One of the more popular attacks made on Christianity and the Bible is this idea.
“The Bible endorses slavery”.
The short response is this: there is a huge difference between endorsing slavery and providing regulations for the institution of slavery that has been consistently practiced across time and culture.
Additionally, we must define terms when we talk about slavery. Slavery in America is a far cry from slavery across time and history. Each iteration of slavery in history is different across time, therefore blanket statements cannot be made about slavery.
I – What was slavery in history?
Human beings have always held slaves. Just because this is what human beings do does not mean that God condones it. There are many behaviors that people engage in that God does not condone – but He allows it to happen so we can use our free moral agency. God also does not condone sex outside of marriage or between people of the same gender, so He placed regulations on marriage.
The institution of slavery has changed significantly throughout history, encompassing a wide range of practices with differing levels of treatment of enslaved individuals. To fully understand the complexities of slavery, it is crucial to examine the cultural context of different eras and regions.
1 – Slavery in Ancient Egypt: The Plight of the Israelites
In ancient Egypt, the Israelites endured a period of brutal slavery. As depicted in the biblical narrative of Exodus, they faced harsh labor, dehumanization, and oppressive conditions. This would continue for about 400 years. The Israelites were subjected to forced labor, building monumental structures such as the pyramids under the command of their Egyptian masters. Their treatment exemplified the extreme end of the spectrum regarding the abuse and mistreatment of enslaved individuals.
Why is it then, when people criticize slavery, that no one points fingers at the Egyptians for their treatment of slaves across centuries? No, but we will take a vacation to go photograph the Spinx, pyramids, and other great structures so we can post them on social media. We call the result of slave labor in Egypt one of the great wonders of the world but tear down historic plantations in America.
This is one of the many examples of a double standard with regard to passing judgment on civilizations that have owned slaves. Much of it is rooted in simple hatred of America. Racist individuals blame America for slavery but turn a blind eye to all other civilizations that have engaged in the same.
2 – Slavery in Ancient Greece and Rome: A Shift in Dynamics
Ancient Greece
In ancient Greece, slavery played a significant role in the socioeconomic system. Slaves were acquired through various means, including capture in wars, debt bondage, and birth into slavery. While the treatment of slaves varied, they generally experienced a lack of personal freedom and were subject to their owners’ authority. However, some slaves in Greece enjoyed relatively better treatment, particularly those who worked as household servants or tutors.
Roman Empire
Slavery in the Roman Empire demonstrated notable shifts in treatment compared to earlier civilizations. The Romans acquired slaves through conquest, trade, and birth. While some slaves endured harsh conditions, such as those engaged in manual labor or as gladiators, others held more privileged positions. Slaves were employed as tutors, doctors, accountants, and administrators, and their skills were valued. Roman society recognized that treating slaves with fairness and respect could help with productivity and loyalty. Some slaves were even able to earn their freedom through work or valor in gladiatorial tournaments.
3 – Cultural Context: Understanding the Variations in Slavery
It is crucial to acknowledge that not all forms of slavery are equal, and the treatment of slaves varied significantly depending on the cultural context. And nearly every nation across history can point to a time when they likely employed some version of slavery. And some even suggest today that a modern form of slavery exists called “wage slavery”, which is not a completely misguided notion.
Slavery in ancient Egypt was characterized by its cruelty and dehumanization, while in ancient Rome, slaves could experience a wide range of treatment, from harsh conditions to relative fairness and respect.
The cultural, social, and economic factors of each society influenced the treatment of slaves. In Rome, for instance, the concept of “paterfamilias” granted masters immense power over their slaves. However, philosophical ideas and shifting moral standards also played a role in shaping attitudes toward slavery. Stoic philosophy, prevalent in ancient Rome, emphasized the moral duty of masters to treat slaves justly and humanely.
“Hitting closer to home, the pages of history dealing with the formative years of the United States are despoiled with gruesome stories of ships carrying slaves sold to the Americas by their fellow Africans (and others, e.g., Arabians). These slaves frequently were packed so densely in lower ship decks that many of them died of disease or malnutrition. Those who lived to see the States soon learned that their fate hinged upon those who purchased them. Some slaves were ushered into homes with kind masters, decent living facilities, good food, and freedom to worship. Other slaves were purchased by cruel, greedy people who overworked them, abused them, underfed them, and allowed them no freedom”
II – What was slavery in the Bible?
Slavery means different things in different places.
The Israelites were slaves to Egyptians in the classic sense of slavery. this is what we might traditionally think of when we picture slavery.
There are references to slaves in the new testament, especially the Epistles which advocate for fair and equal treatment of slaves, who were likely closer to employees than actual slaves in some instances. But this is not what we might think of when we picture slaves.
Modern people often picture slavery in America when they are asked to think about what slavery means. Many times, American slavery was closer to voluntary work [if there is such a thing] than what the Israelites were experiencing. In fact, it may be closer to what we classically call “jobs”. And in fact, later in the Biblical text, Christians will be told to “become slaves of righteousness” [Rom 6:18]. And the etymology of the word teaches us that a slave is someone who sets aside the personal desire for the desire of the master [a lesson in itself].
III – Human nature.
Human beings have engaged in various immoral practices throughout history, including slavery. However, it is essential to understand that just because people engage in certain behaviors does not mean that God endorses or condones those actions. God allows humans to exercise their free moral agency, which includes making choices that are contrary to His will.
Slavery is an unfortunate consequence of human free will, not a divine endorsement.
The Bible often portrays God using the behavior of His people to bring about His ultimate purposes. This does not mean that God approves of every action taken by individuals, including slavery. Instead, God may work within the existing societal framework to gradually shape human understanding and guide people toward justice and righteousness.
Throughout history, we have witnessed gradual transformations in societal norms, including the abolition of slavery [thanks to America, the supposed boogeyman of slavery], driven by a growing understanding of human rights and dignity.
When examining the New Testament’s references to slavery, it is key to recognize that the institution described differs significantly from the brutal, dehumanizing slavery that we often associate with historical accounts.
In the context of the New Testament, the term “slavery” referred to a broader range of relationships that encompassed general work and employment arrangements. Slavery in the ancient Roman world involved various degrees of servitude, ranging from indentured laborers to those employed as household servants.
It is important to note that the New Testament teachings emphasized fair treatment and respect for slaves, urging masters to treat their servants justly and kindly. The Bible advocates for human-like work conditions.
IV – Slavery is a Cultural Phenomenon
The Bible is a collection of texts written over a long period of time, reflecting the ethical development and understanding of human societies at various times. God’s attitude and thoughts towards slavery never change because God Himself does not change [Malachi 3:6]. The Bible contains passages that reflect the cultural norms of their time, including slavery, but they should not be seen as definitive statements on God’s stance regarding slavery.
Slavery existed across cultures and across time. God did not approve of it, He simply communicated to His people the manner in which slaves were to be treated which included fairness, decency, and respect that is deserved by all people.
V – America receives the most criticism about slavery even though it was a county that Abolished it.
Very few people sit around criticizing China for the fact that they have slaves even now, in this very day. If you own a smartphone, chances are it was produced as a result of modern slave labor.
But many modern people are too steeped in the irrational hatred of America, which is generally their own country, to have time to pay attention to Chinese slave labor. And even if they knew, most of them likely would not care. After all, “Chinese slavery is something happening “over there”, it does not affect me, so why should I care?”
While slavery has been a dark chapter in human history across various regions, it is important to address the selective criticism leveled at certain countries, particularly America. Despite being a country that abolished slavery, America often receives the majority of the blame and scrutiny regarding its historical involvement in the institution. This focus on America, while important for acknowledging past wrongs, overshadows the ongoing instances of slavery in other parts of the world.
China continues to face accusations of forced labor and human rights abuses.
In recent years, reports have highlighted the existence of modern-day slavery within manufacturing and agriculture in China. However, these instances receive considerably less attention and criticism compared to America’s historical past.
The discrepancies in criticizing different countries suggest that the issue of slavery is often influenced by political, social, and historical factors. While it is essential to confront and acknowledge historical wrongs, it is equally important to shed light on present-day instances of slave owning, irrespective of the country involved.
Matt 19:3-10 outlines the key authority for the fact that there were some things permitted in the Old Testament that did not reflect God’s will.
Because of the hardness of Israel’s heart, God allowed certain things, including divorce and slave owning even though these did not reflect His will.
The OT clearly teaches people to love their neighbors (Lev 19:18). But just because something is a command in scripture does not mean that men will be obedient to it or live out the complete ideal.
Even today, when the complete pattern for the church is laid out in the New Testament, how many denominations and religions try to invent their own path to God? The ideal exists in the NT, but men still fail to live up to it.
Slavery often existed as a form of debtors’ prison or a way to do something with prisoners of war. And as such, humane regulations for the institution were required.
Certain types of slavery are not morally wrong.
When someone is sentenced to prison, he is a slave of the state for a period of years, sometimes even his whole life. And during this time he is forced by the state to do things he would rather not do. His choices cost him his freedom. This is a morally acceptable revocation of freedoms which could accurately be described as slavery.
The Israelites were forced to deal with the nations that they encountered by destroying them completely, but when they were unable to do this, they had to do something with the survivors. Usually, they put them in Servitude or under tribute. They were allowed to live but under slave conditions.
What is better: complete eradication from the face of the earth or a life of servitude?
God does not condone slavery. He simply regulated it in scripture to allow for the humane treatment of people who would otherwise have been left to suffer under the discretion of man.
The purpose here is to outline why many people [primarily women] have difficulty understanding why men and boys do dangerous things for seemingly little reward. The primary accusation that we, as men receive from time to time, is the following: “Boys are stupid”.
No context. No attempt to delve deeper. Just a surface-level judgment passed by many people who do not understand why it is that boys and men do the things they do. This is understandable in a way. Because men tend to know about men’s things and women tend to know about women’s things. We seldom take time to understand the other sex.
You hear “Boys are Stupid” parroted even by some men.
Generally, these men have forgotten what it is like to be a boy. Or they have forgotten what it is like to have to earn their place in a group of other males. The main type of men repeating this accusation are ones resting on the laurels of previous accomplishments. I’m much less forgiving of men who repeat back the idea that boys are stupid as opposed to women because men should know better. When the accusation comes from women it’s understandable since the majority of women do not know why it is important for boys to be “stupid”.
What is the evidence for this statement? Many will cite that men/boys [who we will just combine and refer to as “males” for this discussion] engage in behaviors that are dangerous for no reason.
The faulty idea that dangerous acts are done for no reason at all is key to figuring out why boys appear to be doing stupid things.
When boys play they are trying to see who can jump off the highest rock without getting injured. Maybe they try to see who can throw the biggest object at their friend while their friend tries not to move. Perhaps they try to climb the highest tree and hold on with one arm.
Males do dangerous things. It makes us feel alive and masculine in a world that stifles masculine energies.
And in the minds of many women, this “meaningless danger” is absurd. And from a woman’s viewpoint, that is an understandable conclusion to draw. What women don’t understand, because they do not have to understand, is the role these seemingly dangerous behaviors play in demonstrating courage in the men’s group.
One of the four principles attributes of men, as outlined by Jack Donovan, is courage. The four attributes are components that make men masculine across time and culture. Go back as far as you want in history, and go into any culture you want, and the common themes of masculinity will be these four virtues. Courage, along with strength, mastery, and honor, are the attributes that across time and culture are consistently associated with masculinity.
For a man to have greater strength means he is more masculine and more valuable to the group of men.
A weak man is less valuable to the group. He is less valuable both to men and women. A man does not get bonus points for being weak, but he gains points for being strong. It does not matter if a woman does or does not have strength. She is not less of a woman for being physically weak. And she is not more of a woman if she is physically strong. Her physical strength has no bearing on her value to a women’s group and intersexual social groups while a man’s strength is very important to his value in the men’s group.
If he has mastery of a skill, he is more valuable. He can provide something to the group of men that improves the group.
Whether it is the ability to build, make weapons, fight [which can be combined with strength], or any other observable skill – to have more or better skills makes a man a more valuable man. He is more of a man than a male with less skill mastery. Whether or not a woman has the skill, she is valuable to a group. She does not necessarily have to pursue mastery in anything she does. She is certainly welcome to pursue mastery, and many women become masters of many crafts. But she will not be considered a deadbeat if she masters no skills throughout her life. She will be competent at many skills, but she will not have mastery and this is perfectly acceptable. However, that is not the case for men.
Each of the four attributes are facets of masculinity that every man must develop.
He has no choice but to develop himself unless he wishes to be less valued in the men’s group. Women do not have to develop any of these attributes if they wish to be valuable. They are not more womanly if they have strength, courage, mastery, or honor. But men are certainly more masculine if they have these attributes. Women are not less womanly if they do not develop strength, courage, mastery, or honor. But a man is certainly more masculine if he develops these attributes. And it is the fact that women do not experience the pressure to develop these attributes that is a key reason why they do not understand why men have to develop them. And also why they do not understand the cost of developing these traits, as well as the price of not developing them.
If a man is courageous, he is more valuable to the group – and this is the key virtue to pay attention to when discussing the dangerous acts that males engage in.
For the purposes of this discussion, courage isthe willingness to risk harm to oneself for the betterment or safety of the group.
And in the context of men and masculinity, this is the willingness of a man to confront something dangerous in order to promote the betterment or safety of the group.
How do you know who is going to be brave? Well, you don’t. But you do know that you don’t want to wait until you are in a survival situation to find out.
This is where and why males engage in seemingly stupid activities. This is because they are trying to demonstrate courage to the group. And they are trying to do so in a controlled environment before they are in a survival situation.
Before men are dropped into a survival situation by world circumstances they evaluate one another in a survival simulation. Dangerous play is the first survival simulation boys experience.
Like the other masculine attributes already mentioned, women do not have to demonstrate courage. They are certainly capable of being courageous, and they do courageous things all the time, but they do not have to be courageous in order to be womanly and valuable. Their worth is not diminished if they are not brave, because that’s the man’s role after all. But a man must be courageous in order to be masculine and valuable.
If the ship is going down, women are expected to take the life rafts and take the children with them to safety. If a man takes a life raft, he is a coward.
A woman is not expected to be courageous in this survival situation, but a man is. If a woman stays on the ship or leaves, in either case, her worth is not diminished. But a man only has one option unless he wants to be known as weak and demonstrate a lack of courage.
But before a man proves he is willing to lay down his life for the betterment of the group in a survival situation, he must first demonstrate this willingness in small dangers.
He must take on small challenges that do not risk his life, but may certainly end with him in an arm cast.
By doing these things he proves his worth to the men’s group. Women do not have to engage in this behavior to prove their worth to the women’s group or to other men.
This is mainly because women are born with the ability to give birth and raise children. By virtue of this, women are born with their value, while men’s value must be built from the ground up.
A woman’s worth is certainly not limited to her childbearing ability – she can absolutely increase her own value using a plethora of techniques.
But the fact remains that she begins life with a baseline value due to her incredible ability to bring children into the world.
I know someone will end up saying, “Wow, you are just reducing a woman to her reproductive structures and are treating her like an incubator”. And that is certainly not the case. That is why I take the time to note, again, that women can furtherincrease their value – it is just that they start out with a baseline level of value while men do not. And even if they never increased their value through skill acquisition and personal development, they would still be perceived as valuable because of their ability to have children.
If a man does not build his own value he will not have any – nothing is given to him by virtue of his reproductive capabilities because his sperm is cheap while her eggs are expensive. No man was ever a valuable man just because he was a man.
Boys have an innate understanding of this need to prove themselves to the group. Before the feminized school system educates their masculinity out of them, boys have a built-in understanding of the need to take on small risks and engage in slightly dangerous behaviors in order to prove value to the group. They will not be fully trusted or accepted if they do not do this. To be “one of the gang” you have to do something a little dangerous. While they may be taunted by women who say that “boys are stupid”, these young men know what they have to do.
Women never engage in such a developmental gauntlet. They do not need to. And as a result, they often do not understand when men engage in these behaviors.
Well, ladies, those “stupid boys” are just trying to get a head start on building the value that you were already born with.
The following are a few notes and comments I made from a sermon that is available to you online on the topic of “Put down your trumpet”. It includes some interesting points that I believe are worth noting. I hope you find it interesting.
42:45 – 43:16 – Does it matter why we do something? The speaker suggests yes because it “causes problems later”. Here is the Transcript from this timestamp:
“Does it matter why we do what we do or does it just matter that we do the right thing? Well I guess you could ask this in a number of different settings couldn’t you?
If you asked within a marriage to a husband or a wife does it matter what you do in a marriage or does it matter why you do it?
I think every husband and every wife would say of course it matters why my husband or why my wife is doing something. I don’t just want them to do the right thing I want them to do it for the right reason”.
“I think” – Note that this is not a fact. This is what the speaker thinks. Based not on reason but emotion. He begins to make a point about what a wife or husband would want. I suppose this is an attempt to translate it into something God would want. For example, “If a wife or husband acts this way then God would act this way too”. This is not a position supported by scripture [Is. 55:8].
“Right Reason” – The speaker refuses to define what the right reason is. Who has the boldness to define such a thing? What is the reason? We seldom take time to define the “right reason” because it would require some combination of biblical evidence and rationality – something we try to avoid in religion if we can. A biblical bit of evidence for this entire cited section is lacking. Not that the evidence is not there, but this is something to note.
What about some comments on rules and motivation?
43:21-43:53 – In a family does it matter why a mother and a father give rules? Does it matter why they discipline? Does it matter why they give their children structure? It certainly does. Because the wrong motivation can lead to to some wrong things occurring in that family. Within that same family, does it matter why children obey or does it just matter that they do what they’re told? Well, it certainly matters why – because if they’re not obeying for the right reasons then that obedience is certainly not what God’s looking for”.
Let’s analyze a few of the statements made here.
“The wrong motivation can lead to some wrong things occurring in that family”. I always enjoy when a speaker takes the following stance “Well if you don’t do it my way, then bad things will happen later. I won’t specify them, but they are things, and they are very, very bad”. It is very common for a speaker to take this stance when discussing sexual discipline. “Don’t have sex before marriage or baaad, very bad things will happen“. This may be true, but the fact that the “problems” are not specified and then the cause of those problems is not identified nor the progression from faulty motivation to negative outcome analyzed, this statement is relegated to opinion.
“That obedience is certainly not what God is looking for”. Well, then what type of obedience is God looking for? Again, what are the so-called “right reasons”? If these are not specified, the entire speech runs into problems because underlying motivation is a core tenant of the speech. But we cannot make assumptions about that topic. But because the speaker does not address the topic, we can only assume.
I also enjoy when people speak for God without BCV [book chapter verse]. If you are going to say God is or is not looking at something, you better immediately back it up with scripture or you are speaking in the place of God without authorization.
Again, this is a doctrinal matter when we start to talk about acceptable and unacceptable forms of obedience – and it demands a “God Said”.
“Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you. They make you worthless; They speak a vision of their own heart, Not from the mouth of the Lord.”
When it comes to our actions, it is possible to do:
Good things for the bad/wrong reasons.
Good things for good/right reasons.
Bad things for the good/right reasons.
Bad things for bad/wrong reasons.
These are the 4 possible permutations of this viewpoint. Perhaps there can also be combinations of motivations, which is an intellectually rigorous topic that will not be discussed here.
To analyze the motivations/intents etc. behind actions is of secondary importance as opposed to looking at the outcomes or actions themselves. This is not binary thinking – I am not suggesting that motivations do not matter at all. What I am suggesting is a hierarchy, where the actions themselves are primary and the intentions/motivations are secondary.
I understand that there is a delineation between the old and new laws of the Bible. While the old law focused primarily on the action of the individual, the new law focuses on a person’s attitude and inner person, their thinking center, in conjunction with their actions [because a person’s action will show his heart – Matt 15].
I’m not suggesting an OT style of what might be labeled legalism by the uninformed. At the risk of seeming to be a reductionist, I am suggesting that when a person’s intentions, motivations, attitude, or heart may seem to be opposing what he wants to do, as in temptation, it is his actions that are most important.
Does it matter if your intentions were good if you fail to resist temptation?
Does it matter what you were motivated by or the reason behind why you did something if you failed in the end? No, because at the end of the day you failed, you sinned.
On the other hand: what if I do what’s right despite my intention and motivations?
What if I hold on to righteousness by the skin of my teeth through vicious spiritual warfare [Eph 6]?
What if I’m very motivated to do what’s wrong yet I do what’s right anyways out of love for God?
Or what if I’m very tempted and have a strong desire to sin, but even though I’m not feeling the so-called “loving” emotion at the time, out of an obedient, action-based love for God I keep his commandments [John 14:15, 21]?
As you can see there are times when intentions or motivations are opposed to the righteousness of God and to the lives He requires us to live.
Nevertheless, it is primarily our actions that determine rightness. Actions again are primary while intentions are merely “a shadow of the thing, but not the very image of the thing”.
It perturbs Me when speakers come to moral conclusions without biblical evidence or logical sequencing of events. If someone dares to place a moral requirement on members of the church, he better do so with the explicit authorization of God as evidenced by scripture – the BCV.
It is critical to understand this point about the Bible, and about placing religious requirements on individuals, that each of those requirements has the authorization of the word of God.
Doctrinal matters demand a “God said”. Without “God Said” in conjunction with a logical argument, the religious requirements placed on individuals are relegated to the category of “Opinion”. Worse yet, they should be relegated to the category “doctrines of men”, which by biblical definition constitute vain worship [Matt 15:9]
48:50 – 49:04: “Beware of practicing your righteousness [that’s an entire category of good works that you and I might do publicly or maybe even privately]. Beware of practicing your righteousness – this is not the righteousness that that the Holy Spirit helps us develop in our lives that’s kind of inward righteousness, or the righteousness that God attributes to us when we obey the gospel.”
The speaker also makes a comment about inward righteousness that one develops inwardly with the assistance of the Holy Spirit. Unless the speaker means that the Holy Spirit assists the individual through the word of God, then He has no evidence for his statement. Because the only way the Spirit works today is through the word of God. That is the only way the Spirit works that we have biblical evidence for [Heb 4:12, Eph 6:17] which means that all other alleged ways He is claimed to be operating are relegated again to the category of opinion.
If I do not have a book chapter and verse for what I believe, it is an opinion.
While there is nothing wrong with opinions, and we have to use discretion and logic regarding non-black-and-white issues in the scripture, we still have to be careful to not pass off our opinions as biblical facts.
50:14 – 52:25 – “When you give to the needy – did you see that? When you give to the needy. Not if. There’s an assumption being made here by Jesus. The idea of being generous to the poor and the needy, especially among God’s Own people is something that is all through scripture from beginning to end. You certainly find it commanded in the law of Moses and we don’t have time to list all of those passages, but Exodus chapter 23:10-11; Leviticus chapter 10:10; Deuteronomy 15:7-11; etc etc. The law commands generosity to the poor and needy in a variety of ways. The prophets reminded God’s people about the necessity of this in places like Amos chapter 2:6-7; Isaiah 3:14-15; Ezekiel chapter 16:49. We’re reminded of it in Proverbs in the wisdom literature Proverbs 14:31; Proverbs 21;13.
Jesus taught about it His teaching about it. Here he teaches about it in Luke chapter 6:37-38; Matthew 19:21; Mark 14:7. And you certainly see it in the life of the first-century Christian in the first-century Church, don’t you? We see it in Acts chapter 2; Acts chapter 4; James chapter 2:14-16; First John 3:17-18. So it’s an assumption that God’s people are going to give to the needy. And so when Jesus talks about this he’s not saying ‘you really need to be giving to the needy’ – they’re already doing that. In fact, even people who did not even believe in Jesus were practicing this. They were giving alms. They were giving to the poor and needy. That’s an assumption. We’re going to come back to that in just a moment but Jesus assumes that everyone’s doing this. The problem is their motivation they’re doing this before people in order to be seen by them”
Regarding point B on the PowerPoint: The assumption.
The speaker begins to talk about this passage, Matthew 6:1-4 and describes the fact that there is an underlying assumption that Christians will be giving to the poor and needy. Especially those of the household of faith. And I would agree with that statement.
What I don’t agree with is an Inception-style assumption within the assumption. So often you hear speakers today talk about the poor and needy and they’re often indirectly or even directly describing the people you might come across in the street or on highways. I have known of some speakers to even make it a point to suggest that you are neglecting a Christain duty if you drive past the panhandler on the highway. They then place some moral judgment on you based on how you view those people and what you do for those people.
Here’s the problem: these speakers have no idea if those people are actually poor or needy.
The assumption within the assumption is that panhandlers are actually poor.
But as I state frequently, those so-called poor and needy are often better off financially than most of the members of the congregation that are being shamed for not supporting those allegedly poor, needy people.
Panhandlers have a good business going, and they’re providing value to people who give them money. This is a point in and of itself and a side note that deserves further elaboration.
I’ve often wondered why panhandlers and loiterers receive so much money. I wonder this because my underlying belief has always been that if a person receives money he/she must be providing something of value in return. And what value are panhandlers providing?
This question disturbed me for some time until a potential answer became quite clear. People aren’t just giving these loiterers money. No, people giving money are purchasing the right to feel good about themselves. It’s Self-Interest.
They are purchasing a feeling of altruism. They are purchasing the freedom from the guilt they feel when they ignore those panhandlers.
Panhandlers allow donors to lift their spirits and feel morally superior to those who don’t mindlessly donate money. Not that everyone behaves or thinks this way after giving money, but it is a common theme among religious people.
Giving money to the allegedly homeless person provides you with the feeling that you are righteous. And that’s what you’re doing. You’re attempting to purchase righteousness.
It’s not about helping another person primarily, it’s about the emotional and spiritual elevation of the self with the secondary benefit of doing a good deed. Whether or not this is done on a conscious level is irrelevant – because this is based on an analysis of human nature. We are pleasure-seeking and pain-avoiding organisms. We seek to avoid the pain of guilt we feel when we drive by those people and seek the pleasure we feel from giving them money. It is an emotional proposition all the way around.
When it comes to the discussion on generosity, and being generous to people, giving of our means, it is important to note that this first extends to people inside the faith.
Being taken care of by religious people is first and foremost one of the benefits of being religious yourself. The religious community is a tight-knit community and they take care of one another. This is one of the benefits of belonging to a religious group – Other people will take care of you when you need it and you have a responsibility to take care of them when they need it. However, this benefit should not be blindly applied to everyone outside the religious community.
Obviously, as resources allow, people outside the community of the religious can and should be taken care of with the application of discretion, but not before the religious themselves have been taken care of – and certainly not without encouraging those people to join the religious community.
You can’t blindly provide people with food and expect them to join the religion. You are just training them to look for a handout.
If they’re getting all the benefits of religion without being a part of religion what is the incentive for them? People will respond to incentives.
55:29 – 55:54 – “What’s the compensation for that what are you going to get out of that? Well, that’s where Jesus says you will have no reward from your father who is in heaven. Later on the same passage, ‘they have received their reward’. In other words, the reward that you get [and there is one] but the reward that you get when you seek the praise of other people for doing good works terminates on itself. That’s it.”
Regarding point E: “Compensation”.
Indeed, everything we do has a reward. everything we do provides us with something or we wouldn’t do it.
Or it provides us the opportunity to even further maximize the benefit in the future of the process of delayed gratification. We as human beings respond to incentives – and this is a good point.
59:55 – 1:00:25“But let’s move on to what probably is a bigger issue for most of us, and that’s the issue of motivation and sounding a trumpet. The Pharisees are a bold and extreme example of this, but I believe Jesus is encompassing every kind of hypocrisy that this would involve – right down to [listen to this] the secret desire to have all of our Good Deeds discovered and praised by other people.”
“I believe” – Again, what we have is a personal opinion stated without an accompanying “God said”. The speaker does not provide the BCV for this opinion. And he is again committing what I believe to be the intellectual crime of binding moral, and religious requirements on people without the requisite authority. That is not to say the authority for his statement is not in the scripture, but rather that he simply does not cite his authority here while binding a moral requirement on others.
“The secret desire” – The speaker makes the following Point by asking the crowd if we sound a trumpet before our good deeds. He then talks about the secret desire to be seen. I see this frequently in speakers, who condemn the very desire of a thing rather than the thing itself. And maybe that has merit. certainly, there are times we need to analyze behavior to eliminate it down to the very root which would be the desire. But overly demonizing the desire misses the entire point of what it means to resist temptation.
Temptation comes primarily from desire, we learned that in James chapter 1.
We are constantly fighting the desire, the want, the temptation [all synonyms] to do what’s wrong. How many times do we choose God out of loving obedience, yet our emotions and desires pull us toward sin? What would demonstrate greater love to God, that our desire is for Him and that we don’t desire evil at all, or that we have a strong pull towards sin yet out of love we still choose God? It seems to me the latter would be the most noble. Accidental goodness is not better than hard-fought righteousness.
There’s no honor, no nobility, in resisting temptation if we aren’t desiring to do what’s wrong.
That’s what makes it a Temptation in the first place. And if Temptation comes from desire, desire itself cannot be sin. Because we know from Matthew chapter 4 that Christ was tempted. Therefore, Christ was tempted – that means that Christ experienced desire. Do you think after not eating for 40 days that He desired to turn stones into bread and eat? Certainly. Was the desire itself a sin? If it was, we have no hope for salvation.
The discussion on desire and temptation is a linear path of logic that no one can deny. Therefore it is logically and morally incorrect to suggest that desire itself is a sin.
It’s not wrong to desire/want to do wrong. At times we have strange desires that pull us toward evil – but it is in our choices and our actions that we demonstrate that love to God.
There’s no nobility in doing what is right if there is no desire to do what’s wrong. It’s that war against nature that God demands – for he himself is a man of war [Exodus 15:3]. Therefore like Him, we should be people of war: at war with their own desires and temptations.
So when it comes to the alleged “secret desire to be seen” – it’s always going to be there because it will act as a temptation that must be resisted. Even the speaker himself will later acknowledge that it is human nature to want to be seen [1:04:17].
But what do we do with that desire? In other words, even the speaker himself acknowledges that it is the action following the desire that is the critical component of righteousness. We have the desire to be seen, and that’s true, but what do we do with it? What action do we take based on that desire? Do we give into it or do we fight? It’s in the fighting that we find righteousness – and as the speaker would suggest, and rightfully so, humility.
Again, I believe that this lesson was good overall. I just wanted to point out a few of the things that come out in these lessons.
I recently had an incredible question asked by a man who is reading about the Red Pill and manosphere in conjunction with Christianity. He has kindly allowed me to reprint his question – and we will be omitting his name for privacy’s sake.
“I recently discovered your website (Spartan Christianity) about a month ago. I have also been reading a lot of Redpill content online, specifically from Rollo Tomassi.
My question to you is this: how do I integrate my knowledge of Redpill into my dating life whilst also keeping within the bounds of Christian principles? A lot of the Redpill concepts do work. But they involve getting involved in as much extra marital sex as possible. How do I navigate that minefield successfully? To walk the middle line so to speak: to acknowledge what science says but apply it in such a way that I don’t compromise my faith? Is it even possible?”
And after I ask him if there is anything specific he is concerned about with the Red Pill, he provides some more details that are very interesting. Note, he has kindly allowed me to note that his country of Origin is Zimbabwe, a conservative country.
“I don’t mind if you reprint the question on the website. I am sure a lot of people my age have that question. You can omit my name and keep my country of origin.
I have no other specific elements of the Redpill I am thinking about except for the ones I mentioned. That’s the major stumbling block for me personally. My country is still staunchly conservative so concepts like MGTOW and Divorce grape are not really things I concern myself with.
Premarital sex is very much encouraged, especially in my generation. We are the first generation to be exposed fully to Western liberal culture. And we have fallen for it. I find myself in a position where, even if I expressly tell her that we won’t be screwing each other, if I don’t sleep with the girl I am dating, some other dude will sleep with her. And this is all happening in the church, not out in the world.”
If you answer that question, you can connect a massive amount of dots in your life and faith.
In short, I think there is good news even for those of us who have faith, are single, or even if we were married before we discovered the Red Pill. And yes, it is possible to reconcile much of the red pill with Christianity. We as Christians simply have a few more boundaries than the men of the world. Red Pill observations are no less true just because we have faith – it is that the application of those principles is limited based on the moral precepts of the Bible.
We also need to remember that the Red Pill is a set of objective observations. It is not an ideology. It is just a way of thinking. A powerful perspective.
It is a way of seeing the world and intersexual dynamics the way they are, instead of how the feminized world [and feminized church] wants you to believe they are. As such it is not necessarily about reconciling these two, as Christianity is an ideology/practice while Red Pill is just a way of looking at intersexual dynamics.
So if we take that as a postulate, there should be no problem reconciling the two because one [RP] is perspective/observation and the other [Christianity] is practice/action. The perspective of the Red Pill simply informs our Christianity and helps us understand Biblical truths in a more rational manner than we would if we wore the feminized lens of the modern day.
A lot of the practice-based red pill [Generally referred to as ‘Game’, though not exclusively] does involve the goal of optimizing our [male] side of the mating strategy, which is Unlimited Access to Unlimited Sexuality – if we were secular and godless, this is how we would act in the world according to our very nature.
And even Christians have a hard time denying the powerful nature of man’s sexual drives, even though they try. The Christian Male should still seek to optimize his mating strategy, but he must do it within the confines of biblical marriage, which obviously whittles down a man’s behavioral options significantly.
And lastly, be aware that not all of my thinking regarding the Red Pill is fully worked out. Having only been unplugged 6 years or so myself, and being raised in the modern church where Blue Pill dogma is the moral and fundamentally acceptable doctrine, I am still in the process of removing what I call “Blue Pill Fragments” [BPFs] from my psychology – instances where old Blue Pill thinking leaks unto my thought processes. So if you see any BFRs sneaking into my writing [Past or Present], note them in the comments below and I’ll edit. But please note that unfortunately there are many times when the beta path is the moral one for Christian men, and we have to sacrifice the pleasures of the world for the sake of faith. But there are many instances where the Red Pill can be appreciated even through the lens of faith, and will explore that in an introductory manner here.
I think there are some fundamental caveats to the red pill lifestyle for Christians.
Key Principle – For a Christian man in the modern world, getting married is a complete leap of faith. We do not have the moral option to sexually “test out” women. This means we get one shot, and we are permanently fused by the authority of God with whoever we choose. Even if we say we place more value on character, morals, values, etc, that still does not eliminate the male sexual nature, the risk of having significant periods of sexual unsatisfaction[which happens more than you might think for many men- Christianity is not an aphrodisiac], as well as posing the same risk to your finances, career, psychological/emotional wellbeing, independence, etc. that worldly men face when they get married. Those aspects alone are dangerous for men. But these are some of the Red Pill principles I think we can use even as Christians, and these are morally acceptable positions.
1. Frame
You’ve been reading Rollo, so you may have read his line that “frame is everything“. Basically who has the degree of control over the unspoken, subconscious narrative of the relationship?
In the Rational Male, Rollo gives Iron Rule of Tomassi 1 – “Frame is everything. Always be aware of the subconscious balance of whose frame in which you are operating. Always control the frame, but resist giving the impression that you are”.
And also Rollo gives his definition of frame: “Frame is an often subconscious mutually acknowledged personal narrative under which auspices people will be influenced”.
I sometimes visualize Frame as the psychological box/boundaries [non-rigid, can be shifted with effort] that people enter into in order to communicate and act. Someone has to enter someone else’s box during any interpersonal relationship – whether a discussion, an interview, or a male-female relationship – and anyone can learn to shift the frame if they do so subtly and covertly.
In most Christian marriages, the woman holds the frame because she holds sexual access and the man is not sexually disciplined enough to be a leader, tell her no, speak about female-specific sins from the pulpit, or correct her because he knows that any of these things may cause him to lose sexual access for an unknown period of time – and worse yet, the Christian man cannot leave the relationship. If he loses frame, works under her frame, and gets sexually denied as a result, he has to deal with it. Most men just do whatever the wife wants, obeying her, and submitting to her frame because they fear this loss of sexual access. [I write about a lot of this in “6 Reasons Why Christian Men Get No Sex“.
But essentially when it comes to frame, you must be the one holding it. Establish it for yourself before you enter a relationship and refuse to let it go after you enter a relationship. A woman must enter your world, not the other way around. You should never mold or change yourself to fit her wants, unless she is pointing out a legitimate character flaw that others can vouch for as well.
Most women do not truly know what they want, so you need to take their advice with a grain of salt when they want you to “change”. Because change too much and what will she say? “I don’t even know you anymore. You’ve changed” – exactly – you changed into something different than what she was attracted to in the first place, gave into her frame, and molded yourself into the image of what she claimed she wanted instead of staying true to your character.
So resist her attempts to change you [Unless it’s a question of biblical morality], but never verbalize this. You will never get anywhere saying “Sorry woman, you can’t change me! I have the frame! I’m in control and I ain’t shifting just to have access to your vagina”. That’s what we call overt communication. Men love it, but it is not strategic or intelligent to include it in our communication with women. Learn to say the same thing without using any words by using your behavior and you will be unbreakable.
Note that many times, a woman’s attempt to get you to change is just her attempt to rattle or test the frame, and to stress-test your resolve. Do not give into her desire to shift you unless it is a question of morality, or unless she can make an extraordinarily rational argument for why you should change [which few women can – they want you to change because of an emotional feeling they have]. And even if she can make that argument, at the end of the day you need to make it clear that it was you making the decision to change yourself, not that you were doing it at the request of someone else, or to simply appease someone else.
In the relationship or in life, you need to have all the control you can, but without being a “control freak” and without ever stating it openly. Let your behavior send the message, not your words.
Frame is not about being a domineering dictator, it is about being resolute in your character and values and not shifting just because a woman wants or asks you to. And if this is done well, a Christian woman should actually naturally desire to enter your frame and be led. Women are designed by God to be excellent supporters, followers, helpers, etc. They naturally want to enter the frame of a dominant man.
Of course, they always have that pull and desire to take over – Which is why God says in Genesis 3:16 that “Your desire shall be for your husband, but he shall rule over you“. God was saying that Eve would want to run the show, wear the pants, and all that, but the husband would have to command the frame and hold the leadership of the family unit.
Based on Genesis 3, Frame is biblically authorized. So when the woman tries to take the frame [“Your desire shall be for him“], you have to hold the line as a man [“But he shall rule over you”]. Unless it is a question of morality, you should be making the calls, and helping her understand the calls you make.
Of course, this relates to male headship [and the feminized church’s misunderstanding of headship]. Most of the religious world is wrong about spiritual headship, as I’ve written before. Don’t let your local church feminist know, but biblical headship ain’t about egalitarian equalism, it’s about masculine leadership in the home. But a strong frame, covertly communicated, allows you to better maintain the God-Ordained system of male headship in the family and the church – and that is as scriptural and Red Pill as it gets.
So for our gentleman asking the question, he notes that promiscuity is running wild in Zimbabwe where he is. And that essentially if he is not having sex with a woman he is dating, and he lets her know during the dating process of his goal to delay sex until marriage, someone else will come along and have sex with her.
I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t sad, shocking, and difficult to navigate.
He also notes that this is at least partially due to pre-marital sex being encouraged in his country in conjunction with Western liberal influence. I think in his case, the situation is more dire because even in the West, in the USA, there is at least some degree of an attempt to maintain purity in dating relationships within the church. Granted many fail, and the attempt at purity seems more like a marketing scheme than a true descriptor of Christian behavior, and most men sacrifice their Alpha framework [if they ever had it to begin with] and goals for a beta ideology in order to lock a woman down quickly and secure her affections – so they think. But the encouragement of promiscuity makes the Christian walk more difficult than it has to be, no matter where you live in this world.
There is much more information I would want to know about his situation, but it would take far too long to learn everything I wanted to know. But just based on the information provided in the opening paragraphs, I would say that his situation amplifies the importance of being patient during the process, not proposing to a low-value woman, casting a large net, and spinning plates [which we will talk about below and explain why it is moral to do so].
I do not think you have the time to sit around, talking to or dating one girl at a time and just waiting for her to have sex with someone else due to her hypergamy, her free will, and cultural influence.
Though I don’t know the age of the man asking the question, it is also key to note that we as men have more time than women to get married – our sexual market value stays elevated longer. So with that in mind, don’t panic if you have seemingly no marital prospects even at age 30-35, because you still have several years to find a woman to marry. Your sexual value will remain at a respectable high for some time. We “Stay fresher, longer“, so to speak.
The Christian path we have chosen to live comes with sexual disadvantages. We choose to “Suffer with the people of God rather than enjoy the passing pleasure of sin” [Heb 11:25]. As much as married feminized men in the church try to tell you that sex within marriage is “totally worth it bro”, they don’t truly know that [since there is no way to compare the two without trying both, as I’ve written before in “Why Christian Men Have Sex Before Marriage“], and they don’t appreciate the sexual sacrifice men make for their woman.
In a long-term marriage relationship, someone’s sexual strategy will be sacrificed. In Christian marriages, it is certainly the man’s sexual imperative that is sacrificed. In the best-case scenario, men get unlimited access [tons of sex] to limited sexuality [one wife], but in most cases, men get limited access [sex withheld, sexually unavailable] to limited sexuality [one wife].
If you go 9 days without food, molded bread would taste like a gourmet meal. When a Christian man goes 9 days without being sexually fed, of course he is going to think any sex he gets is amazing. As a prisoner in a cell, waits for the door to be open and the food to be tossed in – so it is with many Christian men caged in sexless marriages due to their inability to “Forsee danger and hide themselves” [Pr 22:3] as well as make themselves more valuable in the sexual marketplace.
If you are going to commit to one woman, ensure she has a genuine burning desire for you. She has to want to sexually – but as a Christian man, you have to wait to engage in that sex. Sexual desire cannot be negotiated. It is either there or not. Any marriage book telling you to communicate about how often you want sex misses the point here. And you have to learn how to detect it in a woman without being overt. If you have to plan sex in advance or negotiate sexual frequency before marriage, just know that’s a yellow flag.
Another common theme in The Red Pill that most Christian men would have a problem with [though they have limited biblical support for their position] is the idea of a mental point of origin. When you hear the idea as I lay it out below, you may think it sounds very similar to selfishness, but it actually is different.
When you place yourself as your mental point of origin, you start any thought process or decision-making process by considering how you yourself would be impacted first before you think about others.
When you pick your college major, you pick it for you, not for a girl. When you pick your career, you pick it for you, not a woman, not your parents, not your grandparents. When you pick up a hobby, you pick it for yourself first, not to make your wife happy that you can crochet a bra.
I know, this sounds extraordinarily selfish on the surface. But it is actually natural, it happens subconsciously and is based on an analogy you have likely heard, “You have to put on your own oxygen mask in the plane before you put one on the kid beside you. Because you are no use to the kid if you are dead“.
This is the mental point of origin. No one questions it in a survival scenario – and they shouldn’t question it in normal life either. It is about making sure that you yourself benefit first before you needlessly sacrifice yourself for others. You cannot help anyone else until you help yourself – physically, spiritually, emotionally, financially, or anything.
Now the reason this is not selfish is due to the definition of selfishness. A selfish action is: “Any action that benefits me while harming others around me“. That’s selfish. Doing things for the self despite the negative impact on those around us is selfish and not a Christian way to act.
That is very different from doing things that benefit me but are neutral to those around me, such as working out. Training benefits me primarily, but has no impact on others, and is therefore not selfish because it does not negatively impact someone else – otherwise, if it did, every time we stepped out for exercise, we would be engaging in morally inappropriate selfish activity. And that is actually beside the fact that every time I physically train, I make life better for those around me in an indirect way. I can do more work, I am healthier and can live longer, I can help people physically, and my wife finds it more arousing. So one could argue that exercise is in service of others. In fact, I do argue that service of self is service of others in many instances.
However, making yourself your mental point of origin and making a decision that betters you while simultaneously improving the world of those around you is absolutely not selfish.
If I am an alcoholic [which I am not nor ever have been], and I go to Alcoholics Anonymous or rehab for six weeks, I am absolutely, 100% focusing on myself. I am purely concentrating on taking care of my personal problem with alcoholism. But am I the only one who benefits from that “selfish time in rehab”? Is anyone going to say, “People who go to rehab are super selfish!”? Of course not! Through that rehabilitation process, I become better for my employer and improve his/her world by doing better work without a mind clouded by hangovers. I become better for my wife and kids and make their world better. I become better for the church and am now a model of inspiration for others dealing with the struggle of alcohol. Most importantly, I become better for God, and better for myself.
All those positive results came from taking a period of time to focus on myself, “put on my own oxygen mask“, and improve. The world of everyone around me improves when I better myself. Who would say that is selfish? When I get a raise at work, my whole family benefits from that. And if I have to take an extra few hours a week to get training, to make myself better at my job, then that is not selfish – even though I did the training, and I did the work, I gained the skill, it was those around me who benefitted from it. Who would say that is selfish?
The problem is that men in the church think that service is a zero-sum game. They think that “They must increase while I decrease” when it comes to God, family, marriage, etc. They think that “It ain’t service if it doesn’t cost you anything”. That is not how it works. We can all increase because it is a non-zero-sum game.
The common feminized man in the church believes that if I do something for someone else, it must cost me something, and I must be reduced. When in reality, in many instances, I can serve others by serving myself. It sounds selfish to the feminized, beta, feminine-primary conditioned men, but if you will read through the logic again you will see it is not selfish at all.
You cannot help others spiritually if you don’t know the Bible. It takes time alone, to improve your personal knowledge of scripture to be able to do that. You have to take a lot of time to make yourself better so you can in turn make others better. Working on yourself helps others. Make yourself your mental point of origin.
3. You are the prize
Even in the church, we get this backward. If I as the man am going to spend the majority of my life trading my time, energy, and resources to provide for a woman and maintain her lifestyle, then she is not in the position to be sexually selective. Especially if all the women are right when they whine about the theory that “There are just no marriageable men anymore”. Well if that is so, then you, a high-value Christian man, get to pick from a line of women vying for your attention.
You have the power of selectivity and never get that backward in your thinking. Dump the Disney training you received growing up and take an objective look at what you provide to the world around you as a man – you are the prize. This is not to devalue women at all – women are valuable, moral, excellent beings – it is simply to stop you from worshipping women as you have likely been trained to do in the feminized church.
Just like making yourself your mental point of origin, you can think of yourself as the prize without becoming arrogant. This is not about masculine pride,it is not about thinking that you are better than women, or that they are worth less as human beings than you, it is about simple logistics.
If I as the man am bringing the provisions that allow for life and comfortable living; if I am the one sacrificing life and time to make that happen; if I am the one taking the risk of marriage and putting at least half my net worth on the line; if I am the one whose sexual strategy is getting sacrificed for someone else’s; then I get to pick who I invite into that frame.
A wife is not the prize, and no biblical passage supports that idea. Your God-given mission is your purpose and eternal life is the prize.
Of course, a wife is a “good thing” [Pr 18:22] and she is valuable and can make life better and complement your life, but she is not the focus of your life. No one is trying to degrade women – just take them off the altar of worship that the feminized church has placed them on.
You as the man are the one taking the majority of the risk in marriage, both in terms of financials and in sacrificing your primary sexual strategy. Therefore you need to strategize with that in mind. If you are the one making the sacrifice, you have all the right in the world to be extraordinarily selective about your potential mates.
Now I’m not saying have a rigid list of wants and needs for your wife, you’ll never find everything you want because most women simply aren’t high value, even in religion. They’ve been told they are the prize, have an inflated sense of self-worth, and artificially inflate their sexual market value through social conventions, cosmetics, and Instagram filters and therefore they do not work to improve themselves until they can no longer rely on their beauty. This was the case even in Ben Franklin’s day when he would write a letter to a friend about the benefits of courting older women for several reasons, but partly because they cannot rely on their sex appeal, they have to actually develop character. What a thought!
Just remember that you are the selector. Therefore, be selective, don’t propose marriage to just any woman. Don’t let your penis make a lifelong decision that your rational mind regrets. You have time to find a woman who will not fall into the negatives of your culture, and you should cast a large enough net to find her more efficiently if getting married is your goal.
Don’t let anyone guilt you into getting married early [or at all]. Remember Paul who was unmarried [1 Corinthians 7:8-9]. Is anyone sitting around saying he wasn’t a good Christian or that he should have done more for the church if only he had been married? Didn’t think so.
There’s no such thing as a “Lonely Old Man” there are just old unmarried men with significantly more money than they would have had if they got married. Not a value statement, just an objective reality. There are no “Soul Mates”, just women who are better or worse than each other as potential marriage partners.
There’s no such thing as a “Biological Clock”. That’s just a tool for women to shame you into marriage or having kids, especially as the window for them to conceive healthily closes and their chance to leverage the fragments of their sexual market value shrinks.
Any tactic from religion or women that relies exclusively on shame as its rationale or motivation should be questioned. I’m not against shame or guilt. I’m against shame/guilt as a standalone reason for making the life-altering decision of marriage [or any decision for that matter – always have multiple reasons or motivators for every action you take]. Shame alone convinces me of nothing. Provide logical reasoning along with a small side dish of shame once the logic is laid out, and then we can talk.
4. Avoid Pedestalizing women
God gave us work to do as men. In fact, if you read Genesis 2, you will find that after God made man, the very next thing He made was work for man to do!
Before a man ever had a woman, he had a job to do. This is called “The Order of Creation”. Men are mission built – designed to accomplish goals. And of course, the main mission is the Great Commission of Matthew 28:19-20. Therefore, the Commission is the focus of our life, not women. A good wife can help support that mission and goal, but she can never replace it.
Too many men, even in the church, worship women instead of God. They make their woman everything, cater to her every need, change themselves, and lose everything that makes them unique and that made them attractive to their wives before they got married – and worse than all of that, they fall short in their mission for God. They become obsessed with their mythologized “one” [and of course, there is no such thing – watch out for that ONEitis]. You cannot engage in this type of thinking. We are purpose-built for one task while on this earth.
Remember that it is not wrong to be single, it is wrong to avoid the Great Commission and to avoid work. That’s a good lesson to have sink into your mind.
At the risk of sounding repetitive, women are not to be worshipped. They are not the focus of your life. They are wonderful creatures who complement your life, but they are not your Great Commission. And you should never shift what you are and who you are just to fit her alleged wants in hopes of improving your sexual access to her, unless it is a question of morality.
5. Game in Marriage & Before Marriage
All the tricks and tools that the Pick-Up Artists and Game aficionados use are good stuff – in fact, Game is doubly important in marriage and can be used tactfully before marriage. And these can certainly be used with the Christian perspective.
The big problem in religion today is that if you read most marriage advice books, they only have one-half of the story with regards to sex and intimacy in marriage. Rollo talks about “Alpha seed, Beta need“, and women’s dualistic sexual strategy [Their need to find the best genetics as well as the best long-term provisioning, and to ideally do so in the same man, though this is rarely possible].
Almost every Christian-based marriage book focuses on the “beta need” – essentially, how to be a good provider and take care of your wife emotionally, but none of them talk about how to be arousing to your wife, which is completely different than being attractive to her, and it the key to sexual frequency and satisfaction in marriage – and I think it’s because the authors legitimately do not know how to do this. They have the Blue Pill conditioning that they have been installed with for their entire lives. They do not know any better – it isn’t their fault to an extent.
They will talk for years about how women want closeness, empathy, peacemaking, and need to feel comfortable and “trusting” before having sex, along with a legal contract of other requirements for intimacy, but still not be able to understand why women would be totally down to have sex with Jason Mamoa exactly 7 minutes after meeting him. “She must be a worldly prostitute…yeah…that clears up the cognitive dissonance for me“. You will be surprised at how little “comfiness” the average woman need before they leave all their clothes on a hotel floor for Henry Cavill.
This is confusing for feminized men in the church until they learn the lesson of the dualistic sexual nature of women, and why attractive traits in a man still do not make women want to have hot, passionate sex with their husbands motivated by genuine burning desire. Most Christian men are missing the “Mamoa Factor” – Heaven help us for giving that a name.
Sadly, most religious men resort to the idea that women just aren’t sexual at all, That there is no way for them to experience genuine burning desire, or they vainly try to tie in a wife’s sexual nature to the husband’s level of righteousness, with is laughably absurd. But no, women are sexual. They might not be sexual with you, they might not have sex with your neighbor Bob, but they will get sexual with someone – it is just a question of arousal. And Arousal is something you need to know before marriage.
But Game, and any of the tricks and tips you read on the SoSuave forum, in “The Game” or otherwise are A-okay for your wife. In fact, I would go beyond that and say that they are absolutely vital – as long as they do not clearly violate biblical principles [which I think most do not].
Sticking exclusively to the long-term provisioning stuff you read in “Love and Respect”, “Magnificent Marriage”, “5 Love Languages” etc. is great for being a good father, provider, or husband, but is not enough to generate genuine burning sexual desire in your wife. She is capable of it, hopefully, she is capable of having a passion for you, [and hopefully, you found out whether she does or doesn’t have that desire for you before you got married] but you must be arousing in order for it to happen.
All the Amused Mastery, Cocky-Funny stuff is more exciting to your wife than most Christian women will ever let on. Athleticism with muscular development as well as style matters more than Christian women let on. A fit guy is always more arousing than a fat guy. The sexual market value PSALMs matters. Women will rarely say these things directly because it is not “politically correct” to do so, especially in the church. Most of these women have been trained and conditioned to rattle off a bunch of stuff they don’t even believe about what they find attractive.
The medium is the message – ignore most of what women say and look almost exclusively at what they do. Their actions will tell you everything you ever wanted to know. The same applies to most people, really.
Obviously before marriage, as a Christian, you would want to be careful with too much game because it can lead to getting aroused/making a woman too aroused too early and finding yourself square in a bed with a woman, especially considering what is going on in the culture of Zimbabwe. So use it sparingly, more to test for the potential for a woman to be aroused, not to actually try to have sex with her. I understand this can be dangerous, and that it may lead to lust, which is why you have to be extraordinarily careful with it as a Christian man. If you think it’s generating lust in you or the girl(s) you are dating, then leave it out. Find some other way to assess if she has a sexual desire for you in a moral way.
6. Understanding Hypergamy
Women are always wanting to trade up. She is always on the hunt for a better man. This is hypergamy. She will always wonder if she “did good enough” with the man she married or if she could have done better and found a higher-value man. A question in her mind will always be, “Could I have leveraged my sexual market value or a higher-value man”. She of course asks this subconsciously most of the time, and not in those exact words. It is key for us that max out the PSALMs stats as much as we can to ensure that the answer to this question in her mind is an undoubted “yes”.
Rollo is fond of saying that “Hypergamy is not a straight-jacket”. It is molded and affected by circumstances, beliefs, and convictions. A Christian woman is certainly going to have beliefs and convictions that influence her hypergamy. She will always struggle with hypergamy, and she will never be immune from its effects, but she may try to act in ways that would seem to mitigate hypergamy to an extent. Just as men will always war against their sexual nature and fight to keep it in check according to the laws of God that we as Christians voluntarily choose to place ourselves under.
For instance, some Christian women are taught based on upbringing to place greater value on the male beta traits more try to secure the best “faith-based” provisioning. She may place greater value on spirituality, conviction, mutually aligned religious perspectives or values, child-rearing perspectives, and more. Many girls are taught to “look for” those things in a guy. Understand, just because a Christian woman is “looking for” those traits doesn’t make those characteristics sexually arousing, nor does it make those traits generate genuine burning sexual desire, but it still works to slightly mitigate that hypergamy.
Understand, though, that at the end of the day, her hypergamy is still going to be there. No amount of conviction and Christian values will override her base hypergamous need. Just like no amount of Christianity or conviction will do away with the male sexual energy and attraction for women. And no amount of conviction will make Christian traits arousing, because those traits are mostly about long-term provisioning – the beta plan. That is not the stuff that generates arousal, or genuine burning desire in a woman.
It’s “Quote Rollo Day” apparently – since he also frequently notes: “Biology Trumps Conviction”. And he is right. So do not put yourself in a position where biology and conviction have to go to war with each other.
7 – Spinning Plates
Time is precious for us as men when it comes to sexual selectivity. Not as precious as it is for women, since their sexual market value peaks in their early 20s and subsequently nosedives quickly. But we as men still have to first decide if we are even interested in getting married in the first place, and then after that seek, date, vet and finally marry a woman.
In the application area of the Red Pill community, there is a focus on spinning plates. This is the idea that you view women with an “Abundance Mindset” instead of a “Scarcity Mindset”, talk to many of them at once, and date many of them at once. And you communicate with them early in the interaction that you are non-exclusively dating multiple women. They can then decide to take it or leave it at this point.
Some women do not like that a man they are dating is also talking to/dating/having sex with other women [“Are you talking to other girls?” is their frequent question], but if a man is high-value enough, they will actually be fine with it, because many women are happy to share a high-value man. And the secular plate spinner is of course aiming to have sex with each of the women he is “spinning” – this keeps his sexual access high, and allows him to satisfy his sexual imperative [Unlimited Access to Unlimited Sexuality].
It goes without saying that the sexual component of spinning plates is not the way Christian men engage with women – we all know that. Even the Christian man, however, has the sexual imperative of Limited Access [access to his wife only] to Unlimited Sexuality [unlimited frequency of sex]. That is his ideal world. This doesn’t happen for most men because they do not understand the arousal/desire dynamic – but it is nonetheless the biological imperative of men – even the Christian ones.
Just to state it again so we are abundantly clear: For the non-religious man, spinning plates includes having sex with the women he is “spinning”. That is something Christian men obviously cannot engage in.
However, that does not prevent us from dating non-exclusively for the sake of rapid and efficient vetting of multiple women at once. Dating one woman at a time is slow and inefficient if the goal is marriage. It comes with massive opportunity costs, as does marriage itself. Date/talk to multiple women, and vet them out. If they are not what you are looking for, replace them with new plates. Continue until you find one or more that would be worth committing to on a more exclusive basis. Continue the dating path towards marriage, if that is your goal – which is something you should decide for yourself and only for yourself [remember you are your mental point of origin].
In fact, this was common even in the early-to-mid 1900s. Everyone knew that people could “date around” until one of the partners [usually the man] asked the other to “go steady”, at which point they would commit to seeing each other more seriously and on an exclusive basis. You can see it happening on the Andy Griffith Show for goodness sake – are we still going to call it immoral then?
I mention that lest anyone jump down my throat about how “morally reprehensible” it is to date multiple people at once, even though they have no evidence for this, especially not biblical evidence, and are only angry because they do not have enough value as men to spin plates themselves. They are lucky if they find one woman willing to tolerate them for a few dates or if they accidentally say the right things, for a lifetime.
So spin plates, but do not have sex with them. That RP truth is reconciled with Christianity as nothing immoral is being done. You are “fishing for a wife” and you are simply choosing to use a large net instead of a fishing pole.
Be upfront with women about what you are doing and spinning plates will no longer be a problem of honesty either. Tell them you are on a mission to find a wife [which is not always a great mission, make sure it is the best thing for you] and are talking to multiple people simultaneously in an attempt to be efficient with your time.
It’s key to not let the sexual drive get the best of you. This is where most Christian men fail.
Most Christian men jump into marriage because it is the only thing they can do to get sexual access. Then when the newness of the sex life wears off, or in post-sex clarity they think, “Wait, I made an expensive, sacrificial, lifelong commitment, ‘forsaking all others’ based on the desire to satisfy a sexual craving?”
Do not get married if sex is your motivation. As good as sex is, it is absolutely not worth marrying the wrong woman just to have access to it. In fact, ask yourself these critical questions, “If I couldn’t have sex with this woman, would I still marry her? Would I even want to spend time with her?” That first question will reduce the field dramatically, and the second will let you know if you are being rational, or making decisions based on lust. Maybe it is a bad question because no one would get married. That is a legitimate concern. But if you wouldn’t be able to tolerate her without having sex with her, will you really be able to tolerate her if she starts trying to withhold or weaponize sex? You take that risk in marriage – consider if it is worth the cost. The sexual drive pushes us towards marriage, just don’t let it trick you into getting married just to satisfy it.
Because remember, as a Christian man, marriage is a lifetime commitment without a moral way to escape unless your wife cheats. For Christian men to get out of a marriage and try to go marry again or without the biblical approved pattern is adultery, the same applies to just going out in the world and having sex with whoever you want [Matt 19]. That’s a sin – and as Christians, we believe it could eternally separate us from God if we remain unrepentant. That makes marriage an extraordinarily daunting, terrifying, and dangerous proposition for men.
And additionally, you must remember that you have much longer to make that commitment than women do. A Christian woman needs to marry quickly if having kids is her goal. She will not be young forever, and she is generally trying to secure a mate in her early to mid-20s, sometimes earlier, sometimes later. But as a man, you have much more time. In fact, you do not hit your sexual market value peak until your mid to late 30s. Take a breath and work with patience, because you have more time than the average woman does.
8 – Competition Anxiety and Dread
Speaking of hypergamy and other cool principles that men in the feminized church hate, let’s talk about anxiety and dread, and its relationship to sexual access in marriage.
Competition Anxiety – this is the underlying sense of nervousness that women feel when they contemplate, deal with, or try to navigate the sexual marketplace. Essentially, when multiple women compete for the same high-value man, they become anxious. They start to think, “Am I good enough/hot enough to get this guy’s attention?” Or when other women start making advances [overt or covert] on a man they are already in a relationship with, this anxiety is stirred up as well.
In both instances, competition anxiety is your friend – because it is tightly related to a woman’s arousal – not her attraction, but her sexual arousal.
“There is nothing more frightening yet simultaneously arousing for a woman than a man who is aware of his value to other women”
“Women want a man that other men want to be and other women want to bang” ~ Rollo.
Seeing as how this anxiety is actually arousing, it is in your interest to stimulate it when you can. Again, this is not immoral, though it may look that way, and is notably a dangerous thing to try if you buy into the slippery slope idea.
But women need to know that you are a man worth competing for [you are the prize, as mentioned before] and that you know you are a man worth dealing with the other competition from other women in order to have. And if you are married this becomes doubly important.
Competition anxiety is stimulated best when you have social proof of your value. If you are married and other women make advances towards you or flirt with you, you have to reject them kindly, but also make sure your wife realizes what just happened – ideally, she will have witnessed it.
Again, this must be covert. And in the end, you let her know, “You know I can’t help that women love me, but I’m with you”. Satisfy her ego by making her think she locked you down, stroke the ego by making her feel like she locked down a high-value man that other women want, and reassure her of your commitment while simultaneously making her realize that she is going to have to compete with other women if she wants to keep you loyal – she can’t just rest on her laurels, get fat, act disrespectfully and like a child and expect to retain such a man of value. That is communicated through your behavior, not your words.
Dread is closely related to competition anxiety, and it is essentially the fear of loss of security. Women have dread stimulated in them when their man is high value and the potential for him “trading up” or leaving for greener sexual pastures is very real. And dread, along with competition anxiety, is arousing for women and is built on the foundation of a man’s value. There is no competition anxiety or dread of losing a man who has no value – so make yourself valuable.
Most Christian women never experience the arousal of dread or competition anxiety. They are lulled into security knowing that they are the only source of sexual access for their husbands, and in most cases, he legitimately has no other options even if he wanted options or actively tried to get them.
That is what makes maxing out your PSALMs, holding the frame, and being sexually disciplined even within marriage so important. She needs to know she cannot let herself go, embody the principles of third-wave feminism, kick the goad of traditional masculine headship and incur no consequences as a result.
She also needs to know that if she is going to refuse to have sex with you, outright or covertly, it doesn’t phase you. You aren’t even moved. For all of history women’s power has been their sexuality – demonstrate through sexual disciple that you are a man who is not moved by that feminine power. And if she sees other women taking notice of you, her dread and competition anxiety will not allow her to act that way in the first place.
Every man should be in a position where he still has options when it comes to women. At the exact same time, a Christian man must discipline himself and commit to one woman. The options are never to be acted on for a Christian man, but his wife should be aware of them at least in a small way. That sense that there is the potential that she could lose her security to another woman is what makes sure she takes care of herself, submits to your frame, and maintains the genuine burning desire she had during her early years.
It sounds immoral on the surface, but it isn’t. What is more honorable than a Christian man who has sexual options yet voluntarily rejects them all in order to be faithful to his wife? That is true nobility. It is the type of nobility that most Christian men will never have because they will never have options because they have bought hook, line, and sinker the feminized church’s idea of what women want.
Closing
That should be a little bit to get everyone started thinking about the Red Pill and how well it can be reconciled with Christianity.
If any of this does not make sense, needs to be expanded on, or if there are key points I should include in another section, please comment below or contact me through this page or on social media. I think there are many more things that could be discussed here. This is just a start.
There are far and away too many social activities happening in the modern religious world. This leaves little time for solitude and quiet reflection on God’s word, which is the only Bible-backed tool that leads to increased faith [Rom 10:17].
It is not far-fetched to suggest that imitation of the habits and behaviors of Christ would be likely to result in spiritual development. Why then do we refuse to acknowledge the frequent practice of Christ to withdraw Himself from the crowd, take Himself to a secluded place to be alone and pray?
Matthew 14:22-23: “Immediately Jesus made His disciples get into the boat and go before Him to the other side, while He sent the multitudes away. And when He had sent the multitudes away, He went up on the mountain by Himself to pray. Now when evening came, He was alone there.“
Mark 1:35: “Now in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, He went out and departed to a solitary place, and there He prayed.”
Luke 5:16: “So He Himself often withdrew into the wilderness and prayed.”
Luke 6:12: “Now it came to pass in those days that He went out to the mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God.”
This freed His time and renewed His mind and energy to engage in the most valuable activities. Not VBS. Not social events within everyone’s specific age groups. But the direct preaching of the word of God, the confirmation of that word through the use of miracles, the salvation of souls in addition to the constant war against the urges of the flesh that allowed Christ to be perfect, able to carry our sins to the cross with Him.
In stark contrast to the practices of Christ, many churches today find themselves engrossed in an unending cycle of gatherings and social events.
We are concerned with being entertained. The modern man is interested in “engaging” worship sessions, discussions, mixers, and other events supposedly more “lively” than hearing the simple truth of God preached from a pulpit.
The focus has shifted from the direct preaching of God’s word to a preoccupation with entertainment.
While these activities allegedly create a sense of community and provide enjoyment to some [which is not the purpose of the church or worship], they constantly fall short in terms of fulfilling the primary purpose of a religious institution – which is the spreading of the gospel of Christ and subsequent salvation of souls.
We do ourselves a great disservice by excessively concentrating on these empty activities. They yield very little when it comes to our main purpose in life which is to fear God and keep His commandments [Ecc 12:13-14] and preach the gospel to every creature [Matt 28:19-20].
“Consider your ways,” says the prophet Haggai [Haggai 1:5 & 7] to the people of Israel who did not have their minds and lives centered on God.
As the temple of God sat in ruins, they took plenty of time to construct their own homes. In this section of scripture, the prophet makes it a point to mention twice the importance of considering one’s ways.
Considering one’s ways requires quiet. It requires solitude. Reflection requires a calm, deliberate spirit of focus directed inward.
It is a delicate and weighty matter to reflect on our own sins. Solitude is critical in understanding the gravity of sin – an understanding that cannot come without deliberate, effortful thought.
Understandably, engaging in this type of deliberation and effortful thought is not encouraged, nor is it possible with the incessant arbitrary events that many churches today schedule.
In their minds, it is as if skipping the summer festival means you are a bad Christian who does not care about God. Skipping the fall festival is equivalent to skipping Sunday morning worship.
Forget the fact that these same judgmental individuals have likely not read the Bible but manage to find a way to attend every social event that provides free food and acts as pseudo-childcare for their poorly behaved and undisciplined children.
Consider the simple practicality of the business of modern-day life. The average man works 45 hours per week [counting his lunch break] and then loses another 5 hours with commute and morning preparations for work. He is left with a respectable amount of time to attend to his family and most importantly develop his relationship with God including the time spent at Sunday morning worship. After this time there is much less left for other important matters of life such as professional development, rest, and recreation.
While some might consider these events “recreation”, I consider them entertainment. And as such they profit little and cost much – both in money and in time, that most precious asset.
These pseudo-spiritual social gatherings manage to eat away several more of the working man’s weekly hours and provide him with nothing in return but the sensation of being drained and the illusion of spiritual growth.
The working man certainly did not develop his thinking apparatus during these events.
Nor did his children develop spiritually because they were too busy “Dunking the Deacon” in the dunking booth and falling down the inflatable slide after eating twelve cupcakes to have any cognizance of that 5-minute devotional someone attempted to lead after an equivalent 5 minutes of preparation and study for that “devo”.
The development of the spiritual mind is a difficult task requiring focused, concentrated effort by all parties involved. The use of constant social events cleverly disguised as spiritual events does not aid, but rather hampers the spiritual development of the individual from the level of the smallest child even to the adult.
This is because the vast majority of spiritual development happens with concentrated, purposeful bible study in the home. To constantly take the family out of the home leaves less time for this most important formative activity – the study of the mind of God.
But other families who were spending little to no time studying the mind of God are all too happy to attend these social events. They are not losing out on spiritual growth because they were not growing spiritually, to begin with. They were decaying slowly while laboring under the delusion of growth.
They think they are improving but they mistake fun and excitement for genuine spirituality. These people are the ones who keep the social events up and going. They plan them, schedule them, participate in them, and think they are great. But these are “sugar” events that lead to nothing more than the rotting decay of the spirituality of the church.
All to say that social events in the church are more of a hindrance than they ever were a help. I would argue that the health of the church would be increased if the frequency of these events were reduced by a minimum of 50%.
Not only would this lead to an improvement in the spiritual growth of families [assuming they use this now free time to study the Bible instead of binge-watch television], but it would counterintuitively improve relationships among the church members. This is due to the fact that many members of religious communities become tired of seeing one another.
Proverbs 25:17 – “Let your foot rarely be in your neighbor’s house, Or he will become weary of you and hate you.”
We were not designed to constantly be around one another.
Yes, I am aware that someone will bring up the passage of first-century Christians being in one another’s homes every day [Acts 2:46], and that is a fine ideal, but it is simply that, an ideal. We will become weary of one another if we are around one another too often.
Anyone who lives with another human being for any length of time learns this lesson swiftly and accurately. Whether it is a wife or a roommate, there are many times when tensions develop because of close quarters and the constant presence of each other.
Take advantage of the fact that being home and separate will allow us to regain that sense of longing to be together. That is a sensation that many in the church lack – and they could easily get it back if they were not spending every waking moment together [only a slight exaggeration].
Reducing arbitrary social events will increase the overall morale in the church by allowing us to have some time to breathe, reflect, and have separate moments away from each other – which is to the benefit of all.
