Once you think about it for a minute, it’s very obvious, but I’ve wanted to make this point for a while: counter-cultural bravery is a relative phenomenon.
Take the obvious example of someone uttering the phrase, “gay sex is a sin before the Lord.” Now, let’s all admit that uttering that statement as a professor while standing in the middle of campus at NYU probably takes some guts. But standing up in the middle of class and saying the same at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary? Not so much. Similarly, it is not very bold to declare, “God accepts LGBT folks and affirms them just as they are” at NYU, but it is bold in the house of Mohler.
Even with this simple example, though, it’s more complicated. Much of one’s ability to do or say ‘controversial’ things has to do with our understanding of their social cost to us in our…
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