Cradles of (20th-century) Eminence

I am currently rereading Cradles of Eminence, a book that I first read in my homeschooling research days, the title plucked from Karl Bunday's Learn in Freedom! website.  The premise of the book is that many people who turn out to be eminent (that is, not merely talented in a conventional way, but world-changers) learned their tenacity and convictions during unconventional, and often traumatic, childhoods. It's a fascinating read.

One trend, at least in the couple of chapters I've re-read so far, and as I recall, in the entire book, is the tendency to "freethinking" in the children, and often in their families as well.  Many were early agnostics, others were Unitarians.  Most were from politically liberal families.  I  won't include the details here, because of course, they are the sorts of details about which most people have already formed their opinions, but some of the people discussed in the first few chapters include Margaret Sanger, Jane Addams, Eleanor Roosevelt, Thomas Wolfe, George Bernard Shaw, Susan B. Anthony, James Joyce, Pearl Buck, Andrew Carnegie, Charlie Chaplin, and Joseph Stalin.

The authors do a good job of making the daring and bravery of these families appealing to the reader.   And indeed, for many people who are politically and religiously liberal themselves, the connection is clear and easy:  Freethinkers are brave and courageous, and it's the conservatives who stultify society and keep people under oppression.   So people should obviously raise their children as freethinkers.  Who couldn't see the connection?

I would simply like to point out one thing:  These people mostly came from 19th-century families. They came of age in the late 19th and early 20th century, at the height of progressivism, reform, big government, and eugenics.  Naturally, those were the people whose biographies lined the shelves in public libraries during the late 1950s and early 1960s, when the Goertzels were writing their book.  We are now in a better position to see the legacies of some of these movements.  I wonder who tomorrow's brave contributors will be?  

Some of the reforms these eminent people carried out were probably needed at the time; others have left a legacy of pain and moral numbness.  But how much of the overwhelming appeal of progressivism at the time was because Christians were complacent and had stopped bravely living out their beliefs?  It's one thing to uphold the purity of one's faith, but another altogether to persecute those who don't.  (I'm not talking about having criteria for church membership, but about uncharitable behavior within the broader community.)  Perhaps these people saw the need for sweeping reforms because we Christians weren't doing the job ourselves?  I'm not singling out any particular branch of Christians; we've all done it.  I can remember being part of a phalanx of second grade girls (all nominally Christians) who were unkind to a visiting Russian girl, just because we supposed she was a Communist.  Somebody should have given us a good shake down!  

So my question is, how can I, as a Christian parent, encourage the sort of courage and vision that will wear well in the long run?  I'm not inclined to traumatize my child, of course!  But neither will I be afraid of the ordinary (and occasionally greater than ordinary) rubs and bumps that come with life.  I can't bury myself in convention, but need to think out my beliefs and reasons for them.  And we Christians have a good reason to think through such questions.  Not only will history ask them of us, but so will the Judge of the Universe.  Thankfully my answer will not ultimately rest on my own silly and half-hearted attempts to live, but upon the splendor of Christ.  Eminence is not a matter of our own choosing.  Otherwise, I sometimes think it would be hard even to get out of bed!