“A movement is only as powerful as the people who back it.” ~ The Solutions Project
How do you build a successful movement?
The early church — if we were to call it “a movement,” for the sake of argument — was, of course, built by the Lord on the foundation of Christ Jesus the cornerstone. But it involved people. And it involved people spreading a message and, in turn, getting more and more people to embrace that message, who then would spread the message to additional people.
In the case of the apostles, the message they proclaimed was the gospel of Jesus Christ. They proclaimed it openly to thousands of sinners, and then they trusted the Lord to “add to their numbers daily those who were being saved” (Acts 2:47). Two thousand years and millions of saved souls later, there is still a people for God’s own possession worldwide because of His grace and the faithfulness of the apostles to their heavenly calling in that early “movement.”
But what would have become of that “movement” if the apostles had treated women in those early crowds of sinners differently than the men, just because they were women? What if groups of Jewish or Gentile women had approached the apostles with legitimate, honest questions about Jesus, and were told by Peter or Paul: “Oh, look, it’s the gynocracy, everyone! No man is looking for a woman’s opinion on Jesus. Why do you hate men? Are you having a woman moment?”
Not only would that have been shockingly rude, but the apostles would have been disobeying the direct command of the Lord who died to save both men and women — and treated women with nothing but love and kindness and godly consideration during His own earthly ministry. Anyone who had known Jesus during His time on earth also could have pointed to the disparity between His treatment of women and that of His apostles, decry the horrible incongruity and godless nature of the apostles’ behavior and completely derail the early Christian “movement.” Even if it did survive, how could it ever have been called biblical? Members of both sexes obviously need to be saved from their sins. Both are called to love and serve the Lord Jesus and have fellowship as believers in the Body of Christ.
It’s a ridiculous hypothetical, admittedly, but that’s because the apostles were faithful to God’s call. Not so with some movements carrying a “Christian” label in our day. I am speaking, of course, about the ongoing problems with the Stephen Wolfe/Doug Wilson/William Wolfe brand of Christian Authoritarianism — er, Nationalism (CN) — and its army of angry online followers (mainly avatars who joined X in last 18 months or so).
What is it with these guys? They have “Christian” in the title of their movement but aren’t into evangelism. They spend little to no time faithfully exegeting Scripture to make a Bible-based argument for their cause. They turn themselves into pretzels (or, rather, great muters and blockers of critics on X) dodging legitimate questions about their movement. Some even gather in “secret, invite-only” lodges to discuss who knows what. And they post lots of videos and formerly-known-as-tweets on things like race, taking over countries, ethnicity and the fact that America’s chattel slavery history is nothing to be ashamed of.
They also simultaneously promote themselves as the Manliest Movement of Manly Men to ever hit the church — and the one we must follow to ensure our futures and avert all coming catastrophes. We’ll save the SBC! they say. We’ll save America! We’ll take Constantinople! We’ll save women from Hamas! I’m sure you will do all of that, fellas, right after I’m named Pope.
But hey, hats off to those of them who are saying they’ll save women! Of course, the very man who made that online comment about CN saving women from Hamas was not feeling so very chivalrous once I publicly criticized a video clip of CN leader-pastor Joel Webbon talking about “tyrants.”
Startled by Webbon’s intense, irate delivery method, I observed, “Webbon .. exudes tyrant vibes himself. The anger, the aggression, the arrogance — that’s not from the Holy Spirit. Sorry. And now you also see why women are staying away from CN in droves. This is not a movement of brave male valor but simply of raging men.”
I went on to explain why an angry pastor is not exactly a lure for Christian women. “Women have God-given relational instincts — often because of bad pasts with angry, aggressive men — that kick in when they encounter how these CN leaders talk and behave. It’s largely why they want no part of CN. It gives me hope that this movement is doomed.”
My “we’ll save women from Hamas!” hero, seeing another man agree with me online that Webbon’s vibe was bad, quickly chastised him for agreeing with me, since I was a “woman.” He then told me to “leave it to men to worry about, ” added “go get your husband” and finished it off with a cheeky admonition to “go home.” There’s nothing like a healthy dose of condescension to shore up a woman’s confidence in you as a future white knight.
Mind you, I posted these comments after weeks of pointing out the biblical and political problems with CN. I was in no way reducing my critique of CN to “their men are all meanies!” Their problems are way bigger than that; trust me. Also, I’m not even close to being a feminist, so that accusation doesn’t hold water. My only point in those posts was that if you’re a man who presents CN in an inordinately vexed and combative way, then women are particularly likely to pick up on that as a problem, and a lot of them will not want to go near your movement for that reason alone. It’s just true. Women tend to avoid angry men when not required to do so.
For saying that, and for my pattern of publicly questioning CN ideals and tactics — and most of all its unbiblical eschatology and political theory — I have received some of the following very rational responses from additional Manly Men of Christian Nationalism just in the last few days:
“The gynocracy is threatened and lashing out.”
“Men set the rules, women follow. No man is looking to a woman for an opinion on CN or anything else. The 19th Amendment will be repealed as soon as possible.”
“Why do you hate men and masculinity in particular?”
“She’s intimidated. Therefore, she slanders.”
“Feminine ‘relational instincts’ are exactly one of the main reasons why the church is impotent today. You’re just making the point for why CN is needed.”
“We don’t want toxic feminists nor do we want ‘Christian’ feminists in our mix. Please flee. Save us lots of trouble.”
This is how you build a “Christian” movement, guys? By reducing women’s questions or unflattering observations about CN leaders to a “gynocracy?” By accusing women who are repelled by how men in this movement behave of “hating men?” By assuming that every woman who isn’t on board with your weird club is a “toxic feminist?”
If I were a cynical sort, I might assume the real reason you won’t interact with me — or other women — on a rational level has less to do with my sex and more to do with not wanting a woman to make a good point against you in front of the dudebros. Shout her down, man! That’ll teach that feminist (who’s actually an ardent anti-feminist)!
Now I know there are certain women you’ll tolerate: your wife, for instance, who of course is totally on board with your CN ideals (lest she face the consequences of pushback at home). Same with the women who attend CN-friendly churches and have enthusiastic CN husbands and pastors. Those gals are safely in line. A few more, out of ignorance, may tentatively offer tepid initial support to you.
But you’re also not hearing from the many conservative Christian women who aren’t yet conquered by your movement. I’m talking about the women who are contacting me online and contacting me privately who aren’t in your homes or churches — and the ones who secretly are, but don’t like your movement, either. They’re seeing your aggressive vibes, your appalling racial statements, your scary obsession with European Fascism, your total lack of biblical exegesis. They see you puffing out your chests and making absurd declarations of your future manly conquests, all while you try to swat down uppity females with a stupid, sexist quip.
A lot of godly, conservative, biblically faithful women who’d rather die than vote for a Democrat don’t like your movement, guys. Or trust it. They don’t like your ideas. Or your theology. They don’t like your leaders. Or their outright misogyny (a word that reflexively makes me cringe … but given the evidence, what else can you call it?). They’re reading what you write and post and say on some random podcasts, and they don’t find you to be biblical or even that smart. And they really despise your frequent and open displays of disdain for the fairer sex. True, I can’t give you exact statistics on exactly how many women you’ve turned off. But I also haven’t seen any sudden, overwhelming influx of newly convinced and thoroughly informed female converts into CN, either. It’s also a guys’ movement. Obviously.
From what I can observe, most of your female backers are already in the hyper-patriarchy world — hostages, you might say, who merely need a little affirmation to stay in the fold. You can almost hear the CN husbands from here: “You want God’s law and a Christian nation, right, Sarah? Of course you do! No more drag queen story hours, right? Just lots of testosterone to protect you and a strong leader who’s really just a ‘Christian’ version of Franco? It’s the only solution, Sarah! Right? Great! God is pleased with you for following my godly leadership!”
It’s not that these hostages aren’t intelligent women. It’s just that many of them are likely too busy raising and/or homeschooling a brood of children to get into the gory details of CN, like others of us (or don’t want to fight with their husbands over it). I have to think that most of them are not taking in and dissecting or keeping a tally of what you guys or fellow CN leaders Josh Abbotoy, Nate Fischer or Charles Haywood actually are writing, posting on social media and broadcasting. But other, biblically faithful females to your movement from different sectors of evangelicalism actually are. And they’re joining the ranks of faithful Christian men who are doing the same thing. And the more they see what’s actually happening, the more they’re turning on CN. Your insults aren’t doing anything but solidifying their bad impressions of your movement.
I ask again: Is this really how you build a successful “Christian” movement? By continually offending and demeaning one sex, whose members make up more than half of visible American Christendom? If so, I doubt you’ll be invited to give a TED talk on movement-building anytime soon.
Here’s the irony that must be understood. Christian women do want America to be a godly nation, with godly values, but that doesn’t mean they want the Wolfe/Wilson/Wolfe version of CN. They wisely understand that you can’t have a Christian nation without more actual Christians, so prayer, evangelism and discipleship are the best tools the church has — and has ever had — for changing hearts and ultimately changing our culture. Though no form of government is perfect, it’s not our political system that is the problem. The godless people who have subverted our political system to try to destroy it intentionally — and those who let it happen and even cheered it on — are the problem. More than anything, this constitutional republic needs Christian citizens who will spread the gospel and live godly lives themselves.
Women also do want Christlike, honorable, brave men to protect them and their children, defend their honor and their lives and fight evil — everything CN claims it will bring to the table — but they want it to happen within the framework of our constitutional republic, which ensures our freedoms. Contrary to what many Christian Nationalists are calling for, women don’t want a “Christian Franco” at the helm, keeping everyone under his iron thumb, taking away a woman’s right to vote, stripping pagans of their citizenship, jailing people for blasphemy or the like. “Christian” Authoritarianism — dictatorial control in Jesus’ name — is an unbiblical, nightmare concept that no clear-thinking Christian woman or man wants to see implemented.
If CN were a genuine Christian movement, the leaders and their avatars would be calling for a political movement with biblical justification beyond just a specious eschatological take. And they’d certainly welcome women — for moral support, if nothing else.
But they have reasons for insulting us, rather than wooing us. When your goal is pure political authoritarianism, women aren’t much good and are actually kind of an impediment to progress.
Women tend to prefer stability to upheaval and peace to warring. The people whom CN leaders know will keep this thing moving forward aren’t the women, but the hungry, inexperienced and frustrated young men who want to change the world and blindly blame “stupid Boomers” for getting us all into this cultural mess in the first place. Women might actually prove to be a roadblock. Could this be the real reason for the insults?
It’s painful to watch the young CN recruits, actually. They are earnest, but they don’t know what they don’t know. They certainly know little to nothing about the Christian culture wars of the past 50 years, because they’re not old enough to have known what actually transpired. They’re largely unteachable. They’re arrogant and snarky. They delight in their edginess, while being tragically gullible. They’re overwhelmingly susceptible to manipulation. And they’re just the kind of potential human explosives who, under the right circumstances, could be exploited very easily for nefarious ends. In other words: Perfect for the Cause.
The silver lining in it all is that CN leaders ultimately have done women — and men — a favor by acting as they do. They’ve shown us in stark Technicolor exactly who they are. And remember what the Lord told us to do? “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them.” (Matt 7:15-16)
No, you certainly can’t build a successful “Christian” movement with these kinds of tactics. But then again, CN isn’t a Christian movement. So let it sink of its own accord.
And get off the boat now, all you who are wary of CN. Ladies first.
This perfectly expresses the problems I’ve been having currently within and within Christian spheres when it comes to these neomasculinity movements. It’s hard enough understand my role as a female without the confusion coming in from the Christian side. In the meantime I’m glad people like you are here, Janet! I found you from your old interview with Mark Driscoll on plagiarism. I admire your steadfastness in that case. God bless ya!