I have often said that courage is the truest sign of the Spirit in our times. This would mean that cowardice is a sign of absence of Spirit.
Learning stories of courageous people is one way to build courage. Reflecting on courage, I remember people in the Amazon I met the year I was silenced. At the end of a Mass they were asked to light a candle and name persons they had known personally who had been tortured and killed defending the rainforest. One person told me, “The hard part was limiting it to three. I know at least ten off the top of my head.”
These were ordinary folks, and they taught me how courage is present (potentially) in all of us.
Birmingham civil rights leader Fred Shuttlesworth was beaten with chains three times by the KKK. His two children were put in jail by sheriff Bull Connor, and his house was blown up with him in it. Asking him where he got his courage, he responded, “You can call it courage, but I don’t. I call it trust.”
Trust is the basic meaning of faith, the word Jesus uses often in the gospels when he says, “your trust has saved/healed you.” The primary meaning of faith is not believing in stacks of doctrines and dogmas. Its primary meaning is trust.
My ex-student, Sister Dorothy Stang, after 42 years of work in Brazil with peasant farmers and their families, building numerous schools for their children, and standing up to corporate powers bent on eradicating the rainforest for fast profits, knew she had a sentence over her head. But she returned anyway, saying that “the death of the forest is the end of our lives.”
Sure enough, she met her martyrdom one day when four hired killers emerged from the jungle and gunned her down in cold blood, this 73-year-old white-haired nun.
All this is Courage. All this is what Jesus called the “greatest love” we can have for another. And all this is the opposite of cowardice.
My Lakota teacher used to say, “Fear is the door in the heart that lets evil spirits in. So all prayer is strengthening your heart so that fear stays outside.”
Cowards are those who find excuses to open the door that lets evil spirits in. Jacob Weisberg’s new book, Profiles in Cowardice, names 8 cowards operating in powerful American institutions who sold their souls rather than to stand up to the current fascism racing through the American body politic.
One way to approach a spiritual topic (such as courage) is to look at its opposite first. We know justice by tasting injustice, and we can know courage by reflecting on cowardice. This book does that.
I confess I did not first recognize most of the names upon opening the Table of Contents of Weisberg’s book. But I did know stories of how their professions sold their souls. Among the people covered are the following:
Brad Karp, chair of the law firm of Paul, Weiss, which had been identified with progressive causes for 150 years.
Steve A. Schwarzman, founder of Blackstone, Wall Street cheerleader and champion of the new Gilded Age.
Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and publisher of The Washington Post, who went from a “Trump resister to tech toady.”
Megyn Kelly, media’s “Mean Girl.”
Mitch McConnell, the “Old Crow” and “seller of his soul.”
George W. Bush, “absent and invisible.”
Sian Beilock, president of Dartmouth University.
John Roberts, chief of SCOTUS and so-called “Umpire.”
I could also add numerous churchmen in my lifetime as prime candidates for Profiles in Religious Cowardice. Those who stood silently by at the rise of Opus Dei and other Christofascist movements under two popes, and as base communities and liberation theology were neutered in Latin America, and theologians were denounced worldwide.
Banner Image: Meeting of the minions: the White House occupant holds a cabinet meeting, February 26, 2025. (Official White House Photo by Molly Riley on Wikimedia Commons). Public domain.
Queries for Contemplation
How do you learn courage? How do you wish everyone does? Does meditating on those who practice courage help? And also meditating on those who succumb to cowardice?
Related Readings by Matthew Fox
Confessions: The Making of a Post-denominational Priest, pp. 211-220., 237-240, 306-308
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts For the Peoples of the Earth
Trump & the MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: Recognizing the Archetype of Evil in Our Time
Sins of the Spirit, Blessing of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul & Society
The Pope’s War: Why Ratzinger’s Secret Crusade Has Imperiled the Church and How It Can Be Saved
A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice
The Coming of the Cosmic Christ: The Healing of Mother Earth and the Birth of a Global Renaissance
The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors for Awakening the Sacred Masculine
Adam Bucko and Matthew Fox, Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision For a New Generation
Charles Burack, ed., Matthew Fox: Essential Writings on Creation Spirituality
.jpg){kind=link}
5 thoughts on “Leaders as Cowards in Universities, Law Firms, SCOTUS, Congress ”
Thank you most sincerely, Rev Dr Matthew, for another call to courage and trust, which you have steadfastly stood for throughout your life of witness and love, particularly in behalf of those most neglected and forgotten on the margins of society. Your witness lights a fire for all of us to be courageous and steadfast. Weinburg’s ‘Profiles in Cowardice’ – thanks for bringing this to our attention also. You are grace, love, and goodness, Thank You.
For me, learning about courage is being Open and having Faith/Trust in the Flow of the Divine Spirit of LOVE~Wisdom~Peace~Justice~Healing~Strength~Transformation~Freedom~Creativity~
Beauty~Joy~Compassion~Loving Diverse Oneness… in the Evolving Sacred Process of the Eternal Present Moment within and among Us with Beautiful Living Sacred Mother Nature/Cosmos, and All physical/non-physical spiritual dimensions/Beings….
I have read the meditations of these past few days especially the Antichrist of our time. Your thoughts on the cowards of our time goes hand in hand with the Antichrist. The Bishops have been silent for too long in regard to the treatment of immigrants, and I am learning to not follow the Church blindly. Sadly, in many instances it has not let the Holy Spirit guide it.
Thank you.
I agree that the foundation of courage has to be faith. I think what keeps us from being brave, from having courage, is the fear of consequences. Maybe fear is the opposite of courage? Every action has a reaction – so is it worth the risk? We imagine the worst outcomes and are paralyzed by them.
Only faith can overcome the fear. We must believe that we will be held and cared for, and that we will be guided along our path, learning what we need to learn. In that case, fear recedes and courage emerges.
I don’t think people who lack courage and are ruled by fear are necessarily weak or bad. It’s just where they are on their journey.
As a group, we humans have a long way to go before we overcome fear. In fact the systems we live in are designed to keep us afraid. That way, we are easier to control.
Mark, you say the “systems we live in are designed to keep us afraid.” Could you please explain the systems to which you refer? Our US Constitution has terms that assure us of certain rights. If these rights are abused or threatened, and we can’t protect ourselves, we have recourse to police and courts. We have military and intelligence systems designed to defend us from other military and lethal aggression. We have a free press and numerous commentators whose intention is to protect the public from dangerous environmental and other dangers. (I know that conspiracy theorists prefer to sow doubt, mistrust and fear, but I don’t “live” within those systems.) I would appreciate your explanations. Though I try to be prudent, I ultimately trust in God.