Christians who feel that they are suffering attacks on their values or who are under pressure from a hostile legal system can learn from Daniel, according to scholar and apologist Dr John Lennox.
Speaking in Oxford at the launch of his book Against the Flow: The Inspiration of Daniel in an Age of Relativism, Lennox – an Oxford professor of mathematics and the author of several books on the relationship between science and faith – said that while Daniel was taken into the heart of the world's most advanced civilization at a young age, he managed to flourish and continued to hold onto his faith with integrity.
He said that Daniel wrote his book "as an old man, reflecting on life's lessons". "What's remarkable is not that he retained personal devotion to God; many do that but lose their cutting edge witness," he said. "Daniel was a powerful witness to faith in God."
Lennox drew a distinction between Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar, who was an absolute monarch, and under the later Darius, who was under the "law of the Medes and Persians".
He spoke of how Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar was a place where values were "relativised", but that Daniel and his three friends maintained their distinctiveness in the face of threats. Speaking of Nebuchadnezzar's placing of Shadrach, Meschach and Abednego into the fiery furnace, Lennox said: "Nebuchadnezzar thought there was no one alive who didn't regard their own life as of absolute value. If we can glean anything from this book as to how you can stand like that, we need to hear it."
Under Darius, Daniel faced pressure from the legal system which resulted in him being thrown into the lions' den. Lennox said: "It was designed to force a clash between the law of God and the law of the state. So the second half of the book is not question of values, but a question of law. Daniel wouldn't be silenced by it."
Lennox' book draws parallels with modern society, in which Christians can feel that their values are threatened or that the legal system is unsympathetic to them. He refers to attacks on religion by 'new atheists' such as AC Grayling and Richard Dawkins, and to attempts to ban expression of religious faith in public. The "genius" of the book of Daniel, Lennox said, was that it showed that the same pressures operated in early culture. "We can take those principles and apply them. There are many things encroaching on our basic values and we face questions about where and how to protest. But the fact that this occurs, I find immensely encouraging. It didn't start in the 1970s, it was happening in the 6th century BC."
He said that there were many parallels between Daniel's situation and the position of Christians today. The 'new atheists', he added, have "had a devastating effect on young people's faith". "But they need to be answered," he said. "I want to say that there is something to be said in the other direction."
Against the Flow: The Inspiration of Daniel in an Age of Relativism, published by Lion Hudson, is out now.
