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Dear Friends,
If you haven’t noticed, there is a growing number of Christian young men who seem very, very insecure about their masculinity. Seemingly overnight an entire cottage industry has emerged dedicated to teaching and instructing young men how to be a real man. It’s quite an alluring sales pitch. Our egalitarian modern age has produced a “feminized” society. Women are valorized, men are despised. All social ills are attributed to the “male,” or more specifically, the “white male.” Everything conspires to emasculate men, to keep them from attaining their innate potential. Docility and meekness, viewed as typically feminine qualities, are what society wants to make of men. It’s time for a revolt!
As with most narratives like this, there are certainly elements of truth. Accused rapist, sex trafficker, and overall known-misogynist Andrew Tate sprinkled enough truth-lets to garner a lot of “macho man” followers who really should have known better. It is true that feminism has made cultural and political inroads. It is absolutely true that many in our culture seem threatened by a rugged kind of masculinity, viewing it as inherently misogynist. The new masculinists are not making things up when they observe that men are disadvantaged in, say, courtroom custody battles.
But there is such a thing as, um, overcompensation. This new boomlet of popularity in Christian circles about the importance of masculinity did not come about because somebody had some kind of new insight into something the Bible teaches about manhood. This is not a theological phenomenon in the slightest. It is a cultural phenomenon. And we ought to be extremely wary when a godless cultural obsession suddenly becomes a Christian obsession. Who, exactly, is setting our agenda?
I am thinking about this because a well-known Christian Nationalist Tweeted this the other day:
There is great need for male-only spaces, both for young men and older men.
Introducing women into male-only environments completely changes the dynamics, forcing men to subvert their masculine impulses and speech and instead perform for the female gaze.
Christian churches should be on the forefront of helping men have this community and using it well (not just a Bible study with bacon and emotive feeling sharing) to cultivate courageous men who lead according to their God-given nature.
Spoken like a devout Muslim, except for the bacon part. Oh, wait—did you know that the aforementioned Andrew Tate is a professing Muslim? That’s a funny coincidence.
This entire dogmatic lecture, delivered in well-nigh papal tones, is free-floating, vapid ephemera. My word, where to begin? The thesis—the literal thesis—is that females are a hindrance to cultivating and performing real masculinity. I think that must be in Genesis 2 or something, right? If a woman is around, men will “subvert their masculine impulses and speech.” I have absolutely no idea what he means by that, and maybe it is just me, but I happen to think it is a very good thing that the presence of a lady sometimes keeps boys from ripping gigantic farts and telling their next lewd joke (I apologize to my female readers for that image—see how your presence almost reined me in?) Do you know what “performing for the female gaze” means? Acting like a gentleman. Yes, what we really need is “spaces” where that won’t be necessary. You see, this author would have us believe that only in a segregated male space can a “courageous” man “who lead[s] according to [his] God-given nature” be cultivated. I, on the other hand, have spent a small portion of time in a locker room.
Where in the world is this garbage coming from? I’ll get to that shortly.
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