Northbound

LaShawn Barber asks the question:

Christians, what would you do if some maniac held a gun to your head and asked you to deny Christ or die? Would you deny the Savior?

The context here is that faced by the kidnapped Fox News journalists released in Gaza:

“We were pushed down onto the dirt-covered concrete floor and we were forced to lie face down with our handcuffs on,” Centanni said. “Olaf was in the same room with me. Our shoulders were wrenched back, very painful.” Both of the men were forced to convert to Islam at gunpoint, Centanni said.

“We were forced to convert to Islam at gunpoint,” Centanni told FOX News. “Don’t get me wrong here. I have the highest respect for Islam, and I learned a lot of good things about it, but it was something we felt we had to do because they had the guns, and we didn’t know what the hell was going on.”

Barber:

If I’m ever captured by Muslim maniacs or non-Muslim maniacs who gave me a choice between denying my Savior and death, I’d want to face death with all the dignity I had left. As a prideful person (for better or for worse), I don’t want to give my would-be murderers the satisfaction of breaking me, especially if they’re going to kill me anyway. And what is my life worth without Christ?

Would I want to live with the shame of not trusting him and denying him for the sake of living in this fallen world?

Just speaking for myself here, let me say, loud and clear, you betcha. Bring on the shame. If I’m captured by terrorists who tell me they’ll release me if I convert to their religion, I’m telling them exactly what they want to hear. If they tell me to deny Jesus, done. If that’s what gets me home to my wife in Jersey, that’s what I’ll do. I don’t have that kind of pride when it comes to my own personal safety. You want me to deny Christ? I’ll deny anyone you like. Tom Landry, Ronald Reagan, Grant Teaff, even John Wayne. You name it. I’ll tell you that I wear pink bunny rabbit slippers if it means you won’t shoot me dead. I’ll root for Texas A&M. Even Notre Dame. Don’t think I won’t.

More to the point, it’s very prideful — verging on the sinfully proud, in my view — for anyone to say that they wouldn’t do what Centanni and Wiig did, and to hold themselves up as exemplars. No one knows what he or she would do in that situation, and the journalists shouldn’t be faulted for what they did based upon someone else’s self-righteous estimation of what they would do.

As far as “living in this fallen world”, it’s true that “to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” It may be that God may call me to martyrdom for the faith — not that I expect this to happen, and I’m surely never going to seek it out. But if I’m going to be a martyr, it had better be for something more than just the casual whim of a hostage-taker. I’m willing to sacrifice myself for some things (he said, from the safety of his lunch-hour desk). But not in that situation, especially if a lie will see me through to safety.

Of course, circumstances change outcomes. I (likely) wouldn’t deny Christ if I knew that my interlocutor would kill me regardless of what I said. I (likely) wouldn’t deny Christ if I knew my captors wouldn’t let me go — check out Mark Bowden’s Guests of the Ayatollah for good examples of courage in the face of captivity. But in that situation? I’d do as Peter did, and deny my Lord and Savior. I might — as he did — weep bitterly once I got home, but I’d be comforted, as he was, that I would have more opportunities to serve Him in the world.