Two problems — (1) It’s one thing to recognize the utility of simple observation and analysis. It’s another thing to imagine that your analysis answers all the pertinent questions. (2) The miracles of faith are extraordinary, and yet should be common in a community of faith. The whole point is to wrap your existence in faith so that God’s promises to intervene become routine in a certain sense.
Do I need to explain this? Vox Day is surely one of the sharpest minds on the planet. Unfortunately, his written output almost never reflects a genuine faith in God and His promises. The whole thrust of his work is what men can understand by their talents and intellect, not a constant reliance on God. This is the crux of the Fall, folks. It has nothing to do with whether the man is Elect or spiritually reborn; he doesn’t operate in a spiritual orientation.
He is religious, not spiritual. Religion is a compartment of human endeavor; faith is God’s Presence and power overcoming human limits.
So, it should be obvious that his famous Socio-Sexual Hierarchy (SSH) is a human secular framework, and in no wise a matter of spiritual insight. It is worldly from start to finish. Yes, it is a reliable gauge of human response to various contexts. No, it does not yield in any way to God’s work in human lives. The whole SSH frame of reference shoves aside faith.
The biblical model of manhood is a shepherd; that is God’s Word. For the SSH, only Alphas can be shepherds. That’s flat out wrong and wrong-headed. The shepherd image crosses all the boundaries of the SSH. The hierarchy makes no room for men finding their dominion from God in the moral sphere. The SSH assumes most men are incapable, that the categories are essentially immutable, and this is a flat rejection of God’s Word.
That the biblical model does not easily match human observation is simply proof that our culture is anti-Christian. Americans in particular don’t see the difference because they read their cultural bias back into the Bible. This is the old problem of a biblical worldview that is radically different from what most Bible wavers and thumpers hold.
The issue is not rejection of the information gained from the construction of an SSH. Rather, the issue is letting that model dominate what we do about the human condition. That model excludes the power of faith and prayer, and closes the door on how God calls His Elect. A great many of His Elect prior to embracing biblical faith would be judged severely by the SSH and rejected.
Do you realize that Peter was mostly a Gamma (immature) before the coming of the Holy Spirit? And Paul would be a genuine Omega (damaged and creepy) to most. Jesus tolerated Peter for several years; Vox would have kicked both apostles to the curb in seconds, never to tolerate either of them again for a moment. They would have to go away and “get right” on their own first. Jesus doesn’t operate that way, and He has commanded us not to operate that way.
If we obey and conform to the structure of spiritual fellowship that the Bible outlines, then we will manage just fine by absorbing into our community a lot of people in our search for the Elect, while eventually rejecting those who will not repent. The Presence of the Holy Spirit demands that we reach across all the human barriers to offer His sacrificial love.
I learned many helpful things from TRP and its Christian sectors, but most of it was irrelevant to my mission, contrary to my foundational spiritual discipline, and incompatible with my particular charism.
My most meaningful contact with the manosphere until recently was back when Dalrock was still posting. The only reason I ever looked in on it here and there was because of your link/s to Sigma Frame, and although I appreciate what Jack is doing, I know that I could not do what he does given the diversity of his audience in regards to faith in particular, whether they have it or not, and if they do have it, whether or not they have crossed the epistemic Rubicon. I could not juggle all that, along with who knows what else, but that is one of the reasons I am reticent to comment or say much of what I really think if I do.
After reading a bunch of articles, comments, and other blogs in that circle, it is clear that I could not contribute in a meaningful way. If they are not really embracing you, then my fate would be far worse as my epistemology is even more radical than yours in certain respects. Genuine, transcendent, mystical (a redundant in term technically, but necessary to a degree in our age) faith is offensive to the Western mind and then we have to deal with everyone fighting for/defending that mind using a Bible misread through the same mind. I just can’t do it.
The Lord himself had to bring me to a point where I had no other choice than to deny my mind or lose it because I was literally going mad. That is how difficult it was for me to die that death. It seems a little unfair of the Lord to expect us to have a different mind in a certain sense than the one we are brainwashed with since birth, and I ask him why he does not seem to grant more of his people mystical experiences so that they can begin to understand that there is another source of knowledge and many other things outside of their analytical minds, but I know that my words or efforts cannot do much more than trigger a self-defense mechanism because that is what happened to me before I was freed from the tyranny of my own mind/pride.
Something has to happen to wake people up. God is our only hope now. He has done it before. Do it again, Lord!
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Amen to that, dear Brother! We can only be to others as we perceive ourselves to be in the eyes of God. Once we are awakened and see, we, in my humble opinion, are entrusted by Him to tell the world. Yes, He is our only hope. But He gave us His commission just before He left. He doesn’t need us; but He wishes to use us for His glory.