Too Hot to Handle: Where Did We Go Wrong?

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

We’ve run a couple of posts recently about Christian Nationalism and its appeal to young men, especially those raised on the supersessionist aspect of Reformed Theology.

Tom: I see two different problems cropping up, but I believe they are both coming from a common source. On the dispensational side, I see young men disillusioned with their denominations because they feel like the staid routine their older brothers in Christ have established gives them no outlet for their youthful energies and the desire to effect change, and may inspire them to look for something more real and relevant. On the Reformed side, I see older men panicking over the particular ways the energies of their young men are manifesting themselves. They wanted activism and now they’ve got it. They just don’t like the shape it’s taking.

IC, without getting into a lot of detail about Christian Nationalism, with its accusations of antisemitism and so on — because we have done that elsewhere — I’d like to talk a bit about the package we are offering young men when they come to church, and whether it’s deficient in any way. In short, is the problem them, or is the problem us?

Immanuel Can: Or is the problem with our society? I think it is.

The Problem with Society

We’ve spent the last half-century and more telling our men they’re bad: they’re “toxic”, they’re “oppressors”, they’re “abusers”, they’re “more dangerous than bears”, they’re “out of touch with their emotions”.  We’ve told them their values are old-fashioned, their energy is destructive, their creativity is too wild, their desires are all rapey, their achievements amount to nothing — and in any case, are better done by women. We’ve told them they don’t deserve our sympathy, they don’t merit equality or even a place of their own, they are not needed as husbands and fathers, they aren’t ultimately necessary to the future. In every way, we’ve been selling the message that there is no pattern of good manhood. So now we start to wonder why they’re no longer aspiring to be men?

Tom: Then they go to the theater, and all the heroes of our youth have been replaced with black or female versions — sometimes both — and the ones that remain are either preachy male feminists excoriating “the patriarchy”, or homosexuals, or both. But it’s not just society. This bell has been rung from evangelical church platforms all over North America for years now. On Father’s Day it’s beat up Dad, and on Mother’s Day it’s praise Mom. You can find the sermons all over YouTube, and we’ve talked about it here before.

So yes, I agree, the primary problem is society, feminism, the media and woke culture. But it’s creating a problem in many local churches now, in that the generational divide is wider than ever: young men reacting against the status quo while their parents passively accept it in large numbers. We risk losing good young men to the extremists who are popping up in the religious sphere left, right and center.

Silent No More

IC: Right. But we’ve not repented of our compromise with the man-haters — and we did compromise. The fear of being labeled “sexist” or “oppressive” was sufficient to cow many churches into making a few little concessions to the anti-male dogmas of feminism. But those little compromises opened the way for a few more … and now, a half century or more down the road from second-wave feminism, we’ve so lost the whole conception of “a good man” that there is no clear model of Christian maleness. And yet, our boys still know they are men … they just realize that there’s nothing in the church that will help them to be real men. Not surprisingly, they’re looking other places for that information.

I’m suggesting that the church needs to have a different and higher account of masculinity … and not one that draws on a whole bunch of “feminine” virtues, either. I mean that the church needs a clear portrait of strong, authoritative, focused, moral and spiritually vigorous masculinity, one that will call to the sad souls of our young men and give them hope. Quite frankly, we do not have that right now … not even in the nicest churches.

Tom: I think that sets out the problem well. It’s a good point. One of the things young men are doing in this latest generation is that they have stopped listening to what women say they want, because that was always a recipe for failure. They were told, “Be more sensitive”, “Listen and empathize rather than acting” and “Talk more about your feelings”, only to find themselves eating the dust of the bad boys these “helpful advisors” eventually paired up with. Because ultimately, women feel safer around a man who can make decisions and seems to have a plan than around a man who looks to them for direction. It doesn’t even matter what the plan is. The plan can be dead wrong. But so long as the man is decisive about pursuing it and confident in his leadership, there will be women in and outside of churches who find him appealing.

So now, when the parents of these girls, their elders, their pastors and a whole generation of evangelical writers give them the same advice the girls did (“Be nice!”), it is being summarily ignored. If we want to get the attention of these young men again, we need another narrative. The one we’ve been marketing since 1970 has stopped selling to anyone. It’s not making new husbands and it’s not making the next generation of pastors, teachers and elders.

Writing Another Narrative

IC: You’re right. Now, Tom, how should this manifest in the way we ‘do church’ these days?

Tom: The number one thing we need is unflinching honesty from the platform. This in not a decade in which God’s man of the hour asks himself “How might this be received?” and then scrubs half his sermon. I’m not saying speakers should court controversy deliberately, of course. But self-censorship in the interest of pleasing a prospective audience is a recipe for irrelevance. We do not need to out-Webbon Joel Webbon, but if we tell the truth, we will be respected. That gives us a little window of opportunity to start the job of replacing the bad role models young men are currently looking to.

IC: Okay, good. But we also need men who will behave like men, to serve as models for the young men to aspire to and emulate. Some of us need a little testosterone, perhaps. And, if I may say, we need early induction into the company of men, as well — jobs for young men to do, that only they can do, and that they can be proud to do, and which can show them how a man stands, serves, presses on, takes charge, assumes responsibility, leads, provides, protects and grasps the truth. Only when they see the lived reality of men being men will young men want to be one; and only when there’s a path for them to do it will they have desire to do it. If we don’t have that, we can lecture all day and get nowhere.

Tom: Absolutely.

Estrogen-Saturated Voices and Caricatures

There’s no shortage of estrogen-saturated voices coming up through the seminaries to fill the pulpits in evangelical churches. That is what we have been producing until recently when, especially within the Reformed ranks, there has been a big backlash and we are suddenly seeing a new breed of “tough guy” taking the pulpit in denim or leather, talking “hard truths” about immigration, Jews and women, and gaining a plethora of young male followers. But those guys — I include Webbon, but there are others — are caricatures. I do not believe they are the model we need to be emulating.

IC: No, that’s actually the kind of male feminism has created — overblown, nervous about his own authority, strident, domineering, semi-informed, overconfident and underachieving, contemptuous of women and lacking in self-management — what you call a “caricature”. But it’s a caricature that the feminist movement has turned into a reality, unfortunately. So we need that portrayal of masculinity to die of embarrassment in the face of real men.

A Real Christian Man

Tom: So here we go: What should a real Christian man for this time look like? I have my own ideas, but I’d love to hear yours.

IC: Well, first and foremost, like Christ. But not like the “Jesus” of Sunday school pictures … not a white milquetoast. He should be somebody with a profound reverence for God, with an informed mind and a vigorous body. He should be a man who does what men were made to do, to steward God’s creation, and to make it produce its potential: he’s a worker, not a sitter. He should pay his own way, provide for his own, take charge in a crisis and take responsibility in the event of a fault, but without shame. He’s a leader, a shepherd, and a defender of the faith. He’s diligent and ironclad on principle. He’s strong enough to hold fast without being threatened by those less than he is; and because of his confidence, he can afford to be kind. He’s loyal to one woman. He builds his children up, and does not discourage them. He’s under self-control. He knows how to sacrifice. He keeps his word. He worships the Lord, and does not fear men.

Tom: The words I’d like to pluck out of that most excellent screed are these: “because of his confidence, he can afford to be kind”. This is exactly what is missing in the edgiest elements of the Christian Nationalism movement, and it’s what I’d most like to impress as necessary on a group of young men whose enthusiasm, energy and attention to the facts I greatly appreciate. You can be nationalists, sure. You can care about your kin. You can put them first. You can even make those hard choices that have to be made about who is in and who needs to get back to work making the world a better place while living among their own people in their country of origin.

But if you are going to be Christian Nationalists, there is going to be a kindness about you that will set you apart. Otherwise, you’re just a White Nationalist, and anybody with a pasty face can pull that off.

IC: Exactly so. A proper conception of strength is being so strong that you can afford to be merciful. That’s where the example of the Lord himself is so key.

Worshiping the Right God

Tom: The other element I would pull out of there is worship. Too many evangelical churches have backburnered the Lord’s Supper for way too long, without any scripture justification. If you want to give young men something positive to which they can contribute, give them a weekly worship service where they can share their meditations on the glories of Christ, rather than sitting there blank-faced while the pastor does all the talking. If you won’t even do that, they don’t be surprised if you look around one day and find yourself with no young men anywhere in sight.

IC: I remember a saying attributed to Robert Browning to the effect that nothing will compensate a man who marries the wrong woman or worships the wrong God. That’s right. A man who worships God is a man in touch with the most profound reality in the universe. He’s a man that’s playing for the highest of stakes … and winning. That’s manly.