Great quote from a really good book by Scott Bader-Saye….

When our moral lives are shaped by fear, and safety is worshiped as the highest good, we attempt to make health and security the primary justifications for right action. We thus lead timid lives, fearing the risks of bold gestures. Instead of being courageous, we are content to be safe. Instead of being hopeful, we make virtues of cynicism and irony which in turn keep us at a safe distance from risky commitments. We are more likely to tell our children to “be careful” then to “be good.” The extravagant vision that would change the world gets traded in for the passive axiom “do no harm.” Our moral lives atrophy on this new diet of self-protection.

A crucial part of the argument that I want to make in this book is that many people do bad things not so much because they are evil, but because they are fearful. The relentless pursuit of safety leads to uncharitable hearts, for we fear letting go of the goods that might protect us against an uncertain future. In the name of security we refuse to love our enemies, because we assume that if we do not answer violence with violence, we be forever victimized. Because we wish to be careful, we do not open our lives to strangers, fearing that they will take advantage of our hospitality. It is fear that constricts our hearts and thus fear that makes Jesus’s ethic of risky discipleship of crazy, unrealistic, and irresponsible. Yet the “virtues” of the ethic of safety — suspicion, preemption, and accumulation — turn out to be but “splendid vices” [St. Augustine’s description of Roman virtues].

-Scott Bader-Saye, Following Jesus in a Culture of Fear , (Grand Rapids: Brazos:2007) 31.