When Timothée Chalamet accepted an award at the 2025 Screen Actors Guild ceremony for his performance as Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown, the crowd expected the usual humility: an expression of shock over his win or maybe overwhelmed, rambling gratitude.
Instead, Chalamet was blunt. “I know the classiest thing would be to downplay the effort that went into this role and how much this means to me. But the truth is, this was five-and-a-half years of my life.”
He pushed further. “The truth is, I’m really in pursuit of greatness. I know people don’t usually talk like that, but I want to be one of the greats.” He named his inspirations: Daniel Day-Lewis, Marlon Brando, Viola Davis, Michael Jordan, Michael Phelps. “I want to be up there.”
Some praised the ambition. Others were hesitant. But Chalamet’s words struck me as more than ego. They signified a larger shift. Many award speeches, like actress Hannah Einbinder’s at the most recent Emmys, perform virtue. They gesture toward saving the world. Chalamet wanted to talk about saving the self.
That shift from public causes to private discipline isn’t just happening in Hollywood. It’s been going on for years in a corner of culture that’s often mocked but won’t go away: the manosphere. To be clear, Chalamet isn’t part of that world. But his cadence echoed its ethos, formed in reaction to some of the loudest admonitions of the past decade.
In 2018, Greta Thunberg cried, “Everything needs to change, and it has to start today.” In 2020, Ibram X. Kendi cried, “Saturate the body politic with … antiracist policies.” More recently, Donald Trump cried, “Fight!” Different voices, same refrain: The system is broken, the elites are corrupt, and everything must change.
For many young men, that refrain has grown tired. When every problem is global, every solution systemic, and every crisis urgent, exhaustion sets in. Eventually a young man throws up his hands. What do they expect me to do? I’m not in Congress. I don’t run an oil company. I don’t control the global supply chain or the prison system. How, NFL, am I supposed to “end racism”?
Chalamet didn’t sound like the culture warriors exhorting us to be advocates. He sounded more like Rule No. 6 from psychologist Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life: “Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world.”
This, I’d argue, is the misunderstood message of the manosphere. In a culture paralyzed by crises too big to solve, it offers, as Peterson’s subtitle put it, an “antidote to chaos.” It begins not with governments or movements but with something more manageable: the man in the mirror.
Peterson, a clinical psychologist, didn’t set out to lead a movement. But with the release of 12 Rules in 2018—alongside podcasts, YouTube lectures, and theater tours—he became an unlikely father figure to a generation of disoriented young men. His lectures mix Carl Jung, Friedrich Nietzsche, and the Book of Genesis but always circle back to the practical: Make your bed, “stand up straight,” befriend “people who want the best for you,” “be precise in your speech.” He doesn’t mock young men, but he doesn’t excuse them either. He calls them to grow up, to become competent, dependable, truthful, and—in his words—“the strongest person at your father’s funeral.”
The manosphere, of course, is bigger than Peterson. Men want the perseverance of David Goggins, who preaches toughness through suffering. They want the structure of James Clear’s Atomic Habits, the curiosity of Joe Rogan’s long conversations, the honesty of Theo Von’s humor.
And yes, some want Andrew Tate. His vision of masculinity is troubling, loud, and often toxic. He teaches young men to be ruthless for power, to treat women as property, and to see wealth and sexual conquest as markers of success. He has been arrested on rape and sex trafficking charges, allegations that underscore just how destructive his message can be for those who listen. But Tate’s popularity also reveals something we can’t ignore. He offers a path, however flawed, that promises strength and control in a world that feels uncontrollable.
All this to say, some of the manosphere messages are good. And it’s not fair to lump Goggins, Peterson, or Rogan in with Andrew Tate. A world where more men took responsibility for what’s within reach—their bodies, their work, their families—would be a better one. But the gospel of the manosphere is still incomplete.
Scripture affirms discipline: “Like a city whose walls are broken through is a person who lacks self-control” (Prov. 25:28). Paul told Timothy, “Train yourself to be godly” (1 Tim. 4:7). Even Jesus, who said, “My yoke is easy,” still offered a yoke (Matt. 11:30). Formation, obedience, and effort matter. But the Bible adds a counterweight: “Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain” (Ps. 127:1). Discipline without dependence is just another version of self-salvation. It may make you productive, even impressive, but it cannot make you whole.
No number of reps in the gym, journal entries, or ice baths can heal the rot in the human heart. After all, “it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God” (Eph. 2:8). Grace is not only forgiveness that wipes the slate clean and leaves you to scribble on it again but also the power that helps you make fewer marks in the first place.
Grace is the kindness of God that leads to repentance (Rom. 2:4), the Spirit who works in us “to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose” (Phil. 2:13). Without grace, self-improvement ends in exhaustion or arrogance. With grace, even small steps of faith become acts of eternal significance.
That’s the tension Christian formation must hold. Men are right to want agency, clarity, and strength. They’re right to desire lives that matter. But grit alone cannot carry them. “Can an Ethiopian change his skin or a leopard its spots?” (Jer. 13:23). No. And neither can young men change their character with a self-help book.
The gospel of the manosphere demands endless performance and offers no rest. The gospel of Christ begins with mercy. It isn’t a more disciplined self-improvement plan. It is an utter transformation that begins, counterintuitively, with acknowledging the limits of the self.
So how can the church call young men to this kind of agency? Two notable Christians come to mind as presenting possible paths forward.
First, there’s John Mark Comer, who has popularized a sort of “formation” path. His “Rule of Life” calls young men to silence, Sabbath, Scripture, and community—not as productivity tricks but as practices of abiding. His emphasis is on spiritual disciplines, drawn from monastic rhythms but adapted for everyday believers. His work resonates in churches, contemplative circles, even the wellness world. But wherever it lands, the point is the same: You become whole not by trying harder but by making space for God. As Jesus said, “Abide in me, and I in you” (John 15:4, ESV).
Charlie Kirk, by contrast, embodied more of a “family” path. Known for his political combat, he increasingly emphasized the household as the true foundation for cultural renewal. He urged men to get married, stay married, raise children, and be present as fathers. Read your Bible. Build something lasting with your work. Provide stability where the world offers chaos. His vision wasn’t about dominance but responsibility—responsibility carried not in pride but in reliance on God. This is “As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord” (Josh. 24:15).
These approaches reach different audiences but share something vital: They refuse to separate discipline from dependence. Both invite men to take responsibility not for the whole world but for what God has entrusted to them. And both remind us that true change doesn’t begin with the man in the mirror; it begins with the man on the cross.
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If the church wants to reach young men, it must continue to hold out precisely this message in a world offering two competing stories. One says, “Save the world”—an impossible burden for any man to carry, a burden that more often than not leads to disengagement and despair. The other says, “Save yourself”—which is crushing. The church must name both as counterfeits and announce the only true gospel. We cannot save the world, and we cannot save ourselves. Christ must save us, and he has.
At Charlie Kirk’s memorial service, his wife, Erika, vowed to carry on his mission to reach “the lost boys of the West, the young men who feel like they have no direction, no purpose, no faith, and no reason to live. The men wasting their lives on distractions, and the men consumed with resentment, anger, and hate.” And how did she begin that mission? By forgiving the boy who murdered her husband.
That is what can save the lost boys of the West, even one as lost as Tyler Robinson. Not the gospel of the world. Not the gospel of the self. Not performance, self-help, or sheer willpower. Only the undeserved, transforming grace of God. Only Christ—and him crucified.
Luke Simon is a content strategist for The Crossing church in Columbia, Missouri, and MDiv student at Covenant Theological Seminary. He has written on Gen Z, technology, masculinity, and the church. You can follow him on X.
