The War on Christian Men Part III: Psychological Castration

This is the third installment of a series of 5 articles titled The War on Christian Men: A systematic examination of how modern culture attacks masculinity.

You can read the first installment here.

It’s undeniable that masculinity is under attack both from the secular world and from dark influences within the Church that serve as allies to the enemy. But being under attack is not a problem in and of itself: men have always had to fight. The real problem is that these attacks have been masterfully disguised, so much so that most men don’t even realize that there’s an ongoing battle for their minds and souls. And thus, unaware of this fight, they become vulnerable to the systematic rewiring of the masculine mind that the enemy has so cleverly devised.

The Shame Campaign: Weaponizing Language Against Men

Over the last decades, there has been an ongoing effort to weaponize language against men, in order to mentally castrate us and ensure that no man dares rebel against the narrative.

Every expression of masculinity now gets assigned the label of “toxic”, to the point where even young boys suffer the consequences of the negative connotations associated with any and all masculine behaviors.

“Toxic masculinity” serves as a discussion-stopping phrase, spoken liberally and at will by those who seek to further undermine men: teachers, politicians, even spiritual leaders have fallen for the schemes of the enemy, who has successfully introduced loaded, undefined, misunderstood terms like “the patriarchy” to every day discussion, to serve as the most powerful weapons in this cultural war.

Being indoctrinated since early childhood, men are now afraid to showcase and defend natural masculine traits out of fear of being labelled. Not only that, but many men have even started to believe that masculinity is toxic, as a psychological consequence of constantly hearing masculine characteristics pathologized by those in positions of influence.

The shame campaign rebrands natural masculine competitiveness as “harmful aggression”, natural leadership as “domination”, protective instincts as “toxic, controlling behavior” and direct communication as “insensitivity”. All of these qualities, which are virtuous by their very nature, have now been twisted and misrepresented to discourage men to dare acting like men.

The Elimination of Male Spaces

This psychological castration wouldn’t be possible without a key component in this war against masculinity: the elimination of exclusively male spaces.

You see, if such groups still existed, they could provide a man with the strength and courage necessary to resist the psychological conditioning of the satanic left. A man is strongest when he has a group of brothers by his side, with whom he can compete, grow as a man, and sharpen his intellect and spirit.

The enemy knows this, and it has taken the necessary steps to isolate men to make them vulnerable to his conditioning and oppression. In an article I published last year, I mentioned how male groups have been systematically infiltrated or disbanded —who can forget the whole Boy Scouts controversy—, and how men have a deep psychological necessity to be a part of exclusively male fellowship groups for optimal mental and spiritual health.

The elimination of male spaces leads to isolation and confusion in young men, as their development as men becomes stunted by a lack of fraternity, a key component of masculinity that is absolutely essential in helping boys grow up and mature.

Without spaces where men can be men, they are vulnerable to becoming the effeminate manchildren that the world wants to turn them into.

The Internal Consequences: Confusion and Doubt

All in all, what ends up happening is that Christian men receive contradictory cultural messages from all fronts: passive men are scorned by both culture and women as "weak" and "unattractive", while assertive men are condemned as "toxic" and "patriarchal". Successful men are criticized for "privilege" and pressured to apologize for achievement while struggling men get blamed for personal inadequacy.

We’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t, and not even in the Church do we find clear guidance on how a man ought to be. Is it any wonder men are lost and drifting?

The result this has on the masculine mind is, in my opinion, as follows:

1. Compartmentalization. Because of the neverending contradictory messaging men are exposed to, and due to the strong negative response that men receive regardless of how they act, they learn to fragment their identities across different contexts. A man who’s been shamed and attacked his whole life for doing and failing to do will learn to navigate the stormy waters of postmodern culture by wearing masks that help him adapt to multiple environments: he essentially becomes a different man at work, at home, in church, and with friends. When a man doesn’t know who he is in God and how he’s supposed to behave, he’ll just adjust his identity to fit whatever group he’s in.
   
   This is a terrible loss of integrity stemming from fear of being shamed, ostracized, and labelled. Men thus fail to express authentically, and they fail to develop the spine necessary to commit to a set of beliefs and stick to it through thick and thin. Masks serve to hide the cowardice of a man who (often through no fault of his own) has chosen not to commit to anything.
2. A fearful mind. This incessant, repeated exposure to anti-masculine messaging starts creating in men a cowardly spirit and a fearful mind: self-doubt creeps in and takes over their behavior and rewires it to be doubtful and anxious. Feminist critiques become internalized and men start doubting their adequacy, not because they lack skills or because they are actually inadequate, but simply because they are men, and that, according to the powers in place and to their poisonous ideology, is unacceptable and harmful.
   
   A man who’s been a victim of such conditioning since before he could speak properly will very quickly take a defensive, fear-based position when it comes to decision making, as opposed to the confident masculine leadership that should be a staple in every man. Instead of thinking "What's the right action?", he starts thinking "What won't get me criticized?" His actions are not based on values and virtues but on fear of facing the screams, labelling, and social shaming of the world.
3. The External Consequences: Apathy and Paralysis

Faced with an impossible conundrum in which every choice will be wrong, men usually take one of two paths: they either become paralyzed, too afraid to do anything of note, to at least avoid the social risk and the criticism that rains on every man who dares to do something, or they simply stop caring altogether, descending into a dark apathy, and a nihilism in which they waste their lives in meaninglessness.

This is what’s really happening when fathers are afraid to discipline their children for fear of being "too harsh", when husbands defer all major decisions to their wives to avoid appearing "controlling", when Christian men hide their faith at work to avoid being seen as "judgmental" or when young men are afraid to approach women romantically due to fear of being labeled "creepy".

Afraid of making the wrong choice, they opt for the cowards way out: making no choices and being lukewarm and soft with everything.

This is not entirely their fault though. The enemy we face is a terribly powerful one. And even though we can never let ourselves become victims of fate and of the darkness of the world, we are fallen and weak, after all, and I think the charitable and just position to take is to look at the men who’ve fallen prey to the social programming with compassion, while still urging them onwards and pushing them to reclaim their spine.

That will never happen, however, unless we first break free from the psychological programming that has us exhausted from the constant self-monitoring, all our mental energy consumed by the incessant behavioral policing our minds are occupied with to avoid making a costly mistake and being labelled as “patriarchal”, “toxic” or whatever other term the leftist ideologues use to try and shame us.

This social surveillance of all masculine actions leads to nothing less than the death of spontaneous, natural, and good masculine expression, leaving us confused, lost, and psychologically exhausted, incapable to play our roles properly.

This psychological castration is what cause so many men to live in fear in their different roles, vocations, and states in life:

• The father who has internalized the messages about “toxic” paternal authority so deeply that he simply cannot bring himself to discipline his children out of fear of the cultural and social consequences of showing strong and firm paternal authority, leading his kids astray and letting them follow all the wrong paths.
• The husband who, even though he understands the scriptural teaching about headship in the home, has been so conditioned that he abdicates all decision making so as not to be labelled “controlling”, disrupting the order of his household and burdening his wife with the leadership role.
• The worker or businessman who lives his faith only in private, fearing the criticism and resentment of his coworkers and of the liberal HR department, choosing to compartmentalize his beliefs instead of freely expressing his conservative, God-fearing views.
• The single man who deeply desires marriage but has been so conditioned by the woke propaganda that he can’t bring himself to pursue women and communicate his romantic intentions honestly and openly, having been convinced that any expression of masculine romantic interest is inherently predatory (after all, the woke mob does scream that all men are r*pists).

That’s where this propaganda against men leads to: lost, purposeless, fearful and apathetic men, choosing not to participate at all in the playing fields of the world and retreating into themselves, where they can find, at least, a semblance of peace.

However, there’s another option beyond paralysis and apathy, and it’s righteous rebellion against the evil influences that hate you, me and God. We can accept that modern culture has turned against us, and choose to fight back instead of retreating. After all, and as I’ve stated before, Christian men have always had to fight, more often than not against seemingly unbeatable opponents.

The choice to stand firm in the middle of the storm of criticism, hatred, and malice that will surely come at any man who dares live like a man and speak with his chest is always there. And we can break free from the conditioning and rebel against the thought and speech police, speaking the Truth and standing behind it, like a man should.

The enemy knows that the only way he can take over the world is by defeating men first. And to defeat men, he needs to conquer our minds and make us forget our mission.

The Cascading Effects on Our Christian Mission

This anti-masculinity campaign trickles down into our spiritual core, and in the confusion and fear, we forget our mission as Christian men: we lose our sense of purpose and apostolic mission, as we are unsure of what our role even is in God’s plan. We become unable to lead our families and communities, as we don’t know what the truth is, and even when we do know, we are afraid to communicate it boldly.

Thus, Christian men abandon the battlefield, withdrawing from leadership roles out of fear of criticism, scrutiny and confrontation.

The enemy takes us out of the spiritual battle by attacking our minds and conditioning us for fear, doubt and confusion. Our minds shape our actions, and a cowardly, castrated mind begets cowardly behavior. That, in turn, means that we’ll ignore God’s mission for us as Christian men, to hold the line and stand firm in the Truth.

The Battle for the Christian Mind

The psychological warfare against Christian masculinity is the enemy's most strategic and sophisticated attack yet. It has successfully —using the media, entertainment, education system, and even sometimes the Church— rewired how men think about themselves, their roles, and their calling. As a consequence, we are now living as an entire generation of confused, paralyzed, and spiritually impotent Christian men.

But recognizing the nature of the attack is a first, very necessary step towards victory. When we understand that our struggle truly is "against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world" (Ephesians 6:12), we can begin to see how the enemy has used psychological manipulation to spread darkness much further than it could’ve by attacking men directly.

Where can we look to for guidance? Where can we find models of Christian masculinity that can show us the path towards virtue so that we can begin to rebel against the social conditioning that wants to bury us and strive upwards towards the light?

The good news is that God has not left us defenseless, and there’s a clear path towards salvation, purpose, and true, genuine Christian masculinity.

The story of our time is that of a lack of masculine role models, but there is another story, found in the 2,000-year old tradition of Catholic masculinity.

For two millennia, the Catholic Church has produced masculine men, martyrs, saints, great leaders who can teach us how to combine a spirit of charity with spiritual and intellectual fortitude and decisive, courageous action. After all, all saints are models of the most masculine men in history: Jesus Christ, the Lion of Judah, our Savior.

In the next article of this series, we'll examine how these saints and heroes provide the models of masculinity we desperately need: a vision of masculinity that is both authentically human and fully Christian, so we can find in their example the strength we need to break the chains of the psychological prison that the enemy so desperately wants to enslave us in.