Paranoid About Safety
How “Security” Became the New Golden Calf of the West
In our age of padded corners, digital babysitters, and trigger warnings, we have witnessed a strange new devotion emerge, one that masquerades as virtue but is, in truth, a subtle betrayal of covenantal freedom. It is the religion of safetyism, a cultural liturgy that prizes comfort over courage, security over sacrifice, and the illusion of control over the truth that sets us free.
To be clear, prudence is a Christian virtue. The safeguarding of life, the stewardship of resources, and the shielding of the vulnerable are biblical mandates. But when safety becomes the highest good, when it eclipses truth, duty, or worship, it ceases to be prudence, it becomes idolatry.
And like all idols, it demands sacrifice.
The Rise of the New Religion
The COVID-19 pandemic was not the beginning of safetyism, it merely exposed its totalitarian liturgy. In a matter of weeks, church doors were locked while liquor stores remained open. Worship was deemed “nonessential,” but casinos were not. Families were forbidden from burying their dead, while politicians partied in secret. We were told to “trust the science,” even as the goalposts moved monthly. The public complied, not because they understood, but because they feared.
Fear, the ancient weapon of tyrants, was baptized in white lab coats and wielded like a scepter.
But what most failed to see was that this wasn’t just bad policy, it was bad theology. It revealed that Western civilization, which once revered martyrdom, now trembled before microbes. The descendants of Peter, who walked to his crucifixion upside down, and Perpetua, who faced wild beasts with a smile, now demand trigger warnings for uncomfortable opinions and cry “harm” when confronted with dissent.
In the name of safety, we have betrayed our own story.
The Golden Calf of Control
When Moses ascended Sinai, the people panicked. “We do not know what has become of this man,” they told Aaron (Exodus 32:1). And so they melted their gold and fashioned a god, a symbol of strength, fertility, and control. “These are your gods, O Israel,” Aaron declared.
Modern man has not changed. We, too, are impatient for the return of God. We fear the silence of heaven. So, we forge our own idols: public health bureaucracies, government programs, predictive algorithms, and financial security systems, all promising control, all demanding worship. We even trust artificial intelligence to curate our thoughts and filter our speech, in the hope that safety will save us.
But just as Israel’s golden calf could not descend Sinai, these new gods cannot redeem us. They can only enslave.
The fruit of idolatry is always the same: bondage. The more we worship safety, the more fragile we become. We create “safe spaces” and produce the most anxious generation in history. We shield children from risk and leave them ill-equipped to face adversity. We silence prophets in the name of tolerance and watch as truth withers on the vine.
It is not safety we gain, but suffocation.
Christ Did Not Die to Make You Comfortable
The Christian Gospel stands as an eternal rebuke to the cult of safetyism. Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God, did not come into the world to make us secure, but to make us holy. He did not preserve His life but poured it out. “He emptied himself, taking the form of a servant… becoming obedient unto death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:7–8).
The earliest Christians understood this. They knew that to follow Jesus was not to build a safe life, but to lose it. “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). They worshipped not in sanitized rooms, but in catacombs. They rejoiced not in protection, but in persecution. They did not weep when the world hated them, they considered it confirmation.
What changed?
How did the Church that once baptized warriors now become a sanctuary for the fearful? How did the Gospel of martyrdom become a sermon on managing anxiety? The answer is simple: we forgot the covenant. We forgot that we were saved not for comfort, but for communion. Not for safety, but for sacrifice.
The Covenant Demands Courage
Biblical covenants are not safe. Noah built a boat while the world mocked him. Abraham left his homeland into the unknown. Moses stood before Pharaoh and challenged the powers. David fought giants. Elijah called down fire. Daniel entered lion’s dens. The apostles defied empires. The saints faced fire, flood, famine, plague, and persecution. Not because they were reckless, but because they feared God more than men.
As St. Paul reminds us, “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed… always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies” (2 Corinthians 4:8–10).
This is covenant life. This is faith in the God who raises the dead.
But safetyism neuters this faith. It turns believers into consumers, worship into therapy, and discipleship into a personal brand. It tells the Church: don’t offend, don’t confront, don’t preach repentance, just affirm, adapt, and stay in your lane. It reduces the kingdom to a quarantine zone, and the Gospel to a pamphlet on self-care.
And when the Church accepts this, she ceases to be the Bride of Christ. She becomes Aaron, melting down the truth to please the mob.
Where Are the Prophets?
Where are the prophets who will cry aloud and spare not? Where are the pastors who will preach Christ crucified, not Christ sanitized? Where are the fathers who will raise sons to fight dragons and daughters to face martyrdom with songs? Where are the mothers who, like the Maccabean matriarch, will tell their children, “It was not I who gave you life… but the Creator… will give you back life and breath” (2 Maccabees 7:22–23)?
Where are the bishops who will tear down idols instead of blessing them?
Until the Church rediscovers her prophetic voice, the world will continue to bow to golden calves. Until we break the idol of safety and rediscover the cross, we will continue to lose our children to the cult of comfort. “For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it” (Mark 8:35).
This is the paradox that safetyism cannot compute.
The Way Forward: Martyrdom or Mediocrity
The time has come to choose: martyrdom or mediocrity. The Church must once again proclaim that safety is not our god, Jesus is. And He is not safe. As C.S. Lewis reminds us in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: “‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”
We must stop teaching our children to avoid suffering and instead show them how to suffer well. We must stop asking how to make our faith less offensive and start living lives so radiant with truth that the world either repents or riots.
The real question is not whether the world is dangerous, it always has been. The real question is whether we are courageous enough to be saints in it.
This is not the time for hand sanitizer and hedging bets. This is the time for covenant renewal. The safest place in the universe is inside the will of God, even if it leads to the cross, so let us by faith boldly live again.