THE FEAR OF THE HERD: by E Stanley Jones

 One day I went to the house of Shemaiah son of Delaiah, the son of Mehetabel, who was shut in at his home. He said, "Let us meet in the house of God, inside the temple, and let us close the temple doors, because men are coming to kill you--by night they are coming to kill you."  But I said, "Should a man like me run away? Or should one like me go into the temple to save his life? I will not go!"
 I realized that God had not sent him, but that he had prophesied against me because Tobiah and Sanballat had hired him.  He had been hired to intimidate me so that I would commit a sin by doing this, and then they would give me a bad name to discredit me.  Remember Tobiah and Sanballat, O my God, because of what they have done; remember also the prophetess Noadiah and the rest of the prophets who have been trying to intimidate me. Nehemiah 6:10-14

But with loud shouts they insistently demanded that he be crucified, and their shouts prevailed.  So Pilate decided to grant their demand. Luke 23:23-24

 His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews, for already the Jews had decided that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Christ would be put out of the synagogue. John 9:22

The fear of the herd suppresses .Christians and makes them conform to the average, and the average is always below Christ's way. We take on "protective resemblance" to our environment and fit in, become mediocre, and are slowly de- Christianized. We are afraid of being queer. And yet it is just that queerness that may be necessary to save you and the herd. For often the herd survives only when some member becomes different and shows a higher method of survival. Nevertheless, the herd demands conformity, and it will persecute those who depart from its standards. Fall below its standards and it will punish you, rise above them. 1 and it will persecute you. Or it may ridicule you. And some- times that is worse. A French officer, riding in front of his lines inspecting his troops, was thrown off his restive horse in an ungainly fashion. The troops laughed. The officer went and resigned his commission. He could not stand ridicule. But a simple laugh on his part would have saved the situation. And that suggests the remedy when ridiculed, simply laugh back, knowing that in the end you will laugh longest and perhaps loudest. You have a better basis for laughter. But deeper still, to get rid of the fear of the herd we must surrender the herd, we must acknowledge in our inmost spirit no dominance save that of Jesus Christ. After I had become a Christian I went past the crowd on the street with whom I had associated and one of them called out in derision, "Hello, Stanley, going down to see Jesus?" "Yes, I am," I quietly replied, to their astonishment and my own. But I knew in my heart of hearts that by that defiance the fear of the herd was broken. I was free not only from them, but to come back to them with what I had. Christ, deliver me from the fear o what the herd will say, and give me a deeper susceptibility to what Thou shalt say. For I must be delivered from all fear. Amen.