New Battlegrounds for the Souls of Men

Adding fuel to the campaign against what the media and culture elites have labeled "toxic" masculinity, the American Psychologists Association (APA) issued a study saying “traditional” masculinity is a "pathology" that is harmful and needs to be cured. One of its authors said, "If we can change men, we can change the world", echoing the emasculation movement’s agenda since the Garden of Eden. 

Shortly thereafter, the venerable razor company Gillette came out with a commercial not about shaving but one stereotyping men as rude, crude, and worse (Video Here). All of this fed more male bashing and drumbeat to obliterate "toxic" masculinity but it’s also sparked fierce backlash and awakened some creative counter-punching. Check out some of those reactions below:

Egard Watch Company’s Response to Gillette - HERE

Barbasol Shaving Company Preempted Gillette with this ad back in 2013 - HERE

Culture critic Ben Shapiro gave this point-by-point rebuttal of the Gillette’s ad and its ideology - HERE

‘What is masculinity’ is a crucial topic that needs full, open debate in the culture. Gillette is giving at least a chance to engage it.

Today men are more confused and conflicted about what it means to be a man than at any time in history. If men are that confused, then women are confused about femininity and children are confused about what it means to be a child. As go the men, so go the marriages, the families, the churches, the communities and the culture.

The crisis among men is not how God has designed, wired and purposed men for what He created was good, very good. But it’s the actual absence of biblical masculine virtues and models that leads to so many sin-bred, social pathologies. It’s not that biblical manhood has been emphasized too much but not much at all.  Years ago the church relinquished the field to secular culture to define and model manhood and then watch what men without God produce. Gender itself is now being radically redefined and modeled by culture elites while churches remain in the tall grass.

At the heart of mature, traditional masculinity is God’s Word, which bestows on men benevolent responsibility to lead, to provide for and to protect women, children, the innocent, the weak and the vulnerable. What that means was sanctified and modeled by Jesus Christ in the 33 years in walked on this earth. God created us male and female in his image with different and distinctive DNAs, biologies and roles and responsibilities. In unprecedented ways and with blazing speed, the secular culture is denying and rebelling against God’s design and order.

A famous cigarette billboard ad back in the sixties pictured a burly, bronze-faced, muscular macho man with a cigarette hanging out the side of his mouth. The script said, "Where a man belongs." That was a lie. John Piper once wrote, "Where a man belongs is at the bedside of his children, leading in devotion and prayer. Where a man belongs is leading his family to the house of God. Where a man belongs is up early and alone with God seeking vision and direction for the family.

So how did we reach this state of confusion and conflict about manhood, womanhood, childhood and even what it means to be human made in the image of God, Well, here’s what God says:

“And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.” Romans 1:28-31

BY DAVE BROWN, DIRECTOR AND PASTOR, WACMM

Men Are Called To Be Warriors for Life

"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can understand it? I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.”
- Jeremiah 17:9-10

I spoke to a group of men this week about watching the clip of New York lawmakers in thunderous applause over their having legalized baby killing. Under the new law, the mother gets to decide if the child is a human being. In addition to doctors, nurses, midwives and others are now authorized to do the executions right up to the moment of actual birth and  protections for surviving babies were repealed (thus authorizing infanticide).

Kermit Gosnell ran a Philadelphia abortion clinic for 30 years where he murdered
with impunity thousands of babies, often killing many mothers in the process. Routinely he delivered babies alive and then cut their necks with scissors. The grand jury called him the “butcher of women.” ABC News labeled him America’s biggest serial killer. He’s serving life without parole.

Gosnell always maintained his innocence saying he was just ahead of his time, and that someday he would be exonerated. I believe the State of New York just did exonerate him and others states like VA, RI and NM are quickly moving to do the same.

Over the last few years men and women from many Montgomery County MD churches locked arms and mobilized in prayer and action against the notorious late-term abortionist LeRoy Carhart. After years of public protests and education, faithful sidewalk counseling of women who visited the clinic and creative engagement with the clinic’s ownership, Carhart was sent packing last year. Men like Pastor Charlie Baile were not silent or passive but went straight to the point of the battle.

As men, one of our crucial God-given responsibilities is to respect, protect and defend the innocent and the most vulnerable among us. We cannot and must not remain silent in the face of the great evil of abortion and infanticide as many of us have in the past. We all need to be awakened from silence in the pulpit and pew as never before to give voice to life. Martin Luther put it this way, “At the point where the battle is fiercest, there the loyalty of the soldier is most tested.” This is our battle test - to be warriors in behalf of life as God calls and equips us to be.

Edmund Burke once observed “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Pray that you will not be counted among the “do nothings. Ask God to link you to battle buddies with whom you can go to war against legalized abortion and infanticide and everything that corrupts the image of God.

Every human being - pre-born or born  - no matter who they are, no matter where they are, no matter what they have done or have had done to them — possesses intrinsic dignity, value, worth and dignity because we’re all made in the image of God. If we cannot or will not protect and defend the most vulnerable, the least among us, then no one will be safe from those who would marginalize, enslave and destroy anyone who is different from them and their goals, whether for comfort, convenience, power or hatred.

German pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) initially supported Adolph Hitler but he became one of the founders of the Confessing Church, which opposed the Nazification of German Protestant churches and the incremental purging of the Nazis chosen target groups. He wrote the following poem that has echoed down through the decades and must be re-heard by this generation of believers about what is at stake in the battle for life.

“First they came for the communists and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a communist. 

“Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a trade unionist.

“Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
 
“Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”

The LORD WILL HAVE THE FINAL WORD:

"Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks...I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” — Jesus (Matt. 12:34, 36-37)

BY DAVE BROWN, DIRECTOR AND PASTOR, WACMM

First "Transgender" in Miss Universe Contest Hailed As Men Can Be Women

In the Hans Christian Andersen tale, the emperor had no clothes. These days, if the emperor puts on the right clothes, he can call himself an empress. And we all have to applaud.

Yesterday’s Miss Universe contest featured, for the first time in the event’s 66-year history, a transgender woman. Competing as Miss Spain, Angela Ponce entered the pageant to much acclaim, writing in an Instagram post: “Today I am here, proudly representing my nation, all women and human rights.”

Ponce didn’t win, but the 27-year-old has been hailed by the media merely for competing. “Miss Philippines Catriona Gray took home the crown at the 2018 Miss Universe pageant on Sunday night in Bangkok, Thailand, but she wasn’t the only winner of the night,” a writer for ABC News declared Monday morning. “Miss Spain’s Angela Ponce became the competition’s first transgender contestant, a major step for the 66-year-old pageant.”

“In the wake of a Victoria’s Secret fashion show that many feel failed on the inclusivity front, Spain’s Angela Ponce is poised to make history as the first transgender woman to compete in Miss Universe,” a Yahoo! News writer began her article on the topic. The NBC News feature on the Miss Universe competition didn’t even mention Monday night’s winner until four paragraphs into the article, focusing instead on how Ponce “broke barriers.”

All of this fanfare raises the inevitable question: Could Ponce actually “represent all women” without being a woman at all? In our unscientific moment, so much as asking this question is enough to warrant being drummed out of polite company in certain circles.

Dwell for just a moment on the reality of Ponce’s biology — a reality that, no matter how much cosmetic surgery Ponce obtains and regardless of whether Ponce truly feels like a woman, cannot be altered. Technology might disguise that truth, but no amount of medicine or mutilation can coax Ponce’s chromosomes into submission.

But consider another question, too, and perhaps a more important one: Can Ponce live as a transgender woman without forcing us to go along for the ride? The Miss Universe pageant, the progressive media complex and, increasingly, the left wing of American politics, seem to think not.

Ponce told Time magazine in November that winning the contest would be symbolic: “Trans women have been persecuted and erased for so long. If they give me the crown, it would show trans women are just as much women as cis women.”

This is the charade we are being asked to accept. It is not enough to say, as we should, that gender dysphoria is a real psychological phenomenon, that a just and compassionate society ought to recognize the reality of the struggle people like Ponce face, and that bullying and hatred directed at such people is evil and wrong.

We are also meant to chant along with the crowd that Ponce is a woman. Anything less is transphobia. Decency and charity are no longer enough; affirmation and glorification — ideally before as large an audience as possible — are the only acceptable course.

And what does this new frontier of progressivism mean for other planks of the platform? The unassailable dogma that women are constantly oppressed and subjugated by the patriarchy — that we can only be free if we recognize and disempower the tyranny of white male privilege that prevents women from expressing ourselves and taking control of our lives — requires that there is such a thing as womanhood, and that it can be defined consistently.

Ponce’s much-hailed appearance in the Miss Universe contest, on the other hand, implies societal acceptance of the idea that men can in fact be women.

These two doctrines of progressivism are in fundamental tension. Even if one accepts the notion that some biological males can feel so female that they essentially are, in some intangible way, women, such a view necessarily conflicts with the feminist claim that there is something unique about being a woman — and that womanhood deserves to be shielded from the encroachment of male power.

The wholehearted embrace of transgender ideology necessarily, and quite intentionally, erases womanhood. It allows biological males to don the mantle of femaleness simply by asserting that it is their birthright. There has never been a more patriarchal claim.

Perhaps the far Left believes that if its members force skeptics to nod along with Ponce’s pageantry, they can avoid the schisms inherent to a movement that claims to value feminism while insisting that being female has no meaning at all.

By Alexandra DeSanctis — Alexandra DeSanctis is a staff writer for National Review

Having a Merry Pagan Christmas

Ross Douthat, a columnist for The New York Times, says the culture war in America may not be so much about secularism or atheism replacing Christianity but the rise of an old Christian foe — paganism.

This ancient religion differs from atheism in that it allows for a spiritual dimension to life and creation, but not an omnipotent, benevolent God. The power is in the creation itself, which is why so many New Age adherents find divinity when they look at a sunset, a flower, or in some cases, their own mirror image.

Mr. Douthat explains the clash of worldviews presented in a new book by Steven D. Smith, “Pagans and Christiansin the City: Culture Wars from the Tiber to the Potomac”:

“What is that conception? Simply this: that divinity is fundamentally inside the world rather than outside it, that God or the gods or Being are ultimately part of nature rather than an external creator, and that meaning and morality and metaphysical experience are to be sought in a fuller communion with the immanent world rather than a leap toward the transcendent.”

This is quite different from, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1) and “All things were made through Him” (John 1:3).

Increasingly, “the universe” is replacing references to God in current TV shows and movies. On the flip side, some of this year’s new Hallmark holiday flicks lean the other way, featuring sacred carols such as “Hark the Herald Angels Sing.”

The pagan worldview is promoted by leading figures such as Oprah Winfrey, with her New Age version of “can’t we all just get along?” and the prolific writer Sally Quinn, widow of Ben Bradlee, the longtime editor of The Washington Post.

Ms. Quinn writes on religious topics for The Post, and used to edit The Post’s religion page, which is a smorgasbord of modern heresies, the wilder the better. The left favors almost any religious expression other than orthodox Christianity, which is why it’s soft on paganism and even Islam.

The latter’s militants are inflicting terror all over the world, most recently when a gunman yelled “Allahu Akbar” before gunning down 16 people, killing at least two, at a Christmas market in Strasbourg, France, on Dec. 11. The Post, like the rest of the media, downplayed it, ignoring the religious motivation and playing up the shooter’s criminal past.

Ms. Quinn chronicles her own plunge into witchly pursuits in her 2017 memoir, “Finding Magic,” in which she describes dabbling with the paranormal and hexing people she didn’t like.

She says she left behind the dark arts following three deaths that occurred shockingly soon after her hexing. But she’s not done with the occult. In a Washingtonian magazine profile in August 2017, Michelle Cottle wrote, “Ouija boards, astrological charts, palm reading, talismans — Quinn embraces it all. And yes, she has been in contact with her husband since his passing. Through a medium. Repeatedly.”

Last Monday, Ms. Quinn moderated a bookstore appearance by porn star and Trump accuser Stormy Daniels. She said, with her son looking on, that she planned to attend Ms. Daniels’ strip show that evening, and that “I’ve watched Stormy’s porn, and it’s good. She knows what she’s doing.”

If you wonder why The Post gives short shrift to the biblical view that sex is a God-given gift to be enjoyed only in marriage, well, it shouldn’t be a mystery.

Elsewhere in The Post’s Style section, columnist Monica Hesse admits an addiction to the classic movie “White Christmas,” but makes sure to point out its politically incorrect flaws, such as a song about minstrel shows. The movie is redeemed when Danny Kaye rebuffs a kiss from the beautiful Vera Ellen. Mr. Kaye “demures so vehemently that the ‘White Christmas’ message boards have speculated that the character might be gay. Well, if so, kudos to that subversive choice, too.”

Kudos for subversion of romance between a man and a woman? This is liberal virtue-signaling at its purest. In the progressive worldview, everything is political, including sex.

Ms. Quinn says that friends have repeatedly asked her to place a hex on President Trump, an idea which, to her credit, she’s rejected. But think about that. Sally’s lefty pals hate Mr. Trump so much they want him magically killed, not just removed from office.

Pre-and post-Christian pagan societies are not known for their qualities of mercy.

by Robert Knight is a contributor to The Washington Times. His latest book is “A Nation Worth Saving: 10 Steps to Restore Freedom” (djkm.org/nation, 2018).