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.
