I asked what the Christian alternatives to game were. Whether in response to me or progressing independently, the masculine orthosphere has started providing the foundations. Rather than drown my most recent Lightning Round, I decided to put it all here. Besides, this is important enough it deserves its own post rather than getting lost.

This last week has been a flurry of activity and the foundations of Christian masculinity are being laid; or rather, the old truths of men lost to modernism are being reborn. (Read the entire posts, not just the blurbs. I’m serious).

I’m not going to add much myself here, but I think a collation of the beginnings will be a good thing to be able to refer to later.

First, Chad has a new blog who’s mission is clear:

The modern world does not know masculinity… The modern world does not know God… It certainly has no clue what Godly Masculinity is.
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Let us begin to change that. To pull Masculinity out of the Depths, the sewers, the refuse where it was left stagnant to rot. Let us go into the traditional wisdom of our Fathers to find God again in the Wilderness, and clear a place there for him so that we can learn, worship, and obey.

Let us, as men, find what it means to have a Godly Masculinity in our soul. It will be hard, painstaking, and might break us. It will bring us Faith, Hope, and Charity when we are remade as Sons of the Father.

He also defines the masculine:

A man is masculine when he has acquired the ability to change the world around him. The more he is able to change the world, the more masculine potential he has.

Simon Grey outlines God’s basic purpose for man:

Now, I’m not a trained theologian, but it sounds like God’s basic purpose for man consists of leaving mom and dad, getting married, having children, and working. It’s too bad MRAs weren’t around back them to explain to God that he just wanted men to “man up” and that this was nothing more than feminism couched in shaming language. Perhaps God would have gotten it right had he been advised by MRAs, and consequently told Adam to live with his parents, remain single, and live in a virtual reality world instead of working. That would have prevented an untold number of problems.

Donal discards game as an infirm foundation upon which to build a toolbox and begins to rebuild a foundation for Christian masculinity:

That is the graphic representation of it. I think that most of the work on this project will be focused on the Frame aspect, what I currently refer to as Sophroneo (thanks to Lyn87 for cluing me in to that). Creating a foundation of Masculine Godliness is mostly a personal venture that will take time and effort, but not be all that difficult. A good understanding of how feminism has corrupted Christianity will go a long way. The Toolkit aspect is mostly combing through Game teaching and the Classics to find out what is valuable and what isn’t when it comes to attracting women, then sifting for what is compatible with Christianity and weaving it all together. Adoration should come naturally enough when everything else is put together.

(I have a post on Sophroneo I started a couple weeks back and temporarily shelved. I plan to complete it soon).

That’s brings us to Deep Strength. Long-time commenter, he’s recently started his own blog. He has been simply cranking out the posts and is building the framework almost single-handedly. Here he re-establishes the foundations of Christian masculinity, working off Donal’s work:

Each of these qualities build on each other. Out of faith comes moral excellence to progress in God-likeness. And by now knowing what is good (and the one that is good is God) we gain the knowledge of the difference between the flesh and the Spirit. From that we exercise self control which is our free will to choose the Spirit or the flesh, and battling with the flesh over a long period of time we have endurance and patience in the faith. This is what godly masculinity is. Out of faith comes the knowledge and ability to be Christ-like and the application of Christ-likeness.

He sets up the theoretical framework for Christian masculine confidence:

Parrhesia is about a external boldness, especially through the spoke word (rheo), the same word that God used to create the heavens the earth.

Peitho is about an internal confidence, by which we have salvation.

As I discussed heavily in my previous post To game or not to game, we know that out of our hearts come our actions. Therefore, we know that an “internal confidence” must be developed before the “external boldness.”

Thus, Parrhesia is therefore a product of Peitho.
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As a Christian man speaking to my brothers in Christ, I would encourage you not to look to develop the “self confidence” that the world loves and that is an illusion of attractiveness, but to love God with all of your heart, soul, and mind/might. This is the confidence that we are called to in Christ that will be attractive to Christian women.

God doesn’t owe you anything (with a correction):

The habits that you build that encourage growth (reading your Bible, prayer, fasting, listening to God, serving others) are self perpetuating and build responsibility. Likewise, the habits that you don’t create in the list above are also self perpetuating. Out of the mindset come actions and actions for habits.

Therefore, riddle me this.

How can God entrust many “Christian nice guys” with wives when they aren’t personally responsible for growth in their own lives and don’t have experience serving others?

Always be on your game:

The always be on “your” game mindset is actually a good one for a Christian to have, except instead of focusing it on “yourself” and always being on “your” game, you should be always on “God’s game.”

Now, all change is hard to effect at first. However, all change will become habit after doing it for extended periods of time. For example, it takes about 4-6 weeks before doing something everyday becomes a habit. This ranges from anything from nutrition, to exercise, to posture, to changes in attitude, to changes in personality, to any other habits that you want to develop.

Change happens slowly, but as you reinforce it everyday it will come. Don’t be afraid to exchange poor habits for good habits. Change for God.

Always be on God’s game.

The fundamental nature of Christianity and how it applies to masculinity and finding a wife:

Therefore, as men of God striving to grow in Him, those of us who want to grow in godly masculinity and who seek a wife need to do two things:

1. Master our desires so that we are not enslaved by them. This is an exercise of free will, and it is fundamental to the nature of humans. Will you give into temptation or not? Will you choose godliness over evil?
2. Start to look outwardly — to give freely as Christ has given for us — showing the mastery of Christ in our own body as a witness to others.

To master these concepts is the essence of godly manhood because we know that women look to men for leadership.

The mastery over the desires of the flesh results in elimination of neediness and validation. This changes how you act and what you say, and it will make you more attractive to women.

To master your neediness for a woman is to understand the function of wife to a husband. She is not a completion of you, just a helpmeet to you.

When you expect a woman to meet a need that she is not created to meet, she will become unhappy because she bears a greater burden of responsibility that was not meant to be.

This is the mindset needed to understand the role of a wife in godly marriage, and it will pay dividends in your own search.

On self improvement vs. God improvement:

However, the biggest trap that a Christian man may fall into is that he may get too focused on the improvement “itself,” and neglect to leverage any of the improvement for the gospel or to obey God.

This is the difference between me telling my brothers in Christ to eat right and workout because it will make them more attractive to women, but to eat right and workout because God hates gluttony and slothfulness. Intentions matters. The fact that it may make women more attracted is just a nice side effect of obeying God’s commands.
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Therefore, strip off the old habits which are fruitless. Those of laziness, watching TV, surfing the Internet, being fearful of men and women, and the like. And put on new habits to embrace the calling of an ambassador for Christ.

Set your heart on God, and grow in a way that will nurture — or as the PUAs say… bring value to — His kingdom.

Even if you only give a part of your self “improvement” to God, He will take what you give Him and use it for his glory. Then you will know what it means to know that He first called you, and be willing to give him your most important resource that you own: time.
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A Christian man leveraging improvement to get a wife is not seeking God first but focusing on the “self.”

Conquer your fear:

So, even though I may fail at times. Even though I may look foolish at times. Even though it’s difficult for me to see the work that God is doing in me. I know that God’s peace within me, my faith in him, and the boldness in how I should act will carry over into a Godly confidence. A confidence in God that is worth more than anything I could hope for and which will allow me to develop into a godly masculine man that is able to walk into the things that God has willed for me in the future.

That alone should be reason enough to start to want to conquer your fears. But if you need extra motivation, a lack of fear has the nice side of effect of being attractive to women. Women can smell fear, like neediness, from a mile away and are repulsed by it.

As you begin to conquer your fear of men rather than God you will find that you will become a godly masculine man that both Christian and non-Christian men and women respect and admire.

He has two posts on Christian nice guys focusing on their neediness and their stunted growth:

This is what Christian men need to learn — don’t change your behaviors for a woman. If you’re going to change your behaviors, then take off the old and put on the new. Do it for God as a new creation in Christ. Never change yourself for a woman.

Women know if you’re saying and doing things because you are trying to impress them. They’ll think it will be amusing and will accept your help. Often with a smile. They’ll thank you profusely. But they won’t be attracted to you. If you’re going to help women do it because you are willing to serve them as a brother in Christ. Women can detect the difference — the neediness of approval and validation that you seek from her — because it will show in your body language. Women are more in tune with subtle social cuing.

Masculinity is forged in difficult situations. To overcome difficult situations, you have to put yourself in uncomfortable situations because the stress of such situations is what is going to force you to adapt or die trying. Whether there is a success or failure there is a learning experience, and it is from a learning experience from which masculinity is going to take hold in the fertile soil and sprout.

However, this is the key. Most boys as they’re learning are willing to fail as they do things. Yet, there is encouragement from the father to keep trying and eventually they succeed. If you challenge boys to impossible situations they will ultimately give up and stop trying eventually often times because they do not know what to do which is making them fail. This is why throwing Christian nice guys into man up marriage situations is a horrendous idea.

On leaving her better than when you found her:

In conclusion, we know that to “leave her better than you found her” you need to:

1. Let her know that your intention is engagement and/or marriage, but that dating is not a committed relationship so she can “guard her heart.”
2. Do not act improperly towards her, especially physically.
3. Start the relationship off right by leading her spiritually which will increase her attraction and respect for you, among other things you should be leading.

The very fact that you if you start leading her spiritually will show you if she is compatible with you, and if she is willing to learn from you.

This will make it exceedingly clear almost right away whether she is a woman who is worthy of marriage, or one who is given over to the things of the world.

She will grow spiritually, if she is willing, and will be better off than how you found her even if you two are not a match.

This is only possible as a Christian masculine man who is walking with God.

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On the other hand, some Christians are defending game. Keoni links it to the Austrian economics concept of praxeology:

While I am not trying to speak for anyone else here, I do believe the defining line between those of us in the MAndrosphere who are nominally Christian and advocate Christian Marriage (Vox, Dalrock et al), and see no conflict between Game and Christian morality, versus all the other Christians who are up in arms about it and repeatedly denounce it, is that those of us in favor, simply view game as a Praxeology; it is not a hard science, nor is it a moral code to live by. Rather, it is simply using deductive reasoning to come up with action axiom’s to describe the hows and whys of human intersexual attraction and mating behaviors.

Vox agrees with Keoni:

With regards to objective Z, as Mises wrote in Human Action, only the acting man can identify the reasons for his actions. So, to claim that Game is immoral, or anti-Christian, is to make a fundamental category error. One might as reasonably claim that a shovel is sinful or learning mathematical equations is anti-Hindu. One can criticize the objectives that Heartiste, or Dalrock, or I seek, and indeed, many feminists and equalitarians and white knights do. But there is nothing even remotely objectionable from any coherent moral standard about the mere knowledge of Game and its mechanisms.

RPP pulls out the Bible and Game of Thrones to defend game:

Did you get that?? ACCORDING TO KNOWLEDGE. Knowledge about how women work. And because she is weaker than you. Your strength, your knowledge, your confidence, your leadership, your dominance. These are the qualities that lead to tingles, and tingles are what lead to submission. She’s not gonna read the Bible and get wet over you. She’s gonna respond to how you treat her. Just like God said she would.

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Reading through this, I’ve been convicted; they speak to some recent personal experiences. I’ve been slacking on my spiritual growth and I’ve allowed myself to become comfortable on my level of improvement in other areas. Time to increase my efforts.

I’ve also changed my blog roll. If you think you’re in the wrong category and would like to be moved, feel free to leave a comment or message me.