Only a couple of weeks ago, our county government deigned to allow us to return to Mass at our home parish. Behind the masks, and across the enforced social distance, you could see tears of joy in the eyes of parishioners.
The moment was made more poignant by the news that we were losing our beloved pastor, Rev. Dan Leary, who was headed down to Mexico to serve the poor. And although the readings for the Sunday Mass had been chosen 50 years ago, they seemed to be timed perfectly and providentially: They all preached perhaps the most timely but countercultural message from Christianity and Judaism alike.
No, it wasn’t about marriage or abortion or greed. The biblical message we received on our first day back from three months of government-imposed lockdown was “be not afraid.”
Specifically, Jesus told Paul, “Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace.”
“Be not afraid” appears again and again in both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. That Sunday, the readings included the prophet Jeremiah telling us to set aside fear and Jesus instructing the apostles, “Fear no one. … Be not afraid.”
“Be not afraid” is the Christian teaching that most cuts against the culture today.
Our media and our political leaders preach the opposite. The largest cable outlets and newspapers spend half of their words on making us terrified that your children will be killed in a school shooting or by a racist cop despite the near-zero probability that such horrific events will befall on you or your family. Climate change and debt apocalypse are heaped on top. The clear message from your daily paper or nightly broadcast is: Be afraid.
And that was before the coronavirus. A deadly virus and deadly lockdowns are scary enough, but reporters want you to believe that walking on a boardwalk is deadly. They celebrate an attention-desperate lawyer dressed as a grim reaper on the beach.
President Trump is best understood as holding a mirror to the press. His success has come from exactly the same type of fear-stoking. Antifa is going to come after you; illegal immigrants are going to kill you.
Of course, a Christian needs prudence and must be wary of threats. We are, after all, sheep sent out among the wolves. But we need to not be afraid.
More recently, though, there’s another font of fear in American culture. It isn’t the media or the politicians who try to exploit your fear for clicks or votes. It’s the illiberal parts of the Left who want you to be afraid. They want to scare you into silence if you don’t believe their dogma.
Editors are now fired for running “bad” opinions. A corporate executive was pushed out for what he wrote 30 years ago. A professor was fired for tweeting out research that was unhelpful to what the angriest, wokest activists wanted, and anyone who doubted that the tweet was racist was blasted for saying so. J.K. Rowling was declared persona non grata for expressing views on gender theory that are as far left as biology and common sense would allow, but not quite left enough.
The cancellations and forced, groveling, public apologies go on and on.
This is a campaign of fear. Its tactics are obviously aimed at instilling maximum fear in order to silence all opposition and thus win the debate.
The campaigners of fear ruin people’s lives for their years-ago transgressions against brand-new rules forged in the darkness of gender studies departments and left-wing reporter email lists. They get people fired for the sins of their spouses and girlfriends. Nobody is safe if these are the rules.
This is not the way you behave if you care about justice. This is the way you behave if you want to make everyone in the world afraid to cross you.
It’s a common lament about the U.S. criminal justice system that if a prosecutor wants to indict you, he can find the crime. Today, if a canceler wants to cancel you, he or she can find the “crime.”
On top of this comes the creepy, cult-like incantations. They chant in unison that non-woke opinions (even the opinion that non-woke opinions shouldn’t be silenced) are actual violence, endangering protected classes. The mantras simultaneously baffle you for their incomprehensibility and threaten you with litigation and firing.
They want you to be terrified. So, if you want to stand against the tide, be not afraid.
“I hear the whisperings of many,” Jeremiah said in that Old Testament reading we heard. “‘Terror on every side! Denounce! Let us denounce him!’ All those who were my friends are on the watch for any misstep of mine.”
Do not let fear win over your heart. Do not let it silence you.
The academics fired for tweeting out research and the editors fired for publishing opinions are just the tip of the iceberg. The new religion wins most of its battles just by scaring you out of having an opinion. The Bible tells us not to let this happen.
“For your sake I bear insult, and shame covers my face,” the psalm at our homecoming Mass declared.
And the Gospel verse was perfect: “What I say to you in the darkness,” Christ told his apostles, “speak in the light; what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops.”
Let us begin by speaking the most offensive truth: You should not be afraid.
