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Secret believers: taking up the challenge

“The real nutters are the fanatics who despise religious belief” Melanie Phillips, Daily Mail, 26 November 2007

“If the trumpet does not sound a clear call, who will get ready for battle?” 1 Corinthians 14:8

“from Issachar, men who understood the times and knew what Israel should do” 1 Chronicles 12:32

In far too many countries, owning up to being a Christian risks discrimination, violence, even death. In our own society, it risks ridicule and opposition.

Tony Blair revealed in a BBC television interview that he avoided talking about his religious views while in office for fear of being labelled ‘a nutter’. Our former Prime Minister is far from being a ‘secret believer’; though many may well be surprised that Peter Mandelson said “This is a man who takes a Bible with him wherever he goes and last thing at night he will read from the Bible.”

But former Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell reinforced the suspicion with which many in Britain regard those who have faith. “The public might have been less willing to give him the triumph of three consecutive general election victories if they’d known the extent to which ethical values would overshadow pragmatism,” he said. Of course the fact that Tony Blair has indicated it was his faith that helped him take the decision to invade Iraq simply confirms to many that faith and politics is a dangerous mixture.

But we should be under no illusion. The battle lines are clear: secularism is clearly challenging Christian faith in a more determined fashion. Thus our struggle reflects that faced by our brothers and sisters forced to be secret believers for their own safety. There are powerful forces that are irritated beyond measure when people of faith go public. To them, religion is OK only behind closed doors. The crime is to tell others about it and to openly attempt to apply it to public policy. That’s when the shock troops of secularism will take to the media. They are assisted, of course, by the Islamic fundamentalists who have taken to suicide bombing in the name of religion. They are easily seen as typical of those who take faith seriously.

So if we take the message of God’s love seriously enough to want to share it and apply it in the public sphere, we have to be courageous, careful and committed – just like the secret believers we want to support and stand with as members of the same family. After all, it’s not persecution that’s abnormal; it’s the absence of persecution that’s abnormal!

So we must defend religious liberty to exercise our own faith here so that we can effectively stand for the religious liberty of secret believers across the world.

Last year we agreed together to UNITE for the sake of Christ and his Persecuted Church. We begin this New Year with a fresh determination to stand up and to stand out like the men of Issachar as we continue the battle wearing God’s armour and using God’s weapons of committed, faithful love.