Christianity Archives - Page 32 of 38

The Death of Societal Masculinity and its Effect on Christian Men

In times past, young boys spent a great deal of time around their fathers and other men. They learned skills and behaviors associated with the same traditional masculinity that built the world. Boys learned to riff and wrestle. They learned to work and play. They learned to strike their enemies with a mighty slaughter and protect their family with ferocity. This type of man is a far cry from what presently exists in the Church and world. What went wrong with society that it would produce the feeble, testicle-deficient males we have today?

It started with the industrial revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries.

Prior to the advent of modern machinery that would eventually bring great ease to American life, boys spent their days working with their fathers on farms, hunting, fishing and doing masculine tasks. Most fathers worked from home (not in the pusillanimous ways that are done today by dad bod wielding men hunched over a keyboard for eight hours) and their sons worked with them. This hard labor would prepare the sons to take over the farm, or the smithy or whatever was the family business. Once machines began to expand in the marketplace, hundreds of jobs became available in the city.

Many fathers went to work in the factories and were out of the house for twelve or more hours a day. This meant that now the sons had to spend all their time around mommy.

Now there is nothing wrong with mommy, but children conform to whomever they spend the most time with.

If boys spend all their time around mom, they are going to be soft and effeminate like mom unless mom knows how to raise the son correctly by avoiding helicopter parenting and babying tactics.

Most moms don’t think to put their sons to work. They protect them from every conceivable harm, they prevent them from fighting and adventuring and block them from facing even the slightest level of adversity. Compound this helicopter parenting over 18 years and you have created a full-fledged pantywaist.

The boy had the perfect biological environment to grow up to be an absolute disgrace to masculinity.

These weak sons then grew up and gave birth to sons even weaker than themselves. Once married, these men removed their testicles and placed them in a box in the attic, never to be seen again. They let their wives wear the pants in the relationship and stopped them from enforcing any discipline on the new sons. No adversity was faced; therefore, no growth was experienced.

Boys continued to be weak boys for years, even generations.

It is almost a shame that the world is so safe that even the weakest men are able to pass on their genetics to another generation.

The weak, effeminate men who are fathers today are the same men who would have been eaten by lions thousands of years ago.

This cycle repeats itself today, which is why there are so many weak men in the world and especially in the Church. The Church is the breeding ground for weak men because women can try to override their natural tendency to seek out the most masculine genetics possible in favor of the best provider possible (and the best provider does not necessarily mean the most masculine provider).

Female spirituality and conviction can replace women’s natural desire to find the most “alpha” male and causes her to seek a good “spiritual leader”.

This is all fine and good, but good spiritual leaders are rarely masculine, primarily because men mistake their emotions for spirituality in the same ways that they mistake their lust for love.

How many masculine men do you have in your church? I find that about 5% of Church going men are masculine. It is our responsibility to undo this feminization of men.

The best thing we can do right now is to be more masculine in our own day to day lives.

We cannot pretend like this feminization of men has not affected us personally in some way.
We are not as hardened as Spartans.
We are not the men of the World Wars who withstood constant mortar fire for months.
We have become soft and set in our ways, so we must move towards Masculinity.
We have to train the body through exercise.
We have to train the mind through learning and reason.
We have to train the emotions through self control.
We must take small steps towards becoming more masculine every day so that we can become more masculine in a society where the feminine man is the ideal man.

Conduct yourself like a Man.

~Excerpt from the book: Spartan Christianity (Coming soon)

A Man of Action

Productive Uses of Masculine Aggression

A Brief Spartan Background and How it Relates to Christian Men

In Spartan culture, the strength of the males was tested from birth. When a new male was born, men of the town would inspect the child looking for areas of weakness or insufficiency. If a defect was found, the child would be tossed off a mountain, abandoned on the mountain or kept to act as a slave of the Spartans, known as a “helot”. Babies who passed inspection were bathed in wine rather than water in order to test and improve their strength.

By age seven, the boys were moved to the military school called the “Agoge” where they would learn basic subjects (math, reading etc.) but would primarily focus on training them for warfare. This training was sponsored by the state and was mandatory; The dormitory was a barracks.

At age twelve, the young men were stripped of all clothes except a red cloak. They were to make their own beds from reeds and the cloak in order to make them comfortable with discomfort and to prepare them to be highly mobile in times of war. They were given only small portions of food, usually black broth and a small amount of bread. They would then be encouraged to steal food from the town in order to develop speed and stealth, but the young men would be flogged and beaten if they were detected.

Every year Sparta would hold a “Contest of Endurance” before one of their pagan temples. The Spartan men would tie two young Spartans-in-training to a post with their arms above their head and flog them until one passed out. This was known as the “Diamastigosis” Sometimes the young men being flogged would die from pain or blood loss while trying to outlast each other.

At age 20 or 21 the Spartan males were given the chance to graduate into the full army. These young men were expected to be lifelong soldiers. To reach retirement age (60) for a Spartan man would be embarrassing, as death in battle was expected. No other occupation for a Spartan male was allowed. Any tradesman, craftsman or farmer who lived in Sparta was not considered a Free Citizen. The only Spartan citizens who were allowed gravestones were the men who died in battle or the women who died in childbirth.

After graduation, the new Spartan soldiers would still be given insufficient food and would have to continue to steal what they needed. The provided diet was tasteless, but this would build character and the ability to eat on the road without the need for pleasurable flavored foods.

Physical fitness was highly prized in Spartan culture. Any man who was physically unfit would be openly ridiculed by Spartan men and women and even risked being banished from Sparta because of their fatness.

Very small amounts of wine were consumed in Spartan culture, but excess drinking was highly discouraged as it was a sign of great weakness and a gateway to stupidity. The Spartans would sometimes force their helot slaves to drink wine to the point of drunkenness in order to teach their children how stupid it was to drink wine to excess and lose control of themselves.

Men would not be allowed to marry until they were thirty years old, and the women until they were twenty. If an exception was made and a man and woman were married earlier, they would not be allowed to live together until they came of age.

Some historians think that Spartan couples were never allowed to live together, and that the men would have to sneak out of the barracks to meet their wives for sex.

Even in marriage, emotional “love” was discouraged, as attachments might create weakness in the hearts of the Spartan men. If there were couples who truly loved each other, they kept this a secret.

Surrender in battle was completely unacceptable, an absolute disgrace. The Spartans who surrendered often killed themselves later out of shame. Nothing mattered outside of combat, and Death in Battle was the highest honor a Spartan man could attain.

And now the Spartans are legendary, and their way of life is attractive to people, especially young men, who crave to be part of something masculine, hyper-aggressive and exclusive.

(Source) (Another Source)

We should be the same way about our faith. Rigorous training from a young age resulting in a Christian who knows that nothing in life matters outside of the exclusive Church of God. We do not have that culture in the modern age. We have castrated men teaching their castrated sons how to be acceptable in a feminine-centric society and in an overly feminized religion.

It is frustrating to be a young man in the modern Church because there are no masculine role models to look up to. No one wants to be a part of the Church because it seems to be a social club for eunuchs.

Reject this weakness and take on the title of “Spartan Christian”: a man who compromises nothing regarding his faith and who will defend it with a barbaric, warlike ferocity as the Spartans once did.

Be a man who knows that death is honorable and surrender is unacceptable.
Be a man who despises spiritual unfitness and generates positive peer pressure on his associates in order to improve them.

The Church needs men who will banish other men who remain spiritually unfit (i.e. live sinful lives).

Men should have no intention of retiring from the faith.
Men should shun fleshly attachments that would make them weak or compromise their faith.

The Spartan Christian is a man who has testicles still attached, and that alone makes him a rare individual in the modern Church.

Be the Man. Gird up the loins of your Mind and go to War.

Productive Uses of Masculine Aggression

When raw, unbridled emotions are channeled into a controlled action, that action becomes unstoppable. Testosterone builds nations. Testosterone physically manifests itself by aggression. Aggression is anger under focused control.

“Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger”.
Ephesians 4:26

Aggression is an internal energy source that, if used properly, should be invisible to others. You aren’t getting in people’s faces and screaming, instead you are driven in your work and in navigating social circumstances. Train the body with aggression. You resist temptation with aggression aimed at the vile schemes of your demon. You build your relationships with aggression pointed at your own mediocrity. Controlled Aggression is the edge that puts you slightly ahead of the competition.

Aggression is different from anger in that it has something to aim at, while anger can be random and used blindly. A forest fire is uncontrolled and destroys everything in its path until stopped, while a blowtorch is a tool for building items of value. Both forest fires and blow torches use fire, the difference is that the blowtorch is highly controlled and its energy is concentrated into a single point.

Blowtorch. Aggression. — Blow Torch. Controlled. Mostly Good

Forest fire. Aggression — Forest fire. Uncontrolled. Mostly Bad

Anger and aggression are both tools that are highly interrelated, but for focused work you need an emotion that is not overbearing or difficult to control, and aggression is that emotion.

The weak men of the Church have spoken against aggression for years now.

They have all the intestinal fortitude of a castrated rabbit, and they expect you to be the same.

The results of the lack of proficiently channeled aggression is found sitting in the pews of the Church. Lack of aggression makes males fundamentally effeminate and therefore unable to attract high quality mates or contribute to society.

Aggression is not unbound or arbitrarily aimed. It is a focused and controlled energy that can help you earn the life you want.

The pain of physical training can be overridden with aggression.
The monotony of your job can be removed through aggression.
Use this masculine tool, this Gift of God, to your advantage, and bend the world to your will.

Mantra

I am aggressive. I destroy tasks and objectives with ease.

Application

Feeling the boredom in your cubicle? Think about all the time you are wasting there. Focus on what you would rather do, what you want to spend your life doing. Think about that and then get aggressive enough to outperform everyone else, make the money you want and get out of the office for good.

Concentrate your aggression and use it to earn what you want in life. Do not be afraid of aggression, it is a powerful tool that can be used to build anything you want. Ignore everything the men in your Church have to say about aggression. They wouldn’t know aggression if it swung an ax at them.

KEY: Men in the Church fear aggression because aggression is a byproduct of testosterone which is produced in the testicles which are the main items that men in the Church do not have. They are ashamed, afraid and embarrassed about their emasculation so they have to demonize every expression of aggression that they see. They will complain about aggression until they need the help of police or the protection of the military who routinely use aggression to crush evil.

One of the best applications of aggression is to use it to overcome fear or discomfort. Again, the best way to start learning how to use the “hot emotions” is to use them on something physical like your physical training before moving on to something that needs better control, such as applying aggression to intellectual work or building businesses.

By this time you should already be training the physical body on most, but preferably all days of the week. Applied aggression will allow you to push the envelope in your training.

If you are performing squats with a certain weight and aiming for 15 repetitions, the first 8 may be easy before the physical pain begins to come into your mind and body. When the pain arrives, this is where you want to call upon aggression. All those dark thoughts you have as a man and violent tendencies can be directed into your training.

Get Angry, or rather express the anger that already lives inside of you. Force yourself to concentrate on expressing your anger in a controlled way, without allowing your body mechanics to break down.

Do not call on aggression for the first few repetitions, you will need that energy later.

Avoid getting overly “Hyped”, or you will lose control of yourself during the exercise and fail to perform it properly. The first repetitions should be totally in your control and you should have perfect form in completing them so that when you get to the final, aggressive reps, you are already performing perfect reps.

Using aggression can apply to team sports as well, just remember the guiding principle:

Do not call upon aggression until you experience pain and difficulty.

Do not mindlessly apply aggression 100% of the time, that is not productive because you lose the ability to be rational and you will run out of aggression. Applying your aggression to some physical endeavor is extremely therapeutic.

Once you have mastered applying aggression to physical outlets, you can move on to endeavors that are more difficult. It is harder to use aggression for study or business, but it can be done.

For study you have a few options:

Use aggression towards classmates or competitors in the same way that you use aggression towards opposing players on sports teams. You are not trying to express violence towards them, but instead you are cultivating a desire to outperform them.
Become angry with your mediocrity. Become as aware as possible of the depth of your ignorance. The thought of how little you know about anything and everything in the world should begin to stir up some disappointment in who you are and how immature your way of thinking is. Do not let the disappointment last, instead convert it to aggression. Become angry at your ignorance and destroy it by acquiring more knowledge.
Increase endurance in study by properly using aggression. In the same basic way that you apply aggression in your physical training, you must also apply it in study. After a certain amount of time spent learning, you naturally begin to tire. You decide that it is time for a break or that you can learn no more for the day, but the mind is much more resilient than that.

Instead of retiring for the day, take the break you were intending to take instead. During your break you must fuel your mind with aggression and aggressive thoughts. Take a walk and think about being victorious and about gaining knowledge. Remember that only the weak make excuses. Become disgusted with your desire for rest because it is a desire of weakness. Become disgusted with those around you who have fallen victim to the excuses they make in their minds and have failed on themselves as a result. Your cultivated aggression should stir up “hot emotions” and thoughts that override your desire for rest. You catch a second wind and can start working again.

For Business:

Become fueled by a desire to destroy your competitors. Business is war, and you must be willing to engage in warlike behavior in order to win. This does not differ all the way from the large business owner to the small “mail-room worker”. All working individuals need an aggressive drive that pushes them to be more.

Men are constantly competing over resources and women, you can put yourself ahead of the pack if you learn to concentrate aggression into your work. This will allow you to work harder and longer than anyone else. When you are working and you begin to fatigue, you must think of the enemy: he is working, training and preparing. And if you do not work, train and prepare more than he does then he will kill you.

You must think these warlike thoughts. Override your fatigue with aggression.

Obviously there can be several additional examples of applying aggression in study or business, but these should suffice to get your mind working in the right direction. From these basic four tactics, you can build your own tactics and ways to productively use your God-given aggression.

Conduct yourselves like men.

Master of Mind

The mind is the central command center for everything that will happen in your body.

“Let your eyes look directly ahead And let your gaze be fixed straight in front of you.”
Proverbs 4:25

“Therefore, prepare your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
1 Peter 1:13

The Spartan Christian believes that the mind is separate from the brain. The mind is the source of consciousness while the brain is a physical manifestation of what man thinks is the source of thoughts. While the brain will be left on earth after death the mind and consciousness endure. The mind is not affected by the various chemicals that are released and absorbed by the brain. Unlike the brain, the mind is not a physical entity.

All emotions can be simplified to various brain chemicals.

Science believes it can link every emotion with a certain chemical or a combination of chemicals. These compounds influence or are controlled by the brain, the physical structure. The mind is above these chemicals and compounds, it can even control them through the application of thought, a phenomenon known as the placebo effect.

The mind has the power to change the very chemistry of the brain and the body simply by altering the thoughts.

Simple but not easy.

The mind is the root of many problems, the majority of which are fabricated and are never realized. We allow ourselves to worry and be overcome by anxiety. We allow the body to be negatively affected by the mind. We entertain thoughts that drain our strength rather than thoughts that give us the mental edge. We have the ability to correct this, we simply have to overcome the initial friction.

The mind creates stress, anxiety, fear, anger, hatred, love, joy, gratitude and peace. Series of thoughts are linked together until they create these emotions and mindsets. In order to create good mental states and avoid negative ones, the correct thought sequences must be created while simultaneously destroying the negative sequences. If you can remove one step from the sequence of negative thoughts, you may be able to stop the entire emotion. If you can then interject a new thought you can translate the momentum from the negative mindset into the positive one. On these two foundational abilities rests the complete control of the mind.

Control the mind, or the mind will control you.

Application

The reason so many people have problems with their mental state is because they are unaware of it. The mind does not gravitate towards higher, nobler places of its own accord. The mind must be pushed to positive states by creating the correct thought environment. If you can master your mind, mastery of the body becomes easier.

By this point you should be an expert in the field of awareness. So as you know, the key to mental mastery always begins with awareness. How will you translate your thinking if you are not aware of the thoughts in your mind? You will not be able to.

Primary Objective I: Derail Negative Thinking.

If we can involuntarily “lose our train of thought”, then we absolutely can voluntarily derail our thinking if we apply effort. Human beings always want change to be painless and effortless. We must purge this thinking from our mind.

If you attempt to derail a train of thought but fail because it requires effort, do not give up. Shifting thought patterns will take focused effort, it will not come naturally because you have not practiced doing so for your entire life. The “Get in shape fast and easy” marketing strategy does not apply in real life, so why would it apply to our mental strength?

The train is derailed by first recognizing the thoughts and taking an objective, detached view of where those thoughts are taking you.

If your thinking is taking you directly to fear and anxiety, it must be averted. Become aware of the thought sequence that is in your mind and accept that it is irrational. Your thinking has no logic and no grounds and will likely never become realized in matters of fear and anxiety. Your fears almost never come true.

Upon this recognition, many individuals will find that they already derailed their train. For many people awareness alone is enough to correct the weak patterns of thought. This is why awareness is vitally important to any type of change.

The thoughts can also be derailed by switching the mind off completely. Note: this prevents you from creating positive mental states. But having no mental state is much better than having a weak, negative one.

If you are a man, you likely know how to switch your mind off unless you have some sort of disorder.

If you have a disorder, you should be a subject matter expert in it.

If you have a fear or anxiety disorder, you should be researching everything you possibly can about your enemy. You cannot defeat it without intelligence.

Lastly, get moving. You can flood your brain with chemical reinforcements if you will get up and train your body. Overcoming adversity and making progress are possible in the physical simulation that is exercise.

While training we are simulating adversity, simulating problems and challenges, and overcoming them in a controlled environment. The experience gained in simulation then transfers to life. The strong mental state you created in physical training then becomes a strong mental state in the real world.

You are already “in the zone” after training, so now it is that much easier to be in the zone in your regular life. There is no excuse to avoid training the body. The fact that training the body also trains the mind is an added bonus.

Primary Objective II: Generate Positive Thinking. Once you are aware of the thought, you can derail it by instantly replacing it with a different thought. This can be done simply by analyzing your situation and distilling the pros from it. This is the “Good” method promoted by Retired Navy Seal Jocko Willink in his text, “Discipline Equals Freedom: Field Manual”. Something terrible happens? Good. Your character improves. Stressed because you might not get the new job? Good. You have time to make a better resume and strengthen your weak faith.

The mind can also be shifted to something different by forcing a new train of thought onto the same rails as the negative train. Convert your mind to a subject that you are excited about, one that will benefit you later on down the road and your mindset will change.

You can focus on what inspires growth or on what promotes fear. Fear can inspire growth, but wallowing in fear never led to any type of progress.

Focus on your career goals, family goals and personal goals. Start adding to those goals and make them difficult for you to achieve. You will never be more proud of yourself than when you accomplish something extremely difficult. By focusing on goals instead of fear, you create a productive train of thought. Control your mind. Generate wisdom. Win your mental wars.

Dealing With Hypocritical Church Members: Correcting Hypocrisy II

Correct the self first, then correct others.

Included at the bottom of this page is the protocol for dealing with three types of hypocritical Christians.

“Better is open rebuke than hidden love.”
Proverbs 27:5

“As for those who persist in sin, rebuke them in the presence of all, so that the rest may stand in fear.”
1 Timothy 5:20

“The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself brings shame to his mother.”
Proverbs 29:15

“Do not reprove a scoffer, or he will hate you; reprove a wise man, and he will love you. Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be still wiser; teach a righteous man, and he will increase in learning.”
Proverbs 9:8-9

“Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent.”
Revelation 3:19

Three problems have arisen because of the ways people interpret the teaching of Jesus about hypocrisy.

One

No one corrects anyone in the Church because they are afraid of being hypocritical, thinking that they themselves must first be perfect before they can criticize anyone else.

Two

Individuals have acquired the classic “You cannot judge me” attitude, and assume that everyone has some form of hypocritical trait which prevents them from passing any judgment.

Three

People think that they have no beams at all and are therefore free to criticize and rebuke anyone they want.

Let’s break down each of these reasons.

1 – The fear of rebuking and criticizing hypocritical brethren has been a longstanding fear in the Church. The results of this became apparent in the last sixty years with the baby boomer generation and the”no spanking” parenting movements.

Congratulations, not disciplining children resulted in the worst generations to exist.

Men must take the offensive position and correct the wrongs they see in others. We do not have to be flawless to point out flaws. The teaching of Christ seems to point at people who are rebuke others for the same sin that they themselves are engaged in. A drunkard rebuking another man for drinking, for instance.

2 – The world has confused the idea of “judge that you be not judged” with the fallacy of “do not judge at all”. We judge people by our very nature, it is not something we can avoid. Humans are constantly making judgements about our fellow-man based first on how he looks, and secondly on how he acts. We do judge other men, and the reality is that we are allowed to do so. The text simply says that the standard we use to judge others will be used to judge us. There is difference between not judging entirely and using a fixed standard to judge which we also apply to ourselves. Are we measuring up to our own scrutiny?

3 – Some individuals have come to think they are perfect. They are hypocritical, stupid and know nothing. This unfortunately tends to be older women first. Older men maintain a close second place followed by middle-aged women and lastly middle aged men. Young men and women who think they are perfect are simply classic narcissists. It is almost impossible to deal with any of these toxic types.

The purpose of the teaching of Christ is to guide us towards being more self-aware of our own behavior.

We need to conduct thorough examinations of ourselves, taking inventory of our character and of where we fall short. Through this we can begin to improve on these weaknesses which improves our character overall. Through years of this focused application and the teaching we may wake to find ourselves significantly improved from our earlier state. Then others come us for advice and guidance on how to improve their own lives and weaknesses.

Correct the self first, then correct others.

Application

Dealing with the Three Types of Hypocritical Church Members

One: People who are afraid to rebuke others want to be liked, and no one likes the man who rebukes others. This is simply human nature. These people must be instructed on how to deliver a rebuke that does not seem like a rebuke.

The difference between a rebuke that a man will take to heart and a criticism that will cause you to be hated by the man is all in the delivery. The delivery must be tailored to the personality of the person you are speaking to.

Aggressive, egotistical types need an aggressive criticism, because they understand that type of power.

They must be withstood to the face as Paul addressed Peter in front of the whole Church. Peter was a strong, extroverted personality type that would respond best to that type of address.

Quiet introverted people need to be taken aside and spoken to quietly.

An open rebuke would do infinitely more harm than good to the introvert. This is seen with the teacher Apollos in Acts 18. Apollos taught boldly, but he only knew the baptism of John. Priscilla and Aquila took him aside and taught him the Way of God more accurately.

While the scripture might seem to indicate that Apollos was a strong personality type (he taught boldly/refuted vigorously the Jews in public) it seems less likely that he would become a “learned man” as an extremely extroverted person.

To become a “very learned” or eloquent man and one who can debate vigorously requires a great deal of time spent alone in study. Lecturers, professors and people who engage in debate tend to actually be introverts much of the time. Therefore, it seems that Apollos was likely an introvert who would respond better to quiet admonition and instruction rather than a public address.

Tailor the delivery of your rebuke/admonition to the personality of the individual you are speaking to and you will have a much greater chance of being heard.

Two

People who think the Text says “you cannot judge me” are narcissists who only see what they want to see in the scriptures. They want to live their own life in the way they desire and still sneak into heaven at the end. This type of individual is usually a young person, as you will rarely heard older people tell you not to judge them.

It is extremely difficult to instruct this type of individual because they are likely the result of lax parenting. The primary way to get your message across to them is to first strengthen your relationship with them. People deal better with criticism when it comes from someone they have a relationship with and when the delivery is properly tailored to their personality type. Open rebuke does little for those individuals, they will just hate you for embarrassing them. Be strategic in your approach.

Three

The classic narcissists who think they are perfect need open rebukes. They have constructed a false self-image that needs to be shattered.

The old need to remember they are not perfect.

Relationship is not necessary here, for these people also think they themselves can criticize others without having a relationship with them. They need to understand their own position and they need to be instructed as to why their criticisms of others are not taken to heart. They are the Medusas who must be shown their own reflection. Give them a taste of what they give out, because they have forgotten what their reflection really looks like.

Some will humble themselves and repent, others will simply find another church that will tolerate their narcissism. In this way you have purged you assembly of these self-absorbed, hypocritical parasites and judged with righteous judgement.

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