think if you don’t have a vision, no wonder guys are casting about young guys too, like they have no clue what they’re supposed to be aiming for. So you wind up doing all sorts of foolishness.
Juli (03:30.252)
Yeah. So when you mentioned deconstructing, who do you think has done the majority of the deconstruction of masculinity? Has it been men or women?
Brant (03:39.642)
Oh boy, you know what? There’s arguments to make for both. I mean, it goes back a long way. Like, you know, men used to be with their families. They used to work with their families. So pre-industrial revolution, you’re with your family all the time.
Juil
Yeah.
Brant
When men moved out of the home to work in factories or work in downtown or whatever back in the day, then we had a new idea of what it means to be a man. It’s like you leave your house and then you work all day and you come home. And then on the weekends, you go hunting.
And we established this whole mythos about what masculinity is based on that. You could look at Theodore Roosevelt, other people like that. That was men doing that. But I don’t think that’s masculinity either. I don’t think you have to shoot a rhinoceros in the head to prove that you’re a masculine guy. Like there’s tropes on both sides. And then there’s the larger culture that is, know, masculinity is only toxic. Okay, so what’s the good masculinity? So the larger culture is only deconstructed, but so is church culture.
Juli (04:36.782)
No, I think you’re right and I keep seeing news articles and conversations around the idea that we don’t need men. There are a lot of women who are deciding that men are too much work. So if you’re going to be in a relationship, be in a relationship with other women. So it’s got to be very, very confusing for men of what does it even look like for me to be a productive citizen.
Brant (05:03.15)
Absolutely. You can go in Christian schools. This is a thing. Like Christian schools, the guys are largely being influenced by people like Andrew Tate or other masculinity influencers who are the opposite of what we should be aiming for. But again, even in those schools or churches, if you don’t actually show a vision for what it is, if all you can do is go, well, guys need to man up. We need to be men, we stand up and be men. Men need to be men. Like, what are you saying?
So I grew up that way. I’m not a hunter, football guy. I’ve got neurological conditions. I can’t do all that stuff. Does that mean I can’t be a man because I don’t have to drive a big truck and play football? even in church culture though, it’s like, okay, so tell me what it is we’re supposed to be doing. I think I nailed it. I could be wrong, but I think I nailed it. And so that’s what I tried to do with this book. It’s not about arguing about cultural stuff about masculinity. It’s about actually going, hey guys, here’s what you’re supposed to do. And when you do it, women find it wildly attractive, by the way. And you don’t need to be jacked. And you don’t need to be a former Special Forces guy. You don’t need to be all this stuff. And you can do this because this is actually what we’re made for.
Juli (06:11.726)
Could you have written this book 10, 20 years ago or is it something that you’ve learned over time what masculinity looks like?
Brant (06:20.302)
I’ve had to learn it over time. Honestly, it’s been through talking to a lot of people too. And even as a communicator who speaks to crowds and stuff, kind of stumbling on this subject, seeing how women react when I actually show the picture of what it is masculinity actually is. And the guys, when they see that, like, oh okay, so that’s a huge relief because we can’t all be jacked. We can’t all be, you know, men’s health or men’s fitness cover models.
So yeah, I kind of stumbled into that, but also as somebody who’s more of a nerdy books person, more artsy, like, am I not masculine then? And what does my wife actually find compelling about me? So I put all that together to come up with this vision for what it is.
Juli (07:03.918)
Okay, so what’s the picture?
Brant (07:06.476)
It’s being a keeper of the garden. It’s the thing that Adam was told to do. Like this is a job that was specifically for Adam was to be a keeper to guard over and cultivate his sphere of influence. So there’s a lot to that. There’s the protective thing, which is obvious, I think, should be that we’re actually made to protect, but not just protect, like not just fend off the bad guys, not just fend off the threats. Everybody gets a garden. That’s our sphere of influence.
Juli
Yeah
Brant
I need to cultivate the beautiful things that are in that garden. That means little people, women, the vulnerable, I protect them, I allow them to flower because I’m there. I want them to reach their potential. I want them to bloom and be beautiful because I kept my garden. And the great thing about that is no matter what kind of man you are, whatever your gifts are and talents, you can do that using what you have. And as it turns out, again, as I fleshed out what that looks like in daily life, women are like, my goodness, that’s exactly what I’m looking for.
And it’s not just Christian women. When I speak to secular groups, that secular women are looking at me like, that’s what I want from my husband or my boyfriend. And once guys understand that, you’re supposed to bring security to the vulnerable. The people you love should feel more secure because you’re around, not less. That’s why you’re given muscle, is to protect. But if you use whatever you have to actually be a threat to your wife, including your words. If your words actually don’t build up your wife, but you’re sarcastic and you cut her down, you’re now a threat in the garden. You’re betraying your role. But if you use your words and whatever you have to make people around you secure, you’re golden. You’re golden to your neighborhood. You’re golden to the people around you. You’re nailing it. And so the neat thing has been for somebody like me, like I’m not great at a lot of stuff but I can use words, I can write. I can inspire people hopefully with what I say and to be able to do that in my own garden and then know concentrically outward is a beautiful thing.
Juli (09:11.778)
Yeah. So that’s the picture, Brandt. You wrote in your book about six decisions that a man can make to really step into that purpose. And I’d like to run through those because they’re very practical.
Brant
Sure.
Juli
But before we do that, I want to just read something from your book that I found really compelling. You say essentially there are real humans outside of your window who will suffer because you aren’t who they need you to be. They’re real humans you know, who basically aren’t going to flourish because you as a man, whoever you are, wherever you are, aren’t stepping into God’s purpose for you. And the first thing I thought about when I read that was the classic movie, It’s a Wonderful Life. That picture of what life would have been like if George Bailey hadn’t been born or you know, you even say if he hadn’t stepped up to be who God created him to be. And it’s a fictional account, but it shows how the whole town was changed by his presence and by his willingness to step into hard things. Yeah. I just wonder if that’s true for all of us. Yeah.
Brant (10:17.766)
Sure, I think it is for all of us. Particularly when I’m talking to young guys, see the popular conception is if I’m not hurting anybody, what’s it matter? So if I want to play 12 hours of video games a day in my parents’ basement and I’m not hurting anybody, I want young guys to know, and this is actually good news to them. I’m not chewing them out. It’s actually good news. I’m going, you are hurting people. We needed you out here. God gave you gifts to be a husband and a father or if not that, know, a protector for your neighborhood.
Like to be a teacher, be a, like, there’s gifts that God gave you to be a keeper of the garden and you’re not showing up. We do hurt because of that. And we see that societally. But I need to say this here, if it’s okay, I’m sorry if I’m ranting. This is so important that you tell, if you have sons or nephews or grandsons, tell them this is God’s plan for them to be a keeper of the garden. They can understand it quickly. My son was nine.
Brant (11:14.028)
And he was picking on his sister, Julia, so it’s Justice and Julia, and he was picking on her and I went to break it up and I said something, I kind of stumbled into it, but I said, Justice, you’re here to protect your little sister. I’m having to protect her from you. You’re betraying your role. And he got it. And I don’t think, honestly, I don’t think we ever had that problem again.
Juli
Wow.
Brant
But young guys aren’t told this. If you’re not given a vision for what your masculinity is for, how the heck are you supposed to know? We actually have to proactively tell and they get it very quickly. They may be 18. It’s like, dude, you’re given testosterone. You’re given the hormones you have. You’re given the strength you have, the athleticism you have. It’s not to go 180 miles an hour on a motorcycle and kill somebody. It’s to protect people.
Juli
Yeah.
Brant
When we see a group of young guys walking around the neighborhood, we should go, good. Good, man, we got some in shape guys in their prime that are willing to take risks to defend, but if we don’t tell them that’s what it’s for, of course they’re just going to cause problems.
Juli (12:17.614)
Yeah. Amen. think that is just such an important message. And part of what you have worked on in this book is making that tangible. All right. What does that mean for me tomorrow? And I think that’s what you’re trying to get out with these six decisions. So maybe we can just talk through those and make them as practical.
Brant
Sure yeah, sure.
Juli
Okay. So the first one I have is that you’ve got to embrace the real and forsake the fake. Tell me what you mean by that.
Brant (12:46.318)
Well, if fake wins all the time now, we know that. It’s better than reality. That’s the problem. I’m trying to tell guys that, even pornography, which will destroy your sex life, the fake looks so great, but it’s not real. And so it will destroy you. So this is something we have to talk about. But it’s even taking porn out of the equation, like with video games. I don’t have anything against video games. Like, there can be some that are completely benign, except that they’re actually more fun than real life.
So that’s the problem is like, if you do not want to look back when you’re 70, you go, I spent equivalent of 50 years of my life doing fake stuff for fake people. It’ll actually replicate work in those video games, but you don’t actually accomplish anything. But it levels you up faster than real life will. If you get a job, you don’t get leveled up tomorrow. It takes time. So I’m like, yes, there’s a thing called supernormal stimulation that will render the rest of life boring if you hand yourself over to it. That’s what that chapter’s about. I kind of fleshed that out to say this is why we have to operate in reality and the world needs us to.
Juli (13:52.174)
Yeah, well, I think about, you know, the greatest generation that was sort of the World War Two generation that we look back and we call them that. I think of, you know, 18 to 25 year old men who were all enlisted. They all served and a lot of them lost their lives. And there’s a part of us today that as a mom of three sons, I’m like, man, I’m really glad I wasn’t raising my kids back then. You know, they’d all three be fighting a deadly war.
But I think on the other hand, there was a really clear call to action for men. There was a clear threat and a clear direction of this is what I’m supposed to do with my muscle and my valor and my time. There’s an enemy to fight. And in today’s day and age, that’s harder to find. And so when you say embrace the real, I think people have trouble discerning, well, okay, well, what is the real, what has God put me here to fight for? And how do I find a woman to love well? Like that whole terrain is really confusing for young men in today’s day and age.
Brant (15:02.51)
Yeah, I mean, I can’t answer all those questions because there’s so much individual situations that people are in and circumstances. I can tell you, you can actually ask God to help you. I mean, I did. I didn’t have any dates in high school. I never dated anybody. I was too scared. Nobody liked me or whatever. But then I asked God, please help me with this. And I did meet a girl. We were best friends in college.
And I finally just leaned over to, were studying together. There was no romantic anything. And I turned to her and I just said, out of nowhere, I said, I love you. And so she said, “thanks”. So it was just, but now we’ve been married 35 years. So it’s like, ask God, he wants to partner with you in life. God is looking for partners. He always has been from Adam to Abraham, everybody, men and women, both. But it’s like, do you have this opportunity to do it. Here’s another thing: What can I possibly do? Here I am, this nerdy guy with eye problems and can’t see straight and has some handicaps. Like, what can I do? Well, as it turns out, what I do, I work with this hospital network and I help kids get surgeries around the world in the name of Jesus who need neurosurgeries or orthopedic surgeries and whatnot. I’ve had a role, thank the Lord, in thousands of these kids being able to walk for the first time or go to school for the first time. Little girls and boys, like, I couldn’t have predicted that.
Brant
I didn’t aim for that. That’s the Lord using a nerdy person, but I made myself available. I asked him to help me find a place and now I get to be a defender of a lot of kids who have just been on the bottom for their whole lives and suffering. So I think God will answer your prayer if you earnestly go that direction, if you ask him.
Juli (16:46.122)
Mm I was just reading this morning in a devotional that when Isaiah was called to serve the Lord, you know, that’s a very popular passage in Isaiah six where the Lord says, who shall we send? Who will go for us? And the devotional writer, I believe it was Oswald Chambers. He said, notice that God did not call Isaiah specifically. He said, who shall we send? And Isaiah was listening and he said, send me.
Brant
Send me. Yeah.
Juli
I mean, I think that’s so key is that when we have eyes to see and when we’re seeking the Lord, we see needs everywhere. We see vulnerable people, we see spiritual warfare, we see marriages in trouble, we see the elderly and the sick, we see justice issues that need to be addressed. And it’s just a matter of having the eyes for it and say, okay, Lord, send me. I don’t know what I’m doing, but send me. Yeah.
Brant (17:46.638)
And Lord help me to find a place, ask him, and then be faithful. You gotta keep talking to him. It’s what I keep telling these guys too. Like they get caught up in pornography for instance. And look, no generations before this had to deal with this before, ever. Not like this. And you never had this kind of isolation where you’re left with plenty of time by yourself with a device. Like this is difficult. And so I’m not guilt-tripping guys. I feel for us. This is not fair.
On the other hand, if you keep seeking God and you keep talking to Him, even as you’re caught up in stuff, He’s gonna help you grow and push that outside, but you can’t slink away in shame. You can’t feel like, I can’t talk to Him anymore. I’ve blown it, I keep blowing it. No, no, no. He wants you to grow up, and what’ll happen is your desires start to change and it becomes less of an issue. So I keep trying to encourage guys too. Like they walk away in shame or they can’t talk about it they feel like they’re done with God, but God wants us to actually grow up. And if we keep talking to him, even in the midst of our sin, even in the midst of it, he’s going to help us grow and that’ll become a side issue.
Juli (18:53.022)
Amen. But it takes time. And I don’t know if this is one of the six decisions, but this is something that I took from the book. Make commitments and take responsibility. And you kind of alluded to it, the importance of committing to something and staying with it, not blaming when things get difficult, whether that’s a marriage or in a ministry or work endeavor. And that’s part of what you’re getting at there.
Brant (19:19.682)
Yeah, think of this, and Juli, I gotta tell you, I’m just gonna level with you. My dad passed away a couple days ago. Yeah, so, but I wanna tell you this too. Like there’s a lot of things I haven’t said publicly because he was still alive. He was a free agent his whole life. He was a pastor. He’d switched from one church to the next. He switched from one woman to the next. My parents got divorced a couple times from each other. He went on to several other marriages, several other churches, always on his own. And I could tell when I was younger, like, this guy’s gonna wind up by himself. My brother just got off the phone with me. My dad had eight contacts on his phone, and five of them were medical contacts, like for doctors.
Juli (20:04.61)
Wow.
Brant (20:16.92)
So a lifetime of pastoral ministry, he did maybe a thousand concerts where he played guitar and sang, and he was very impressive and all that, but it was all about him. And in the end, commitment is the only poetry in life. I have grandkids that I get to spend lots of time with goofing off with because I didn’t leave. The only poetry in life comes from actually binding commitments. Otherwise you wind up a lonely man. So I’ve seen that in sharp definition in my own life. But I do encourage young guys too, or guys in general, like, yeah, you can always leave, quit, you can be a free agent. That’s what the world tells you to do, but that’s not the route to actual poetry in life. And that’s not what you want.
Juli (20:45.134)
What do mean by poetry?
Brant (20:47.01)
Just like profundity. Like some woman is with her husband in his deathbed after they’ve been married for 58 years and he’s able to look in her eyes and in his last breaths, you know, know that they were together their whole lives. Like that’s profundity. That doesn’t happen if you’re like, I want to do my own thing. No, what happens is you wind up by yourself. So I guess that’s a profound thing too. guess I’m leaning towards romantic poetry instead of tragic because anything beautiful is gonna come as a result of committing to relationships with God, primarily.
Juli (21:20.918)
Right. And it means that there are going to be seasons, maybe long seasons where it’s not easy. It’s not fun. It seems like it would be better to bail. Right. Yeah.
Brant (21:31.202)
That’s true with anything. Anything like the commitment, what I’m telling young guys too, but anybody’s like, yeah. I know like the guy from Coldplay, Chris Martin, he was complaining when he was a kid about sitting at the piano. Like everybody’s got the freedom out there. They get to go play soccer. He’s watching them out the window. He’s like, I gotta keep doing my scales. They’re free. I’m not. Yeah, they’re free. Guess who’s free to travel the world now, wherever he wants to go. Because he made a commitment to doing the thing. Like you stick with the thing, and you actually find freedom through the right kind of commitments. That’s actually where you find the freedom.
Juli (22:04.994)
That kind of dovetails into another one of these decisions. Be ambitious about the right things. Yeah. I guess what are the wrong things?
Brant (22:15.224)
The wrong things are things that aren’t based in relationship. So I’m telling guys now, and I had to make this choice too. I wasn’t making any money. I had little kids and among the many mistakes I made, I got this thing right. And that was I chose a job where I barely made a living and I got tons of time with my family. Tons. So every day I was done at like one o’clock. It was a morning show. I wasn’t making any money. I said no to a legal profession, a long story. You know, I had all these scholarships, law schools and stuff. I no, I took this job, paid absolutely nothing. But I got to see my kids and every afternoon for years, we went to the beach and we played in the pool or we laughed and talked. That was not a mistake. Buying a new truck would have been a mistake. Right.
So can be ambitious about, yeah, I want to have the nicest stuff and I want to have my own plane or whatever. Like, no, no, no. You want to be ambitious about the right thing in the right time. And if you’ve got little kids, for example, it’s little kid season. It’s not big truck season. It’s little kids season. And this season will pass. You can get your truck later. You don’t have to have everything right now. you actually, I keep telling them like, look, pray for wisdom. Wisdom tells you the relative value of things. Is this more than that? And if you don’t have wisdom, you have foolishness and foolishness causes pain, period. So you’re going to make dumb decisions. It’s going to cause you pain. Don’t do that. Ask God for wisdom. So won’t have that.
Juli (23:37.912)
How did you learn to do this when you just shared that you didn’t have that example in your own father?
Brant (23:44.59)
Great question. Part of it was just living in antithesis, going, I know what my family’s not gonna be like. I remember thinking that if I’m ever lucky enough to meet a girl, I might’ve been 11 when I thought this, and have a family, I’ll tell you what’s not gonna happen. They’re not gonna be shaking for fear every night. They’re not gonna be terrified of me. And so when I came home, it was such a joy. I miss having the kids in the house, because they’re adults now. Like, when I saw my dad’s car out front, I was walking home from school, I just felt sick. Yeah. Like, no. Well then when I came home from work and the kids are home, they’re like, dad. So like they are mission accomplished.
And I do make that a point with, I wrote a book called The Young Men We Need. So it’s a spin off of this for younger guys. I’m like, please understand, however messed up your family of origin is, it doesn’t have to be that way in your next family that you create. It just doesn’t, it doesn’t have to. I have one brother, sibling, and he’s got four kids. He’s been married for decades. He’s a sweet man. Like, we both have been talking about this in the last few days since dad died. We did it different. So glad.
Juli (24:55.17)
Yeah. Did you have a positive role model or was it just the decision not to be like your dad?
Brant (25:02.232)
We probably did. I can’t think of a whole lot, but I think that was the decision. I also think just God having mercy on us.
Juli (25:10.446)
So a big part of you being different from your dad in your description is that creating an emotional safe place for your family. And that shows up in your list of six decisions a few times, know, protect the vulnerable, make women and children feel safe. Talk about why that’s important, and how a man learns to do that.
Brant (25:33.582)
Okay, two examples I’ll give, one’s in the book. When I was writing this book, there was a big ruckus going on outside our house. We live in a little townhouse, and upstairs is our bedroom. And there was a big ruckus in the street. There was a bunch of people like college age, I don’t know, what they were fighting or play fighting. It’s only 30 people out there, it was really weird. And it was 11 o’clock at night, and I was just like, just ignore it, we’ll go to sleep. My wife was really nervous.
I’m like, well, we’ll just turn up the noisemaker louder. It’s OK. She’s like, no. She kept looking out the window. Then she went downstairs and left me in bed. And I was like, OK, Brant, get up. You have to do something here, you can’t just. So I got up, and I walked out the front door to confront all these people. And as I walked out the door, they dissipated. They just dispersed. And I don’t even think they saw me. So I don’t think it had anything to do with me at all. I just timed it right.
Brant
And so I turned and came back in the door and my wife said, that was hot. I was like, honestly, I don’t think they saw me. I didn’t do anything. And she said, yeah, but you were willing to. If she doubts your willingness to defend or make sure that the home is secure, that’s a problem. So if you’re really passive all the time, that’s threatening. If you’re domineering, that’s threatening for very obvious reasons. That kind of toxic masculinity is very obvious.
Juli (26:41.314)
Hmm.
Brant (26:58.316)
I’m actually worried because of your physical strength and your bearing is scary to me. But also just being a passive guy is threatening too. It’s also toxic, because she’s gonna start to wonder, am I on my own here? Do I have to protect myself? So I tell guys that. The other thing I mentioned which is huge for making your wife and family feel secure around you is your tone of voice.
And I’ve had to learn this the hard way. And you would think I’d be dialed into it because I’m a radio guy and I’m a musician and stuff. But my wife would keep saying, you don’t have to be so harsh or can you be more gentle? And I’m like, I’m not being harsh. I’m just making a point. And the point is this, but actually the way I just said it just now is harsh. And there was a guy who said this in another book and he said, I always patted myself on the back, because I always thought if somebody came in, if there was an intruder in my house, I would make sure, you know, I had to shoot that intruder, I’d do whatever to defend my wife. And he said, I always pat myself on the back. I would always defend my wife from a threat. And then he said, you know what? That doesn’t happen very often. What happens is me being the threat. With my sarcasm and my harshness and my put downs of my wife, I’m the intruder. I need to defend her from me.
Brant
And when I read that, I have since made a change where I’m much more gentle in my tone of voice and I realize a man’s voice can be very threatening. We don’t realize it because our hearing is attuned differently. We don’t hear like women do. Guys can talk to each other in a certain way that’s no big deal at all, but a woman can hear something that’s much more threatening. And so I’ve been like, you know what? I am going to speak gently. And you can do that with your kids, with your wife and make sure that she feels secure even when you’re disagreeing, that there’s this, man, that’s attractive to your wife, it’s reassuring. So once you see my job here is to make sure everybody feels secure, the vulnerable feel secure, all of that stuff, you start to figure out, okay, this is why I’m doing this.
Juli (29:00.236)
Yeah. And you probably need your wife’s input to know what your tone is, because like you said, from your own perspective, it’s nothing. I’m like, I’m just sharing what I think or what I think should happen. And I think also it may feel like threading a needle of not being passive, but not being dominant. Like, I’m sure most of us men or women, but particularly men are going to err on the side of I’m not passive, but I can, can have the controlling…
Brant (29:32.206)
Okay. Let this vision be your guide star. I want people to feel secure around me. So it’s not just let me manage between these polar opposite. No, no, no. It all is the same thing. I don’t want to be threatening to good people, to the vulnerable. They need to flourish because I’m there. There are kinds of flowers that if they’re in the wilderness, they will die because they’re so vulnerable. But in a well-kept garden, kabam, beautiful. Well, that’s my thing. Out in the nowhere, my little daughter, my little son, they can be eaten alive by this world, but because I’m here, they get to grow and get stronger and flourish. Same thing with my wife. I don’t own them. This isn’t a domineering thing. It’s me being their protector because I love them.
Juli (30:18.338)
That’s a great question and a beautiful picture. I am guessing that you’ve heard this from young men. I certainly have over the last few years. There’s sort of a sense of being overwhelmed by the problems in the world, like almost a dystopian view of, like AI is going to take over or, you know, the world is so bad. What difference can I make? I don’t even know if I’m going to be here five years from now. What’s the purpose? So what do you say to men who are stuck in that, particularly young men?
Brant (30:55.288)
Well, there’s something in the male heart, generally speaking, even for me as somebody who’s not a, there are guys, let’s go. I’m not that guy, you know? But there’s something about faithfulness, no matter what. No, I don’t know what the future is. Nobody ever has. It used to be, the life expectancy would be 35 for men. Like everything has been up for grabs forever. The village next door could come take us over. Tribal conflict. That’s human life.
Will I be loyal to the Lord no matter what? You can even watch a movie like Lord of the Rings and you can see, literally they’re going to Mount Doom, it’s doomed. And you can see Sam’s faithfulness to Frodo. And guys in particular, they see that and they’re like, I like that. Like even if we go down together, we are going down the right way. We can trust the Lord. Like he’s got our backs no matter what happens. But even if it costs us our lives, we already gave our lives away, you know? And he said, we’re still good with him. No matter what, like we don’t have cause to worry. And I think when you create that image for young guys, like the faithfulness, no matter what, there’s a part of us that’s like, I get that, let’s be loyal, no matter what happens. And yes, it’s troubled times, but we’ve always had troubled times, always.
Juli (32:09.774)
Well, you’re speaking to a lot of women as well as men right now, and we have women of all ages that listen to this podcast. Some are younger and saying, you know, hey, that’s the kind of guy I’m looking for. Or maybe you’re single and older and you feel that same way. And then you have married women who are like, that’s the guy I want to see in my husband. What advice do you have for women in terms of how we can be encouragers of that vision instead of maybe detractors?
Brant (32:39.564)
Well, think it sounds so self-serving, but it’s honestly why I wrote the book is to paint this picture. Here’s the picture. But the thing is, even if the guy reads the first chapter, I think he’s got it. It’s not that the rest is just filler. I think it’s all helpful, but it’s like men intuitively pick up on this idea. I can talk to him for five minutes and go, you know who women think are the most attractive in terms of occupation, right? Like every survey, it’s the same thing. Like what’s the most attractive occupation a man can have? It’s always firefighter.
Like, why? Why is that? Is it because of the reflective pants? No, it’s not because of pants. Or just go down the line. It’s protectors. There’s something wonderful about that. And the wonderful thing is for a woman to tell a man, like, I don’t need you to be all that stuff that the world is saying. It’s okay if your belly isn’t perfectly in a six pack. But if you make me feel secure, that is so attractive. When you make me feel secure, if you tell him that, you get more of that what you encourage. I would encourage them to read a book. It’s not honestly, it’s not to sell books. It’s just like, that’s why I wrote the book. I felt like there’s no one else like spelling this out in a clear way that guys are like, oh I got it. Okay.
Juli (33:50.444)
Yeah. Well, I think we need it. I write books mostly for women and I know as women we need the blocking and tackling of what does this actually look like? You can have a vision, but what do I do tomorrow? And in the same way, I think men can have the vision for this, but what do do with my insecurities and what do I do with my relationships and what do I do with this job that I hate and how do I get off video games and all of it?
Brant (34:17.101)
This is good, but unless you have the vision, the other stuff is just a bunch of puzzle pieces. You know what I mean? Because I can do that with it. Hey, you need to have a daily quiet time. Hey, you need to get off porn. Hey, you need to, okay, okay, okay, okay. And that’s most men’s ministries. It’s like it’s all the pieces. But if I can’t see the box top, like once I have the vision, that’s way it is with anything in life. Like I can’t give up this addiction to chocolate cake if I don’t have a larger vision for me being healthy.
You know, how do I say no to this stuff if I don’t know what the vision is? And we literally have not given guys to go, you’re supposed to be keepers of the garden. That’s the job. Now, go and do it. Like, okay, now I see what I’m supposed to be.
Juli (34:58.638)
So what about when men start to get pushback that that’s offensive to women? And I think in some progressive circles or younger circles that’s true where it’s like that’s very patriarchal-type thinking and I don’t need you to protect me and what do do with that?
Brant (35:17.518)
Well, people had painful experiences and you have to love them anyway. Again, I go into secular workspaces and I talk about this and I’ll see women kind of side-eyeing me the whole time. I’m like, wonder if they’re thinking this is just too misogynistic or something, even though there’s no misogyny in it whatsoever, it’s just they could trip those wires and they’ll come up to me afterward and it’s like, how do I get my husband to read this? How do I get my boyfriend to read this? do I? Women feeling safe, isn’t that what we want?
Juli (35:46.208)
It is, but women are taught that we shouldn’t need that, you know? And so even if deep down inside we want it, we’re not allowed to say it out loud in some circles.
Brant (35:56.718)
Well, I can’t fix the world, obviously. There’s a lot of things that are two plus two equals four that people will disagree with and be offended by. I can’t do that. All I can say is, I love you, and if somebody’s attacking you, I will defend you. I’m gonna defend kids. I’m not gonna be a threat. The problem is men have been a threat for too long, because they haven’t been given this. Who are the crimes committed by? I mean, we know all the stats.
Juli (36:23.704)
Yeah.
Brant (36:25.752)
Like, it’s men. So I’m not saying that men are uniquely sinful. I’m just saying our sinfulness manifests itself a certain way. And if we were told from the beginning that this is what our role actually is, this is what manliness actually is for a lot of guys that will click the light on. And they’ll realize why it’s a betrayal to use porn. Like, wait a second, I’m actually victimizing women. I’m not the keeper of the garden. I’m the snake inside it. I’m the threat. What have I done? But again, if you’re not given that vision, we don’t have a chance and I wouldn’t see that vision because of our current societal confusion.
Juli (37:01.356)
And I think what you said at the beginning is also really essential that passivity also is a way of destroying the garden because God has given you a portion of that garden to tend. And when you’re not tending it, then evil reigns. So I’m glad you brought that out as well.
Brant (37:21.422)
It’s just so, I can’t tell you, I’m gonna talk about this next week at a local youth group here, but like the interest in this is off the charts. The hunger for this, and I’m glad that, you know, girls will be on it next week, because their interest is off the charts too. They’re like, that’s what I’m looking for. So the high school quarterback who’s jacked, I’m thinking he’ll be able to protect my family, he’ll be able to protect me. So I’m reading into these things what I actually want, but that’s not actually what I’m gonna want long term.
And I tell the guys too, like these women are going for guys who are totally muscular stuff. Like if you use your muscles to make your wife feel less safe, she will not be attracted to you. She’ll be repulsed by your muscles. And all the women are like, that’s fact. Other guys can see that and they’re like, okay, all right, I get it. Okay.
Juli (38:11.202)
Yeah. Well, thank you for the work that you’re doing. And I agree with you. It’s very needed and people are hungry for it. Men and women. So thanks. Thanks for this.
Brant
Thank you.
Juli
I just love the way Brant talks about how healthy masculinity is about being a protector and making those around you feel safe. I love that concept of men being called to be a keeper of the garden.
And if you are a man listening today, my prayer is that this gives you a better sense of what God may be calling you into, not just someday, but right now where you are today. And we’ll link to Brant’s book called “The Men We Need” in our show notes. And if you are married to a man or you’re raising one, I hope this gives you language for how you can encourage and pray for the men you love. Maybe as a mom, a sister, a friend or wife.
You need to know that your language and your prayers matter a lot. You know, sometimes we don’t use our influence well. This can be particularly true as wives. I know I’ve been there. We think we’re helping out, but actually we can be getting in the way of our husband’s maturation and helping them become the men that they need to be. If you want to do a self-check and make sure that that’s not happening in your marriage, I’d encourage you to check out a series of blogs that I’ve written on the topic. You can look for “Three reasons why women tend to take over in marriage”, “Seven ways we unknowingly sabotage intimacy in our marriages”, and “Resign as a boss how to help your husband lead”. You can find links to all of those in our show notes.
As always, drop by authenticintimacy.com for more blogs, videos, and podcast episodes like this one to help you make sense of God and sexuality. Thanks for listening and I look forward to having coffee with you next time for more Java with Juli.