Roosh V is Modern Christianity’s Rorschach Test

It is funny being in this wicked and adulterous generation. Growing up in the 90s, the kids had to suffer the gas-bagging of dreaded “church ladies” who reminded us that TV is the devil. Every American growing up in that era would have heard the David Wilkersons preach hard against the dangers of TV and R-rated movies that tell impressionable minds that being evil is “cool” or being a sex pest is “hip” and the pious woman or honorable man is cringe. This is eye-rolling for sure. But as boomer media is dying a slow and agonizing death, the rise of social media influencers and content creators has officially made the Internet even worse than TV and movies can ever hope to generate in terms of spewing evil. We are living in the golden age of the false prophet. Anyone with a Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, Tiktok, or Instagram, account can create content that does nothing but provoke anger, lies, or become a giant vanity project. Even worse, some of the more “professional” content creators use psychological tactics to keep you in a bubble of despair while also trying to sell you the latest cryptocurrency, aka, crypt-currency. So what happens when a former content creator of the worst kind repents of his folly and turns to Jesus Christ? 

American Pilgrim is a 2021 non-fiction book written by former pick-up artist and internet personality Roosh Valizadeh, also known as Roosh V. In the book, Roosh chronicles his speaking tour through America after he converted to Christianity in 2019. 

To understand Roosh V and his impact, one has to understand the “Manosphere.” The Manosphere is a loosely connected collection of online communities, authors, public speakers, and incel samarais that focus primarily on men’s issues. Many sub-groups are loosely connected in the Manosphere, including Men’s Rights Activists (MRAs), Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW), Red Pill Communities, and Involuntary Celibates (Incels). All of these groups are diverse, but some of their core beliefs include anti-feminism, hypergamy, a distrust of marriage and relationships with women, and the masculinity crisis in the Western world. Some of these groups also branch into self-improvement, business advice, and networking opportunities. In brief, the Manosphere is a direct response to the Jezebel spirit that plagues Western society. As well as the spirit of the times that hates men, biblical principles, and patriarchy. 

Roosh V originates from the more exploitative branch of the Manosphere, known as the Pickup Artist. Also known as Game Coaches, PUAs specialize in psychological and behavioral techniques for attracting and seducing potential female sexual or romantic partners, with an emphasis on short-term casual encounters. The early roots of modern PUAs can be traced back to the 1970s with the rise of self-help books and men’s magazines such as Playboy. Ross Jeffries is often credited with starting the modern PUA movement in the 90s, with online communities such as Usenet and groups dedicated to PUAs began to form. The 2000s brought mainstream popularity thanks to Neil Strauss’ 2005 book The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists. This era saw the publication of many PUA guides, workshops, and dating coaches. It is in this era that Roosh V was given inspiration to be a PUA.

By the 2010s, with the rise of 4th wave feminism, the movement started to receive heavy criticism for the movement’s misogyny, manipulation, and unethical behavior. By 2016, many platforms, such as YouTube and Reddit, started to crack down on PUA content creators by banning them from these platforms, causing a devastating financial blow and chilling effect on the community. Many of these creators have since forsaken their PUA past and started to focus more on self-improvement, emotional intelligence, and more respectful dating practices. Today, the Manosphere has distanced itself from the PUAs, and the subculture in general has become nearly a relic of the past.

The techniques of a PUA are dubious at best and complete BS at worst. Roosh himself does not indulge the reader of American Pilgrim with how he banged all these women. Like most of everything the internet spews today, the PUA markets itself as having the skills to be able to score with a woman, but the actual “skills” in question are quite dark. Almost every PUA technique involves bars or alcohol. You meet a girl at a bar, smooth-talk them while feeding them alcohol, and once intoxicated, you go back to your apartment to have sex. Roosh does not outright admit this is the technique, but he does make allusions to it. 

Roosh V’s biggest legacy is from the Return of the Kings blog. While not the originator of Manosphere and Men’s Rights topics, Roosh V helped popularize and give these views a platform. Roosh V and the rest of the PUAs have long since been pushed out of the Manosphere, but Roosh V can be looked at as the prototype of such people like Andrew Tate who preach hyper-masculinity at an almost comical level, as well as the gateway drug to more sophisticated Manosphere influencers such as the late Kevin Samuels, Jordon Peterson, Rollo Tamassi and Pearl Davis.

Roosh V, real name Daryush Valizadeh, was born on June 14, 1979, in Washington DC to an Iranian father and an Armenian mother. He graduated with a degree in microbiology in 2001. By the mid-2000s, he became disillusioned with his career and lifestyle. He became active on online forums, such as the Seduction Community on Reddit, where he began blogging about his experiences with women and dating in Washington, D.C. This led to a long career of writing advice and books based on the “Pickup Artist” culture. This would include the Roosh V forum and in 2012, the Return of the Kings site, which featured articles from Roosh and other authors focusing on dating advice, anti-feminism, self-improvement, and critiques of Western culture. The site proved to be one of the pillars of the growing “red pill” and Manosphere communities in the mid-2010s, as well as having ties with the alt-right culture. 

Return of the Kings and Roosh V have a long history of being controversial, often provoking the ire of Gaystream Media. This was due to the content being hyper-critical of feminists and featuring many articles that were provocative, inflammatory, mocking, and misogynistic. By 2016, Roosh V became a public enemy, causing many of his speaking events to be cancelled due to safety concerns. Roosh’s affiliation with Return of the Kings led him to get banned in many countries, including the U.K. and Canada. He was also being deplatformed by major social media sites such as Youtube, and Twitter, and many payment processors were severing ties with him. All of the drama caused by his PUA career left him burned out in 2016, and Roosh started expressing doubts and self-reflection on his life choices. By 2018, his relationship with his fans and fellow “red pill” figures began to fracture, and by late 2018, Roosh shut down the Return of the Kings blog with his farewell post, saying that “My focus is no longer on helping men fornicate. I want to help them find God.”

In 2019, Roosh publicly repented and removed most of his PUA books for sale and converted to Eastern Orthodox Christianity, a major swing in the other direction. This caused a mixture of reactions, from praise to condemnation and cautiousness.

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American Pilgrim takes place eight months after Roosh’s conversion and primarily details a five-month speaking tour in 2019 where he visited 23 cities, gave speeches, and posted weekly video blogs. The first thing you should notice about the book is the writing style, as it is clear that Roosh V wrote the book himself instead of employing a ghost writer. 

American Pilgrim is not an action-packed book. The memoir has no exciting drama or a major plot twist. What American Pilgrim does is give rare insight into the mind of someone newly saved. And because Roosh is a professional writer, we get this information from the horse’s mouth.

 It is revealed early in the book that Roosh practiced Armenian Orthodox Christianity. But make no mistake, this is not a book arguing Orthodox theology. Roosh understands that brothers and sisters in Christ have different belief structures and wants to build on common ground. With this in mind, you cannot go into this memoir with your usual prejudices and biases concerning theology or political beliefs. 

The beginning of the book has Roosh flat-out telling his audience that he wasted his life and his achievements and accomplishments have been for nothing. He then goes on to lament why his younger sister died and not him. Roosh then gives his testimony: At an early age, girls were not interested in him. By the time he reached puberty, he treated men’s lifestyle magazines like the scriptures, and he was overtaken by the Western culture of the times. Sex was first, and after being unsatisfied with his career choice of working in microbiology, he pursued the Pick-up Artist lifestyle. In 2015, during the prime of his career, he started to face attacks from the establishment. Then, after a failed relationship he thought would lead to marriage and the death of his sister, he spiraled into depression and sorrow until, in March of 2019, he went on his knees and begged God to help him. He received grace and started winning battles against pornography and fornication. 

The rest of the book is Roosh’s new perspectives on life as he traveled America, sharing his testimony. Some of the most notable portions are his relationships with his fans and fans coming to terms with his rebirth into a child of God. Roosh mentions in most chapters his growing respect for rural life and his dissatisfaction with cities that support the LGBT lifestyle and tolerate debauchery. Other themes of the book include his journey through Orthodox Christianity, forgiveness, pride, praying through sickness and relying on God’s power, overcoming lust, coming to terms with his past life, and meditating on his sister’s death. The book ends with a transcript of the last speech he gave on the tour, which shared his testimony. 

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American Pilgrim is a decent read for every believer. Unfortunately, most of the liberal branch (and conservative branch to a lesser extent) of the Evangelical  Western church have blown off this book due to Roosh being loosely associated with the Manosphere and alt-right groups, conspiracy theory leanings, and his politically incorrect comments about women and social groups, including homosexuals. 

Now, there are legitimate criticisms of Roosh that should be addressed. One of the big ones is that his conversion to Christianity is just another one of his “grifts,” or in layman’s terms, this is another one of his cons. After all, a pick-up artist by his very nature is a con man, both to the woman he is trying to swindle and to the reader buying his schtick. There are even theories that Roosh’s PUA career was not as successful as he led others to believe and that his PUA career was a massive fabrication. Mainstream media and feminists heavily attacked Roosh to the point that he got de-banked and banned from countries. What better way to repel this attack than by publicly converting to Christianity? To be honest, this is a fair criticism. After all, Christianity has had its fair share of grifters since the beginning of the faith. Today, in the modern era, we are living in the golden age of Christian hucksters and provocateurs who care more about getting the most eyeballs on their YouTube channels than actually feeding the sheep with spiritual food.

But, if Roosh V wanted to take the controversy off him, he would not have publicly proclaimed Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, as there is nothing more the mainstream media and the Jezebel Spirit hate than Jesus Christ, his supporters, and followers. He would not have shut down his Return of the Kings blog and forum, causing much ire among his former fans and followers. Roosh would either slowly integrate himself into less controversial Manosphere content or disappear from the internet. Instead, Roosh chose to publicly air his newfound faith in Jesus Christ, something mainstream media and feminists detest, and Manosphere and alt-right creeps do not care about or find any value in. 

This is not an article proclaiming that Roosh is genuine or a heretic, because no one knows what is in a man’s heart. And truth be told, there is some danger in writing a book like American Pilgrim when Roosh was barely a year into his faith. After all, some men come into the faith with Roosh’s zeal, and then challenges and the worries of the age come, and Satan takes away the seed of faith that has been planted in that man’s heart. Who knows what challenges Roosh faces on his journey? There is a real possibility that Roosh could backslide into his old ways, and his faith turned out to be weak. No matter how many good words one may write or how many great speeches a man can give telling them the greatness of the Lord, only God and God alone can peer deep into the hearts of men to see if they have saving faith. Only God can look underground in the depths of one’s soul to see if the foundation of their faith is built on the rock and not sand. 

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One of the things I found most curious about the book is the vibe. There is almost a miasma of sorrow and mourning that Roosh V gives off from his writing, like he is still working out his salvation with fear and trembling. He does not go into deep detail about his sister or his relationship with her. One can put two and two together and realize that his sister was probably the only stable non-sexual relationship he has had with the opposite sex. It is very clear in the book that her death hit Roosh very hard, and he has not yet come to grips with it. It is also clear that Roosh is still struggling with coming to terms with his past life. And to make it clear, Roosh has no desire to go back to being a pickup artist. But the self-inflicted scars of sin of that lifestyle are still fresh and healing. 

But contributing to this vibe is Roosh wrestling with how he fits in concerning marriage and having a stable relationship with the opposite sex. Roosh mentioned in the book that he has accepted he might remain single for the rest of his life and is at peace with it. This is something unheard of in modern Western evangelical circles, which are so out of touch with the issues revolving around such things as men’s issues with marriage, divorce, dating, and relationships with women. Roosh, who is nearly 40 years old, knows he has serious baggage and knows that he is not getting married anytime soon. Yet Roosh is more focused on his sanctification and wants to focus on studying scripture, fasting, and praying. This is in contrast to the Evangelical circus, who preach that marriage is salvation instead of the blood of Christ, and the first commandment is to take your wife’s hen-pecking.  

Now, Roosh is not arguing for the position of singleness, nor is he anti-marriage. Roosh is simply doing what is best for his faith journey. Roosh is wise enough to know he is not guaranteed a wife, nor is he entitled to one because he bent the knee to Christ. There is a ton of work to do with his sanctification. This is a huge problem in Evangelical circles, as it is almost taboo to talk about singleness, and even more so, male singleness.

For many single men who have lived a life of endless pleasure-seeking and turned to Christ at a late stage in their lives, this will be their ultimate fate. They will become men of solitude and duty. They will focus on prayer, fasting, sanctification, working for a church, and growing the relationships they have in their circle. They will focus on the stuff they can control instead of the stuff they can’t control. And to be blunt, this is a wise path for most. They will leave the internet zeitgeist, find respectful work, and participate quietly in a local body of believers who have also left the internet zeitgeist. Many will remain single and childless, and the divorced will choose not to remarry. This might seem like a terrible fate depending on your perspective. But the underlying principle connecting all these men is that they will be at peace with their fate and will focus on loving God, loving their neighbors, loving what little family they have left, and participating in a local church community. They will step away from the BS and “touch grass.”

This will be in contrast to the modern pagan man who will continue to pursue the things of this world. They will continue a lifestyle of pornography, sexual perversion, the endless search for pleasure, status, and money. Their bitterness over their relationships with women will further increase to the point where actual misogyny will flare up and not the make-believe misogyny feminists blabber about. Marriage will die out in the West, and in its place will be polycules and neo-polygamy, where men and women have multiple partners but never commit to one partner and create a family. This will not only reduce the already plummeting birthrate in the West but also spread disease, mental illness, and depression. 

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There is one more thing about Roosh that fascinates me beyond just American Pilgrim. On June 14, 2020, Roosh V announced that he is leaving the internet to focus more on his faith. With this, he shut down his forum and most of his social media accounts, disappearing into the aether. He framed it as Christian discipline, similar to entering a spiritual desert, to focus on prayer, reading scripture, and working in the real world via a job. This is in contrast to the modern man who lives on the internet, plays Fortnite, and buys the latest scamcoin instead of getting a real job and being a productive member of society. As of 2025, Roosh has had little internet activity, only coming back to promote Christian books on broken sites like Gab.

This is unheard of in the current era. One does not leave the content creator bubble when your entire career and life has been on social media and blogs. For most of the world, we cannot live one hour without the pleasures and horrors of the World Wide Web. For Boomers and GenXers, they know what life was like before the internet took over daily life, but for late Millennials, Zoomers, and Gen Alphas, the Internet is all they know. It is where their friends, pleasures, pains, careers, entertainment, and worldview reside. We are all chained to our smartphones, and just having a physical community is a rough task when you can create a digital one through boards, groups, and Discord. 

There is a deeper meaning to Roosh leaving the internet. Roosh knows just how manipulative content creators can be, and to truly grow and be a man of God, he must cut off the digital umbilical cord and remove himself from the Matrix entirely to focus on the things that matter to God. If Roosh remained on the internet to focus on content creation, then he would be tempted to produce content designed to rile people’s feelings. After all, wholesome God-content does not generate money compared to riling up people’s feelings. The Manosphere are experts at riling up the hearts of men to anger, depression, and sadness, instead of truth, which only the Words of God can provide. Worst of all, they give these men false hope and a fake community through their marketing schemes. Roosh knows this, and instead of being like the Rollo Tomassis, Rich Coopers, Greg Adams, Andrew Tates, Jocko Willinks, Jordan Petersons, or the ape-like Joe Rogans of the world, he chose to get a real job outside the internet and focus on his faith. This will be the greatest contribution Roosh can give to other believers trapped on the Internet. That is, an example to give other people in this overarching Manosphere echochamber. Will Roosh come back? It’s possible, but if Roosh decides to produce content, he will never get an audience like he had before.

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As followers of Jesus Christ, we really need to sit down and have a difficult conversation. The Manosphere is ultimately false, but its grievances are not without merit. It is bad enough that by 2030, 45% of women will be single and childless. What is not talked about is the hatred society has for the average single man and how modern marriage is completely stacked against men to the point that many are forsaking marriage altogether. They will pursue broad paths such as pursuing riches, fame, or just huddling in a gamer den. Many men have been divorced raped by their wicked and adulterous wives because of “muh feelings,” taking not only their life-earnings, but their children away from them. With the snap of her fingers, a wife can destroy a man’s life. Because we live in a status and fame-driven society, women completely ignore and spit on the average man just trying to survive in the world, and they have no appreciation for more masculine occupations that keep the society they live in running. If society is hellbent on dehumanizing the average single man, why should the average single man care about society and marriage when the deck is stacked against them? It is no joke that men of this age are increasingly forsaking marriage and resenting women. Instead of following Jesus Christ, this new generation is following evil men such as Andrew Tate, who promotes polygamy and “scoring” with as many women as possible.

 But even worse is the Evangelical Western church’s response, which is to mock these men. Instead of exercising discernment and getting both sides of a divorce, the majority of Evangelicals side with the woman regardless. This leads to the husband being banished from their church community, even if he is completely innocent. The worst are Pastors who criticize, judge, mock, spit on, and shame single men for stuff that is out of their control. These so-called Pastors blubber out “be fruitful and multiply” and tell single men that they are in sin by not marrying. And yes, singleness can be abused. But these are things the vast majority of single men cannot control. Single men cannot control who falls in love with them, nor can they force a marriage, and arranged marriages are as dead as disco. And besides, have these Pastors seen the average modern woman? The average modern woman is snotty, must be right all the time, masculine, foul, perverted, obsessed with status, has a persecution complex, hates children, gossips, slanders, they are busybodies, mentally ill, and the majority have no respect for men. And many, yes many, women who proclaim Christ have these attributes so completely that it is hard to discern if they are deceived or children of the devil. 

The ultimate question is what the church does about men like Roosh, who are either single or divorced, and especially with his views that run contrary to polite Christianity? For starters, the true Church, the one that the Holy Spirit is protecting and keeping hidden from evil doers, will welcome these men with open arms as brothers in Christ and will spiritually feed them and provide peace. The mainstream evangelical church will not be so welcoming to someone like Roosh. That is, if they welcome him at all. 

In a way, Roosh V’s testimony will be looked at as a Rorschach test for modern Christianity. To the actual Church, the one that the Holy Spirit has hidden from this wicked and adulterous generation, American Pilgrim will be a powerful read about a man who was a forerunner of the pick-up culture to a repentant child of God working out his faith with fear and trembling. But to the adulterous church, they will reject this book and Roosh V due to being blind to their own biases. Roosh V had a powerful conversion, but because Roosh V has ideas and views that are consider taboo to rebrobate society and because Roosh V attacks the Golden Calfs of our time, many, yes many so-called believers will reject Roosh outright because they can’t see the bigger picture at play and only want to focus the things of man, which are gay and cringe, then the things of God, which are holy and right. And unfortunately, this rejection will happen to the majority of God-seeking men trying to find truth because the Evangelical church cares more about fads, safety, and social justice nonsense than actually preaching the gospel to these men, because many of these men are engaged in politically incorrect thought-crimes. 

Roosh can be looked at as an avatar for the late millennial man who was washed with 90s slop marketing with movies, music, tv, radio and magazines telling young men that being a sex pest is the ultimate way to prove your masculinity. The late millennial experienced the World Wide Web in its Wild West era ,where we became obsessed with finding and consuming pornography. Absent fathers, destroyed brotherhoods, you could say the Rooshes of the world were victims. But the sad truth about the current state of the Manosphere, and the current state of single man is this: The Western world is currently under God’s judgment. Because the modern man is obsessed with pornography, sex, and forsaking Godly women, God has given us up to our sins, and we are paying for it. And besides, if you were a woman looking at the current behavior of the modern man today, you too would run to the sisterhood for protection. 

Roosh gives the man trapped in this mindset the way out, that is, through repentance and coming to know Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the only one we should imitate and follow, not internet con men. Yes, society is broken, but instead of being like the world, we need to renew our minds with scripture and become like Jesus Christ in both character and how we go about our lives. Roosh found this out late in life, and instead of doubling down and continuing down a worldly path, Roosh took an entirely different, narrow path and it saved his soul. 

But the sad thing is that many, yes many, modern men will not repent and turn to Christ to be healed. Because being a man of God means dying to the world and it schemes. But because man is evil, he will forsake the promises of God and try to grasp the wind and vapor of the world. Being a man of God does not guarantee health, riches, and yes, even a girlfriend/wife. What it does provide is hope, truth, and peace. Being a follower of Christ means receiving the Holy Spirit, who in turn, gives you godly attributes, including love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. But these attributes are worthless to the carnal mind, which only craves status, sex, money, and power. 

I don’t believe that Roosh will stay single forever. In God’s timing, he will find himself a godly spouse to share his newfound life and continue living in quite peacefulness, away from the internet cesspool. But what is most appreciated is Roosh’s honesty is that he might remain single for the rest of his life. The question for the church will be, can we handle that this might be a possibility for a large portion of men coming into middle age? Will the church see this issue as fertile ground for the gospel? Or will the church continue to mock these men? Even worse is young men who see the current state of the Protestant church as they flock to the Andrew Tates of the world, or Eastern Orthodox Christianity, which has its own problems. Will the church update its firmware and start preaching honestly and maturely about these issues, or will we just scoff at the Rooshs of the world desperately seeking truth?