Cancel Culture

Speaker 0 00:00:07 Good morning and welcome to thinking it through. I'm your host, Craig Jarvis. This is a podcast put out by village church, Easter that deals with cultural changes and seeing them trying to see them through the mind of Christ. That's why we call it, thinking it through our goal is to present facts and statistics and do the best we can to think through all of the ways our cultural is changing around us. See them maybe as Jesus would say. Now, I want to tell you about a brand new thing that I've been doing. I'm on a kick right now and really enjoying it. I'm each day before I go to bed, I watch an episode of Magnum PI. Do you remember Magnum PI? Speaker 1 00:00:47 Right? Everybody remembers Magnum P my mom. She remembers Magnum PI. Do you remember these old shows like Magnum that, I mean, you got cheers. Remember cheers, where everybody knows your name. Miami vice. I loved Miami vice. How about Michael and his car kit? You guessed it. That would be Nightrider. I was so bummed out. Do you remember how we used to feel when these shows were canceled? We live for these shows every Thursday night or whatever it was that we would watch these. And then all of a sudden they weren't on TV anymore. And over time we just forgot about them. We have entered a period of time in our culture that I believe we will soon regret. And it's typically known as a term, familiar to us these days called cancel culture. Now there's a lot of nuances to this term, cancel culture. And certainly we can not discuss everything in a 12 to 15 minute podcast, but I have to talk about some common activities that are popular and common in our cultural today that is bringing about this cancel culture. Speaker 1 00:01:45 This cancel culture basically is weaponizing our culture in order to create a judge and a jury with no recourse from those who are being canceled, canceled culture is built on embracing the position of judge and jury. As a judge, we are right. We are free and right to condemn others freely. And as a jury, we deliver consequences quickly that can leave someone sometimes in the next to unlivable situation. These can include everything from simply ignoring somebody to shaming them society, to forcing them out of business, to destroying reputations and even preventing future employment. And we've seen a lot of this happening in the world around us today, and this canceled culture, canceled culture, the gauge for deciding what judgment is called for like how severe should the penalties be while that would be popular. Thought the danger in this is we remove the challenge. Somebody might have to defend their actions through dialogue, and we replace it with the judgment of popular thought you're in, or you're out. Speaker 1 00:02:46 Culture has embraced this. Currently it's couched it in this righteous activity. They can wrap up a full righteousness in any particular cause that means something to them. And the minute that it's questioned, they can cast a judgment deliver verdict. It works even better for you. If you can gain a following, there's no space made for dialogue or even debate over issues that gain quick, popular momentum. You can not even engage in a discussion any longer with, without going straight to the judge and the jury. Listen, if you thought about it like a courtroom, basically you are led straight through the trial area, straight through the trial room and you go straight to the verdict area. You'll know you're about to be canceled from people's lives. Simply by the way, they respond to your questions. Questions are not looked at highly in our day to day. Speaker 1 00:03:34 We used to be judged on our actions. Do you remember way back when, when we were judged on our actions, now we're judged on our thoughts. And if you have questions about any popular thought popular idea in our culture today, you can quickly end up by walking straight through the courtroom, straight to the verdict that will be delivered to you. You're not allowed to have any longer alternate opinions, even on things like mask wearing or political leanings or a view of modern movements like black lives matter, homosexual mat, marriage, gender equality, even abortion. Before we used to debate these things, we used to talk about them with a shear. You got offended once in a while, but these days to engage in that conversation is to challenge is to, is to risk being canceled from culture. And these days you don't even have to know the person that you're canceling. Speaker 1 00:04:25 You don't even have to know the person you're judging. You don't have to know what they've done. You don't have to know their background. You don't have to know their experience. Nothing. You can see a person on TV, have the media, present them to the cultural court and pass judgment with no jurisprudence at all. I have to tell you, I value critical thinking. I value differing ideas about a subject. I always have. I think I always have. I believe there was more than one way to skin a cat. That is a weird phrase. I don't know where it came from, but I know what that means because I want to hear different versions of what happens so that I can have a thoughtful response. I want to know what version I'm dealing with. My kids like that about me when they're in trouble. They value the, the fact that I accept differing viewpoints and somewhere in those viewpoints, somewhere in those stories is the truth. Speaker 1 00:05:17 If I walk into a room and it's chaotic, if it's a mess, if there's holes in the wall and the windows are busted out and my kids are in there, I'm going to want to know what happened in here. And sometimes I'll receive different stories based on whoever's telling the story judgment sometimes is going to be required. Can you imagine if I always took one child view with no questions asked now, man, either kids would definitely hate me. My wife would think that I'm insane, but we need to hear differing opinions. When we deliver a judgment in our culture today, that is not looked highly on. This should be true in everyday. I value the others who have different ideas and opinions, even when they challenge my own because of that, I'll challenge them back and somewhere in the middle is a really good idea. Speaker 1 00:06:10 These days we're teaching our children to seek out echo chambers of only those who agree with them and no effort, no attempt is ever made to understand or appreciate an alternate viewpoint. Certainly not. When it goes against culture, these ideas these days, when an idea is challenged, the person that gives that challenge is immediately judged. And if another person defends them and says, Hey, wait a second. I think we should listen to Jim over here. That person is also risking being canceled. If it doesn't agree with popular thought, it is immediately refused, shut down and canceled. And based on the level of offense, penalties can differ sometimes severely the inevitable result is we ostracize that person. We can ostracize them from friend circles. We can even ostracize them from families, from jobs and even from society. And what is the outcome of this cultural behavior? Speaker 1 00:07:06 Where will this inevitably take us? Well, if you live like this, you're definitely going to have less friends, but ultimately you're going to have less diversity. And ironically, we live in a culture that values diversity, but ironically, they do not value diversity of thought. This makes for a shallow and bland culture. The goal is based on the agreed upon level of offense in that culture, the person must be made to pay, pay for disagreeing. This has been done in history before in different ways. I did think about like when I was younger, I, I heard of churches that did this. If somebody was guilty of a sin, they would be ostracized or some churches call it shunned. And you should know, this is never taught in scripture. First Corinthians five might be the most egregious illustration we have of this. There's some terrible heinous sins going on in first Corinthians five. Speaker 1 00:08:02 And if you want to read about it, you're welcome to do that. But in first Corinthians five, it says, let him who has done this thing. The apostle Paul writes to the church at Corinth and says to them like from afar, whoever has done this thing, let them be removed from among you. And then down in verse 11, he says, don't even eat with such a person. But if you read the whole passage, you will find that Paul writes all of this. And he says, this should be done with a broken heart and a mournful spirit, not a vindictive or judgmental spirit. This is not to cancel somebody, but to mourn over them. And when you look at the whole slew of sins that are listed in first Corinthians five, you'll find sexual immorality. And you might all say, well, yeah, that's a big one. Speaker 1 00:08:46 That should definitely be judged. Yes. Sexual immorality, judge it. And then the next one on the list is drunkard. Well, that might be more of a vice and somebody may not be able to help it. And then the next one on the enlist is idolater and I'm thinking to myself, I sure I've had a couple of idols in my life. And then the next one on the list is swindler. And I know I've definitely swindled one or two people. And then the next one on the list is any greedy person should be treated this way. And I'm thinking to myself, I'm greedy, wait a minute. This is not a top 10 list we have from God where God says commence, shunning. These are sins against God when tolerated and winked out in the church. We'll tear that church up, but never is that church meant to walk away from each other. Speaker 1 00:09:28 They are meant to pray for one another and love one another and pray with broken hearts that those broken people would return in second Corinthians or second Thessalonians three. There's another passage of scripture where somebody is disobeying scripture. And there's a verse in there that says, have nothing to do with them so that they might be ashamed. And you might say, well, that's canceling somebody, but if you read on it says, but do not regard them as an enemy, but as a brother or sister, nowhere in scripture, are we ever called to cancel anyone? Even when they are an offensive individual, even when they're threatening our church or our families, we are to pray for them. We are to take advantage of the justice that we have, that we can do. But we are never meant to cancel them from, from, from being, there were a group of people that live like this in Jesus' day. Speaker 1 00:10:22 And they were awfully nice to, uh, uh, Jesus was awfully nice to a whole bunch of people, but he was never nice to these people. And you can probably guess who this group of people was. Yeah, it was the Pharisees. He was always nasty to the Pharisees. He's calling them whitewashed, PSAP, liquors, and serpents. And you know, all these nasty things. And you might say, or Craig, there you go, Jesus canceled the Pharisees. Or he wanted to cancel the Pharisees in his day. Nope. That's not even true because even with the Pharisees, Jesus offered open dialogue and even forgiving and this to anyone who would come to him, there's a great illustration of this in a man named Nicodemus. You know the story because it's in John chapter three for God. So loved the world. He gave his only son that whosoever believes in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. Speaker 1 00:11:08 Jesus said that to affairsy a Pharisee named Nicodemus who came to Jesus under the cover of darkness because he was ashamed to ask Jesus questions, but he knew Jesus would listen. He wanted to debate Jesus, Jesus debated these guys. He knew Jesus debated these guys all the time. So he knew the minute he showed up, Jesus would listen. He wouldn't cancel them. Jesus. He knew that he had condemned these Pharisees, but he wanted to talk to Jesus and he knew Jesus would listen. So they talked and they shared thoughts. And even when Nicodemus act really stupid questions, like when Jesus said you must be born again, he said, what does that mean? I have to crawl back into my mother and be born again. And that's just dumb. Jesus. Even then let him speak and debated him and canceled anyone. Do you know what happened to Nicodemus? Speaker 1 00:11:58 You may not know this because we're not told a lot about this, but if you fast forward to John chapter 19, all the way up from John chapter three, you'll read a story about Jesus on the cross being taken down and buried by Joseph <inaudible>. But Joseph had helped. He had helped from one man who showed up with 75 pounds of spices and perfume to show dignity to Jesus in bearing him after his death. And that man, that man's name who showed up to help Joseph Barry, Jesus was you guessed it. And academia's even when Jesus talked about these guys, these Pharisees, he did not engage in cancel culture. And Matthew 23 two, he said to the people he said do observe what they tell you, do what they tell you, but don't do the works they do for what they preach. They do not practice. Listen. Speaker 1 00:12:48 Jesus is the only one that qualifies as judge or jury. And he tells us that constantly. He reminds us don't judge lest you be judged. He says, when your enemy slaps you on the cheek, turn the other cheek. Romans 12 says this all the all through it. When your enemy is thirsty, give him something to drink. Repay no one evil for evil outdo. One another in showing honor. The danger is when we engage as judge and jury, and we cancel people around us that we do not appreciate. And don't agree with us. And listen, if you live like that, if you live in a cancel culture and you feel comfortable canceling people and living in a culture that cancels people your past will always come back to bite you, nothing will be safe. Someone eventually, who does not like you will find your Twitter account, your, your book, you'll find your Facebook posts and he will cancel you and your family. Speaker 1 00:13:45 Right now, these, this political administration is, is, is being put together. And the first thing they do before, before, before they start their jobs is they're deleting all their Twitter accounts. They're delivering the deleting all their Facebook posts so that they can serve in this current administration. Listen, aren't you glad the only one who could truly cancel any one of us, never does. He never dredges up our past Jesus forgives and throws down our sins. And our failures throws him as far as the East is from the West. Let's start building a culture like that around our homes and our families and our friends debate talk, listen to alternate viewpoints, but don't feel threatened when somebody questions you and don't, if you're a part of popular culture, don't feel threatened when someone questions popular thought. Even when they question the greatest cause of our generation, listen to them, share the truth and always love. And you may learn to agree by Jesus never canceled anyone. And you know what? Neither should we, well, I've enjoyed being with you this day. I've been enjoyed thinking through the place that canceled culture has Speaker 0 00:15:03 In our lives. Let's refrain from playing judge and jury. Shall we? No matter the offensive viewpoint, we listen to love covers a multitude of sins, bear with one another and love, pray that God changes hearts. And as far as it depends on you live peaceably with all people. I hope you'll join us next time. As we spend more time thinking it through together until then that's an extent.