Courage in the face of peer pressure
A letter from November 2022
Dear Church Leaders
I would like to share some reflections following last Sunday evening’s sermon re Caleb, and particularly re the issue of courage in the face of peer pressure.
Caleb, cowardice and courage
I think I could have identified with Caleb before 2020. But I can certainly do so now. I suppose that much of what I have written to you in the last two years could, like Caleb’s words in Numbers 13, be described as a “minority report”.
For better or worse, I am not someone who naturally speaks out. And I can assure you that I would much prefer to be doing something other than writing messages like this one. But I have long felt that it would be deeply wrong to remain silent in the context of increasingly manifest deception and injustice. Particularly when the most vulnerable in society are suffering most.
And yet much of what I hear – from some Christian friends and family, and from some church members and leaders – is essentially along the lines of: “We don’t want to hear from you about this. We’re not interested in looking carefully at the evidence and considering your concerns. We don’t want to talk about it, even when the questions are plainly ethical rather than scientific. You need to trust the authorities, brother. You need to conform. Like the rest of us. Follow the crowd. Don’t rock the boat. Please stop speaking out.”
And, implicitly, there are perhaps shades of: “Don’t be courageous. Be cowardly.”
But I don’t feel at all comfortable with that. Not least in the context of Revelation 21:8 where, among those who “will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur,” the “cowardly” are first in the list.
Paul and Jesus
I have written to some of you before about the challenge of a biblical response to the current situation. Below are some further reflections and questions specifically in relation to Paul and Jesus.
Paul was not slow to speak up for his own rights as a Roman citizen. Do you think he would not have spoken up for the rights of others?
Do you think Paul would have nothing to say about healthcare workers being threatened with losing their jobs unless they took novel gene-based injections with no long-term safety data? Even when they already had natural immunity. Do you think he would not have pointed to the Helsinki Declaration? Or to the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights? Or to the Nuremberg Code?
Jesus was not slow to speak up for children. Do you think he would not have spoken up about the extraordinary response to covid that has had a catastrophic impact on children and young people’s education, mental health, wellbeing, and life chances? With the most disadvantaged suffering disproportionately more. What message do you think the near-silence from church leaders on this conveys to our own children and young people?
Do you think Jesus would have nothing to say about companies with criminal records fraudulently pushing novel gene-based injections with no long-term safety data on children at close-to-zero risk of disease?
More broadly, do you think Jesus would have had nothing to say about church leaders pushing the "Vaccine-Saviour" narrative? Do you think he would have kept quiet about Brazil's Christ the Redeemer statue being lit up with the words "Vaccine Saves", even if the vaccine-saviour were safe and effective?
And do you think Jesus would say nothing if he walked into a church service and saw children wearing masks while adults looked on in silence? Some might point out (correctly) that it has never been the policy of our church to encourage the masking of children. And that the parents are well-intentioned. But that would hardly be an excuse for tolerating the mistreatment of children in other contexts?
I think it is right to look back and learn lessons from mistakes made by the church in times past, e.g. in 1930s and 1940s Germany (as mentioned in last Sunday evening's sermon). But I do wonder how those of us who are still around in the 2030s and 2040s will look back on the "First World" church of the early 2020s.
Meme c/o el gato malo in this article that is well worth reading for anyone in any position in leadership (or indeed anyone else).
Dear Church Leaders homepage (or via Substack, or e.g. DuckDuckGo, but not Google for some reason)
The Big Reveal — Christianity carefully considered (which can also be found via Substack, or e.g. DuckDuckGo, but not Google)