By nature, women are often celebrated as the patient ones. They endure, they nurture, they weather storms of frustration with a quiet resilience that men, in our louder moments, might envy. Road rage, barroom brawls, or the dramatic fling of a golf club into a pond—these are not stereotypically feminine outbursts.
Women have their own ways of wrestling with anger, and they’re worth exploring. But today, I’m drawn to a different trend: the simmering, sometimes explosive frustration I see among Christian men online, a restlessness that feels both new and ancient, personal and collective.
Coyote Killing
Let’s talk about coyotes, that scrappy survivor of the American wild. Biologists tell us something fascinating about these creatures: they thrive under pressure. Kill a few, and the population doesn’t just rebound—it surges. Females breed earlier, litters swell, and suddenly the nuisance you thought you’d dispatched is back with a vengeance.
It’s called compensatory breeding, a kind of biological defiance that turns a hunting rifle into a boomerang. Coyotes aren’t wolves, mind you; they’re manageable with a sturdy fence or a loyal farm dog. Yet we keep shooting, and they keep multiplying.
I can’t help but see a parallel in the digital spaces where Christian men roam today. Scroll through Twitter/X or skim the comments under a pastor’s latest sermon, and you’ll find a pack of us snarling over everything—politics, yes, but also the minutiae of liturgy, the phrasing of a prayer, the offhand remark of a fellow believer.
It’s as if the algorithm has sniffed out our agitation and turned it into a feedback loop: the more we fight, the more there is to fight about. The pandemic’s lingering unease, the churn of partisan trench warfare, the hum of social unrest—it’s all kindling for a fire that doesn’t seem to know how to burn out.
Hunt Less, Rest More
This isn’t to say there’s nothing worth defending. The faith demands vigilance; truth deserves champions. But there’s a difference between standing firm and picking every hill to die on. I’ve watched men I admire—thoughtful, accomplished, godly—descend into a kind of virtual road rage, their keyboards clattering.
And I wonder: Are we simply killing coyotes, breeding more conflict the more we’re provoked? Or have we simply forgotten the patience the Scriptures commends to men?
Take James, the brother of Jesus, who wrote with a bluntness that cuts through our noise:
My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. (James 1:19-20, NIV).
There’s a rhythm here—listen first, speak second, rage last (if at all)—that feels countercultural in an age of instant takes and endless threads.
Or consider Paul, admonishing Timothy:
Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels. And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. (2 Timothy 2:23-24).
Not quarrelsome. Kind. Able to teach. These aren’t just pastoral tips; they’re a blueprint for a masculinity that doesn’t need to shout to be strong.
Ignore the Coyotes
The coyote doesn’t win by outmuscling the rancher—it endures, it adapts, it waits. There’s a lesson there for us. The Christian man’s strength isn’t in the volume of his outrage or the speed of his retort, but in the quiet confidence that God’s justice and grace don’t need our tantrums to prevail.
“Cease striving and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10 NASB)
The coyotes will keep breeding, and the controversies will keep coming. But we don’t have to keep shooting.
So what if we stepped back? What if we fenced off our digital pastures, not with silence, but with discernment—letting the small stuff scamper away while we guard what truly matters? The algorithm might not like it.
