It's in the Code ep 184: “A Crappy Sermon?”

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AXIS MOONDY

Hello and welcome to It's in the Code, a series that is part of the podcast straight

white American Jesus, my name is Dan Miller, Professor of Religion and Social Thought

at Lamar College. Please to be with you as always and as always want to say thank you for listening,

thank you for tuning in, thank you for supporting the things we do, it's straight white American

Jesus. We can't do it without you and as always inviting your thoughts, feedback, comments, ideas

for upcoming series and topics in this series that you can reach me Daniel Miller, swadge,

Daniel Miller, SWAJ at gmail.com. That's the way to reach me. I also haunt the discord that

subscribers can access and so on. And as I've been saying, working up a series on questions,

I was not supposed to ask in church or questions I wasn't allowed to ask in church.

Maybe if you were a church goer or spent time in that world, the questions that got you in trouble,

the questions that I don't know got you labeled as somebody or friends weren't supposed to

hang out with, the questions that upset your pastor got you sent to the proverbial corner. What have

you? Send those to me. I want to hear them. I want to put that together. Put it in your header,

questions I wasn't supposed to ask or something like that. And I look forward to exploring those

with you. In the meantime, I want to continue on here. We are continuing our our ride or our forced

march, I guess, maybe through Josh Holley's book manhood. We continue exploring his vision of

as the subtitle suggests the masculine virtues America needs. That is Josh Holley's vision of how

we will save America by cultivating the proper masculine virtues. And again, we're not reading

Holley because he's Josh Holley or because he's otherwise like special or notable in some way.

We're reading him because his account of masculinity opens such a window into the reasoning

of the contemporary MAGA aligned right in so many different social and religious domains.

And we're continuing on or in the seventh chapter of the book for those who are keeping

score. We've made it that far. The seventh chapter of the book in which Holley presents

the third of the distinctly masculine roles he believes men are called to play. In other words,

the latter portion of his book are a series of like roles that he thinks men are called to play

where they exercise these distinctly masculine virtues that will save America and so forth.

And we are on the role of warrior the third of these. And we've already looked at this role some.

We've seen that Holley plays fast and loose in telling us exactly what the so-called warrior

virtues that men are supposed to cultivate are when he wants to rail against liberals or

progressives or what he calls the modern Epicurians. Those virtues sound really militant and violent.

In other moments, they apparently include things like ambition and drive. We talked about that

before and leadership, which exactly no one opposes. I don't know anybody who's like, yeah,

leadership's a terrible virtue. We should be opposed to it. So he's slippery in those things.

We've also seen that when he reaches for a biblical model of the warrior man. And remember,

Holley is a biblical assist. He wants to be basing this in the Bible. He wants to be claiming

that what he's saying is a biblical model, a Christian model. He is a Christian nationalist,

self-evowed and open about it. He believes that America is a Christian nation. He believes that

an embrace of America's Christian identity can save us. So this is supposed to be a distinctly

Christian vision of masculinity. So when he looks to the Bible for his exemplar, he looks to the

figure of Joshua who was tasked with conquering the so-called promised land. And here the masculine

virtues are apparently strength encouraged. Joshua is told multiple times in the text to be

strong and courageous and so strength encouraged are the virtues. Again, despite what Holley says,

I don't think I know anybody who's like strength and courage are inherently negative traits

or anything like that. And they're also certainly not obviously masculine in character. I don't

know what it is about, you know, being a guy that supposedly would make it so you can exercise

strength or courage and the people who don't identify as male couldn't. But there we are. We talked

about that and we also talked about the fact and this was the real focus last time that Joshua is

a hard choice to live with since his warrior calling involves undertaking divinely sanctioned

genocide against those peoples who already live in the so-called promised land by the time in the

biblical text that the Israelites are coming back to the promised land to quote unquote reclaim it.

It's not sitting empty. There are our whole civilizations there and the idea is that they have to

be wiped out and early destroyed and so forth. And we saw that Holley doesn't actually acknowledge

or deal with that issue. It's an obvious problem with the book of Joshua. And if somebody's not

predisposed to just kind of give the Bible a pass or to assume that the Bible is a morally good book,

if somebody reads it and they read all of these commands to utterly destroy everybody lives there,

it's an obvious problem. Holley just doesn't talk about it. He just doesn't deal with it. He just

kind of pretends it's not there. Okay. So today, sort of carrying all of that forward. And this is our

last chapter where we're talking about his warrior vision. Today, we're going to take a closer look

at what he actually does with these seemingly convoluted ingredients of a men's warrior task. How

do they all finally come together? Okay. And for me, this carries through from the last episode,

because there's still this ongoing question of what do you do? If you're going to point to Joshua,

as your exemplar, what do you do about the little issue of genocide? There's the little tiny teeny,

teeny problem that God commands genocide through Joshua. That was the title of last episode,

genocide Joshua. And we're going to see how Holley, in my mind, how he tries to take the offensive

in the morally problematic elements of his appeal to Joshua out of the account of masculinity. We

already saw this that he he doesn't deal with it explicitly. He doesn't say, oh, here are some

problems with Joshua. People read it this way. Here's how he responds. He doesn't mention them at all.

But what we're going to see here is another strategy that he uses that runs through this.

And so what we ultimately get in this last part of the chapter on warriors is exactly the kind

of lame evangelical sermon that those of us who grew up in this tradition have heard a thousand

times. We get a really crappy, here's how this applies to your life, kind of message from Josh

and that's what I want to talk about today. So let's start with this. Those who have listened to

me talk about how conservative Christians actually use the Bible. And I know this is a thing I talk

about a lot, but you cannot talk to people who claim a conservative Christian identity for very long

before they are going to claim biblical authority. They are going to tell you that what they hold

is what they hold because the Bible teaches it and that it should be accepted because the Bible is

the word of God and so forth. And so I talk about this a lot. And people know that I say all the time

if you listen to me to conservative Christians are not actually biblical literalists. Why does that

matter? It's because they will often say I read the Bible literally. I'm a biblical literal. So

be a point of pride. The Bible is literally true. And it's also an issue that gets picked up by

other regular people commentators on evangelicalism and other forms of conservative Protestantism

will often describe quote unquote biblical literalism as a defining feature. Scholars of religion

will do this. They'll talk about biblical literalism. And I have said multiple times that they're

actually not biblical literalists that I've said that there's no such thing as a biblical literalist.

They might claim to be they might believe that they are really go to bed at night putting their

head down on their pillow feeling confident that they are biblical literalists and that the reason

why they believe what they believe is because the Bible tells them to and so on. But they aren't.

They are not really biblical literalists. And when I have discussions with people they're often

surprised when I make this claim. Certainly other religion scholars I've discussed it with them

and they're like why do you say that? That seems like a strange thing we'll get and you know we'll

get down in the nuts and bolts of it. Definitely people are still conservative Christians. I've had

more conversations than I can count with conservative Christians who consider themselves

literalists trying to show them that they're actually not and sort of laying little traps and

things to catch them in the fact that they're not actually literalists. But also people who've

undergone you know what we refer to as faith deconstruction or they've left that kind of religious

subculture behind. And they will say I grew up I was a biblical literalist I grew up in a church

that believed the thought that the Bible was literally true the way I used to read the Bible was

literally and so forth. And so even though they don't think that now that's still how they

understand their former position and I cannot hear and I'm not interested in fully developing why

it is that I say that there's no such thing as a biblical literalist but I can show you an example

because in this chapter Holly gives us a great example of exactly why I say that and what I mean

and in giving that example he shows us the other way that he's going to try to sidestep that whole

messy like what about the fact that Joshua was commanded to commit genocide sort of issue okay.

So here I want us to listen to how Josh Holly gives his summation he's an attorney this is his

summation this is his kind of summary or kind of closing argument on some of the stuff he's been

saying about Joshua I want to listen how he sums it up the account of Joshua taking the promise

and his transition that is Holly's transition our Joshua's transition to how this should

inform our understanding of masculinity and masculine virtue so here's here's what he has to say

those who want to do a read along I'm on page 117 again I'm reading this book so you don't have to

but you know if you're a glutton for punishment and you want to read it it's page 117 so this is how

he sums it up he says this is no ordinary piece of land where Joshua is God is going to do something

special with this ground this is to be the site of a new Eden and Joshua has a role to play his

task is to redeem it clear it I was going to pause so where he leaves out the whole clearing it

thing he's supposed to clear it by like genocidal he wiping out everybody who's there whatever

doesn't say it his task is to redeem it clear it for God's purposes to be accomplished Joshua

must rid the land of the giants and the monsters that are taking control he must break a path

for the light again I just I can't resist he has to clear the end of the giants and monsters

last time I said these are actual people and yes the text sometimes uses that kind of language

but Holly dehumanizes them by sort of picking up on this theme of giants and monsters as if

as if Joshua's out fighting mythological creatures or something and not commanded to wipe out

other people okay anyway this is what he says that's his summation God is going to do something

amazing and transformative through Joshua as he goes into the promised land and he wipes everybody

out and then listen to the next line the same is true for us in our lives there's the transition

and I want to pause for a minute and I want to I want us to think I want us to catch how this

transition is supposed to work for us as we read this God's going to do something great through

Joshua's going to take the land and wipe everybody out and the same is true for us in our lives

okay it works pretty much the way that my phone feed does people who know me know that I like

analogies and metaphors of my own so here's one and I promise I'm going to circle back around I'm

going to land this plant okay so just stick with me it works the same way my phone feed does

about a year and a half ago I started working out again I'm a middle-aged guy and I'm like I need

to start getting in better shape and heart things are real and blood pressure things are real and

glucose level things are real all the stuff all the stuff you don't need to worry about that but

I started working out again and as a middle-aged guy whose body doesn't work like it did when

I was in my 20s or even my 30s I'd look stuff up about working out of middle-aged like things

that you should do or shouldn't do or recommended things or you know whatever whatever and of course

in looking that up the algorithm got me so now I and I'm sure a lot of you were in the same

boat I get all kinds of ridiculous unsolicited workout stuff in my phone feed like I do the same

thing a lot of other people do that you're not supposed to do for sleep hygiene and all that but

some way there before I go to sleep I'll scroll through my phone and I get all kinds of weird workout

stuff and a lot of them work like this they work by highlighting somebody with a superhuman physique

or superhuman physical prowess some athletes or I don't know maybe an influencer or a well-known

celebrity or whomever and they tell me that if I workout like them if I adopt their workouts

I can do it too so you get the one that's like you know something like here's Jason

Memoa's secret secret biceps workout or check out Travis Henry's monster leg day for real

results or here's the old school workout that Arnold used in his heyday or whatever and the idea

is it worked for them it'll work for you and I know again like most of you also know with the

stuff that comes along your your phone feed this is pure bullshit it's pure bullshit no matter

how much I try to adopt the work I don't I don't I know this is bullshit I don't try to do this

but if I were to go look oh Arnold used to do this or Jason Memoa does that or John Cena does this

or I don't know Dwayne Johnson does whatever I can go and do their workout all I want

assuming it doesn't kill me and I'm still gonna be me when I look in the mirror it's gonna be

middle-aged Dan Miller looking back maybe I'll be a little leaner maybe I'll be a little fitter

maybe I'll be a little stronger I'm not gonna be Jason Memoa I'm not gonna be Dwayne Johnson

I'm not gonna be John Cena or Travis Henry or whomever else it's not gonna be me

nope not gonna do it this is how Holly's message works here and it's it's completely typical of

evangelical preachers it's exactly what he does God did all this amazing stuff in Joshua's life

yeah he's gonna read the land of giants and monsters and taking control is gonna make it holy land

and he can do the same for you it's the same thing God did amazing things for Joshua and he promises

this for you too and and this this is this is like I say that Josh Holly is typical here he is

typical of God I can't even tell you how many lame ass sermons I have sat through with some pastor

who does the same thing some Bible passage you're just waiting for you're waiting for the flip

of like and you can do it too kind of thing it's everybody's predictable and everybody's lame

and everybody's bullshit as the stuff that comes through in your phone feed and that's what Josh

Holly's feeding us here and here's what I think I think that Josh and I think every evangelical

preacher deep down they also know that it's bullshit they know this and here's what they know

Josh Holly knows full well that the story of Joshua is absolutely irrelevant to virtually all of us

maybe there'll be some small subset of people who are going to be real quote unquote warriors maybe

they'll be in the military or something okay still a hell of a difference between being in today's

military and being in the military thousands of years ago in the ancient Near East and so forth

okay maybe some of us might at some point in our lives be called upon to exercise violence or

force in defense of ourselves or someone else that could happen okay but those cases really

they're few and far between and they are far from the kind of calling to literal holy war the

features in the story of Joshua I'm very aware that there are lots of mage of people who want

America's army to be a crusader army and who view everything that goes on as an American holy

war or whatever but it's not okay setting them aside it's it's this that the point is if we're

looking for a direct application and relevance of the story of Joshua it lands on almost none of us

just like those things the pop up in my feed the promise the the promise that the same is true

for us in our lives is pure nonsense the same is true for us in our lives exactly what Josh

Holly says is pure nonsense what does that mean here's what it means here's why this matters

the Joshua story taken literally

is absolutely irrelevant for almost all of us almost all the time it has no direct

relevance in most of our lives for some of us never most of us almost never

so what does Josh do well he's going to make the story relevant I just said it's irrelevant he's

going to make the story relevant but the way he's going to do it is by not taking it literally

he is going to turn it into a metaphor he is going to extend it metaphorically and again this is

typical this is what all those conservative Christian preachers do meanwhile they're all

standing out there talking about taking the Bible literally but in their actual preaching and

teaching what they do is precisely not to take the Bible literally they have to turn it into a

metaphor so that it has some relevance and connection to regular people so I want to read his

sentence again but I was tricky I only read the first part of the sentence I want to read the

second part of the sentence here's what he says he says the same is true for us in our lives

and above all in our characters wait what true in our lives but in our in our relates to our

character it's a metaphor it's a metaphor for for our character he turns the whole story of Joshua

into a metaphor here's what he says here's the next paragraph after the paragraph all the big

things God's doing for this is where that sentence starts here's what he says he says the same is

true for us in our lives and above all in our characters Joshua's story is not just about Canaan

Canaan is a place but it represents more than land what's it Canaan is a metaphor guys it's not

really a literal place it stands for the whole of the earth and for our lives as well God has made

the world to be holy he has made our lives to be holy and the two go together in the story Canaan

is overrun with wild beasts and enemies but our souls can be like that to clear the ground of our

lives for a garden we must break new paths of character the path to the world's renewal runs

through our souls it's touching turns out it's not really a story about a place

doesn't really matter if it happened historically or whatever all those claims to

literality they don't matter it's a story about our lives and our souls and our character

what what Holly does our friend Josh what he does is he metaphorically shifts the story to being

one about our personal inner and sometimes to some extent interpersonal lives but he makes

it a story about us as individuals it's about our inner lives and our inner struggle and our

development of character it's not actually about a promised land or fighting real enemies are

doing literal warrior stuff it's about our internal battle so a few pages later I promise I'm

not I'm not gonna read from the book in you know in detail anymore well I'm not gonna do it in

this episode can't promise in the future a few pages later he's got a whole section about how

our canon is pride oh my god this this is the the cheesy sermon move Joshua's canon was a place

but each of us have our own canon to face up to each of us has a canon for all of you in the

congregation today what is your canon what is your promised land that is overrun by beasts and

enemies that's what he's doing he says our canon is pride our battle is an internal battle not

to be prideful and then after that the next section he tells us that our task is to develop love

and hope okay love and hope now sort of interestingly this is I I could do so many episodes on every

chapter of this he uses an example and then here's an example in this chapter is protesters in

Hong Kong protesting Chinese policy how brave they are and how they're showing like love and hope

for society and whatever but this from a guy who like if you were to ask about I don't know

protesters in Minnesota protesting ice actions he would tell you that they're lawless and they're

evil and that they're not law abiding and so forth so it's just a just an aside when they're

protesting something he supports it's an expression of love and hope but it's something he doesn't

support their law breakers but our task is to develop love and hope and then summing it all up he says

that quote courage and love and hope are the inner masculine virtues we need to develop he talked

about pride it's funny he's like pride is the source of everything he just this kind of basic

Augustinian notion that pride is the source of said and whatever and he says that but then like

when he's listing the virtues once again humility disappears like there's no reference to pride

even though he said that's the big thing but the point is he said these are these inner masculine

virtues courage and love and hope and he makes the metaphorical extension clear

so he's summing up the story at the end of Joshua's life and he says this he's talking about

Joshua the end of his life he has quote martial the armies of Israel he has led them into war he

has driven back the enemy from the promised land okay and then on the next page he starts to shift

and he says Joshua was was transformed by these events says he confronted his giants and he

grew as a person the Bible doesn't say that the Bible does not talk about Joshua confronting

his inner demons or his inner giants doesn't say Joshua grew and developed as a person doesn't say

that and then we get the extended metaphor and then he says the same is true for us all

we are called to and can confront the giants and the beasts within ourselves and we too can be

transformed okay dude do we see what's happening here Holly isn't appealing to the Bible as

literally true he's got the whole story of Joshua but it turns out that the story of Joshua's

not actually about anything that Joshua did it's all just a big metaphor for us to like focus

on our inner selves to be the best people we can be he's turning the Joshua's story into a metaphor

that is relevant for all of us and this is how conservative Christians actually use the Bible

no matter what they say there's nothing remotely literalist here and this is just a prime

example when somebody says why do you say they don't read the Bible literally here it is

it's not unique to Josh Holly again it is typical of every crappy evangelical sermon you'll ever

hear if you grew up in those churches you knew it I can't tell you even as an evangelical sick

and tired I got of like the same sermon every time about like you can do it too

I mean Josh Holly here he's just following the preaching paradigm that is taught to conservative

Christians every conservative Christian he goes to seminary and takes a preaching class

is taught about how you you have to have the application section how are we going to apply it

to our lives it's where you turn into a big metaphor so the literally it doesn't have any relevance

so taken in a literal sense the vast majority of biblical texts they're almost completely irrelevant

they have no direct application of people's lives that to be metaphorically extended like this

so Josh Holly gives us a literal textbook example of why it is that I say conservative

Christians don't read the Bible literally and he certainly isn't okay so Josh Holly doesn't

actually read the Bible literally neither do other conservative Christians but so what why am I

talking about this what does that have to do with masculinity and masculine virtues and his specific

point for me there are a few relevant takeaways that this illustrates for us the first is this

it's what I and this is not I didn't invent this language other people will talk about this

it's what we can call the sort of therapeutic turn that defines a lot of contemporary popular

conservative Christian teaching you listen to all that language there about confronting pride

and fighting our own inner demons and being hopeful and whatever what what Holly actually offers

it's just like it's just a kind of basic self-help motivational guide with a veneer of Christian

teaching slapped on top and scholars of religion and popular culture or people who study like

religion and media and fields like that they've noted this general therapeutic shift for decades

that this is like conservative Christians when they talk about these notions of like

why you should believe these things and what the Bible means or whatever it's just this sort of

therapeutic self-helpy kind of language so in suggesting that the the warrior virtues that was

the focus that was the focus of the chapter we got to be warriors that this warrior ethos as P.

might call it that this warrior ethos is it's really to master ourselves and be better people

Holly and Holly's Bible it isn't telling us anything we couldn't find on the self-help

shelves of any bookstore anywhere he's not giving us anything here that you couldn't find in

a lot of other sources the second point is that by metaphorically extending the warrior motif

he actually undercuts it he goes from suggesting that men should be aggressive and tough and even

violent fighting for what's right to the really basic and pretty mundane teaching that we need

to work to make ourselves better people thanks Josh and it wasn't me to be a warrior man tell me

that sounds awesome Josh I'm in I'm going home I'm pumped my algorithm says I can do it Josh

teach me how to be a warrior Josh well you got to be less prideful and work on love and hope

and oh yeah be brave and courageous and like driven ambitious okay

the the the model of warrior masculinity but it doesn't seem very different at all

from the kind of liberal or progressive or epicurean ideas of masculinity mocks if you know you

get the liberals of progressives would be like well yeah let's just be guys who like maybe aren't

assholes all the time and aren't violent and aren't aggressive and aren't domineering it's kind

of what he's saying his warriors humble and loving and exercises hopeful courageous brave attributes

it's a list of virtues I don't think anyone would oppose considered any abstract

which means and this is the kind of the final point that at the end of this chapter like

we've been waiting and waiting and waiting and tell me Josh show me what the warrior is Josh

these are the let's again the masculine virtues that American needs these are the masculine

virtues that will save America these are the roles that men can play that will turn America back

into what it needs to be that will make America great again day it turns out that they're they're

not very Christian and there's nothing specifically Christian about this that's the therapeutic

piece like he could come to this from any number of directions and they don't really have much to

do with being a warrior not in any straightforward sense and that's what happens when you metaphorically

extend something you kind of undercut its literal meaning and that's what he's doing

which brings up the next issue this is an issue we've seen over and over and over in his book

they don't seem to be specifically masculine either are people who aren't men not supposed to

to master their pride should they not be loving should they not be hopeful should they not be courageous

should they not be brave should they not be ambitious like like what is distinctly masculine about

this he can't answer that question so at the end of the day when you boil it all down this chapter

like most of his book it says nothing of substance about masculinity but manages to use a lot of words

doing it you cut through all the words and the verbiage and his folksy stories and whatever and

you find there's just there's no there there we might say so this is the question as we finish

this chapter that leaves us with is what specifically does this give us with the idea of men as warriors

well on one hand if you cut through the rhetoric and the polemics all the places where he's attacking

the liberals and the elites and the new the new epicureans and all of that you cut through all of that

he doesn't have really anything of interest to say and in fact he says a lot of stuff that his

supposed opponents wouldn't probably mind he has nothing to say about distinctly masculine

virtues or the concept of masculinity itself which means he really has nothing to say about the

loss of those either in other words if he can't really tell us what masculinity is or a masculine

virtues are he can't really tell us how it matters if masculinity is somehow lost or attacked

he is giving us an answer of like the kinds of people we should be and maybe what good

Americans should be but the masculinity pieces just falling away but here's the other piece of

this the other side you cut through all the polemics it turns out there's no there there

but that's the point the point of this book is not really masculinity it's not masculine virtue

the point of this book is the polemics it is the argument it is the attack

the point of this book it's not really about defending masculinity against his detractors

or empowering men within a society that is disempower them or whatever that's not really the point

about halfway through his book that's about where we are I think I'm eyeballing it we're like

halfway through his book he still hasn't actually said anything unique about men or masculinity

but I'm arguing that's not really his point the point of the book is to attack anyone who is not

like him it is to attack anyone who is not maga aligned it is to attack anyone who's not a

Christian nationalist it is to attack anyone who doesn't accept his patriarchal vision of society

it is to attack anyone who doesn't accept his theocratic understanding of us law in us policy

it's to attack anyone who affirms the LGBTQ community and on and on and on we could expand that

list that is the point when we boil down the message and find that there's nothing of substance

underneath the polemics that tells us that the aplimp the polemics the attacks the culture war

the character assassination that is the point it is a feature of the argument not a bug all the

rest is misdirection and I think that's the temptation that's what's easy to miss when we read or

engage with people like Josh Holly as we come to that point of recognizing that that there's no

real argument there and we say ah that's what does nothing there no reason to engage in no

reason to look at it what we miss is that it's not really about the argument it's just an attack

it's an attack on anybody Josh Holly doesn't think is a real American or a real Christian and those

are the same thing for him all right we're going to line that up we're going into chapter eight

next time the next role that men are called to play they are called to be are you ready for it

builders the man is called to be a builder I have a hunch that I know exactly exactly sorry I got

I got distracted by the first sentence in the in the chapter there I have a hunch I know exactly

what biblical character he's going to look at if you know how these kind of things work I think

you probably know the biblical text it's going to come along as well we'll start diving into that

next episode in the meantime as always thank you for listening if you're a subscriber thank you

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