Some good (albeit difficult) advice from N.D. Wilson’s article “Called to Be Uncool Christians”:
[W]hen was the last time you hedged on an opinion because of...those around you? When did you last choose your words based more on the politics of a situation than on truth? ...
It’s no wonder that one of the first tasks of any prophet was to make himself shameful. John the Baptist wore camel hair and ate insects. Isaiah had to walk around naked for years. Ezekiel had to cook his food over dung. Elijah ate only food carried by ravens—nasty carrion birds. The first thing God told Hosea to do was to marry a whore.
Prophets must be fearless, immune to the pressures of kings and crowds, aligned only with the breath of God.
We are in need of prophets now....
Prophets must be immune to floggings on Facebook and Twitter. They must be fearless before friends and tenure committees and stadiums filled with the priests of Baal. The cool-shaming can have no sting. The world is busy applying pressure on “social issues,” and Christians are busy caving left and right, trying to accept fresh cultural dogma simply so that they might be accepted....
All of our positions—especially in controversy—should flow from honest exegesis, not from the mood at the local coffee shop. And we could all benefit from some shame. When the hot pressure comes, we need to be immune. If God wants it, we should be ready to wear camel hair while cooking locusts and raven scraps over a dung fire in the lions’ den after our marriage to a whore.
Shame is easy to find. All we have to do is stop hiding. We already have seriously uncool friends. Moses. Paul. Christ himself. Enjoy them. Like them. In public. Offend the zeitgeist. Become immune.