When Safety is no Virtue
A couple of weeks ago, I took my receipt from the young man working the cash register at a local pizza joint, stacked my pizzas and salad, and headed out the door. I offered a polite “thank you” and was told in response, “have a really safe evening.” Was I entering into an unknown danger zone?
I feel like this is one of the many aftershocks from the COVID pandemic. “Social Distancing” (a phrase I will never use in a positive sense) was encouraged for the purpose of keeping each other safe. I’m all for promoting health, to the extent that we can control it. However, I’m not quite sure how six feet of separation spares us from physical, mental, or emotional trauma In my opinion we used inaccurate wording: we kept talking about safety; when it was really about health. I bristled at all of the things we heard were going to be put in place for the purpose of keeping us safe, and we generally went along as a society, because safety has become a one of our highest virtues. But, we’re not just consumed with safety from viruses.
My sister-in-law told me about a conversation she recently had with one of our mutual friends who called her to talk about the pains of going through a divorce. When my sister-in-law told our friend that she was deeply grieved because of her friendship with both the wife and the husband, our friend replied that she could no longer allow my sister-in-law in her life, because it was clear that this was no longer a “safe space” for her. I’m a huge fan of counseling, but I often fear that many counselors (including Christian ones) have made this sort of language ubiquitous in our culture. I’d argue that this obsession with and misuse of “safety” is at the root of what we’ve referred to as today’s “cancel culture.” We’ve come to a point where disagreement puts another’s “safety” in jeopardy.
In college, I was required to read Stan Gaedy’s prophetic book When Tolerance is No Virtue (1994). Gaede presents the dangers of a world that holds tolerance as the highest of all virtues, and I imagine that we could substitute “safety” for “tolerance” in much of his book, and it would capture the very same idea. For those of you who are constantly looking for books to read, I recommend Gaede’s work as well as John Inazu’s most recent book Learning to Disagree. It’s a much-needed book.
As an educator, I can’t help but think about the great dangers this fascination and entrapment has had on our students and schools. One of my mentors used to say that he wished we could put a billboard outside our school that said, “Send your kids here and put them at risk.” He wasn’t endorsing that we were going to be reckless with students. But he was making a profoundly philosophical statement: real education is going to be risky. That’s even increasingly true if we pursue gospel-education.
The 2017 Barna Group study on the factors parents choose between when making school decisions revealed that “safety” is the most important reason parents gave when determining to put their children in a Christian school … more important than quality of teachers or the biblical worldview they offer. I saw this for myself: far too many parents wanted us to keep their kids safe above all else. Both physical safety and Ideological safety. If you’re anything like me, you’ve encountered parents who say they want their child to learn, but when push comes to shove, they really don’t want their children to be challenged. If they did, they wouldn’t be so unwilling to let their children fail.
True education is inherently stretching; otherwise how do we expect to see growth? There must be challenge, a bit of cognitive dissonance, and (at times) some idol smashing and a healthy “reality check.” We know this happens through exercise – if we’re ever going to get in shape, we have to push ourselves. We have to get out of our comfort zones. We have to be willing to hurt a little (or a lot). We have to set aside a measure of safety.
Life-changing learning happens when we are willing to explore with curiosity, take chances, and ask hard questions – all the while knowing we could be wrong … that we could fail. I’m so glad that my children go to a school that isn’t terrified of kids potentially getting hurt. Children can climb trees, build forts, jump from logs, and dig holes. In doing so, they could fall or stumble. They could get a skinned knee, and it happens. Regularly. In many school contexts, if a child climbs a tree and falls, the school bans tree-climbing. I’ve been around schools that have so bubble-wrapped their students, that they have eliminated all chance that a child could get hurt. Or so they think! But, isn’t there a great lesson learned through exploratory and adventurous play? Even more than that … from getting a little skinned up in the process? Of course, we need to keep an eye on students climbing so high that they put themselves at risk of serious injury. But, it’s because of our fear of any injury whatsoever, that many schools have made recess a relatively sterile thing.
But the gospel isn’t sterile. Jesus hung out with people who didn’t have their acts together and were outcast by society. He even said that He didn’t come for the healthy but the sick (Lk. 5:31-32). And, the Jewish leaders knew they had to do something to squash Christianity in the 1st century, because they understood that it was turning the “whole world upside down” (Acts 17). This makes sense to those who really believe that they are in need of Jesus and recognize that things aren’t the way they’re supposed to be. But, they see that the gospel reorders all things, shatters our illusions of safety and control, and points us in the only direction where we’ll ever find real hope.
Believe it or not, safety and risk-taking lead us into worldview conversations, because they force us to consider some of the categories that are fundamental to worldview thinking. They push us into thinking about sin and the brokenness of the world, recognizing God’s control above our own, contemplating how things should be, and evaluating what real dependence looks like. Of all people, Christians should be the most willing to endure a higher level of risk, because we trust in God’s provision, recognize the realities of a broken world, and understand the dangers of trying to control and build our own little kingdoms (which is fundamentally at the heart of our fascination with safety). We also know that God has not called us to safety; He has called us to obedience, and that often puts us at odds with our world. That’s not safe. Maybe, our fascination with safety has made us too complacent and caused us to put too high of a prize on fitting in with a world that has far different priorities.
But, a willingness to tolerate a bit more risk doesn’t just mean that we should consider letting our kids climb more trees (which I think is the case). It also means we should be willing to allow more classroom conversations that aren’t guaranteed to be “tidy.” Adventure and exploration shouldn’t be limited to the recess and field trips alone. Shouldn’t learning also be fueled by adventure! We explore and question with great curiosity, not scared of the truth, because we know the One who holds all truth in His hand. Risky learning might mean we enter into a conversation that stretches us beyond our comfort level, but that’s where growth happens. It’s also the sort of things that will stick with our kids long after they’ve left our schools.
This sort of perspective, though, goes beyond the playground and classroom, it needs to leak into the full fabric of our communities. Maybe we should double down on our commitments so vigorously that we aren’t consumed with trying to offer what every other school does, fearing that we might lose some families. It means we might rethink what we mean by “college preparatory,” because it’s rather risky in some of our contexts to allow a student to explore other options. Sure, there might be more unknowns, this way. More risks. But, I believe that this is where we’ll find some more vibrancy. It might lead to greater passion. It might lead us to seeing Jesus more, because we embrace our dependence, and with that a greater willingness to find God’s goodness in new ways … because as Lewis tells us, He’s not all the safe, but He’s good.
