Andrew Tate, Ecumenism, and Masculinity

The right-of-center online atmosphere was heavy this week on discussion surrounding the self-styled masculinity influencer, Andrew Tate.

If you were focused enough on real life to miss out on this phenomena, the Cliff’s Notes version of events follows. Andrew Tate, one-time kickboxer and now-popular internet personality was platformed on a conservative (and self-identified Christian) YouTuber’s relatively large show. Tate is controversial for myriad reasons.

Aside from his controversies, he argues that modern Western men are weak, and he advocates for a masculinity that uses its strength and cunning to amass materialistic affluence, hedonistic pleasures and general self-interested experiences.

Beyond this unbiblical version of “masculinity” that he promotes, he is also a purveyor of pornography and is in some legal jeopardy now in Eastern Europe for potential sex crimes.

Thus, the controversy shouldn’t be difficult to spot. Why is a person of this sort being uncritically platformed and defended by some self-professed Christians and conservatives? The question has brought me two lines of thinking.

 

CO-BELLIGERENCE ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH

First, Tate’s support among the rightwing ecosphere emerges from what I have witnessed as a growing system on the Right of co-belligerence. What I’m seeing is that many Christians and conservatives are willing to partner with just about anyone – as long as that new partner has the same enemies.

In Tate’s case, he is lauded as an advocate for young men, dispossessed by the excesses of feminism and as a bombastic voice against political correctness. Because his enemies include feminism and cancel culture, many conservatives and Christians are willing to overlook his transgressions – including his identification as a follower of Islam.

The common enemies – the  co-belligerenta – are strong enough ties to bind for these folks.

You can probably tell: I disagree. A common enemy isn’t a good enough reason to partner with evil – even less so when plenty of other, better allies are available and capable. That brings me to my second line of thinking.

 A CRISIS IN MASCULINITY

Andrew Tate and his supporters have rightly identified a cultural crisis of masculinity. Men and boys in the West are in something akin to a crisis (https://www.brookings.edu/books/of-boys-and-men/).

That crisis is the exact reason why conservatives and Christians especially should not be pointing to or platforming Tate for anything other than derision and condemnation. Yes, men are in trouble, and we do not offer any aid at all by uncritically allowing Tate to model masculinity for them. When we do, we allow the wild pendulum swing from secular Leftism trying to shape feminine men to a secular Rightism shaping men bent in on themselves, intent on using their God-given vigor for their own flesh.

Instead of partnering with Tate, we should be teaching and modeling godly masculinity. Biblical masculinity doesn’t deny the authority, power, and potency men have as they image God in the world. We embrace all those qualities, but the purpose and end of those qualities vary wildly from the Tate image.

Tate’s mode teaches men to practice and perfect all the features of manliness so that the man may have an easy and pleasure-filled life. Christian masculinity calls men up, to be their masculine best selves, instead, for the good of those for whom they have responsibility.

Biblical masculinity sacrificially offers its strength for the flourishing and cultivation of the people around them. Further, I suspect this masculinity will not be best modeled by internet figures.

It will be modeled best my men in local homes and churches, faithfully and consistently leading and loving households and who have the sense not to platform voices of vice like Andrew Tate.

About that Joe Rogan Episode . . .

I saw it too – or at least many of the clips. The most-listened-to entertainment property in the English-speaking world, The Joe Rogan Experience, just featured – for more than three hours – one of the most articulate and doctrinally sound Christian apologists of his generation.

I can’t believe I’m about to write these words, but here it goes. Because of Rogan’s enormous reach, it’s quite possible that the broadest Gospel-declaration in the history of the world just happened on . . . Joe Rogan’s show. The FearFactor guy? The MMA fighter guy? The lifelong skeptic of religion who called Christianity a “crutch”” for weak people just a couple years ago? What is happening?

Plucked from relative YouTube obscurity, Wesley Huff, a Christian, a Canadian, and a brilliant academic presented the Christian faith with clarity, joy, and winsomeness to an audience much broader than any Billy Graham ever enjoyed – even on TV.

This event, The Rogan/Huff Episode, struck the loudest note in a cultural song I’ve been hearing lately. It’s a song I have found encouraging and refreshing. At the same time, it has created a consternation in me.

Christianity and its compatriot ideas and ideologies are certainly having a moment. You can see it just about everywhere.

ASLAN IS ON THE MOVE?

Celebrities like Russell Brand seem to be growing in genuine faith. Famed atheists like Ayan Hirsi Ali are making statements in favor of cultural Christianity.  The most prominent atheist of my lifetime, Richard Dawkins, recently said he highly prefers a Christianized culture.

Arguably the most influential business in the world, Meta, is returning to its pre-2020 standards for the dissemination and discussion of ideas.

More broadly, many businesses are diminishing their DEI programs while even institutions of higher education are reducing their DEI staffs. In advertising and even in the pageant world, we seem to be witnessing a reembrace of traditional beauty norms and a rejection of the body-positivity-at-any-cost regime.

I say all of that before recognizing in the last couple of years, governments in Italy, Germany, Argentina, and the United States have swung in a traditionalist direction. Canada is soon to follow in their election this year.

ALL GOOD NEWS, RIGHT?

In this cultural song, yes, I am encouraged by these notes. Still, something haunts me. Too many times and in too many cultures, some cultural or civic version of Christianity takes hold in a place while, tragically, hearts remain unchanged.

Of course, when even unbelievers see how the Kingdom of God looks compared to the vapidity and depravity of their own cultures, they desire the Kingdom.

But one cannot have the Kingdom and reject its King. That brings me back to Rogan.

Rogan admitted something profound in his conversation with Wesley Huff. In summary, Rogan said that living the Christian life is “true” – that it works to make humans happy even if we don’t know why. Then, let me quote the key part next. To get this better life, though, “you have to submit to this concept that this guy [Jesus] was the child of God, came down to earth, let himself be crucified, came back from the dead, explained a bunch stuff for people, and then said, ‘all right, see you when I come back.’”

Yes, Mr. Rogan. Yes indeed.

CONCLUSION

Of course I’m encouraged to see the decade-plus-long fog of wokeness and secular humanism clearing in the minds of unregenerate men and women. We’re living in a unique moment where people seem genuinely open to something other than this secular progressive ideology that has driven the Western world for my entire adult lifetime.

I am now prayerful that we, Jesus followers, are all as clear as Wesley Huff was – and as effective as communicators with our extended families, co-workers, and neighbors. A cultural Christianity will indeed make your life better for a time, but those effects will fade without real conversions. Intergenerational flourishing is going to require prayerful, Scripture-saturated, and Spirit-empowered Gospel proclamation.

 It will require a Gospel proclamation of King Jesus – not just his Kingdom.