The Murder Of Renee Good Is An Apocalyptic Moment

The murder of Renee Good is an apocalyptic moment that reveals difficult truths for white American Christians. Here’s how to respond in faith.

Hands holding candles at nighttime vigil — The murder of Renee Good is an apocalyptic moment revealing difficult truths for white Americans. Here’s how Christians can respond. Photo by Nahmad Hassan on Pexels.

The murder of Renee Good – an apocalyptic moment

The word apokalypsis in Greek literally means, “pulling back the veil.” The murder of Renee Good is pulling back the veil for white Christians in America. It’s the veil that the fascist cabal currently in power has used to obscure the truth about its ideology and intentions.

When white people see a white, Christian stay-at-home mother shot in cold blood by a uniformed thug who calls her a “f-ing bitch” after the shots are fired, the veil falls.

Now we know.

It was never about making America great again. It wasn’t about protecting white people from people of color. And it was never about making the country safe.

All of this was the Trojan horse that we as white people willingly brought into our minds, our algorithms, and our government.

That Trojan horse was filled with a seething, gun-draped swarm of white men steeped in woman-hating, Black-hating xenophobia weaponized by obscenely wealthy white men to impose their fascist will on this country.

Christians who read their Bible should recognize the many scriptural figures who identified and confronted the Trojan horses of their time obscured by a veil of nationalist imperialism.

The Hebrew prophets Isaiah, Ezekiel, Micah, and Amos each condemned their own nation of Israel as well as other nations that imposed dominance, exploited others, and oppressed marginalized peoples.

Mary the Mother of Jesus sang of God overturning the imperial world order.

Jesus proclaimed liberation for the oppressed and challenged both religious and secular imperial forces.

Paul subverted the Roman Empire and the religious elites who enabled domination.

And John’s Revelation used symbolic coded language to call out Rome as well as the churches that failed to stand up to the imperial order.

Christians should also recognize Jan. 7, 2026, as an apocalyptic moment because the murder of Renee Good in Minneapolis, MN, forces white people to see a deeper reality that we have refused to acknowledge.

For the first time in this generation, white folks can now see what Black folks, immigrants, and Native Americans have known since the first white settlers stepped foot on this land and plotted to take it for their own enrichment, using slaves and then immigrant labor to do so.

Wealthy white men believe – and have convinced middle class and poor white people to believe – that they are better than the rest of the world. They think they are smarter, more cultured, and better bred than any other race, gender, or nation. And they believe they are ordained by God to make the decisions, order the society, and take over the world.

This belief is, in a word, fascism.

Stop Fascism, written on palms — Stopping fascism will require all of us, regardless of religion, race, culture, gender, and sexual orientation. Photo by Ivan S on Pexels.com.

In 1945, the War Department distributed a pamphlet to military personnel fighting the Nazi regime in Europe. Titled “FASCISM!”, the document explained that fascism “is government by the few and for the few. The objective is seizure and control of the economic, political, social, and cultural life of the state.” Further, “The people run democratic governments, but fascist governments run the people.” (See: Letters from an American, Heather Cox Richardson, Jan. 9, 2026.)

Fascists “make their own rules and change them when they choose…. They maintain themselves in power by use of force combined with propaganda based on primitive ideas of ‘blood’ and ‘race,’ by skillful manipulation of fear and hate, and by false promise of security. The propaganda glorifies war and insists it is smart and ‘realistic’ to be pitiless and violent.”

The pamphlet warned that there were already fascist groups within America and that they would continue their attempts to gain power by pitting minority groups against each other and seizing control behind the scenes.

Eighty years later, this is exactly what has happened.

The white techno-oligarchy successfully convinced middle class and poor white people to fear, fight, and freeze out people of color. All the while, this tiny elitist group infiltrated the media, corporations, and government to extract unimaginable riches. And as historian Heather Cox Richardson has explained (minute mark 5:09), it is now imperative that we use the word fascism to accurately describe the current administration.

The murder of Renee Good converges with the illegal extraction of a Venezuelan’s leader and subsequent seizure of Venezuela’s oil for Trump’s own offshore accounts. Her murder coincides with threatening other countries, including NATO allies. The killing of Renee Goodman also overlaps with the scandal of the Epstein files, shielding these white, wealthy men who for decades paid to rape children.

And now white people are seeing their government openly lie about the shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis to justify the state murder of a citizen exercising her constitutional rights.

Do you see the veil now?

The veil is a white airbag soaked with the red blood of a 37-year-old white woman who was a poet and a peacemaker. “I’m not mad at you,” she said to her murderer before he opened fire when she tried to drive away.

W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, 1903.

W. E. B. Du Bois saw the veil in 1903 when he wrote The Souls of Black Folk. He said that the veil is a “dark curtain” through which Black people are seen but not fully understood or accepted. The veil symbolizes the literal and figurative separation between Black and white Americans. It represents a barrier that obscures Black Americans’ visibility and humanity in white society.

“Between me and the other world there is ever an unasked question:… How does it feel to be a problem? … One ever feels this veil of race, this shadow of difference,” Du Bois wrote (Chapter One, “Of Our Spiritual Strivings”).

Up until now, middle class and poor white people never thought of themselves as “a problem.”

The veil hid the truth.

That truth is what black homiletician James Henry Harris calls the “Black Suffering Principle” in which the “extreme Otherness” of the Black person “constitutes an ontological negation of being within the mind of the dominant culture” (Black Suffering: Silent Pain, Hidden Hope, 34).

So, if a Black person has the audacity to believe they can exist with equality in that culture, they will be disenfranchised, red-lined, and even murdered by the state. Many white people have accepted this as the price of the veil.

And if an immigrant has the nerve to enter this nation with the hope that they can escape the violence, poverty, and climate disasters in their own country, they will be rounded up, kidnapped, sent to concentration camps, and even murdered by the state. Again, many white people accept this as the price of the veil.

But when a white, Christian woman with stuffed animals in her vehicle’s glove compartment dares to care about Black people and immigrants and blow a whistle to alert them to the secret police in their neighborhood, she will be murdered by the state.

Suddenly, the price of the veil is too high.

I’ve seen white women like me – and white men – write on social media posts about the way this murder hit them.

“That could be me. I could be next.”

It’s a damn shame that it took the murder of a white woman for us to realize the truth.

Not even your whiteness will protect you from the white, wealthy, hyper-militarized christofascist state.

Yet as white people are waking up to this, the state is trying to gaslight and outright lie to seize control of the narrative.

She had it coming.

Internet trolls and right-wing talking heads have advanced the trope that has always worked to justify male rage: blame the woman for her abuse, or rape, or death at their hands.

“She had it coming. F-ing bitch.”

Now that the veil is gone, the vice president himself has staked his claim in the fascist narrative. Speaking to reporters in the White House briefing room, J.D. Vance said that the murder of Renee Good was “a tragedy of her own making and a tragedy of the far left who has marshaled an entire movement — a lunatic fringe — against our law enforcement officers.”

To put it another way: She had it coming. Crazy bitch.

Only she wasn’t crazy. She was caring. And she wasn’t a bitch. She was “a Christian who knew that all religions teach the same essential truth: we are here to love each other, care for each other, and keep each other safe and whole,” said Becca Good about her wife in a statement to Minneapolis Public Radio.

How does it feel, my fellow white folk, to now be a problem?

Now that we are finally waking up to the pathologies of a fascist empire? Now that we are realizing what we have done, the evil that we have allowed to be unleashed, the horrors our silence has enabled?

The truth is that if you dare to care about your fellow human beings who are not white, wealthy men – murdering you is justified.

If you exercise your Constitutional right to free speech, this is now a crime that is punishable by death, even if you are white.

If you dare to question white, cisgender, heterosexual dominance, you do not deserve to exist.

You asked for it. Bitch.

The murder of Renee Good, in conjunction with the thousands of other actions taken over the last year, has made it clear that the Trump administration has fully embraced the same fascism that American soldiers fought to defeat 80 years ago.

So, what are you going to do about it?

The question now is, as the late great Joe Madison put it: What are you going to do about it? Madison, a Black activist and radio show host, repeatedly challenged people to take responsibility and engage actively with social and political issues rather than remain passive. He urged his listeners and audiences to act personally and collectively to take meaningful action for positive change.

What are you going to do? Daniel Ch. 3 — What are you going to do about it? Daniel Ch. 3

For her part, Richardson consistently encourages her readers and listeners to do two things: act locally and demand accountability from elected leaders.

Act locally.

The local level of politics and community action is where change can happen the quickest.

Find the interreligious, diverse justice groups in your area that are working to challenge politics at the local level.
Run for office.
Show up for school board meetings.
Follow the instructions of leaders of color, show up for justice, put your body on the line, and stand up for your neighbors.
Record and livestream what the fascist thugs are doing. This rips the veil off the Trojan horse and shows the truth.

Demand accountability from elected leaders.

Now more than ever, elected leaders at the state level and in Congress need to hear from the public that there is no support for Trump’s fascism.

Call out Democrats who are not being vocal enough or working together to do everything to stop this.
Press on Republicans to break from Trump and side with American democracy.
Especially if you are white, tell them that you are a white person who will not stand with them in this fascist takeover of our country. Tell them that you, as white person, are appalled at what you are seeing. And not just the murder of Renee Good, but the murder, rendition, and stripping of rights from every immigrant, Black person, Native American, woman, and other vulnerable people they are targeting.

Also tell them that this is not about Democrats and Republicans and Independents. It’s not about progressives and conservatives and libertarians. It’s about ridding our country of anti-American fascists who are systematically and ruthlessly destroying American democracy and people’s lives in this country.

If you are a Christian, draw on your faith to compel you into faithful action.

Christians have the biblical, theological, and ethical mandate to respond to the prophetic gospel of Jesus and follow his teachings. So, take up your cross and follow Him.

If you are a Christian calling on your elected leaders, tell them that your faith compels you to speak out on behalf of Renee Good and the immigrant neighbors she was trying to protect.
Organize with other Christians – especially Christians of color, as well as folks of other faiths — to call out and bring down christofascism.
If you are a Christian minister, preach to educate and encourage your listeners to put their faith into action for the ones Jesus loved and with whom he aligned himself – “the least of these” (Matt. Ch. 25). As we are heading into Lent, I’ve written a series on how preachers can address Christian Nationalism based on passages in the Revised Common Lectionary (see posts below). And here are Lenten worship resources from Wisconsin Council of Churches: https://www.wichurches.org/articles/repenting-from-cn.

“Show them a better way.”

At the conclusion of her public statement, Becca Good said that she will raise their son teaching him, as Renee believed, “there are people building a better world for him. That the people who did this had fear and anger in their hearts, and we need to show them a better way.”

This is what all of us – white, Black, Latiné, Asian, African, Native American, gay, straight, trans, cis – must do as well. We must live out the values that unite us, the values that Renee Good believed in: “Rejecting hate and choosing compassion, turning away from fear and pursuing peace, refusing division and knowing we must come together to build a world where we all come home safe to the people we love.”