When Gillette Got Religion

So in the whole Gillette Ad schizmandoo the issue is not fundamentally that a razor blade company cannot give moralistic lectures to the public. Private companies are free to stand on whatever soapbox they like and holler like the dickens and pay millions of dollars for their hollering to be dutifully spread about. Nor is the issue particularly with what Gillette actually said or portrayed in the ad, though there are some suspect elements. Gillette is free to do whatever it wants to try to sell more razor blades.

My problem boils down to all the Christians saying they thought the ad was good and fine and what’s the big deal. And the big deal comes down to the question: by what standard?

Whenever anyone stands up and starts giving Sunday School lessons, people oughtta stop and say, now which church is sponsoring this Sunday School class? And the issue is not that Mormons can’t say true things and Muslims can’t teach true things or even that secular humanists (that more recent of our beloved religious sects) can’t say true things. But when Muslims or Mormons give us moral lectures, we know what standard they are appealing to. The problem is the ludicrous attempt of the secular humanists to blend in with all the other religious dignitaries with their fingers crossed behind their back, and the mind-boggling gullibility of all the Christians crossing themselves and bowing reverently with those big precious moments bubble eyes.

Here’s what I mean: the story arc of the commercial is a straightforward gospel presentation, following the basic structure of fall-redemption-glorious future. The commercial opens in self-examination with a number of scenes of bullying kids, leering men, demeaning women, fighting boys, culminating in the summary declaration of our great “fallen” predicament: “boys will be boys” echoed down a row of men standing at grills. The center of the commercial comes as the voice-over says, “But something changed,” and a news anchor appears on the screen announcing allegations of sexual misconduct. News reporter windows multiply on the screen, each delivering allegations of sexual abuse and harassment. And the voice-over says, “And there will be no going back.” Then the commercial begins reciting the creed: “We believe… in the best in men…” and begins showing us the fruit of this change: men holding other men accountable, men defending women and children, culminating in the final line, “the boys watching today will be the men of tomorrow.”

Now, quite apart from the fact that in 10 years (or less) the high priests of the woke church will have to inform us that this ad was hateful, bigoted, and patriarchal for the absence of cross dressers and trans-amputees, Gillette is still telling us the current edition of the woke gospel story. The turning point in the commercial is a clear allusion to the #metoo movement and all the public allegations of sexual misconduct. The thing that changed, the turning point in history, was apparently a bunch of people started going public with their accusations and the media started reporting the accusations. The media are the evangelists and the “cross” was the courage and shame of all the women coming forward. This is what changed. This is what has apparently caused a great cultural regeneration, because now “there will be no going back.” Everything has changed. America has changed, and now we will be better men who hold one another accountable, stand up for the weak, and not countenance degrading and dishonoring looks and comments. Why? Because of #metoo and because Gillette believes in the best in men.

So it is the preachy Sunday School lesson proselytizing in the name of a false god and a false gospel that bothers me. But that would just be par for the course if it weren’t for all the Christians celebrating the ad and acting all confused by the push back. Now, let me also hasten to add that I have been quite pleased with all the healthy pushback and backlash, but there really have been enough naive bubble eyes from Christians who really ought to know better to justify another firm bugle blast. And even in many of the strongest rebuttals, there have been lingering strains of the rot of humanism that infects our land.

The point is not that men are basically good, and Gillette unjustly accused men of sin. No, the truth is actually far worse than Gillette portrayed. This is why #metoo is such a lying, putrid sham. If #metoo actually wanted to deal with the sin of men, it would have to take on the idols of our land. But the Gillette did not take any sledgehammer swings at any of the most precious idols in our culture – you know, the ones causing the most significant mistreatment of women and children. It took no shots at actual sexual promiscuity, hook up culture, sodomy, divorce, Sports Illustrated swimsuit calendars, or pornography. It did not defend monogamous life-long heterosexual marriage, nor did it insist on the defense of unborn life. Men have sexually exploited women. Men have walked out on marriages and children. Men have broken their promises. He have forced, encouraged, condoned, and paid for the murder of their own children. Spineless men have protected men’s rights to these wicked things by law. But you know if the Gillette ad had confronted any of those more serious male sins, the liberals would be running around with their hair set on fire. But what this should tell thoughtful Christians is that Gillette is not really interested in taking down bullying and sexual harassment. They actually need it to continue to some extent so they can keep trying to sell razor blades off the more minor expressions of it. If they really wanted to see bullying end, there would have been a scene depicting a man running into a Planned Parenthood and rescuing his wife and unborn child from a man dressed in white scrubs. That’s where some of the worst bullying is happening in this nation. Instead, this ad is a bland moralist virtue-signaling attempt to sell razor blades.

But the reply comes: can’t a Gillette ad just tell us *some* truths? Does it always have to be about abortion and sodomy? Isn’t it true that leering at women and bullying kids is bad? Can’t they just say that? It’s just a commercial. They can’t say everything in every commercial. Sure, I’m all for honoring women and children, but I am utterly committed to God’s standard for the whole project, which is perfect, good, holy, and unchanging. Unlike Gillette, which ran an ad not too many years ago in which a number of ladies donned shapely blue uniforms with the company’s name emblazed on their hindquarters. Hmmm… I says to myself… Hmm. Likewise, the mother company of Gillette, Proctor and Gamble, gave over a million dollars to Planned Parenthood and other abortion-supporting organizations worldwide last year. So sure, Gillette is free to run a hypocritical, moralistic ad and try to sucker people into buying their razors. But Christians need to see the moralistic hypocrisy and laugh.

But the fundamental questions is: by what standard? Where did you get these preachy morals? Where did you get this “virtue”? Why should men honor women and protect children? In the name of which god do you appeal? To the extent that Gillette joined the whole progressive woke movement it has essentially called upon the world to honor women and protect children in the name of Molech and Aphrodite, the oh-so benevolent gods of child sacrifice and sexual deviance. And there are still Christians puzzled: But don’t we believe in honoring women and protecting children too?

Yes, of course we do. But we must not do so in the name of any other god. First of all because it dishonors the true God to honor any other god – the gods of the nations are all idols, and second, because you will always end up dishonoring women and dismembering children when you try to honor and protect them in the name of Molech and Aphrodite. The worldview matters. The god of the system matters. The ultimate standard matters. Idols always disfigure. Idols always maim. Idols always crush. Don’t take the cookie. The advertisement is a false gospel, full of lies. It’s a pretentious, greasy-haired car salesman trying to sell you a lemon.

Do men need to be the best they can be? Of course. Have men committed wicked atrocities? Absolutely. And this is because men are far worse than woke humanism will admit. But the truth is that men are so infected with sin that they need to die. They must die because they have sinned and the sin goes all the way down. Sinful men are toxic. So are sinful women. The whole human race is toxic. We are loaded with the toxins of rebellion and lust, such that we hate one another and use one another and violate one another, and at the root of it all is a Hellbent animosity for the God who made us. But that God in His great mercy sent His perfect Son, His righteous Son, His beloved Son to stand in our place. We do not believe in men. That will just get you more abuse, more leering, more lies, more violence in the end. No, we believe in The Man, the God-man, Jesus Christ. We believe that He played the man. He stood in our place. He went to war with our animosity with God and one another. He destroyed the animosity by the shedding of His own blood. The only completely Righteous Man took our shame, our guilt, our sin — all of it. The only Perfect Man took our lecherous looks, our blood money, our violent thoughts and acts, our sexual exploitation, our hypocrisy, our broken vows. The only Innocent Victim took it all and it was utterly condemned in His body on the tree. Every true accusation of sin was completely crushed on the cross, so that men might be forgiven, washed clean, absolved, and acquitted.

This free offer of the gospel is that every man who looks to that Dead Man will be saved. Whenever a man looks to that Man impaled on the cross, the toxins of sinful manhood are drawn out and applied to Him instead of us. The death those sins deserve is paid for in the death of Jesus. And we are set free because that Dead Man is not dead anymore. He died so that every sinful man might die in Him, and He rose from the dead so that every man who looks to Him in faith might live again. And so everything has already changed. Everything changed two thousand years ago, when Jesus died for sinful men, when Jesus cried, It is finished, when Jesus walked out of the tomb alive forever. That is the only way for men to become new. Men must be forgiven and given completely new hearts. They must die so that they can begin to live. And when God washes men clean and gives them new hearts, those new hearts love God’s word, they love His standard, and they begin loving those around them in Jesus’ name.

So no thanks, Gillette, I’m not a member of your lame-school church. Jesus died and rose again to make men new. #Metoo is zombie Mormonism with the shakes. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Jesus. There is no authority except from Him. Therefore, you and all your wokedness have no moral authority here. I defy your inane and worthless gods. They couldn’t conjure up any virtue even if Elizabeth Warren were playing her ancestral drums after three beers on Instagram.

 

 

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