Here’s another difference I’ve seen as a coach, and it’s heartbreaking.  Religious kids are far more inhibited than their secular peers, and in the wrong way.  They’re less likely to put up a healthy boundary against another kid.  They’re also less likely to defend another person, and most of them have been drilled from toddlerhood that all conflict is wrong.

Conflict-avoidance disguised as “patience” or “gentleness” is a false front; the vice of cowardice is frequently disguised behind a “forbearing spirit” and a false understanding of gentleness.  A gentle person uses the appropriate amount of force and power.  When gentleness needs to take a stance, it does, and it does so with grace.  But gentleness is always truthful, as well; niceness favors pleasantry and manners over truth.  Niceness is the drowning of force (sometimes a good thing), but it can also be the refusal to honor what’s right, the unwillingness to stand tall for any and all reasons.

The understanding that a gentle man still wields force is an eye-opening revelation to many men at my conferences, a revelation that often propels them into more godly living.  Learning to use appropriate force in any given situation takes time and a cultivation of virtue.  Trace the origin of the word virtue and you’ll see that one of its meanings is “force”:  Virtue brings whatever energy and force is needful to a situation.

The belief that nice equals good is among the most amazing deceptions of our time, and it’s resulted in profound spiritual and relational degeneration as we’ve continued to atrophy behind the façade.

Next time we’ll talk about the terrible impact of cowardice and the terrific importance of courage.

Paul Coughlin is the author of numerous books, including No More Christian Nice Guy and No More Jellyfish, Chickens or Wimps. He also co-authored a book for married couples with his wife Sandy, titled Married But Not Engaged. His articles appear in Focus on the Family magazine, and he as been interviewed by Dr. James Dobson, FamilyLife Radio, HomeWord, Newsweek, C-SPAN, The New York Times, and the 700 Club among others. Paul is founder of The Protectors, the faith-based answer to adolescent bullying, which provides curriculum for Sunday Schools, private schools, retreats, and individuals that trains people of faith to be sources of light in the theater of bullying. 

Visit Paul's websites at: http://www.theprotectors.org, and http://www.paulcoughlin.net

Visit Sandy's website for reluctant entertainers at: http://www.reluctantentertainer.com