Reflections on fear [2025 re-issue]
God tells his people, “Do not be afraid”; but some people want us to be afraid...
Dear Church Leaders (and everyone else)
This post is essentially a re-issue of this fairly short article on fear from almost a year ago, not least in the context of the forthcoming follow-up to January’s Only connect post.
God tells his people, “Do not be afraid”
Throughout the Bible, God’s people are told, again and again, “Do not be afraid”:
This 25-second clip makes the point particularly vividly:
Though in contrast we also read (for example, my emphasis):
But be sure to fear the Lord and serve him faithfully with all your heart; consider what great things he has done for you (1 Samuel 12:24)
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding (Proverbs 9:10)
Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell (Matthew 10:28)
(all the while noting that when we read a word such as “fear” in the Bible, it is a translation of a word from an ancient language whose meaning is sometimes hard to convey succinctly in modern English)
Both the Old Testament and the New Testament have much to say about fear. But one contender for a biblical bottom line on the subject might be this:
[Jesus] too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death — that is, the devil — and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death (Hebrews 2:14-15)
Words that Christians seemingly all too readily forgot during the covid era.
But some people want us to be afraid
“Do not be afraid” could perhaps be described as the very opposite of the prevailing message from the authorities during the covid era. In the words of Dr Gary Sidley, a retired clinical psychologist with over 30 years experience working for the NHS:
Behavioural scientists know that a frightened population is a compliant one, so this was exploited as a way of compelling us to abide by the coronavirus restrictions. The minutes of the SPI-B meeting on 22 March 2020 stated: “The perceived level of personal threat needs to be increased … using hard-hitting emotional messaging.” Aided by the mainstream media, the British public were subsequently bombarded with fear-inducing information, images and mantras: Covid-19 daily death counts reported without context; inflated predictions of future casualties; recurrent footage of dying patients in Intensive Care Units; and scary slogans like, “If you go out you can spread it”, or “People will die”, often accompanied by images of emergency personnel wearing PPE.
Behavioural scientists now know better than ever what authorities through the ages have always known well enough. That frightened people are easier to govern.
I suspect that I first heard this said by Tony Benn, the former Labour MP known for (among other things) keeping a diary, drinking tea, and renouncing his hereditary peerage.
The interview was harder to find and to view than I expected on YouTube, but it can be seen e.g. here (transcript below, emphasis added):
[Benn] I think democracy is the most revolutionary thing in the world.
Far more revolutionary than socialist ideas or anybody else’s idea.
Because if you have power, you use it to meet the needs of you and your community.
And this idea of choice which capital talks about all the time — you’ve got to have a choice — choice depends on the freedom to choose. And if you’re shackled with debt, you don’t have the freedom to choose.
[Interviewer: It seems like it benefits the system if the average working person is shackled and in debt.]
[Benn] People in debt become hopeless. And hopeless people don’t vote… They always say everyone should vote. But I think if the poor in Britain or the United States turned out and voted for people who represented their interests it would be a real democratic revolution. And so they don’t want it to happen. So keeping people hopeless and pessimistic…
You see I think there are two ways in which people are controlled: first of all frighten people; and secondly demoralise them.
An educated, healthy and confident nation is harder to govern. And I think there’s an element in the thinking of some people… [that] we don’t want people to be educated, healthy and confident, because they would get out of control.
The top 1% of the world’s population own 80% of the world’s wealth. It’s incredible that people put up with it. But they’re poor, they’re demoralised, they’re frightened. And therefore they think perhaps the safest thing to do is take orders and hope for the best.
The same clip is also available on Rumble.
His words have aged well. Particularly in the context of the covid era.
And stepping back somewhat, those of us old enough to remember Tony Benn can perhaps look back and see some of the ways in which the authorities have sought to frighten people over the past few decades:
1960s: nuclear war
1970s: climate crisis due to global cooling
1980s: AIDS; acid rain
1990s: crime; the hole in ozone layer
2000s: terrorism; weapons of mass destruction
2010s: climate crisis due to global warming
2020s: pandemics; global boiling
Fearmongering. As a means of control.
But the more I find out, and the more I think about things, the more I wonder how much of the above we should actually have been scared of…
Related:
Dear Church Leaders most-read articles
Some posts, including a version of this one, can also be found on Unexpected Turns
The Big Reveal: Christianity carefully considered as the solution to a problem