The Error of Christian Gentleness Towards The Evils of Communism

by John Venlet

“But I was not only gentle. Deep within me there was a saving fierceness…If you kick my dog in the stomach, though I have refused to fight one hundred times, and will refuse again, that time I will wait and fight to destroy you. I cannot help myself. Within me there is a force. It says that gentleness, which is not prepared to kill or be killed to destroy the evil that assails life, is not gentleness. It is weakness. It is the weakness of the merely well meaning. It is the suspended goodness of the men of mere good will whose passivity in the face of evil first of all raises the question whether they are men. It is the permanent temptation of the Christian, who, in a world of force, flinches the crucifixion which alone can give kindness and compassion force.”

Whittaker Chambers, Witness, Random House, Inc., 1952, First Printing, L III, pg. 185

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