Scripture Reading: Psalm 25:16-22
Christians and the Cancel Culture
Intro.
1. We live in an age (era) of evil, cf. Gal. 1:4; Rom. 12:2.
2. Redefine, reprogram, reeducate the “deplorables” among us.
3. One not so subtle effort to do so is the current cancel culture.1
4. Bible records many times in past cultures where attempts were made to cancel God’s truth and God’s people.
5. Emperor worship cancelled many saints, Rev. 13:15-17.
6. Without fail, God’s word prevailed (we still have it). God’s people persevered through it, and God’s purposes were fulfilled, Rev. 6:9-11. Continue in the faith (Col. 1:23)
I. CANCEL CULTURE: “KILL THE CHILDREN!”
A. Egypt and Israel, Exo. 1:15-22.
B. Herod and Jesus, Matt. 2:16-18.
C. Today: Cancel Culture “Kills” the Normal Development of Children Under the Guise of Protecting Children.
1. Schools and secularism: Curricula indoctrinate children with “inclusion” under cover of “anti-bias” and “anti-bullying.”
2. Social engineering: Gender identity, same-sex marriage, etc.
3. Home and family are attacked by perversions of marriage, abortion, and the undermining of parental authority.
-Convention on the Rights of the Child (attacks authority of parents and primacy of the home). Illus. Sweden age of consent is 15 yrs. (Eph. 6:1-4)
II. CANCEL CULTURE: “SILENCE GOD’S PROPHETS!”
A. Jezebel Killed God’s Prophets, 1 Kgs. 18:4.
1. Jesus charged Israel and her leaders, Matt. 23:29-36.
2. Apostles, Acts 4:17-18; 5:40; 9:1; 12:1-2 (James).
B. Today: Truth and Those who Speak Truth are Under Attack.
1. We witness the rejection of (absolute) truth and authority for mob justice and violent anarchy on an almost daily basis.
2. BLM Organization: Identity politics is bad religion, Acts 10:34; Gal. 3:28. “Affirm the sentence, not the movement.”2
3. Christians do not respond with evil, Rom. 12:17-21; 13:8, 10.
III. CANCEL CULTURE: “DESTROY THE WORD OF GOD!”
A. King Jehoiakim, Jer. 36:1-4.
1. Scroll read by Baruch in the temple, 36:6-10.
2. Princes heard the word and warned Baruch, 36:11-19.
3. Read to Jehoiakim, who cut it, burned it, and ordered arrest of Jeremiah and Baruch, 36:20-26.
B. Today: Attempts to Redefine Truth and Silence the Gospel.
1. Reduce the Bible to fiction; Change gender and roles, etc.
2. Freedom to freely preach God’s word is under attack around the world (USA is not exempt), Acts 4:18-20.
3. Silence the Bible’s moral clarity (abortion, LGBTQ, racism).
a. God’s truth is caricatured as “hate speech.”
b. Illustration: Rom. 1:24-27 viewed as hateful intolerance.
4. Will we contend for the faith or conform to the world? Jude 3
IV. CANCEL CULTURE: “PERSECUTE THE OPPOSITION!”
A. With Misrepresentations and Lies, Lk. 23:1-2; Acts 6:10-14.
B. Marginalize the Righteous as Extremists, Acts 19:23-28; 24:5.
C. Demand Conformity, Rev. 13:16-17.
1. Link social and economic availability to the approved beliefs and will of the powerful.
2. Big-tech, social media and the gospel; Book-banning, etc.; "Social credit scores.”
3. “Social justice”3 has become a catchphrase for virtue signaling instead of genuine fairness for all, cf. Jas. 4:11; 5:12.
4. Early Christians face these pressures, Heb. 10:32-34.
Conclusion
1. Make no mistake: We are at war with Satan! Rev. 12:17
2. He uses the forces of the present age to wage his battles, and the cancel culture is one of his tactics.
3. Cancel culture aims to silence truth for its own brand of “truth.” It aims to cancel true peace with facades of unity, Jer. 6:14. It aims to cancel the gospel for a secular society that denies God.
4. The way forward?4 God’s will is that “by doing good you put to silence the ignorance of foolish men” (1 Pet. 2:15).
Quotations
1 Definition of cancel culture
“Cancel culture — the phenomenon of promoting the ‘canceling’ of people, brands and even shows and movies due to what some consider to be offensive or problematic remarks or ideologies…” ("What is cancel culture? Breaking down the toxic online trend," Brooke Kato, nypost.com)
2 Black Lives Matter Global Network
“We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and “villages” that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.
“We foster a queer‐affirming network. When we gather, we do so with the intention of freeing ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking, or rather, the belief that all in the world are heterosexual (unless s/he or they disclose otherwise).”
(No longer posted on the BLM website)
“Social justice is a political and philosophical theory which asserts that there are dimensions to the concept of justice beyond those embodied in the principles of civil or criminal law, economic supply and demand, or traditional moral frameworks. Social justice tends to focus more on just relations between groups within society as opposed to the justice of individual conduct or justice for individuals.” (“Social Justice,” Investopedia.com)
The hallmark of Marxism is class warfare:
“Marxism is the name for a set of political and economic ideas. The core ideas are that the world is divided into classes, the workers and the richer capitalists who exploit the workers, there is a class conflict that should ultimately result in socialism (workers own means of production), and then communism (stateless, classless society).”
Marxism - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxism
4 A way forward? (Man doesn't have the way forward; God does.)
“What would a way forward look like? We seem stuck in an illiberal world of growing intolerance that brooks no dissent or even silence. It’s a world of vindictiveness, resentment, and cancel culture aimed at suppressing people and sentiments, including those accepted without comment only yesterday as orthodox even on the left. Every revolution devours its own daughters, and there’s no apparent way forward.” (“Identity Politics as Bad Religion,” Paul Adams, theepochtimes.com)
By: Joe R. Price
Posted January 26, 2021