The phenomenon of Mormon and ex-Mormon men gravitating toward alternative masculine movements invites not just sociological curiosity but theological reflection. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) is among the few remaining religious institutions in the West. It restricts priesthood ordination to men and maintains a male-only hierarchy. And yet, a striking number of men are leaving from within this explicitly patriarchal framework. They seek masculine validation outside the ecclesiastical bounds of the Church.

From The Art of Manliness and Wake Up Warrior to Lions Not Sheep, Mission 6-0, Savage Gentleman, and Masculine Style, there are many loud voices in the post-Christian masculinity revival. These voices are men shaped by the Mormon tradition. That this exodus originates not from progressive denominations, but from a church built on strong male leadership, raises a deeper question: why do so many Mormon men feel spiritually underfed, culturally neutered, or existentially displaced?

Leon Podles’ The Church Impotent: The Feminization of Christianity provides a compelling interpretive framework. According to Podles, modern Christianity has undergone a long process of feminization, in which religious experience becomes centered on emotional expressiveness, relational harmony, and domestic virtue—values which, while noble, do not typically inspire the masculine impulse toward action, challenge, and transcendent risk. When this transformation occurs without compensating avenues for masculine initiation—ascetic trials, mythic liturgies, meaningful responsibility—men drift away.

Podles’ framework proves particularly illuminating when applied to the Mormon case. Despite the presence of a male priesthood, contemporary LDS culture exhibits many of the traits Podles critiques: an emphasis on emotional openness, conformity, and passive obedience. Masculine authority may be formally preserved, but culturally and spiritually it has been ritualized into irrelevance.

From Kingdom Builders to Compliant Functionaries

The contrast between early Mormon masculinity and its present expression is stark. In its foundational generation, Mormonism offered a religion of militant theosis. Joseph Smith was not only prophet but militia general, constitutional theorist, mayor, and temple-builder. Early Mormon men were charged with building Zion—not metaphorically, but literally—through colonization, cooperative economics, and priestly kingship.

Brigham Young articulated this vision forcefully:

“Now those men, or those women, who know no more about the power of God, and the influence of the Holy Spirit, than to be led entirely by another person… will never be capable of entering into the celestial glory… They never can become Gods, nor be crowned as rulers with glory, immortality, and eternal lives.”
—Journal of Discourses, 1:312

This was not a gospel of passivity. It was an apocalyptic summons to divine masculinity: exaltation through struggle, conquest, and stewardship.

In stark contrast, the post-correlation LDS Church has shifted toward bureaucratic maintenance. After the 1960s institutional reforms that streamlined Church governance, priesthood became increasingly procedural. Temple worship, once mysterious and initiatory, has been de-mythologized through repetition and administrative revision. Leaders now emphasize emotional transparency and service in the home over daring leadership in the world.

Elder D. Todd Christofferson illustrates this shift:

“I focus today on the good that men can do in the highest of masculine roles—husband and father.”
—General Conference, October 2006

President Ezra Taft Benson also frames fatherhood as an eternal stewardship:

“Fathers, yours is an eternal calling from which you are never released… a calling for both time and eternity.”
—General Conference, October 1987

These teachings, while noble in intent, represent a narrowing of masculine vocation from world-shaping action to emotional availability within the domestic sphere. Gone is the masculine mythos of battle, mystery, or kingdom. In its place is niceness, participation, and sentimentality.

The Rise of Para-Ecclesial Masculinity

In response to this cultural drift, Mormon and post-Mormon men have not simply disappeared. They have built alternative structures—modern temples of iron, grit, and fire.

Brett McKay, founder of The Art of Manliness, offers a comprehensive re-enchantment of male identity. Through longform essays and vintage aesthetics, McKay teaches men to cultivate competence, stoicism, and purpose. His work serves as a catechism for a secular priesthood of manhood, providing a vocabulary that the Church no longer offers.

Garrett J. White, founder of Wake Up Warrior, channels a ferocious, almost prophetic masculinity. His programs—combining business coaching with psychological intensity—insist on radical accountability, physical hardship, and unapologetic ambition. His framing of spiritual and economic growth as masculine initiation directly contrasts with the LDS emphasis on passivity and conformity.

Sean Whalen, founder of Lions Not Sheep, captures the populist spirit of masculine frustration. His rhetoric, often coarse and confrontational, appeals to men who feel infantilized by modern institutions. His success underscores a simple truth: Mormon men still want to roar, but too often the chapel only invites them to cry.

Jason Van Camp, a former Special Forces officer and Latter-day Saint, founded Mission 6-0 to integrate military resilience training with civilian leadership. His emphasis on “deliberate discomfort” reflects the kind of masculine asceticism that Podles sees as crucial to retaining male religious engagement.

Josh Tyler, a former professional MMA fighter and co-founder of Savage Gentleman, embodies a balance of toughness and tenderness. His brand promotes a vision of masculinity that harmonizes physical strength with emotional intelligence, challenging the notion that these qualities are mutually exclusive. Tyler’s approach resonates with men seeking a more holistic and authentic expression of manhood.

Tanner Guzy, founder of Masculine Style, emphasizes the importance of intentionality in men’s appearance as a reflection of their inner values. Guzy argues that dressing well is not about vanity but about signaling purpose and self-respect. His philosophy encourages men to align their external presentation with their internal convictions, fostering a sense of integrity and confidence.

Other figures—Ryan Michler (Order of Man), Tyler Jack Harris, and a growing contingent of ex-LDS influencers—demonstrate the pattern: when the Church no longer provides a liturgy of battle, men construct their own.

Why the Exodus?

Why, then, does the Church lose these men? Not because it is progressive or liberal—it is neither. Nor because it lacks structure—it is more organized than ever. Rather, it is because it fails to initiate. It withholds the fire.

Podles argues that men seek religions that demand transformation through difficulty. Masculine souls long for ordeals, not just obligations; for glory, not just goodness. When religion becomes a system of management and emotional self-regulation, it ceases to inspire. When liturgy becomes rote and myth becomes instruction, the masculine imagination departs. In Mormonism, this problem is compounded by a unique theological flattening. The wild theosis of early Latter-day Saint cosmology—men becoming gods, ruling over eternal posterity, participating in theosis through priesthood and temple ordinances—has been quietly deemphasized. In its place, men are given ministering assignments and moral reminders. The mythic imagination has been replaced by administrative efficiency. The promise of kingship has been replaced with the responsibility of lawn care.

The priesthood, once a cosmic inheritance of divine authority, now feels like a corporate credential. Men are asked to preside, but rarely to lead. They are told to bless, but not to conquer. As Podles would argue, the Church has preserved the symbols of masculine order but removed the narrative that makes them matter. In doing so, it retains men’s attendance but loses their allegiance.

A Final Consideration

A more charitable reading might suggest that Mormonism’s emphasis on early responsibility, moral structure, and leadership roles uniquely prepares its young men to succeed in broader masculine movements. Missions instill discipline. The Boy Scouts (before its removal) and Church callings provided leadership training. The gospel teaches integrity and self-reliance. Perhaps it is no wonder that so many of the modern masculine revivalists are LDS-born.

But this reading invites an uncomfortable question: Why do these men consistently take what they’ve learned out of the Church and reframe it in new, often secular, symbolic orders? Why are the warrior virtues taught by McKay, White, Guzy, Tyler, and Whalen so absent from Sunday School lessons? Why does the Church raise lions—and then teach them to bleat?

The answer is not merely psychological or sociological. It is theological. The Church has ceased offering a liturgical and eschatological vision of masculinity. It does not initiate. It does not enthrone. It does not send men into sacred battle. It invites them to manage and to weep.

Rebuilding the Sacred Brotherhood

If the Church hopes to retain its men—and to raise up a generation of boys who do not flee to secular podcasts and fight clubs for identity—it must offer more than moralism. It must offer meaning. It must offer not only doctrine, but mythos—not only instruction, but initiation.

The masculine soul is not drawn to safety but to struggle. It seeks transformation through testing, not comfort through compliance. The Church must become again a place of fire, of danger, of divine ascent.

Let the priesthood be reclaimed as an order of holy warriors, not spiritual clerks. Let temple worship be reinvested with mystery and power, not paperwork. Let men be told not only how to behave, but who they are becoming—kings, priests, creators, fathers of worlds without end.

Because the kingdom of God is not built through sentiment or slogans.

It is built through sacrifice.

And if the Church will not give men the sword, the map, and the mountain—then they will go searching for it elsewhere.

And they are.