By Jackson Posey | Sports Editor
“My conscience is captive to the Word of God, thus I cannot and will not recant,” Martin Luther is said to have declared at his heresy trial. “Here I stand; I can do no other. God help me.”
In modern times, the renegade cleric’s call for personal integrity has fallen on deaf ears. A pervasive denial of absolute truth has trickled down to a generation that no longer feels comfortable staking a claim.
Facing the constant presence of digital dissenters, every feeling becomes a fortress; every canon a castle; every doctrine a stronghold to defend. Eventually, the pitchforks are dropped and the torches extinguished; common courtesy demands it. So we slink away, confused, half-holding to half-truths that we have only halfway implemented.
“Freedom of speech means practically, in our modern civilisation, that we must only talk about unimportant things,” English essayist G.K. Chesterton wrote in 1904. “We must not talk about religion, for that is illiberal; we must not talk about bread and cheese, for that is talking shop; we must not talk about death, for that is depressing; we must not talk about birth, for that is indelicate. It cannot last.
“Something must break this strange indifference, this strange dreamy egoism, this strange loneliness of millions in a crowd. Something must break it. Why should it not be you and I? Can you do nothing else but guard relics?”
This “strange dreamy egoism” is deeply evident in a generation so scared of being wrong that they can never be right. Indiana Jones’ “leap of faith” onto an invisible bridge didn’t just require enough faith to fall, it took enough to stand — yet as I survey my generation, and the hidden recesses of my own heart, I find a small, metallic idol which tells us never to stand.
Luther’s famous call to “sin boldly” has long been misunderstood. Far from encouraging lascivious living, Luther beckoned a bold-faced confession of a bold-faced life. Live openly, repent fully. Each step takes a believer closer to the throne of grace.
“If you are a preacher of mercy, do not preach an imaginary but the true mercy,” Luther wrote to fellow reformer Philip Melanchthon. “If the mercy is true, you must therefore bear the true, not an imaginary sin. God does not save those who are only imaginary sinners. Be a sinner, and let your sins be strong, but let your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death, and the world.”
Luther took bold strides forward — and, at his best, when he realized he’d lost the path, boldly dropped to his knees. The same should be true of us. Our “best” is never characterized by a carnal, self-protecting fear or even by our grandest worldly accomplishments, but by the fear of God. My perfectly crafted self-image is nothing compared to the image of God within me.
At our best, we are bold.
There are layers to this, of course. Expressing my true opinions about Mrs. Smith’s hat, for instance, would run afoul of Christ’s commands to love my enemies. Punching Mr. Jones in the face would denigrate the aforementioned imago Dei by comically inflating his (eminently punchable) nose.
But there is a solution, a via media, a middle path between intentional sin and deliberate cloistering. Followers of Christ, the truly innocent martyr, must be willing to openly counter the cultural powers of our day. Like a hungry tortoise in a room full of ravens, we must stick out our necks to survive.
In an age of sitting, of fleeing, of turning our backs on the truth — we must stand. Sometimes you will be wrong; recognize, reorient, repent. You’re back on the path. Your Shepherd has not left you. Take a deep breath and keep going.
“We will commit sins while we are here, for this life is not a place where justice resides,” Luther admits to Melanchthon, before turning his attention heavenward. “We, however … are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth where justice will reign. It suffices that through God’s glory we have recognized the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world. No sin can separate us from Him, even if we were to kill or commit adultery thousands of times each day. Do you think such an exalted Lamb paid merely a small price with a meager sacrifice for our sins? Pray hard for you are quite a sinner.”
Act boldly, without reservations. When things go awry, repent publicly and wholeheartedly. In perilous times, we must live perilous lives. We may be wrong, but we shall certainly be right.