This is the TYPE of PERSON Tyrants Fear — Here's What A Courageous Person Looks Like

Watch this here. Listen to this here.

Right now we're in a societal season where fear and contempt are consuming so many people. I'm a Christian and Republican and these dynamics have utterly taken over my political party. They've taken over many parts of the Christian church.

And I want to cast a vision of what a courageous person looks like. It's someone who can stand up to tyranny and has nothing to lose in facing that tyranny. Much of what happens when we fight back, when we are courageous when we stand up, we speak the truth, we do the right thing, there's a risk. And that risk means it can cost us something. There are many times I've had in my life where I could have said or done the right thing, but I was cowardly and I chose not to. And I didn't speak up or I didn't act. Or, I succumbed and I did or I said the wrong thing.

A Scared Church Not Acting

Before I talk about the vision, I'm going to give a few examples of this cowardice. I'll start by talking about the church and Christians because I am a Christian. And this tweet talks about this plague of fear that's unfolding.

Jesus tells us many, times, fear not, fear not. He's constantly exhorting us to not have fear. The scriptures throughout the Hebrew scriptures and the New Testament continue to encourage us to trust in God, to not fear man, and to not fear suffering and death. So we're encouraged to be courageous, to speak the truth. Unfortunately, what's actually happening is something quite different.

This is a tweet from Julie Roys. Julie Roys is a reporter for the truth and to restore the church. She's a Christian investigative journalist, author, and podcaster. Her website is The Roys Report, she is sharing about the fear in the church.

"I am repeatedly struck by how many Christians say they can't do something because the action will have negative consequences. Yet if I'm reading scripture correctly, the fact that suffering is tied to an action is not a sign that the action is not of God ordained, but that it is.

'Now if we are children, then we are heirs, heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ if indeed we share in his sufferings so that we may also share in his glory.' Paul, the Apostle, Romans 8:17"

This plague of cowardice and how people are afraid to act and to speak the truth because of the resulting anticipated consequences, which as a Christian, seems antithetical to Christianity and history, particularly the early church and the early martyrs. There would be no church if Christians didn't do this if they didn't speak the truth. So it tells me that as Christians, we have utterly atrophied in our faith and in our beliefs and we are being crushed by the world around us.

Republican Fear & Cowardice

I also want to talk about my political party, which is the Republicans. The following clip quote comes from Angela at Park Rose Permaculture and she's talking about the cowardice of Republicans. My political party has utterly failed, morally. Trump has taken over the party and reformed it in his corrupt image. Republicans just go along with it without any resistance. I'm one of the few remnant Republicans that says, no, truth still matters. What is good still matters. The rule of law still matters. Responsibility still matters. And, I speak as a minority in a group that chooses cowardice. 

"Russia is a direct threat to our national security. So, why then are they all voting in line with Donald Trump and Elon Musk?

The congresswoman said this and I quote 'there are Republicans who when they think of stepping out of line they get a call from the president and they are getting death threats.'

She went on to say that people in the districts of Republican elected officials need to one, be courageous themselves and two, be pressuring their reps and their Senators to likewise be courageous. She said we need three people in the Congress to grow a spine, grow some courage and step away from party lines and vote on behalf of their constituents and the Constitution.

There's only a three seat majority they need three people to flip and that's it... Their colleagues who are Republican in Congress are getting death threats against them and their family. And I understand that that is not okay, that should not be happening, but I'm sorry they're willing to sell the entire United States of America the lives of millions of people here at home and millions more worldwide they are risking throwing us into World War III because they are cowards.

Dr. Dexter took this angle of like, I don't want to dump on those folks, what I want to do is encourage them motivate them to do the right thing, motivate them to gain some courage to, shore themselves up and to break away because it's only going to take one or two or three of them breaking away. She said they know that what they're doing is wrong, they don't want to be voting with the party but they're scared shitless.

You can have whatever kind of reaction to that you want to, I know what my reaction would be, but I also understand the way that rep Dexter is approaching this.

She wants not just to shame them, she wants them to start saving democracy. She wants them to flip and so she's trying to motivate them as best she can and she just said we have got to be putting the pressure on our Republican elected officials to do the right thing to grow a spine." - Angela, at Park Rose Permaculture

She's coming from the democratic perspective, but she's calling out what's happening; this allegiance to Trump first.

What does it look like for someone to be the type of person who can get that phone call from the president and say, you know what, Mr. President, what's true and good matters more than what you want? And what you want is not true or good. And so I'm going to stand up, I'm going to speak up.

David & Goliath

I'm reminded of the story of David and Goliath because when David goes to bring food to his brothers, his brothers, and the Israelites are trembling. They're afraid of this giant monster that keeps coming over, Goliath, and taunting them and lying to them and threatening them. And he's huge and he's scary. And they're all quivering in their boots. But David realizes, well, it doesn't matter because 'I believe in something greater. I believe in someone stronger than this giant over here.' He's trusting that God is who his allegiance is towards and he doesn't cower to Goliath. And Saul, who the Israelites chose to be the warrior to stand up for them against this guy, is cowering and hiding in his castle. And this little boy named David is the one having courage.

Christ calls us to have no fear and to be courageous and that the Spirit will be with us as God sanctifies us, our fear of death should be smaller and smaller. We should be practicing courage and boldness at small levels and growing into something and somebody who can speak the truth. And, like Christ on his journey from the garden to the cross, this book I'm working on, when he was in the garden of Gethsemane, there was a lot of stress and pressure about the mission. But once he committed to the mission, he was all in. And everything was thrown at him, lies, deception, torment, and even death. And he leaned into it and he overcame it.

And that's an example that we can do as well.

So, I want to share some things that are powerful for me as I think about this. This passage comes from The Gulag Archipelago by Alexander Solzhenitsyn (affiliate link). All this is one of the passages that resonated with me, that stuck with me because it gives a picture of the type of person that tyranny fears, the type of fearless and brave person that made the people that were putting people into the Gulag scared.

This describes the type of person we ought to become.

"So what is the answer? How can you stand your ground when you are weak and sensitive to pain, when people you love are still alive when you are unprepared? What do you need to make you stronger than the interrogator and the whole trap?

From the moment you go to prison, you must put your cozy past firmly behind you. At the very threshold, you must say to yourself, my life is over. A little early to be sure, but there's nothing to be done about it. I shall never return to freedom. I am condemned to die, now or later. But later on, in truth, it will be even harder. And so the sooner, the better. I no longer have any property whatsoever. For me, those I love have died. And for them, I have died. From today on, my body is useless and alien to me. Only my spirit and my conscience remain precious and important to me.

Confronted by such a prisoner, the interrogator will tremble. Only the man who has renounced everything can win that victory." - Alexander Solzhenitsyn

A little bit later, he captures the spirit of courage in this concluding statement.

"There is nothing you can do to me, even if you cut me into pieces. After all, you are afraid of your bosses, and you are afraid of each other, and you are even afraid of killing me (They would lose contact with the Underground Railroad if they killed him).

But I am not afraid of anything. I would be glad to be judged by God right this minute." - Alexander Solzhenitsyn

This is a powerful passage. This is the essence of the fearless person. This is a person who has nothing to lose. It's somebody who has recognized that they have lost everything and they are not clinging to those things that allow them to be manipulated and further controlled, in this case, by the Soviet Union, the Guglag system, and the tyranny within.

It's also interesting he references, but later on in truth, it will be even harder. And this is a key thing. If we cannot be brave and tell the truth now, it will only get more and more difficult as time goes on. As the pressure mounts, as the tyranny grows, it'll be even more difficult to do anything about it. And so the best time to do it is yesterday But if you haven't done that, then the next best day is today.

The other interesting thing is he says at the very end, but I am not afraid of anything. I would be glad to be judged by God right this minute. And there's a really powerful idea here about inviting judgment.

If I'm inviting judgment, then I'm willing to accept the consequences, the accountability, and the responsibility. And this is terrifying to a tyrant because a tyrant is trying to take power as a way to avoid responsibility, as a way to be the judge so that they can judge others. But before God, we are all judged and there is no one more powerful than God. And so this passage I leave with you because it's a powerful inspiration of the type of person that we can become that becomes fearless. Fearless leaders inspire others and can speak against and stand up against tyranny and lead our country forward in a powerful way And we need as many people in our society that can embody this as possible

The Cowardice of Fascism in World War II

There's one other passage I want to share. This comes from a book by Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem (affiliate link). And if you're not familiar, Eichmann was a mid-tier Nazi manager who was responsible for the extermination of many Jews in the concentration camps as part of the Holocaust. And there's a really interesting passage about the cowardice of the Nazis.

I was born in 1984, so I was born well after World War II, and even well after those that were a part of World War II. My experience and understanding of the Nazi Germans are mostly portrayed in movies, and most of the portrayals are in war films. So, I've seen a lot of movies with these German armies causing lots of havoc and it creates this image or aura of strength. But in reality, that wasn't the full story, there was more to it. And so I want to share this passage from Hannah Arendt, the section called Deportations from Western Europe, which is chapter 10 in the book, page 175 in the paperback edition.

"Perhaps the role played by the German authorities in Denmark, their obvious sabotage of orders from Berlin. It is the only case we know of in which the Nazis met with open, native resistance.

The result seems to have been that those exposed to it changed their minds. They themselves apparently no longer looked upon the extermination of a whole people as a matter of course.

They had met resistance based on principle, and their toughness had melted like butter in the sun.

They had even been able to show a few timid beginnings of genuine courage.

Then the ideal of toughness, except perhaps for a few half-demented brutes, was nothing but a myth of self-deception concealing a ruthless desire for conformity at any price was clearly revealed at the Nurembank trials, where the defendants accused and betrayed each other and assured the world that they had always been against it, or claimed, as Eichmann was to do, that their best qualities had been abused by their superiors.

The atmosphere had changed, and although most of them must have been known that they were doomed, not a single one of them had the guts to defend the Nazi ideology." - Hannah Arendt

Arendt goes on to talk about other layers of that cowardice within the Nazi regime. I bring that up because the fear has the effect intended by the tyrant. The tyrant is afraid of people, like those I described in the Gulag Archipelago. They're scared of people who are committed to the truth and goodness and are willing to speak up and stand up against tyranny, people who have nothing to lose.

Nothing to Lose

I'll give you one last story to wrap up here.

In my former business, I've had a lot of experiences. Some where I was courageous and other times where I was cowardly. But there was an experience I had where I was courageous. And it was when I had my marketing company, we were working with this business and there was someone inside this business that was a bit of a tyrant. And this person was difficult and no one wanted to stand up to them. And we, working with this company and alongside some of the people in that company, had the opportunity to lean into this and to confront this person (with their own values). And so I had the opportunity to do that. But for me to get there, I had to be willing to let go. I had to realize that what I'm going down this road, the path that I'm taking, I can lose this client. And it was a big client. It was a large amount of money.

And I had to be willing to set that aside and go, you know what? What is good and true is more important than the money that I get from this client. Ultimately, it was letting go of that that allowed me to do the thing that I needed to do. And that's my encouragement to you is to think about what is it that's holding you back. What are you holding on to?

That may be the thing that's allowing others to manipulate and control you. It's allowing others to have a hold over you.

And that's one of the powerful things about our relationship with God and Jesus's message is that He's saying that if we let that go, He will be there for us. He will step in our place and He has overcome death. And so we can have faith and trust Him that when we step out into truth and out of faith and do the right thing, it may not always work out in the way we hope or think at the moment, but in the eternal plane in the larger picture, it will work out. And it'll be something that we won't regret, but something that we can celebrate. And others who will benefit from our courage will be able to celebrate and enjoy the benefits that come with it. Think about that for yourself and your own journey.

Go be courageous.