Seventy-five years ago, Franklin D. Roosevelt comforted a frightened nation in the depths of the Great Depression with an inaugural speech that began with a call to endure. He then added, “[L]et me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”(1) His words sought to address the very spirit of depression, the fear exuding from great uncertainty, the diminishing morale of a country racked with hunger and unemployment.

A very different speech from a very different character makes a similar observation about fearing fear itself. But adding to FDR’s admonition, Master Yoda from Stars Wars encourages his audience to answer this fear of fear itself with a philosophy of detachment. “Fear is the path to the Dark Side,” says Yoda to young Anakin. “Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose.”(2)

Among the many voices encouraging us to fear and act on our fears, these two voices of dissent are interesting. Roosevelt essentially asked a fearful nation to take account of the ways in which fear and pessimism can paralyze us. Fear is to be feared for this quality, he firmly believed. Yoda called for a far more defensive approach. The Jedi way encouraged the achievement of fearlessness by way of the refuge of detachment. Both thoughts bid us to ask questions about the nature of fear and its place in our lives.

What of a Christian alternative to the culture of fear around us? Is fearlessness the answer? What about detachment? Do we really do well to fear fear itself?

Perhaps in the midst of our own economic discomfort and sense of worldwide anxieties, it is not an unhelpful suggestion to live aware of fear’s confining grip upon our lives. Our fears can perhaps rightfully be included among the thoughts Paul tells people to take captive, particularly those fears that set themselves up against the love and knowledge of God. (One cannot live in constant fear of death where there is a vision of Christ’s resurrection; nor can one be held captive by the imagination of future evil whose future is in the hands of a faithful God.) Yet while fear can indeed paralyze us from life itself, fearlessness can be a similar vice. As Yoda observes, true fearlessness would be attainable only through complete detachment to everything and everyone around us. If we loved nothing at all, we would have nothing to fear, but so we would be paralyzed from life in an entirely different way.

Continue reading Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Fear and Love →