What is “A Real Man” in this Time, After the Killing of Renee Good?

As a white woman, who was a lifelong Republican Evangelical until Trump, and who lives a relatively normal, traditional life, I have grown more and more alarmed by the state of the men that I used to think represented my beliefs. Men I trusted to lead.

I am a former Chaplain, and have been married for 35 years, with 3 children. I’m definitely not what most people would consider a “Leftist”, or any of the other slandering remarks that the Right have chosen to label anyone they consider opposition.

I do consider myself fairly intelligent, and most definitely grounded in my faith. I have endured suffering that I wouldn’t wish on anyone, including the loss of a son, and having a rare neurological disease, that has rendered me mostly home bound for almost a decade.

One of the benefits of that time alone was that it was often just God and me, hashing out doctrine that I used to be surrounded by, and had just accepted as absolute truth because I had trusted those who taught me.

I had nothing but time to dig deeper and research. I studied Biblical texts but I also love history, so I spent a great deal of time studying history and our current events in the world, often as they relate to scripture.

Getting out of that White Evangelical Bubble was exactly where my Heavenly Father needed me to be, to grow closer to Him, and to see the deceptions in many of the teachings that I had embraced, and often hurt others with, in the name of Jesus.

I had meant well, and truly believed that I was loving others by telling them what to do, but what I wasn’t mature enough to know at that time was that, it’s not my job! My job was to work on the log in my own eye, and develop the Fruits of His Spirit in my own life, while loving Him and Others. Just loving them.

I never turned from the “essential doctrine” of Jesus, but in simplifying my own understanding down to studying just HIS teachings, I became a completely different Christ Follower! That took about a year, where the only thing that I could I hear, when spending time with God, was “Love Me, Love Others!” My husband called it my “Bible on a business card” because it was so simple, yet the most difficult thing for people to truly understand. It was a year before I truly “got it”!

Everything else beyond that can be debated, but those 2 commands are absolutely THE most important, according to Jesus Himself.

Every day I get sadder and sadder watching the Conservative White Men around me grow farther and farther away from Godly leadership. Particularly those who use scripture as a justification for aggression and violence.

Their definition of a Godly Man is completely contradictory to how Jesus led and commanded His Followers, particularly MEN, to lead.

These men are immature in their understanding of Jesus, and choose to align themselves with aggressive, toxic masculinity, and violence.

Things that I have understood as basic principles of how a Christian man should lead, through serving, have been turned on their head.

I come from a family of strong, Christian men, who would be absolutely ashamed of what many of the Christian Nationalist men of today have become. Yes, they were strong, both in law enforcement, and military (ATF and Navy Grandfather, and Green Beret Father), but they were more importantly compassionate, God fearing, other’s loving, men.

I’m still friends with people who were impacted by my father’s love. People of every race, including African, and even former prisoners from his prison ministry days. Criminals, including murderers and drug dealers, were often at our home as their first step out of prison and into the real world again. Oh the stories I have… but he taught me what it truly meant to walk the walk of Jesus, by loving “the least of these”.

My father and grandfather would have both looked at what happened to Renee Good as a criminal act, that should have been immediately condemned as coming from a man who had trauma related fear and anger (from his past vehicle related encounter, which should have disqualified him from that part of his job, at least until he was mentally fit for duty and could de escalate future encounters properly) and took it out on a young mother.

Instead, conservative men today are making her into the enemy, and making excuses for a man, whose first words after taking her life, in a rage of vindictiveness were, “F**king B*tch!”

Releasing that video didn’t do what this administration had hoped it would. It didn’t show a man in fear for his life (and if he was in fear in THAT situation then he definitely shouldn’t have been doing that particular job). What it showed most sensible people was an unbalanced man in a rage, full of hatred and aggression.

In the America that many of us remember, and long for, a person could protest and disagree without fear of being killed by law enforcement.

The basics that most in law enforcement are taught, all around the country, are to de escalate a situation. They’re taught to not put themselves in front of vehicles, and they’re taught that a vehicle is NOT a weapon in and of itself, to not shoot into one unless there is another threat, such as a gun, and to step out of the way, which he was clearly able to do. He didn’t even have a limp when holstering his weapon.

This is all just the latest example of how Conservative men, who I know have claimed to be Christians, are completely changing the rules of what a good man should be.

If there are still good Christian White Men out there anymore, which I have to believe that there are, you need to start speaking up against this distortion of masculinity, before it’s too late.

I real man has humility to accept counsel and admit he might be wrong. I real man knows that his wife (and/or women) is his partner and has a unique wisdom that God has given her to bring balance to their pairing. A real man speaks out against corruption and evil, without aggression or violence , but with conviction.

Jesus was the ultimate REAL MAN, and the only time we see Him angry is when He sees the Religious men in leadership taking advantage of their positions for personal and political gains.

YOU are the ones who need to find the faith and courage to speak out against this, because the last people that those types of Christian Nationalist men are going to listen to are women! We have no value in their definition of a Christian Nation. That is unless we’re in lock step with their agenda and have had a lot of plastic surgery.