By Emily Kline
Today, a fast-moving ideology that silences free expression, shuts down debate, and destroys lives sweep across America with alarming intensity cancel culture. Those who oppress any conflicting philosophy or speech are part of this dangerous cancel culture. They are not content to rationally debate contradicting ideas or fairly persuade the masses that their views are indeed correct. Instead, they brand those who disagree with them as ‘bigoted’, ‘hateful’, and ‘on the wrong side of history’. To disagree with this branding is to, in their assertion, try to erase their existence. Fundamental freedoms such as freedom of speech, expression, and religion are truly in jeopardy.
Sadly, the politically correct culture of the progressive movement has moved so quickly to attack practically any view or value contrary to their own. Stray at all from the accepted limits of leftist thinking and you will earn labels like racist, sexist, homophobic, and xenophobic.
Quickly the zero-tolerance culture has become the cancel culture. It is not enough to merely smear the opponent’s reputation; the left demands that an “enemy” lose their social standing and even their job and livelihood for deviating from what is their acceptable thought. Anyone who disagrees with a progressive view is driven out from society and if they grovel for forgiveness, they may be allowed to re-enter. A hateful, bitter social media mob will make sure that you pay a heavy penalty for your opposition.
This leads to a question every true Christian should ask: what does Christ and the Bible say about this? Should Christians be tolerant? The answer is yes, we should be, but tolerance has been redefined in society and by religion to argue that Christians should accept everyone’s sinful behavior to achieve social justice.
The Bible does not permit personal sin or the acceptance of sin in others. The apostle Paul gave a clear understanding of Christ-like behavior in Galatians 5:22-23, “But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.”
But he also writes in Ephesians 4:31 of things to lay aside or not tolerate; “Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice.” Paul then goes on to explain in verse 32 of the Christ-like attitude that we should show to one another, “And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.”
Those who subscribe to the cancel culture movement are often unforgiving, lacking any sense of grace and full of pride. They offer very little means of forgiveness or repentance. From a Christian perspective, this society strikes at the core principles of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus came so that our sins could be forgiven, not perpetually held over our heads. Ephesians 1:7, “In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins,” Christ came to cancel sin, not our fellow man.
The audacity and pride of those who wish to cancel men and women due to past failings, ill-timed words, or simple disagreements with their philosophy has reached new heights. Seeking to re-write history and degrade our country’s founding fathers is rather hypocritical. Those who wish to do the cancelling are not being held to the same standards. Moreover, there lies the danger of cancel culture; it is not a level playing field.
Those who dare to speak up with a dissenting Christian view are quickly snuffed out and labeled insensitive haters, while the cancel culture mob seemingly are free to say and do whatever they please with little societal consequence. The Bible warned of this culture in Isaiah 5:20; “Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil.”
Simply put, the underlying goal of the cancel culture movement is to promote evil while silencing good; to push society into darkness by extinguishing the gospel light, to fill its followers with bitterness rather than the sweet things of Christianity. Education, government, business, and religion do not have the power to stand up to this movement. They will eventually succumb to its pressures and fall in line with its evil ideology for fear of being eliminated.
But there is one thing that can never be cancelled or eliminated: The Word of God. The truth found in the pages of the Bible has been forever established in heaven, undeterred by the philosophy of man, and will never be eliminated by a cancel culture movement.
