Is "shutting up" sinful?

"As we must account for every idle word, so must we account for every idle silence."

Benjamin Franklin

Last week I wrote a post called "ideas worth insulting" in which I proposed (among 5 other proposals) that Christians should remain silent about their faith, until they are asked a question about their faith. It provoked an irate, yet concise response from someone I don't who know, who somehow discovered my Blog, took the time to read it, and then cared enough about what I said to respond to my post. His Concerns, Questions and Comments were sufficiently provoking that I decided they deserved my time to respond carefully and sincerely to each of his specific points.  In framing my responses I realized that this opportunity was too good to pass up, so I have chosen to make the reply itself a Blog Post. Below is my response to what I felt were the pertinent points of his response the post....

If you want the full text please go to the previous post and read the comments section....

Ron's concerns and questions will be in red while my responses will be in black...

A public response....

1 .      I hope you won't consider it insulting for me to say that your opinion is not Biblical.

I wasn’t insulted. I assumed that you intended no intentional insult, but rather that you were intending to offer a public rebuke and also a strong rebuttal of my stated position.  I've heard your rebuke, and have attempted to make your rebuttal as public as I can. I do not feel I deserve to be rebuked, and have not been convinced by your rebuttal. 

2 .     Perhaps you don't care for the Bible as the standard for faith and practice.

I am a Christian; and I care deeply about the Bible and consider it to be my standard for Faith and practice. I'm assuming that you also hold the Bible as your standard for Faith and practice and that we merely disagree on exactly how to interpret the Bible in regards this issue. I am well able to list a long list of Biblical passages and explain why I feel they "prove" my point. But as I know mighty people of God who can take those same passages and "prove" half a dozen mutually exclusive positions. I assume you are being faithful to what you understand the Bible to say. I think Christianity would become a kinder and safer place if we could accept that Christians who disagree with us are sincerely trying to understand Scripture at least as much as we do. 

3 .     Or, if you had the cure for cancer, would you wait for people to ask you?  Or would you do your best to make it known?

If I possessed the cure for cancer, I would indeed do my best to make it known. Just as I do my best to find the best means to make the Gospel of Jesus Christ known. If I had stumbled upon the means to cure all cancer I would try to find the most effective way for that cure to be taken seriously by those who are trusted enough as experts to validate my proposed cure. Merely shouting out really loudly that I had indeed found the cure for all types of cancer might not be an effective way to make that cure available. I think that would be especially true, if I was not a world-renowned expert. So it is with The Gospel. Merely shouting out loud that you have a solution to a problem that many people in the Developed World don’t recognize as a real problem may not be the most effective way of convincing people of the problem or the proposed cure. Especially if you are not considered a trusted source by your target audience.

4 .    No one who believes what Jesus taught about hell can stand by without saying something.  It would be immoral.

I’m uncertain which potential accusation to receive. Are you implying that I do not therefore believe what Jesus taught about Hell? Or were you implying that I am an immoral believer? I do believe what Jesus taught about Hell, and would direct you to my response to your illustration to a cure for cancer. Just because you shout pertinent information at people does not guarantee that they were listening to you, receptive to you, or comprehended the information you tried to communicate.  We are called not merely to say something but to share something and someone.  I believe that requires me to first earn the trust and respect of those I wish to communicate with. I deeply believe the best way to earn trust and respect in this time and place is to shut up and listen long enough to be trusted enough to be asked the serious questions about Identity and the Spiritual Belief of an individual who rightly considers these subjects to be private and personal. 

5 .    Just as God sent John the Baptist to prepare the way for Jesus, we need a new movement that will break up the hard soil on scientism that believes science has defeated the Bible

From this paragraph I conclude that you believe the great resistance to effectively communicating Christianity in a post-modern, post-Christian, post-secular world is that people tend to think our sacred scriptures are incompatible with science? In my experience merely convincing someone that Christianity is rational still leaves the unfortunate fact that a substantial majority of people under 30 in America find the stereotypical reputation of the average Christian to be the epitome of Ignorance and Intolerance. Any of the last decade worth of Pew Research’s oft quoted reports on the decline of Christianity in America, or the book “unchristian” by Kinnaman and Lyons, will make my point that it is not the irrationality of our Beliefs that people find hard to swallow, but our attitudes and behavior.

Ron, I'm not sure if we have ever met, how you came upon my Blog and why you cared so deeply to reply so thoroughly. But your reply offered me the platform to express a view inside Christianity that perhaps we Christians need to change the way we communicate our beliefs to a world who finds them antiquated and alarming. I'll end this post by assuring you that while I disagree strongly with your convictions I haven't in any way concluded that they say anything negative about your Character. I'm assuming you are a man of noble character who happens to hold different convictions from myself. 

For the rest of my readership: This was a debate, where I argued that silence is not sinful.... I wonder if Ron or I convinced you to reshape whatever your opinion was on the subject. Or perhaps you have never given it any thought.