1
A Masculinity Mashup With Rick Burgess
2
Fighting Fifth Generation Warfare , Featuring General Michael Flynn
Mention the “ M ” word — masculinity — these days , and you ’ re almost sure to raise dander on both sides of the political aisle .
Our guest on this podcast episode , Rick Burgess , delves into why masculinity is such a contentious topic lately . He would likely tell you that it ’ s because men are the lynchpin on which society turns :
“ How the men go , so goes everything . I mean , I ’ ve been all over the world . … Every culture you go into , whether it be Alabama or whether it be , you know , in the middle of Africa , the same problem : if the men have abandoned their God-given role , there ’ s chaos . It all falls apart .”
Unfortunately , today ’ s men are in bad shape because the church has fallen down in equipping them . The church challenges men and gives them some fellowship , Burgess says , but it doesn ’ t teach them how to actually be men of God , to get into Scripture , and to be the spiritual leader for their wives and homes .
Burgess understands this dilemma firsthand because he was once in those shoes , having a wife who knew God ’ s Word better than he did and who was becoming the spiritual leader of the family :
“ Well , here ’ s what God convicted me of … I was an expert on deer hunting . I was an expert on fishing . I was an expert on my favorite football team . How did I learn all that ? If I didn ’ t have good study habits , I didn ’ t like to read , how was I an expert on those things ? … I was actually very well-acquainted and was an expert on everything I loved , everything I deemed of value . And the only reason why I didn ’ t know the Word of God and couldn ’ t spiritually lead my house was because I didn ’ t love it . And so I just got on my face and repented and said , ‘ Lord , I know that you love me . Teach me to love you . Give me a desire for this .’”
Little did Burgess realize that learning to seek God , to know Him , and to lead his family in right ways was the thing that would carry him — and his family — through a very difficult trial several years later . Burgess shares about that and more — including his quest to challenge and equip other men to step up to the plate of spiritual leadership through his ministry , The Man Church — in this lifechanging episode of 1819 News : The Podcast .
Much of General Michael Flynn ’ s adult life was devoted to serving the American military , both at home — in places like the FBI and CIA — and abroad — in places such as Afghanistan , Iraq , and Korea .
Sadly , Flynn is now a household name not because of his military service , but because the figurative guns of his own country were trained on him through a form of Fifth Generation Warfare thanks to the time he spent serving in the Trump administration .
“ I went through my persecution , you know , and I call it persecution , [ in ] 2017 , 2018 ,” Flynn says . “ I was the most Googled name in the world , if you can imagine . So that ’ s why a lot of people got to know me . And frankly , people couldn ’ t believe it . The more they looked , the more they said , ‘ Geez , you know , there ’ s something not right about this .’”
But Flynn is not the only one under siege from Fifth Generation Warfare — all of us are .
No longer are our wars just fought with sticks and stones , machine guns , or nuclear weapons , Flynn explains . Instead , we are in a war of deception .
“ We have so much information that human beings are being bombarded by ,” Flynn says . “ It ’ s the advent of the internet , the advent of information technology , of the iPhone , of so many media outlets out there , podcasters , right ?”
In such a state of warfare , we need to seek truth . “ We have to operate with truth . We have to find truth ,” Flynn says . “ Truth is hard to find ,” but he notes that the best place to find it is the Bible .
Today , Flynn travels around speaking to others , and when he does , he commonly gets asked the same question from average folks : “ What do I do ?”
37