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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Sheep Get Sheared Podcast. I'm your host, Austin Creed, and today

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my friends, we're going to be talking about a simple question. Are Christian men required

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to be married? Now, I don't want to just pigeonhole this into just people who are Christians,

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but there seems to be this notion, especially within the church, and I don't understand

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the life of me, maybe somebody can help me out. I don't understand the life of me, where

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this idea came from. I missed all the feminism, I missed all the changes in society, I missed

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all the revolutionary, socially, we've gone all the social, revelational stuff we've gone

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through. How have we gotten to the point where you're not a real man if you don't take care

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of a woman? You're not a real man, whether it's religious or not religious, but we'll

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focus on the religious men for right now. Why in the world have we gotten to this point

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where you are a weak man, or you are a coward, you're a craven? If you don't want to try

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to roll for a yacht, see, go and get married. How does that make you a weak man? I'll start

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off by talking to a dear friend of mine, I do love him, he's a great guy, but we have

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a very strong difference of opinion on this. And I'm curious, you, a listener of the Sheep

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Get Sheered podcast, my friends, where do you line up? Do you think that you're not

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a real man if you don't get married? Do you think that if you don't roll the dice, if

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you don't just take the L, if you don't take the raw deal, if you don't invest in a woman

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and just go for it, that you're a weak man? I don't think so. Now, can you do that for

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the wrong reasons as in you're scared and fearful? Absolutely. But it doesn't have to

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be that way. And, you know, my friends, I look at the world today, especially amongst

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the people in church, the reason I harp on the church is not because I hate Christians

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or anybody else. It's because I don't hear enough accountability coming from this side

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of the argument. You know, there are a lot of great content creators who talk about trying

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to hold women accountable, trying to hold men's ideas in this space and to preserve

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it, which is great. But what I don't hear about is people talking about it from the

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religious perspective. And I don't want to just purely do it from that perspective.

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But today, I think we need to have that conversation. Today, I think we need to really ask ourselves,

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what is the difference between a religion incorporated and the more spiritual, you

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can even say, meaghtow portion? What is the main difference? I don't like the idea that

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you need to be always in a community all the time. I think being part of a community is

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a beautiful thing. However, I also think that anything good can be taken too far. I think

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it can create a herd mentality that discourages the individual mind and discourages difference

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of thoughts and ideas. You know, I have a really hard time talking with people who are idealists

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because if you haven't picked up by now, I'm a very cynical person. And if you listen to

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the show regularly, chances are yours at least have a somewhat cynical bent to you. I don't

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know how you could listen to me if you were an idealist. But if you do God bless you.

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What I don't understand is why there is this expectation of whether if you're if you're

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religious in any capacity, you need to need to be a monk or you need to be married. And

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my opinion, that is just ridiculous. Why? Because let's be honest here. I don't care

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if it's Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Judaism. A lot of religions stem back

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a long period of time. And so when we take into effect that ancient cultures are very

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different in modern day America, modern day Western ideals, we cannot in good faith, mind

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you, we cannot make a comparison between the ancient world and the modern one. For one,

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a legal system wasn't involved. For one, if you as a man put forward all this time,

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effort, money, resources, everything into your family, your wife didn't have a rip

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cord to just pull at any point she wanted to take your kids, take off the stuff, leave

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you living in your car, or leave you to deal with the lawyers and cover the lawyering,

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the lawyer fees and everything else. I don't understand what Saint Society sees all this

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and just says, Yeah, what the heck? So what? So why you could lose your stuff? So what?

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So why you could lose your kids and maybe see them once in a fortnight if you're lucky?

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So why? So why? The laws mean well, they know they want to protect women, so why?

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Look, I'm not here to tell you how to live your life, what you do with your life is

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your business. If you want to take the chance, I applaud you, that's great. But what I don't

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think is fair is especially in the Christian church, there's this, oh, we don't want to

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talk about that because then that could lead to making the quote wrong choice. My friends

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giving people options and education and options is not bad. If anything, it encourages people

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to think for themselves, which in my opinion can never be a bad thing. Anybody I don't

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care whether you claim to be the best influence ever, or the worst, if you want to sit there

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and tell me that teaching people to not think for themselves and to just listen to you or

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listen to people and authority and never ask questions, then I have a problem with you.

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And I hope other people have a problem with you because that is a very terrible thing

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to do. It is the beauty of deciding for yourself, hey, I see that there's something to be gained

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from here. I see that, hey, you know what, over here, I like this. I could see, I could

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pick and not pick and choose per se, but I'd have the ability to look through everything

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and then make a conscious choice and not just be indoctrinated or brainwashed. I find that

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to be despicable. And so when we get down to the question of are Christian men especially

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required to be married? Well, my question is, why would you expect anybody to be married

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in this climate? I think the answer should be no. In fact, when we look at society today,

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when we look at the marriage laws today, it's very easy to say, oh, well, the church is

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different. Well, in some ways, sure, it is different. In other ways, the appearance is

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just the only difference. Look, I get it. This is not a fun thing to talk about. I understand

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that hopefully you haven't had to deal with divorce and hopefully you haven't had to see

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the side of women that they very much try to never actively show you. You know, there's

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a book that I like to highlight called The Manipulated Man by Esther Velar, a woman who

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wrote about how men are used regularly, manipulated, lied to by women every day all the time and

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how it is men who are the victims of society and not women. Mind you, a woman with a run

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who wrote this. And now I'm not sitting here to tell you that you should just believe everything

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because I don't like the idea of being labeled as a victim. But let's circle back to this

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idea of thinking for yourself. When you look at that and you say that a woman is kind of

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giving away all the secrets, giving away the handbook, the incomplete handbook we're given

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as men is now coming full circle and we're getting a complete picture. We're supposed

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to overlook that. She talks about in her book how masculinity is often defined by women

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for their own benefit. And when I look at the church today, I can confidently say that

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a lot of ways that's 100% true because women now get to play that housewife, they get to

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do basically whatever they want to do, cherry pick, and then at any point in time if they

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want to, they could pull a rip cord and leave you out in the vacuum of space with half your

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stuff if you're lucky. Fighting for the next God knows how long until all your kids turn

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18, fighting in the family core over child support, visiting hours, parental rights,

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and all this stuff when you don't have to do that. If you want to go the circusy route,

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you can. If you want to get married, still, that's totally fine. But I don't think it

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should be a requirement considering the element we live in. If you can't create an environment

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in which a man can gain from marriage, then why the hell should we be pushing and doing

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it? That's where I stand on the issue. I hope that you, my friends, can understand what

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we're talking about today. At the end of the day, it's all about fulfillment. That is

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what marriage is. It's not supposed to be exciting. A lot of people focus on the exciting

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part of relationships when nobody wants to talk about the fulfilling part of it. And

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that's what marriage is. It's supposed to be fulfilling, not exciting. But then when

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we look at society today, there's not really a breeding ground for fulfillment because

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the ripcord can be pulled at any time and you could have everything you worked for just

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taken from you in the blink of an eye because someone felt like it or because they didn't

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think that what you were doing was enough or you could put any reason or even no reason

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under the sun and you have no say in the matter. Your pastor can't come in there bail you out.

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The congregation can't come in there and advocate for you. Nobody. You are stuck and you're

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alone and you get to suffer in silence with nothing but maybe your testimony. And even

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then, if it doesn't go the way people want, they'll call you bitter, they'll call you

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hurt, they'll label you and they'll throw you aside. I know you don't want to accept

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what I'm telling you. And if you don't want to go right ahead, I'm just telling you,

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I've seen it with my own eyes. So what comes down to do you want to be viewed as a utility

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or do you want to have the courage to decide for yourself what you want to do? I'm a huge

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believer in developing your own personal philosophy, using your own mind to decide what you want

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to do with your life. If you want to follow everything your pastor tells you if you were

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to go to church, that's great. If you want to take none of it, that's your business.

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But I'm sick and tired of people telling men what to do, what we should be attracted

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to, what we should value. I'm sick of it. And I hope you are too. My friends, if you

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have any comments, questions, concerns with what we talked about today, you can leave

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it on my X page as sheep get sheared. Leave in the comment section. It's entirely up to

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you. My friends, I hope you learned something and I hope that you will play with this idea

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and decide for yourself what best works for your life. Until next time, I look forward

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to talking to you all. We're out. Have a great weekend. Peace.