Does Following Jesus Mean Being a P*ssy?

Let’s be honest: a lot of men secretly wonder if following Jesus means becoming weak, soft, or less manly. Some even think being a Christian man makes you a pushover. But is that really the truth? In this episode of The Manhood Tribes Show, Don tackles the controversial question head-on: does following Jesus make you a “p*ssy”… or does it actually call you into a stronger, more courageous version of manhood?

We break down why modern culture — and even many churches — often portray Jesus as soft, meek, and fragile. But the real Jesus of the Gospels was anything but weak. He confronted corrupt authorities, spoke truth that sparked riots, endured brutal suffering with unshakable resolve, and sacrificed His life for the sake of others. That’s not weakness. That’s strength, courage, and manhood at its highest level.

If you’ve ever struggled with the idea that Christianity makes men passive, or wondered how following Jesus fits with being strong, bold, and respected, this conversation will give you a whole new vision of biblical masculinity. You’ll discover that Jesus was not only holy and humble — He was also fearless, powerful, and fiercely manly. Following Him doesn’t diminish your masculinity; it refines and elevates it.

Timestamps:
00:00 Does Following Jesus Make You Weak?
04:12 The Problem with the “Soft Jesus” Image
12:47 Confrontational, Bold, and Respected
21:05 Jesus’ Strength and Sacrifice
31:18 What True Christian Masculinity Looks Like

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Transcript

Don Ross: 0:00

Okay, let's just come out and say it. Some men think that following Jesus makes you into a p*ssy I know it's crass language. It feels more than a little bit irreverent to say it, but. It's an idea that's out there, and so we need to talk about it as men. There's a lot of us who carry that idea in the back of our heads, and so we need to actually address the fact that does being a follower of Jesus make me weak? Does it somehow make me soft or is what I'm supposed to be as a follower of Jesus? A man who is weak and soft and not thought of well by other men? Because honestly, I think a lot of men fear that that's what we're being asked to do if we're going to follow Jesus. My name's Don. I'm here with you on the Manhood Tribe Show, and we have been talking for the past several weeks now about this idea that Jesus is the man most worth following, but we're running into this problem. Which is that most of us, when we think about Jesus, don't really think of a man that we want to follow. We might think of a holy figure that we want to follow, a religious teacher that we want to follow, but we don't think of Jesus as a man that we want to follow. And for a lot of us, that stops us in our tracks. If we're gonna be honest, we want to be men. We want to be thought of as manly men, and if following Jesus causes us to have to compromise on that, for some of us, that's too much of a sacrifice. That's too much to ask. We're not willing to give that up. That might come in the form of. Uh, some things that our culture considers to be toxic, like wanting to chase around women, or wanting to be the guy who, you know, thinks a lot about his physique and how intimidating and aggressive he can be. Some of those things aren't necessarily good as men anyway, so it might be right for us to give those up. But in giving those things up, does it mean that like we can't be a man who wants to love a woman and be thought of as manly by women? Can it mean that we have to give up? Like pursuing having a really good physique and being strong and muscular, or even imposing a little bit with our physique? Does it mean that we have to give up some of those manly kinds of things that our culture considers to be manly and order to be a follower of Jesus? I don't think that it really does, but if you hang around churches, the picture that you're gonna get of Jesus is not of any of those things. So what do we do about that? Well, let's start by just being honest about where this idea of a weak soft Jesus came from. Where did we get that picture of him? We do see in the stories of Jesus that he is referred to at times as meek, as gentle, as mild, as lowly as a man acquainted with grief and suffering. So there, there is some of this picture of Jesus that is kind of down and out, um, a little bit on the like. Uh, softer side of the way that he dealt with relationships. He was humble and typically not confrontational. And so we just kind of see this like, you know, man who doesn't appear in any way to be like the bull in the China shop. Uh, he doesn't seem to be a ma, a man who pushes his weight around to get his way. He doesn't seem to be a man that, you know, tries to be intimidating. And yet at the same time. We do see a man who is fiercely respected, a man whose followers very desperately wanted to be like him and hung on every word that he had to say. We also see a man who regularly got himself into trouble, who wasn't afraid to use words that he knew were either going to. Pick a fight with the authorities around him or really anger the people around him in a way that they not only like were upset with him, but even at times tried to kill him. This was a guy who seems like he didn't always choose his words wisely, although of course we know he was choosing his words wisely. It just meant that for him, choosing his words wisely was also a very aggressive thing to do. He would pick a fight and do it on purpose. This was a guy who wasn't really like. Just meek and mild and soft and weak. This was a guy who was sort of like aggressive and confrontational and probably came across as a little bit arrogant or self diluted, or, you know, even at times, like he knew better than everybody else did, or somehow that he was right and everybody else was wrong. These are pictures that we rarely, if ever hear about Jesus. But the people in Jesus' day, maybe, and especially the ones who weren't his followers, this was very definitely the impression that they had of him. Jesus was their antagonist. He was the guy that was kind of seen as the enemy. He was the one they were trying to put down. He was seen as starting a rebellion. He was seen as a rioter and as a leader of rebels. This is not the kind of guy that sounds like soft and weak and meek and mild like. That leads a rebellion. Nah, not the same kind of guy, and yet that's exactly who Jesus was. He was contrary to a lot of these ideas that we have of him. But those ideas, even though that they are in the scriptures, they're probably even more commonly in our pictures and in our images and our artwork and our film, all of our depictions of Jesus, especially in the modern West, in the English speaking world in particular. Tend to be pictures of Jesus that paint him with very soft lighting and flowing hair, and he's often holding sheep or walking through some countryside with sweet, innocent children. He, you know, very delicately puts his hand or his arm on women. He tilts his head in a way that makes him look soft. All of these things are the. Images that we have of Jesus. And so it's no wonder that our just kind of like common perception of Jesus is of a man who is uh, just sort of soft and sweet. But again, the pictures of Jesus that actually come from the stories about him are anything but that. It's our art and our. Imagery that have depicted him in that way and have failed to depict him in all the other ways that he shows up in those same stories that can make him seem as a more well-rounded man as a fully fledged person who actually lived and had a real life and wasn't just this like idealized, almost cartoonish religious leader figure. Jesus was a man and he lived as a man and like a man. He did manly things and he interacted with people in ways that really only men would do. So when we think about the kind of life that Jesus lived and therefore the kind of life that we not only need to live but can live, it is a life that is very manly. It's okay to be a follower of Jesus who picks a fight every once in a while, especially if it's a fight for the right reasons. If you're standing up for the things that Jesus would stand up for, then maybe a fight is what's necessary. It's okay to be a man who represents manly qualities like strength, and courage and honor because Jesus represented all of those things. Jesus was a strong man. We've talked about that on this channel a lot before. How he had the physicality to endure not only miles and miles of walking and lots and lots of fasting or limited food, but he had the physicality to endure his own death to carry the cross. To his own death and then to proceed with it in a way that he didn't cry out. He didn't seem weak in the way that he suffered, but he went through it in a way that was probably more manly and more strong than most of us would be able to do. He showed tremendous courage in the face of not only the religious oppression of his day and the political occupation and oppression of his day, but in the spiritual realm as well, where he dealt regularly with spiritual powers who were against him, and he stood toe to toe with them and defeated them. This was a man who was not afraid of standing for the right things and exercising power when it was the right thing to do, to be able to set other people free. He didn't exercise power in a way to be able to put others down. He exercised power in a way to lift them up, to liberate them from things that were evil so that they could live the kind of life that they were always meant to live. These are the kinds of things that as a man you are called to do. If you follow Jesus, you have a strength to be able to offer. Jesus gives you gifts that he wants you to use, not simply to serve others, but to make the world better through the gifts that you have been given. To bring about creativity and ingenuity and imagination and making the world a better place for others. These are the ways that he gives you gifts and expects you to use them. Following Jesus doesn't make you a pussy, following Jesus asks you to be a man, and especially in the way that Jesus most modeled it, which is that he gave up his life for the sake of others. In our culture today, the way that we talk about men is often those who try to use their strength and their power to be able to benefit themselves. They build up their biceps and work on their six pack abs so that they can increase their body count or they work on their career so that they can just make more money to be able to buy more flashy cars and bigger houses. Right. These are the kinds of things that we promote within our society for what it means to be a man. But Jesus modeled a really different idea about masculinity, that having those things wasn't bad. Being strong and being courageous was actually a good thing. Using those things to be able to continue to gain was a totally fine thing to do. But you gained for the sake of being able to help others and to sacrifice for them so that they could be lifted up as well. Jesus sacrificed his own life, and that's what he calls us as men to as well. He calls us to die. Sometimes, literally, probably more often metaphorically, but he's calling us to sacrifice ourselves for the sake of others. Real men give themselves up so that others might benefit, and that's what following Jesus as a man actually looks like. Now if you've enjoyed this episode, and I know it was meant to be a little controversial, but I hope it sparked some things for you. I hope that you will like this episode and subscribe to the channel to be able to get more content like this and to help us get this kind of content in front of other men who, other men who need to hear it as well. I also hope that you will go and check out a free resource that I have for you called How Manly are You? It's a great way to just assess how you're doing as a man and what are some of the ways that you can continue to grow and improve. So go check it out@manhoodtribes.com slash manly and you can download that quiz for free today. Now, if you liked this episode, I would love to hear what you think of it. What is one way that you think Jesus is a man that you would like to imitate? Put that down in the comments below and I will look forward to engaging with what you have to say. And then I will see you again here next time on the Manhood Tribe Show. I'll talk to you then.