Christianity and masculinity

It’s been stated, not only by DR, but others from what I’ve seen that nowhere is headship equated with authority. As we have established in the on Headship is authority in marriage and wifely submission is obedience, both Jesus in John 13-15 and Peter in 1 Peter 3 show that there is a hierarchy within marriage through Paul’s direct analogies.

However, we also have evidence that Paul regards head as authority via 1 Corinthians 11.

1 Corinthians 11:1 Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ.

2 Now I praise you because you remember me in everything and hold firmly to the traditions, just as I delivered them to you. 3 But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ.

4 Every man who has something on his head while praying or prophesying disgraces his head. 5 But every woman who has her head uncovered while praying or prophesying disgraces her head, for she is one and the same as the woman whose head is shaved. 6 For if a woman does not cover her head, let her also have her hair cut off; but if it is disgraceful for a woman to have her hair cut off or her head shaved, let her cover her head.

7 For a man ought not to have his head covered, since he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man. 8 For man does not originate from woman, but woman from man; 9 for indeed man was not created for the woman’s sake, but woman for the man’s sake.

10 Therefore the woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels.

11 However, in the Lord, neither is woman independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. 12 For as the woman originates from the man, so also the man has his birth through the woman; and all things originate from God.

13 Judge for yourselves: is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? 14 Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a dishonor to him, 15 but if a woman has long hair, it is a glory to her? For her hair is given to her for a covering. 16 But if one is inclined to be contentious, we have no other practice, nor have the churches of God.

Paul makes several different arguments here which we will summarize in several points.

1. First, Paul declares that everything he is saying from here on out is being an imitator of himself and he is imitating Christ. This establishes what he is saying as direct teaching from God on the matter.
2. Second, he specifically declares headship as God > Christ > man > woman. We’ve already seen in the gospels where Jesus specifically says he only does what the Father does and submits to the Father’s authority. Hence, we can understand by association that this headship here is authoritative in nature. Likewise, Jesus and Paul both indicate that Christ as the head of the Church is authoritative via Teacher and Lord.
3. Third, we have several different arguments presented after the headship statements.

• Argument from Creation v7-9 – man is in the image and glory of God but woman is the glory of man, starting from head coverings argument.
• Argument of authority v10 – woman ought to have a symbol of authority** on her head meaning that it is her duty to be under authority. The word for ought (opheileo) is also used in 1 Corinthians 7 for each spouse owing sex to the other or it being their duty to each other. “Because of the angels” is cryptic, but usually interpreted as the angels are witnesses. The early Church believed that angels were watching over the Churches (e.g. Jesus writes in Revelation 2-3 to the angels at the 7 Churches – “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write:”) and the angels appearances to the apostles like Peter in prison, Paul, and many other believers. In other words, women ought to have an outward symbol of authority on her head as this representation of Created and inward truth of submission to authority, which is witnessed and confirmed by the angels.
• Symbiosis hierarchy of man and woman v11-12 – which is the Genuine/Godly hierarchy that Jesus talks about rather than the Gentile one. No independence of man and woman from each other.
• Argument from nature v13-16 – dishonor for long hair and glory of a woman’s long hair

** – The Greek actually only says: “Therefore the woman ought to have authority (exousia) on her head, because of the angels.” Most translations use symbol of authority because Paul is discussing head coverings before that, so it likely relates to the outward symbol of authority which is a head covering. However, this more readily emphasizes to the English reader the understanding that the head covering is an outward symbol of authority which is relating to a more fundamental truth of headship authority.

Therefore, we have Paul directly referring that being the head means there is authority (exousia) between men and women in the Church — Creation, (symbol of) authority, nature.

This is directly echoed and confirmed in 1 Corinthians 14 where women are to keep silent in Churches and ask their husbands at home to learn, and 1 Timothy 2 where women are not to teach or have authority over men.

This also dispels the notion that Jesus, Paul, Peter, and the other disciples were teaching them how to act within the confines of their particular culture, and that a hierarchy structure is not necessarily what we should do today. The argument for headship by way of head coverings is from Creation and nature pre-fall, which is when God would have created perfectly before any sin warped Genuine/Godly authority into Genuine authority. In other words, the structure itself is correct, but we need to make sure to use the authority from the structure in a godly manner. 

In conclusion, we have ample confirmation that not only does Jesus and Peter say that there is authority in marriage directly, but Paul shows that there is authority within headship itself and the Church and by extension marriage both indirectly in this passage and directly in 1 Corinthians 14 where the husband is established as the teacher of the wife. The arguments are from Creation, which means they are universal as opposed to cultural.

And we’re back from arguments on headship, authority, submission, and obedience from Jack’s Invisible Magic Authority. Yay.

We’ve gone over this many times on this blog, though this is probably the most recent on Gentile vs Genuine authority. For those of you who have been around since the beginning circa 2014 or 2015, I did not initially believe that headship meant authority, but as I studied the Scriptures more I came to believe it did.

Derek makes an argument about grammar:

There is never going to be any degree of understanding of the so-called “Peaceful Unity Model” without changes to the metaphysical assumptions of this audience. Perhaps one day the inherent contradictions in the view will make this clear to some, but perhaps not.

Regardless, you didn’t even both to address the points I made in the post you were replying to. You simply repeated that this was wrong…

“Never in the Bible is a Christian wife told to submit to her husband or a Christian husband told to rule over his wife. No such imperatives exist. Deti’s Patriarchy isn’t found in the Greek Bible.”

I’m not sure which translation Derek is using, but it’s quite clear.

…without bringing anything new to the table. But I had already addressed these claims.

* Uses the word “submit / submissive”.
** Uses the word “obey / obedient”.

Titus 2:5,9 says:

“…to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject [Middle Voice] to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God. [..] Teach slaves to be subject [Passive Voice] to their masters in everything, to try to please them, not to talk back to them…”

Colossians 3:18,20 says:

“Wives, submit yourselves [Passive Voice] to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. [..] Children, obey [Active Voice; Imperative Mood] your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.”

Ephesians 5 says:

“…submitting [participle; Middle Voice] yourselves to each another out of respect for Christ; Wives [elided verb] to your husbands as to Christ… [..] Husbands love [Verb; Active Voice; Imperative Mood] your wives…”

1 Peter 3 uses the same formula.

In my previous link, there is a pretty clear explanation for this, but let’s expand on that.

If one does not understand what voice means this explanation goes over it well.

In other words,

• Children are told to obey (active) because they are under the authority of their parents and generally have inadequate moral agency to understand why they obey.
• Slaves are in the passive because they are under the Gentile authority of their masters and they know right from wrong. The key being that Christians should go above and beyond to show Jesus in our lives even if they are under potential oppressive Gentile authority.
• Wives are in both middle and passive because while they are under the Genuine/Godly authority of their husbands, but they have moral agency and Holy Spirit to understand to know what is right and wrong and submit themselves to their husbands lead. This is mostly distinguished from slaves (mostly middle as opposed to passive) showing how those under Genuine Authority should act to show how the headship authority-submission is different from Gentile authority.

In the previous post I mentioned how authority was Created by God to be from the beginning. Genuine/Godly authority that Jesus has over the disciples who become the Church versus distinguishing this from the Gentile authority that the world uses. The most relevant passage to start with:

However, what may clear up a potential disconnect is that Jesus makes it clear that authority is present, but it is not “Gentile” authority but “genuine” authority.

Matthew 20:25-28 (ESV)
25 But Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. 26 It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, 28 even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

and

John 13:12-17 (ESV)
12 When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. 13 “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. 14 Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. 15 I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. 16 Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. 17 Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.

Jesus makes it clear that His authority is to be used to love and serve the disciples and by extension the Church, which makes this a clear analogy for husbands and wives with Christ : Church :: Husbands : Wives.

Ephesians 5:22 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

As we can see, there is a clear parallel not just in the Christ being head of the Church and husbands and wives. Most people see right away. However, if we look at a bit closer at the underlined bolded, we also see a reference to Jesus’ authority as Lord and Teacher over the disciples/Church.

To emphasize further, I’ve never seen the feminists/egalitarians/DR’s argument address the clear meaning of genuine authority and Gentile authority in regard to Christ and the Church as Jesus in John 13-15 because they don’t have an answer for it.

After that, Jesus exhorts the disciples/Church to use authority in the Genuine/Godly way as opposed to the Gentile way.

DR continues:

DS: “Submit implies that the wife has moral agency to understand the right thing to do and to do it, which as you noted for Christian wives is to follow their husband’s lead and respect him as the Church does with Christ.”

DS: “The overarching theme through the Bible is that God wants us as humans to use our free will to submit to him to bring Him Glory. So too through God and Jesus, Jesus and the Church, Husbands and wives, and others. They are all a reflection of His Glory. This means though the word submit is used, it all ends up in obedience if we choose to do the right thing.”

DR: …in that submission is not active, but it is still interpreted within the English-speakers cultural and linguistic framework, because at the very end, he still concludes that it really functions practically as an implied imperative after all, which isn’t an explanation at all.

DR is wrong here because we have clear parallels to Jesus and the Church to understand what is meant by a wife’s submission which is that to properly submit leads to obedience.

• John 13:34 I am giving you a new commandment (as an extension of Jesus’ authority as Teacher and Lord), that you love one another; just as I have loved you, that you also love one another. 35 By this all people will know that you are My disciples: if you have love for one another.”
• John 14:15 “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments… 21 The one who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and the one who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will reveal Myself to him.
  
• Jesus reiterates these points in John 15 on the Vine and the Branches and subsequent commands.

Thus, Jesus reaffirms His commands to us authoritatively as Teacher and Lord to submit and be obedient to Him. We have a choice to submit or not — If you love Me — to do what is right or wrong — obey His commandments or not. Hence, why the majority of the verses for wives containing middle voice are the subject acting on itself. God gains Glory from our voluntary submission which is results in obedience to Him.

You can think of this as salvation and works. We don’t do good works because it earns us salvation, but because we are saved we are transformed by the Holy Spirit and want to do good works. Salvation is an imperative to do good works because they are prepared for us to do and they are excellent and profitable for everyone. But in the same measure, they also show that we have a genuine faith.

• Ephesians 2:8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
• Titus 3:4 But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, 5 he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, 6 whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. 8 This is a trustworthy saying. And I want you to stress these things, so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good. These things are excellent and profitable for everyone.
• Philippians 2:12 Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling,
• James 2:18 But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.” Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. 19 You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder. 20 You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless?

Many newer Christians may get the sense that we need faith with works for salvation from the last two passages, but they are not contradictory or opposed but synergistic. Faith leads to good works, and good works are proof of genuine faith. It’s my choice to submit God or not, but there is still the moral obligation to obey because we know that submitting to Jesus is the right thing to do and places us rightly under the authority covering of God.

• As genuine faith leads to good works, so too submission leads to obedience
• Good works are proof of our salvation for those with genuine faith, just as our obedience to Jesus is proof that we love Him.

If that is not enough evidence, 1 Peter 3 would not also have this clear understanding of the fact that proper submission means obedience.

1 Peter 3:Wives, in the same way submit yourselves to your own husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, 2 when they see the purity and reverence of your lives. 3 Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. 4 Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. 5 For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to adorn themselves. They submitted themselves to their own husbands, 6 like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her lord. You are her daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear.

If verbs and tenses aren’t your thing, this part of the passage explains it effectively. Wifely submission is an implied imperative to obey if you want to do what is right.

Yes, the same word — hypakuou — used for Sarah obeying Abraham is the same word used in Ephesians 6 and Colossians 3 for children obeying their parents!

We should also take notice of the parallels between Jesus in John 13-15, Ephesians 5, and this passage of 1 Peter 3.

• Jesus Himself affirms that He is Teacher and Lord to the disciples and Church as does 1 Peter 3 through establishing that righteous wives regard their husbands as their lord — even to an unbelieving husband much less a believer.
• Likewise, Jesus shows us that His Teaching the Church/disciples is to rightly use the authority that is given to those in the Church and families to rightly love and serve others. This is echoed in Ephesians 5 with the commands to the husbands to love and sanctify their wives.
• Finally, we have Jesus telling Christian that “if we love him” that “we will keep/obey His commands.” In other words, we have a choice to submit — “if we love him” — but choosing to obey is loving him. Functionally, submission to Jesus’ commands is obedience.

While this is sufficiently clear evidence, other evidence such as 1 Corinthians 11 where God is the head of Christ who is the head of man who is the head of woman makes a similar case. This also denotes a clear hierarchical structure, as Jesus spoke clearly all throughout the gospels that He was in submission and therefore obedience to the Father. Likewise, the Church and Christians to Jesus.

To conclude, contrary to DR’s arguments:

• Headship is still Genuine/Godly authority in marriage, but that authority is distinguished from Gentile authority in that Genuine authority should be used to love, serve, and sanctify your wife and children.
• Functionally a wife’s submission to her husband’s authority is obedience. It is distinguished from children in that she has full moral agency to understand what she is doing is right (submission becomes obedience, respect, etc.) or wrong (rebellion, disrespect, etc.).
• Finally, overly delving into one specific verse and grammatical constructs irrespective of the rest of the Scripture not only undermines husbands but also Christ since that is the foundation of the analogy.
• Addendum of Part 2 analyzing 1 Corinthians 11 and 14, and 1 Timothy 2 establishing headship as authority, and women/wives underneath it within the Church and marriage. This passage via the authority of headship indirectly through head coverings also points to the fact that this is not something that is merely cultural. Because the argument is from Creation and nature when God created it perfectly, this is a universal hierarchy structure in Church and marriage. But it must be used rightly as Genuine/Godly authority rather than Gentile.

This illustrates the problematic nature of honing in on grammar while forgetting the full bigger picture of the model that Jesus is teaching about genuine/godly authority and Christ and the Church. Even when genuine Christians can mistakenly lost in the weeds of Ephesians “mutual submission” and grammar tenses, it should be clear they cannot refute the clear examples given to us by Jesus in John and 1 Peter 3.

It’s a duh moment, but at least we have some data on it now. For the statistics in regard to sexual partners and divorce see Review of vetting, virgins and new info on virginity pledges

There’s a review of GSS Norc’s General Social Survey here.

Odds ratio is fairly clear cut in this case. A virgin woman (1 partner is the husband) vs one with 2-4 partners is 6x more likely to cheat. 5-10 partners compared to 1 is 9.5x more likely to cheat. Then 14x and 16x more likely cheat with 11-20 and > 20 partners respectively.

The clear caveats with surveys being that women tend to lie more about their sexual pasts, so in all likelihood the numbers could actually be worse than this.

In comparison, here are the divorce statistics from a chart from my previous post.

15% chance of divorce with zero pre-marital sexual partners which drastically increases much like going from 1 to 2-4 partners then slowly starts to level off. I suspect if you plot these both in terms of odds ratios they will return similar curves.

Ironically, not related to Jack’s recent post, but it stimulated a reminder about an interesting thought on social media the other day. To paraphrase:

• When boys or men learn about a superhero or character, they will research all about that character and then when they play they will try to play within the context of that character. For instance, their play would center around how that character would act in certain situations.
• When girls or women learn about a superhero or character, they typically try to play with that character in their likeness. This could explain why the Wonder Woman movie was so popular – women were imagining themselves fighting against the “Patriarchy” and tearing down the walls because they had the power that Wonder Woman did.

In other words, this explains why the vast majority of women created media seeks to strip down cartoons, comics, movies, and other characters and re-make them in the likeness of woman. You see this currently with many of the female-oriented superhero films, Disney remakes, female driven movies and comics, and others.

This seems to be potentially based on a few factors.

• Men tend to be better with compartmentalization and abstract thinking. In other words, they are able to conceptualize totally different characters and distinguish them better from their sense of self.
• Women tend to be more solipsistic in nature, believing that everything is typically related to them. Additionally, their feelings can generally not be isolated well from their sense of situation and self to where feelings often become a dominating factor in their own version of truth.

Indeed, this may also be why women tend to handle leadership positions less well than men in general. The focus of women is typically onto the self and the power and less about the responsibility. Not that there is any shortage of men doing that, but it tends to be more problematic with women especially with petty infighting and power struggles. It’s more personal.

If we carry this back to the Bible, narcissism in men often culminates in the desire to want to be god, but in many cases of narcissism/feminism in women they want to be men or god. Rarely do men except in extremely small number of transgender cases do men want to be a woman or have feminine-like qualities. It’s typically the female envy or covetousness for man, headship/leadership, or masculinity. Women want to re-make man or god into their own likeness.

Want to quick comment on Jacks’ post on blue and purple structures.

What is the Purple System?

First of all, the classic definition of the Purple Pill is trying to apply Red Pill insights and praxeology to solve Blue Pill problems. It is still a Blue hierarchy, but one in which the man is Red Pill informed and usually very confused. In some cases, the Purple Pill is a transition stage, AKA Purple Haze, in which a man wakes up to Red Pill reality, but is still living in a Blue Pill structure / system. It takes some time to realize that Blue Pill problems can never be solved without completely abandoning the Blue Pill system. Men usually don’t complete the transition unless there is suffering involved, and the more suffering there is, the faster the transition is. Purple Haze is rather rare anymore, since the Red Pill went mainstream.

Generally, the only way purple and blue structures can exist effectively without devolving into destructive structures (e.g. woman nagging, contentious, etc.) is if something is propping up the system.

One can be totally delusional about how attraction works and still be in a godly successful marriage. However, the only way this generally occurs for men is if they are naturally attractive and/or naturally good with women. These men can believe in “true love” because they have never really experienced the opposite and it’s easy for them to get women.

In other words, their naturally attractiveness or charisma is propping up their delusion that women will love them unconditionally for who they are.

It is also notable that some to many pastors tend to fall into this category. The “godliness is sexy” mantra is repeated by pastors all the time, and they believe it’s true because it “worked” for them. They were pursuing God’s kingdom and women dropped into their lap, and they were generally able to marry a fairly to very attractive woman who wanted to be with him,

Of course, what they don’t see is that their position was propping up their success with woman and not their godliness. The power and status of being a Church leader is what was attracting women to them. I’m not saying this is the only thing as there are also pastors who are very charismatic, excellent social skills, humor, and other things women find attractive. However, they are deluded into thinking that their success with women is because of their potential godliness.

The Janitor example I always bring up is the case in point. Women are attracted to the Church leader, pastor, worship leader, and not the janitor, greeters, or parking lot coordinators.

Circling back, the only way these men wake up to the delusion is if their bubble is popped either by their own experience or see other’s experiences and learn from them. If they suddenly get sick and have to step down as a pastor and their wife leaves them. Or they see so many counseling cases from other men that that they can’t keep living in the delusion that godliness is attractive when their advice fails time and time again.

Society had propped up men for the longest time — greater status, better jobs, masculine men accepted, etc. — through the 1970s to maybe 1980s. However, once the system to prop up men disintegrates then you have a thorough falling out where less and less men are caught in the delusions of blue and purple.

This is why the younger generations growing up now like GenZ and others easily call out SIMPing, White Knighting, and other behaviors that are net negatives on getting women or being successful in relationships and marriages. There’s nothing anymore to prop up the delusions.

I’ve been mulling this over for a while now since we discussing college and how for some women it can be helpful to build up the structure for her to be more of a helper whereas sexually promiscuous behavior and other similar behaviors become harmful to a relationship.

It has become apparent that one of the best probable ways to evaluate women in terms of how well they fit into your life if you are dating or in a relationship is if they are a helper or harmer.

Genesis 2:18 The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

Proverbs 31:10 A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies. 11 Her husband has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value. 12 She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life.

Proverbs 14:1 The wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down.

Proverbs 21:9 It is better to live in a corner of the housetop than in a house shared with a quarrelsome wife,

Proverbs 21:19 It is better to live in a desert land than with a quarrelsome and fretful woman

In Paul’s analogy of marriage, Christ:Church::husbands:wives. Jesus specifically Commissions the disciples and His Church to continue to follow His mission to preach the gospel to the whole world and make disciples (Matthew 28). Hence, husbands’ role is love their wives for the purpose of sanctification to transform their wives be more like Christ just as Christ helped the disciples to be more like Him (Ephesians 5), and this continued transformation is supposed to bear fruit in preaching the gospel and discipleship.

First, though one must have a mission for a woman to help.

Then one can evaluate is a woman actively helping or harming the mission, marriage, and everything in between.

Second, it has often been stated on this blog that in the grand scheme of things we are to be excellent in all areas to be transformed. Love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength is determined be our whole being, so in essence we’ve generally considered that to mean in all areas such as spiritually, physically, emotionally, mentally, and others.

Now, instead of applying this schematic only to ourselves, we can use it to evaluate and judge whether a woman is being a helper or harmer in these specific areas. Not only to herself but also toward you.

• Is she a helper or harmer spiritually?
• Is she a helper or harmer physically?
• Is she a helper or harmer emotionally?
• Is she a helper or harmer mentally?

Is she contentious over your leadership in any of these particular areas? Is she actively helping or harming these areas in regard to you? Is she building up or is she tearing down?

I suspect that many Christian woman if they are actively following God that they generally know what they are supposed to be doing spiritually if they are not egalitarians. It’s pretty clear that headship-submission, love-respect, and other Biblical commands are pretty obvious if they try to look. However, as always if they are egalitarian or adhering to otherwise non-Biblical views that is out the window.

However, physically, emotionally, and mentally this is where women have become immersed in the waters of culture, feminism, and other nonsensical ideologies that they do not have a correct oriented understanding of what they should be doing Biblically. Even with Christians this is clear.

It’s very easy for women to be harmers of their man’s emotional and mental state. Most men and women are harming themselves and their potential relationships with their physical state.

This is in general why I tend to think of the fruit of the Spirit as a good proxy for a woman’s ability to help or harm her man. If they are truly trying to help, the fruit of the Spirit colors their actions to be kind, joyful, patient, and loving. If they are being of the world then it’s easy for the reverse to set in — mean, disrespectful, impatient, contentious, and more.

The Harmful abilities a man should try to correct via the imperative of Christ:Church::husbands:wives, but if in a dating scenario or relationship scenario where a woman won’t correct harmful behavior because she is too independent and don’t need no man or she does not respect your boundaries then that is at the very least an extreme yellow if not red flag.

You can use all of these areas to go through and assess not just your own life, but her own life, and the relationship between you two to see if she’s going to be a net Helper or net Harmer. Try to throw away the attraction blinders too.

Jack has a post on the Attraction of Glorification that mentioned me, so figured I’d post my general response as it’s long enough for a post.

The Red Pill lore has given us an obscenely vivid understanding of the biological, carnal, and evo-psyche aspects of attraction, but we do not yet have a conceptual framework for the moral, metaphysical, and spiritual components of how attraction works. As it currently stands, the Red Pill lore about attraction hasn’t really established a compelling argument that attraction is anything other than the flesh. This post continues to investigate whether there is more to it than this.

Yeah we do?

A Christian understanding of attraction, and the role it plays in marriage Part 3

I think part of our difficulty in this is that our education and belief system is based on Greek philosophy, so it’s harder for us to understand that the Bible is generally talking holistically rather than referring to separate components like the Greeks did. Jesus on the loving God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength is supposed to be holistic and not breaking it down into individual parts.

For instance, we know that God created our sex drives and we know that we can use it to our advantage to marry and bring glory to God through that marriage. An example of this would be the Christ:Church analogy, children, headship-submission, love-respect, and so on. Same thing with understanding and acting on improving physical attractiveness or beauty or things like that.

How good of an example it be to the world if all Christian marriages would strive to practice excellence in everything especially bodily health and appearance as well as in the Biblical roles and responsibilities of marriage.

This framework is crucially important in helping Christian men identify which women are likely to provide a Spirit-filled relationship “in the Lord” (c.f 1st Corinthians 7:39) as opposed to one centered around the fleshly appetites which are bound to fail

You can pretty much summarize things up with the Proverbs verses:

Proverbs 14:1 A wise woman builds her home, but a foolish woman tears it down with her own hands.

Proverbs 31:30 Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.

I think a lot of Christians, though maybe not the men and women here, tend to think these verses are about putting down charm and beauty but they aren’t. Just like 1 Peter 3 many Christians think about it saying don’t wear jewelry or beautiful clothes. Not at all.

It’s mainly saying look past the physical to the heart. Do they actually want to obey God. Are they following His commands? It helps take off the blinders and goggles.

We can be reasonably confident that Jesus had charisma and was charming. He had a lot of women followers as well as men, and interactions like the woman at the well seem to tell the same story. Paul had to make light of the fact that his stature and in-person speaking wasn’t that great, and that he had to come across better in letters.

2 Corinthians 10:7 You are judging by appearances. If anyone is confident that they belong to Christ, they should consider again that we belong to Christ just as much as they do. 8 So even if I boast somewhat freely about the authority the Lord gave us for building you up rather than tearing you down, I will not be ashamed of it. 9 I do not want to seem to be trying to frighten you with my letters. 10 For some say, “His letters are weighty and forceful, but in person he is unimpressive and his speaking amounts to nothing.” 11 Such people should realize that what we are in our letters when we are absent, we will be in our actions when we are present.

Thus, we can understand that it is helpful to have charm or beauty, but in the case of those with charm and beauty with a devoid and wicked heart those things can be deceptive or fleeting and lead to ruin if you follow them without wisdom.

We all know men who have fallen for charm and beauty to their detriment in relationships and marriages.

In response to my post on this topic, Only Hunky Monks can find a Sanctified Marriage (2022/8/26), DS said I had mischaracterized his arguments. While I was reading some of his older posts and reflecting on the causes of the disjoint between DS and I, I had the idea that maybe DS is describing glorification as attractive. I don’t think he has ever labeled it as such, but this interpretation would explain why he thinks enhancing one’s attraction by developing PSALM traits is not fleshly in nature.

Several thoughts on this.

• Most of the secular proponents of “lifestyle” game or whatever it’s called have got the concept right in the sense that most of the PSALM and masculine traits can be built by pursuing mission.

This is precisely what the Christians are saying about pursuing God’s mission and being excellent in everything. Focus on the mission and everything comes together. This causes you to work hard in the Church and usually eventually lead various things, hard at your job, be in excellent shape, be responsible with all you have, and these things naturally build up PSALM and masculinity over time.

I believe ideally that this is the way all things should be done. This is a convergence and congruence of God’s mandate to man about dominion. The spiritual, emotional, mental, and physical aspects are cannot be separated into their individual constituents as they all lead to a greater whole.

• Secondly, no, I think a lot of what both male and female find attractive is supposed to be fleshly in nature. Marriage and attraction is supposed to satisfy all of the components above — spiritual, mental, emotional, physical, etc — because they are not supposed to be separated into individuals components.

That’s not a bad thing. See my above points about how God created attraction and marriage.

• Also, however, in regard to 2, these things can be warped if:

~ One focuses too fully on physical appearance or beauty that it becomes a facade or idol
~ One uses these things for nefarious purposes such as pornography
~ One’s heart is not right with God in the intent and purpose.We need to make sure we are discerning and wise with things that tend to trip our attraction triggers because of the fact that we tend to bias things in favor of attractiveness.

The same is true of James’ warning against favoritism over money, status, and material things.

A commenter on suggests that the FAST — faithful, available, saved, teachable — acronym is not a good use of screening criteria in women.

And the Red Pill teaches nothing like that. Because it’s praxeology, not “define the unicorn and chase after it”. It happened when evangelicals started to usurp terms like the RP. You can spot them a mile away by their most favorite letters “KJV”.

The RP teaches the truth about what’s actually available on the market and figuring out how to deal with it. Real-life Christian women are not “FAST” and almost nothing posted on these fringe forums works in real-life with real women.

Naturally, this is false. My response:

Stop being purposefully obtuse.

RP turns from praxeology (study of human behavior) into practical application when interpreted by different sub-groups within the manosphere (Pickup artists, MRAs, Christians, etc.). The fact that you don’t understand the difference while throwing around terms is comical.

FAST is an application of particular traits to look for in a woman that increase success over the opposites.

• ~ Faithful vs Unfaithful — A woman faithful to her word and action. You know, just like the Bible says.
• Available vs Unavailable — While a woman is not technically married when she has a boyfriend, women that are not available and are willing to branch swing to from relative commitment to another are much more willing to cheat.
• Saved vs Unsaved — Not a Christian. The Bible warns specifically against marrying unbelievers.
• Teachable vs Unteachable — Does not listen or follow your leadership or advice you give her. Typically means she will have a hard time obeying Biblical submission in a marriage.

Please enlighten me with your wisdom on why FAST is not a good to look for in a woman, and how “real life Christian women” cannot be fast. Or you could just say you’re wrong, which you are.

But my most favorite thing to do is to pick up one of my several printed bible translations, including my girlfriend’s study bible featuring a word-by-word Hebrew / Greek cross-reference, and compare the legalistic advice by the Christian Reddit Pill scribes with Jesus’ enlightened and practical approach written down in the gospels. And then I just stick with the latter.

Nice attempt at humble bragging, and totally misunderstanding the application value of FAST at the same time. Since you know your Bible so well, you should probably take a refresher on the definition of legalism too.

Please go ahead and tell us about this Jesus’ enlightened and practical approach if you know so much. I’m sure Jack will allow you a blog post or several.

I’ll be waiting.

Part 2

However, the commenter doubles down on this erroneous line of thinking:

Here is a red pill: AWALT.

Every woman is “teachable” as long as she is into you. She will listen and follow your leadership as long as she is attracted to you. She will completely submit into your religious frame and do whatever rituals you require her to do, as long a she has the tingles. She doesn’t care which religion you follow BTW, she will just follow yours.

And she will stop giving a fuck as soon as the attraction drops, when you lost your masculine frame and failed her shit tests.

That’s it. Making just another list of criteria for “the one” trying to separate “pious dream wife” from “sinful whore” is the church pill (aka Blue Pill). The Blue Pill doesn’t work on real world women.

This is the same thing that the Churchians say. Your wife does not feel like submitting to you because…

• You’re not godly enough
• You aren’t loving her enough as Christ loved the Church
• You’re a bad leader

The RP equivalent of this is what this commenter is insinuating:

• She’s not following you because you aren’t attractive enough.

We’ve discussed this many times over the years, and it’s wrong because:

1. It ascribes women no moral agency when it’s clear they do have at least some to full. While men have a greater influence being a leader, they are not the only moral agents as women are too.
2. Men in this scenario are still slaves to their woman or wives’ feelings of happiness. It’s just that instead of it being a slave to supposedly not being godly enough they’re a slave to not being attractive enough which is making her unhappy and not willing to submit.

Likewise, there are many examples where this statement is not true:

• God in the OT has perfect leadership. We can see how well Israel, Judah, and the kings followed and obeyed God despite his warnings.
• Jesus with the disciples and Church is the perfect analogy of marriage in Ephesians 5, and they still get chastised by Jesus in Revelation 2 and 3 for falling away to other things. I guess Jesus doesn’t have perfect attraction and leadership then.
• If this were also true you’d see little to no women divorcing your attractive celebrities like Brad Pitt and everyone else. Yet they still do even though these celebrities are still at the top of the world in terms of looks, money, status, and fame.

In other words, according to this commenter God and Jesus aren’t leading good enough because Their followers — Israel, Jews, the disciples and Church — don’t want to or don’t perfectly submit and follow Their lead.

The true statement is attraction makes it *easier* for women and wives to follow and submit, but they still have to choose to do it and not rebel. There’s tons of women out there now that will either never follow a man’s lead or only temporarily do it until their feminist programming kicks back in despite how attractive he is.

Those who subscribe to the attractiveness is everything version of RP and try to justify it under AWALT are the same as Churchians. They’re just trading the Churchian’s lines to blame men for a lack of attractiveness to blame men.

I wrote Misconception about college educated women and divorce and Jack responds Are College Educated Women Less likely to divorce?.

Post was gonna be too long for another comment, so posting it here instead.

“The Census Bureau reported the divorce rate for individuals with some college education as 36.3%, while the divorce rate for those with an associate’s degree was 30.1%.”

“The divorce rate for individuals with a high school diploma was 38.8%, while the divorce rate for those with less than a high school diploma was 45.3%.

So DS’s 65% figure is too high. It should be between 38.8% and 45.3%. For the sake of calculation, let’s assume the average is ~42%.

I figured out why there is a such a big discrepancy between the two figures. The rate is currently 45.3% for only high school education, but the rates I used are a projection for those married within the past 13-17 years based on current divorce rates in this population.

“Researchers at the National Center for Health Statistics estimate that 78% of college-educated women who married for the first time between 2006 and 2010 could expect their marriages to last at least 20 years. But among women who have a high school education or less, the share is only 40%.”

This seems to be probable, since we are seeing many articles coming out now about how marriage is only for the elite, and how many working class marriages are imploding. Aside from infidelity and addictions, financial issues are one of the highest reasons for divorce.

Jack’s Pie Chart

The proposed estimated numbers above would drastically change the pie chart from this:

• 30% college not divorced, 1% male initiated, 9% female initiated
• 35% non-college not divorced, 7% male initiated, 18% female initiated

To this:

• 30% college not divorced, 1% male initiated, 9% female initiated
• 26% non-college not divorced, ~8% male initiated, ~26% female initiated

Currently at a 2:1 ratio of non-college vs college educated divorce risk (9% vs 18%) but that would jump up to about 3:1 ratio under the proposed estimate (9% vs 26%). Still better to marry a college educated woman than not.

https://sigmaframe.files.wordpress.com/2023/09/pew-marital-status-by-religion.png

If we put all this together, a man’s best chance for marriage is to marry a highly educated atheist. Is this really where we are now? This just doesn’t sound right to me.

That Pew research data is not correct because they don’t separate out the nominal Christians from the regular attenders. Nominals are those who call themselves Christian but never attend or go to Church a couple times a year. This is a 30-50% lower risk of divorce depending on study. However, the gap might be shrinking probably due to the fact that there are a lot more progressive/liberal Churches that don’t actually adhere to the Scriptures and are more worldly.

Example in above chart:

• 36% atheists married, ignoring cohab (IC), 12% divorce = 75% (36/(36+12) staying together which is 25% divorce rate
• 54% Chrisitan married, ignoring cohab (IC), 21% divorced = 72% (52/(54+21) staying together which is 28% divorce rate

Regular attenders are about 28% of the current Christian population in 2021

Total married and divorced is 54 + 21 = 75% of total Christian population ignoring single and cohabitating. 28% are regular attenders.

• 75% x 28% = 21% of Christians are regular attenders vs 54% nominals
• If regular attenders divorce rate is 50% lower and 28% divorce rate is the average, that means approximately total 31% divorce rate for nominals vs total 19% divorce rate for regular attenders.
• 19% divorce rate for regular attenders is already lower than the atheist divorce rate of 25%

This leads to the following conclusions in nominal vs regular attenders:

• 54% total nominal Christian, IC, 37.5% married, 16.5% divorced (31% divorce rate)
• 21% total regular attenders, IC, 17% married, 4% divorced (19% divorce rate)
• 4:1 ratio (16.5/4) total population difference between nominals and regular attenders

Regardless, we also know that not all regular attenders are true Christians either — some are there for the social club, family, parents made them, etc — so the true Christian divorce rate is likely lower than the values estimated above.

I would not be surprised if the divorce rate is < 10-15% for true Christians. I was talking to one of the people who used to lead a Navigator’s group, and he told me that they had surveyed marriages with a discipleship focus and the divorce rate was 5%.

Hence, the nature of FAST — faithful, available, saved, teachable — is important because FAST Christians are typically not only regular attenders but also true Christians and often have discipleship focus.

We also need to consider that going to college has many negative influences on young women.

• W0ke indoctrination.
• Hookup / fraternity / sorority / party scene
• Accruing student loan debt.
• Interim “college boyfriends”.
• Postponing marriage.

Also, going off to college takes a girl out from under her father’s authority and subjects her to the most corruptive elements of society, while she is young, foolish, and in a vulnerable state, and is at the pinnacles of both her SMV and her rutting season.  AND, Women are typically very terrible pickers of men.

I agree with this, but this is already baked into the above statistics. For instance, we saw that of college educated women about 75% stay married for at least 20 years while 25% of those marries dissolve with 90% of them by women. It’s estimated that 27% go to college with intention to party, so we already have a potential strong correlation there.

Overall, a woman attending college is a risk factor that deserves a red flag. So I disagree with DS’s statistical assessment.

The big question is this.  What are the chances that a young woman can make it all the way through 4 years of college unscathed by the experience, and then land in a Godly marriage?  To the former question, what little data we have on this indicates less than 31.6% of college attending women do not have sex in college, and to answer the latter question, we know there is less than a 5% chance of marrying a virgin.

I wonder how many of those virgin brides have a Bachelor’s degree?

Studies have shown that between 40-60% of incoming freshwomen are virgins and between 12.3-20% of them remain so upon graduation.

I disagree based on the stats above.

That’s entirely the point of vetting past sexual history and filtering criteria like FAST. Avoiding the woman with the party girl past is one of those things or the supposed Christian ‘born again virgin.’

There’s no data on non-college women and virginity. I’m doubtful there is a significant difference between non-college women and their college counterparts in age of losing their virginity. They just hit bars and dating apps faster which are even more of a cesspool of attention than college.

Utilizing college statistics of virginity is fairly inconclusive if we don’t know what percentage of those people losing it are Christians versus non-Christians. Then of the Christians we don’t know of the ones that are regular attenders vs nominals.

General conclusion:

This was longer than I expected, but here’s the main points.

• On average you will have a much less likelihood of divorce if you marry a college educated woman over a non-college educated woman. Currently 2:1 (18% vs 9%) but estimated to be upwards of 3:1 (26% vs 9%) over the next decade which corresponds with the increasing trends.
• But you still have to filter these college women in other ways to avoid the 9% of the total population that are going to divorce. Vet their background for past sexual history and other potential risk factors Jack mentioned in his original article, see if they’re FAST (faithful, available, saved, teachable), etc. My large analysis on vetting and behaviors.

In other words, college educated by itself is a GREEN flag to look for, but there may be other RED flags occurring during college such as a promiscuous past, party behavior, and other risk factors. These signal that their college education is not the green flag it was once presumed. 

A similar example would be for a GREEN flag like virginity that turns into a RED flag if you discover that they are idolizing their virginity, getting cues from purity culture that may make it difficult to have a fulfilling sexual marriage, or even have little to no sexual desire for men but want to be married. There are definitely a few horror stories out there like this.

editors note: Jack’s system is proposed on

• Green Flag = Go!
• Yellow Flag = Caution!
• Red Flag = Stop until the cause is cleared!
• Black Flag = Disqualified!

I’d say college education is a Yellow flag under this system. Caution as there are positives so it can be a big Green flag if resolved, but can switch to a big Red flag based on the criteria mentioned above like partying and promiscuity. The main argument I was having was not really with the GYRB system but just the blanket statement saying “Overall – Education — Less is more.”

• Regular attending Christians are much less likely to divorce than nominal Christians and atheists.
• Indeed, not all regular attending Christians are true Christians either which means divorce rates are likely lower if you can find someone that is truly following Jesus (probably 10-15% or less) compared to 19% for regular attenders. Discipleship focus may have 5% divorce risk.

Always make sure a woman you are interested is truly following Jesus, developing the fruit of the Spirit and their spiritual disciplines, and of course is actually very interested in you and wants to follow your lead.