The anti-Christian Nationalists were soyjacking over a video with a thesis that the Young Restless and Reformed movement devolved into the Manosphere. It was a bold take, but is it correct. Short answer: This is incredibly bad history.
Bob The Baptist is an up-and-coming anti-Christian Nationalist YouTuber who places a pretentious amount of production value in his commentary, invoking levity that balances whining and near-tears. Being one of the Joel Webbon hate channels has amassed 3000 subs with his latest video putting him over 3k.
In this video he attempts to explain the 4 waves of the Young Restless Reformed Movement. YRR was a movement of Baptists discovering Calvinism, specifically the Doctrines of Grace. Bob The Baptist wrongly attributes Tim Keller, a Presbyterian to the movement, and does not explain the nuance of the Baptist history of starting out Calvinist, then going anti-Calvinist, then reembracing Calvinism which is what we are describing.
The first wave is a focus on doctrine, attributed to Keller and John Piper. The second wave was younger packaging. Citing the liberal Jake Meador and Mike Cosper, Bob focuses on Mark Driscoll, Matt Chandler, and Darrin Patrick, who killed himself. Conspicuously absent from mention were David Platt and Francis Chan. Bob focuses on Mark Driscoll who was probably the best of the major YRR figures, by hyping Mike Cosper’s liberal podcast series.
The third wave is described as a split between Confessional and Postmillennial Theonomy. Bob describes this as settling down vs remainin restless. And this just highlights that Bob lives in a tiny online world, if he thinks Apologia is a major powerhouse in Evangelicalism. From there, he comes to near tears about Paul Maxwell, treating this Desiring God figure as a major voice in Reformed Evangelicalism and hyping his infusion of trauma informed Freudian psychology into Christianity. But Maxwell would choose pyshology over Christ and apostacize in what could hardly be considered surprising. Bob describes this as a major breaking point for YRR, but YRR was already kind of dead by 2021.
But in 2022, Stephen Wolfe would publish The Case For Christian Nationalism so we’ll have to roll with it. Phase 4 is “The Manosphere.” Bob argues Christians converted men in the Manosphere movement by providing them a historical foundation. Bob argues that Wolfe’s book was intended to provide a historical foundation for red pill talking points. It’s clear he’s never read it.
There is so much context missing. The biggest miss of all was the absence of Donald Trump or Barack Obama, and how politics shaped the church. Everyone cited by Bob, Jake Meador, Mike Cosper, Will Spencer, and James Lindsay, all liberals. Will Spencer is treated as a success story of being converted out of the Manosphere. But no negative examples of Manosphere converts are given.
What people in the Reformed world tend to forget is that it is small. It regularly outpunches its size in cultural impact. I credit our collective efforts with the Trump administration, in 2020, taking a stand against Critical Race Theory. But normie Christians are likely not to know who James White, Doug Wilson, Joel Webbon, Eric Conn, etc. While MacArthur is a big name, I’ve run into Christians who don’t know who he is. Bob the Baptist, in addition to being a subversive liberal, believes the world and its history is much smaller than it actually is.
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This Bob the Baptist “guy” gives strong homo vibes. Physiognomy is God’s gift to his discerning children. If a person gives you the ick when you see their face, listen to your instinct.