Without bravery ‘Christianity will perish’

This summer, one of the world’s most industrious and controversial men, Elon Musk, posted this on his platform X: “Unless there is more bravery to stand up for what is fair and right, Christianity will perish.” These pointed words have a long legacy of truth in them. The Christian faith is built on a foundation of bravery, which started with the chief Cornerstone, Jesus; living, breathing, supernatural superhero, who literally saved the world from evil. Jesus Christ of Nazareth, fully man, fully God, completely sinless, became sin and took onto himself the Father’s punishment for a humanity of sinners. 

Christian heroes old and new

Springing out from this core of bravery have come untold numbers of Christian heroes. From the actual disciples: Paul fending off beatings, stoning and shipwrecks; John, boiled in oil but found miraculously uninjured; Peter, nailed upside down to a cross and crucified. We see more unshakeable courage in early Christians like Perpetua of Carthage, who was put into a ring of savage, wild animals for refusing to renounce Jesus. It is said she could be heard proclaiming through the mauling that she could not feel the pain and saw a vision of being received into heaven. Then there are men like William Tyndale, strangled, then burned at the stake for translating the Bible from Latin to English so untold English-speaking Christians might be able to read the Word of God personally, in their own language.

Calvin Robinson, British Anglican priest, writer and presenter publicly challenged the Church of England on the decision to bless the union of same-sex couples in a twelve-minute speech at Oxford Union, imploring them to hold fast to the Spirit-breathed inerrancy of scripture instead of the spirit of the age. Pastor John Amanchukwu of America braves the requisite shock and palpable discomfort as he travels across the country to school board meetings, reading aloud from the pornographic literature currently available to young students in public school libraries. For the sake of unknowing parents and citizens, the pastor casts an exposing light on the sexually immoral content available to children across the country’s schools. 

Chloe Cole is a Christian woman who started her gender transition with puberty blockers at age twelve, ultimately culminating in breast removal surgery. She later regretted the hasty decision she was led to by so-called health professionals and began her detransition process. Today she is a vocal proponent against radical trans ideology, even testifying before the US Congress about her ordeal and subsequent long road to healing. 

Standing for truth today

Millions of brave Christians live amid persecution around the world. According to Open Doors World Watch trends, one in seven Christians (365 million) face high levels of persecution for their faith, in places like North Korea, Bangladesh and Nigeria. 

We in the West won’t necessarily suffer physical persecution unto death but there’s a very real risk of social and professional suicide threatening everyone, counting the cost of questioning unbiblical gender-sexual ‘norms’ sweeping through Western society. A friend who worked for a national British corporation was called into a tribunal for saying that, as a Christian, he believes marriage is between one man and one woman. Another friend was questioned for declining to state his chosen gender pronouns on his work letterhead, and encouraged not to make it seem as though he wasn’t an ally to the LGBTQI+ community. 

A High Court judge in England recently upheld a ban on Christian Joshua Sutcliffe from teaching when he refused to use the preferred gender pronouns of one of his students presenting as the opposite gender. JK Rowling is known to have been openly critical of Scotland’s Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 that, according to the BBC, “makes it an offence to behave in a threatening or abusive manner with the intention of ‘stirring up hatred’ based on disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity or being intersex”. Interestingly, the Act also abolishes the offence of blasphemy. Let that sink in for a moment…

Christians are called to offer up hope bravely, to be light in the darkness when darkness overwhelms. The apostles were well versed in proclaiming to large crowds things they didn’t want to hear: the truth of God’s ways, their deviation from them and how to return back to him. Throughout the Book of Acts they encountered unconciliatory crowds: many would be saved, while others would conspire their permanent cancellation. Two thousand years on, we’re still here.

If Christians at home in the West remain voiceless, the world will continue struggling to define absolute truth, spinning ever more radically away from the will of God. Like Peter and the other apostles agreed, we must obey God over men (Acts 5:29). Honestly, I’m no superhero. I’ve battled fear even to write this. It’s unsettling to challenge prevailing norms. I’d love to remain easygoing and likeable in people’s eyes. In reality, we are brands plucked from the fire. What right have we to comfort, while the lost fall down, burdened by their sins? We believe in God, so we must speak! Praying in the Spirit, wearing the full armour of God, like those who’ve gone before us and now walk beside, we have bravery in Christ. I think Elon Musk is right, Christianity and bravery coexist.