Should the church be concerned about the red pill movement?

Oh, the interesting places you find yourself in times of darkness and betrayal. Five years ago, I made the difficult choice to end my engagement due to issues of mistrust. I was not prepared for what would happen to me in the weeks to follow. When I showed up to gather with my church, I was pulled aside by a brother in my small group. He mentioned that he was very sad about the news of my recent breakup. I told him that I wanted to talk with our small group leader about what happened. He responded to me with words that left me shocked.

“I think it would be best if you don’t come back to our small group”.

These words were only the beginning of a very difficult few months. Let me explain something. I went to a very popular evangelical church in my area. We were a reformed church. We believed in the inspiration of the scriptures. We believed that the word of God is infallible. This was a solid church. And over the weeks I found myself slowly pushed out of my church. The church I had attended for four years. I never heard from my small group leader after this. The pastor, who I considered a friend, didn’t reach out to me. And I remember one member of the hospitality team running to inform people whenever I was entering the building. I would later find out these behaviors were based on some untruths and rumors that went around the church. I found this out from a friend seeking repentance. But I wouldn’t know this until about a year later.

It was at this time I stumbled upon a podcast where two men were discussing a situation that sounded very similar to mine. One of the men began to recount the story of his divorce after infidelity on the part of his wife. His wife was embraced and affirmed by his church. And he was ostracized until he left eventually. It felt good to hear men who seemed to be taking my side. They understood me and felt what I felt. My own mother was against me after my engagement ended. Yet, they experienced the bias I experienced against me solely because of my sex. This is how I found the Red Pill community.

What is the red pill community?

The red pill community, or “man-o-sphere” as they are also referred to, are a group of men who gather on the internet and talk about issues pertaining to men. You may have heard of them referred to as men’s rights activists, but this is not true. The red pill community is made up of various groups and contains various ideologies. A main figure, Rollo Tomassi, would describe the red pill as solely a praxeology to be molded by the various lifestyle choices of the men therein. They try to avoid making prescriptions for how men should behave. Rather, they simply teach “red pill truths” and allow men to apply them to whatever lifestyle they choose to live.

Most popular media figures who would be considered red pill by association would be men like Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson, and the late Kevin Samuels. But these are only people who are popular in the culture. The figurehead of the movement would be Rollo Tomassi. Rollo Tomassi is the author of The Rational Male series of books. These books are the key texts for the red pill community and foundational for many of their beliefs. These ideas are not completely unique to Rollo Tomassi as much of his material comes out of the pick-up artist community. It is difficult to trace a clear history of the movement, but this is sufficient for the purposes of this article.

Why the red pill?

The red pill trope comes from the movie, “The Matrix”. Where the main character Neo is given the choice between a red pill and a blue pill. Taking the blue pill will result in Neo returning to the Matrix and assuming his life as it was. Taking the red pill will wake him out of the matrix to see reality as it really is. The red pill community has the view that modern feminism has seeped deeply into our cultural conscience. And over the years has evolved our culture to become a gynocentric social order. Meaning, our laws, our morals, our social cues and our social activism are all primarily concerned with advantaging women. Taking the red pill is recognizing the gynocentric biases in our culture and living in a way to either tear it down or play by and manipulate the culture’s rules to advantage themselves.

Why should the church be concerned?

“I don’t understand why we should care about this. These sound like internet losers who get together and hate on women.” Wake up. You are still in the matrix. These are the thoughts of those sound asleep within our gynocentric social order. This is shaming language deployed by women to deflect and ignore the things men care about. You are demonstrating your apathy towards men who face real challenges in this world. See what I did there? This is the reason the church should care about this community. It is stealing the hearts of our men. This community does not shame men for their natural desires, but this community does not simply coddle men as feminism does women. It challenges men to build quality lives and become the best version of themselves. This movement challenges men into conquest. The red pill community is not a simple overreaction to feminism. The red pill movement is filling a void left in our men by feminism, by our culture and sadly by our churches.

The red pill community have many true things to say. But anything true that comes out of this community, is ultimately because they exist in God’s creation. The red pill community say many things that the bible says, but the church is embarrassed of. The red pill community advises men not to give their strength to women [Proverbs 31:3]. The red pill community challenges men to build businesses, advance professionally and steward their wealth well [Proverbs 10:4, 13:11, 18:9, 21:10] but to the glory of themselves and not to the glory of God. The red pill community is not afraid to offend the women. The red pill community affirms both a man’s responsibility and authority as head of his home [Colossians 3:18; Ephesians 5:22-24; 1 Peter 3:1a, 5-6] while the church places heavy emphasis on the former and downplays the latter. The red pill community challenges modern feminism by telling women they should display modesty [1 Peter 3:4-6; 1 Timothy 2:9; Proverbs 11:22]. And the community informs men of the kinds of women to avoid. As well we confront the modern “sexually liberated” woman [Proverbs 5, 6, 7].

But the fatal flaw of the red pill community are their foundations. They base all their principles on evolutionary psychology. And thus, fall into the trap of making man (and women) essentially the sum total of his desires. This removes any foundation for moral complaints against women, feminism or the culture. The red pill cannot give prescriptions of how a man should live without relying on Christian presuppositions. Without the God of scripture, the red pill praxeology stands firmly in mid-air. This leads men to a foundationless self-righteousness that can never save their souls. Salvation is only found in our resurrected King.

The only way the red pill can thrive in this fatherless culture is if the church is asleep at the wheel. The appeal of the red pill is the comradery, the respect, the truths and the affirmation. The red pill presents a space where the fatherless can learn to be men and the masculine man is not shunned away because of his nature. The church of our Lord should be this space for these men. But in my experience, we have work to do.