A second moral conundrum

This post responds to a comment from the comments section of the previous post. I thought it deserved a better answer than fit into the comment box. 

There's some similarity between the new conundrum and the previous post's conundrum, "Suppose you have to steal a million dollars to save a life," which seems custom-made to argue from "there are situations where different moral rules are in conflict" to "there is no real right or wrong", and has the options unrealistically limited. If that ever happened in real life, there would be an option to give the money back with interest, plus record the blackmail to show to the police. But that conundrum is artificially gamed to take real-life options off the table. 

The new scenario has a few things in common with that, but at least it's closer to real life. The comment runs: 

Thank you for this post. I'd be happy if you helped me with the following:

A follower of Christ while running away from a war-torn country meets members of a militia who are out to kill religious people and is asked whether he's a Christian. If the militia stay true to their words and kill all who acknowledge religious faith but allow those who deny it to live, should the right response from the Christian after considering the principle you've described be "yes" or "no"?

To the commenter: I'm not sure of your personal backstory so I want to mention: there's no level of "principle" that creates an *obligation* to allow yourself to be killed. That is: in general it is morally required to look for ways to preserve life, while knowingly allowing yourself to be killed is only *acceptable* if better options have been exhausted. ("Heroic sacrifice" scenarios exist, but that's not our scenario here.) When St Paul first faced the option of being killed for his faith, he ran away. (If anyone is not familiar with that, see Acts 9:23-25 and again 2 Corinthians 11:32-33.) Even though St Paul did eventually die for his faith, there were alternatives that first time -- not presented in the conundrum that he was placed in but created by the motivation to preserve life, which is a positive good in general circumstances. 

The commenter mentions considering the principle I've described: the good that's of higher importance or value takes precedence. Notice that everyone does that, regardless which choice they make: If the person values their life over their faith then they will act to make sure they live. Or if the person values their faith over their life then they *might* not act to preserve their life, but they also might go off-script like Paul going over the city wall in a basket, and not play by the script of wannabe murderers. When there are two good things in conflict, we look for ways to preserve both, even if we have to proactively create new alternatives. 

Whenever this kind of thing happens in real life, one factor that comes into play is human weakness. A human being might wish for the courage to stick by their faith but just not have it when the price tag is dying on the spot. Some might also weigh how it would affect their families. The early church had plenty of experience with that. There were people who died for thought-crimes/group membership in various persecutions. But the early church acknowledged the reality that there were people whose courage failed even if their faith was still there, and they would (eventually) forgive people whose nerve failed them when they had the ancient-world equivalent of a gun to their heads. St Peter springs to mind in this connection, who denied knowing Jesus on the night of Jesus' arrest and trial. 

Speaking of artificially limited options, the options would not be limited to answering with the single word "yes" or "no" except to the unimaginative. If we've exhausted our options, and if (as a Christian) the person plans to give an answer that is essentially "yes", they might want to make it count for something rather than simply playing the villains' game. St Paul at his trial said something to the effect, "It is for my faith in the resurrection that I'm on trial." Even on his way out of this world, he was looking to bring that hope to other people around him. Jesus set the example there with some choice answers at his own trial, including "You would have no power over me unless it were given to you from above," "My kingdom is not of this world," "Everyone who is on the side of the truth listens to me," and "You will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven." Sure, those words provide guidance for people wanting to understand his mindset at the moment. But those words also had a way of making the opposition see what they were doing in a new light. Which is the scenic tour of saying: The canned answers of "yes" and "no" are for those too unnerved to think on their feet. Lots of people in that situation find if they're going all the way, they're going to do it with a bang not a whimper. If I were the person in the hypothetical scenario and couldn't find a way to preserve my life, I'd hope to give a "yes" that moved the needle, maybe like: "If by Christian you mean someone who joins God in loving the world, then yes." I'd just hope I could string that many words together if I had that much adrenaline going, and could hope to manage that short version or better. 

Either way they answered in that scenario, they may have missed one of their moral obligations: to be more proactive in stopping people who go around killing others. You mentioned there's a war going so they might be outside any territory where they were a participant in the culture. But if they were still on home turf, regardless of whether the person answered "Yes" or "No", there is some chance they've dropped the ball previously by letting things get to that point.