There was a report from the Bible Society recently of how they had offered Bibles to Australian troops who were leaving to restore order in East Timor. What I found particularly interesting was the report that they tended to read them secretly, when they were alone, taking care that their comrades would not see them doing it. We have become much more accepting than we care to admit of the fact that the dominant ideology in our culture now is frankly anti-Christian.
Few people realize how anti-Christian the dominant culture of West has become.
The modernist orthodoxy is a powerful weapon, threatening isolation, loss of reputation and a personal sense of shame to all who will not conform to its dominant ideology, in which it is orthodox to require to rejection of orthodoxy. As for humility, quietness and bold public declaration, he would show how it could all be held together, precisely in how he went through the ordeal of the cross for which he now began to prepare them. As the anti-Christian elements of Western society become more dominant it will be increasingly important that believers in Christ are able confess their belief in him publically. Not to be ashamed of Jesus will sometimes require believers to speak up, among friends or family or in public institutions, letting it be known where we stand, but there is more to it. It can mean a martyr's death.