To defend the conjugal understanding of marriage and traditional ideas about sexuality and morality is to be accused of “ hatred ” by people on one side of the political divide today . To welcome the migrant and the refugee is to court being accused of disloyalty to your country by some on the other side . To stand up for the sanctity of human life in all stages and conditions , beginning with the defense of the precious and vulnerable child in the womb , is to risk being labeled a “ misogynist .” To speak out for religious freedom and the rights of conscience is to invite being smeared as a “ bigot .”
It is not pleasant to be subjected to these types of abuse and defamation . And these days , it goes well beyond unpleasantness . To speak moral truth to cultural power is to put at risk one ’ s social standing , one ’ s educational and employment opportunities , one ’ s professional advancement ; it is to place in jeopardy treasured friendships and sometimes even family relationships . And the more people , in reaction to these threats , acquiesce or go silent , the more dangerous and therefore more difficult it becomes for anyone to speak the truth out loud , even if they know it in their hearts . Anyone who succumbs to the intimidation and bullying — anyone who acquiesces or goes silent out of fear — not only harms his or her own character and fails in his or her Christian duty to bear faithful witness to truth , he or she also makes things harder for others . We owe it not only to ourselves to be courageous , but to our brothers and sisters too . And because we owe it to ourselves and others , we owe it to God .
Our own worst selves are our unvirtuous selves . Our own worst selves are [ ourselves ] when we lack the self-mastery that possession of the virtues — including the virtue of courage — makes possible . Our own worst selves are slaves — not to alien masters , but to our own weaknesses and wayward desires . Our own worst selves are what we are encouraged by so much of our culture today to be . When we are our own worst selves , what we seek are ephemeral and ultimately meaningless things , such as pleasure , status , social acceptability , wealth , power , celebrity — things that are not bad in themselves , since they can be used for good ends , but things that are not good in themselves , either . And they can lure us into supposing that — and acting as if — they were . When we are our own worst selves , we fail in our duty to bear faithful witness because a desire for ephemeral things and a fear of losing them paralyzes us . When we are our own worst selves , we lead lives that are marked by those vices against which Solzhenitsyn railed forty years ago : materialism , consumerism , self-indulgence , narcissism . We place the focus on
“ We live [ in ] a time of great moral confusion . What is good . . . has been redefined as bad . What is bad
. . . has been redefined as good .”
doing as we please , no matter what we please , getting what we want , no matter what it is we happen to want . Instead of seeking what is true because it ’ s true , what is good because it ’ s good , what is right because it ’ s right , we seek what we desire , for no better reason than our happening to desire it ; indeed , we fall into the profound moral and philosophical error of imagining that the human good consists in the satisfaction of human desires .
Thus it is that we rationalize our failing to behave like rational creatures — creatures blessed with the powers of reason and freedom — and our behaving instead like brute animals , slaves of our passions . By definition , slaves to passions can never be masters of themselves ; and no one who lacks self-mastery can practice and exemplify the virtue of courage . Courage always presupposes a willingness to sacrifice oneself for others or for something higher ; someone who is not master of himself , someone who cannot rise above his own wants , desires , and passions , can never give himself to , or live for , others , or give himself to , or live for , something higher . Self-mastery is a precondition of the willingness and ability to live self-sacrificially . One cannot give oneself to others if one is not first master of oneself . Lacking selfmastery , one simply has nothing to give .
The Christian story is all about self-giving , self-sacrificial living — and dying . God Himself sends His only begotten Son to us , in our sinfulness , to be our Redeemer and Savior by a supreme act of self-sacrificial love . We , as disciples of Jesus , are to model our lives on His , emptying and sacrificing ourselves for others . Bearing witness to truth , no matter the cost .
I have suggested that Solzhenitsyn saw a connection between the decline of courage and a loss of faith . Five years after his Harvard address , in a 1983 speech accepting the Templeton Prize in Religion , he stated this in the most explicit terms . The title of the speech could not have made the point more clearly . That title was “ Men Have Forgotten God .”
Thirty-five years later , who can deny the truth of Solzhenitsyn ’ s lament ? Today , the cultured despisers of Christianity and Judeo-Christian values do not speak of communism or its ideals — communism having been discredited by Soviet gangsterism . They speak instead of “ liberation ” or of “ equality ,” by which they seek to marginalize and stigmatize the principles of Judeo-Christian morality and justify acts and practices that contravene those principles . And they are certainly aggressive — moving , to cite just one of many examples , from the legalization of abortion , to the demand
12 THE RENEWANATION REVIEW