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For those who have no idea what I am even talking about, many “red pills” are basically con artists, not unlike pornographers or prostitutes trying to sell men a pocket full of mumbles. They are selling the keys to manhood, the tricks of success, how to get wealth, power, status, and a bunch of women. Women want you, men fear you, and you often get a photo shoot with a sports car.

Let’s use Andrew Tate as an example. For a few easy payments of 49.95 you too can own a dozen sports cars and have women falling all over you. Or perhaps you can just find yourself seeking asylum in whatever foreign country will have you while cops keep investigating you for sex trafficking, but whatever….

That was the original meaning of the term “red pill.” It has since evolved to mean something more political, waking up to the truth perhaps. Originally however, it was about men’s rights, masculinity, and the unfortunate rise of the lounge lizard eager to exploit the lost and confused, women being manipulated and gamed into having sex with you and men being gamed and manipulated into paying you for the recipe.

I’m not sure why this has been such a pebble in my shoe, maternal instinct perhaps, but I’ve invested a good 15 years into hollering from the rooftops about it. Part of that is due to my my faith, the way I despise fake salvation and false prophets, and part of it is empathy I have for men, this desire to not see them exploited and taken advantage of. Especially when they are hurting and desperate. I hate bullies and con artists and men are particularly vulnerable on account of the fact that they don’t have a lot of traditional mentors anymore and the culture has really come against masculinity, against male identity, for decades.

You have no idea how my heart just sunk when “red pill” became a mainstream term adopted by many on the right, including conservatives. “I do not think that memes what you think it memes.” It is an unwelcome intruder, an infiltration, one that taints everything it touches, a bit like leaven.

So how do you spot a false prophet selling fake salvation? Well mostly it begins with, “for 3 easy payments of 49.95 I’ll teach you the way…” The way to what? Worldly success, status, and power. The kingdoms of the world. What your heart allegedly desires, which is usually going to be adventure, sex, wealth, power, glamour, and more sex, because we are talking about men here. They want to be somebody, they want to matter, they want to be significant, they want to have some control over their lives.

There is nothing wrong with those natural desires, the problem is that these are all worldly trappings, thrones built on lies. I call it fake salvation because even if you attain these things they are eventually empty, without meaning or purpose, a void. I have sat with men at the end of their life who were filled with regret after having achieved all these worldly things, all these kingdoms, and felt the weight of that emptiness pressing down on them. What they really desired was actually intimacy, connection, meaningful relationships, personal growth, spiritual development, getting to know themselves and their Creator, redemption, salvation, belonging. The things we all want.

All these things are available to us for free, no credit card required, if we just seek the Lord, seek Jesus Christ. In fact, He was once called, “the way.” You don’t need any money to learn “the way,” you just need to open that door and invite Him in. He will lead you and guide you. Religion is a mixed bag, it’s made up of people and so it’s deeply flawed, but Jesus Himself will never lead you astray. People actually died in the struggle to get Bibles into ordinary people’s hands and today we don’t even want to take the time to read them. There are also hundreds of thousands of testimonies, people willing to tell you that Jesus saves and how He has saved them.

One problem with this red pill spirit is that is exploits and perverts what is good. It sells the fruit, the reward, without the values and integrity that serve to contain it. So sex can be a wonderful blessing or it can be empty, meaningless, 100’s of concubines and foreign wives like King Solomon had, but the loss of your kingdom, the sorrows and regrets of Ecclesiastes. I always find it fascinating that King Solomon prayed for wisdom, because that is a bit like praying for patience. Be careful what you ask for, because the Lord just might give you what you want and teach you all the intricacies of “patience.” Wisdom is actually gained in a similar way, by bearing all the sorrows of the world. There is nothing glamorous about gaining it.

I see red pill ideologies floating about in our churches, in our politics. “Conservative” in many circles has become nothing more than a meaningless label. What are you even conserving? RINO’s abound everywhere and they are far more interested in reaping the benefits of the status quo than standing up for anything. And in the church, well shoot, all these pastoral rivalries, hierarchies, and attempts to climb the Big Eva ladder look just like the world of celebrity and hierarchy.

A bit amusing in the way of synchronicity or perhaps in the way great minds think alike, but I wrote this post several days ago and decided not to post it, until I just read Nightwind’s recent post along some similar lines. I wrote this because I was really frustrated over people defending Andrew Tate, and what Nightwind describes as, “relative silence on the sociopolitical Right when it comes to calling out this kind of behavior.” Yes, exactly. Numerous people I enjoy reading and listening to, like JP Sears, immediately jumped up to defend Andrew Tate. Really irritating because Tate’s own words, his own videos, should have condemned him long ago, not in a court room by any means, but just in a court of public decency.

The right side of the aisle really needs to find their ethics, with both hands and a flashlight if necessary, and learn some discernment. Just because someone appears to share some similar political views, does not make them a good person who is being “unjustly persecuted.” I’ll probably get around to forgiving JP Sears and the others, but in their rush to support and defend, “one of their own” a good chunk of us just got the message loud and clear that we weren’t, “one of their own” and the Right side of the aisle will never have the intestinal fortitude needed to protect me.

There used to be a saying, “I’m not rich and powerful enough to vote Republican.” This is why that saying has stuck! We are over taxed families, sex trafficked women, exploited workers trying to buy 8 dollar eggs, and immigrants being carelessly hustled onto buses for a political stunt, and a bunch of so called conservatives are all busy rallying around some foul mouthed British guy with a sports car in Romania because he seems to have wealth, power, and social status??!

When it comes to leadership, “won’t protect me” is a complete deal breaker, an absolute vote of no confidence. 85% of us don’t identify as the protected elite in this country, as the social media influencers and red pills, we identify as those who have been exploited by a bunch of arrogant yahoos and con artists. Because we have been.