Thought it might be of interest to others that this topic of malakoi has recently jumped into Reformed twitter world.
Setup is this: Christianity Today director of media Mike Cosper (who makes it a habit of punching right) called Florida governor Ron DeSantis a coward for saying that he supported how Trump handled the meeting with Zelenskyy. Tom Ascol (president of Founders ministries and a Florida citizen) replied to Cosper by calling him Malakoi.
He then modifies his statement to ensure he doesn’t offend any women who might think he was implying they might be weak because he used the word effiminate.
Now there are some condemning Ascol for calling Cosper “gay.” Likewise, there are some praising it. Others are pointing out that the term malakoi doesn’t mean homosexual. I’ll leave you to judge for yourselves.
But all the time I couldn’t help but wonder if the ESV’s nontranslation of the word malakoi and the evangelical refusal to discuss any notion of effiminacy isn’t a little bit responsible for part of this…
Some possible context: CT has been running stories lately about the situation of the church in Ukraine, especially the churches and Christians in the Russian-occupied areas (e.g. disappearances of pastors, churches being closed, just like in Soviet times). The TGC website has as well. So I can understand him (Cosper) wanting to throw a punch or three.
I get the context…but seems a big jump from holding one view on Ukraine to calling everyone who disagrees with you a coward. Publicly. From a group that has been vocal about the dangers of Christians holding political views with inappropriate zeal.
And the more I think about this, the more it feels like Christians are weaponising the fact of churches/pastors/Christians in Ukraine against anyone who disagrees with their politics on Ukraine. It’s not about Ukraine, it’s about disagreeing with Trump/Republicans/political conservatives/MAGA/European populist movements or anyone I don’t like. We’re using Ukraine as a proxy war to fight out our political differences at home. And that’s just wrong.
I agree that Putin should not have invaded. It was a wicked and almost insane act.
But to then argue that there was absolutely no Russian justification for the war or legitimate Russian grievance over how the west was handling Ukraine, and then supporting Zelensky or Ukraine with nearly fanatic support because there are Christians there, are both examples of extraordinarily shallow thinking.
What happened to Christians being able to disagree about political matters??? How quickly mainstream Christians voices seem to have moved from Christians shouldn’t be politically partisan (the cry of the 2000s and 2010s) to Christians shouldn’t support politically conservative or culturally-unapproved causes and perspectives (2010s and now 2020s).
There’s a reason I live carefully, cultivating ignorance of such kerfuffles. But then someone sends me a link or MD shows up here, and (smile) I now know. Love your comments above, MD and all.
