The Christian Manosphere and Toxic Masculinity
Starting around 2016 there seemed to be a growing problem online regarding far right politics and the use of the internet to target young men and boys. Many men I know who were teenagers around that time, myself included, spent some time falling down what is now known as the far-right rabbit hole. Through seemingly innocuous YouTube videos of “overly” emotional people being “owned by facts and logic”, these boys became increasingly inundated with conservative rhetoric and viewpoints. And, as they softened to one level of conservative belief, they would find themselves exploring the next level and on the process would go. For many of us, this was little more than a weird blip on our roads to the progressive and equality-minded people we are today, but many others never left that vortex of online hate.
As the years have progressed, we’ve seen these same online circles go on to envelope conspiracy theories like QAnon (which is itself a bundle of other conspiracies regarding election denial, pedophile rings run by Democrats, and all manner of other nonsense). This increasing detachment from reality and consumption of vitriolic content has led to a corner of the internet known simply as “the Manosphere” - a collection of podcasts, YouTube channels, TikTok accounts, Instagram pages, and other online forums dedicated to men and supposed male issues.
While this idea of spaces online for men to discuss male issues amongst themselves is not inherently problematic, the reality is that the Manosphere is not a benign presence. Many of these Manosphere podcasters and influencers dedicate their content to conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, misogyny, and far right politics. Common elements of Manosphere podcasts include men smoking cigars and drinking whiskey while calling women whores and pushing men to lift weights and make money. When they aren’t doing that, many of them are peddling vaccine hesitancy, inviting female pornstars and OnlyFans models on so they can make fun of them or make them look stupid, and generally promoting anti-intellectualism.
In short, the Manosphere is a problem that needs to be solved. But it doesn’t end at just uber-conservative politics and conspiracy theories. Something that has been a growing presence in Manosphere circles is religiosity. Well-known Manosphere personalities such as Andrew Tate have been touting the benefits of religion in a man’s life (Islam in Tate’s case) even as they continue to tout worldly pleasures like sex, money, and power. A growing issue I’ve had is that any amount of engagement with specifically Catholic media seems to route me to Manosphere creators pushing the idea that a “trad Cath” (traditional Catholic) man should be hitting up mass and the gym as often as possible, working on themselves to be providers for their families, and seeking out traditional women. Again, there is no inherent harm in urging people to take better care of their mental and spiritial well-being, but you’re only bound to have issues when you bundle religion, “traditional” masculinity, misogyny, and conspiracy into a neat little package.
The part of this that I find so insidious is that the push for America-branded conservatism to be tied to universal religious identities such as “Christian” or “Muslim” is that you have to start warping the Bible to support what you want it to support, rather than approaching it on its own terms. So now, rather than listening to a Jesus who proclaims blessings upon the meek, commands us to turn the other cheek, warns us against anger towards others, tells us to pray for our enemies and for those who persecute us, and tells us that the greatest commandments are to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves, we instead concoct a Jesus who wants us to be physically strong, emotionally stoic, deeply traditional, and more than a little misogynistic. That simply is not the Jesus I see reflected in the biblical texts. If you allow yourselves to invent the Jesus you want rather than listen to the Jesus you have, you are not Christian. You are simply men who desire control and authority and appreciate the veneer of religious legitimacy you can throw on top.
It reminds me of a video I saw of a Catholic priest giving his homily. He is telling the story of a priest who came before him, and man known to shamelessly follow Christ wherever he led and who was forward about his beliefs. In this particular story, the priest had been made aware of a strip club in the town where the girls had gone on strike because of low pay and mistreatment from management. This priest, following the example of Christ and the pro-worker teachings of the Catholic Church, joined these women at their picket line - they in their lingerie and he in his floor-length cassock.
The comments on this video were full of people claiming that this man did not know God and that he had acted contrary to the Church. Commenters insisted that the priest should not have supported these women because of their profession and their “lives of sin”. But think for a moment about this scenario. Maybe the priest did have his own opinions on the stripping industry - in fact, I’d say he certainly did - and he could have sat there and lectured these women, but he decided to stand with them instead. Regardless the work these women were doing, they deserved fair pay and proper treatment. They deserved to be treated like human beings. This priest saw this, and expressed the love of Christ in an environment one might not readily expect to find it. But all the comments saw was a man who should have been more judgmental and disparaging. Would he have helped the women had he simply lectured them? Not likely. Instead, women who likely turned to this work out of desperation would have been given no resources to improve their lives. This priest took the route I believe we all should desire to take.
You see a similar thing when it comes to popes espousing slightly more progressive opinions. When Pope Francis famously asked, “Who am I to judge?” in response to homosexual priests, or when he okayed the blessing of same-sex unions (not the same as a marriage), comment sections across the internet were filled with comments wonder whether the answer to “Is the Pope a Catholic?” was actually a yes anymore, or saying that this conservative person or that was “literally more Catholic than the pope.” It is just so disheartening to see such hate and disdain wrapped in the aesthetics of religion and passed off as love in the name of God.
In the end, there are no Bible verses about getting ripped, smoking cigars, or drinking whiskey, no matter how much Christian Manosphere types seem to think there are. Christ does not call us to large bank accounts and success in business. He does not call us to hate and judge and disparage. In fact, Christ calls us to the opposite of all of that. Christ calls us to be sheep in a land of wolves, to be meek and wary of conflict, to put away the riches and desires of this life in favor of the one that comes after. To be a Christian man is not to be strong, stoic, and hard of heart. Jesus wept, Jesus loved, and Jesus gave himself up to death without a fight. To be a Christian man is to follow in those footsteps.
