Category: Political

Book Plunge: The Toxic War On Masculinity Part 4

Is culture fair towards boys? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Sometimes I hear about problem students at school. Inevitably, they’re boys. These are boys that seem to always act up in class and parents can’t figure out what’s going on. Sometimes, I think I also know what the problem is.

They’re boys.

No. It’s not that being a boy is a problem, but it’s that the schooling system we have today is much more geared towards girls. Sit at a desk and be quiet and don’t move and do your work that way. Many boys would rather be active and they are gunning inside of themselves to be active. Also, if they don’t find themselves challenged, they will either make artificial challenges, like I did, or they will cause trouble, like I didn’t.

This started more and more when fathers went off to work and sons were left at home often to be raised by the mother. This isn’t to say that a mother can’t raise a son, (See this book for instance) but there is a challenge as a mother can’t pass on masculinity. That’s one reason many excellent single mothers I still would encourage to get male role models for their sons that they can personally interact alongside.

Pearcey says that the way boys were was shown in the novels of the day. Boys were more and more being scamps. Think of something like Huckleberry Finn. The good boys were boring and the bad boys were going off and having adventures.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with spirit and spunk. Boys are on average more physically active and aggressive than girls. Many of them love to pretend fight, to play competitive games, to be a hero. But being high-spirited is not the same as misbehaving. The bad-boy books taught boys that being good was boring and girly—that to be a “real” boy meant to break the rules and defy adult standards of behavior.

Pearcey, Nancy. The Toxic War on Masculinity: How Christianity Reconciles the Sexes (p. 144). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

In many cases, this led to an escape to the wilderness because home was where femininity reigned. Why did Thoreau go out to Walden Pond? To get away from femininity. What about the classic tale of Rip Van Winkle? Just go and look and see what he had to say about his wife!

Why were men going out west? Not just to find gold and riches, but to get away from centers of femininity. Real manhood was to be found out on the open range. One went out into nature to get in touch with one’s manhood. It sure wasn’t going to happen in civilization. Yet Pearcey says about this that:

Yet, instead of escaping into boy culture, a more biblical response would have been to recognize that Christianity does not strip away the virtues of boyhood—the natural drive many boys have to fight, to compete, to build forts, to win. Instead, it calls men to direct those masculine traits to fight evil, overcome sin, protect those they love, and strategize how to advance biblical truth in the world. Christianity does not suppress men’s thirst for risk and adventure but redirects it to eternal goals.

Pearcey, Nancy. The Toxic War on Masculinity: How Christianity Reconciles the Sexes (p. 151). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

This idea of escaping femininity and the noble savage even impacted the formation of the Boy Scouts.

Today few people remember that scouting was also originally framed as a means of liberating boys from the world of women. A 1914 article distributed by the Boy Scouts argued that, at a certain age, a boy “slips the apron-strings” and discovers “a world in which petticoats are scorned and an attempt at petticoat rule is resented.” As one historian explains, scouting was intended to be “a boy’s liberation movement, to free young males from women, especially from mothers.”

Pearcey, Nancy. The Toxic War on Masculinity: How Christianity Reconciles the Sexes (pp. 152-153). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

By the way, Pearcey doesn’t have anything against the Scouts. She says she was a cub scout leader for a year and loved it. What needs to be asked though is why was there a need to have an idea of a noble savage? What were boys not just running to, but running from?

Think about things like Dude Ranches as well. Men are needing to find masculinity and are not thinking they can find it at home. They think it is out there in the wild.

Well, what about Jesus? Many men don’t identify with Jesus who is often seen as weak. What about gentle Jesus meek and mild? As Pearcey says in response:

It’s true that Jesus described himself as meek: “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart” (Matthew 11:29 KJV). But in the first century, the meaning of the word “meek” (Greek: praus) was quite different from what it is today. A Greek military leader named Xenophon used the word to describe war horses that were well trained—strong and spirited yet highly disciplined. Socrates said a meek person was one who could argue his case without losing his temper. Plato used the word to describe a victorious general who was merciful to a conquered people. Aristotle referred to a meek person as someone concerned about justice but whose anger does not degrade into revenge or retaliation. The common theme in all these uses of the word is power under control—which certainly describes Jesus better than any saccharine Victorian image.

Pearcey, Nancy. The Toxic War on Masculinity: How Christianity Reconciles the Sexes (pp. 156-157). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Power under control is not what many of us think of when we think of Jesus as meek.

She ends this section with a battle cry hopefully men can get behind, as well as women.

We are called to engage in the battle for the advancement of the kingdom . . . employing all the natural and spiritual gifts with which we’ve been equipped to fight against hunger, poverty, and ignorance and to fight for truth, life, and justice . . . to redeem culture and transform nations.

Pearcey, Nancy. The Toxic War on Masculinity: How Christianity Reconciles the Sexes (p. 159). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

I will certainly take part in this battle and hope I already am.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: The Toxic War On Masculinity Part 3

Do men bear responsibility? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

What happens when you divorce the public and the private, the sacred and the secular? What happens when femininity and masculinity are no longer seen as complementing one another but are seen as competition? What happens when the individual becomes more important than the household?

There’s not much to say on this one tonight except when two groups start to form a divide, generally, they make it get deeper and deeper. Men who were seen in a negative light, well, they became a self-fulfilling prophecy. They started living that way and before too long, you had saloons. You had men spending extra money on alcohol. You saw that since the women were taking charge of the household, the men were starting to abdicate responsibility.

It’s a sad reality that we all will usually choose the path of least resistance and the path that requires the least work. Today, a woman will have sex with a man thinking that he will then marry her. In reality, he’ll usually see that and say “Okay. I guess I don’t need to go any further.” Why should he? He’s got what he wants and he doesn’t have to enter any further risk, such as getting married and losing half of his money and having to pay alimony for the rest of his life.

And the women in all of this? Well, they developed a sort of take-charge attitude in this. Many reform movements were beginning because women were of the mindset that things would be better if they were in charge. This is the beginning of feminism today and sadly, it is the beginning. As I said at the start, if you keep pushing people down a divide, that divide will grow worse and worse.

So then, you have the idea that we need to have reform. Where does that lead? Today, you can have a hashtag that says to Kill All Men.

Sometimes you need to go back to where you lost your way and find out what happened. One step Pearcey takes is to look at how Jesus treated women. Jesus would be with women in public and speaking to them. Jesus would include women in His teaching and have them listen to His teaching. Jesus even traveled with women and had women who were supporting Him.

Jesus had a tender heart towards women.

So far in all of this post today, we have discussed what happened between men and women. I have stated that men and women drove further apart. Instead of being allies and working together, they were becoming enemies and working against one another. However, marriages don’t normally have just a husband and a wife. They also have children. Some of those children are also the future men.

What happens to the young boys when the Dad is not only away from the son because of work, but away from the son because he is out drinking with his buddies?

That will wait until tomorrow.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

Book Plunge: The Toxic War On Masculinity Part 2

Where did things go wrong? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

So we have a culture in America that prizes women, where men are told to treasure them. Men actually lead their families. Everyone works together and men are guardians of virtue leading the family in prayer and Bible study. That all sounds good. What changed?

Answer: Technology.

In the past, men would often work on their own turf and eventually one day, the Dad would call the son over and introduce him to the craft. The family would work together. When the Industrial Revolution came along, men got separated from that and they were more in a work environment than a home environment.

Pearcey tells us that the work environment was quite different and many of the traits we deem toxic today, started showing up, like the strong competitive win-at-all costs mentality and the desire to get ahead. I think to some extent, men have always been competitive, but now it was a dark side of competition.

Men had to do this because they had to provide for their families and they had to show that they could not be replaced. Pearcey tells us the criticisms Marx had of the working environment were common in his day. Man was becoming a machine to earn profit and it was not about the family business anymore.

In the past, there was the Protestant Ethic, whereby it wasn’t just ministerial work that was a calling of sorts, but so was secular work. The person who was making shoes could serve God just as much as the priest could. All people were to play a part in the Kingdom of God. The priest could travel the roads, but he certainly needed someone to build those roads!

This also led to a public and private divide. The private was the home and the public was the work. The public/work was that which could be verified, think science. The private/home was the subjective. Those familiar with the Schaeffer idea of the lower and upper story, which Pearcey definitely knows well and references, will be familiar with this. Because of this, morality did not control work like it did the home and men working in that environment were more influenced by it than they did influence it.

Not only that, but we needed to know how to get along in a workplace that was amoral. What if we made a set of dictums to follow artificially? We could call it, an, oh, I don’t know, social contract maybe? Yep. That’s where it began. It was even called social physics. How does a contract work as a system of ethics? Pearcey says:

What’s the difference between a contract and a covenant? Both are agreements, but the differences between them are crucial. A contract defines an exchange of goods and services. But a covenant defines a moral relationship between persons. In a contract, I seek my own interests, I strike a deal. But in a covenant, I seek the common good of the relationship and everyone in it. A contract includes an opt-out clause so I can leave if I no longer feel my interests are being served. But a covenant is a moral commitment of the whole person.

Pearcey, Nancy. The Toxic War on Masculinity: How Christianity Reconciles the Sexes (p. 98). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

As an aside, do you see what happens when we treat marriage like a contract instead of a covenant? In a contract, each person enters for their own good in an exchange and they leave when they are not getting what they want. In a covenant, the parties enter a moral relationship for the good of the other and the relationship.

She goes on to then say:

But in social contract theory, a social institution was no longer defined as an organic unity with a common good. It was merely an aggregate of autonomous individuals, all pursuing their own interests. And if there was no common good, then a man’s duty could no longer be defined as responsibility for protecting the common good. Men were set free to pursue self-interest.

Pearcey, Nancy. The Toxic War on Masculinity: How Christianity Reconciles the Sexes (p. 99). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

One place of common good was the household which gets us to women’s suffrage. When the idea first came up to allow women to vote, it had a lot of opposition. From the “patriarchy?” No! From women!

When the issue of women’s suffrage was first raised, most women actually opposed it—a fact that puzzles modern historians. Even the early feminist leaders acknowledged that the vote was not popular with women. Alice Stone Blackwell, a leading suffragist, wrote, “The chief obstacle to equal suffrage is the indifference and opposition of women.” Suffragists Susan B. Anthony and Ida Harper wrote, “In the indifference, the inertia, the apathy of women lies the greatest obstacle to their enfranchisement.”

Pearcey, Nancy. The Toxic War on Masculinity: How Christianity Reconciles the Sexes (pp. 99-100). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

The right of women to vote would be seen as breaking the house into not one common unit all voting together as one, but as individuals who could each go their own way. The woman would thus be her own individual and the man would no longer be looking for the good of the whole household.

Now that we have a division in place, women started to be seen as more superior. After all, they were the ones raising the families for the most part. One aspect of this I hadn’t considered was angels. Typically, angels in the Bible are fearsome creatures. They constantly seem to have to tell people to not be afraid immediately.

But in the Victorian age, angels began to be portrayed as young women—delicate, sweet, and guarding little children. Brown concludes, “One of the great mythic transformations of the early nineteenth century was the feminization of angels.”

Pearcey, Nancy. The Toxic War on Masculinity: How Christianity Reconciles the Sexes (p. 109). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Also interestingly in the past, the strong sex drive was not seen as being on the part of the men. It was on the part of the women. The women were seen as having insatiable lust that would men astray. This is not to say that men don’t have a strong sex drive, as many of us men will attest, but it does mean that feminism has come to be something quite different.

What this would mean eventually was that men needed to have women in their lives to ensure that they were virtuous and if there wasn’t a woman, well the man could pursue his self-interest. Women do contribute to men, but a man can be and needs to be virtuous even without a woman in his life. We now have it that men are bad boys and once a woman gets a man, she has to shape him up.

This had an effect then on church life and ministry:

Even the tone of American evangelicalism became softer and more emotional. In a classic book on the subject, The Feminization of American Culture, Ann Douglas says the ministry lost “a toughness, a sternness, an intellectual rigor which our society then and since has been accustomed to identify with ‘masculinity.’” Instead, the ministry took on traits society has typically identified with femininity, such as care, nurturing, and tenderheartedness.

Pearcey, Nancy. The Toxic War on Masculinity: How Christianity Reconciles the Sexes (p. 115). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Around this time, we also had attacks coming in based on higher criticism, evolution, and philosophy. The church should have responded with intellectual rigor, but no, they went into retreat. Christianity was based on the emotional experience at that point. Christianity then became a private faith. (Want to know what God is saying? Don’t go to public Scripture, but go to private experience.)

Right now, things are not looking good for the church in the world and a lot of it has had to do with the erasure of masculinity.

We shall continue next time.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

 

 

 

Book Plunge: The Toxic War on Masculinity Part 1

What do I think of Nancy Pearcey’s book? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Let’s take a break and review a good book. This is a book that I highly encourage all of you to buy immediately. You can buy it here and support what I am doing at the same time as well.

The scene is at a bar. College students frequent this bar for hanging out and socializing. In comes a 28 year-old man who tosses in a smoke grenade for confusion and then comes in and starts shooting.

In response are men who start pushing others under a table, especially the women, and shield them with their bodies. They break windows so people can escape and repeatedly go in and out of the bar leading people to safety.

From here, Pearcey talks about how the APA in 2018 said traditional masculinity is harmful, but then asks a question.

Who here showed traditional masculinity?

Hint: It’s not the shooter.

Real masculinity has been shown in history when the Titanic goes down and men watch as women and children are escorted off. A famous story has one man putting on his tuxedo so he can die as a gentleman. These men knew they were dying. They knew the women would go on. They accepted it.

This is not the problem.

Pearcey says that when we make a blanket statement though on masculinity being a problem, the solution is really for men to be emasculated. Not necessarily physically, shudder the thought, but at least psychologically and emotionally. She contends that masculinity is not toxic. Sometimes, strength is needed to protect the innocent. Masculinity as it was made is good.

When you denigrate manhood, many men remain boys. One aspect of this is a fear of commitment. Not a problem for many of them. It’s especially easy for them to get casual sex for instance, without having to commit. The very women complaining about men are the ones enabling the traits that they don’t want.

It’s not any better at church. David Murrow wrote a book called Why Men Hate Going To Church which is well worth reading. Jesus is often portrayed as a weakling. No. I am not saying Jesus should be some macho type, but we should be able to see Jesus as a man we want to be like. That could mean we need to change our idea of masculinity, but we definitely need Jesus to be a man.

But doesn’t the Bible tell wives to submit? Here’s something interesting. She cites Bradley Wilcox who says the most violent husbands in America are nominal Protestants who attend church rarely if ever. They have enough Bible verses they can use to justify themselves in their eyes without a worldview behind it.

By contrast, who are seen as the most loving and faithful husbands? Conservative evangelicals.

Why is it that churchgoing, theologically conservative family men test out as the most loving husbands and fathers of any major group in America? The key factor, sociologists discovered, is that these men have a strong commitment to the family as the foundational institution in society. They believe marriage is not primarily about individual fulfillment but about forming a stable, loving home to raise a family.

Pearcey, Nancy. The Toxic War on Masculinity: How Christianity Reconciles the Sexes (p. 38). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

These men know they are to cherish their wives. These men know they are to build a family. These men know this woman is going to be the mother of their children. Evangelical conservative wives have the highest satisfaction in their marriages and it’s not about gender roles and who does the workload. It’s about getting valued for your contribution.

Now some skeptical men might be saying “Yeah, but these are religious prudes.” Well, consider this:

Women who are highly religious also report greater sexual satisfaction than other women. This surprising fact turned up as far back as 1977 in a survey by Redbook magazine, and it has been repeatedly replicated. One study found that “for both the wives and husbands, feeling that God was part of their marriage was positively associated with sexual satisfaction.” Another study concluded, “When it comes to relationship quality in heterosexual relationships, highly religious couples enjoy higher-quality relationships and more sexual satisfaction, compared to less/mixed religious couples and secular couples.” The National Health and Social Life Survey, the most detailed analysis of sexual behavior in America, found that people in intact marriages who worshiped weekly “were most likely to report feeling wanted and needed during intercourse” (94.9 percent).

Pearcey, Nancy. The Toxic War on Masculinity: How Christianity Reconciles the Sexes (pp. 40-41). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Another important aspect is a conservative Christian approach changes men:

For example, anthropologist Elizabeth Brusco conducted a study of evangelicalism or Pentecostalism (she used the terms interchangeably) in Colombia. As a feminist trained in Marxist thought, Brusco expected to find that Christianity would be “a powerful tool of patriarchy.” Instead, she discovered that when a man converts to evangelical Protestantism, he stops drinking, smoking, gambling, and sleeping around. He begins to direct his money to his family. As a result, the household income goes up and the family’s standard of living increases. The children are better educated, they develop better life skills, and the entire family experiences upward mobility. Brusco concludes that conversion to biblical Christianity has the effect of “re-attaching males to the family . . . thereby dramatically improving the quality of life within the confines of the family.”

Pearcey, Nancy. The Toxic War on Masculinity: How Christianity Reconciles the Sexes (p. 44). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

While many feminists see the biblical attitude as a problem, it’s quite the opposite:

Surprisingly, Martin argues that biblical Christianity has done far more than Western feminism to improve the lives of poor women around the globe. In her words, gender equality has been rigorously preached by Western development agencies and mainline church organizations. Yet, it is not Western feminism, even in its Christian variant, which has transformed for the better the lives of millions of poor women in developing societies. They have been “empowered” by a “regressive,” “fundamentalist” Christian movement whose theological rawness and lack of intellectual sophistication causes problems and embarrassment to enlightened Western observers. Martin concludes that “if there is a ‘women’s movement’ among the poor of the developing world, Pentecostalism has a good claim to the title.”

Pearcey, Nancy. The Toxic War on Masculinity: How Christianity Reconciles the Sexes (p. 45). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Some might also think that these could be Puritanical attitudes, but as Pearcey shows, the Puritans get a bad rap. They were not living in the constant fear someone might be enjoying themselves. If anything, most men would love to hear things like this from the pulpit:

Another minister, William Perkins, wrote that sexual relations between a married couple should be “an holy kind of rejoicing and solacing themselves.” He insisted that sex is as “spiritual” as preaching: “Yea, deeds of matrimony are pure and spiritual . . . and whatsoever is done within the laws of God, though it be wrought by the body . . . yet are they sanctified.”

Pearcey, Nancy. The Toxic War on Masculinity: How Christianity Reconciles the Sexes (pp. 78-79). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

The Puritans also preached against domestic violence. They had no patience for a husband who abused his wife.

In 1641 the Massachusetts Bay Colony enacted the first law anywhere in the world against domestic violence: “Every married woman shall be free from bodily correction or stripes by her husband.”42 The law was soon amended to include wives beating their husbands, as well as “unnatural severity” against children and servants. One Massachusetts man was even brought to court and fined when neighbors complained that he told his wife she was “but his Servant.”

Pearcey, Nancy. The Toxic War on Masculinity: How Christianity Reconciles the Sexes (p. 79). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

This all sounds good.

But how did we get from here to an age where you can have a hashtag with Kill All Men tweeted around?

We’ll take a further look at that next time.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

Men, Women, and Praise

How does praise affect you? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I’m going to take a brief break to talk about a meme that has gone around the internet a number of times. Every time I see it, the reaction is always the same. There’s questions about who it came from, but the approach is to supposedly put men into what they think is a woman’s world and see how they like it.

The irony is that every man I have seen speak about this, and I count myself in agreement with them, says we would love this. We would indeed thrive to get a compliment like these. Even sadder is that very few men can think of a recent time they got a compliment like this. I can’t. (And no, your Mom giving you the compliment doesn’t count.)

The way men are, we generally thrive on praise. We soak it up. One of the worst things a wife can do if her husband does something good for her is to criticize. If your husband loads the dishwasher and he put in everything differently than how you did it, make sure to give multiple words of praise before even uttering one word of criticism. Criticize him first and you can be sure he will likely never do that again for you.

As I thought about this further, it seems we have entered a sad state of affairs when you can’t praise a woman for her beauty at all. If you’re a Christian woman who is thinking that praising a woman for her beauty is shallow, I challenge you to do this. Go look through your Bible at many of the women that are mentioned. See how often they are described as beautiful. It’s a quite important trait to have according to Scripture.

I watch when parents come to my workplace and they have little girls with them and one of the first words that someone uses to describe the girl is “beautiful.” It’s just the most natural statement to make. Could it be because this is getting to something that femininity brings to the world? Perhaps women bring beauty into the world?

I like to watch old shows sometimes, but especially gameshows. I have been a gameshow junkie for as long as I can remember watching television. It is quite common when a female contestant comes on a show, she is complimented on her beauty. This is especially so when you go to the old black and white gameshows like What’s My Line, To Tell The Truth, and I’ve Got A Secret. (Note I am talking about the originals) Not only were they praised, but generally, when the women walked by the panel on these shows, the men would stand up to honor them.

But now, now we live in a generation where if you speak a kind word to a woman and tell her she’s beautiful, you are shallow, a predator, and can get a sexual harassment suit thrown at you. The problem is if women are beautiful, we are being told to deny reality. Being beautiful is a good thing. To be sure, it’s not the only thing, but it is a good thing, and while not every other trait a woman has is immediately apparent, beauty is.

Who loses at this? Guys who really honor women for one. It’s really hard to approach many women for guys today if you think you’re going to get hit with a sexual harassment charge and be pasted all over the internet. (Also along these lines, the women who complain about this often have OnlyFans accounts.)

The good girls also lose out. They miss out on the guys who don’t want to risk approaching a woman lest they suffer the consequences. Many of them also don’t celebrate their true femininity because they have been taught that real women should be praised for things other than beauty. While no one is denying that they should be praised for other things, that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be praised for beauty.

So it looks like the good guys don’t win because of this. Women who are bad women will go after any guy they want that they don’t deem good enough for them and open themselves entirely for any guy that they do want. Bad guys who don’t really care about their reputation and will happily use women will keep doing what they do.

Feminism doesn’t help women. It hurts them.

And by the way, please do praise the men in your life. Seriously. Give a man a compliment like the one above (And this works in person) and you will give him a smile the rest of the day.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Pokemon Go Avatars

What do I think about the recent Pokemon Go update? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Those of you not knowing about this might wonder how this is apologetics related. Trust me. It is. We are in a culture war with a cancerous movement trying to destroy everything it can and now, it has headed for the gaming industry with games trying to be more and more “Woke.” This is also part of the effects of a group known as Sweet Baby Inc.

Fortunately, a web site has been set up so gamers can know when games come out that are infected with DEI standards. Vote with your wallet. You can find that here.

And look what is on the list.

Pokemon Go.

I hate saying that because I loved Pokemon Go and I had been playing it since day one. I was out going to the park with others playing together and walking around my campus regularly. The game was highly beneficial for me.

But then this avatar update came out.

Now before, I didn’t really care about my avatar. Several people did. Some people spent money buying items so their avatar could look a certain way. I don’t really care for that spending, but if you have it and can do it and want to, who am I to say otherwise? I would only put free stuff on mine.

Then one morning recently, everyone woke up to find that their avatars had been changed. #1 group affected? Women.

If you look through the link, you can find pictures of women that have been changed to be more androgynous. Gone is anything that might look curvaceous on a woman. Hips are gone. Chests are flattened. Facial structure is destroyed.

That’s not even the worst of it. You also have avatars that clearly have a weight problem and are, well, revealing. Please do not look at this if you have small children present.

Checking the original file on Pokemon Go from DEI Detected, you might have noticed by now that part of the work they did was with a consulting group called Gaymer X.

No. That is not a typo.

By the way, a few years ago, the CEO had to step down due to reports of sexual misconduct. Who would have thought?

Well, after Matt Conn stepped down as CEO, he was quickly replaced by Toni Rocca and just a few days later, well wouldn’t you know it? The same thing happened again. What are the odds?

Keep in mind right now as DEI Detected says, this is just Niantic, the company behind Pokemon Go. This is not Pokemon or Nintendo, but now is the time to send a message to these groups. Pokemon’s last big games, Scarlet and Violet, were not received well and now they face competition from a game called PalWorld. They do not want to lose a company base right now.

So there are several options.

First, Pokemon can remove all rights to their property from Niantic and give the same game to another company that cares about the players and what they want. Pokemon needs to be a family-friendly game. Niantic has done incredible damage to the brand of Pokemon by doing this.

The second option is not likely, but that is for Niantic to undo the changes, sever all ties with Gaymer X permanently, and profusely apologize to the players. They sadly have a history of not listening to their players. We need to show them the consequences of not listening to us are greater than the consequences of working with a company like Gaymer X. I have since this deleted the game from my phone. Until the changes are made, I am not coming back.

That being said, we need to always hold out the opportunity of forgiveness and reward it. We need to let companies know that if you honor the customers, the customers will honor you back. If we say under no circumstances will we change our minds, we are not giving these companies any incentive to change.

All of this matters because this is an erasure of femininity. If you decided to start playing the game now and had to create a new character, you cannot choose male or female. That is gone. You can only choose a body type.

Women were meant to be beautiful and removing beauty from women is an attack on women. Men and women are not interchangeable. We need to recognize and celebrate the distinct differences between the two sexes and the positive contributions both make.

Players. Vote with your wallets. That is the only language that is understood. I really hope this changes because I got a lot of joy out of playing the game and interacting with others. Either the Pokemon Company needs to grant the rights of Pokemon to someone who will actually honor the customers, or Niantic needs to honor the customers themselves. We, the players, must refuse to compromise on this because our opponents are never interested in compromise. We give an inch and they take a mile and it will keep going.

For now, I’m going to be playing other games instead. I wish it could be otherwise, but I would rather have my standards than sell them out to play a game.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

The Culture Of Death

Is hope found in death? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Her name is Zoraya Ter Beek. She’s a beautiful woman at a young age of 28. She has a boyfriend who is forty years old. She has a pair of cats.

She’s also due to die in May of this year.

She has Autism, Borderline Personality Disorder, and depression. Her psychiatrist has told her that it will never get better. She doesn’t want to bear with it anymore, so she’s going to be “Euthanized” in May.

I am on the spectrum as readers know. Since my divorce, I also take medication for anxiety and depression. So how do I approach this story?

First off, let’s say that I and many others understand being in a place where you are under the impression you’d be better off dead. I don’t care if you think it or feel it or both. I’ve been there, There were times of temptation after my divorce. It’s a pain that still hurts to this day, but I have also known if I did that, it would hurt everyone around me, and she would win.

I have been there because life is hard. We have never been promised a rose garden. There are times of suffering that we must all go through. Some times are worse than others. Some people have lives that are overall harder than others do. At least, that’s how it can look to us.

That being said, we live in a culture now that devalues life thinking that death is the answer. Rather than do the hard work of treating and/or curing a patient, it can be easier to just send them to their demise.

Easier does not mean right.

Suicide is automatically a way of saying that absolutely nothing in this world is worth it. Not her boyfriend. Not her family. Not her cats. Not beautiful sunsets or cool breezes in the afternoon or a favorite food. Nothing. It is an insult to all creation.

Also, I would love to know how this psychiatrist knows the future since I know several people who have thought their lives would never get better and lo and behold, they did. I also wonder about a boyfriend who is just fine apparently with letting a girlfriend kill herself. Warning women. Don’t date a guy who can tell you he let his last girlfriend kill herself knowingly.

Everyone involved in this story is guilty of a form of murder to some extent. You can say it is legal so it’s okay, but legal doesn’t mean right. This girl’s life is worth it. I’m not saying it’s easy. I’m just saying it is worth it. It is worth it because she is in the image of God and Jesus loves her and died for her.

Can someone introduce this girl to Jesus before it’s too late?

We live in a culture that seems to worship death and if a life becomes inconvenient to us, we snuff it out and call it compassion. “That child will grow up with a disability! That child will grow up in poverty! Better to have an abortion!” “That person is going through such sorrow! They’re better off dead!” Is it really thought that the person who is being murdered is helped or is it more that we are trying to lighten our burden by removing those that remind us of suffering and having to fight and struggle to succeed in life?

It doesn’t help that we have a one-size-fits-all approach to eschatology. Either everyone just becomes worm food, or everyone goes to Heaven because a God of grace would never do otherwise! Unfortunately, what if He does? What if the moment this girl dies, she dies without Jesus and is in a position where she would give anything to not have made this decision?

It’s a scary thought.

We can try to be nice with it and call it “Euthanasia” meaning a good death, but this is not a good death. This is murder. It is the wrongful taking of life when we have no business taking it. We are telling this woman she is a hopeless case and society will be better off. She has nothing to contribute then.

How much do you have to hate someone to tell them that?

It’s also strange that conservatives like myself are told we are responsible for the deaths of so many people who kill themselves, but when someone else like this kills themselves, well that’s met by cheers and shouts of bravery. It’s been said that people become what they worship. What happens if we treat death as the greatest good that there is? What will we become?

We will become a culture of death.

Or maybe we already have.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

Gaming Doesn’t Need Sweet Babies

What happens when woke comes to gaming? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

When I was out sick last week and recovering, I spent a lot of time watching YouTube videos while resting. I am quite interested in politics and of course, in gaming. I have noticed that a lot of popular franchises have gone woke. I know it sounds heretical, but I never really got into Star Wars, and unfortunately now, the series is dead. Woke has destroyed it. What you grew up with is not what is being produced today.

All of this is done in the name of what the Critical Drinker calls

“THE MESSAGE!”

Now it has come to gaming with a company called Sweet Baby Inc. This is all about the whole sensitivity movement and equity and everything else. This is resulting in games where women are not allowed to look feminine lest they bring about “the male gaze” and men are turned into highly emotional creatures.

News flash. The male gaze as it is put is not going away. Men tend universally to like to look at beautiful women. That’s not a bug. It’s a feature. Not only that, but there are plenty of female gamers out there and they would prefer to play as an attractive woman.

The problem with the Woke movement is not that they want to have characters, movies, video games, TV shows, etc. that include characters that are LGBTQ. For me, that’s the thing with freedom. They are allowed to do things that I don’t delight in, but that’s the way the market works.

My problem is that generally, instead of doing the hard work of making their own characters and series and establishing them, they instead co-opt characters that have a history already and try to force them into the LGBTQ group. The woke crowd doesn’t just want to make material that they want made. They want others to not make material they deem offensive and they want to force others to make games according to their standards.

These people are not doing this also because they really care about making good games. Instead, they hate people like myself who are gamers. They want a purge from the community to remove all the people that they deem to be unfit for the community. Naturally, this will be all the people they deem to be homophobic, sexist, racist, transphobic, etc.

In reality, the gaming community is really one of the most open communities there is. We have had female heroes from the beginning, such a Samus Aran of Metroid. It was a major shock for many when at the end of the game, provided you played it well finishing it in x time, that you found out the character who you were playing all along was a woman.

Another video I saw made a claim about Barrett from Final Fantasy VII being a typical stereotypical black guy. Most people were saying “Thanks for telling us you never played the game.” Barrett is a rough and tough guy, but he’s also deeply sensitive taking care of his late friend’s daughter who he took in as his own and with a deep love for the planet in his missions.

Something amusing I like to point out with this is that group like Sweet Baby Inc, is that they want to go after a group of people that spend hours playing games where they took on hostile forces and evil empires and face impossible odds and think everything will work out fine.

It won’t.

Gamers are a dedicated group and we don’t just sit back and roll over when it comes to the games that we love. Gamers all over the world have teamed up to reach goals before. We’re prepared to do it again.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Christianity and Modern Gods

What are the gods we deal with today? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I am reading through the church fathers, among other things, and something I am noticing with Tertullian who I am on now is that he has a vast array of knowledge about the gods of the Roman society he lives in. I grew up reading Greek mythology which was claimed by the Romans, but there is still a lot I don’t know about it. Tertullian is familiar with the ins and the outs of the great stories in addition to being familiar with the biblical topics he knows about and the history of Christianity and the Roman Empire.

Nowadays, most people do not believe in those gods. Many people would consider themselves secularists and even many Christians are largely secular in their thinking. That does not mean we are not without gods. Not by a long shot. We have several gods today and these are gods Christians need to know about as well to interact with worshippers of these gods, as there are plenty of such worshippers.

So what are they?

Let’s start with sex. Yes. We all know about sex. A goes into B and sometimes a baby can result. We all know how it works, but what about what it is. We have plenty of debates on this topic. What is the ultimate purpose of sex? Is it something reserved for marriage? Is it to be between a man and a woman?

Then this gets into our personal identity. What is orientation? Is there such a thing? Is there a difference between sex and gender? Is this something that is assigned at birth or is it something immutable that cannot be changed? On one level, we can say the question “What is a woman?” is simple, but on the other, it is something quite deep that we need to get more to an answer on.

Christians definitely need to have a message here. After all, if we aren’t sharing our views on this with our children, the world is and the world will speak loudly. If we do believe sex is reserved for a man and a woman in marriage, how can we tell children this is a great gift while at the same time saying it needs to be reserved for that state? (Something even difficult for we adults who are single again.)

Another god is money. For this, Christians need to study economics. Many of the debates we have in this country are because people are ignorant of economics. We think with our hearts alone and think “If our intentions are good, the results will follow.” Not at all. I am not saying to avoid compassion, but I am saying that to see if a policy works, you don’t ask “How compassionate is it?” but rather “How effective is it?”

Capitalism is often seen as encouraging greed. Is it? Marxism is seen as caring for the poor. Is it? Why did we go to war with Marxism so much in our history? Is Marxism necessarily linked with atheism? Were the early Christians socialist?

As for caring for the poor, what is the best way to help people who are poor? What method has the best results? How should individual Christians care for the poor? Is it wrong for you to buy something really nice for yourself when there are poor people in the world?

Power is another one and this gets into politics. This is definitely here when an election year is going on. Christians need to learn how their government works. Can we tell the three branches of the American government? What is the Constitution? The Bill of Rights? The Declaration of Independence?

How much power should the government have? Should the citizenry be able to have guns and if so, are there any limitations to that? What should we prohibit? What should we permit? What should we promote? What role do passages like Romans 13 play?

What about science? This seems to be the reigning authority today. What is science? Is science necessarily materialistic? Can it answer the God question? Can it answer questions of good and evil? Is it the only way to know anything?

What should we accept in science and what should we not? Is evolution true? If it is, what does this say about our beliefs on Scripture, inerrancy, the existing of God, and the resurrection of Jesus? Can you be a faithful Christian and accept evolution? Can you be a good scientist and reject evolution?

What about modern issues as well like climate change? Is the earth’s climate changing? If so, is that something that would happen anyway or is man responsible? Is there anything that can be done about it either way? What about our response to Covid? What did we get right? What did we get wrong? Can we trust the science or are we even more skeptical?

Christians interacting in our culture need some knowledge on all of this. In addition definitely understand other gods if you are interacting with other systems. We need Christians who understand cults, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, atheism and any other belief system out there.

In all of this, yes, we need to know our Bibles and our history and what we believe and why, but we are interacting with people who speak of other gods. Like good missionaries, we need to know what those other gods are and how to address them. Christians throughout history have had something to say about more than just Christianity. We need to do the same to be effective witnesses in our culture.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Atheist Universe Part 13

Were the Founding Fathers Christians? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Imagine if I was telling you what a group of scientists believed, let’s say a group of 50+, but I did so by only picking out 3 of them. Suppose I went to the National Academy of Sciences, picked out the scientists that were theists, and then said “See? The NAS is a theistic society.” If you think that’s ridiculous, you have an idea of what it’s like to read David Mills on the founding of America.

To the extent that our Founding Fathers had any religious affiliation at all, it was a tepid embracing of the philosophy of Deism, a popular system of thought in the 18th century. Deism is the belief that a supernatural Power originally created the universe but does not currently manage its day-to-day operation or intervene personally into human affairs. Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine, among many others, held Deist, rather than Christian, religious beliefs. If one dismisses all preconceived historical inaccuracies and Christian propaganda, then an extraordinary and very revealing fact emerges: The two documents upon which our country was actually founded—i.e., the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States—contain not a single word about Christianity, Christian principles, the Bible or Jesus Christ. Neither is there any mention at all of the Ten Commandments, Heaven, Hell or being saved. Not a word! The phrase “they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights” was a reference to the Deist Creator, rather than the God of Christianity.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 205). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

For the former, when people want to talk about the founding fathers not being Christian, you can bet dollars to donuts that they will name the same three people every time. Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and Benjamin Franklin. MIlls finds it odd that the founding documents don’t mention explicitly Christian language. He gives us no reason why we should think that they would. The Constitution and Declaration were to be for all people, not just Christians.

Yet after saying that these aren’t found in these documents he says:

Witch burning and mandatory church affiliation, among other factors, led the Founding Fathers to establish a “Wall of Separation between Church and State,” allowing, at each citizen’s discretion, freedom of religion or freedom from religion.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 206). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

You know what else isn’t found in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution? The Wall of Separation between Church and State. However, that is something golden that obviously all the founders held. There is no mention on how government funds were used to evangelize the Native Americans in the area of the Louisiana Purchase. There is no mention that the wall mention was made to the Danbury Baptist Church to assure them the government would not infringe upon them. There is no mention that after writing that, the very next Sunday Jefferson let worship services take place in the House of Representatives.

The other thing you can be sure that will be mentioned is the Treaty of Tripoli.

In 1797 the United States ratified the Treaty of Tripoli, which was negotiated by George Washington himself and signed by his successor, John Adams. The treaty declared that “the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.” Congress unanimously approved the text of this treaty.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 206). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

In other words, Mills is following the atheistic script accurately. Cite only the information that agrees with you. Ignore the rest. Never mind that it can be questioned if Article 11 where the phrase shows up even belongs in the treaty or not seeing as we have a version in two languages. There is no mention of the Treaty of Paris which uses explicit Christian language right in the intro in speaking of it being in the name of the most holy and undivided Trinity.

Modern-day conservative propaganda about the “Christian birth of our nation” is therefore just as erroneous and self-serving as Christian pronouncements about the birth of our universe. In both cases, “men of God” completely ignore the actual evidence at hand and conjure up a fictitious tale. They then spread the myth, along with fabricated evidence, and repeat the myth so frequently that it is soon accepted uncritically by the citizenry.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 207). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

Oh, the irony.

But to be fair, have I provided positive evidence so far? Not too much. However, if you want to see a listing of such quotations with their sources, you can go here. Here are some that you can find there.

    “From the day of the Declaration, the people of the North American union, and of its constituent states, were associated bodies of civilized men and Christians, in a state of nature, but not of anarchy. They were bound by the laws of God, which they all, and by the laws of the Gospel, which they nearly all acknowledged as the rules of their conduct. They were bound by the principles which they themselves had proclaimed in the declaration. They were bound by all those tender and endearing sympathies, the absence of which, in the British government and nation, towards them, was the primary cause of the distressing conflict in which they had been precipitated by the headlong rashness and unfeeling insolence of their oppressors. They were bound by all the beneficent laws and institutions, which their forefathers had brought with them from their mother country, not as servitudes but as rights. They were bound by habits of hardy industry, by frugal and hospitable manners, by the general sentiments of social equality, by pure and virtuous morals; and lastly they were bound by the grappling-hooks of common suffering under the scourge of oppression.”

————–John Quincy Adams

Letter to Mrs. Jane Mecom:
“I am so far from thinking that God is not to be worshipped, that I have composed and wrote a whole book of devotions for my own use; and I imagine there are few if any in the world so weak as to imagine, that the little good we can do here can merit so vast a reward hereafter.”

————–Benjamin Franklin

“I do hereby appoint THURSDAY, the TWENTY-FIRST of NOVEMBER next, to be a day of Public THANKSGIVING, PRAISE, and PRAYER, throughout this Commonwealth; calling on and requesting the ministers and people of every religious denomination, to meet on that day in their respective sanctuaries, that with unanimity and fervor, we may present our unfeigned praises for all the mercies we have received of our Bountiful Creator, who has continued to us the inestimable blessings of the gospel of Jesus Christ, blessings not confined to time, but extended to eternity, who has confirmed to us our federal and State constitutions, which secure the enjoyment of our lives, liberties and property, who continues to bless us with a National Government and Administration, whose wisdom, virtue, and firmness have not been circumvented, corrupted or appalled by the arts, seductions, or threats of foreign or domestic foes, but whose patriotic efforts have uniformly and manifestly resulted from an ardent desire to promote the public welfare and happiness, who has not punished our ungrateful murmurs, discontents and other crimes, as He has those of distant nations, by war and its dire effects; but has preserved to us peace, the greatest of national blessings, who has favored us with a Clergy, (with few exceptions,) whose conduct, is influenced by the mild, benign and benevolent principles of the Gospel; and whose example is a constant admonition to such pastors and professors of Christianity, as are too much under the guidance of passion, prejudice, and worldly delusion, Who has enabled us from unavoidable spoliations to derive permanent benefits, by gradually diminishing our dependence on foreign markets, for necessary supplies; by rapidly increasing our manufactures thereof; and by thus preventing in future the plunder of such property by avaricious nations, who has not visited us, as He has other countries, with plague, pestilence or famine; but has kindly preserved to us a great degree of health, and crowned with plenty the labors of our industrious husbandmen, Who has increased the martial ardor and discipline of our militia, and enables us to smile at the menaces of mighty potentates, Who continues to us the due administration of justice, the full and free exercise of our civil religious rights, and the numerous blessing which have resulted from them, Who has prospered in a remarkable degree our Schools, Academies and Colleges; those inestimable sources of public information and happiness, who has protected so great a portion of the property of our merchants, when exposed to the depredations of perfidious governments, Who has granted success to our enterprising fishermen, prospered our ingenious mechanics, and loaded us with His boundless munificence.”

—- Elbridge Thomas Gerry

I, ——, do profess Faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ his only Son, and in the Holy Ghost, one God blessed for evermore; and I do acknowledge the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by divine Inspiration.

—– George Read

“We profess to be republicans, and yet we neglect the only means of establishing and perpetuating our republican forms of government, that is, the universal education of our youth in the principles of Christianity by the means of the Bible. For this Divine Book, above all others, favors that equality among mankind, that respect for just laws, and those sober and frugal virtues, which constitute the soul of republicanism.”

—– Benjamin Rush

But keep in mind, Mills says this is just fabricating evidence.

I can freely acknowledge that Jefferson, Paine, and Franklin did not hold Christian views, perhaps Franklin was the closest.

Can Mills accept the others?

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)