Christianity Weaponized Against Itself
A two-pronged attack has near-fatally wounded Christian men.
NOTE: I tend to have a perfectionistic streak, which means I work things over a few times before I put them out. This makes my output high-quality but slow. Today I’m going to try launching these ideas and seeing what happens, refining them at a later date.
Christian men today are inside-out. I recall the following quote by the degenerate poet Charles Bukowski that sums it up:
"The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts and the stupid ones are full of confidence" -- Charles Bukowski
This couldn’t describe Christian men better. They should have the assurance of salvation, the knowledge that they’re adopted sons of the living God. As a result they should act and speak with boldness and confidence, guided by God’s living Word, sharper than a two-edged sword.
Instead, Christian men are often as fearful as a doormouse facing the lion of culture.
Why is this? I think for at least two reasons.
First, feminism’s chief strategy is to get men to doubt themselves. It uses guilt and shame to remove men’s sense of self-assurance and positive self-feeling.
Alison Armstrong is a secular author who teaches women how to appreciate and relate to men, and she calls this dynamic “castrating.” To finish her book “The Queen’s Code”, women readers are asked to pledge that they will not “castrate” men ever again. Why? Because it’s impossible for a woman to relate to a man from a healthy position if she’s always trying to deprive him of personal power, which many women do.
By castrating a male animal, you deprive it of its vitality. Do the same to a human man, and you eliminate his vitality, which expresses itself in the quest for physical fitness, godly financial prosperity, legacy-building, righteous brotherhood, and an obedient relationship with God the Father, His Son Jesus Christ, and Scripture.
But a man can only pursue these ends if he has some amount of positive self-feeling. If you hate yourself, why bother doing any of this? You’re just gonna screw it up anyhow, right?
Perhaps now you can see how the Doctrines of Grace can be weaponized against this end. Total Depravity—the T in TULIP—teaches we’re all hopeless sinners, corrupt in every aspect of our being, unable to save ourselves and in need of God to come down and shed His blood to bring us into reconciliation with Him.
On one hand, this is of course a beautiful doctrine of God’s love, mercy, and grace. Hallelujah! But on the other, you can see how this same doctrine could be used as a cudgel to beat men into submission with their own wickedness.
I believe the evangelical church has done this, emphasizing men’s objective sinful wickedness in the sight of a thrice-holy God totally out of balance with the idea that men are capable of a relative amount of good here on Earth.
This is one method that a beautiful aspect of Christianity has been weaponized to weaken men, confusing who they are from the viewpoint of heaven with who they are called to be on Earth.
The second way Christianity has been weaponized against men comes via the mixed messages men receive from culture vs. the church about who and what women are.
Let’s start with this verse:
“Husbands, likewise, dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife, as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be hindered.” - 1 Peter 3:7
Men are taught, rightly, that women are the weaker vessel. But feminism also says that women are equal to men, with equal meaning identical.
So now men have a problem on their hands: how can women be equal (identical) to men and be a weaker vessel?
The solution is that women are identical to men UNTIL they’re called to account, like a man would be. And then women get to be the weaker vessel.
This contradiction is both dangerous and deadly. It enables a falsehood (women and men are identical) and then indulges it with Scriptural truth.
What Christian men today lack the courage to do is to force women to choose:
If you want to be equal and identical to men, you must be accountable like men are.
OR
If you want to be the weaker vessel, then you must adopt what the rest of Scripture says about you, as well.
Women can’t have it both ways. And men have to stop letting women have it both ways.
This is urgent at a civilizational level, and yet it also illustrates a second way how Christian truth has been weaponized against men.
Indeed, the women are a weaker vessel, and have a station relative to men that reflects that. In that station, a man accepts responsibility for his wife and daughters—and sons too, of course—which is a glorious and God-ordained thing.
But if a woman insists that she be granted a station equal to her husband in various ways, then she must either be told, “No,” or be invited to pay the same cost as a man would.
For single men, you can crystallize this conflict in the question of who pays on the first date. Would you ever let a woman pay for a first date? Do you try and split it? Most people are repulsed by those ideas, women included. But if men and women are identical, it shouldn’t matter, right? Flip a coin.
But no one does that. Because men and women are different.
Or for married men, if you and your wife are sleeping and you hear something go “bump” in the night, who goes to investigate? YOU DO. No self-respecting man would ever send his wife.
Why? Because men and women are different… and women are the weaker vessel literally all the time, not just when they feel like it.
So in conclusion, men need to understand the ways that generations of weak and feminized pastors have weaponized Scriptural truth against men.
Men can be both sinners in need of a savior AND capable (and commanded!) to perform righteous actions here on Earth with skill and dedication.
And women can be the weaker vessel if and only if they agree to submit to male authority. If they demand to be their own authority, then they get to take accountability for their decisions. If they’re not willing to pay that cost, then they don’t get to have authority.
I don’t think these ideas will be popular, btw. They challenge the feminist power structure at the deepest level, which doesn’t want men to recognize these contradictions. But only by confronting them head-on can faithful believers find their way out of this mess, even if they have to go it alone.
ALSO…
I’m hosting a Christian men’s retreat here in Phoenix on the weekend of October 18-21. I’m excited about this event and everything I have planned for the weekend. You can find more info here:
ANNOUNCEMENT: October 2024 Men's Retreat
Amidst the chaos of our modern era, it’s more important than ever that Christian men gather face-to-face to build fellowship. Even though the name of my podcast is changing, I still believe in that mission very much.
Good post. I think we need to look a lot closer at this:
"pay the same cost as a man would."
I suspect there are costs to being male that aren't accounted for or appreciated. In some ways, for example, boys are more fragile than girls physically in childhood. And feminists like to say stuff like, "The male lion heads the pride, but the female lions do most of the hunting (actual work)." Of course, the modern equivalent is that men come home from work and put their feet up, while women's work is never done.
But is it true that headship/leadership doesn't involve any expenditure of resources? Today's society is so disrespectful of leaders, it's almost become a self-fulfilling prophecy that only the worst folks want to lead nowadays. Any decent person, for instance, wouldn't want to put their family through what it would take to run for high office.
There's a lot of under-appreciated costs to being the one at the top, and that may be an important missing element in this whole debate.