The adventure of discipleship in a risk-locked society

When was the last time you heard the hymn ‘To be a Pilgrim’ by John Bunyan, or how about ‘Onward, Christian Soldiers, marching as to war, with the cross of Jesus going on before!’?

Perhaps you don’t know them at all. These hymns, once classic school assembly songs for generations, haven’t made it into the 21st century. Their language is dated, but the sentiment shouldn’t be. They were a call for us to love Christ and to serve Him unashamedly, written as a call to discipleship and to ‘share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus’. I’m not sure we sing many hymns now which encourage risk-taking with such reckless abandonment.

We are increasingly nervous about challenging people with the cost of the gospel. There are many reasons for this. We are people of our time, and elements of what has been called ‘therapeutic moralistic deism’ have crept into our Christian culture. It is not surprising. The landscape around us has changed. The mental health crisis is real. I know many who have experienced severe mental illness, which has floored them. Recovery from this is often slow, and relapses common. We are conscious of the fragility of people and long for them to know the hope of the gospel and the comfort Christ brings. We are also aware of bullying in our churches by some leaders, which has devastated some. Pastors who want to be gentle, faithful shepherds can feel paralysed and unsure of what proper discipling looks like. But despite this backdrop, we must continue encouraging one another to live faithfully for Jesus in a hostile world. We know we need to go and make disciples, but we must also exhort one another to live faithfully as disciples.We need to encourage one other to radical boldness and wholehearted commitment to Jesus. To do that, we must challenge the ‘safetyism’ that prevails in our society.

Psychologist Jonathan Haidt coined the term ‘safetyism’ in his book The Coddling of the American Mind. He observes that our desire to protect children from danger has stopped them from developing resilience. An outworking of this has morphed into education, with its trigger warnings, safe spaces, and therapy dogs. Avoiding difficulty and emotional discomfort has become of paramount importance. Lecturers on our university campuses report students not turning up in person for seminars because it feels ‘too much’ and requesting to use Zoom instead. Christian Unions run events on handling exam stress. Mae Muller’s Eurovision song didn’t get the UK many points, but expressed the trope ‘You said you were leaving to work on your mental health’ – a very modern way to end a relationship.

One pastor speaking to his youth group asked them if they had to choose between a life of adventure or a life of safety, what would they prefer? Everyone chose safety. Safety is not the opposite of adventure, but it used to be considered boring by reckless and energetic teenagers. Have our youth become wise and sensible? Or are we seeing the fruit of ‘be safe’ from the Covid era? Has our helicopter parenting created a self-absorbed and emotionally fragile youth, which is what Haidt argues? I recently came across this example: A Christian parent of a postgraduate ministry trainee phoned a church leader to complain that their 22-year-old was working too hard after completing a six-hour shift without a break for a one-off event. Commentators talk of a snowflake generation, but maybe older generations need to take stock. What are we communicating to our children and young adults about living sacrificially? Are we modelling a life of bold discipleship? If we aren’t, teaching our youth to be strong and courageous for Christ will be difficult. We must remember: ‘… whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it’ (Mark 8:35). The safety this world offers is temporary. As Bunyan said: ‘He who would valiant be ’gainst all disaster, let him in constancy follow the Master.’

Karen Soole is the women’s worker at Trinity Church, Lancaster and the Women’s Ministry Director for Anglican Mission in England.