People of faith often like to share what they love and believe with the larger world. That world, however, does not always appreciate the sharing.
Several years ago, my wife, Monique, wrote a post on Facebook about how faith shaped her experience as a mother. She also shared some sincere concerns about popular messages being promoted about the role of women. The response was quick and brutal. A mob of online commentators swarmed in and called her horrible and judgmental, even expressing hope that something bad would happen to her.
My wife was left distraught and disoriented. She quickly took down the offending post — and backed off from all online engagement. In the months that followed, she became sicker than she’d ever been in her life. Looking back, I believe the trauma of the online onslaught left even her immune system in a vulnerable place.
But above all, the experience left her silent. Even years removed from the experience, she still feels hesitant about posting anything more than family updates on social media.
Can you relate?
‘New form of mob rule’
However fashionable it may have been to be on Facebook a decade ago, it’s become even more chic in recent years to proudly announce, as if you’d finally given up cigarettes, that “I’m off all social media.”
No one can blame people joining the exodus, of course. As journalist Glenn Greenwald said last year, “In the prevailing climate, the rational choice is to avoid social scorn and ostracization no matter how baseless the grievances one must appease.”
If we’re honest, the alternative to appeasement can be downright terrifying. I spoke recently to two different friends who have chosen to raise their voices in recent years about unpopular truths. I was shocked to hear about the cruel bullying and intimidation that had come their way from agitators who were clearly not acting in good faith.
I found myself wondering, why would anyone choose to speak up if they knew this kind of thing could happen to them, too? And should it surprise anyone that so many people of faith, in particular, opt to stay quiet publicly?
That’s precisely where more and more believers seem to be landing. Christian author Michael Brown shines a bright light on the reasons for this in his book “The Silencing of the Lambs” in which he talks about the collective threat that emerges when truth-tellers are cowed into silence by aggressive rhetoric.
Brown quotes a National Association of Scholars article originally published in 2020 that detailed the “cancellation” of 255 professors, administrators and students who held unacceptable views in the eyes of others. The writer, David Acevdo, argued, “This new form of mob rule has dominated virtually every sector of America life for the last several years: politics, journalism, music & entertainment, sports, business, and … higher education.”
Whatever external actions are taken to silence certain speakers, Oliver Perry writes that the greater danger is an internal one — like Monique, who was cowed by what happened on Facebook, Christians are becoming convinced they “have nothing important to say in American society.” If not internalizing the insistence that the classic Christian message is harmful, then at the very least many believers are now acutely sensitive of the extent to which many others are convinced this is true.
We have to wonder, what happens when all the truth-tellers stop speaking?
Choice or coercion?
One 2020 survey of 1,600 evangelical Christians found that fear was the primary reason cited as keeping them from sharing their faith. Brown quotes the Rev. Erwin Lutzer, former pastor of the Moody Church in Chicago, as saying, “We who are Christians have been told to stay in our corner, to pay homage to the left’s revolution, and, at best, keep our mouths shut.”
To be clear, silence is sometimes exactly the right response in the face of bitterness and anger. As Christians believe the prophet Isaiah said of Jesus, “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.”
Luke likewise records that when “the chief priests and scribes … vehemently accused” Jesus Christ, he “answered nothing.” In reference to this verse, Elder Neal Anderson, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints recently said, “There are times when being a peacemaker means that we resist the impulse to respond and instead, with dignity, remain quiet.”
That is a choice any of us can legitimately make — but in order to do so, it has to be a real choice, rather than an action compelled by others.
Clearly, this is not a new dilemma for believers. Throughout the ages, people of faith have faced periods of acute hostility and persecution, leading many to wisely choose silence at times. And of course other times this silence has been forced.
We are well into another period where believers are being goaded and pressured to say nothing.
But it’s not just Christians facing this forced silencing. In such a climate, anyone raising their voice for truth is suspect, no matter how famous you are.
The cost of silence
In 2020, a public letter in Harper’s Magazine was signed by J.K. Rowling, Salman Rushdie, Bari Weiss, Cornel West, Jon Haidt, Anne Applebaum, Noam Chomsky, Malcolm Gladwell and 142 others. These diverse thinkers stated, in part, that “the forces of illiberalism are gaining strength throughout the world,” manifest in an “intolerant climate that has set in on all sides.”
The signers went on to decry the many “calls for swift and severe retribution in response to perceived transgressions of speech and thought” that had led so many to fear a loss of job or reputation if they “depart from the consensus, or even lack sufficient zeal in agreement.”
I was aware of these dangers when I started writing for a broader audience — and the fears weighed me down. A wise mentor listened to my worries and responded simply, “You need to go read the Book of Jeremiah.”
One story in particular from this ancient book helped me most. After sharing something especially offensive to the Jerusalem elite, this beleaguered prophet was put in stocks, a quintessential ancient form of public humiliation. Afterward, Jeremiah raises his voice in lament to God: “I am in derision daily, every one mocketh me.” Exhausted and despairing, he initially says, “I will not make mention of (God), nor speak any more in his name.”
But then Jeremiah says this: “But his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.” Whatever suffering Jeremiah might endure for speaking out, it would have been far more painful for this man not to share what he knew.
Many millions of us since Jeremiah’s day have learned this for ourselves. The deeper peace and joy I feel in sharing what’s on my heart vastly exceeds in value any turbulence that has come my way. I know many others who have had the same experience.
You might consider what this could mean for your own life. Is there something that feels important to say? And are you tired of holding it in?
When the discomfort of raising your voice is outweighed by the discomfort of keeping everything inside, you’ll know what to do next.
Jacob Hess is the editor of Public Square Magazine and a former board member of the National Coalition of Dialogue and Deliberation. He has worked to promote liberal-conservative understanding since the publication of “You’re Not as Crazy as I Thought (But You’re Still Wrong)” with Phil Neisser. With Carrie Skarda, Kyle Anderson and Ty Mansfield, Hess also authored “The Power of Stillness: Mindful Living for Latter-day Saints.”