Okay Tough Guy

Good Character Beats Being Right About Everything

"And that means showing love to all people, even if they're gay….. hard to think about, isn't it?"

I remember vividly the Deacon saying this to the congregation, spoken with the exact amount of smug self-righteousness that one might expect. He wasn't left wing, but what most of us would consider a political moderate. There was no gravitas in his appearance, nor in the force of his speech. He was a legend in his own mind though, thinking he was preaching tough realities to the congregation, challenging them to live the Gospel. Of course, this sort of "challenging" talk only goes in one direction, and in this age is a masked cowardice when all social pressure is to fully accept the homosexual lifestyle.

There's are mind-viruses permeating those in leadership roles, with one side giving the most milquetoast speeches possible but spouting them in an emotive, sing-song style that sounds substantive while actually saying nothing. The other is the harder, sterner, more aggressive talk, often done by men who have clearly never been in a fight. They use angry, patronizing rhetoric to shock their congregation into changing their lives, pulling them out of their stupor and becoming more godly men. They want to imagine themselves the biblical voice crying out in the wilderness, the desert monk exclaiming the Good News to a skeptical people. They mimic the speech patterns of the great preachers of the past in a totally different medium, with predictable results.

In previous times, whether it be a tent revival or a smaller, more intimate church setting, this tactic could be effective. In the age of megachurches and the internet though, it feels fake and contrived, simple showmanship with nothing to back it up. Behind the furious rhetoric and posturing, their listeners know, intuitively, that their "brave" stances are kayfabe, torn from the world where such rhetoric had an impact.

The impersonal nature of modern society has made life safer. Someone does not have to worry about getting into a physical alteration over a livestream, nor do they have to worry about an angry parishioner charging him in the megachurch when he has a cohort of guards at his disposal. This relative safety has created a mass of "leaders" that try to mimic the rough-and-tumble sermons of the past who actually put themselves in physical danger. Now they are planted into a safe, sterile environment. It allows them to say things from the comfort of their computer screen they wouldn't dare say to a man's face. Even lesser forms of violence, like raised voices or humiliation is usually off the table. Take this examples:

"The rising anger, resentment, conspiracy-orientation, ethnic bigotry, and anti-semitism being expressed by many “Reformed” Christians is unbiblical, anti-christian, and an offense against the gospel of the Lord Jesus. Yet we have been told we must deal patiently and pastorally with young men exploring these ideas. God knows how many hours I have spent doing just that with young men being influenced by various Christian podcasts and non-Christian sources. Some have been successfully pulled back from the brink, after many weeks and months of conversation; others instead chose to pull away, in self-righteous anger and pride."

The Poison of the so-called “New Christian Right”

or this one.

“They’ve replaced cruciformity with condescension. They don’t fast, but they’ll debate rubrics. They don’t train, but they’ll correct your posture. They’re not forming their sons, but they’re fluent in outrage. They don’t speak with language inspired by the Desert Fathers or even Christ himself, but they tone police and denigrate your communication. They are fake nice and faux diplomatic, but inside they harbor deep feelings of hatred and resentment while taking the Eucharist.”

The Trad Movement is the Death of Masculinity

In truly manly fashion, both banned commenters who called them out.

I could give countless other examples from religious denominations, political organizations, and the like. They have all the power of a punch coming from a toddler, with just as much authority.

There's a reason it's only directed at certain people. While direct violence is still not on the table, indirect violence is. Whether in the form of firings, cancel squads, or social ostracization, there is still risk in going after certain people, so less dangerous targets are selected. People like

κρῠπτός

call these archetypes "Regimevangelicals", those who are invested in the system that has given them prestige. As seminaries push out the next generation of pastors, there's an air of desperation as they face the stark reality that the young generation have zero interest in older political norms, and those that do don't bother going to Church anymore. Many of the new pastors, with fire and brimstone pontificating, are hypocritically trying to convince young men to come back to the cocoon of normalcy. It's not working.

This isn't just regime lackeys either, and is the go-to even for pastors who are largely outside the current political frame. Mark Driscoll is a notorious example of the sort of harsh degradation masked as tough love. While framed as hopelessly misogynistic by the press, he always kept his most vicious condemnation for the males in the audience for their inability to man up, largely for the sake of women in the audience. It's largely a way to promote a personal brand as being above the "stupid losers" who make up his audience.

Dalrock called this the “only real man in the room” strategy. Only Driscoll himself (and perhaps a few others) are real men. Everyone else is an idiot, loser, joke, etc. Driscoll makes himself look big by making men of his church smaller.

Mark Driscoll’s Gender Teachings

Once you see the common traits of this tactic, it’s hard to unsee. It’s the male version of the schoolmarm browbeating her students, with about as much success.

The Rage-Baiter and Wasted Potential

On the dissident sphere, many impressive figures have risen. Even as cancel culture has waned, many mainline denominations are fighting a losing defensive battle against the new wave of thinkers who are pushing back against their regime approved mindset. One such figure is

Ryan Turnipseed

, who brutally tore apart the updated Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod Catechism for skewing the message of the gospel, making false equivalences between horrid sins that are regime approved and smaller ones. For his trouble, he was nearly excommunicated from his parish.

"In response to his stern criticisms of the church, Turnipseed was first denounced as a fascist by an outside party, then lumped in with a call to excommunicate fascists led by his church, and finally summoned for a meeting with church leaders where they informed him and his father that he was associating with evil. The scene was simultaneously old-fashioned, with its back-and-forth accusations of heresy and bitter struggles over the soul, and “very online,” very 2023."

How to Get Excommunicated in 2023

From what I've read, the actions of Turnipseed have been level, showing cool, empassioned reason over hyperbolic vitriol. His efforts have specific aims and strategies to achieve real goals. While his efforts to stop the new revision of the catechism failed, he gave a black eye to his opponents in the fight, creating a "mask off" moment regarding current church leadership.

Some of his contemporaries have not shown the same prudence. There's a mirror to the faux tough-guy persona stewards of the regime use to browbeat dissidents. They are more interested in getting a rise out of their enemies than working to achieve discernible goals. Instead of trying to browbeat those who can’t fight back, they are itching for a fight, the more powerful the better. One such person is Turnipseed's contemporary, Corey Mahler, a co-host of the Stone Choir Podcast. While a deeply intelligent man, he often goes on tirades that serve no useful purpose and have questionable, to put it mildly, theological grounds that sully some of his far deeper discourse. It's picking fights for the sake of picking fights like a drunkard.

This is seen outside of Evangelical circles as well. Former Catholic priest Frank Pavone was defrocked for disobeying his Bishop, blasphemous posting, and celebrating a Mass with an aborted fetus on the altar. While the pro-life cause is an honorable thing, he ended up committing blasphemy with his antics, turning a sacred ritual into a crude show to no gain. This wasn't a brave stance of a principled man, but a deeply deranged act to get a rise.

Then there's Father James Altman. Originally censured for an inflammatory sermon that received wide support among more traditional Catholics, he blew away all his social capital by going off the rails and making totally unhinged criticisms of Pope Francis, going so far as to say “The best thing we could do, would be to tie the great millstone around Jorge Bergoglio's neck and throw him into the deep blue Mediterranean Sea.” Now I had countless issues with Francis, but you expect better from a Priest.

These sorts of aggressive online barroom brawler antics are utterly incapable of doing what’s most important now, building new institutions. No one is going to trust a guy who posts his wild antics for internet clout for the same reason you don’t have the town brawler teach martial arts classes. Even if they’re right, even if they’re good at what they do, you can’t trust them to not blow themselves up and everyone else being hit with the shrapnel.

One might argue back by giving the example of our current president, who showed a devil may care attitude as he punched left and right, gleefully pushing the boundary of acceptable discourse that attracted the disenfranchised working class to his cause. One could point to firebrand Martin Luther, who successfully wrestled control from the Catholic Church to found a denomination that has tens of millions of adherers to this very day.

The issue is Trump 1.0, with his aggressive and erratic style was wholly unprepared for the Presidency, and made countless unnecessary blunders that made the race a nail-biter. Compare this to Trump 2.0, who had, at times, even more blistering rhetoric but much stronger focus, staying on message in ways that Trump 1.0 was incapable of. The difference is stark, which is why the 2024 campaign was one of the best presidential campaigns in modern history and formed a disciplined administration that was ready for war. Sure, there are still some blunders, some calls that didn’t pan out, and his social media “own the libs” style can be cringe-inducing, the man can’t help but fall into some bad habits, but the sense of direction is clear as well as the means to get there.

Martin Luther’s earlier vicious rhetoric helped to create the environment for a mass peasant revolt, a revolt he had to condemn in “Against the Murdering, Thieving Hordes of Peasants” (awesome title, too). It wasn’t until he buckled down later and wrote The Large Catechism and did the grueling work of building the foundations of his religion that he had anything that would stand the test of time. The “Instructions for the Visitors of Parish Pastors in Electoral Saxony” might be a lot less edgy and fun to write about than “The Jews and Their Lies,” but his theology survived, while his inflamed screeds are only remembered for their humorous quips. He was always a crude guy but tempered it when necessity.

Character Matters

I had a phenomenal martial arts instructor in college. The man had a knack to sift through all the nonsense of combat and give you the red meat that was necessary to make you a warrior. He was also constrained by numerous physical injuries and a deeply unfulfilling personal life. He would give exemplary classes that pushed you to your limits, and then in off-site events go on random, angry tirades. He would also mock students who weren’t even there for their deficiencies in front of everyone. He couldn’t keep his bitterness from coming out, couldn’t help but act like the top dog, and the club suffered under his leadership, regardless of how good the classes were. I have good memories of my time there, but I wouldn’t trust that guy to run anything, let alone teach my kids.

The instructor my kids currently train under doesn’t have the knowledge of my old instructor. He isn’t as accomplished, and the dojo he owns is modest, though with a dedicated following. He still knows his stuff, just not at the same level. What he does have is a strong but polite demeanor. He’s firm but respectful, having an even keel towards his students, showing the same discipline that he demands from the white belts. Even when in pain after surgery, his attitude never wavered. The type of man I can trust to teach my kids. Like in life, the ally in your life is not always the person who is the toughest, nor the person who is the most “based”. It’s the one you can trust to have your back, the type you can partner with without regretting it later. The type doesn’t need to peacock to get his point across.

Unless you’re a coach castigating a lazy team, or a soldier priming others for war, and have the gravitas to pull it off, there’s no need for tough guy talk. It’s off-putting, and largely outdated with current mediums of communication. If you have to have edgy outbursts, keep them to your group chats. If you feel the need to “own” your enemies, find a way to use that energy to galvanize your friends instead.

In conclusion, what the fuck did you just fucking say about me, you little bitch? I'll have you know I graduated top of my class in the Navy Seals, and I've been involved in numerous secret raids on Al-Quaeda, and I have over 300 confirmed kills. I am trained in gorilla warfare and I'm the top sniper in the entire US armed forces. You are nothing to me but just another target. I will wipe you the fuck out with precision the likes of which has never been seen before on this Earth, mark my fucking words. You think you can get away with saying that shit to me over the Internet? Think again, fucker. As we speak I am contacting my secret network of spies across the USA and your IP is being traced right now so you better prepare for the storm, maggot. The storm that wipes out the pathetic little thing you call your life. You're fucking dead, kid.

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