Doing for others what you would have them do for you often means speaking up for the vulnerable and weak. Many avoid conflict not because they are good, but because they are weak. They are cowards, who dress up their cowardliness as a virtue, instead of acknowledging it as a vice.
The wicked know that most people lack courage. They know that through the use of terror, they can silence the cowardly and weak. The cruel and unjust do not like those who stand up to them—but they often respect them (and sometimes even admire them).
Those with moral courage value truth more than peace, and therefore try to bring the truth to light, even if it costs them dearly. For only if an evil is brought to light, can it be dealt with.
“To try to be brave is to be brave.” ~ George MacDonald
True love takes courage. It is not loving to allow women to be raped, civilians killed, and children to become slaves.
'Some Christians refuse to engage with the persecuted church on the misunderstanding that persecution is good for church growth.606 “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church,” they say, quoting Tertullian as they back away, not wanting to interfere. If truth be told, Tertullian’s words have not only caused a good deal of confusion, they have also been exploited to justify inaction.
While there certainly was persecution in Carthage (Tunis) at Tertullian’s time (around AD 200), it was nothing compared to what would come from the seventh century with the armies of Muhammad and the arrival of Islam. Had Tertullian been right, then with all that martyrs’ blood poured out in Carthage, churches should have sprung up like mushrooms. But that is not what happened. In fact, the church in Carthage was essentially annihilated, and the blood of the martyrs simply sank into the sands.
In truth, Tertullian might not have thought through his statement. For as Jesus makes clear in his parable of the sower, the seed of the church is the gospel—the word of God—and we are called to scatter that seed.607
As a passionate gardener with half an acre of terraced cottage gardens, I can assure you that no amount of labor, “Blood and Bone” (fertilizer), and irrigation will make poppies grow if you fail to scatter the seed.
I believe “the blood of the martyrs” works very much like “Blood and Bone”, and the sweat of the laborers and the tears of the intercessors work very much like irrigation: they prepare the soil.
As the blood of the martyrs is poured out across the Middle East, might it not be reasonable to expect that the God of the cross, the God who is there, might be keen to subvert this evil and redeem it for good by making hearts receptive to the gospel? What we need is more sweat and more tears: more sacrificial giving, more intelligent strategic advocacy, more passionate intercessory prayer, and of course, more urgent and intentional scattering of the seed.' (Kendal, Elizabeth. After Saturday Comes Sunday: Understanding the Christian Crisis in the Middle East (pp. 237-238). Resource Publications, an Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers. Kindle Edition. )
“Those who live by the sword, die by the sword.”
Who lives by the sword? Those who rape and pillage.
To pick up the sword to stop women being raped and children enslaved is not living by the sword; it is an act of love for the sake of the vulnerable and weak (see Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West by Raymond Ibrahim).1
Chivalry is not just a good idea; it is necessary for the survival of modern civilisation.
“Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.” - Benjamin Franklin2
A note on the video below: C.S. Lewis' was greatly influenced by George MacDonald. MacDonald's books, Malcom, Sir Gibbie (and its sequel Donal Grant ), paint a beautiful picture of Christlike courage shaped by love. The world admires that kind of strength. (Strength is always attractive.) And it is only that kind of strength—that kind of chivalry—which can save western civilisation from total collapse.
But instead of encouraging chivalry, wouldn't the world be more peaceful if we simply disarmed? The following highlights the problem with that view of keeping the peace.
“...an obviously aggressive nation, such as Nazi Germany during the 1930s, launches a military buildup in order to accomplish its goals by force or the threat of force, while those who build up counter-force are seeking to avoid being attacked or forced into surrender. If a defensive military buildup—an “arms race”—fails to secure any net advantage whatever against the aggressor, it is nevertheless a huge success if it prevents aggression or the need to surrender. From the standpoint of the non-aggressor nation, it is not trying to gain anything at the expense of anybody else, but simply recognizes the grim reality that military preparedness is part of the price of maintaining the peace, independence, and freedom that it already has. If military deterrence permits that to be done without bloodshed, it is not a ”waste” because the arms are never used, but instead is a bargain because they were formidable enough that they did not have to be used, nor lives sacrificed in the carnage of war.” —Thomas Sowell, The Quest for Cosmic Justice (p.109, 110, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1999.)
I have no problem with pacifists sacrificing their own lives, but I have a big problem when third parties die because of the "peace movements" vision of how to keep (or make) peace. Many pacifists believe that anyone who does not support disarmament must want war, and is therefore evil. They do not seem to realise that most people (at least in democratic nations) who support their militaries want peace. They also don't know—or at least choose to ignore—that there are hostile groups and governments who want democratic nations to disarm because they seek to destroy those nations by any means possible. (See Silent Invasion by Clive Hamilton, The History of Jihad: From Muhammad to ISIS by Robert Spencer, The Third Choice by Mark Durie and the YouTube video “Stephen Coughlin, Part 5, The Role of the IOC in Enforcing Islamic Law”). Pacifists who convince politicians that the innocent do not need to be defended, or who convince politicians that ordinary people have no right to defend themselves, are usually well meaning, but deeply misguided.
“At the end of the war, Churchill looked back and said: “There never was a war in all history easier to prevent by timely action than the one which has just desolated such great areas of the globe.” But such timely action to deter war with armaments and military alliances, as Churchill had urged throughout the 1930’s, would not have exulted the anointed visionaries, as their championing of opposites policies did. The British, American, and other Allied soldiers who paid with their lives in the early years of the war for the quantitatively inadequate and qualitatively obsolete military equipment that was a legacy of interwar pacifism were among the most tragic of the many third parties who have paid the price of other people’s exalted visions and self-congratulation” (Thomas Sowell, ibid., p.115-16).
Doing for others what we would like them to do for us sometimes means standing up to bullies on behalf of those who cannot defend themselves. (Here is what C.S. Lewis had to say about pacifism.)
1. Yes, Jesus warned that those who take up the sword will die by the sword, but sometimes—simply as a matter of self-sacrifice—we have to be prepared to die for the sake of those who cannot defend themselves.
2. Society becomes corrupt and violent when there are not enough people who do what is right and stand up for what is right. It is then that a police state becomes necessary.
Not many people are good because they lack courage. If you give into your fear of losing your job if you speak up for the persecuted, or you give into your fear as to what physical harm may come to you if you oppose those who seek to harm others, you lack the courage to be a truly good person. (Having said this, don't be foolish. Be wise, see Matt 10:16. If you feel like you have to do things anonymously—because of your position or situation—act anonymously, see here. It is far better than doing nothing. Jesus told us to do for others as we would want them to do for us. If you are a Christian, you don't want Jesus to say, "Why did you remain silent while I was persecuted?" See Matt 25:35-46).
How should unbelievers be treated?