Today’s world suffers from a lack of moral courage. By that I do not mean physical bravery or sacrificial heroism. Admirable as these kinds of behavior undoubtedly are, they must not be confused with moral courage. Rambo, for example, is an adventurer of cold-blooded fearlessness. But he is not a model of moral courage.
To understand what I have in mind, consider the confrontation recorded in 1 Kings 22. It is the only time the prophet Micaiah appears on the biblical stage.
King Ahab of Israel and King Jehoshaphat of Judah have agreed to a united attack on Ramoth-Gilead. Their plan has been enthusiastically endorsed by Ahab’s entire religious establishment—his hired sycophants who are supposedly God’s spokesmen. But Jehoshaphat is evidently suspicious of such uncritical unanimity. He asks if there is perhaps a dissident opinion. Reluctantly, therefore, Ahab summons God’s nonconformist servant, Micaiah. They stand face to face, King Ahab and prophet Micaiah.
Common sense, caution, and compromise would seem to be the policy for Micaiah to follow. Ahab, after all, is the king whom Elijah has denounced as the troubler of Israel because he has “deserted Jehovah and gone after the Baals.” Ahab is the king who coveted Naboth’s vineyard and tolerated murder in order to confiscate property to which he was not entitled. Ahab is the king who epitomizes evil. According to 1 Kings 21:25 there has never been a man so willing to sell himself and do what is wrong in the eyes of the Lord. Ahab had no scruples about liquidating people who dared to oppose him.
So, Micaiah, why risk martyrdom for the sake of refusing to endorse a military expedition on which this incarnation of wickedness has set his heart? Why arouse the wrath of a headstrong, ruthless tyrant who already hates you? Why play the role of a fearless fool who stands alone against all these others, maybe these hundreds of state-certified prophets? They are God’s official representatives, aren’t they, members of the ordained clergy? Why, then, venture to lift your solo voice against this unanimous chorus?
You do it for a single reason: You have been commissioned by God to speak his word. He has sovereignly told you his mind, his purpose, his truth. Thus faith, obedience, and loyalty suffuse your soul with moral courage and spiritual strength. You ignore the sudden trembling of your knees, the palpitation of your heart, the tremor of your voice. You deliver your unwelcome message and are hauled off to jail, there, unless God delivers you, to await a cruel execution.
Profiles In Moral Courage
What, then, is moral courage, a courage that will nerve you and me to be Micaiah-like disciples of Jesus Christ in our time? Suppose I define by example.
Example one: In 1966 Mark Hatfield (now U.S. senator) was governor of Oregon. He adamantly opposed the Vietnam War, and had from its inception. Despite the unpopularity and the hostility his convictions elicited, he refused to soft-pedal his criticism of our involvement in that tragic country. President Lyndon Johnson, himself under pressure, sought from every conceivable source the endorsement of our continued military involvement. So when all the American governors held a conference that July in Los Angeles, the president asked that they go on record publicly as approving his policy.
At that time some of the former opponents of the Vietnam expedition had become its supporters. Feeling in our divided country was at a fever pitch. So influential politicians urged Hatfield, “Don’t rat on America.” They argued that it was his patriotic duty to get lost for a few minutes when the hour for taking the poll of the governors arrived.
One by one, under the glare of television cameras, they voted. Yes, yes, yes: 49 yeses. When it came Hatfield’s turn, knowing that his public career was at stake, he quietly voted no. Whatever we may think about the rightness of his position, we must applaud his moral courage, a Micaiah-like courage that reflected ethical conviction rooted in deep faith.
Example two: Pastor Kaj Munk was the spiritual dynamo who generated resistance against the Nazis when, in the 1940s, Hitler annexed Denmark. A Micaiah-like hero, Munk spoke out fearlessly. He said to his fellow ministers in those turbulent days, “We stand as a temple of the holy God. All others have their obligations to this or that. We alone have our obligation to the truth.” He also said, “When justice or injustice is at stake, then we must never ask whether it is worth it. For then the devil always wins. On these issues it is always worthwhile to fight.” And finally, “What we as the church lack is most assuredly not psychology or literature; we lack a holy rage.”
I am afraid the church lacks holy rage still. There is too little blazing anger, ignited by the awareness of justice prostrate in the street and often prostituted in the courts. There is complacency about the blight of lying and deceit spread across the world, the ravaging and destroying of planet Earth, the senseless killing of God’s image bearers by fanatical terrorism and warring governments, and the starvation of little children while the tables of the rich groan with delicacies.
Moral courage! That, Munk boldly insisted, was what was lacking. And in January 1944, the Nazis dragged him out into a field and riddled his body with bullets. He possessed moral courage, the courage that will nerve you and me to be Micaiah-like disciples in our time.
The Steep Ascent
Some of us have no problem acquiring moral courage. We seem to possess it genetically, by God’s sovereign endowment. We come into the world with a propensity to be emotionally and volitionally strong. But others of us are wretched candidates for withstanding hostility, misunderstanding, and criticism, to say nothing of heroic martyrdom. What can we do, then?
We must not only work to develop unshakable convictions, but we must study the lives of biblical characters like Micaiah and those witnesses of the faith eulogized in Hebrews 11. We must keep company biographically with those confessors of the faith of whom we sing:
They climbed the steep ascent of heav’n
Through peril, toil, and pain;
O God, to us may grace be giv’n
To follow in their train!
We must, above all, be in continual fellowship with Jesus Christ, who steadfastly set his face to go up to Jerusalem and to Calvary, resolutely affirming in view of the Cross, “The cup my Father gives me to drink, shall I not drink it?”
Assume then, that, never perfectly fearless, we do acquire a measure of moral and spiritual courage. What will its exercise require? Bear in mind that irrational fanaticism can be mistaken for moral courage. So too can insensitive pugnacity, carnal stubbornness, and egocentric conceit. Thus for its exercise, Micaiah-like courage requires discernment. Not every doctrinal dispute is weighted with eternal consequences. Not every church issue is necessarily an issue that involves the glory of God. No servant of Jesus Christ should take Don Quixote as his model and gallantly do battle with windmills misperceived as wicked giants. Discernment is required.
Humility is also required. I may cast myself in the role of a prophet or a martyr, imagining that I am an Elijah standing alone against the priests of Baal, when in truth I am merely a misguided controversialist—for example, defending the King James Version as the only heaven-endorsed translation of God’s Word. Courtesy is likewise required, a refusal to engage in sarcastic name calling or contemptuous judging of one’s opponents and questioning their motives. We must never forget that our blessed Lord—as Peter reminds us—when reviled, reviled not again.
And prayer is always required, prayer that out of weakness we may be made strong, that the Holy Spirit may pour his power into our minds and hearts and wills in our times of testing and crisis. Discernment, humility, courtesy, and prayer—these are required for the exercise of godly, moral courage.
The simple words Sunday school children sing about another prophet sum up the awesome challenge of a Micaiah-like discipleship:
Dare to be a Daniel,
Dare to stand alone!
Dare to have a purpose firm!
Dare to make it known!
In daring to be like Daniel, dare to be like Micaiah.
Vernon Grounds is the former president of Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary. His books include The Reason for our Hope, Evangelicalism and Social Responsibility, and Emotional Problems and the Gospel.
