The John Adams Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) chapter recently hosted Ralph C. Hancock, a professor of political science at Brigham Young University, for a discussion on virtue, Christian love, moral courage, and the role of liberal arts education in a changing culture. Drawing from themes in his book Love and Virtue in a Secular Age, Hancock challenged students to reconsider what it means to stand for truth while still demonstrating genuine love and respect toward others.
A central theme of Hancock’s remarks was the importance of what he described as “virtuous pride.” Rather than referring to arrogance or self-importance, Hancock used “pride” to describe a confidence in virtue and a willingness to stand for what is good. Drawing on the French political thinker Alexis de Tocqueville, Hancock argued that Christians and citizens of a democracy need the courage to recognize and defend genuine virtue rather than allowing excessive humility or fear of judgment to prevent them from doing so.
Hancock addressed what he sees as a tension within modern culture between acceptance and moral conviction. In an effort to avoid judging others, he argued, people can sometimes go so far as to deny the existence of objective truth or meaningful distinctions between right and wrong. Hancock suggested that this can also affect how Christians understand love. Christian love, he argued, should not be reduced to simply accepting every belief or personal claim as equally valid.
To illustrate this point, Hancock described a BYU student who understood Christian character as listening to others and accepting their personal values without attempting to impose his own principles on them. Hancock challenged this view, arguing that Christians have a responsibility not only to listen but also to stand for what they believe to be true. Like Christ, he suggested, Christians should stand for truth and virtue—not against their fellow men, but for them.
Hancock then turned to the role of liberal arts education in developing this kind of moral courage. He described the “liberty” in “liberal arts” as “the liberty of self-government,” emphasizing that self-government is itself an art. Liberal education, in his view, helps students to become familiar with the things which uplift the human person by placing their own experiences in conversation with the great thinkers and philosophers of history.
Through this process of conversation, students can discover and cultivate an understanding of what is good, ultimately learning to order their own lives around those principles. Hancock contrasted this with aspects of modern secular education, which he argued can become increasingly focused on technological progress, individual freedom, and the pursuit of power while neglecting deeper questions about truth, goodness, and human purpose.
Hancock’s presentation ultimately called students to recover the connection between freedom and virtue. His message was that genuine Christian love does not require abandoning moral conviction, and genuine education does not merely prepare individuals to succeed in a technological society. Instead, both should help individuals pursue truth, cultivate virtue, govern themselves, and develop the moral courage necessary to live according to what they believe is good.
