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Fake Courage, Real Cowardice
BY Mark Shea June 1-7, 2008 Issue |
Posted 5/27/08 at 5:42 PM
Item:
At the kickoff for the 40 Days for Life in Seattle, a number of pro-abortion
thugs occupied the parking lot of the University of Washington Newman Center
and screamed some slogans on behalf of baby-killing.
Finally,
one of the priests at the Newman Center — as gentle and kindly-spoken a man as
you could possibly imagine — went out to the parking lot to inform the
screamers that they were on private property and needed to move to the
sidewalk.
One
of the protesters screamed in his face, “You don’t intimidate me!”
What
courage to stand up to a meek priest like that!
Item: “Cold Case”
recently did a hard-hitting drama on a contemporary problem of … Christian
abstinence groups stoning backsliders. To watch the program you would think the
problem is huge, and that it always takes guts to face down those legions of
killer Christians.
Item: When asked what
he would sanction in the interrogation of prisoners in the proverbial Ticking
Time Bomb Scenario (information has to be gathered — now! — to prevent a disaster), six-time
Planned Parenthood donor Rudy Giuliani replied “Every method they could think
of.” He was interrupted by applause from the Republican debate audience.
When
candidate Ron Paul dissented from the question and noted that the term
“enhanced interrogation” (a term first coined by the Gestapo) was “Orwellian,”
he was ridiculed by Giuliani and derided broadly — because there is nothing
more courageous or realistic than the Jack Bauer approach to life.
Indeed,
many GOP “realists” were willing to overlook Giuliani’s long record of
commitment to abortion — including partial-birth abortion — because of his
alleged “courage” in being willing to do whatever it takes in a Ticking Time
Bomb situation.
Item: In Chicago, one
Muslim parent requests a couple of Ramadan decorations be added to some
traditional Christmas decorations in the local school district, and the school
district responds by panicking. They issue a draconian decree — which the
Muslim parent had not at all requested — that abolished any recognition of
Christmas. The guy who made the request is gobsmacked by the jittery district’s
overreaction. Eventually, sane parents (including many Muslims) coax the school
district back to acknowledging the existence of Christmas — and Ramadan.
One
useful spiritual exercise is to look at the covenant blessings and curses of
Leviticus 26 and see what light they shine on our lives today. Admittedly,
those blessings and curses pertain to the covenant with Moses, not directly to
the New Covenant. But, as Paul says, “These things happened to them as an
example, and they have been written down as a warning to us, upon whom the end
of the ages has come” (1 Corinthians 10:11).
As
I contemplate the stories above, one passage from Leviticus 26 stands out in
particular:
“But
if you do not heed me and do not keep all these commandments ... I will make
[them] so fainthearted that, if leaves rustle behind them, they will flee
headlong, as if from the sword, though no one pursues them; stumbling over one
another as if to escape a weapon, while no one is after them — so helpless will
you be to take a stand against your foes!”
What
strikes me about our culture when I see things like these stories is how much
courage we have in the face of highly imaginary threats, and how incredibly
timid we are about the things of God.
The
Planned Parenthood shill pats herself on the back for facing down the threat of
a baby and a soft-spoken priest. “Cold Case” is boldly gutsy in warning, yet
again, of the entirely imaginary menace posed by those Phantom Theocratic
Christians. The politician has a sure-fire applause line that wins over people
who once claimed to care about the unborn when he bravely confronts a situation
which virtually never occurs in real life.
For
the fact is, the priest was no threat to the woman who felt so gutsy screaming
at him (though pro-lifers do regularly get harassed and harmed by pro-choice
thugs and lawyers). There are no legions of Abstinence-Promoting Killer
Christians out there stoning people to death (though there are plenty of
Muslims abroad stoning people to death).
And
though Google reveals that nearly half a million people are intensely debating
the matter as though our lives depend on it, the reality is that Ticking Time
Bombs are vanishingly rare staples of television suspense fantasy, not
realistic scenarios ripped from the headlines.
In
short, we are teaching ourselves to be enormously courageous in the face of
increasingly imaginary menaces even as we are becoming increasingly fearful of
our own Christian culture.
So
when a leaf rustled in the Muslim community of Chicago, the people entrusted
with teaching the next generation panicked and ran when no one was even
pursuing them.
If
Leviticus 26 is any indication, that’s not a sign of a spiritually healthy
culture.
Mark Shea is senior content editor
for CatholicExchange.com.
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