Wednesday, March 24, 2021

An Alternative to Cancel Culture

  In 2018, scholars Stephen Hawkins, Daniel Yudkin, Miriam Juan-Torres, and Tim Dixon published a report titled, “Hidden Tribes: A Study of America’s Polarized Landscape.”  In that report, they shared the data collected from a nationally representative poll with 8,000 respondents, 30 one-hour interviews, and six focus groups. And what did they find?  They found this: 80 percent of those in that representative group believe that political correctness is a problem.  Let that sink in for a minute.  If this study is truly representative, 80 percent of the U.S. believes that political correctness is a problem.

Now, I know that we pastors are supposed to keep politics from the pulpit.  I know that we are not supposed to tell folks who to vote for or which political party to support.  I know that we are supposed to essentially stay neutral on such matters, but it has come to a point where such matters must be addressed.  And not only because six Dr. Seuss books, including one of my childhood favorites “To Think that I Saw it on Mulberry St.” were taken out of publication; Pepe Le Pew will no longer be seen; and they are trying to remove Speedy Gonzales.  My entire childhood is in danger of vanishing!!  No.  It’s not just because of that.  There is more.  Just this past week, I posted the Lord’s Prayer to my Facebook feed, and it was fact checked.  I didn’t include anything about Facebook trying to censor the Lord’s Prayer.  I made no commentary what-so-ever.  It was just the Lord’s Prayer.  And it was fact checked.  Whether we believe it or not, this stuff is having and will have a direct effect on our ability to be the church in society these days. 

And there is some bad news that goes along with this.  And the bad news is this: we are not going to convince that 20% to change.  I hate to say that, but we won’t.  And the other piece of bad news is that there is always a chance that we could become the next target of those who are subscribing to this train of thought.  You never know what is going to catch their eye and draw their ire.

So, what do we as the church do?  How do we deal with this movement within our culture and society?  At this point, I am tempted to be like Lucy in the Charlie Brown comic strip who went up to Charlie Brown one day and said, “Discouraged again, eh, Charlie Brown?" "You know what your whole trouble is? The whole trouble with you is that you're you!"

Charlie asks, "Well, what in the world can I do about that?"

Lucy answers, "I don't pretend to be able to give advice...I merely point out the trouble!"

Yeah.  I don’t pretend to be able to give advice...I merely point out the trouble.

But that is also a cop out, I think.  It’s a cop out to simply point to a problem and then tell everyone, “Well, you need to do some thing about this,” without a willingness to engage in the process of problem solving.  And so, what I would like to entertain this morning is how we might bring our faith to bear against this cultural movement, and instead of directly combating the movement; we offer an alternative.  Instead of going to war against cancel culture, we offer a different vision; a different mood of living; a different set of values that will actually lead to a more just and whole society.  

And I think that this is important to say.  Because when it comes down to it, cancel culture wants a just society. They want justice.  They want folks to feel included; that everyone has value.  But here is the question: how do they bring such a thing about?  How do they try to bring about this type of society?  By punishing and banning anything that is perceived to perpetuate injustice.  If a cartoon character represents oppression, it must be banned.  If a person makes a certain hand symbol that is deemed inappropriate, they should be forced to resign their job or the company should be made to fire them.  If a song is thought to have racist roots, it must be banned completely (U.T. fans know that one.).  So, to be inclusive and bring in the Aggies, if a college president was a member of the confederate army, their statue should be removed.  If a comment is perceived to be a threat or is perceived to be racist, one is removed from a social media platform or is shadow banned for presenting such thoughts.  The idea is: if we continually point out the injustice; if we continually shame someone; if we continually ban offensive content; then, at some point people will change, systems will change, and we will have a just society.  Now, I am trying to be very careful in my analysis here because it is very easy to caricature this movement, and indeed, I may have oversimplified.  But I don’t think by much.  These are the things that we have seen happening around us, and they seem to have intensified.

So, what is the alternative?  What is the response to this?  Well, let’s first acknowledge that Christianity also seeks a just society.  We also want folks to feel included, and we want everyone to know that they have value.  In this we are not different from cancel culture.  And sadly, in our history, the Church has also practiced a cancel culture of its own.  We have also participated in book burning and censorship.  The namesake of our own denomination: Martin Luther was threatened if he did not recant his writings; and the Spanish Inquisition was notorious for persecuting those who did not toe the line.  This is much to our shame as an institution because we did not practice the heart of our faith in these things.  We did not practice those things which Scripture brings about a change of heart and a just society.  And what are those things?

They are at the heart of the Gospel: forgiveness and redemption.

Let me paint the picture for you using our Bible texts this morning from the book of John and from the book of Ephesians.  You see, Christianity starts with the premise that all human beings are flawed.  It starts with the premise that the world is flawed.  And not just flawed.  No, humankind and the world are in open rebellion against God.  Paul writes in Ephesians, “You were dead through the trespasses and sins 2in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. 3All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else.”  And when you read the Gospel of John, you will notice that the world is never looked upon with favor.  The world is always referenced as evil; preferring to live in the darkness of ignorance and selfishness instead of entering into the light of God.  The world hates God because it wants to do its own thing; go its own way; and it finds God to be placing boundaries which prevent it from being its own boss.  

Cancel culture, if it held to this train of thought would see every person and every entity in the world worthy of cancellation; worthy of condemnation.  According to the tenets of cancel culture, the world and the people in it should be destroyed!  Canceled!  

But here is the difference.  Here is the major difference.  For you see, even though God could have destroyed the world.  Even though God could have canceled the world.  God loved the world.  God loved the people in the world.  God loved you.  And God loved me.  He knew that we deserved cancellation.  He knew that we deserved punishment.  But instead, He offered something quite different.  He offered forgiveness and redemption.

“For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, so that all those who believe in Him should not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world but that the world might be saved through Him.”  That’s the Gospel in a nutshell.  And Ephesians fleshes this out even more, “4But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us 5even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. 8For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— 9not the result of works, so that no one may boast.”

Let me break this down for you and show you what Christianity says.  Christianity says that we are sinners who have fallen short of the glory of God. We owe God a debt due to our sin, and it is a debt that we can never pay.  We are too caught up on ourselves. We are too willing to fall into temptation.  We are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves.  We cannot live the perfect life.  We cannot overcome racism. We cannot love our neighbor as ourselves.  We deserve punishment.  We deserve cancellation, but Jesus steps in.  Jesus says, “You can’t live the life you are supposed to live.  But I can.  You can’t love your neighbor like you should.  But I can.  You can’t follow the commands of God, but I can.” And he does.  He lives the life that we should have lived, and then he pays the debt that we owe.  He gives himself in exchange for us and dies for us on the cross to cancel not us, but to cancel our debt!  Instead of giving us deserved punishment, we receive grace.  We don’t lose our job.  We don’t get deplatformed.  We aren’t shamed into submission.  We are given a love that is unimaginable!  

And that is all well and good, but the critics of cancel culture will say, “But where is the justice?  Where is the change in society and the change in people?  You talk of this grace and forgiveness, but it is just a way for you to justify your injustice!”

No.  Not in the least.  This is a horrendous misunderstanding of grace, because this is what happens.  When you understand grace; when you stop trusting in yourself for your righteousness.  When you stop trying to justify yourself and trust in Jesus justification; to the extent you trust in Jesus’ work and not your own, your life will be totally and completely transformed.  You will sin less.  You will work for justice more.  You will extend compassion and forgiveness and redemption.

Which means, you will know that no person or institution or book or anything for that matter in the course of history is perfect.  A song can have racist origins but be changed into a song that unites an institution.  A confederate general can institute reforms as a governor including the beginning of a home for blind, deaf African-American children and as a university president including working for the inclusion of women at said university.  A cartoon character can be used to teach important lessons.  The list is endless.  Redemption is endless. Transformation is endless.

And that means, the way to salvation is open to everyone.  The way of transformation is open to everyone.  Yes, Christianity has certain boundaries.  Christianity has certain expectations of behavior, but when someone crosses those boundaries; when someone fails to live up to those expectations, we now respond with the same grace that we have been given.  We respond without condemning the person.  We respond knowing that God wants this person included in the Kingdom, and the best possible way to bring them into the Kingdom is not through punishment, but by grace.  And therefore, we treat others with respect, kindness, compassion and integrity.  We invite.  We do not impose.  In short, forgiveness and redemption accomplishes exactly what cancel culture seeks to accomplish–justice, acceptance and value for all, but Christianity does it with love, grace, and compassion instead of punishment and shame.

The contrast is stark.  And it is a contrast that I think we must be willing to promote as strongly as possible.  But there is a great risk.  A great risk indeed.  For cancel culture could come for us.  It could try to silence our message of grace and forgiveness and redemption.  It could try and deplatform us.  But, again, that’s nothing new to Christianity.  They tried to do the same thing to Jesus.  They tried to shut him up. They tried to cancel him by putting him on a cross and then in a tomb.  And we all know how that turned out.  Not so well for cancel culture.  Because our God is mighty to save and as author of salvation, He has conquered the grave.  And let us now shine the light.  A light that shines on a different path.  A path of forgiveness.  A path of redemption.  A path of transformation.  Let us shine the light of Amazing Grace.  Amen.

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