Here’s another way of thinking about this issue: How often do we diagnose a behavior as cowardice?  For instance, what do you say after your son tells you about a bullying he witnessed and didn’t intervene, just stood there with the group?  Have you helped him figure out that the sludge-like feeling gumming up his soul is a result of cowardice?  Do you explain that cowardice is a normal but insufficient response to seeing someone unjustly treated or cruelly humiliated?  Do you teach him that being wise and acting thoughtfully does not mean he is also to remain frozen, inert, and innocuous?

For some, the shame of cowardice upon their soul, mind, and heart lasts forever.  Writes street evangelist Truxton Meadows:

I’m forty years old.  And I’ve lived a lot of life and made many mistakes.  I have regrets but have reconciled them in my life. The only nagging regrets I still have that I can’t reconcile are the times that I could have stood up for a kid that was getting bullied and I didn’t.  I was small and got picked on myself so I didn’t want to draw the bully’s attention and sometimes joined in to fit in. I regret that I never stood up for myself and others. 

Many parents have never even had a conversation with their children about cowardice. Warning against its corrosive nature isn’t even usually on our parental radar, or included in many sermons.  Instead, most of us are quick to warn our kids to avoid getting too involved (or involved at all) when someone is mistreated because of the collateral damage it may do to them.  This is in direct defiance to how Jesus told us to live (see the parable of the good Samaritan in Luke 10).  And we’re overlooking the far-reaching damage of cowardice itself:  Ultimately, cowardice can be as destructive as drug addiction.

We don’t discuss how cowardice undermines our integrity and character, much less what God says about it.  There are approximately thirty biblical examples of cowardice, and every one is a cautionary tale.  Are you aware that even in many countries (such as France and Germany), civil courage is enforced by law?  That if citizens witness a public crime they are obliged to act, either by alerting the authorities or by intervening?  Or if the crime is committed in a private environment, witnesses are either to report it or try to stop it?

We don’t talk about cowardice with our children because we don’t really think courage is all that necessary in the first place.  We also can’t bear the thought that our kids might exhibit cowardice.  In fact, in this area, we’d rather be ignorant or uninvolved than engage the matter and help our sons and daughters go to work on it.  We’re more worried about hurting our children’s feelings than we are concerned about cultivating hearts that don’t listen to fear when making decisions.