The Mechanics of Sectarianism within The Christian Red Pill [R+]

Can’t agree?  Then form a new denomination / sect!

Readership: All, especially Christians
Theme: Problems with The Red Pill / Infighting / Sectarianism / Socio-Political Misappropriation
Author’s Note: Based on email correspondence between Jack, NovaSeeker, and Thedeti between 2019-2021.
Length: 1,900 words
Reading Time: 11 minutes

Intro

Back in 2019-2020, and maybe a little earlier or later, here and there, there was much discussion, not only within the Manosphere, but also within the larger online community, about the value of Red Pill truth from a Christian perspective, and whether the Red Pill could even be considered Christian or not.

Leaving aside the atheists, who have only a marginal investment in the topic, in general, there were several different perspectives on this issue. (For clarity and ease of discussion, each of these perspectives are represented by a speed nomenclature, given in brackets.)

1. Christians who viewed the Red Pill as a collection of valuable truths that coincided with the Bible on a constellation of points, and well worthy of contemplation. [R+]
2. Christians who viewed the Red Pill as questionable, due to its connotative association with hook-up culture, PUA’s, etc. [R-]
3. Churchians who viewed the Red Pill as philosophically valuable, but twisted it to suit their own predetermined views, resulting in a Purple Pill mindset. [B+]
4. Men, some Christian or Churchian, who viewed the Red Pill as economically or sociologically valuable, and hijacked it to suit their own marketing strategy, often accompanied by a sensationalistic consortium of ‘ideological products’. [B$]
5. Churchians who viewed the Red Pill as a m!s0gyn!st!c, r@c!st, h0m0ph0b!c, or a community of ‘!ncels’ or radicals. [B-]
6. Christians or Churchians who viewed the Red Pill as a new brand of religious cult. [C]

At the time, the viewpoints arising from each of the above perspectives clashed in various blog posts, comments, and op eds.  Many voices couldn’t identify the general perspective taken by others, and therefore had no idea how to respond appropriately. Confusion abounded in the virtual blogs and forums, e-friendships were forged and broken.

The confusion over these issues came to a head in 2019, when Dalrock entered into some tedious, heated, drawn-out discussions with Warhorn, Doug Wilson, Bnonn Tennant, Michael Foster, et al. Apparently, this interchange took a severe toll on Dalrock, and he resigned from blogging in early 2020.  “Silenced at last!”, was the cry heard.

But not so fast. Biblical Gender Roles (BGR) rose to the occasion and methodically attacked a separate but interrelated question underwriting the entire debate — Is the Red Pill Biblical?

Then in 2020-2021, The Red Pill largely shifted to video format and became more sensationalistic and less rational.  Hence, The Red Pill 2.0 was born.  All the arguments, rifts, and even whole topics that were making headway in The Red Pill 1.0 were almost entirely forgotten overnight.

Or were they?

In this mini-series, I’ll answer some of those questions that had been left dangling, and argue that The Christian Red Pill 1.0 was morphing into various sociopraxeological entities at the time it was interrupted.

In the remainder of this post, I’ll examine the first group on the list [R+] to reveal how it has splintered into sociotheological entities.

Divisions in The Christian Manosphere / Red Pill [R+]

During 2021 when NovaSeeker was on board, an important and vexing philosophical development was addressed here at Σ Frame, referred to as The Exploration vs. Exploitation Tradeoff.  To briefly describe, navigating the landscape of life requires balancing reward maximization based on the knowledge already acquired with attempting new actions to further increase knowledge. In simple terms, this means that people who have had a lot of experience and who have made a lot of mistakes, usually become wiser and more proficient in the process. So the question becomes, how much, and to what extent does one need to ‘mess around’ (to put it politely) in order to “come to terms with one’s self” and gain the wisdom of experience, and how much does one need to walk the straight and narrow in order to avoid the negative consequences of doing so?  (Read more about The Exploration vs. Exploitation Tradeoff here.)

The doctrinal implications and logical ramifications of this discussion revealed not only that the devil is in the details (as readers might imagine), but also a more fundamental problem of ontology involving the mechanics of deductive thought.

I’ll try to explain this ontological problem as best I can.

We are all different individuals having different experiences, and coming from different walks of life, and thus we face different challenges and different problems.  NovaSeeker addressed this variance of viewpoints in his post, Constructing a Framework of Options (2021/3/15).  Because of all these different but equally valid perspectives, what are problems for some of us simply don’t appear to be significant to others because said others never experienced them as problems (and/or see those who do experience said problems as being “lesser” or irrelevant, or the people themselves having “issues” or being “cringe” or what have you).  Meanwhile the very different problems they do face are equated with first-order problems that they think the Christian Manosphere should place top priority on addressing.

When everyone has different problems based on different experiences, and these problems are different in nature, focus, and “order” (in terms of whether they are fundamental order, second level, third level etc.), not only will there be no consensus, but they won’t even be able to have a coherent discussion.  Instead, people talk past each other, or they just shake their heads in befuddlement at each other, because there is a chasm between them that is experiential / phenomenological and not simply cognitive.  (In psychology, this chasm is referred to as a ‘non-shared environment’.)  Nothing can be done about this chasm, because this is just how God created us.

Why A Clearinghouse of Ideas Doesn’t Work

The old Manosphere had the same kinds of issues, of course, but it functioned more like a clearinghouse at first — a grab-bag of advice that men could peruse, use at their discretion, combine as they wished and so on, with no “one solution for everyone” touted — at least at first.  Later, divisions happened because ideologies emerged in favor of this or that specific application (using a combination of Manosphere tools) as being “The True Red Pill”, and divisions happened over that.  But there are still grab-bag type of places like Reddit / Married Red Pill that can get around that problem, at least in the sidebar, and offer people a clearinghouse of experience, information, and tools to use as they wish, as it works for their own goals, lives and values.

All these differences of opinions and viewpoints become a more acute issue because of the Christian nature of the audience.  When you add Christianity to the mix, this becomes an approach that is practically impossible.  Christians are generally focused on finding “What is the one true Christian approach?”, and trying to work out the details of that.  When they do find something that checks all their philosophical and theological boxes, they tout it as the “one true” approach, separate from others who don’t agree with them on various points, and build a religious ideology around it.

Moreover, you can’t have a clearinghouse approach when people see how you use the clearinghouse, and even what ideas you look at in the clearinghouse, as a moral and/or sacrosanct issue having eternal consequences, or as bearing such moral taint that it disgusts them to the point of not wanting to participate at all.

The Christian Red Pill Mimics the Divisions Inherent in Protestantism

This is especially true in the Christian Manosphere, because the kind of Christian that tends to come here and identify as a “Christian Red Pill” type is overwhelmingly likely to be a fundamentalist type Christian, or another kind of ultraconservative Christian, and most people like that have a strong to very strong distaste for dissonance in general, and a particularly strong aversion towards anything that they may perceive to be doctrinally or morally incongruent.  They are simply much less capable of entertaining arguments that they have already deemed ‘unscriptural’, or participating in things that are ‘tainted’ in their eyes, with the aim of extracting something good or useful out of them.  Instead, the preferred approach is generally some form of separatism, an irreconcilable strategy that mirrors Protestantism in general.

In the Christian Manosphere, that leads to division, silos, judgment, and the like being as common as dirt.

This is a very strong tendency in all religious people, but since we are all Christians here, it is inside this faith of ours that we have experienced this most commonly.  It has always made the Christian Red Pill incredibly divisive, divided, and splintered.  Interestingly, The Christian Manosphere / Red Pill is exactly like Protestantism in this regard: “Can’t agree?  Then form a new denomination / sect.”

All of this means, what we are trying to do here at Σ Frame is very hard, maybe even impossible given the atomized state of the church, society, and philosophy itself.

Christian Red Pill Sects

The biggest “divides” that have formed in the Christian Manosphere are as follows, and roughly in this order. I think these could be extended to describe Christianity in general. (Converged churchianity is not included here.)

1. The Sola Scriptura camp vs. the Mystical Faith camp.
2. Moral Absolutists vs. Moral Relativists vs. Moral Discernment / Wisdom.
3. The Ecclesiastical camp* (those having an allegiance to an established faith tradition) vs. the Independents (those who’ve had a bad experience with organized religion).
4. The Sex = Marriage camp vs. the Sex ≠ Marriage camp.**
5. The Headship Authority camp vs. the Peaceful Unity*** camp.

What we see in the Christian Manosphere / Red Pill these days is that each blog, forum, or content producer has settled into a rhetoric that befits their own individualized approach to each of the above five dichotomies.

Note: There are other divergences surrounding other areas of concern, e.g. church leadership, mentoring, parenting, etc. but these five are the most significant.

If one were to study the body of philosophy proffered by each one in depth, one would find the inherent constitutional principles thereof conforms to one of the above 5 types.

Here are a few examples broken down.

• Bruce Charlton, Francis Berger – Mystical Faith, Moral Discernment, Ecclesiastical. (They do not explicitly cover the topic of marriage, so 4 and 5 are not emphasized.)
• Christianity and Masculinity (Deep Strength) – Sola Scriptura, Moral Absolutist, more ecclesiastical than not (Protestant), Sex ≠ Marriage, and Headship.
• Dalrock – Sola Scriptura, Moral Absolutist, Ecclesiastical (Protestant), Sex ≠ Marriage, and Headship.
• Derek L. Ramsey (Ramman3000) – Sola Scriptura, Moral Absolutist, more ecclesiastical than not (Anabaptist), Sex = Marriage, and Peaceful Unity.
• Jim – Leans towards Sola Scriptura, Moral Relativist, Independent, holds unique views of Sex = Marriage, and strict Headship.
• Laughing at Feminism (Sharkly) – Sola Scriptura, Moral Absolutist, Independent, Sex = Marriage, Headship.
• Michael Foster, Bnonn Tennant – Sola Scriptura, Moral Relativist, Ecclesiastical (Protestant), Sex ≠ Marriage, and Peaceful Unity.
• Radix Fidem / Catacomb Resident (Tomb Refugee) – Mystical Faith, Moral Discernment, Independent, leans towards Sex = Marriage, and Headship.
• Σ Frame (Jack) – Mystical Faith, Moral Discernment, Independent, Sex = Marriage, and Headship Authority.
• The Orthosphere –  Moral Absolutist, firmly Ecclesiastical (Catholic, which determines 1 and 5), and Traditional Marriage.
• Vox Day – Sola Scriptura background, but does not emphasize this, Moral Absolutist (Civilizationism), defacto Independent, Sex ≠ Marriage, and Headship (assumed).

Alliances and Divisions

From what I can tell, some groups tend to get along much better than others.

• Ecclesiastical types tend to disregard Independent voices.
• Peaceful Unity types tend to have strong marriages and recoil from extreme Headship Authority.
• The Moral Absolutists and Moral Discernment / Wisdom types get along rather well, but the Moral Relativists are not taken seriously by them.  In fact, Moral Absolutists are disgusted by Moral Relativists.

Readers are welcome to suggest others.

Conclusions

Although we may all have different beliefs, opinions, and perspectives, I strongly and humbly suggest that we should all agree on Christ, if we are indeed found in Him.  Otherwise, The Christian Manosphere / Red Pill cannot be a body of believers.

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