I’ve been writing this post for a week and it’s still an impossible nut to crack. I think it’s because I’m trying to to express something I’ve rarely “achieved,” may not even believe, or is just too raw.
Last time I was talking about the AlphaManGurus and a particular program/system one of them offers. I tried to articulate why it repels as much as it attracts. Bottom line: it fills the self with a ten metric ton of stuff that distracts from what is true, good and beautiful. It covers and obscures what is really necessary for men to succeed, which leads them deeper into the despair and inertia that got them there in the first place. I’d say its definition of “success” is questionable, too.
It’s the philosophy of the world baptized and made dogma. Imagine Tony Robbins in a Roman collar.
The alternative? Well, that’s what I’ve been looking for. I—and I really don’t think I’m the only one here—go looking for that true, good and beautiful with AlphaManGuru shades on. So, when grace begins to transfigure us, it quickly turns into something like this:
I had two thoughts when I ran into that the other day:
Somebody is about to die.
That’s not totally unfamiliar.
In the three or four drafts of this piece I attempted, I had a lot of fun with that clip but I trashed them because they were uncharitable to say the least. Definitely hypocritical. Over here on the apostolic side of Christianity, we love our Crusader memes, after all.
Needless to say, my Orthodox brothers and sisters aren’t particularly fond of Crusader memes, but there is definitely a radioactive strain of Alpha Christianity in the East. It turned me off for years, even while I was on the eastern side of Catholicism.
What I’m trying to get at is that there’s a certain and perhaps understandable, if not justifiable, desire we men feel when it comes to the faith, regardless of creed. When the faith begins to truly transform us, to transfigure us, we see everything differently. We often begin to resent and loathe the world as its presented to us. We “righteously” turn militant.
I think the path splits here, at least for some. Some put on their armor, pick up their sword, and go hunting for heretics. The socials give them infinite battlefields, and they think they’re doing good as they Deus Vult across the Twitterverse. I certainly did my tour of duty, although Twitter, Facebook and all the rest didn’t exist back then. (Back in my day, kids, we argued in public forums, LIKE MEN.)
Looking back on it now, though, it was more like the sword-swinging video I started with.
Then there are those who recoil from Alpha Christianity and become open to anything and everything through a perverse application of “don’t judge.” You can usually find their altars and crosses draped with rainbow flags. Or, perhaps worse, they simply make peace with a mediocrity that is neither Heaven nor Hell, which they regard as a sensible plate of moderately buttered broccoli they just have to choke down.
I think that for a lot of us, we jump back and forth between the paths. That was certainly me, and that nearly led to a dark, nihilistic place that, far from being relief from the striving, was actually more exhausting to maintain.
In the course of writing this piece a buddy from back in VA wrote to share his frustration about exactly this struggle. I was hacking my way through draft one, then two, then three, self-immolating in doubt about whether I’m talking about a real phenomenon, or just my own personal and probably stupid experience, when he texted me about this exact thing:
“There’s a dark path stemming from those toxic [Alpha] groups and the scary thing is that…it can work. But kinda at the cost of your soul and morals. Just like science can be sound, but still morally awful.”
Later: “I’m struggling to see Christianity as a force of good in the modern world somedays, or if it’s a faith of suicide… But then I figure, maybe that is the Holy Spirit at work because the fact that this faith is alive with this almost suicidal doormat policy we hold seems to be contradictory to Darwin’s...’survival of the fittest.’”
The “doormat policy.” I think this is the crux of it for so many of us guys. With all of our obligations stemming from our core responsibilities - to provide, to protect, to be priests in our own homes, and therefore men of virtue, while going into a hostile and perverse world on a daily basis that gives us hard moral choices on an hourly basis… It gets rough.
But here is where I get some possibly undue comfort from reflecting on the life of King David, a, shall we say, “morally questionable,” Biblical figure, and yet he’s described in Acts as “a man after my own heart.”
Maybe I’ll try to untangle that at another time, but for now, I just want to wrap it up with something that has “worked” very well for me, and has saved me from that toxic attraction to the AlphaManGuru universe. With all of this crap sinking hooks into my (our) soul(s), yanking us in different directions, I’ve found that the real fight takes place in a quiet place without sword and shield. To get there requires one (me, anyway), to get as “naked” spiritually as a Celtic or Spartan warrior did which, in a classic Christian paradox, actually equips one for battle even better. It’s 1000 percent better than any “gamified” system of life, or four-fold daily practice, or any affirmation. It’s just a walk in the morning darkness with a prayer rope in my hand, and the Jesus Prayer on my lips: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the Sinner…”
One hundred percent of this post was written by a genuine, legacy style intelligence, i.e. an original human male. (ChatGPT was offline.)
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Alpha Detox, Part 2
"I think that for a lot of us, we jump back and forth between the paths. That was certainly me, and that nearly led to a dark, nihilistic place that, far from being relief from the striving, was actually more exhausting to maintain." This resonates with me a lot. I definitely lean toward the passive side of Christianity, but I also can't help but think maybe we are supposed to be more militant. There was a period of time where I saw how militant Muslims are about their faith. They really take no s***. "Well, if my faith is true, and their's isn't, why aren't I responding to attacks just as hard as they do?" That was thankfully short lived, but definitely took me to a nihilistic place - one that cost me a few friends because of my new found asshatery.
"Deus Vulting across the Twitterverse" I am VERY stealing that one!
Moderately buttered broccoli! You're a hoot! This I pray: Come, Lord Jesus, come but first let me get out of my own way!