Extremism in Defense of Christianity is Vice, Apathy is No Virtue

Barry Goldwater said: “Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice.”

He lost and he was wrong.

I once heard a youth pastor say: “We need to be radical for Jesus.”

He lost the group and he was wrong.

Whatever Goldwater meant by the phrase, he should not have used it, because extremism is always bad. Too much of a good thing . . . say water. . . leads to the good thing becoming a bad thing as any drowning man knows. Whatever the youth pastor meant, “selling out” for Jesus does not mean becoming lunatic.

I am reminded of this, because lately good people have been telling me America or the Church or both could use a good dose of American or Christian extremism.

God forbid.

We are all sick of the graft, compromise, and lies of our leaders in politics and (too often!) the church. Our politicians say one thing to be elected and then become bloated on graft and lose any moral compass. Our Christian schools raise money from the right and then teach to the left. Our Christian heroes have ghostwritten books full of lies done for sales and the entire Christian media complex is full of Elmer Gantrys selling us product they know is second rate.

To compensate for weakness, compromise, and lies, the temptation is to embrace extremism. Blow it all up. Nothing could be worse. Call this Christian nihilism.

Politicizing a terrorist attack with a call for gun control is foolishness, but so is developing such a gun fetish that we allow them in dorms with college students. Liberty University students may face a hundreds to one professor to student ratio, but if they live on campus they will be near an eighteen year old with a gun. Parents should consider whether the odds are greater that a terrorist will attack a dorm or an irresponsible student will use a gun on himself or others. Americans should reject unconstitutional limits on their right to bear arms and turning this prudent check to tyranny into a sacrament. We own guns, because we must in a broken world, not because any Christian rejoices in armed conflict.

Extremism always ends in loving a good thing too much and gets power from promoting that good thing. Critics of the extremist are asked: “Are you opposing the good thing?” Meanwhile, the extremist turns the good thing into simething foolish or odious.

We should want our families to be safe, but the extremist desires total safety. On the Left, there are cries for “safe spaces” from hard words and intellectual challenge. On the right, real fears of terrorism are blown out of proportion and we refuse other good things in the quest for perfect safety.

Moderation or prudence, a great theme of the Biblical book of Titus, is lost. Be warned: those who posture as zealots for God often become tyrants or grifters: lording it over other Christians with their “purity” or growing rich selling ever more inflammatory products.

But how could we love the Christian God too much? Surely, He is all good. Can we love too much when the object of that love is God?

Yes. We can.

How?

We are human creatures and not gods. We eat, sleep, and live our lives. I once knew a man who refused to listen to any music that was not overtly Christian. I wondered what music he used to woo his wife. He allowed the “better” thing to destroy his need for the normal thing as if he was divine.

Aren’t we to love the Lord with all our hearts? We certainly should. We should love Him prudently with all our hearts. Every love should be submitted to Him, but there is a time for every love. The false dilemma that to love God must either be extreme or be nothing leads a few to become zealots and many to become cold. Instead, we must constantly submit to God, but checking our zeal even for Him with moderation lest our zeal for God destroy our ability to know God.

Just as the right-to-life zealot can end up a murderer, so the Christian zealot can become unloving and harsh.

The answer to apathy is courage and moderation. The answer to fear is love. The answer to Islamic extremists are prudent Christians. My grandparents generation knew this fact. They did not worship the loud mouth bully-boy, but the quiet man of resolve. They rejected, by and large, the flamboyant politicians who promised them more and stuck to the middle ground. They admired the doer, the prudent. We laughed at George H.W. Bush for his out of touch phrase “wouldn’t be prudent” when I was younger . . . but we could use a dash of GHWB’s prudence just now.

In politics, the path of prudence eschews extremism or Utopian idealism: do what I say and perfection will come. The same is true in Christianity: beware the guy or gal with all the answers or who wants to tear down all the old ways, mock manners, and make the world anew.

Christian revolutionaries with their new ideas about education, courtship, or life can be as deadly as secular revolutionaries. Avoid both, but for all that is holy also avoid (flee from!) the tedious, the safe, the Babbitt.

This is harder. We are called to read the Bible, pray, practice charity, serve God, love our neighbor, do justice. We must love our enemies and also protect our families.  How can we do all these things? How can we be pious without ignoring our family? How can we love our family without becoming selfish? How do we draw boundaries without becoming selfish? The virtue that God must give us is prudence. We avoid zealotry and apathy.

We love God prudently, never to get praise from the establishment, but because that is the best way to love. We reject too much emotionalism and dry intellectualism. We will be moderate.

This is much harder. Most drift into amusement comas while a few wake up only to scream constantly. The virtuous refuse to be drugged in either direction: we reject artificial relaxants and stimulants for being prudent.

Prudence in love with liberty will protect her best. Moderation in religious service will be make a solid Christian.