I can’t imagine I will ever be invited onto Desert Island Discs, but I’ve often wondered what music I would choose if I was. I think I’d struggle for choice. Dolly Parton has released so much good stuff I wouldn’t know where to begin! I’d find it a little easier when it came to reading material though. I would opt for ‘Citizens,’ Simon Schama’s absorbing study of the French Revolution.

I love Schama’s literary style and his penetrating insights, but I particularly warm to the emphasis he places on the power of oratory. For Schama’s book is a helpful reminder that we should never forget the power of words. It’s something the Chief Rabbi focused on recently when reflecting on the tragic story of the Holocaust. Sadly, populist leaders with silver tongues can persuade us to do the most terrible things as I saw for myself in the Balkans in the 1990s.

The Biblical writers knew all about the power of speech. As they saw it God only had to say a few words and the entire cosmos came into existence. The prophet Isaiah suggested words can prove as effective as rain in a parched desert whereas the apostle James compared them to a spark that could start a forest fire.

For they understood a word was more than a sound; it was something that had an independent existence. It actually did things. In fact, one writer has gone so far as to say that for the Hebrew the spoken word was ‘fearfully alive… a unit of energy charged with power.’ It could even be compared to a bullet.

That’s why it’s crazy to suggest that sticks and bones may break our bones but words will never hurt us. Words can be terribly destructive. It only took one comment at a funeral and two sisters I know stopped talking to each other: for 20 years. I know that’s true because it shaped my boyhood.

Funny isn’t it? We can tame a lion but not our tongues - or as some would now suggest our ‘tweets.’ (This is why I felt like shouting ‘Amen’ when Hilary Clinton suggested recently that ‘A man you can bait with a tweet is not a man we can trust with nuclear weapons’).

But of course the reverse is also true. It is very easy to keep our mouths shut when we know we really ought to speak up. But when we fail to do so we offer our tacit support to what we know is wrong, or at the very least questionable. And I am convinced that that is a very present danger at this moment in time. It can take a lot of courage to put your head above the parapet in our suffocating, politically correct culture.

But history shows us that this kind of silence can carry all sorts of dangers. German Pastor Martin Niemöller pointed this out in a famous poem in which he highlighted his own reserve when faced with the growth of Fascism in the 1930s

“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out - because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak for me.”

Or as Niemöller might say: “This is what happens when you keep your mouth shut because you’re afraid.”

Rob James is a Baptist Pastor broadcaster and writer who currently operates as a church and media consultant for the Evangelical Alliance Wales. He is available for preaching and teaching throughout Wales and can be contacted at [email protected]