What is the role of "the red pill" in Scripture? We have a whole sidebar series devoted to showing how it's in there. But what do we do with it? Where does it fit in with God's master plan? I've addressed this a lot on the discord, but it occurs to me I haven't put it here yet, so let's do that now.

DISCIPLES OF WHO?

I've seen many men in this forum get hooked on the concept of discipleship. Excellent! I've said before that the entirety of the Christian life can be summed up in the three greats: (G) Love God, (O) Love Others, and (D) Make Disciples. These are the greatest command, second greatest command, and great commission. Jesus says, "The one who has my commands and obeys them is the one who loves me," so you can't say you truly love God if you're not fulfilling his command to make disciples. "Jesus, I love you enough to follow most of your commands, but not that one. I won't make disciples. But if I follow your other commands, is that enough love for you?" Good luck with that line.

Okay, so you're making disciples ... but disciples of who? I've known too many men who want to make disciples of masculinity instead of Christ. I'm going to pick on our mod /u/TheChristianAlpha because he's an easy target and has the frame to handle it. I remember asking him his mission at one point and he said, "To raise up more masculine men in the Church." Cool. That's useful. But it also means that the focus of his mission at that time was to generate masculinity, not Christ-followers. There's a difference. For the record, that was years ago and TCA has moved past that.

1 John 2:6 says, "Whoever says he abides in him [Jesus] ought to walk in the same way in which he walked." We are to be training people to be disciples of Christ, not disciples of "masculinity," whatever that means.


IT'S NOT A TWO-WAY STREET

The reality is that every man who follows Jesus and strives to be like him will be masculine. Jesus is the model man. The more you become like Christ, the more you will attain the epitome of masculinity. It won't be the world's definition of masculinity, nor will it be the mainstream church's. But it will be Christ's expression of it, and you can't go wrong with that. Just make sure you know who Christ actually was and what he actually did and do likewise, rather than trusting in assumptions and ingrained notions you may have been raised with on the subject. Again, we have a whole sidebar for that.

But the reverse is not true. Not everyone who pursues masculinity will be more like Christ. There are several expressions of masculinity - including those taught in secular red pill channels - which are quite unChrist-like.

This is hard for many red pill guys to wrap their heads around because the red pill has so drastically changed their lives that some people are more evangelistic about the red pill for saving them from blue pill agony than they are about Christ for saving them from sin and eternal hellfire. See the imbalance there? If the red pill has changed your life more than Jesus has changed your life, there's a problem. Which one are you looking to as your actual savior?

In the end, the goal should be to make people more like Jesus, which will inherently mean making them more masculine and "red pilled." But making people more red-pilled/philosophically-masculine will not necessarily make them more like Jesus.


TIMING IS KEY

The Timeline

So, why bother with the red pill at all, if Jesus is the short-term, mid-term, and long-term goal anyway?

Ecclesiastes 3 tells us, "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal ..." a time to talk about relationships and sexual strategy, and a time to set those things aside.

In my 309 post on "the discipleship process" I wrote about distinct process that help us grow. A non-Christian is "Evangelised" into becoming a Convert. A Convert is "Established" into becoming a Disciple. A Disciple is "Equipped" to become a DiscipleR. And a DiscipleR builds an "Entrusting relationship with his disciples to become a Leader over discipleR-making ministries.

  • Evangelism is about building relationships with non-believers and leveraging those relationships to spread the Gospel.

  • Establishing is getting a new believer grounded in the faith to the point where they are capable spiritual survival even without your leadership.

  • Equipping is the process of casting a vision on one who is already following Christ so that instead of merely surviving in their faith, they are thriving and producing. The equipped man has a purpose in his following that is actually beneficial to the Kingdom and not only his own life.

  • Entrusting is the process of coordinating discipleR-makers of all sorts into a common, unified effort for the sake of growth and efficiency rather than discipleship chaos.

This process is your timeline, and it could take any amount of time to help any one person move from each phase to the next. Evangelism could take weeks or years. Establishing should ideally take about 6 months, but could take as little as 3 or as long as years. I try to shoot for Jesus' timeline: roughly 3 years for the entire process with any one person.

Red Pill Timing

The Evangelism phase is not the place for the red pill (with one caveat): UNLESS the person is a non-Christian and the fact of his dying marriage is the relational "in" you have with him to build toward sharing the Gospel. In that situation, use the red pill to help him unscrew himself while pointing out that you learned all of this stuff from Jesus and that becoming like Jesus can not only help fix him in the midst of relationships woes, but every other area of life too - especially eternity. See how that works? But for the most part, evangelism is NOT the proper timing to be pushing red pill concepts.

The Establishing phase is also not the place for the red pill (with one caveat): UNLESS the guy is on the brink of divorce and his marriage woes so bad that they are preventing him from otherwise being established and you have no choice but to work through those issues before getting him grounded. Otherwise, the main goal of the establishing phase is just to get him following Jesus. This is the 300 series' "7 Basics" - Assurance of Salvation, Quiet Times, Bible Study, Scripture Memory, Prayer, Evangelism, and Fellowship. Those are all that matters. Keep the red pill sidelined in virtually every situation in the establishing phase (i.e. at least the first 6 months you're working with someone, unless they're already extremely well-established).

The Equipping phase IS the proper place for the red pill. To quote that section of my 309 post:

In order to aid him in this process, he must be equipped with several tools to help him. Those tools might be additional disciplines beyond the basics. It might be theological understanding. It might be a strong familiarity with the Word. It could be practical life skills, like charisma, passion, humility, etc. It could be practical things in one's life that help him connect with others, like his good looks, having a respectable family, house, and car, etc. All of these tools can usually be summarized in three categories: things that foster (1) relationship-building, (2) ministry skills and understanding, and (3) character development.

The "practical things in one's life that help him connect with others" and "relationship-building" concepts are where the red pill are finally of value in the discipleship process. Here you're not trying desperately to save a sinking ship. You're properly giving a man tools that you know he'll need in proper timing. This is the core of wisdom in the timing of the red pill in the discipleship process. If you are introducing the red pill in your discipleship process sooner than this, then you are probably trying to red-knight a man more than you are trying to disciple him. Discipleship is about making a Christ-follower, not a red-pill-follower.

The Entrusting phase is too late to bring up red pill concepts. In order for him to be an effective discipler he needs to know how to be an effective man. If you're training him to lead discipleship ministries and he doesn't even know how to interact with his wife or a single woman properly, you're jumping the gun.


WHY DOES THIS MATTER?

If you introduce red pill praxeology and marriage/relationship theology out of turn, you are going to create an inappropriately timed over-excitement about those concepts because they're easy to get worked up over. The person will be less interested in Jesus than they are in their newfound sexual capabilities, which will make it difficult to guide the ship where it needs to go later.

It also says a lot about your own character and the degree to which you're committed to Christ v. the red pill. What you evangelize most is likely who/what you worship most.

By introducing red pill prior to the equipping phase, you are more likely to get someone to go Rambo because he doesn't have the filter of biblical discipline tempering his understanding and expression of the red pill.

The list could go on. If you want to discuss further, do it in the comments. In the meantime, I'll simply note that there's merit to the view that we can use the red pill to build rapport with those who are hurting and struggling in their marriages, helping them with their marriage/sexuality woes as a waypoint toward becoming better men who are more like Christ. I actually love this approach to things. But we can never forget the end-goal in the process and stop at this waypoint or let the waypoint dominate our discipleship process.


THE END GOAL

In all of this, the "end goal" is to "make disciples of all nations, baptizing in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything [Jesus] commanded [us]."

  • Our end-goal is NOT to red knight people.

  • Our end-goal is NOT to bring on a resurgence of masculinity.

  • Our end-goal is NOT to enact political change in favor of men.

These may be great mini "on the way" goals that are sidelined. But the "big job" in the Bible is to make disciples. Who is your man? Who is it that you're raising up to be like Christ? Are you really raising him up to be like Christ in ALL ways that Jesus lived, or are you just hitting the "masculine" points of Jesus' life and ignoring the rest?

The "end goal" here includes not only the red pill, which is one small component of the broader Christian life for a man, but also the spiritual basics (per the 300 series) and a broader missional lifestyle. Always remember the mantra: "Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the say way in which he walked." That's the end-goal: to walk as Jesus walked. Yes, Jesus was masculine. But he also prayed, also studied and taught the Scriptures, also built relationships with believers and non-believers alike, and so much more.

Just as the mainstream "church" has cut off significant aspects of Jesus' character, let's not do the same on the other end of the spectrum.