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{"id":2354,"date":"2012-07-05T13:03:03","date_gmt":"2012-07-05T18:03:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frenchrevolution\/?p=2354"},"modified":"2012-07-05T13:04:08","modified_gmt":"2012-07-05T18:04:08","slug":"are-we-becoming-a-nation-of-cowards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/frenchrevolution\/2012\/07\/05\/are-we-becoming-a-nation-of-cowards\/","title":{"rendered":"Are We Becoming a Nation of Cowards?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Over at NRO<\/a>, I read about the sad and ugly denouement of the Penn State football scandal \u2014 the scandal where a former football player didn\u2019t have the courage to seize an elderly child rapist he caught in the act, where a football legend didn\u2019t have the courage to even ban an old friend from campus, and where administrators looked the other way rather than confront ugly truths. \u00a0It\u2019s just one story, yes, but there are many other stories.<\/p>\n

$\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n

We have a cultural \u201celite\u201d that doesn\u2019t merely shun wartime military service (\u201cshunning\u201d would at least indicate they gave it a moment\u2019s thought), the possibility never even crosses their mind. \u00a0And so, in a nation of more than 300 million, far fewer than 1% have risked life and limb in our fight against a great evil.<\/p>\n

As the Catholic Church stands united against the HHS mandate, filing lawsuit after lawsuit, vanishingly few Protestant institutions \u2014 in a land where Protestants far outnumber Catholics \u2014 have done anything more than issue strongly-worded statements. \u00a0\u201c We\u2019re all Catholics now<\/a>?\u201d \u00a0Hardly. \u00a0If we were all Catholics now, the Obama administration would confront a true tidal wave of litigation and opposition.<\/p>\n

On an individual basis I speak again and again with Christians who refuse to take action to protect religious liberty and to preserve the integrity of the Gospel \u2014 not out of principle but out of fear, fear of lost worldly reputation, fear of lost ministry jobs, and fear of rejection. \u00a0We\u2019ve lost more religious liberty battles through surrender than we ever have in court.<\/p>\n

When it comes to our personal lives, the numbers simply do not lie. \u00a0We are incapable of denying ourselves virtually any pleasure \u2014 from the food that makes us fat to the sexual indulgences that lead to abortion and illegitimacy, to the easy and cheap divorce that cauterizes the wounds of a failing relationship \u2014 we want what we want when we want it (and may the government facilitate our desires and mitigate the consequences).<\/p>\n

Too many of us substitute real virtue for virtuous thoughts, thinking that holding uncompromising political beliefs makes them better than their friends and neighbors even though they actually behave no differently than the people they despise.<\/p>\n

Of course there is still courage that comes from America \u2014 I\u2019ve seen it with my own eyes in the deserts of Iraq \u2014 and we may ultimately have enough courage to muddle through this dark and dismal period of our cultural history, when we have institutionalized the slaughter of children to facilitate our sexual appetites, but I increasingly fear that we\u2019re losing virtues that we won\u2019t regain until, like the children of Israel, we are confronted with the consequences of our own sin.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m writing in large part not just to decry the trends I see all around me but also to chastise myself. \u00a0How many times have I taken the easy road rather than the right road? \u00a0How many times have I given in to self-indulgence and modeled not courage but expedience and perhaps even cowardice? \u00a0Yesterday I wrote about the greatness of our nation<\/a>, but that greatness is fragile \u2014 as fragile as my own character, and that is very fragile indeed.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"