Thread by @mcjulie

So, who wants to see me pull apart these "99 Steps to Christian Manhood" we were all making fun of a few days ago?

That was a trick question, I'm gonna do it even if nobody wants to see it.

This list falls into a category -- maybe Christian self-help? -- that I used to roll my eyes at pretty hard, but also take for granted.

But it now strikes me as deeply weird that, in evangelical-land, literally EVERYTHING in your life has to be filtered through a "Biblical perspective."

I used to think my grandparents were weird, because they were so RELENTLESSLY evangelical, and my parents weren't really like that, but I now think my grandparents were the ones who were more typical of the culture.

If you think about religion as a kind of fandom, you can see how that can go all the way from "yeah, I've heard of Harry Potter, saw a couple of the movies" to people whose every waking moment is Potter-based.

And even the "every waking moment" kind of fans still have a range from "they're just super into it, they're having fun" to "whoa, these people are terrifying and humorless in their obsessions."

The evangelical church has taken that creepy super-obsessed fandom approach and turned it into the only acceptable way to evangelical.

This is the context for "99 Steps Toward Christian Manhood"

It's like "Real Men Don't Eat Quiche" only evangelical.

As a baby evangelical I was hit with a TON of "Biblical womanhood" checklist, but I don't remember seeing a lot of the male version.

I've talked a LOT about how young evangelical girls get hammered with the message that we have to "submit" to our future husbands, but the fact that our future husbands must therefore "dominate" us goes curiously unmentioned.

And so, check out #61 under "Relationship with Opposite Sex" which is "Lead without dominating."

This is a perfect example of what @C_Stroop calls out as the rhetoric of the "respectable evangelical" cstroop.com/2019/08/31/epi…

@C_Stroop "Lead without dominating" sounds so balanced and reasonable and mild-mannered, doesn't it? Until you consider that he's giving advice for how to treat a dating partner.

@C_Stroop A dating partner is your PEER, dudes, you don't LEAD her. A romantic relationship is a PARTNERSHIP. Except in Christian patriarchy, which reflects an authoritarian & rigidly hierarchical worldview.

@C_Stroop The whole "Relationship with Opposite Sex" section, #49-#63 is quite telling, because of course, "Christian" means "rigidly heterosexual and heteronormative, but homosocial"

@C_Stroop What I mean by "homosocial" is that ordinary social relationships, basically, everything EXCEPT your marriage, is carried out according to strict, binary-gendered lines.

@C_Stroop Your typical evangelical church will have a "Men's Group" and a "Women's Fellowship." A bake sale for women, a fishing retreat for men.

@C_Stroop That's how #49 "Hang out with guys" could be shoved, under "Relationship With Opposite Sex"

Because #50 is "Go out with girls"

Get it? HANG out with guys, GO out with girls. Your friends must all be male. Girls are only for dating with an eye toward marriage.

@C_Stroop So most of this section is about dating, which makes #62, "Do the dishes" kind of weird. Under what circumstances would you both pay for the date AND do the dishes?

@C_Stroop With the exception of #63 "Don't look at your phone" and #59 "Be attentive without being a stalker" the rest of this section could be lifted word-for-word from a 1952 "how to be a gentlemen" manual.

@C_Stroop This fetishization of 1950s cultural norms is an aspect of the evangelical world that was true (and weird) in the 80s when I first started to become critical of my culture, and it's EXTRA weird now.

@C_Stroop Like, some of his advice is standard "nice" dominance: take the initiative, lead without dominating, always pay.

But #56 “Drive on a date always”? ALWAYS drive? In order to be more Christian on a date? That's... peculiar.

@C_Stroop Maybe it's meant to reflect the same kind of vaguely patronizing courtesy as “Always walk her to the door” and “Go to the door always” but I think it's also dissing environmentalists & people who live in big cities. Like you can't be a real man on public transit or a bike.

@C_Stroop (Side note: is anybody else getting annoyed by the weird syntax of "do [thing] always" instead of the more natural "always do [thing]"? And I get that it's probably to vary the sentence structure but you don't always have to say "always," dude, you can just say "do [thing]")

@C_Stroop #60 “Have a short engagement” is probably just the usual evangelical "marriage-minded" stuff, I assume. Or maybe it's meant to keep you from being a jerk and stringing a woman along for a really long time? I don't know. This list assumes a lot of context that it doesn't provide.

@C_Stroop #58 “Never raise your voice at a woman” is like, ballpark distance of good advice, except filtered through patronizing "benevolent patriarchy" ideas. Because yes, you SHOULD keep your temper with the person you're dating, but this a bad way to express that thought.

@C_Stroop When dudes say stuff like "I was taught never to hit a woman" it never comes across as "I was taught not to be a domestic abuser" it comes across as a threat, like, "I was taught not to do this, but I REALLY REALLY WANT TO and someday I might anyway if you push me too hard"

@C_Stroop And, wait! Shocking! A piece of advice that isn't terrible! #57 “Ask her good questions”

Although I would follow that up with "and listen to the answers."

@C_Stroop The Personal Habits #17-29 section is fairly similar to a secular self-help list, but that also makes it very weird, because how is having good hygiene (#27) or an exercise routine (#23) related to either Christianity OR manhood?

@C_Stroop It's got my LEAST favorite type of advice that seems to appear on every self-help list ever: Get up early, Work harder, Sleep less.

@C_Stroop I get really sick of how sleep, a BASIC BIOLOGICAL NECESSITY gets treated like a form of self-indulgence that truly disciplined people will be able to just... will themselves out of, I suppose?

@C_Stroop But then we also get lectured for not getting ENOUGH sleep whenever that can be construed as a moral failing and it's just infuriating.

@C_Stroop I'm also heartily sick of the idea that "getting up early" is morally virtuous in and of itself. SLEEP HAS NO MORAL VALUE.

@C_Stroop And "work hard" is fine, I wouldn't argue with that, but he says "work harder" and that is terrible advice. Work harder than WHAT?

@C_Stroop We get one of those inexplicable nuggets from 1952, #29 “Don’t wear a hat inside.” Some sneaky toxic masculinity: Don’t complain, Don’t cry (much).

And #24 "Be able to do at least 25 pushups in a row" which is weirdly specific compared to everything else on this list.

@C_Stroop Don't cuss, Don't be crude -- these are fairly standard "how to be a respectable evangelical man" bits of advice.

@C_Stroop And finally, the two I wouldn't argue with! #25 “Don’t lie” and #28 “Keep your house clean”

@C_Stroop The Attitudinal section is short, #30-35, and has a high percentage of things I wouldn't technically object to: #34 “Admit mistakes and work to correct” #33 “Get a mentor” #31 “Have a good work ethic”

@C_Stroop However, the context of the whole list makes even something innocuous like "Get a mentor" seem a bit suspect. Like, the "mentor" in question is assumed to be male, right?

@C_Stroop Then we get more sneaky nods to dominance masculinity, #32 “Be a little competitive" and #35 “Make a decision”

@C_Stroop Finally, #30 “Learn to take a joke” which has been bugging me because it seems really ominous and I'm not sure why. Learn to TAKE a JOKE seems not like it's telling you "have a sense of humor about yourself" but rather "learn to laugh it off when people mistreat you"

@C_Stroop Relational Qualities #36-48 has a high percentage of items from the 1952 manual: Be nice to your mother, Develop a firm handshake, Never shake hands sitting down, Look people in the face when talking, Stand in the presence of a lady, Stand for elders

@C_Stroop And it's not like I think you SHOULDN'T be nice to your mother, but why your MOTHER specifically? Why not, for example, the even MORE Biblical and gender-neutral "respect your parents"?

@C_Stroop In fact, "be nice to your mother" implies a patronizing relationship between the adult Christian man and his own mother, subtly placing her below him in the social hierarchy.

@C_Stroop Anyway, I'm no lady, gents, so please remain sitting.

@C_Stroop I've decided to stop mentioning the stuff that I think can stand on its own as good advice, like #43 "Take responsibility" with a generic: none of this is specific to Christianity or Manhood.

@C_Stroop But you can bet if we were comparing it to a similar list for women, even the seemingly neutral advice like "Take responsibility" would be subtly different in wording and attitude, reflecting patriarchal norms.

@C_Stroop The remainder of the section has some more self-help stuff, like "Don't ever quit" and then this inexplicable bit:
#42 “Walk toward people”

As opposed to what? Run away screaming from people?

@C_Stroop Or is it telling you to walk TOWARD people heading the opposite direction & make them move for you? Which, if so, is actually the WORST bit of advice so far, guaranteed to make you the jerk in every situation.

So that can't be what he means. Is it?

@C_Stroop I’m going to tackle Miscellaneous, #64-99 before getting to Christian Life. This section has a lot of stuff like “learn to polish a shoe” and “learn to use jumper cables” — practical “how to live” advice which is nevertheless strongly coded “masculine”

@C_Stroop Like, he’s not saying “learn to sew on a button” or “learn how to cook for yourself” (He does have “learn how to use an iron”)

@C_Stroop One of the weird things about a list like this is the way huge life-changing projects like “get a job” “get a dog” “learn to defend yourself” are juxtaposed against little advice tidbits like “get rid of neck hair”

@C_Stroop This section has the most obviously ridiculous performative masculinity on the list: “learn to use a chainsaw” “be a carnivore not a herbivore” “don’t ever get a manicure” “Drink coffee, not tea, Mr.Crumpet”

@C_Stroop This stuff is why I originally compared it to "Real Men Don't Eat Quiche" which had the advantage of being intentionally tongue-in-cheek. Is the "MrCrumpet" business meant to signal that this is tongue-in-cheek? But nothing ELSE in the list seems intended that way.

@C_Stroop Either way, can you just imagine having a masculinity so fragile that you can't drink tea or eat vegetables?

@C_Stroop But then we get #80 "Get a good fountain pen" and, uh... are fountain pens coded masculine because I must have missed that memo. In fact, in my experience, fountain pen fandom is pretty gender-neutral.

@C_Stroop But also, it's a FANDOM, a HOBBY, there's no particular reason for anybody to own one unless they feel like it.

@C_Stroop If I were to write such a list -- "99 steps toward effective adulting" for example -- I might have "try writing with a fountain pen in case you really like it" but ah, that's not high-handed and authoritarian enough for this dude.

@C_Stroop Which brings me to the final section, Christian Life #1-16. In general it's a great list for telling you "how to evangelical" but then it also has "Read four biographies a year" which, uh, seems kinda completely unrelated to religion?

@C_Stroop It's also weirdly specific. Not just "read informative nonfiction" but read four, count them four, BIOGRAPHIES every year.

@C_Stroop Church looms large in the Christianity of the Evangelical Man:
Be early to church
Serve in the church
Sing in the Church
Take notes in church
Take your Bible to church

Every adult evangelical in my family followed this part of the list. Everyone.

@C_Stroop Evangelicals always bring their own Bible. Evangelicals always take notes.

Why, though? I sort of took it for granted, sometimes made fun of it, but obviously it sunk in. I am still an inveterate note-taker, and I do always have a book with me, on my phone if nothing else.

@C_Stroop In retrospect, I think it's kind of a performative engagement -- evangelical bring Bibles to church (where, you know, they actually ALREADY HAVE plenty of Bibles) for the same reason students bring textbooks to class. It shows that you're ready!

@C_Stroop Anyway, I think there's this idea that if you're taking notes you're paying attention, so evangelicals like to be seen taking notes.

@C_Stroop When I was a snarky teenager, I often took very dedicated notes in church, in order to mock things accurately later, and it used to crack me up that the adults around me apparently had never even considered this as a possibility.

@C_Stroop Like, I would have people say "oh, must be an interesting sermon" or "you're so dedicated, taking your notes there" and I would be like "yep, soooper interesting, soooper dedicated, that's me all right."

@C_Stroop It's "take your Bible to church" day!

@C_Stroop These seem very specific:
#11 Read at least one good Systemic Theology book
#12 Read Disciplines of a Godly Man

@C_Stroop I don't actually know the term "Systemic Theology" although I have a guess about what it means, but I also have a guess that it's an evangelical-specific term, rather than one that applies to theological study more broadly.

@C_Stroop Or, more precisely, that he is USING "systemic theology" in an evangelical-specific way, which leads to things like the loose thematic connections between OT prophecy & Revelation being used to make the Bible tell a seemingly coherent end times story.

@C_Stroop These two items are EXTREMELY evangelical:
Read the Bible through once a year
Have a daily devotion

@C_Stroop I've talked before about how evangelicals like to do this thing where they chop the Bible up into its smallest component parts (verses) and then re-assemble these, regardless of original context, into whatever story they want.

@C_Stroop This applies to things like "read the Bible in a year" and "daily devotionals" which are often structured in a particular way, to make sure that you're utterly immersed in "the Bible" 24-7 and yet you never really have a clear, unmediated relationship with the text.

@C_Stroop It's like -- you're encouraged to relate to the Bible on a constant micro-level but never to take a step back and look at the bigger picture?

@C_Stroop I would love a handy way to refer to this type of fragmented but immersive Bible approach. I've used Chapter & Verse Cards and seen Refrigerator Magnet Poetry. But I think understanding it is kind of key to understanding the paradoxes and contradictions of the evangelical world.

@C_Stroop Finally! We're at the end! The last two I want to talk about! Because I don't know why they're here!

Memorize large passages
Write down prayers

@C_Stroop Both of these are NOT part of my evangelical experience, so I'm not sure what exactly he means or why you would want to do them. Why memorize LARGE passages? As a memory exercise? So you can recite them at parties? (Well, that's going to go over well.)

@C_Stroop And "write down prayers"? Write down prayers that you have? Prayers that you heard? Prayers that you copied out of the Bible or some other source?

I mean, maybe that's a normal evangelical thing I just didn't happen to encounter, but it still seems weirdly... pagan? Maybe?

@C_Stroop "Write down your prayer with your fountain pen and fold it between the pages of the Bible you bring to church while you recite the long passage you have memorized and your prayer will come true within a year of reading the Bible."

@C_Stroop Okay, that's it. Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

"I got 99 problems but Christian Manhood ain't one"