Uncommon Courage: Defending Truth and Freedom While There Is Still Time

America is “marching steadily toward tyranny” as the country casts aside its Christian heritage, according to this problematic debut treatise. Russell, a constitutional lawyer, argues that increasing “disdain” for Christianity (wrought by “the rise of Marxist ideology and secular humanism”) and the church’s political polarization have produced a climate of “soft totalitarianism” where liberal ideas are prized, “hatred of dissenters” is hidden under “the guise of helping and healing,” and Christian values are being “dethron[ed] from politics, education, family life, and even Christianity itself.” She discusses the “harms” of the 2011 Obergefell v. Hodges decision, which guaranteed the right to marry for same-sex couples; Planned Parenthood (“We do not have the right to decide whether someone’s life will be worth living”); and bans on praying in school. Even readers who can accept her selective interpretation of separation between church and state will be alienated by her alarmist language and shoddy reasoning. For example, she contends that “the issue with changing the definition of marriage or the normal expectation for sex is that to do so often results in no standard,” which she suggests, without evidence, could somehow lead to rampant pedophilia. Inflammatory and hyperbolic, this misses the mark. (Dec.)