The greatest danger of Secularism in the political arena is not that it will encourage radicals, but that it will discourage the average. The simple fact of the matter, when we study human nature, is that people are, by nature, cowards. People are cowardly cowards who do cowardly things. And, of course, when I say cowardly, I don’t mean that people are inherently risk averse. I think the data are rather fuzzy on that count. Rather, I mean that when people are demanded, by circumstances personal or impersonal, to choose between the risk of personal harm or doing a thing that violates their consciences, almost all people will, by nature, choose to save their own skin.
Courage is not a virtue that exists in hyperabundance. Nor is it, ironically, one that is particularly durable. Courage needs to be inculcated and affirmed and reaffirmed and nurtured. It is, indeed, a virtue but it is one that can be abandoned for the vice of cowardice. And lest we think that cowardice is anything less than vicious, we need only look at places like 1790s France or 1930s Germany or Russia or 1980s Columbia or contemporary Russia to understand that most people really just want to survive and they will do almost anything to so do.
The best way to get a Police-State or a Narco-State or a Kleptocracy is by having a populace full of cowards. A body-politic full of people who love safety (or at least the trappings thereof…or if not that then having the ability to delude oneself into thinking one can make oneself more secure by denouncing someone, or choosing plata over plomo) more than they love their own honor or justice or morality is a surefire way of getting a nightmare of a nation.
Secularism’s danger isn’t that it has made us a nation which scoffs at the holy and derides the good and dwells in the dank caves of intellectual incoherence. The danger of Secularism isn’t that in professing its wisdom it has become foolish. Secularism’s danger isn’t how it’s infiltrated the church and manipulated the American Christian worldview such that we view things not through the lens of the revealed Word of God and the inner witness of the Spirit, but with eyes wide shut, imagining the great Babel towers being erected in honor of Science. All those things are dangers, and they are dangers with eternal consequences that are, actually, just as, if not more important than the danger of which I now speak.
I speak instead of the danger of a nation of cowards who will say or do anything to survive. Such a nation will denounce their neighbors. Such a nation will support thought-police. Such a nation will idly tolerate concentration camps. Such a nation will yell and scream their way through the Two Minutes Hate, desperately trying to convince themselves that they really do hate the traitors who are undermining Big Brother and desperately hoping that nobody notices that they don’t really believe that these folk really are undermining Big Brother.
It’s not the torturer who scares me – though I don’t think I’d flourish in a prison environment – but the Public Health functionary, the City Clerk cipher, the Average Joe father of three with a boat and 2 dogs who scares me. Because these are the people who aren’t sociopaths, who aren’t misanthropes, who aren’t ideologues – but they most certainly can be made into torturers and with the right pressure these people will one day denounce the Limiters and the next day denounce the Wreckers without a second thought about the incoherence of such a position. People like this are why Stalin and Saddam Hussein get insanely long standing-ovations – who would want the be the first to stop clapping…the first to sit down.
Proverbs 21:8 says that “The wicked flee, thou no one pursues, but the righteous are as bold as a lion.”
This is one of the more important obscure passages of the Bible because it illustrates a point which is vitally important – not only are true-believers often the most loyal, but it matters very much in what you are a true believer. Yes there are Muslim martyrs. But Islam permits Taqiya. It’s OK to lie about being a Muslim if it will save your life and allow you to continue serving Allah and Islam and forwarding and continuing Jihad. Don’t die as a Shahid unless you can take a lot more infidels with you! But Jesus is SOOOOOOO nit-picky on this point. It’s rather tiresome that Jesus DOESN’T give His followers carte blanche to lie and deny Him before men. Jesus, being the prude He is, demands people live lives of integrity and they be open and honest about their beliefs and loyalties always and everywhere – as though we were to be like Him…
Moreover, real faith in God comes not only with the moral impetus and the Dominical commands to not be cowards, as well as the warnings of eternal damnation for cowards, but Jesus promises Divine Aid and Intervention for the true believer. The Holy Spirit will speak for the Christian on trial – in fact, Christians are told NOT to plan out their defenses, but to rely on the Holy Spirit who will speak. It would be counterproductive, Jesus says, for a Christian on trial for her faith to plan out what she should say – she should, instead, entrust herself to God – as though Christianity were an act of faith in the Person of Jesus Christ.
And, naturally, this courage doesn’t only come at times of direct and unequivocal persecution, but in times of common evil. The leonine audacity Solomon speaks of is not only pertinent in persecution but in all times where integrity is integral. What American politics needs, more than anything, in the coming years, is not visionary leaders, but people with the courage to act with integrity and not be swept along with the tides of radicalism and authoritarian religious atheism (Wokeism).
Our choices are to choose courage and witness our people reaffirm and correct the ills of society. Or we can choose cowardice and witness with disillusion the dissolution and dissolution that are plaguing our Union and its young people, in particular.
Let me be clear. Sin never makes anyone braver. Yielding to temptation makes us weaker at every step. I’ve lived life giving in to temptation – its fruit is bitter. Only righteousness can make us braver. And boy do we need bravery. But I fear that unless there is a revival in this country, we can say, Bon Voyage Courage.