Making the Case for the Manosphere

Men's influencers, the return of the religious right, and more in this week's digest.

There will be no digest next week because of travel. To fill the time while I’m out next Friday, I’ll leave comments open to everyone on this post. Share your thoughts and suggestions.

Why Young Men Turn to the Manosphere

The London Review of Books ran a recent piece about the manosphere that was so over the top, it reads as a humorous parody. Here’s a sample:

Among my friends, the sort of women J.D. Vance likes to mock as miserable losers, the male loneliness crisis became a bitter joke. We discussed possible cures: becoming a Deadhead, getting into cycling, poker nights. We made approving comments when we saw straight guys doing things together, like the time a group of dads showed up at someone’s Pilates class. There were movies and TV shows about the problems of contemporary manhood, some concerned (Adolescence), some satirical (Friendship). Mark Zuckerberg, whose male-to-male transition included bulking up, putting on an XL T-shirt and a gold chain, and becoming a fan of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, told Joe Rogan that the corporate world is ‘culturally neutered’ and needs more ‘masculine energy’.

The fact that people think this way is a good example of why men turn away from mainstream institutions to the manosphere. The former Atlantic writer Derek Thompson, one of the leaders of the center-left “abundance” movement, saw this and said, “‘Me and my female friends think the male loneliness crisis is pretty funny’ is fine group-chat fodder, but it’s a weird thing to keep in a lefty essay that’s ostensibly trying to figure out how and why men are fleeing the left.”

And Helen Andrews wonders, “Is the author of this LRB piece the same lady who was profiled last year in the New York Times, going to raves and dating a DJ at age 43?”

However, the piece is actually pretty good when it comes to Andrew Tate. One of the books she’s reviewing for the piece is on Tate, whom the authors spent four years studying:

When the journalists visited, Tate had recently launched an online Hustlers University, which for $49 a month provides access to a chatroom and ‘courses in things like e-commerce, copywriting and trading cryptocurrencies’. Much of Tate’s online success stems from his subscription services, which act as multi-level marketing schemes: social media is filled with mini Tates, producers of imitative social media posts and shock content who receive a commission for any subscribers they refer back to the original. (Tate sees traditional higher education as ‘a lie and ... a scam’, telling Tahsin and Shea that people with degrees don’t have Lamborghinis.)

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The anxieties Tate addresses are real, which is part of the reason his sales pitch is so effective. ‘The system is deliberately designed to oppress and keep people working jobs which barely pay their rent and everyone is semi-depressed,’ he tells Tahsin and Shea. ‘But it doesn’t matter because the elites get to do whatever they want. So, the rules are for poor people. And when you understand how to break the rules, then you can find a very easy way to become rich.’ It’s not just rules that are for simps, but manners, decorum and kindness too. Some of his power, like Trump’s, comes from his acknowledgment that traditional paths to economic and social stability are increasingly blocked off, and in ways that undermine traditional markers of masculine success. ‘We live in a world where you cannot play fair any more,’ he says.

Click over to read the whole thing.

Related in the new American Affairs: Masculinity at the End of History

The Rich Opportunity Space for Gen Z Pastors

Greg Scalise left a great comment on my piece about the Gen-Z’s opportunity landscape in a post-Boomer world. He was responding specifically to the story about seminarian Cory Cook, who found superior opportunities in mainline Protestantism over the evangelical world.

Amen! This all aligns with my experience as a conservatifve mainline pastor in my 20s.

When I went to seminary I received financial support from the school and my denomination so I graduated debt free. They even helped with my living expenses. As a seminarian I was asked by the denomination to fill in preaching at churches without pastors and by my second year I was the part-time lead pastor of a small church. During my last year I interviewed with multiple churches for lead pastor roles and landed at a wonderful church in a growing city. I’m grateful to God and to my denomination for all of this.

Life was not so easy for my friends in the PCA/ACNA/etc. who received less financial support and who often settled for pastoral residencies and associate roles after graduation. These denominations are growing, but they seem to be more popular with clergy than laypeople. Meanwhile the doors are wide open in the mainline. For example, I had a friend in seminary attending a very popular local church which was not mainline and which had a dozen other seminarians in the pews. When he met with the lead pastor about serving, he was basically told to wait his turn and spend some time getting to know people first. When he instead went to a mainline church the next town over, he was given an internship and preaching opportunities.

And to your point about boomer leadership, someone like Keller was more of a historical figure than a leader to me. My seminary professors assigned his books, there was a scholarship named after him, he passed away before I graduated, but I didn’t encounter his work organically the way many millennials did.

I hope Redeemed Zoomer will be able to popularize this path for more pastors. I tried to proselytize for the mainline at my seminary and it was hard to make converts. Everything about it was foreign to people who grew up evangelical, but Redeemed Zoomer is fixing that.

If anyone out there wants to learn more about becoming a mainline American Baptist pastor, feel free to reach out.

Related on Gen Z in the Free Press:

Why Gen Z Hates Work

Speaking of the Free Press, it’s reportedly about to be sold to Paramount for $150 million, with Bari Weiss set to take a senior role at CBS News. This would be a huge win for her.

The Return of the Religious Right?

Dissident right writer Scott Greer wrote an interesting piece in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s memorial service wondering if the religious right is back. Greer himself does not seem to be religious.

While a revival among the general public could happen in the future, trendlines suggest secularization will remain the norm. The decline in Christianity, as Douthat notes, has been somewhat arrested, with rates of self-professed believers hovering around 63 percent for the past five years. Even though that’s much lower than the historic rate of believers in America, the fact it hasn’t slid further offers hope to the faithful.

Most of the evidence for revival is found on the Right rather than with the general public. The increasingly overt religiosity of MAGA, as exemplified at the Kirk memorial, encapsulates this. It’s different from what MAGA was like in the first term. More young right-wingers are embracing conservative forms of Christianity. The Right is now publicly obsessed with demons in a way that would’ve embarrassed conservatives in the past. Within this sphere, it can look like America is experiencing a revival. If everyone you know is going to Latin Mass, praying the rosary, and strictly following Catholic teaching, you may think this represents the rest of America. But it’s limited to only certain social spheres.

There is, without a doubt, a revival of religious rhetoric on the Right. However, this is not your father’s Religious Right. It’s not concerned with the same issues as the old version, nor does it stick to the same norms. If one wanted to imagine it as a throwback, here’s one way to see it: it’s Satanic Panic rhetoric mixed with the cultural style (and, in some cases, the ethics) of Mötley Crüe. It may be religious, but it’s not exactly traditional.

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It’s not just style that differentiates the MAGA Religious Right from its old version. It’s far more accepting of homosexuality than the Moral Majority. It even sees some barely-in-the-closet types as its leaders. It’s not really concerned with gambling or other vices, though some elements do still want to ban porn. It’s much more tolerant of its leaders’ misdeeds and of other faiths. Many of its followers indulge in outlandish behavior, such as swinging and drug use. It’s pro-life, but doesn’t prioritize the issue.

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The MAGA Religious Right, in a nutshell, is more eager to provide state funding to exorcists than to repeal gay marriage.

Click over to read the whole thing.

What’s interesting is that this analysis, which comes from a hardcore Trump supporter, in some ways echoes critiques from Never Trump figures like Russell Moore.

As I noted in my review of Tim Alberta’s The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory, even though there’s a lot to critique about his portrayal of American Christianity, there’s a lot of truth in what he says about the more outlandish segments of Trumpian evangelicalism.

On this topic, Ross Douthat noted, “The prospects for revival are inherently uncertain, but the definitive story you can tell about American evangelicalism in the wake of the Kirk assassination is one of *resilience* in the face of trends that seemed to be unraveling religious conservatism 10 yrs ago.”

In a related piece, the New York Times ran a funny column by Zaid Jilani about how he misses the religious right (gift link). You see, the old religious right - now safely gone - was so much more respectable than the new one. He says, “When I was young, the Christian right was my nemesis. These days, I’m praying for its return.

This is a preview of the articles we’ll be reading in a few years about, “Why can’t [current Republican nominee] be one of those good Republicans like Donald Trump?” Every Republican president or candidate is Hitler - until he is out of politics and can be used as a foil to call the new crop of Republicans Hitler.

Best of the Web

Matthew Capone: Finding Joy as a Christian Single

The Atlantic: What Women Wish They’d Known Before Trying to Get Pregnant - We’ve had sex ed in schools forever, but apparently it doesn’t even teach the basics, such as how rapidly female fertility falls off. It must be pure ideology these days. Note: this is a gift link but I’m not sure how the system at the Atlantic works yet, so your mileage may vary.

WSJ: The Catholic Church Has a Manpower Problem: Fewer Priests Every Year

Rob Henderson: The Rage of the Falling Elite

The results of last week’s poll. There was quite a divergence of opinion!

Long Reads

Since there’s no digest next week, here are some longer reads to keep you occupied.

Hunterbrook: “House from Hell” — How America’s Largest Homebuilders Shift the Cost of Shoddy Construction to Buyers - Caveat emptor when buying a new construction home.

The new issue of American Affairs has a number of interesting articles.

An Iron Lady for Our Times: The March of Conservatism in Meloni’s Italy

This piece on Meloni contains an interesting observation:

As the first woman to lead Italy, and to do so from the traditionally masculine bastion of the nationalist right, she embodies a paradox that liberal feminists often find difficult to assimilate. Her appeal does not lie in rejecting femininity, but in embracing it as a moral force. . . . Where modernity reduces identity to performative fragments, Meloni proposes something older: a vision of womanhood that is not a repudiation of tradition, but its vindication. This too is a form of populism, but of a different hue. It is not merely anti-elitist, but anti-fragmentary. It seeks to reweave the tapestry of collective meaning, not through abstract rights, but through concrete responsibilities—first to one’s family, then to one’s nation, and finally, to the transcendent order that sustains both.

It’s worth noting that women were once seen as a force for conservatism, and that’s why some conservatives pushed for female suffrage in various places like Spain.

The Feminist Revolution and the Democratic Party - Author John Judis is a long time Democratic political analyst.

New Content and Media Mentions

I got mentions this week from Rod Dreher and American Reformer.

New this week:

• Generation Z’s New Vision for Faith and Opportunity - Generation Z is forging a new path, unshackled from Boomer cultural dominance, with fresh perspectives on faith, institutions, and America’s future

• Life as a Subscription Service (paid) - Will you own nothing and be happy?

• My podcast this week was with David Yancey and Redeemed Zoomer on their Presbyterians for the Kingdom initiative.

Subscribe to my podcast on Apple Podcasts, Youtube, or Spotify.

Cover image: Andrew Tate by James Tamim/Wikimedia, CC BY 3.0