Prescott pastor Dale Partridge defends his controversial views on faith and masculinity

SAM DINGMAN: For the last year or so here at The Show, we’ve been exploring the relationship between men and masculinity. Since President [Donald] Trump’s reelection prompted a nationwide debate about gender, questions about how to define it — and who gets to — have resurfaced. There’s been a particular focus on young men and their relationship to Christianity.

Some surveys have shown Gen Z men seeking out churches in record numbers. And while the data on that is somewhat mixed, one thing is clear: A group of vocal Christian influencers is trying to capitalize on the perceived trend.

One of them is based right here in Arizona. Dale Partridge is the pastor of King’s Way Bible Church in Prescott, and he also runs a series of seminars on masculinity at his website, manhood.org.

Before he became a pastor, Partridge was an entrepreneur — he started a fitness company and a rock-climbing gym, as well as an online sales business called Sevenly, which contributed a portion of each of its sales to charity.

But these days, Partridge spends his days preaching at King’s Way, running his masculinity classes and posting on X, where he proclaims himself a “preacher of hard truths for American Christians.” Many of his views blend Christian faith with extreme right-wing positions on culture and politics.

As part of our ongoing series of conversations attempting to understand the voices shaping the debate about masculinity, I spoke to Partridge recently. And I began by asking him if he thinks — as many on the right do — that manhood is in crisis.

DALE PARTRIDGE: There’s a bit of an egalitarian aura in the world right now where everything wants to be the same, everything wants to be flattened. We can all do the same thing, and we’re all the same thing. And men don’t need to feel like misogynists because they’re taking leadership of their household or a headship of their home or caring and leading society.

I always tell people I’m just a normal guy from like 1880 in the sense of my views. ...

DINGMAN: Can I ask you about that? Because so far, the way that you have been talking about this is not necessarily religious or scriptural. Those ideals that you’re ascribing to gender, where do those come from for you? Are those religiously rooted?

PARTRIDGE: I mean, I think that no matter what, they’re going to be rooted in some sort of worldview, right? So it’s not whether we will be religious, it’s which religion will we be? It might not be a religion like Christianity or Islam or Hinduism.

It might be a religion of self. It might be a religion of secularism. It might be a religion of nationalism, whatever it may be. And so I think historically, Christianity is proven itself to produce the greatest nations, civilizations. ...

DINGMAN: Let me just make sure I understand. You’re saying that everyone on some level, in your framing, is religious. It’s just a question of which faith you’re choosing. And if I’m hearing you right, you’re saying that it is the Christian faith that is superior in that hierarchy.

PARTRIDGE: Yeah, I think the results are in.

DINGMAN: So in reading up about you, prior to the work that you’re doing now, you were in the entrepreneurship space. I mean, I know you’re still an entrepreneur. But it seems to me like when you were running the organization Sevenly — which was a company that you co-founded, if I’m not mistaken, that gave away, was it $7 of every purchase?

PARTRIDGE: Product sold, yeah.

DINGMAN: In reading up about you then, in your various bios and things, it didn’t seem to me that faith and spirituality were as much at the center of your identity.

PARTRIDGE: Yeah, correct. I was young in my faith. I had been in the business space for some time. It landed me writing a book called “People Over Profit.” And that really was shifting me towards this view of really what matters.

There’s a culture war. I think it’s ramping up. It has been ramping up, I think, since 2016. I think when Obergefell passed and homosexual marriage, that started to change a lot of the societal infrastructure around sexual ethics —

DINGMAN: But can I ask, Dale, was that something that offended you personally? Like, why was this issue so relevant for you?

PARTRIDGE: Well, a few things. One, we want things to be according to what is right and wrong. And so when the scriptures speak about order or modesty or masculinity or femininity or marriage or any of these things, these things are good. Not because — God’s not the beneficiary of these things. We are.

DINGMAN: But do you see that as contiguous with — I mean, because in your book "People Over Profit," one of the things that book is aiming to do as, as you wrote at the time, is to map out a “responsible and compassionate marketplace.”

And how do you square the idea of compassion with some of these things that you’ve just been saying, which imply that other faiths are lesser somehow?

PARTRIDGE: Yeah, because think about it this way: Jesus says love the Lord your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. The second is like to love your neighbor as yourself. A great way to love your neighbor is to make sure that your neighbor can’t be naked outside.

I lived in Oregon, and I remember being at a coffee shop with my family and watching a whole bunch of people ride by on their bicycles completely naked in front of all my children. And I think that we’re entering into to a bit of a national crisis. I think the Charlie Kirk event was somewhat of a crossing of the Rubicon moment. ... You know, it’s spicy.

DINGMAN: Well, I’d like to come back to that. But let me get first to one of the ways that it seems you are engaging with this is you have this curriculum that you have built at manhood.org where, where the description you have on the website is “a one-year program for men to build wealth, love their families and leave a godly legacy.”

So tell me a little bit about the wealth piece of that. Why is wealth-building the first thing in that list?

PARTRIDGE: Yeah, so, I have a lot of men in my world, and I’ve noticed that a lot of them are struggling financially. Obviously, it’s a hard economic time. ...

DINGMAN: I mean, I agree with you about that, Dale, but I have to say, a full year of tuition for your program is $2,200.

PARTRIDGE: Yeah. Well, this is mostly for guys that already have a small business or already have a good job and are trying to figure out how to go from, you know, 60 grand or 70 grand or 80 grand to $250,000.

Or to get up to a place — because this is a problem. Money’s a tool, right? It could be used for evil, it could be used for good. And I would rather money in the hands of Christians than in the hands of people who hate God. Christians need to earn more so that they can give more so that they can support the ministry of the church.

DINGMAN: I know that the wealth-building component of this is only one piece of it. ... Some of the other core tenets here are holy ambition, health for high performers. And to be clear, you see those things as core to masculinity specifically.

PARTRIDGE: Yes, I would say that they are core to masculinity ...

DINGMAN: ... Just to say, I could also imagine women caring about all of those things.

PARTRIDGE: Yeah, they can, certainly. Women are going to care about all those things, but in different ways. Men are designed naturally to lead. They’re designed to build, to protect, to be these providers.

And so women are incredible administrators. They’re incredible helpers. They’re incredible nurturers. They have not felt free to be feminine.

Feminism, in my opinion — this might sound harsh — it’s generally women wanting not to just be treated like men, but to really act like men. ...

DINGMAN: But what do you say to a woman who would hear you say that and assert the idea that it is not for a man to dictate what is in their nature to want or desire?

PARTRIDGE: Well, I’d say that no one’s forcing anybody to do anything.

DINGMAN: But you are. Just to be clear, Dale, you are asserting that this is the superior worldview to which everyone else must submit.

PARTRIDGE: Correct. But so is everybody else. ... It’s politicize or be politicized.

DINGMAN: But do you think feminism seeks to have the worldview you believe in submit to it?

PARTRIDGE: A hundred-percent.

DINGMAN: The implication, the good implication of egalitarianism is live and let live, right? You can believe these things that you believe, and feminists and whoever else can believe what they believe, and there’s room at the table for everybody.

PARTRIDGE: But that’s the myth. And we’re realizing now that it’s not sustainable. ...

DINGMAN: But how do you see us realizing that? Help me understand where you see that.

PARTRIDGE: Yeah, so let me give you an example. So 3% of the population basically influenced and made the entire population culturally submit to them. You know, we had the rainbow flag flown at the FBI headquarters. ...

DINGMAN: You’re saying you feel like queer people forced the rest of society to submit to them?

PARTRIDGE: ... They were certainly on their way until I think there was a big pushback, and I think we’ve actually shifted the cultural tone. ...

DINGMAN: But do you think they were asking others to submit to them, or they were just asking for equal rights and protection under the law?

PARTRIDGE: Everybody is an evangelist, and you evangelize your worldview. And those worldviews, once they’re evangelized, become politicized. And those politicized worldviews become morals. And those moral worldviews become religious. And those religious worldviews come and confront the way that I live and different things that are happening in my towns and the naked people that are just flying down the street. .... Like, these things don’t stay put —

DINGMAN: But, Dale, what happens — by your logic, this very small percentage of the population is a threat to your way of life. So even if you buy that logic, why is the answer for that for you to be a threat to their way of life?

PARTRIDGE: Because my way’s right.

DINGMAN: According to?

PARTRIDGE: The scriptures. You have to understand that the way that a Christian thinks is a Christian goes, “Well, the church is the body of Christ, and the gospel is the means by which Jesus is conquering his enemies.”

DINGMAN: I have to say, it feels like we’re a long way from compassion here.

PARTRIDGE: I don’t believe that you can persuade someone into the kingdom of heaven. I think that Jesus says — well actually, it’s Paul who says, "Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ."

And so I think you preach the gospel that you need to submit to the Lord Jesus Christ. And the work of the church is a compassionate work because it’s bringing order and beauty back to people’s lives.

DINGMAN: As Dale and I were speaking and his views on manhood came into focus, I found myself reminded of many of the late Charlie Kirk’s views on the subject. Like Kirk, Partridge views masculinity as ordained by an almighty God to be dominant and superior. But if that’s true, I asked him, why is it also so easily threatened?

PARTRIDGE: Yeah, I think it was G.K. Chesterton who said something like, “Tolerance is a virtue of those men who do not have any conviction.”

I think it was Winston Churchill who said of the armies of World War II, he said something like, “We don’t fight because we hate those in front of us, but because we love those behind us.”

The idea of being tolerant of evil is not good, righteous, loving or compassionate. ... We’re using the tools —

DINGMAN: This is where I get a little concerned, Dale, because again, to go back to Charlie Kirk, we are obviously in a time of extreme political violence. And I guess what concerns me about some of the ways that you’re talking about this in terms of the idea that this is a battle and that you’re fighting for the people behind you, and the people in front of you are enemies and evil.

There is a way in which that really foments a culture of confrontation that can lead to that kind of violence. So do you think there is something about what you’re calling for in manhood that needs to explicitly say that that is not masculine, that violence should be off the table?

PARTRIDGE: Well, physical violence certainly should be off the table unless it’s forced upon you. The Bible certainly speaks that we are in a battle, that we need to wear the armor of God, and there’s a spiritual war that is constantly happening around us. That spiritual war manifests in a variety of ways in politics and culture.

And so the Bible does certainly support a spiritual war. I do think that there’s been a war going on for a long time. There’s just been one side fighting, and that’s been the left. And so I think the right is finally waking up and going, “Oh, there’s a war, and we actually need to get engaged now.”

Now, again, this war is an ideological war at the most part. It’s a cold war. It’s not a hot war. Hot war is when you, you know, now there’s been some gunfire.

DINGMAN: ... There certainly has.

PARTRIDGE: But the only way that this could really escalate in terms of getting into more shootings, assassinations, all that kind of stuff, I think that’s just going to be — this is, Sam, the result of multiculturalism.

DINGMAN: Is it the result of multiculturalism, or is it the result of Christianity calling multiculturalism evil?

PARTRIDGE: Liberalism calls Christianity evil.

DINGMAN: Does it?

PARTRIDGE: Oh, yeah. Go to my Twitter feed and just look at the comments. I mean, I’m getting thousands of threats a month. And so it’s certainly, it’s an all-out ideological warfare right now. And there’s different places of the battle, right?

So you want to get to the heart of it where there’s a lot of heat and a lot of conflict. You get down when you’re talking about issues like Charlie Kirk was. There’s a lot of risk there. And I think the Lord calls a variety of people into different spaces in that war.

But you got to figure out, Sam, what side is right? And based off of what? By your emotions? By your intuition? By your own intellect?

Like, what standard says that what you’re doing is right? ...

DINGMAN: But that to me, Dale, is where we get back to the problem, right? Is that people who are not believing Christians would look at what you just said as that is you basing it on your own instincts, your own emotions, your own opinions. Because there is no proof that Christianity is the gospel, just as there is no proof that Islam is the gospel or any other faith that we could name.

PARTRIDGE: Well, there is proof, and there is fruit. I think, again, what I said earlier is that when you have a beautiful — when you have a civilization — I mean, you’re still riding the coattails of a Christian civilization right now. And again, what we see is that like for example, with Islam, they’re very intentional about taking over the political cultural reality. ...

DINGMAN: But again, Dale, you’re talking about being intentional about Christianity taking over the political and cultural reality.

PARTRIDGE: I am. I don’t know why you’re not understanding this is that we both are. That’s the war. That’s the battle. And the conversation, I think, is very important. There’s not going to be much room for the middle anymore.

DINGMAN: Well, I think we can certainly agree that in your words, the conversation is important. So, thank you for talking to me about this, Dale. I really appreciate it.

PARTRIDGE: Yeah. Yeah, it was great. And I appreciated the questions. Even though they’re pushing against it, I think it’s a good conversation to have.

DINGMAN: I’ve been speaking with Dale Partridge, who is pastor at King's Way Reformed Church in Prescott. Dale, thanks again.

PARTRIDGE: Thank you.