[Gene Cranick's rural Tennessee home was allowed to burn to the ground by the fire department because he never paid a $75 fee for being just outside of the city limits.]

The fire department did the right and Christian thing. The right thing, by the way, is also the Christian thing, because there can be no difference between the two. The right thing to do will always be the Christian thing to do, and the Christian thing to do will always be the right thing to do.

If I somehow think the right thing to do is not the Christian thing to do, then I am either confused about what is right or confused about Christianity, or both.

In this case, critics of the fire department are confused both about right and wrong and about Christianity. And it is because they have fallen prey to a weakened, feminized version of Christianity that is only about softer virtues such as compassion and not in any part about the muscular Christian virtues of individual responsibility and accountability.

The Judeo-Christian tradition is clear that we must accept individual responsibility for our own decisions and actions. He who sows to the flesh, we are told, will from the flesh reap corruption. The law of sowing and reaping is a non-repealable law of nature and nature’s God.

We cannot make foolish choices and then get angry at others who will not bail us out when we get ourselves in a jam through our own folly. The same folks who are angry with the South Fulton fire department for not bailing out Mr. Cranick are furious with the federal government for bailing out Wall Street firms, insurance companies, banks, mortgage lenders, and car companies for making terrible decisions. What’s the difference?

Mr. Cranick made a decision - a decision to spend his $75 on something other than fire protection - and thereby was making a choice to accept the risk that goes with it. He had no moral, legal, ethical or Christian claim on the services of the fire department because of choices that he himself made.