The Demise of Guys: Why Evangelicalism Fuels the Fire of Addition

CNN ran a short article called ‘The Demise of Guys’: How Video Games and Porn are Ruining a Generation.
I suggest that you click over and read it and watch the video at the
end. It is truly enlightening. Anyone who works with youth can tell you
that this is true. The young men in this generation are so addicted that
they are growing more and more socially anemic and relationally
superficial. The use of video games, internet, and porn has shown a rise
in “arousal addictions,” addictions that cause an obsession with more
newness, rather than the same old “high.” These addictions cause a
shrinking of one’s location within space-time, if I can put it that way.
The present becomes the only real, and the past and future cease to
have real import into decision making. This causes an obession with
immediate satisfaction. It doesn’t take a genius to recognize that this
undermines everything about Christian discipleship.

Let me claim that this problem is significantly worse in
evangelicalism. Evangelicalism, or at least certain strands of it, have
adopted a worldly view of masculinity – the
pick-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps, punch someone in the face, and
dominate kind of masculinity. Again, it doesn’t take a genius to see
that this runs directly contrary to pretty much everything Jesus said,
but leaving that aside, it pours fuel on the fire of this epidemic in
young men. Let me explain.

First, in evangelical circles, young men basically have one sin:
lust. Everything else tends to get relegated around that. This is
unfortunate because lust is a third-order sin. It is neither primal nor
primary, but really the fruit of much more fundamental vices. Lust
builds on things like lying, a second-order sin, but is really fed by
the primal need for control, grandiosity and dominance. These sins,
fundamental to our human condition, are not something to “deal with.”
These sins only lose their power at the cross. But that is why they are
so ignored. Instead, it is just easier to tell kids to “stop watching
porn,” and “play less video games” – if that is even happening. Instead
of focusing on the root of the problem, we focus on the fruit. Yes, we
need to do something about kids watching porn and spending 12 hours a
day glued to a tv, but there is much more going on than that.

Second, in approaching sin in this manner, what we are really doing
is fueling the primal sins – pride, etc. We are saying, “Look, you have
control and can dominate these things in your own power,” and therefore
add to their self-obsessed grandiosity. Not only is this sub-Christian
in every way, but it simply fails to deal with the sin. In some cases,
no doubt, things like watching porn are “defeated”, but there is no
victory there. This sin will happily morph into something different,
probably something that can dress itself up to look like a virtue and
reign as a primal vice without notice.

If we are going to take seriously the “way from below” of James 3, we
have to address the reality of our primal human condition and not
simply the way that condition plays itself out in our lives.