Shane Legler

In his, “The World of Yesterday,” Stefan Zweig relates that the Nazis of his time came up with an Aryan “church” that was used to denounce and persecute any Christian who dared to hold to the Gospel of Christ as revealed and proclaimed in the New Testament. Though it may not take us by surprise, it ought to still rend our hearts that pastors from all over Germany stood and applauded as Nazi officials peddled their false gospel. Those cowards either stood in silence or nodded in approval as the Nazi government first dragged their neighbors from their homes and later butchered them.

As this travesty of history relates to our time, I just can’t get away from the fact that, in Revelation 21:8, the cowards top the list of those who will be thrown into the lake of fire. Yet, we just don’t seem to notice the sin of cowardice that much, possibly because there are very few taken with that sin who don’t live in denial of it. One of the things that makes cowardice so hard to deal with is that it can’t even stomach to look itself in the mirror. Not only is cowardice always ready with a convincing “reason” to excuse itself, but the sad truth is that it often masquerades as courage.

One way that we might check ourselves to determine whether we are being courageous or cowardly may be to ask what price we might pay for a position we hold to, a word we speak, or an action we take. In our culture today, who is going to accost you or seek to cancel you for supporting abortion rights, affirming same-sex marriage, or championing gender affirming care? What government agency will be coming after you if you teach children that white people are inherently racist or agree with government policy on everything from climate change to COVID-19? 

May I gently say that it takes no courage whatsoever to agree with the official position of the governing authorities. Real courage is risking one’s social status, livelihood, liberty and life for what one knows to be right and true. This matters because we need to understand the cost of real courage, as our nation needs Christians of conviction and courage to take a stand for the truth right now. As he stood on trial before Pilate, our Lord said that he came “to bear witness of the truth.”

If we truly belong to Christ, are we not also to bear witness to the truth in all things? Do we agree with Abraham Kuyper that “there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry, ‘Mine!’? Oct. 31 was the anniversary of the Reformation. Will we agree with Luther in saying, “my conscience is captive to the word of God?” Will we affirm all that God’s word affirms or just the parts that may not require any courage of us to affirm?

There are many in our country who recoil at the thought of Nazis. They say, “We’d never do as the Nazis did.” We are for peace and kindness. We are committed to fighting hate. Yet, they cowardly agree with the government and the culture at large rather than with God, and that, gentle reader, is what vast swaths of kindly German “Christians” actually did.

The people of our time echo those of the first century who said, “If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.” 

To which Jesus replied, “Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell? Therefore, I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth.” (Matthew 23:30-35a)

Christians, we are going to be persecuted for bearing witness to the truth, but our people desperately need us to have the courage to do just that. It was Christians who built this nation’s oldest institutes of higher learning. After these last few weeks, it is clearer than ever that we need to be the ones to call these institutions what they’ve become; namely, evil. The church did not change the world by handwringing and equivocating but by boldly proclaiming God’s word and calling good and evil by their proper names. It is not just to ancient Israel but to his people in every time and place that God says, “Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” (Joshua 1:9)

(Shane Legler is pastor at Garland Community Church of God.)