Nail your colours to the mast – it’s good for others and vital for you!

Three and a half thousand years ago, or February as it’s otherwise known, my social media feeds were filled with reports of YouTubers and American comedy duo Rhett and Link publicly ‘deconverting’ from their Christian faith.

It was an odd deconversion. In other tragic cases we’ve seen Christian celebrities making an announcement on Instagram, accompanied by moody selfies and the appropriate hashtags: #authentic, #followingmytruth, or #stillbelieveinlove. That’s the pattern, but Rhett and Link took a different turn. They had to because the comedy duo had never, in 15 years, gotten around to telling their audience they were Christian to start with! So the first step was to come clean that they had been Christian – and they really had been very Christian, like missionary-level Christian – and then, having described decades in the faith over the course of a couple of podcasts, they were ready for the true reveal: they weren’t Christians now. Just like most of their fans thought they weren’t anyway! Told you it was an odd deconversion.

For the last decade and a half Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal have built an enormous platform on social media. They are among the most recognisable faces on YouTube with over 20million subscribers. Before this, though, they had been missionaries with Cru, one of America’s largest evangelistic ministries, based on over 5,000 campuses. In some ways the transition was seamless. Their schtick on YouTube is like their work for Cru: good-natured pranks and challenges familiar to youth and student workers the world over – ‘Chubby Bunnies’ for a YouTube audience. But they never credited their sources. Or their Source.

Lamenting a lost opportunity

I puzzled over this at the time. I knew through the grapevine that they were Christians and, as an evangelist, and one seeking to reach out on YouTube, my first instinct was to lament the lost opportunity. I didn’t expect them to produce evangelistic content or lead their followers in prayers of commitment, but I did want them to nail their colours to the mast, to be unashamed to be known as Christians.

That kind of authenticity speaks volumes, and it would have done so to millions. But instead they were silent. Silent, that is, until their faith was in the rear-view mirror and then all of a sudden they discovered their missionary mojo. The old beliefs were not for public consumption, the new ones have been broadcast far and wide.

‘Coming out’

This tells us a lot about the cultural winds that are blowing. There are many things Rhett and Link could have ‘come out’ as in 2020 which would have gained them nothing but praise and affirmation. But they only felt able to come out as Christian once they added the prefix ex-. So this deconversion is certainly a depressing bellwether for our times. But let it also be a challenge to us.

I’m quite sure that in recent years the duo were silent because their faith was unravelling. But I also think, in the early years, their faith was unravelling partly because they were silent. Faith and speech are meant to go together. To share our faith is also to feed it. Psalm 19 starts with the heavens speaking (v.1-6), then the Scriptures speaking (v.7-13) but it finishes with David speaking (v.14). God speaks, we listen… and we pass it on. In Romans our mouths are stopped under judgment (3:20) but they are opened in salvation (10:9) – we confess with our lips that ‘Jesus is Lord’. Such speech is at the heart of being a Christian. As 2 Corinthians 4:13 says: ‘I believed, therefore I spoke’. Therefore what God has joined together – faith and speech – let no-one separate.

So here’s my plea for this first column. Be a Christian. Visibly, audibly, nail your colours to the mast. On social media, put it in your bio. In real life, get it in early when you start a new job or a new course. Mention church to your neighbours and colleagues. Do what Rhett and Link never did on their platform: own the name of ‘Christian’ distinctly and proudly. And do it, not just because it’s good for others — it’s vital for you.