The Goodness of Sacrifice

In the November issue of The Atlantic, David Foster Wallace posed the question, “Are some things still worth dying for?” In his sort editorial he submitted that we have forgone the necessary public debate about how we ought to balance liberty and security in our post 9/11 era. Inspired by Benjamin Franklin’s oft cited declaration, “Therefore those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety,” Wallace postulated:

What if we decided that a certain baseline vulnerability to terrorism is part of the price of the American idea? And, thus, that ours is a generation of Americans called to make great sacrifices in order to preserve our democratic way of life — sacrifices not just of our soldiers and money but of our personal safety and comfort?”

What I find really interesting in Wallace’s suggestion is that it calls into question one of the key boundaries that delineates modern Americans from modern Christians. As a Christian I know that I am fundamentally set apart from the ideology of America because one of the foundational assumptions of that ideology is that the “American Way of Life” (i.e. safety and comfort) is a good worth killing for. For the Christian, killing is not an option, for we understand that we are called to sacrifice ourselves for the good of the world. This is the cost of our discipleship to Jesus Christ. And I am very comfortable with this distinction, because it allows a clear, black & white, contrast between the doctrine of Christ and the doctrine of America: one kills for comfort, the other sacrifices for peace.

But if Wallace is correct, then this line of demarcation will become muddied. I am not sure how I would make sense of an American who would willingly give up their security and comfort for the good of a “democratic way of life,” regardless of what that might actually mean. In today’s America the most people are willing to sacrifice for the good of America is a bit of space on the back of their car for a ribbon or flag decal. But to actually begin (again) to see that some things are worth dying for, well, this would change things. And more than anything it would require that Christians like myself really begin to see that it is not sacrifice itself that warrants glory. Rather, it is that for which we are willing to make such a self-giving that determines whether our sacrifice is true, good, and beautiful. Franky, that requires a lot more work.