Then too, it seems doubtful whether that is a reliable theory of the relation of one’s physical activities to one’s propensity for political violence. Maybe the challenge of weightlifting would have been an outlet for the young man’s anger and aggression, sure; but maybe it would have just made him a bulkier attempted assassin.

I have before me American Reformer’s Colin Redemer’s tweet of a picture of the attempted assassin of Mr. Trump, accompanied by the comment that “to help prevent tragedies like this in the future the USA must immediately implement mandatory weight training for all school boys five days per week.”[1] I confess, such a thing lays my brain prostrate. For as it is actually presented, the “traged[y] like this” referred to is not the late assassination attempt, but rather the assailant’s young countenance, what with its pale complexion, large glasses, and unimposing appearance. It is a strange notion that thinks weightlifting will improve such things. I’m not aware that deadlifts improve one’s eyesight such that glasses are no longer necessary, nor that, say, squats change one’s native skin tone or facial structure.

But perhaps it is not the young man’s appearance to which our tweeter objected. Perhaps it was his character. Perhaps Redemer thinks that weightlifting would have left him with a better character that would not have attempted to commit political murder. Maybe; but if that is what was meant, it was most emphatically not expressed well.

Then too, it seems doubtful whether that is a reliable theory of the relation of one’s physical activities to one’s propensity for political violence. Maybe the challenge of weightlifting would have been an outlet for the young man’s anger and aggression, sure; but maybe it would have just made him a bulkier attempted assassin. That is a theory of exercise science, political science, and psychology of which we shall have to remain ignorant. And whether or no it may prove useful in the case of other young men, I somehow doubt that schools across the country are going to mandate weightlifting because of the opinions of the director of education at American Reformer.

Further things come to mind. One is that the tweet above is an uncharitable thing to say even of a dead evildoer. Another is that, if what was objected to was the would-be assassin’s perceived lack of masculinity – as seems implied by the inclusion of his admittedly rather unflattering yearbook photo – then such an objection is nonsense. That young man did not lack masculine character. Indeed, he seems to have had an overabundance of it, far more than the average man of any political stripe—or girth. Attempting to murder a former president is not an act of cowardice, but requires an immense courage that is willing to face almost certain death. Nor did he lack conviction. He was so convinced of the correctness of his opinions and of Mr. Trump’s danger to our republic that he was willing to kill for them.

The evil of his case was that his masculine traits were misdirected to a wicked end and left unrestrained by a well-informed conscience. His courage was an evil courage, like that of Atilla the Hun, and his conviction was an evil conviction, like that of John Brown. Granting that weightlifting might dissipate many ill tendencies, it still does not provide positive moral instruction. And in this case the young man was in want of a thorough acquaintance with the command “you shall not murder” (Ex. 20:13).

But this is all beating about for needles and cones in a pine forest. Which is to say that it is a preoccupation with things that have a very prescient point, but which pale in importance in comparison to that larger thing of which they are a part. That larger thing here is the question of how someone who is so adamant about a renewal of robust, Protestant thought could make such a ridiculous and uncharitable statement as that tweet above. Redemer was previously vice president at the Davenant Institute, whose intellectual character is plain, and his main literary efforts until now have been in such things as editing poetry for Davenant’s journal Ad Fontes and modernizing Thomas Traherne’s works. There is quite a difference between that and being so obsessed with the benefits of weightlifting as to demand it for all schoolboys.

It seems the answer is that the two things are different manifestations of the same impulse, that the desire for intellectual rigor manifests in the work of editing and writing, and that a desire for physical vigor comes out in the promotion of physical strength. Both proceed from the same basic desire to be vigorous, disciplined, powerful, influential—in a word, a man. Surely there is not evil but good in those things taken separately, or even, in a certain way, together.[2] To want to have a sound grasp of the truth and a healthy, disciplined, useful mind and body that can benefit others is reasonable, surely.

But as seen in that tweet that has inspired this piece, the desire to be such things is not merely personal but is projected upon others as well. It is elevated into a universal ideal that is to be forced onto others via governmental power, as in Redemer’s desired mandatory weightlifting for schoolboys.  That policy would give the state effective ownership of schoolboys’ bodies, to abet the frightful influence they already have over their minds. It would enlarge the state’s tyranny to be over the whole person, and tell such boys that their bodies are not their own but belong to the state, because they have no right to be weak or undisciplined, and so they don’t grow up to be violent political zealots. He’s advocating for a position in which the state takes preeminence over the individual, in other words.

And it is that which bothers me about this, and about many of the people going about talking about masculinity and Christendom and all that. They object to much in our current government and culture and talk a great deal about liberty, not because they are committed to liberty as such, but because they have their own version of what state and society should be, and because they want to use the levers of power to bring it about. They do not object to the status quo because they believe individuals should conduct themselves (including in questions of exercise) as they deem best in accordance with their own values and circumstances and consciences. They object to it because they have their own ideals that they intend to shove on everyone else in all walks of life. And one of those things they want to force on others is their own view of manhood, a view that is narrow and mistaken, and that does not give sufficient consideration to the variety of masculinity God has providentially ordained for his sons.  (I won’t belabor that point now, but suffice it to say that I see no reason to think that God intends all of us to read Traherne and Protestant social theory, or to lift weights, or to be paragons of mental and physical achievement otherwise.)

Now let’s draw this idea of Redemer’s closer and make it more personal. Imagine the young men whom you know who look like the late gunman. Would you truly want them to be forced to take weightlifting courses because the local school board or the Department of Education mandated it? Would you like to have to explain to your son that the reason that he and millions of other boys like him have to lift weights is because this one guy on one occasion tried to kill one former president a couple of years after he graduated high school? Would you like to have to explain why our society so values the lives of the handful of men who are former presidents that we are prepared to make tens of millions of boys make a major change to their way of living for their ostensible safety? Or why our society is so utterly scared of young men becoming assassins that we think they should have to take mandatory physical education classes to hopefully prevent it? Would you like to try to explain why the government in the self-professed ‘land of the free and home of the brave’ is so paranoid and has such powers? Or again, if the tragedy lamented is not the late gunman’s deeds but his broader character, that society has determined young men have no right to be weak, or unmasculine, or to fail to meet a certain aesthetic appearance, and is therefore mandating they meet its standards for them?

For that matter, other questions arise. If Redemer is correct that boys lifting weights is right and necessary, and schools decline to mandate such a thing, is it then incumbent upon parents to do so? One imagines that would make for an interesting kitchen table conversation.

Dad: ‘Son, you’re going to start lifting weights.’

Son: ‘Why? I don’t like lifting.’

Dad: ‘Because I’m afraid you’re going to try to kill a former president if you don’t. Also, you owe it to everyone – us, yourself, the rest of the family, church, state, and society – to not be weak. It’s your masculine duty.

That son might be forgiven for rejoining that there are other ways he could be a loving and useful person. And if he was of an historical turn of mind, he might know as well that Luther and Calvin and many others of the great men of faith were not imposing, hang-about-the-weight-room types.

But this is all dealing in hypotheticals (however pertinent). To conclude more decisively, let it be said that when someone has gotten to the point where he is so worried about the daily exercise activities of multitudes of schoolboys whom he does not know that he wishes to express his will upon them via sweeping government fiat, we are well outside the realm of New Testament thought, with its “bodily training is just slightly beneficial, but godliness is beneficial for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come” (1 Tim. 4:8, NASB), and are very far into an arrogant presumption that thinks it has the right and the duty to worry itself with the affairs of others. Such a thing ignores the other-worldly character of our faith, and the liberty all believers have been granted in Christ to live to him as they see fit (Rom. 14; 1 Cor. 9). And when people begin to mesh civil and spiritual so readily, and to develop such a meddlesome spirit in Christ’s name, the rest of us who live in accordance with scripture-informed conscience rather than social vision might be forgiven for feeling rather irritated at that state of affairs, and well might we fear lest such a view proves more destructive to our faith and the church’s well-being and influence than many of our express enemies—especially when it expends itself in excesses as that statement which I have considered here.

Tom Hervey is a member of Woodruff Road Presbyterian Church, Five Forks/Simpsonville (Greenville Co.), SC. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not of necessity reflect those of his church or its leadership or other members. He welcomes comments at the email address provided with his name. He is also author of Reflections on the Word: Essays in Protestant Scriptural Contemplation. 

[1] Viewable at Mere Orthodoxy here, where I first encountered it.

[2] Less the desire for power and influence, which is often perilous.