Time was when those eager to not be thought fools thought it wise to stay silent. Speaking could change how you are perceived, or it could just confirm a negative opinion already held. This wisdom, whose source is in dispute, reflects biblical wisdom- see Proverbs 17: 28. James in turn tells us that we are to be slow to speak. Silence has a great deal going for it. Sadly, however, in our day, it is no longer a safe refuge.
With the advent of social media we have first taken on the responsibility to virtue signal. Having the right avatar, demonstrating your opposition to Kony, your support of George Mitchell, your commitment to wearing a mask is an invitation to you to show the world how truly sensitive and caring you are. You don’t have to actually do anything. You don’t have to change anything. But you still get compassion points.
It has not taken long, however, to move from having an opportunity to score social points to facing the requirement that you do so. It’s not enough to be opposed to police brutality. It’s not enough to share Martin Luther King’s dream of a world where men are judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. It’s not enough to believe COVID is dangerous and to take fitting precautions. No, none of that is good enough if you are guilty of silence. You are complicit in the guilt of anyone whose purported sins you do not denounce, and whose platform you do not cancel. “He said nothing” is no longer a pronouncement of innocence, but a declaration of guilt.
The frail and the fearful are fodder for such folly. We want to be liked, to be accepted, to be able to sit at the cool kids’ table. And all they ask of us is that we chant their chants, march their marches, sling their slogans loudly and frequently. All they ask is that we scream our throats raw during whatever two-minutes hate they have scheduled. All they ask of us is that we become the mob that they rule.
One thing God’s Word makes abundantly clear- silence can get you killed. The only innocent man in the history of the world, in fact, went to His death in silence. He had every power at His disposal, including the very voice that called reality into existence. He kept silent for the sake of those killing Him. Now, He calls us to follow Him. We do so both when we refuse to parrot the poppycock, when we maintain that 2+2= 4, not 5 and that a he is a he, a she a she. We follow Him right into room 101. And like Him we find there the most fearful thing imaginable, who throws His loving arms around us, welcoming us to the feast He has prepared for us. Then we will open our lips, and we will praise Him into eternity.