Cancel Culture and the Gospel
These days, as I said in my last post, I avoid social media most of the time. It's just not good for my soul. Every once in a while though I will jump on Twitter and see what's trending. All too often, I see a hashtag that includes the word, "cancel." We like to cancel people these days. More often than not, it's a comment or an action from that person that offends in some way. Sometimes it's justified-we need to call out wrong behavior. But more often than not, it seems, it's something that person simply didn't think through well enough before it happened; if they had, they might have refrained. Worse yet, maybe it happened years ago. Decades ago, even. Back when their brains weren't fully developed, or before they carried the cultural gravitas they have now. Back when they were unknown, or before they changed their mind on an issue (yes, we can change our minds and our behavior). Certainly, before everyone's every movement could be documented and displayed for the world to see. But too late! It doesn't matter when or why, it's in the world now, and enough to make a blanket judgment about you. You are voted off the island, eliminated from the crowd, erased from existence. And not only you, but anyone associated with you. I'm all for holding people accountable for their words and actions. There's a growing recognition that much of what happens in our society has been and continues to be damaging to many. That must change. On certain issues, we cannot remain silent or we add to the problem. But this idea that we will cancel someone because of one moment-this I cannot reconcile with the gospel. Cancel Culture in the Bible Cancel culture paints the world in black and white. You are good or bad, weighed on a scale. You tip out of favor with one wrong move, and there's no coming back from it. The gavel has come down and you are irreversibly in the "bad" category. The good/bad split doesn't account for the reality that we are complex people, capable of great blessing and harm, each of us. It doesn't account for redemption. It doesn't recognize the gospel. I think of Zaccheus. There's a man we would cancel today. He betrayed his own people in his job as a tax collector. The woman caught in adultery? Canceled. Peter denying Jesus three times? Canceled. When we don't have the lens of the gospel, it makes sense that we would cancel. We create our own moral code, a tenuous assumption of goodness until we prove otherwise. The world waits with its scarlet C, ready to judge. The Gospel of Grace But the gospel says there is redemption. There is hope for those who fail. Grace for the fallen. New life after the wrong-doing. It says our goodness isn't measured on a scale, that forgiveness is possible, and change can happen. The gospel says there is no one…