Cultivating Godly Masculinity
A guest post from TE Nate Xanders clarifying his comments on Episode 30 of the Westminster Standard Podcast.
I want to thank Ryan for allowing me to clarify some matters on this site. He has graciously allowed me to appear on his podcast three times this year, and although we do not always agree, I think there is mostly a mutual appreciation for one another. As I mentioned on X, there is clearly a misunderstanding of what I said on his podcast, and I want to clarify if I can. In the future, I will endeavor to elaborate more, speak in complete sentences, and complete a thought before moving on to another. This likely contributed to the problem. Please know that I love the PCA, and I want to see our institutions thriving and healthy. That’s why I shared my concerns, and that’s why I am providing clarification.
Here is what I said on the Westminster Standard Podcast about Covenant College:
I was really discouraged by the Covenant College promo video at GA. You know I've had more than one father of young adult children mention to me over the last four or five years that they've sent several children off to various Christian colleges, and when they visit Covenant College—their comment to me has been, “Man, the young men there are effeminate.” And that that should concern us as the PCA that PCA adjacent people, non-PCA members are looking at all these Christian colleges, and they're looking at the young men on campus, and they're going, “Man, this isn't a reformed school or this isn't an officially denominational institution over here, but the young men here are masculine,” and all the young men at our institutions aren't giving the same the same vibe.”
First, I did not link to any video, nor did I name anyone in particular. If you’re upset that I singled out an individual when I didn’t, what does that mean? I think you already know. I simply stated that the GA promo video discouraged me. The YouTube page has several videos that are promos, and at this time, none are marked as “PCA GA 2023 Promo Video” or anything like that. It was discouraging, because it corroborated the opinions of people that have spoken to me before about Covenant College.
Secondly, I did not say that every male student at Covenant College was effeminate. I haven’t met every single one of them. Nor have the people whose opinions were given to me. I was relaying the impressions of others. They were not stating to me that every single young man at Covenant College, now or in the past, is effeminate. They were communicating overall impressions of the collective or aggregate. I literally said, “All the young men at our institutions aren’t giving the same vibe.” Meaning: some are giving the vibe of masculinity, but not all.
In the eyes of other people, not every young man that they have encountered at Covenant College (at various times over the recent years) has been masculine. Again, this is their opinion, and it concerns me. These parents are seeing something at CC that they do not see elsewhere, but neither they, nor I, are saying that it applies to every single individual male student. That would be absurd.
Now, if I may, let me turn to the matter of RUF. Here is what I said:
And to piggyback off this, again, not trying to be mean to anyone, but a woman made a comment to me. We had a guest preacher who was an RUF minister, and she said…because he didn't fit the stereotype [in her eyes], it dawned on her. She was like, “You know what? RUF ministers, they speak with kind of an effeminate lisp, and he's the first one that I've encountered that doesn't.” And I was like, “Wow, that's—that's something. You know? That's a problem.” These are the guys, if that's true—that's just one woman's experience—but just think about the implications of that: these are the college pastors that are modeling for young men and young women what it means to be a man, a godly man, who teaches the word. And again: that's one, that's anecdotal, that's not like from a DMin survey of the past 20 years of RUF ministers; but those are concerning things…
I have one regret from this portion of the conversation. There are three men in my neck of the woods serving in RUF. If my presbytery said, “Nate, you have to walk two miles down a dark alley in bad part of town at 2am with a bag of cash and these three guys are coming with you,” I would have no problem with the choice of companions—just a problem with our strange assignment. They are godly men who present themselves in a manly way, and I am confident that they model that for their students on their campuses. I think we would make it through the dark alley just fine. My regret is not relaying that fact in the conversation.
What I said in this podcast on this matter represented one person’s experience, which is different than mine. My experience is inverted: far more masculine men serving in that capacity than not. But again, that is just my experience, and other people have communicated concerns about this elsewhere. I can’t dismiss that.
The response from other TEs and REs leads me to believe that I have identified a real issue. We can certainly debate about whether or not I should have brought this up in a different setting or manner, and perhaps maybe I could have stated or phrased things differently…I am sure there are lots of opinions about that too. But the cat’s out of the bag. I said out loud what others are thinking. I’m willing to be the first one through the door and stumble on my way inside as we try to deal with the problem, but now what?
Do we know what effeminacy is? Do we think it’s sin? Is it wrong? Is it something we should platform? Or do we discourage it and give an alternative vision of Christian, reformed, Wesminsterian masculinity?
If you think effeminacy is sin and that God calls men to act like men, check out www.reformingmen.com which launches later this month.
If you think that God approves of men taking on the mannerisms, characteristics, and roles of women, you’ll probably hate the articles on the website. But that means that you need the content even more.
For the King,
Nate Xanders