Mars Hill and Boomer Sexual Fundamentalism

At Aaron’s suggestion, I recently began listening to the Rise and Fall of Mars Hill podcast from Christianity Today. It’s a biased account, the whole game being to smear conservatives with Driscoll’s bad behavior. Nevertheless, it is well-produced and can spur useful reflection among those of us who remain committed to a Biblical understanding of sexuality.

A clever trick the podcast sometimes uses is that of misdirection. If they want to make a point, for example, and Driscoll’s admittedly voluminous amount of raw material doesn’t lend itself to the point, they will pivot to feature someone other than Driscoll. One example of this was when Driscoll claimed that a woman propositioned him in the communion line. 

For those of us familiar with hypergamy, or just people with common sense, it’s entirely plausible Driscoll was being truthful. He was the most famous pastor in the world at the time, and he was specifically famous for being dangerous / controversial and he is an attractive, athletic guy. It’s not a surprise that women would be attracted to him, and since women are sinners too, it’s not implausible that someone in his gigantic church propositioned him. And, indeed, it is to Driscoll’s credit that his controversies have never involved a shred of personal sexual misconduct despite probably more opportunity than any pastor of the last twenty years. Necessity isn’t virtue, so his soy-faced critics probably can’t relate to the temptation he constantly faced.

The podcast, however, wanted to cast doubt on whether a woman had ever propositioned Driscoll. Sneakily, they immediately pivot to an unrelated story of James Dobson telling some anecdote about how he thought a woman was propositioning him with her eyes, while they were both in their vehicles at a stoplight. So they undermine Driscoll’s entirely plausible claim with a…

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Who Are the Evangelical Elites? And Are They Failing? – Podcast #58

There’s been a recent flurry of articles and podcasts discussing the failure of evangelical elites, whether they have in fact failed, wondering who these so-called elites are, disclaiming that people are elites, etc.

This week I look at the question of who the evangelical elite are, and whether or not they are doing a good job. I start by reprising the elite theory of E. Digby Baltzell, and also the views of others elite theorists like James Burnham, Robert Michels, C. Wright Mills, and Robert Dahl.

From this I create a definition of what an elite is and how elite power functions and apply it to America as a whole. Then I apply it to evangelicalism to show how the elites of various evangelical subdomains can be identified.

Looking specifically at the group often labeled Big Eva, I name names in terms of who is doing poorly, who is doing well, and who is struggling to adapt to the times.

I also examine and apply a different definition of the elite adapted from Kevin DeYoung, and discuss institutional constraints elites operate under, as well as virtues and perils of being inside vs. outside of institutions.

You can subscribe to the podcast on Apple PodcastsYouTube, and elsewhere. Check out the other podcasts here.

American Reformer: The Evangelical Embarrassment Reflex

The American Conservative: Church, State, and the Future of American Evangelicalism

Mark Galli on Evangelical Elites

Carl Trueman: The Failure of Evangelical Elites

Life Books and Everything Podcast on Evangelical Elites (segments starts at 29:00)

Mere Fidelity on Evangelical Elites

American Affairs: E. Digby Baltzell’s Sociology of Elites

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John Piper Should Consider Retiring as a Public Intellectual

The controversy over a recent John Piper blog post on Covid-19 vaccines shows why some older evangelical leaders like Piper should consider stepping back from their public intellectual role.

I’ve avoided much commentary on the pandemic because it’s not my lane. But since I’m talking about what Piper wrote I should first put my own cards on the table. I am vaccinated and would encourage other adults to get vaccinated unless they have a medical issue that indicates they shouldn’t. I do think whether or not to get vaccinated is a choice people have to make for themselves. I won’t think better or worse about anyone one way or the other. I do oppose vaccinate mandates or vaccine passport type rules.

Now Piper’s post is aimed at a specific group of people: those who want to get vaccinated but have not done so because of peer pressure from people opposed to vaccines. He encourages them to use their Christian liberty in order to follow their conscience and get vaccinated.

I agree with Piper’s take on this. And it looks like his stance on vaccines is actually the same as mine or close to it.

Nevertheless, his post represents a maladroit reading of the moment of cultural moment we are in. It is this inability to discern and contextualize their message to the times that makes people like Piper increasingly ineffective in today’s world.

How many people fall into the category Piper is writing about? There are surely some. I expect to get blowback from some readers who are very antivax on account of this post, for example.

But far more people fall into the opposite camp. They are people who don’t want to be vaccinated, but are facing significant and escalating legal, economic, and social pressure to do…

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Art is for Everyone. Art is for You.

Taking a plot straight out of “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” so-called experts promoted the most dubious artistic efforts as the pinnacle of creativity, accessible only to those who were as worthy and sophisticated as those insiders who passed judgement on quality. Agreeing with these pros became a shortcut to connoisseurship, with all its penumbras of high status and urbanity. Admiring the beauty of the Emperor’s nonexistent outfit became a gesture adapted by those eager to belong to the upper castes.

Meanwhile, all those who believed art should actually demonstrate recognizable skills and meaning were left confused. We trusted our institutions, and now our cultural institutions were rejecting those aspects of art we could connect with. Most were left feeling, “I guess I just don’t understand art,” and turned away.

Art was no longer for the people; now it was a Doublethink rite of passage. Accepting absurdity as art was made into a filter, mandatory for those who aspired to be worldly.

The way to defeat this power grab is simple. In art, believe in your own judgements. Art is for everyone. Art is for you. Any expert who says otherwise is a phony looking to elevate themselves at the expense of others.

Real art is self-evident. It does not require justifications, references, or a specific education to function. While a particular work of art might not appeal to an individual’s taste, there can be no denying its presence as art.

Those with specialized knowledge might appreciate nuances others overlook, but real art offers something for everyone to enjoy. It’s okay to not be able to articulate why you like something. Art is something we should experience, not explain.

What makes for quality art? There’s some good rules of thumb to start off with which devastate the whole Postmodern program.

If a work of art requires a separate…

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Women Openly Dumping Their Husbands for Selfish Reasons – Podcast #56

Aaron M. Renn

When I started the Masculinist, the church was a barren wasteland for advice on sexuality. I barely saw anyone else writing constructively about even the most basic issues—things like attraction, the differences between men and women, marriage, divorce.

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When Painter Philip Guston Started Over

The same art establishment that had led Guston astray rejected his new direction. His subject matter included sinister yet bumbling Klansmen as stand-ins for fallen humanity. These works remain so charged that a recent retrospective tour had to be delayed, to avoid conflicting with contemporary politically correct dogma. The topic Guston exposed here isn’t racism, it’s evil. 

Far from safely accusing others of sin, Guston was admitting his own weakness in these ambiguous works. “They are self-portraits,” he confessed. “I perceive myself as being behind the hood.” These were fearless portrayals of a man now mature enough to own his faults and failings. Guston’s paintings became blunt and powerful as he revealed life as he lived it, in oblique symbols. 

Philip Guston followed this course for the remaining years of his life. He shared a story of what happened during the horrified reactions to the exhibit which unveiled his new direction. “When [painter Willem] de Kooning saw the show, after embracing me, and congratulating me, he said: ‘You know, Philip, what your real subject is? It’s freedom!’’

This is response to cultivate when life attempts to force us down, and away from our goals. Find freedom, and then get to work.

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Protecting Your Opponents from Themselves – Podcast #55

In my previous podcast series on American conservatism, I observed that they have a pattern of jumping into the breach to try to defend their opponents from the consequences of those opponents’ own ideology. For example, they defended the school administrators against the student radicals of the 60s when the administrators themselves were liberals implacable hostile to conservatism. In fact, some of those university leaders had previously trashed William F. Buckley over God and Man at Yale. We see this pattern persist into the present, most recently on display last week when New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the city would eliminate gifted and talented programs in the city’s public schools. Conservatives were outraged. I discuss this reaction and what it reveals about conservative patterns of behavior.

My previous podcast “Once More Into the Breach”

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The Masculinist #57: Life’s Not Fair

Welcome back to the Masculinist, the newsletter about how we live as Christian men and as the church in the modern world.

Please consider supporting the work of the Masculinist by becoming a monthly financial supporter on Patreon or Gumroad. Or send a one-time contribution by PayPalCash App, or mail a check payable to Aaron Renn to PO Box 33171, Indianapolis, IN 46203.

Life Isn’t Fair

As I noted in my retrospective on sociologist E. Digby Baltzell, the idea of fairness has traditionally been powerful in Anglo-American society.

But America is not fair and getting less fair by the day. There are many rules in our society that are highly asymmetric, and favor one group or person over another.

Many of these rules aren’t written down. It’s incumbent on us to discern them and act accordingly.

Often we fail to do this. We either don’t discern the implicit rule, or pretend as if we don’t know it because the rule doesn’t seem fair.

But life isn’t and never will be fair. We need to get used to it.

That doesn’t mean we can’t fight against rules that are unjust. Seeking to change unjust rules is praiseworthy. But even in doing that, we have to operate with an understanding of the true context in which we are seeking reform.

We might also choose to ignore or break certain rules. But we should do so intentionally, and with a full understanding of what we are doing.

Never Hit a Girl

There are several female Christian influencers who write about gender issues from an aggressively feminist perspective and in explicit opposition to conservative male pastors who believe in traditional gender theology.

I see men who disagree with them try to engage in debate or refute them on…

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