Aaron, free subscriber here. Won't go into why I can't be a paid subscriber. But anyway, I have been reading you for quite a while now. Really appreciate your writing, especially on the state of men in the ev. church. Just wanted to say that, since I have the chance today.
"I have opened comments on this post to everyone."
I see what you did there. This comment section can now be an experiment on the application of Conquest's Law.
Maybe these things are necessarily tied together, but how much of Christ Church's resilience to subversion is due to its leadership understanding this threat and acting to prevent it vs. its leadership alienating subversives?
Ironically, pseudonymous internet comment sections are where Conquest's Second Law is inverted. Any pseudonymous comment section that is not explicitly prevented from becoming right wing will become right wing over time.
Hah! I'm actually just giving free subscribers the opportunity to try out commenting in order to encourage them to take advantage of my special discount subscription offer.
The idea of projecting various undesirable-appearing characteristics in the church as a means of warding off liberals is concerning to me. I think it's an interesting and potentially helpful idea for many conservative institutions, but we ought not to think we have permission from Jesus to try to "shape" our congregations using any means except what's prescribed in scripture. He alone has the authority to grant forgiveness, eternal life, and membership in his church -- and to prescribe what primarily ought to characterize believers from the perspective of outsiders.
The good news is that centralizing the gospel preached in its fullness, unapologetically and humbly, as scripture directs, has the effect not only of being unattractive to liberals and unbelievers, but it also grows a people into mature believers whose love for one another is attractive to those (even among liberals and unbelievers) who God is calling to himself. Doing so also protects churches from becoming cults of personality, which are brittle when the person is not Jesus.
God brings his sheep to faithful shepherds - that's the ideal - and uses Scripture (not our creative ideas) to keep churches from falling to liberalism or any other false way.
Jesus also said, in effect, "let the tares grow alongside the wheat and we'll sort it out in the end."
Only by keeping the gospel central can that be a safe approach. (I mean "gospel" in the full sense -- i.e. the book of Romans with the rest of scripture alongside and behind it).
That's not to say anything goes in the congregation - to the contrary. "Purge the wicked man from among you" as Paul says. But regarding the front door, anyone is welcome provided they come through the gate - "I am the gate. If anyone enters through me, he will be saved."
Many churches downplay and even conceal unpopular Christian doctrine. This article presents an excellent and rarely considered reason for wearing those doctrines "on your sleeve." Anybody is welcome through the front door; but know what you're getting.
Yes - I think your comment is most helpful take on the article I've seen.
The gospel itself gives more than enough offense (if only in what it calls sin). Let's be loud and clear about all God's word teaches. My concern was that we not add merely human offense via attempts to selectively attract and repel certain kinds of people out of an ungodly desire to shape our congregation in our own image - to avoid associating with "those people" for whom Christ died. Let God's word attract and repel whom it will - it's living, active, and sharp, after all!
Things that were simply part of the reality of what he was offering, or what they were asking for. Projecting disagreeableness for the sake of it - looking for ways to become repellent to people - or even just getting attached to an insular, countercultural position for what it is - brings its own set of temptations. Jesus also didn’t mince words on the Pharisees for making the way harder for those who are entering.
Thank you for stating this. The idea that the church should not turn anyone off is completely counter to Christ's ministry time on earth. Luke 12 as one small example. It is this absurd 11th commandment Voddie Baucham talks about, "be nice". Total error and the church has paid dearly for embracing it.
Great point about becoming the kind of people you attract. Eventually a seeker-sensitive church will be run by elders who came to that church because they were embarassed by churches with clear doctrine on anything atheists don't like. At some point a church needs to chase away people who are ashamed of its doctrines. Such people are poison in the leadership, even as "solid members" whose opinion helps run things.
Churches can do this by being upfront and explicit about their unpopular biblical beliefs, such as male headship, judgement and hell, homosexuality and transgenderism being sin, etc. Many (most, actually) churches totally avoid those types of topics, or when they do address them dance around them so much, are so vague and add so many qualifications, that it's hard to pin down what they really believe. They do this to avoid "offending" people but what happens is they end up attracting and retaining weak or "progressive" Christians and unbelievers.
"Many conservatives in the “MAGA” world have openly embraced a low status, low class, cringe style. The net result is a Republican party that’s been bleeding college educated people who are very turned off by this type of behavior."
This is an interesting perspective. It is certainly going on in Bro-churches that heavily focus on masculinity in the church. The result is this alienates many women in the church, especially the wise old women that is almost extinct.
But to your point; what many groups and institutions need to start doing again is bullying. If someone is out of line when it comes to the mission or goal, they should be hazed until they get a clue, or leave. It also is critical to have actual strong leaders who are focused on the mission, will not be swayed from the mission, and hold people accountable.
I am skeptical that bro-churches alienate women. Maybe, but I'd like to see evidence. Seems more likely to me that it's much easier to get women than men generally, and while women are eager to go to a church led by men and to marry strong men, men are unwilling to go to a church led by women and to marry strong women--- strong, that is, in the sense of wanting to lead and not be led.
I'm really new here, so it is with some hesitation that I somewhat disagree. Dont' mean to troll or cause a stink. Just saying what I have seen: I know alot of evangelical women who really, really want "a church led by men", or, rather, by a dynamic senior pastor. I dont' know many evangelical women at all who want "to marry strong men". Many of them talk a good game along this line when they are single, but then, look at who they marry and what place in the marriage the poor guy has. (And, yes, I have had troubles.)
Evangelical men are rarely alpha males, and are often henpecked. I think, however, their wives have confused feelings about this. Women notoriously fall for alpha males of dubious quality. If they want to marry a Christian man-- and marriage is different from "going out"-- they'll settle for a beta. Most men are bad at being leaders to begin with, and are easiliy domninated by their wives. You are right that when Christian women say they want a man to lead them, they usually object to specific exmaples where the man tries to take them up on it, and often end up leading the man. I think that's human nature, though. It's like with children. Children like strong parents, but they don't want to have to go to bed or stop eating candy. And most of us Christian men, myself included, are very reluctantt o put in the investment to get our wives in the habit of obeying us.
The Venn diagram of what women believe/say they want, what they actually want, and what's good for them, does not contain as much overlap as might be desired.
This is also true of men, but less so. Our desires can be contradictory, but generally because we want more than we can have, or want mutually exclusive things. Sometimes two things are outright mutually exclusive, i.e., "Being married" and "Not having the responsibility of a family." You can only have one of those, period. Sometimes two things aren't outright mutually exclusive, but the finitude of time/resources limits our options. Sometimes we can only pick one. Sometimes we don't get to pick any.
Women have all of that, but they also have a lot of desires that are outright contradictory. Justifiably so! For instance, women have a strong desire for safety, something which resonates with the vulnerability she will experience when pregnant, and the vulnerability of her children. Women thus tend to be far more risk-averse than men, and have a much stronger, more negative reaction to perceived threats.
Which is all well and good, but results in a powerful internal contradiction. Any man strong/competent enough to protect her and her children will also be strong/competent to represent a major threat to her and her children. Thus, if a woman does not perceive a man to be a threat to her, she will also not perceive him to be desirable as a mate. Women may say, and even believe, that they want a man that could never hurt them. . . but they will also find such a man pathetic, even repulsive. After all, if he's no threat to her, how can he protect her from other threats?
Problem is that Evangelical culture has long since conflated the personality trait of Agreeableness (which is one the only one of the Big Five with a strong sex differential) with Christian love. We've been selecting for leaders that are high in trait Agreeableness--and thus basically feminized--for at least two generations now.
Excellent points. Agreeableness in the Big Five is a good feature to note. A lot of the feminization of the Church is the idolization of that trait, more than anything else feminine. (What else? --focus on the family, emphasis on safety [background checks for nursery workers] and de-emphasis of bravery, I guess)
Why would this need to be done via *bullying*? A polite but firm "We don't do this kind of behavior/we don't hold to this kind of 'principle' " should be effective enough.
I am being facetious when it comes to bullying. But still, we have to ask ourselves how "firm" we want to be. A subversive to an institution is a subversive. There is no amount of reason or politeness you can do to de-subvert the subversive. The reason why the church has tolerated degeneracy is because the pastors refuse to hold people accountable and instead went down the path of politeness. Sometimes those tables need to be turned over.
What Aaron is proposing seems to be largely top-down. The institution sets up a standard and a clear plan right up front for confronting those who join up but begin to agitate for change. I first came across this idea in a more bottom-up way from Mary Harrington (The Reactionary Feminist), which she calls "cringemaxxing". If you want to center yourself on social stability, think the most "uncool" way; go to church, meet with old people, have kids, be loyal. Is it a sort of "anti-elite elite"? Or "non-exclusive exclusivity"?
Cringemaxing! That’s a brilliant term. As a church, we kind of do that. We tell people up front that we have a clear definition of man and woman, and we are joyfully reformed and graciously complementarian. And we do it, in part to not mislead people, but also because we don’t want people coming in and trying to make us the ucc or umc. At the same time we consciously appeal to the life of the mind and strive to do things with excellence, so we have some things that make us deeply attractive to those looking for a church with substance.
Agreeing with the intent of preserving doctrinal integrity, I’d also want to make sure that folks are not put off from enjoying a conservative church or other group simply because of misconceptions they have from their background.
For example, if they think that teaching complementarianism means valuing men and women unequally because of baseline feminist assumptions, then they will not stay long enough to learn that it is possible to have a community that is both complementarian and ennobling to women.
So I would want to be firm on distinctives of conviction, as criteria to be a member or a leader, but maintain a low threshold for entry as a welcome participant… Otherwise, the mere fear of drifting left might tend to cause us to be inhospitable to outsiders.
Thanks for this, and for opening up your comments. I am wondering how this will play out with Latin Mass devotees in the Catholic Church: in the UK at least it tends to be educated professional people who seek out the Latin Mass and form the core of the congregations, and those people are also the group most susceptible to status pressure.
At the moment there is is VERY close connection between liking the Latin Mass and being very traditional or conservative in moral and doctrinal matters, but that may not last forever - the Anglican church can boast a great many High Church liberals. You can assume for now that every professional graduate who seeks out the Latin Mass will be sound on all those matters, but if the Latin Mass ever does become mainstream again I suspect the congregations who seek it will quickly find themselves becoming more like their Anglican counterparts.
It will be ironic if a generation from now my sons are distancing themselves from all the smells-and-bells stuff because it has become associated with trendy liberalism.
Our parish is in a very liberal college town in a liberal diocese but we our town is also small and rural and our pastor is wonderfully traditional. I don't get any sense that the Latin Mass will ever become mainstream though I believe that efforts to suppress it will end eventually. Our state has enacted a number of conservative laws that have people talking both ways. I think it is healthy and we will see what happens.
This analysis seems quite astute. I had a boss in a Christian ministry that used to say the pull left is the constant meddling of Satan. You fight it to the typing point then you leave it to it's destruction and start another.
For many groups, being seen by outsiders as a little weird is helpful to strengthen community and maintain differentiation. A secular institution that’s done it effectively is Texas A&M University, which is identified with a whole tranche of customs and traditions embraced by insiders and mocked by outsiders. Embracing a bit of weird is a good idea for many Xian orgs for similar reasons.
Regarding “status” generally, I wonder if talking about it more openly and frequently may help diffuse its power (cf. Girard’s views on scapegoating). Most people seem reluctant or unwilling to acknowledge status as a motivation.
I know. It is so sad. Truet set such a good example. His son Dan did a pretty good job while he was young but he has gone all in for urban density. When he allowed the operators to have multiple stores and become professional absentee managers it was doomed. And Andrew is going all out for the $$$
It was quite weird to me when they removed decaf coffee from the menu. They completely lost my breakfast business and put a big chink in their customer first reputation. Heart patients need to limit caffeine!
Bingo! I have very progressive friends who want to flee Florida but love the weather and lifestyle
It's interesting how Doug Wilson is identified as dissident & counter-cultural when Dalrock has excoriated him for his obscene gynolatry.
This is correct.
Aaron, free subscriber here. Won't go into why I can't be a paid subscriber. But anyway, I have been reading you for quite a while now. Really appreciate your writing, especially on the state of men in the ev. church. Just wanted to say that, since I have the chance today.
"I have opened comments on this post to everyone."
I see what you did there. This comment section can now be an experiment on the application of Conquest's Law.
Maybe these things are necessarily tied together, but how much of Christ Church's resilience to subversion is due to its leadership understanding this threat and acting to prevent it vs. its leadership alienating subversives?
Ironically, pseudonymous internet comment sections are where Conquest's Second Law is inverted. Any pseudonymous comment section that is not explicitly prevented from becoming right wing will become right wing over time.
The Youtube Comments Dictum
Hah! I'm actually just giving free subscribers the opportunity to try out commenting in order to encourage them to take advantage of my special discount subscription offer.
The idea of projecting various undesirable-appearing characteristics in the church as a means of warding off liberals is concerning to me. I think it's an interesting and potentially helpful idea for many conservative institutions, but we ought not to think we have permission from Jesus to try to "shape" our congregations using any means except what's prescribed in scripture. He alone has the authority to grant forgiveness, eternal life, and membership in his church -- and to prescribe what primarily ought to characterize believers from the perspective of outsiders.
The good news is that centralizing the gospel preached in its fullness, unapologetically and humbly, as scripture directs, has the effect not only of being unattractive to liberals and unbelievers, but it also grows a people into mature believers whose love for one another is attractive to those (even among liberals and unbelievers) who God is calling to himself. Doing so also protects churches from becoming cults of personality, which are brittle when the person is not Jesus.
God brings his sheep to faithful shepherds - that's the ideal - and uses Scripture (not our creative ideas) to keep churches from falling to liberalism or any other false way.
Jesus multiple times said and did things designed to repel people that cost him followers.
Jesus also said, in effect, "let the tares grow alongside the wheat and we'll sort it out in the end."
Only by keeping the gospel central can that be a safe approach. (I mean "gospel" in the full sense -- i.e. the book of Romans with the rest of scripture alongside and behind it).
That's not to say anything goes in the congregation - to the contrary. "Purge the wicked man from among you" as Paul says. But regarding the front door, anyone is welcome provided they come through the gate - "I am the gate. If anyone enters through me, he will be saved."
Many churches downplay and even conceal unpopular Christian doctrine. This article presents an excellent and rarely considered reason for wearing those doctrines "on your sleeve." Anybody is welcome through the front door; but know what you're getting.
Yes - I think your comment is most helpful take on the article I've seen.
The gospel itself gives more than enough offense (if only in what it calls sin). Let's be loud and clear about all God's word teaches. My concern was that we not add merely human offense via attempts to selectively attract and repel certain kinds of people out of an ungodly desire to shape our congregation in our own image - to avoid associating with "those people" for whom Christ died. Let God's word attract and repel whom it will - it's living, active, and sharp, after all!
Things that were simply part of the reality of what he was offering, or what they were asking for. Projecting disagreeableness for the sake of it - looking for ways to become repellent to people - or even just getting attached to an insular, countercultural position for what it is - brings its own set of temptations. Jesus also didn’t mince words on the Pharisees for making the way harder for those who are entering.
Thank you for stating this. The idea that the church should not turn anyone off is completely counter to Christ's ministry time on earth. Luke 12 as one small example. It is this absurd 11th commandment Voddie Baucham talks about, "be nice". Total error and the church has paid dearly for embracing it.
Great point about becoming the kind of people you attract. Eventually a seeker-sensitive church will be run by elders who came to that church because they were embarassed by churches with clear doctrine on anything atheists don't like. At some point a church needs to chase away people who are ashamed of its doctrines. Such people are poison in the leadership, even as "solid members" whose opinion helps run things.
Churches can do this by being upfront and explicit about their unpopular biblical beliefs, such as male headship, judgement and hell, homosexuality and transgenderism being sin, etc. Many (most, actually) churches totally avoid those types of topics, or when they do address them dance around them so much, are so vague and add so many qualifications, that it's hard to pin down what they really believe. They do this to avoid "offending" people but what happens is they end up attracting and retaining weak or "progressive" Christians and unbelievers.
"Many conservatives in the “MAGA” world have openly embraced a low status, low class, cringe style. The net result is a Republican party that’s been bleeding college educated people who are very turned off by this type of behavior."
This is an interesting perspective. It is certainly going on in Bro-churches that heavily focus on masculinity in the church. The result is this alienates many women in the church, especially the wise old women that is almost extinct.
But to your point; what many groups and institutions need to start doing again is bullying. If someone is out of line when it comes to the mission or goal, they should be hazed until they get a clue, or leave. It also is critical to have actual strong leaders who are focused on the mission, will not be swayed from the mission, and hold people accountable.
I am skeptical that bro-churches alienate women. Maybe, but I'd like to see evidence. Seems more likely to me that it's much easier to get women than men generally, and while women are eager to go to a church led by men and to marry strong men, men are unwilling to go to a church led by women and to marry strong women--- strong, that is, in the sense of wanting to lead and not be led.
I'm really new here, so it is with some hesitation that I somewhat disagree. Dont' mean to troll or cause a stink. Just saying what I have seen: I know alot of evangelical women who really, really want "a church led by men", or, rather, by a dynamic senior pastor. I dont' know many evangelical women at all who want "to marry strong men". Many of them talk a good game along this line when they are single, but then, look at who they marry and what place in the marriage the poor guy has. (And, yes, I have had troubles.)
Evangelical men are rarely alpha males, and are often henpecked. I think, however, their wives have confused feelings about this. Women notoriously fall for alpha males of dubious quality. If they want to marry a Christian man-- and marriage is different from "going out"-- they'll settle for a beta. Most men are bad at being leaders to begin with, and are easiliy domninated by their wives. You are right that when Christian women say they want a man to lead them, they usually object to specific exmaples where the man tries to take them up on it, and often end up leading the man. I think that's human nature, though. It's like with children. Children like strong parents, but they don't want to have to go to bed or stop eating candy. And most of us Christian men, myself included, are very reluctantt o put in the investment to get our wives in the habit of obeying us.
The Venn diagram of what women believe/say they want, what they actually want, and what's good for them, does not contain as much overlap as might be desired.
This is also true of men, but less so. Our desires can be contradictory, but generally because we want more than we can have, or want mutually exclusive things. Sometimes two things are outright mutually exclusive, i.e., "Being married" and "Not having the responsibility of a family." You can only have one of those, period. Sometimes two things aren't outright mutually exclusive, but the finitude of time/resources limits our options. Sometimes we can only pick one. Sometimes we don't get to pick any.
Women have all of that, but they also have a lot of desires that are outright contradictory. Justifiably so! For instance, women have a strong desire for safety, something which resonates with the vulnerability she will experience when pregnant, and the vulnerability of her children. Women thus tend to be far more risk-averse than men, and have a much stronger, more negative reaction to perceived threats.
Which is all well and good, but results in a powerful internal contradiction. Any man strong/competent enough to protect her and her children will also be strong/competent to represent a major threat to her and her children. Thus, if a woman does not perceive a man to be a threat to her, she will also not perceive him to be desirable as a mate. Women may say, and even believe, that they want a man that could never hurt them. . . but they will also find such a man pathetic, even repulsive. After all, if he's no threat to her, how can he protect her from other threats?
Problem is that Evangelical culture has long since conflated the personality trait of Agreeableness (which is one the only one of the Big Five with a strong sex differential) with Christian love. We've been selecting for leaders that are high in trait Agreeableness--and thus basically feminized--for at least two generations now.
Excellent points. Agreeableness in the Big Five is a good feature to note. A lot of the feminization of the Church is the idolization of that trait, more than anything else feminine. (What else? --focus on the family, emphasis on safety [background checks for nursery workers] and de-emphasis of bravery, I guess)
Alas, the world has had great success subverting the churches culture.
Asking women what they want is, and always has been, a mug's game.
Why would this need to be done via *bullying*? A polite but firm "We don't do this kind of behavior/we don't hold to this kind of 'principle' " should be effective enough.
Only if it's backed by the will to actually enforce those sentiments. Which will invariably be called "bullying."
I am being facetious when it comes to bullying. But still, we have to ask ourselves how "firm" we want to be. A subversive to an institution is a subversive. There is no amount of reason or politeness you can do to de-subvert the subversive. The reason why the church has tolerated degeneracy is because the pastors refuse to hold people accountable and instead went down the path of politeness. Sometimes those tables need to be turned over.
What Aaron is proposing seems to be largely top-down. The institution sets up a standard and a clear plan right up front for confronting those who join up but begin to agitate for change. I first came across this idea in a more bottom-up way from Mary Harrington (The Reactionary Feminist), which she calls "cringemaxxing". If you want to center yourself on social stability, think the most "uncool" way; go to church, meet with old people, have kids, be loyal. Is it a sort of "anti-elite elite"? Or "non-exclusive exclusivity"?
Cringemaxing! That’s a brilliant term. As a church, we kind of do that. We tell people up front that we have a clear definition of man and woman, and we are joyfully reformed and graciously complementarian. And we do it, in part to not mislead people, but also because we don’t want people coming in and trying to make us the ucc or umc. At the same time we consciously appeal to the life of the mind and strive to do things with excellence, so we have some things that make us deeply attractive to those looking for a church with substance.
Agreeing with the intent of preserving doctrinal integrity, I’d also want to make sure that folks are not put off from enjoying a conservative church or other group simply because of misconceptions they have from their background.
For example, if they think that teaching complementarianism means valuing men and women unequally because of baseline feminist assumptions, then they will not stay long enough to learn that it is possible to have a community that is both complementarian and ennobling to women.
So I would want to be firm on distinctives of conviction, as criteria to be a member or a leader, but maintain a low threshold for entry as a welcome participant… Otherwise, the mere fear of drifting left might tend to cause us to be inhospitable to outsiders.
Damn good article. I loathe Wilson—but that's the point, isn't it?
Thanks for this, and for opening up your comments. I am wondering how this will play out with Latin Mass devotees in the Catholic Church: in the UK at least it tends to be educated professional people who seek out the Latin Mass and form the core of the congregations, and those people are also the group most susceptible to status pressure.
At the moment there is is VERY close connection between liking the Latin Mass and being very traditional or conservative in moral and doctrinal matters, but that may not last forever - the Anglican church can boast a great many High Church liberals. You can assume for now that every professional graduate who seeks out the Latin Mass will be sound on all those matters, but if the Latin Mass ever does become mainstream again I suspect the congregations who seek it will quickly find themselves becoming more like their Anglican counterparts.
It will be ironic if a generation from now my sons are distancing themselves from all the smells-and-bells stuff because it has become associated with trendy liberalism.
Our parish is in a very liberal college town in a liberal diocese but we our town is also small and rural and our pastor is wonderfully traditional. I don't get any sense that the Latin Mass will ever become mainstream though I believe that efforts to suppress it will end eventually. Our state has enacted a number of conservative laws that have people talking both ways. I think it is healthy and we will see what happens.
This analysis seems quite astute. I had a boss in a Christian ministry that used to say the pull left is the constant meddling of Satan. You fight it to the typing point then you leave it to it's destruction and start another.
You've got to avoid the pull from the idiotic Left as much as you have to avoid the pull from the idiotic Right. The path is indeed narrow.
“Any philanthropy founded by a capitalist will eventually become communist.”
What? Well I guess we've seen the reverse?
Where?
For many groups, being seen by outsiders as a little weird is helpful to strengthen community and maintain differentiation. A secular institution that’s done it effectively is Texas A&M University, which is identified with a whole tranche of customs and traditions embraced by insiders and mocked by outsiders. Embracing a bit of weird is a good idea for many Xian orgs for similar reasons.
Regarding “status” generally, I wonder if talking about it more openly and frequently may help diffuse its power (cf. Girard’s views on scapegoating). Most people seem reluctant or unwilling to acknowledge status as a motivation.
Interesting example.
Chick fil A comes immediately to mind when thinking about right to left...
I know. It is so sad. Truet set such a good example. His son Dan did a pretty good job while he was young but he has gone all in for urban density. When he allowed the operators to have multiple stores and become professional absentee managers it was doomed. And Andrew is going all out for the $$$
I thought the current management went even further, and dislikes its customers enough it's willing to sacrifice money to displease them.
It was quite weird to me when they removed decaf coffee from the menu. They completely lost my breakfast business and put a big chink in their customer first reputation. Heart patients need to limit caffeine!
VERY interesting take. I had not quite understood the dictum about non-right-wing orgs going liberal, but this helps.
I have known that a church that is not willing to lose moderate/liberal members is probably in trouble. This confirms that.