Aaron, I appreciate a lot of what you say. But, as a pushback, I do think that sometimes you do to “evangelical pastors” what you rightly point out that (many) evangelical pastors do to men.
Not *every* pastor refuses to mention what you rightly point out about divorce. It would have to be a highly unusual sermon in which a statistic like that would be relevant—but I regularly pray publicly for the abolition of the injustice of no-fault divorce, and I've mentioned this in conversation a number of times. And I try (and you, among others, have been influential in this!) to give equal attention to the besetting sins of women as I do to the sins of men, as well as to encourage men as well as women. I know I'm not perfect by any means, but I also know that I'm not alone in this. As I think is hinted at in Ann Douglas's book, the feminization of perspective that leads to the shaming-by-default of men has always been more prominent among American Christian (including evangelical) elites, and elite-status churches than it has been among ordinary churches.
I have to pick a nit with Aaron. Some men are cowards not just about marriage but many things and need to be told to “man up” just like the influencers like Peterson does. As a retired Army officer shaming does work with some men and not a Sesame Street approach of building up their egos. Too many young men are sitting in their parents’ home playing video games and watching porn instead of getting out doing what they need to do. Coddling them does not help.
This is not to excuse women for what they are doing to emasculate men, but you don’t have to be emasculated and there are women out there that still want real men.
Nov 1, 2023·edited Nov 1, 2023Liked by Aaron M. Renn
As an army officer you enjoyed a position of authority and stereotypical masculinity that allowed you credibly shame a younger man for being "unmanly". Pastors like Nathanael Blake, who is a soft-jowled philosophy nerd with weak masculine bona fides, simply cannot shame a young man for being unmanly. He would be laughed at. If you look at male influencers like Andrew Tate, they go to great lengths to prove their physical strength and courage, which then allows them to persuade young men that they represent masculinity. To a typical young man, being belittled by Andrew Tate - a man with a hard-body, a world kickboxing title, millions of dollars and women on tap, would be humiliating. Being told to "man up" by a Christian academic who "particularly enjoys playing old hymns on double bass" means absolutely nothing.
Perhaps I wasn't clear enough, but I did say shaming does work with "some" men - not all men. And some elders and pastors do have the bona fides to shame men into becoming men. I think God has put that call to be a man in all men and there are different methods to grow them into men. Treating them as women - which I think a lot of individuals do nowadays - does not encourage them to be men but seems to make them retreat into self-pity and harm.
Maybe it's also a generational thing - I'm in my late '60s and graduated from West Point when there were no women there - so it was a very masculine culture. Not sure what it is like now - but I am being told it is has begun to go "woke".
"Shaming" might not be the right word, but that's what it feels like. And I can describe several examples in my own experience - outside of the Army - where men were made to feel discomfort but changed into what God calls a man to be. I'm not sure who Nathanael Blake is but I would wager even he could muster up the right words and actions.
When I was teaching at LCU, I remember walking into a classroom in the middle of a conversation that several of the male students were having. They had just been in a chapel service and were talking in disgust at the topic of the service: born again virginity. Evidently, from what the students told me, a woman had been invited to speak, or rather brag, about spending her 20's in promiscuity, and then "repented," was made a "spiritual virgin" again, and evidently her husband had sat on the stage beside her during this entire humiliating display. The lesson of the service, I suppose, was something about God always having a plan for whatever you go through, and never having to be held accountable because God takes away all your shame. And the students were agreeing that this woman was quite shameless.
Unfortunately, Aaron, I think there's a nexus of bad theology, bad social science, and bad incentives at the heart of this which isn't going to go away until these institutions begin to suffer serious consequences. Big Eva is invested in women-heavy ministries, women-heavy congregations, and that's why these absurd teachings keep popping up, the most absurd of which is Born Again Virginity. Pastors know that they can't tell the truth to a late-30-something single woman who spent the last decade in serial-monogamous relationships with secular men. Their young adult ministry would dissolve overnight. Necessity is the mother of theological innovation.
Men, even very young men like my students, know that they're something contemptable about a women with a high body count that they don't want to be involved with. They don't want to vicariously be made one flesh with half the men's lacrosse team. And this is the hard part that we leave unspoken because we Evangelicals are allergic to speaking the truth when it's icky: we're not talking about guys not wanting to date 20-year-old virgins. We're talking about guys not wanting to date late-30's who came to Jesus after a series of LTRs with secular men.
The hard lesson, which these pastors are not going to admit (or else only admit while weasel-wording away the core of it) is that repenting of your sin doesn't make the worldly consequences of sin go away. Nobody is entitled to marriage, and nobody is obligated to romantically pursue a woman. Sorry, folks, Hosea is not God's model for human marriage, his marriage was unique and it was a metaphor for Israel. Pastors want to please a large and well-tithing chunk of their congregation, and it's natural to let yourself be swayed by tears and sob stories. But the result of caving to that pressure is to become contemptable. My students saw through it clearly - the harlot on the stage, the humiliated, virtually cuckolded husband next to her, and the saccharine, greasy smile of the pastor behind them. I don't blame the boys for not buying that.
Totally agree with this. This is a common trope in the big eva world. Here is a similar story from disgraced pastor Tullian Tchividjian encouraging a wife to withhold from her husband that she had had an abortion she never told him about! Because forgiveness from God removes all earthly consequences, I suppose?
I pretty much agree with everything you write, but I wanted to make a minor point about how you refer to Jordan Peterson and similar men.
I react negetively (and I don't think I'm alone) to the terms "influencer" or "online influencer." To me, this term brings to mind primarily a young, fit, beautiful, and/or daring person primarily involved in marketing activities through internet views, clicks and likes while (often) flaunting her body (in the case of women), wealth, possessions, or connections. I find this type of "influencer" repugnant and emblematic of our cultural decline. Of course, I understand you do not mean this in the case of persons like Mr. Peterson. Nevertheless, in the mind of the reader, an "influencer" might lose to a "pastor" out of the gate because of this negative association.
I like to think of Mr. Peterson and similar men as "teachers" or guides, mentors, coaches, professors (perhaps even "experts") in becoming a man and a better man. Could we come up with a more positive term? Just a thought.
Great article
Aaron, I appreciate a lot of what you say. But, as a pushback, I do think that sometimes you do to “evangelical pastors” what you rightly point out that (many) evangelical pastors do to men.
Not *every* pastor refuses to mention what you rightly point out about divorce. It would have to be a highly unusual sermon in which a statistic like that would be relevant—but I regularly pray publicly for the abolition of the injustice of no-fault divorce, and I've mentioned this in conversation a number of times. And I try (and you, among others, have been influential in this!) to give equal attention to the besetting sins of women as I do to the sins of men, as well as to encourage men as well as women. I know I'm not perfect by any means, but I also know that I'm not alone in this. As I think is hinted at in Ann Douglas's book, the feminization of perspective that leads to the shaming-by-default of men has always been more prominent among American Christian (including evangelical) elites, and elite-status churches than it has been among ordinary churches.
Is there really a large contingent of evangelical men who could get married but decide not to because of divorce/custody law....?
I am probably out of touch but I don’t think that is a big factor, at least amongst evangelicals
I have to pick a nit with Aaron. Some men are cowards not just about marriage but many things and need to be told to “man up” just like the influencers like Peterson does. As a retired Army officer shaming does work with some men and not a Sesame Street approach of building up their egos. Too many young men are sitting in their parents’ home playing video games and watching porn instead of getting out doing what they need to do. Coddling them does not help.
This is not to excuse women for what they are doing to emasculate men, but you don’t have to be emasculated and there are women out there that still want real men.
As an army officer you enjoyed a position of authority and stereotypical masculinity that allowed you credibly shame a younger man for being "unmanly". Pastors like Nathanael Blake, who is a soft-jowled philosophy nerd with weak masculine bona fides, simply cannot shame a young man for being unmanly. He would be laughed at. If you look at male influencers like Andrew Tate, they go to great lengths to prove their physical strength and courage, which then allows them to persuade young men that they represent masculinity. To a typical young man, being belittled by Andrew Tate - a man with a hard-body, a world kickboxing title, millions of dollars and women on tap, would be humiliating. Being told to "man up" by a Christian academic who "particularly enjoys playing old hymns on double bass" means absolutely nothing.
Perhaps I wasn't clear enough, but I did say shaming does work with "some" men - not all men. And some elders and pastors do have the bona fides to shame men into becoming men. I think God has put that call to be a man in all men and there are different methods to grow them into men. Treating them as women - which I think a lot of individuals do nowadays - does not encourage them to be men but seems to make them retreat into self-pity and harm.
Maybe it's also a generational thing - I'm in my late '60s and graduated from West Point when there were no women there - so it was a very masculine culture. Not sure what it is like now - but I am being told it is has begun to go "woke".
"Shaming" might not be the right word, but that's what it feels like. And I can describe several examples in my own experience - outside of the Army - where men were made to feel discomfort but changed into what God calls a man to be. I'm not sure who Nathanael Blake is but I would wager even he could muster up the right words and actions.
When I was teaching at LCU, I remember walking into a classroom in the middle of a conversation that several of the male students were having. They had just been in a chapel service and were talking in disgust at the topic of the service: born again virginity. Evidently, from what the students told me, a woman had been invited to speak, or rather brag, about spending her 20's in promiscuity, and then "repented," was made a "spiritual virgin" again, and evidently her husband had sat on the stage beside her during this entire humiliating display. The lesson of the service, I suppose, was something about God always having a plan for whatever you go through, and never having to be held accountable because God takes away all your shame. And the students were agreeing that this woman was quite shameless.
Unfortunately, Aaron, I think there's a nexus of bad theology, bad social science, and bad incentives at the heart of this which isn't going to go away until these institutions begin to suffer serious consequences. Big Eva is invested in women-heavy ministries, women-heavy congregations, and that's why these absurd teachings keep popping up, the most absurd of which is Born Again Virginity. Pastors know that they can't tell the truth to a late-30-something single woman who spent the last decade in serial-monogamous relationships with secular men. Their young adult ministry would dissolve overnight. Necessity is the mother of theological innovation.
Men, even very young men like my students, know that they're something contemptable about a women with a high body count that they don't want to be involved with. They don't want to vicariously be made one flesh with half the men's lacrosse team. And this is the hard part that we leave unspoken because we Evangelicals are allergic to speaking the truth when it's icky: we're not talking about guys not wanting to date 20-year-old virgins. We're talking about guys not wanting to date late-30's who came to Jesus after a series of LTRs with secular men.
The hard lesson, which these pastors are not going to admit (or else only admit while weasel-wording away the core of it) is that repenting of your sin doesn't make the worldly consequences of sin go away. Nobody is entitled to marriage, and nobody is obligated to romantically pursue a woman. Sorry, folks, Hosea is not God's model for human marriage, his marriage was unique and it was a metaphor for Israel. Pastors want to please a large and well-tithing chunk of their congregation, and it's natural to let yourself be swayed by tears and sob stories. But the result of caving to that pressure is to become contemptable. My students saw through it clearly - the harlot on the stage, the humiliated, virtually cuckolded husband next to her, and the saccharine, greasy smile of the pastor behind them. I don't blame the boys for not buying that.
Totally agree with this. This is a common trope in the big eva world. Here is a similar story from disgraced pastor Tullian Tchividjian encouraging a wife to withhold from her husband that she had had an abortion she never told him about! Because forgiveness from God removes all earthly consequences, I suppose?
https://www.tullian.net/articles/my-god-he-knoweth-none
Hi Aaron,
I pretty much agree with everything you write, but I wanted to make a minor point about how you refer to Jordan Peterson and similar men.
I react negetively (and I don't think I'm alone) to the terms "influencer" or "online influencer." To me, this term brings to mind primarily a young, fit, beautiful, and/or daring person primarily involved in marketing activities through internet views, clicks and likes while (often) flaunting her body (in the case of women), wealth, possessions, or connections. I find this type of "influencer" repugnant and emblematic of our cultural decline. Of course, I understand you do not mean this in the case of persons like Mr. Peterson. Nevertheless, in the mind of the reader, an "influencer" might lose to a "pastor" out of the gate because of this negative association.
I like to think of Mr. Peterson and similar men as "teachers" or guides, mentors, coaches, professors (perhaps even "experts") in becoming a man and a better man. Could we come up with a more positive term? Just a thought.
Keep up the good work!
Pete