In Part I of my ill-advised field study into America’s Christian nationalist movement, I attended my first-ever church service, a Sunday morning sermon inside a Calvary Chapel evangelical church where the teachings of Jesus arrived wrapped in the language of cultural collapse, political grievance, and low-grade civilizational panic.
What I encountered there did not feel like Christianity broadly speaking, nor even religion in the ordinary sense. It felt like a closed emotional ecosystem organized around fear, certainty, and the intoxicating pleasure of believing oneself persecuted while surrounded by hundreds of like-minded people inside a sprawling multimillion-dollar house of worship.
To my surprise, I largely managed to keep my composure through the sermon itself. Unfortunately, the sermon turned out to be the easy part. Because after the service came the Men’s Group. And somewhere between the conspiratorial panic and the relentless moral certitude, my already-fragile commitment to polite anthropological observation began to fail rather spectacularly.
So if you were hoping Part II might offer some reassuring glimpse of reconciliation, introspection, or common ground, you may want to stop reading now.
Yeah. I knew you’d keep reading. It’s the same reason people lean closer to the television when the news anchor says, “We want to warn you: some viewers may find what you’re about to see disturbing.”
I don’t judge you.
Unlike the congregation I had just spent the morning with, who somehow managed to transform Jesus’ teachings about mercy, humility, compassion, and moral responsibility into a theological rationale for viewing liberals, secular society, and anyone outside their worldview as agents of moral contamination and civilizational decline.
As I made my way toward the Men’s Group, I didn’t know what to expect. After spending the previous hour listening to a pastor explain how Jesus’ metaphors were meant to function within the political realities of modern America (i.e., the supposed collapse of traditional America), I half imagined I was walking into some kind of Christian masculinity support group for men emotionally devastated by pronouns.
I was greeted at the door by another pastor, our host — a physically imposing man enthusiastically glad-handing everyone as they entered. He was dressed casually but with obvious strategic intent: a much-too-tight black T-shirt designed to emphasize his thick forearms and unnecessarily large pectorals, faded jeans, heavy boots, and enough tattoos spilling out of his sleeves and above the collar line to suggest a colorful personal history. He had the sort of thick, rugged beard that suggested he could be equally at home hauling lobster traps off the coast of Maine or storming the Capitol on January 6.
Everything about him projected masculine certainty. The sort of rugged authority that suggested his garage was a highly organized shrine to power tools and firearms.
Look, I’m a few inches taller than the average American man, capable of growing a beard if desired, and able to manufacture confidence when the situation calls for it. But I’ve never been comfortable around aggressively macho men like this. Sure, some of it is intimidation. I do not consider myself an alpha male. I don’t own a truck, I don’t smoke my own meat, I don’t take gym selfies, I prefer indie dramas to action movies, I’ve read a Jane Austen novel, and the only sport I watch is the Olympics. (Even the events where America gets humbled by tiny Scandinavian countries.)
But I also think men like this are trying too hard. They often strike me less as naturally masculine than as men performing masculinity for one another. Like they’ve spent years carefully modeling themselves after a culturally sanctioned fantasy of toughness built from professional wrestling, military iconography, and protein powder advertisements.
Also, I think the guy may have sprained a few of my fingers when he shook my hand.
I had entered the Men’s Group with little time to spare, having stood in line to get my fourth cup of coffee that morning. (Readers of Part I will recognize that as roughly 300% more coffee than I typically drink in a day.) The room itself was smaller and more intimate than the theater where the sermon had taken place. Folding chairs faced a microphone and projection screen, and the air carried the faintly musty, stale smell I have always associated with church basements, despite never having actually been inside one before. In total, around seventy-five men attended, ranging from what appeared to be their seventies down to their twenties. I slipped into one of the last available seats. Third row. Close enough to make eye contact. A tactical error that would soon prove costly.
I worried I was about to endure another lengthy lecture without the opportunity to speak, but the man beside me—an affable fellow with an endearing laugh and the sort of face that suggested we might have become friends under different ideological circumstances—assured me there would eventually be audience questions and discussion.
As I subtly opened and closed my hand a few times, flexing my fingers to make sure everything still worked, our tattooed facilitator strode to the front of the room, radiating such concentrated masculine energy that I could practically hear the testosterone pumping through his veins — not all of it necessarily his.
He began with a series of loud grunts and hollers that carried the unmistakable energy of a gorilla establishing dominance within the troop. I immediately heard David Attenborough narrating somewhere in the back of my mind: “Here we observe the mature suburban male attempting to assert status through ritualized vocal displays and inflation of the upper torso.”
I don’t know what the other guys in the room were feeling, but mentally I had already rolled over and exposed my soft underbelly to the dominant male.
He started with a booming albeit syntactically awkward announcement: “Alright brothers, we going to do this in a manfully way!” The room answered with approving hoots and barks before he launched into something that sounded like a Marine drill instructor leading marching cadences. He chanted. The room echoed him back.
“Hail Jesus, you’re my king / your life frees me to sing.”
He carried on for several minutes, eventually forcing rhymes with the reckless confidence of a man who had clearly spent far more time developing his physique than his ear for phonetics. “Lord” / “word.” “Judah” / “are.” “Lamb” / “land.” Nevertheless, I found myself clapping and halfheartedly chanting along, lest anyone begin to suspect I was not, in fact, there to reclaim biblical masculinity alongside the others.
He called himself Pastor Dan, a title that does not necessarily imply formal theological education. He got straight to the point.
“The Lord has laid it on my heart, dear brothers, to talk to you about identity.” He pronounced that last word slowly and heavily, as though unveiling some sacred and endangered concept. “Do you know who you are? There are traitors to the cause of Christ today trying to unhook men from the Old Testament, which gives us authority over women. To take away what God divinely ordained.” Then, lowering his voice into a low theatrical menace, he added: “I will tell you right now: they will be judged by the Lord Himself.”
Whoa. Blessed are the meek this was not.
His monologue lasted approximately twenty minutes and produced the following spiritual and philosophical insights:
“We’re supposed to be men. We are called to rule. Jesus was a man’s man. He would break the serpent’s head. And he will dash the nations in pieces like a potter’s vessel.” (Here he punched the lectern for emphasis. I instinctively opened and closed my hand again to check whether full mobility had returned.)
“God made men dangerous. We need to raise warriors, not soft men.”
“Men were built for battle.”
“The culture wants to feminize men. The church has become feminized.”
“Christianity is not a religion of weakness.”
“Biblical masculinity is under attack.”
He cited Scripture to justify all of these ideas. Whether the cited passages support his conclusions is a matter I leave to biblical scholars. I’m working from a clandestine iPhone recording, not a seminary degree.
“Blessed be the Lord my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight.” (Psalm 144:1)
“The Lord is a man of war.” (Exodus 15:3)
“Act like men, be strong.” (1 Corinthians 16:13)
“Endure hardship as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.” (2 Timothy 2:3)
Whatever else may be said, the man knew his Bible.
He did make me genuinely laugh once when he joked(?) that the only properly manly way to apply ChapStick was to have your woman apply it first and then “kiss it off her.” If nothing else, he was committed to the bit.
Only an hour earlier, the church had been discussing the Beatitudes and Jesus’ blessings on the meek, the merciful, and the peacemakers. What followed in the men’s group went considerably further. This was not merely Christianity deployed in service of a culture war. It was a vision of militant masculinity organized around hierarchy, conflict, and the need for enemies.
What struck me was the enthusiasm. The men weren’t grim. They weren’t frightened. They seemed energized by the idea that they were living in a moment of civilizational crisis.
Having spent twenty minutes exhorting us to become dangerous warriors capable of ruling nations with rods of iron, he then invited the room to share their feelings.
“Where are you being challenged as a man?”
Silence. None of the warriors wanted to go first.
“Who’s got something they’re wrestling with?”
More silence.
“Who needs prayer today?”
The first brave soul was a man in his thirties who offered not a testimony but a tribute to Pastor Dan.
“I’ve been tired of not being able to speak my mind. Then I found somebody who knows how to say the things I want to say. I memorize what you say so I can repeat it to...” At this point the sentence wandered off into the desert and never returned.
Pastor Dan seemed pleased by this declaration of intellectual outsourcing.
Another man stood.
“I have tried to be the best man I can up to this point, but I am at a crossroads to whether I’m man enough in this fallen world.”
The response:
“Let me ask you something: Are you leading your family? Are you in the Word? Are you taking responsibility for your life? Are you standing firm when the culture tells you not to? Then you’re already on the right path! The question is whether you’re willing to stand up like a man, carry your cross, and do what God’s called you to do. Stop second-guessing yourself and start walking in the authority God gave you as a man.”
Over the next thirty minutes, the discussion yielded the following revelations:
“Public schools are government indoctrination centers.”
“Covid was tyranny.”
“The LGBTQ agenda is spiritual warfare.”
“People are being manipulated by empathy.”
“Untethered empathy” is a liberal tool designed to undermine authority and masculinity.
“Compromise is cowardice.”
“There is no such thing as toxic masculinity in men. The problem is not toxic masculinity. The problem is the absence of masculinity.”
“Feminism didn’t leave women free. It left women abandoned.”
“A man penetrates, conquers, colonizes, plants. A woman receives, surrenders, accepts.”
“We are in a spiritual war for the soul of America.”
“The Constitution was written only for a moral and religious people.”
“We need to be taking America back for God.”
In the waning minutes another man stood.
“I feel so guilty and it’s been something I’m dealing with. I want to imitate Jesus, but I don't know if I'm becoming the kind of man He wants me to be.”
Now that struck me as an interesting question. Not whether he was strong enough. Not whether he was dangerous enough. Not whether he was masculine enough. Whether he was a good imitator of Jesus.
Alas…
“Brother, stop trying to act like a man and start being one. The Bible says, ‘Gird up your loins like a man’ (Job 38:3). It says, ‘Act like men, be strong’ (1 Corinthians 16:13). Stop staring into your own navel. Read your Bible. Take responsibility. Lead your family. Stop apologizing. Stop second-guessing yourself. The world has enough soft men already. ‘God didn’t give you a spirit of fear. He gave you a spirit of power’ (2 Timothy 1:7).”
I leaned to that guy next to me and whispered:
"I think the official answer is, lift more weights."
My neighbor laughed. Far louder than my quip deserved. It was not endearing this time. It was mortifying. I dared not look up. Then, against my better judgment, I looked up. The silverback pastor was staring directly at us.
“Have you got a testimony, brothers?”
My neighbor demurred. Then I could feel him looking at me, silently volunteering me to respond.
Judas.
Not wanting to look weak, I spoke.
“When a man says he’s trying to imitate Jesus, why is your first instinct to talk about strength rather than compassion?”
The guy next to me let out a nervous laugh. I swear to God, I wanted to punch him.
Pastor Dan’s expression changed instantly. His face reddened beneath the beard. Somebody in the room was not on the team.
“Brother, that’s exactly the question the culture wants you asking. Compassion is easy. Compassion gets applause. Compassion costs you nothing. The devil can counterfeit compassion just as easily as he can counterfeit kindness or mercy. That’s why we’re in the mess we’re in. People are manipulated by empathy every day. The Bible doesn’t say, ‘Blessed are the nice.’ It says there is ‘a time for war’ (Ecclesiastes 3:8). It says, ‘Be strong and courageous’ (Joshua 1:9).
You know what got us here? Men confusing compassion with surrender. Men who won’t confront evil because they don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. Men who won’t lead because they’re afraid of being called controlling. Men who won’t speak truth because they’re afraid of being called hateful. Brother, when compassion becomes more important than truth, compassion becomes a weapon. That’s how churches get captured. That’s how nations fall. That’s how men become weak. Satan doesn’t show up with horns and a pitchfork. He shows up asking you to be reasonable. He shows up asking you to compromise. He shows up asking you to empathize with rebellion. That’s why the Bible says, ‘The fear of man lays a snare’ (Proverbs 29:25). The question isn’t whether Jesus was compassionate. The question is whether you’re courageous enough to do what compassion cannot.”
There was no turning back now. So I said:
“You say compassion is easy. I don’t know. Forgiving people isn’t easy. Welcoming outsiders isn’t easy. Refusing to judge people isn’t easy. Showing mercy isn’t easy. Washing other people’s feet isn’t easy. Most of the things Jesus commanded seem really hard. What sounds easy is finding enemies. What sounds easy is convincing yourself you’re strong because you’re angry.”
At this point I was having something of an out-of-body experience, but I pressed on.
“Frankly, if I brought a non-Christian into this room this morning and asked him what the central theme of Christianity was, I don’t think he’d say love. I don’t think he’d say mercy. I think he’d say power. He’d say domination. He’d say masculinity. He’d say battle. And that’s exactly what—”
Pastor Dan cut me off.
Smiling broadly at the audience, he said, “I think we do have a non-Christian here.”
The room exploded.
Pastor Dan beamed.
“Brother, you’ve got enough compassion for the whole room. What I’m not hearing is much conviction.”
More laughter.
Then came the coup de grâce.
“If masculinity makes you this uncomfortable, you’re in the wrong room.”
The room erupted again.
A perfect line. A perfect audience. A perfect ending.
At that point the meeting was running long. Men were beginning to gather their things. Wives were waiting elsewhere in the complex.
But Pastor Dan wasn’t finished.
“If the Romans had shown up to arrest Jesus, I suspect you'd have volunteered to carry their spears."
More laughter.
That last part felt a little sinister. I made my way to the exit. As I did, a man in his fifties or sixties delivered one final message directly to me:
“The liberal mind is at war with God.”
It was, in many ways, the perfect closing statement. The meeting had begun with masculinity under siege and ended with half the country enlisted in Satan’s army. The thematic arc was impeccable.
I realized something unsettling. Nearly every major theme that morning had revolved around enemies, decline, corruption, weakness, and threat. Very little of it had revolved around Jesus. The implication was extraordinary. Compassion itself had become suspect. Caring too much about the suffering of others was no longer a virtue. It was a liability. Empathy was no longer a moral strength. It was a trap. Mercy was no longer evidence of Christian character. It was a pathway to compromise.
In this worldview, the greatest danger was not hardness of heart. It was softness.
The church wasn’t far from the ocean. I always keep a bathing suit and beach gear in my car for occasions such as these.
To me, the ocean is spirituality. Not because it has answers. Quite the opposite. Because it reminds me how small I am. Because it makes answers seem less important. The ocean does not care about my politics, my tribe, my ideology, or my grievances. It simply exists—vast, indifferent, beautiful, terrifying, and impossible to control.
If God exists, I suspect They are more like the ocean.
So I drove to the beach.
I sat for a while listening to the waves collapse against the shore. Then I waded into the water until I was chest-high. Then I ducked beneath the surface. For a few seconds there was only silence.
When I came back up, exhilarated and shivering, it felt as though I had washed something off. Not sin exactly. More like residue. The accumulated psychic grime of spending three hours inside a room where everyone seemed furious at the modern world.
I suppose it felt a little like a baptism.
Oh wait. I think that’s a different denomination.
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