The World Changing Power of a Genuinely Kind Man

I set the shot blocking record for my high school basketball team— 84 blocks in a season, 8 in one game.

I was 5’11” by the time I was 13, awkward, embarrassed, and unspeakably ill at ease in my own skin. But I figured if I had to be that tall, you might as well put a ball in my hand and see what happened.

In P.E., I would often play against the boys. Many were better than me. Others were aggressively uncoordinated— the kind that struggled not to trip over their own shoelaces, the kind that was infinitely better at conjugating Latin verbs than hitting free throws.

And often enough, I would block the uncoordinated players’ shots.

I didn’t think much of this— until they punished me for it by calling me names or making fun of my size or insinuating that I was actually a man. In their eyes, I was good at something that should, by birthright, have belonged to them. In this case: sports.

They felt emasculated by my strength, so they had to shrink me down to size with their words.

The game hasn’t changed much in the 20+ years since I graduated high school except for now the uncoordinated boys are the team captains. They’ve got the power to change all the rules of engagement in ways that benefit their image and their power. We now call them theobros, and any girl who blocks their shot is roundly mocked, shunned, and cut down to size. I’ve written about this a lot, but it’s reaching a boiling point on the fringes of the conservative right, with Doug Wilson and his army of he-man woman haters at the helm.

We see this on full display when we observe the line-up of an upcoming conference they’ve disturbingly titled “Christ is King: How to Defeat Trashworld.”

I’m just going to mostly ignore the title of this train wreck because it satirizes itself, and anyone who uses the term “trashworld” seriously is not a serious person. I wrote a pretty lengthy tweet (complete with quotes) about these guys and what they believe, but suffice to say, they mostly all preach male supremacy, the repeal of the 19th amendment, and the criminalization of people who adhere to beliefs that conflict with Christianity. They want to lock gay people up and throw away the key. They want to execute post-abortive women. They want to pass legislation that makes it almost impossible for battered women to escape their tyrant husbands.

In short, they peddle “Christian” totalitarianism, which should be a complete and utter oxymoron to anyone who knows freedom in Jesus.

Brian Sauve spelled in out in a bit more vivid detail this morning. Take a look.

Men like Brian Sauve are precisely the types of people who launched bloody crusades in the name of righteousness. They’re the kind that strung up women caught gathering herbs in the forest and impaled them on poles for their “witchcraft.”

Comply or die. Believe or else.

Forget Jesus’ gentle invitation “Do you want be made well?” and replace it with “Pretend to be made well, or else!”

I could write paragraphs about the horrific implications of their egomaniacal political strategy/assault on the US Constitution and its religious freedoms, but that’s a blog for another day.

Today I want to make it a little more personal and just invite you to consider what routine exposure to men like this can do to women like me and, specifically, to our ability to relate to the God they compel us to worship. Because He’s not the God I know at all. My God isn’t cruel and oppressive and thirsty for blood. He’s not constantly telling me to shut up and know my role. He isn’t working overtime to strip me of my voice or lock me into legal contracts with my abuser. He’s not sitting up there in majesty determined to rub my face in my past shame or tether me to it as a personal identity. My God is slow to anger and abounding in love, full of grace and compassion and forgiveness. His doors are open. His arm is not too short to save even the furthest gone, which, of course, is a bit less likely to happen when we’re busy locking unbelievers in prison for their failure to subscribe to our belief system. And I would probably never know this good God if my only exposure to Him was through men who behave like the theobros do.

I’m a pretty battle hardened woman. I’m as fierce and unyielding as life has required me to be, and I’ve taken a lot of abuse from some pretty awful men in my 41 trips around the sun. Sometimes my tough exterior is confused for bitterness, when I’ve really just had to build up a few callouses around my emotions in order to keep from breaking in the work that I do advocating for women. And while I don’t speak for all women, I do think I’ve earned the right to say I speak for a lot of them, who, like me, have just had to suck it up and be tough and bold and unapologetic about our demands for justice.

But I’ll tell you a secret. Nothing breaks down my walls faster than a genuinely kind man who treats me with dignity. That’s all it takes. I’m putty at that point. I won’t compromise my convictions, but I’ll be a whole lot more likely to consider what you have to say. I’d venture to say that’s all most of us want, if we’re really honest. After my divorce was finalized, I actually made a physical list of qualities I would require in a future husband. Second on the list, right under “loves Jesus,” was “HE MUST BE KIND!” The Lord has been gracious to fulfill that request.

When I got knocked up out of wedlock, a genuinely kind man changed my life when he and his wife opened their home to me and put a roof over my head and a bit of hope in my heart. He wasn’t some musclebound culture warrior with a personal vendetta against feminism and a 12 page manifesto for defeating trashworld. He was a gentle man in a wheelchair whose Christlike love so permeated his entire being that not an ounce of him was afraid of the big bad Kaeley monster. He valued my perspective. He wept at my heartache. He believed in the possibility of my redemption. He made me feel worthy. There was nothing weak or timid or passive about him. He was just as genuinely kind as the day is long, and Lord knows I needed a little kindness.

As the good book says, “It is the goodness of the Lord that leads to repentance,” not the finger wagging threats of domineering tyrants.

I was reflecting on all of this this morning when a friend sent me a link to a Twitter exchange between tennis legend Martina Navratilova and Senator Ted Cruz, and I thought to myself, “This is going to be interesting.”

In the exchange, Martina was lamenting that, though she can’t stand Cruz, he was right about how awful it is for Democrats to allow male rapists to be housed in women’s prisons. If a theobro had been on the receiving end of this tweet, he would have inevitably mocked Martina as a Jezebellian heathen or rebuked her for her lifestyle. (Remember, in the theobro economy, any hint of lesbianism means instant incarceration!)

But Ted Cruz didn’t do this. In fact, he responded with an incredible amount of grace, and he honored both her dignity and her courage.

The exchange made me teary. It was such a stark contrast to the way the theobros behave. My soul is so hungry for this kind of honor. THIS is how we defeat “trash world.” I haven’t been following Cruz much lately, so don’t rain on my parade by telling me whatever thing he’s recently said or done that you feel negates this point. At least in this isolated instance, he behaved well, and it absolutely matters, especially to women who are used to being pushed around by bad men.

We’re about to enter Pride month, when the corporate world rakes in billions with vainglorious virtue signaling campaigns about being “kind,” which always make me roll my eyes a little bit because what they really mean by “kind” is “compliant or else.” It’s just another flavor of the theobros authoritarian formula for world domination, once against pitched as a form of righteousness in pursuit of the greater good. That’s not the version of kindness I’m talking about.

I am convinced that virtuous masculinity is the antidote to the toxic variety. The more dogmatically I see men cling to performative gender norms to define their masculinity, the less manly I tend to think they are. Virtuous masculinity is not defined by having a submissive wife, substantial muscles, an impressive gun collection, the strength to climb Everest, or the ability to lead the masses in a crusade to conquer Christendom.

Some of the manliest men I know are bookworms and artists who routinely use the power afforded to them in order to defend those who need their help.

What the world needs now are men who are secure enough in themselves to not be threatened by powerful women. We need men who prioritize the defense of the wounded above the defense of their own egos. We need men who can hear women speak about our trauma without centering themselves as the victims of a misandry campaign. We need men who recognize that the world suffers when its women are kept silent. We need men who understand that when God called Christians to take dominion, His weapon of choice was not a literal sword.

Want to see feminism eradicated? Do everything within your power to create a culture where women are treated with the kind of dignity and honor for which we were created. We’ve got a long way to go.

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