In his book on the Korean War, General Matthew Ridgway paid tribute to perhaps the 20th Century’s pre-eminent American military leader, General George C. Marshall. He called him the greatest our country had seen since Washington. He quotes Marshall as calling for “moral courage,” illustrated as “that time when an officer lays his commission on the line.”
Peggy Noonan, in her biography “Ronald Reagan,” wrote: “In a president, character is everything. A president doesn’t have to be brilliant; Harry Truman wasn’t brilliant, and he helped save Western Europe from Stalin. He doesn’t have to be clever; you can hire clever… But you can’t buy courage and decency; you can’t rent a strong moral sense. A president must bring these things with him… A vision is worth little if a president doesn’t have the character–the courage and heart–to see it through.”
Everyone knows what courage is–when a person risks his life or safety in some noble cause. John Wayne said, “Courage is being scared to death–and saddling up anyway.”
But what is moral courage?
My working definition is: “A firm spirit that does the right thing at great risk.” In this case, you risk not bodily harm or your life but perhaps your reputation, success in your chosen field, or the support of friends and family.
My friend Bob was teaching in a Christian college, mind you, when he was informed by the dean and then the president that he should not be giving his Christian testimony to his students. Someone of another faith might be offended or feel discriminated against. Bob responded that he felt it was important for students to know who their professor is and to learn his world-view if they are to make sense of his teaching. Besides, he insisted, I thought we were a Christian school. They made sure Bob did not get tenure and eventually, God led him on to another institution.
Moral courage is standing up for the hard right against the easy wrong. Moral courage means refusing to stand idly by while others engage in wrong or hurtful acts.
Moral courage speaks truth to power.
Its opposite is cowardice in the name of getting along, silence in the face of cruelty and persecution, acquiescence in the cause of unity or personal advancement.
Martin Niemoller (1892-1984), a Lutheran pastor, spent years in Hitler’s concentration camps for refusing to go along with the Nazi program. He was only a pastor and in no way could he reverse the Hitler juggernaut, yet he continued speaking up for truth and calling his nation to righteousness.
Inscribed on a stone marker in New England’s Holocaust Memorial are these words from Niemoller:
“When the Nazis came for the Communists, I remained silent.
I was not a Communist.
“When they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent.
I was not a social democrat.
“When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out.
I was not a trade unionist.
“When they came for the Jews, I remained silent.
I wasn’t a Jew.
“When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out.”
(A word of explanation: over the years, Niemoller admitted to using these lines on many occasions with numerous variations, sometimes speaking of the Nazis coming for the Protestants, for the Christians, and others. But the original statement, he believed, is the one we have quoted here.)
A generation or two ago, I heard a long-play record album–anyone remember those?–of a fellow named Don Loney addressing a high school assembly on the subject of moral courage. One story he told has remained with me all these years.
“A speaker rose to address the hundreds of business people in town for a convention. He had not been speaking two minutes before he began using the name ‘Jesus Christ’ as profanity. After he had blasphemed the Lord several times, a man in the audience rose to his feet, stood in his chair, cupped his hands to his mouth and called out toward the podium, ‘Sir! Leave Christ out of it!'”
Loney gave that man’s name–sure wish I remembered it–and said to his young audience, “That man was a Roman Catholic. And when the session ended, there were more people lined up to shake his hand than the hand of the speaker.”
Moral courage does not act in rashness, but considers the cost for taking action that could be embarrassing or unpopular or costly, then steps over the line. This is worth the price, he/she feels.
Before the factory fire, an employee insisted to the boss that the exits should be unlocked, that the workers would need those doors to the fire escape in case of an emergency. The owner replied that too many seamstresses were slipping outside to grab a quick smoke, and the work was suffering. That’s why he had the doors chained from the outside. When the worker threatened to report him to the authorities, the owner terminated his employment. This was decades before Congress got around to enacting “whistle blower” laws to protect those who “speak truth to power.”
A year later, when a spark set the building on fire, a large number of women were burned alive.
An employee speaks to the boss. A White House staffer brings up a problem to the president. A student or teacher goes to the principal with a criticism. A church member or ministerial staff member confronts the pastor. A pastor takes an issue before his denomination. The church stands up in a decadent society and speaks out for righteousness and truth. A newspaper confronts corruption in the state, an editor confronts his publisher; a reporter confronts his editor; a reader confronts the reporter.
April 18, 1521, Martin Luther stood before the church authorities at a general assembly known in history as the Diet of Worms. (Note to Ginger: it’s pronounced DEE-ut of Verms. Really.) Spread on a table before him were copies of Luther’s writings. An inquisitor asked if these were his books and whether he stood by their contents. Luther admitted to writing them, and asked if he could have a day to consider the second question.
The next day, Luther faced the assembly and uttered the lines which changed his life forever and set the course for what would become known as the Protestant Reformation. They epitomize moral courage: “Unless I shall be convinced by the tesimonies of the Scriptures or by clear reason… I neither can nor will make any retraction, since it is neither safe nor honorable to act against conscience. Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me.”
Many years ago, I read of a movement someone had put together called “The Giraffe Society.” They were honoring those brave souls in our culture who “stick their necks out” in the name of truth, compassion, or decency. The movement seems to have survived, and in its present form can be found at www.giraffe.org.
I suspect that one man’s moral courage may be another’s cantankerousness. Still, we honor those who get it right.
And we pray for the Lord’s wisdom to know when to try to flag down that train on the wrong tracks, even if it means laying our body across the tracks.
Certainly, I would have never posted a comment on this one if our beloved Dr. Joe hadn’t suggested that I might have something to add. Having served a full career in a very large organization, the Air Force, followed up by a dozen years with a large aerospace firm, I do have have first hand experience with the rewards and perils of moral courage. My experiences were not in any way unique, as I watched close colleagues face the same dilemmas.
If you feel strongly enough to take a moral stand, you have to understand that there will almost surely be a price to pay. Large organizations prefer and reward “team players”. You can also expect to be “rewarded” if you become viewed as less than a team player.
I didn’t feel I was taking a huge risk by imploring my boss to cease his quest for extramarital conquests, as I knew him to be basically a good man. I didn’t have any qualms about telling a couple of peers that they were going to clean up their language if we were going to be able to work together all. I did have some moral leverage in these instances, and, though I could have been challenged, I succeeded in my purposes.
However, taking a principled or moral stand that reflected badly on a large organization, and its four-star commander, was more than the “system” could tolerate. The unnecessary dangers that certain tactical flying maneuvers presented to students and instructor pilots alike was grudgingly recognized by the accident investigation board, and they were deleted from the training syllabus, BUT my boss’s expectation was that his commanders would meekly go along with whatever his self-inspection decided was the truth. I could not go along with ruining a young instructor pilot’s memory (reputation) as the major cause for a flying tragedy without any credible evidence. Though the questionable flying maneuvers were immediately suspended, my rebuttal required a high level review that was out of my commander’s hands, and for this I paid the ultimate career price.
I have great peace about my career limiting stand, but that does not make the memory of the injustice any less painful.
“Going along to get along” is the easy path to take, but we are called to a higher road. Christians will have plenty of chances to be tested in the future, especially if “the media” continues to portray as irrelevant to public debate, moral stands based on Christian principles.
Robert Kennedy had a great quote about moral courage.
“Few men are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change the world — which yields most painfully to change. Aristotle tells us: “At the Olympic games it is not the finest or the strongest men who are crowned, but those who enter the lists.” “So too in the life of the honorable and the good it is they who act rightly who win the prize.”