How does Red Pill differ from Complementarianism

PhilosophiaChristi · 2021-09-21T11:48:04+00:00

You can find a full answer to a related question in this post here.

A direct answer will need to get clear about what Secular Red Pill is and what Complementarianism is. Secular Red Pill is a collection of theories relating to the nature of men and women and our inter-sexual dynamics. In its modern form it was discovered in-field by pick up artists of the early-2000s and then developed through more theoretical discussions incorporating actual scientific data and the theoretical application of evolutionary psychology. Of course, true and false perspectives on the nature of men and women have proliferated throughout time. The great Elizabethan poet Edmund Spencer wrote in his Amoretti XXX:

My Love is like to ice, and I to fire:

How comes it then that this her cold so great

Is not dissolved through my so hot desire

But harder grows the more I her entreat?

Spencer, or the poetic voice, had realised that the more he devoted himself to one woman the less that woman cared for him. An early diagnosis of oneitis. Contrast that with Jane Austen in Pride and Prejudice who created the most desirable bachelor in Mr. Darcy, to this day the dream of girls everywhere:

“Now be sincere; did you admire me for my impertinence?”

“For the liveliness of your mind, I did.”

“You may as well call it impertinence at once… The fact is, you were sick of civility, of deference, of officious attention. You were disgusted with the women who were always speaking and looking, and thinking for your approbation alone. I aroused, and interested you, because I was so unlike them… You thoroughly despised the persons who so assidiously courted you.”

This is a dialogue between Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy. Jane Austen here is trying to justify - perhaps even to herself - why a man like Darcy would be interested in Elizabeth, who has sometimes been called a proto-feminist character. This is characteristic of female solipsism; women tend to believe that men want in women what women want in men. Women are attracted to men who aren't ever-civil and deferential, and who don't think and say what they believe the woman wants to hear (has a strong worldview and frame). Combine this with the desire of women to want to be like men and you have Elizabeth Bennett, no doubt reflecting something of the same in Austen's own mind.

So, the secular red pill is an a-moral, descriptive theory of men and women and their interactions. You find it everywhere in history along with the blue pill.

Complementarianism on the other hand is a recent theological development in the Western world. You could date it back to 1987 when the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood was formed. Or you could go back earlier to the various cultural rejection of the growing feminist and proto-feminist movements. Fascinating Womanhood by Helen Andelin, published in 1963, might be a good jumping off point. Here was a Christian author consciously returning to a Biblically consistent view of her role in her marriage in the midst of the '60s. But even then, the book was based on pamphlets written in the '20s. So it goes.

As a theological position, nothing behoves the complementarian to take a stance on the underlying psychology of men and women. In theory it would be possible for one to be a blue pilled complementarian. Such a person could say:

"Well honey, God has ordained for us that I lead the family, and that pastor Greg leads the church. Sure I think you could do a swell job of being in charge of the home and I reckon Mrs. Greg would be a great church organiser. But God wanted it this way, I guess."

And in the writings of complementarians you often find this sort of sentiment expressed. Outside of their writings, it has become a cultural verbal tic to call one's wife "my better half" or to exaggerate her good qualities beyond your own, as if that didn't reflect poorly on you (an example of the church not understanding hypergamy, women want superior men for husbands). Take a look at this article from the CBMW, this part in particular:

Christlike male headship means ... You generously and gladly solicit your wife’s wisdom. If your relationship is like mine, she will put you to shame in this category.

As R-C says in his post, why isn't she writing your article for you then?

I think the best thing for it would be to summarise u/Red-Curious' voluminous post.

Complementarianism gets close to the true Biblical position about men and women and their respective roles in the church and marriage. Complementarianism says that men should lead their families and church, and women should not take these roles. Great! But complementarians have made no attempt to understand the psychological differences between men and women as the secular red pill has. They are without excuse in this because God created us differently to fulfil our different roles of leader and helper in the physically embodied representation of our spiritual destiny. Also on that point, take a look at the "Core Principles" on the sidebar:

"Ephesians 5 - God designed physical relationships to parallel our spiritual one with Him; what God models on a spiritual level with us will work in our physical relationships as well."

God designed us so that we could learn what the right relation between man and God was by looking at the relation between wife and husband. We are happiest in our marriages when living in a red pilled way, with a husband on his mission and a wife submissively helping him.

So complementarians get close to the theological and physical reality which is identifiable by everyone, even non-Christians, through the red pill. But they do not take the final paradigm shift into what R-C calls "Biblical Headship" but which is really Patriarchy. Complementarians sometimes talk about partnerships in marriage with the men receiving a veto vote. Usually they end up deferring to their wife's preferences. I recently attended a complementarian wedding where the pastor said this to the groom:

"Prioritise the one you have been entrusted by God with. Today and every day lay down your preferences and hobby horses should they ever conflict with your wife, and always be willing to lay down your life for her as Christ has laid down His life for you."

For complementarians, who are at heart "chivalrous," the point of the Christian life and marriage is to keep your wife happy. The secular red pill is simply about what is true and false of men and women, combined with an a-moral toolkit for getting what you want. The Christian Red Pill is about understanding the world exactly as God created it (including the nature of men and women) in order to realise what God wants from you and to pursue that wholeheartedly.

Praexology · 2021-09-21T13:07:32+00:00

Some parts of this history lesson are not entirely correct but I also don't care enough to fully do the research. You're welcome to correct me, and I may or may not add it. Maybe this is actually deserving of it's own post.

I'm going to assume you are new. So here goes a short history lesson.

The Red Pill as we know it is a term coined by the movie "The Matrix" as basically "seeing the ugly truth" versus the blue pill which is "deliberate ignorance".

It was co-opted by Pick Up Artists (from here on out we will call them PUAs) and the Manosphere as an approach to the 'post-birth control dating market" to gain sexual success. A lot of it leaned on the dark triad traits to get that success. Machiavlianism, Narcissism, and Psychopathy to get a leg up.

Sometime around this time, the reddit sub r/TheRedPill was formed.

Now I get what you're thinking. "Pick Up Artists? Dark Triad? That all sounds pretty unsavory and anti Christian Ideals." And you'd be right, - to an extent. The theme/thought I want you to carry with you for the remainder of this post is this: Just because bad people found truth, doesn't make the truth bad, or the future wielders of that truth bad by the same metric.

r/TheRedPill

The Red Pill taught us that in order to be happy and successful, (with an incorrect presumption by the community that sex is the path to happiness) you have to take women off of the social pedistal. That women don't exactly behave the way they say they behave (which is to say, as if they were angels) But what did this community of, by my observations mostly 15 - 25 year old, guys do? They replaced individual women with their vaginas. Now sex was the thing they pedistalized. Things like r/MGTOW and the r/BlackPillScience became offshoots at this point as a means of coping with the inability to get the thing they pedistalized. At this time it seems like a lot of the big guys there have become shills, selling their own programs and books at the expense of their integrity. (But what did I expect from a community that praised the Dark Triad)

One other offshoot, which I believe to be the natural response to TRP, was:

r/MarriedRedPill aka (Red Pill on Hard Mode)

Some guys, for one reason or another, decided that they preferred sexual relationships within the parameters of LTRs or Marriages. And here is where things get sticky. Those Dark Triad traits? Yeah, they don't exactly work very well in LTRs because they are usually built upon lies and ego. (Exceptions abound here though.) So what were we left with: Guys who were the equivalent of Super Weenie Hut Jrs. now faced with the obstacle of becoming the things they originally lied about during their TRP trials.

Those qualities being: Confident, attractive, purpose driven, accepting of rejection, able to make decisions NOT based on fear (etc...)

And here's the thing: Just like TRP helped losers get laid, MRP turned losers into men. If TRP pedistalized Pussy, then MRP pedistalized the Pursuit of Self. The only way to achieve that is to become it over a long period of time. A lot of men go to MRP as a means to get laid, but come out as men. The great Bait-And-Switch.

Well, there were a few members of MRP:

u/Red-Curious u/RockandRollChuck u/OsmiumZulu u/DeepStrength and so on. (Now I don't know exactly what order they came in other than that RC is the guy who started it.) But this group of guys decided more or less:

"Hey, this RP stuff makes sense. Not only does it make sense, but a lot of this can be readily and easily gleamed from Scripture."

Which is where we get to the birth of:

r/RPChristians (aka MRP, but u/Redirectedfs and I get yelled at by Chuck when we bully people. 🤷‍♂️)

RC was so inspired by the play Hamilton that wrote the backbone into this community. We call this backbone "The Sidebar". Which is the compilation of community writings, largely written by those four guys I talked about earlier.

If TRP took women off the pedistal, and replaced it with Pussy, and MRP took Pussy off the pedistal and replaced it with the Pursuit of Self, the RPC takes the Pursuit of Self off and replaces it with the Pursuit of the Mission of Discipleship ala Matthew 28:16-20.

We still use MRPs bait and switch with sex. But it's obviously slightly different. Where it comes to RP content, we focus on turning guys into Men and with the appropriate understanding of man's relationship to women. But we've discussed that at length.

Our liveliest community is on Discord. You should join it.

NOW BACK TO YOUR QUESTION

Hopefully you understand now how that question is malformed. You can't really even compare the two as one is a Philosophical understanding of achieving sexual success and the other is a Theological belief about marital roles. They are similar in that they involve a man and woman, but that is only as far as they are similar.

Good Luck!

redpill-cool · 2021-09-21T20:54:22+00:00

Complementarianism sees men and women as equal but separate in their skills sets, as if two pieces of a puzzle fit together.

The Christian red pill is seeking Biblical truth on these matters, and we know the Bible says in 1 Peter 3:7 "Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered."

Women are the weaker vessel, we are not equal.

We also know that right at the beginning of the Bible in Genesis 3:16 it says "To the woman he said, I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.”

So the correct way to organize a relationship is patriarchal headship.

We also should not forget that Eve doomed all of humanity, and when Adam listened to her he did the same. This shows what happens when women take a leadership position - it leads only to chaos.

Taste_of_Based · 2021-09-21T13:12:14+00:00

Complementarianism was invented in the 1980s by people who sought a compromise position between patriarchy and egalitarianism.

Patriarchy is biblical. Complementarianism is basically trying to appeal to those who hate the bible's teaching on the sexes by reducing male headship to basically no women elders and a nominal "head of house" status applied to men, but this authority is neutered by a belief in servant leadership that the man only leads by serving his wife (a.k.a. bowing to her constant emotional needs).

The red pill is more of a loose series of observations about male and female nature that runs contrary to the values of the society. Not even all those in favor of patriarchy are red pilled. The red pill provides useful insight into the real motivators of behavior in the dating pool, the sexual marketplace, and relationships.

Banned_On_Facebook · 2021-09-21T15:42:03+00:00

I hate Mr. Darcy, the ideal fantasy man!

In Jane's time, upper class men were polite to upper class women to the point of lying. Mr. Darcy insisted on being frank, despite how Elizabeth would take it. That's one reason she liked him. Another reason is he thought she was average looking and so became smitten with her for her mind.

JabberWookie_77 · 2021-09-21T13:11:51+00:00

Thanks all, I appreciate the input.

Title	How does Red Pill differ from Complementarianism
Author	JabberWookie_77
Upvotes	11
Comments	18
Date	September 21, 2021 10:13 AM UTC (4 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/RPChristians
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/RPChristians/comments/psftd1/how_does_red_pill_differ_from_complementarianism/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/RPChristians/how-does-red-pill-differ-from-complementarianism.1075214 https://theredarchive.com/post/1075214

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