How should Christians respond to cancel culture? - GotQuestions.org Podcast Episode 46

Got Questions podcast, your questions, biblical answers. Today in the show I have with me Jeff and Kevin, our regulars. We're gonna be discussing something that's been in the news a lot lately, probably over the past few years and it's come to our attention once again.

That's cancel culture. You can probably guess maybe what brought this to our attention most recently, but it's not even really about that exact situation. It's about, I guess, the movement as a whole, the idea that essentially if you've ever said anything offensive in your entire life, you should be canceled.

And this cancellation can result in you being de-platformed, removed from YouTube and your ability to spread a message to be severely curtailed and so forth and even more extreme forms of persecution, basically trying to wipe you out of existence.

And so we talked about that briefly from a biblical perspective, just kind of how it doesn't match what the gospel tells us. Of course, there are things we can do, even things we can say that to a certain extent should cancel us from being able to continue to operate in certain venues, but that's not what's going on in the world today.

So cancel culture, it's a plague to a certain extent. As Christians, as followers in Christ who have been forgiven of so much, forgiveness should always be our reaction to other people. So difficult topic, but so Jeff, why don't you take it from here, discuss what is cancel culture and what should be our reaction to it?

Defining Cancel Culture and the Honor-Shame Dynamic

I think it's good to start with that question though, is what is cancel culture? Because most of the time when you talk to people about this, most reasonable people, rational people, when you actually start to define what you're talking about, you can kind of get to a level of agreement that's pretty significant.

The problem is that sometimes people will refer to every sort of consequence of any kind as cancel culture. And then on the flip side, you have people whose entire lives and livelihoods are being annihilated over something relatively minor who are telling you, no, there's no such thing as cancel culture.

It doesn't even exist. I would say the cancel culture does exist. It is a thing. I don't think that there's this massive predatory monster out there that's just consuming thousands and thousands of people's lives and livelihoods.

But there are a lot of things that are a problem in what we see. Basically what we're seeing is there's this return to a sort of a pre-Christian attitude where instead of a culture that's focused on morality, which allows for things like grace and forgiveness, redemption, restoration, reform, we're focused on the honor-shame concept, which basically says that what's important is not necessarily what you do.

It's how people perceive you. So in the honor-shame system, it doesn't really matter what you do. It's just a question of, did you get caught? You can do whatever you want as long as you don't bring shame or disrepute on your group.

And then once that happens, the only way that you can remove that shame or that disrepute, if at all, is through some kind of incredible self-sacrifice. One of the most extreme examples of that is the sort of stereotypical thing we think about in Japanese culture, where somebody has failed as a military leader or they've had some sort of embarrassing moment and they decide to commit ritual suicide.

You know, the cancel culture kind of plays on that idea where once we've assigned some sort of negative attribute to you that we're just going to destroy you. And that's where I think there's a lot of problems there is the cancel culture that's a problem is when we have this uninformed, overreacting, overly aggressive response that doesn't seek to understand.

It doesn't seek to reform. It doesn't seek to actually solve that problem. It just seeks to destroy somebody. And there are lots of examples that we'll talk about or that people can bring up. And some of those examples are really just consequences.

People are rightly being held to account for things that they have said and done. But there's also examples that we can point to where people are using mob justice. People are angry because of anger. They're upset because other people are upset.

It's sort of like the playground thing where everybody hates that kid because, well, everybody hates that kid. And that's why we hate him is because everybody hates him. That sort of thing just becomes this self-feeding monster.

So for me, the cancel culture aspect that's a concern is that, is when we see ignorance, overreaction, lack of grace, lack of justice. And that's not just a bad idea from a social standpoint or a cultural standpoint.

It's something that the Bible speaks specifically against. I know Kevin's got a good familiarity with where all that comes in. What do you have there?

Proverbs, Fair Hearing, and the Lack of Forgiveness

Well, I do have some scripture that comes into play, I think, with cancel culture. First, I just wanna comment that I agree with some of your points there, Jeff, about how there's some kind of an outrage by proxy almost with a lot of cancel culture.

It's not that what you said offended me, but there's some group over there that maybe possibly was offended. And so I'm offended on their behalf and it gets really messy really quick. And then also, I really like the distinction that you make between the consequences that naturally affect us when we do certain things and cancel culture itself.

I'm a pastor. There are certain things that if I did, or if I said, I would lose my position as a pastor. And that's good and right. It's the way it should be. But cancel culture goes beyond that even and starts digging into the past and looking at things that are relatively minor.

We need to use that word relatively and then jump on that. And that's wrong. That gets into the lack of forgiveness, the lack of second chances and all the rest. And they have their own rules. They have their own commandments in woke culture, in cancel culture.

And so there are certain political figures that you cannot speak against. You cannot criticize or else you'll get canceled. There are other political figures that you cannot support publicly or you'll get canceled.

And it becomes very political at times but it's based on just an ungodly attitude of unforgiveness and a lack of giving second chances. I think also coming into play in cancel culture is a principle that we find in the book of Proverbs.

Proverbs 18 and verse 13 says, he who answers a matter before he hears it, it is a shame and folly to him. So I think this has to do with cancel culture in many ways because we have groups of people that say, this person needs to be canceled and it doesn't matter what this person is saying, what this person really thinks, what this person is saying now.

I don't wanna hear the other side. I only am concerned about my side. I have my information that I've got from whatever source and I've formed my opinion and I'm gonna stick with it. It doesn't matter if the person that I wanna cancel is apologizing, doesn't matter if he has a good reputation in the years intervening the offense and now, it doesn't matter what other people say about him, none of that matters because I've already made up my mind.

And so I'm not gonna hear both sides. I'm not gonna pursue fairness in that way. And scripture says that if we are doing that, we respond to a matter, we answer a matter before we hear it, before we know all the details, before we have taken the time to gather the information, then we're being foolish and we're acting shamefully.

And that's kind of just the opposite of a lot of people who are canceling. They think that they are being very wise. They're taking the prudent course of action and it's something that they're proud of.

We're protecting society. We're protecting the next generation from having to hear bad people like that. And Bible says just the opposite. If you are jumping to conclusions and you are not taking the time to gather the information needed, then you are being foolish and you're acting shamefully.

Exactly, Kevin, thank you for sharing that. It's a great point. The other day, I had the privilege of presenting Got Questions at a church. And during the Q &A time, the first question that was asked was like, has Got Questions ever been canceled or de-platformed?

So I just kind of looked, we have not, and not at least in a systemic sense in that there's been times where our app has been blocked by either Apple or Android for the content that's in it. But each time we're able to contact the person involved and with a minor adjustment, get our app restored.

We've not been blocked on YouTube, even though we take some stances that I imagine a lot of people are not going to be comfortable with. But in the sense that if we're gonna be canceled, and this is something that God constantly brings back to me, I wanna be canceled for the right reason.

If someone's gonna cancel Got Questions, delist it from the search engines or block it from YouTube or whatever, I want it to be because we're declaring the gospel. I want it to be because we're declaring the salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone or some other essential of the faith.

I do not want it to be because we take a controversial stance on a political issue or that we take something that's culturally, I don't know, inappropriate, but not a crucial issue biblically speaking.

So while we definitely, if we're asked questions about political issues, we're going to answer them if they have a spiritual component, but that's not what Got Questions is all about. So in the sense of learning what hills to die on, and this person didn't ask the follow-up question of, well, what about this person or this person or this person who's been canceled?

And again, I would question whether they've truly been canceled, being removed from one particular platform, but whatever the case, and each of those are people who kind of change their focus from talking about spiritual things, talking about God's word, to diving headfirst into political stuff and on the deep end, even almost the conspiratorial end of the spectrum.

It's like, you know, thank you Lord for the reminder that that's not what he's called us to, that's not what he's focused on. And again, we fully recognize that the way the world's headed, I would not be at all surprised at some point in the future, Got Questions does get canceled, but if it's going to happen, I want it to be for us taking a firm stance on the word of God, on the gospel, not from taking too strong a stance on an issue that in the grand scheme of eternity really isn't all that important.

Yes.

I think you also made a good distinction where you talked about the idea of there's being removed from something is not necessarily being canceled. So if, for example, a group of people say, I heard so-and-so say this, and I don't like that, so I'm not going to buy their product anymore, or I'm not going to watch their show anymore.

That's not really being canceled. That's just life. That's just the way all this stuff works. That's not persecution. That's not anything else like this. You know, where we get better examples as we see a teenager record something when they're young, they say something that's maybe inappropriate.

Several years later, somebody decides to dig that up and throw that on social media. And then the response to that is other authority figures and people in that person's life decide to just completely destroy this person's education and employment and social life and so on and so forth.

That's where the cancel culture aspect comes in. Before the broadcast, we were discussing how the main character in George Orwell's book, 1984, part of his job was to basically erase from history people who had become distasteful for whatever reason.

I see aspects of that cancel culture in some of the incidents that have happened recently in the news. Again, the people who are involved did things that are immoral and distasteful. But then you have to step back and say, okay, but if that person did say those things, do we really think that the most reasonable thing to do is then say we're gonna scrub their likeness out of the video games in which they would have been involved?

We're gonna take that person's name completely out of the historical records of organizations that they worked with and so on and so forth. That's where the dynamic starts to become dangerous because now we're not just saying, we can point to something and say, this is not good and it is not acceptable and it needs to be confronted.

Now we're going to that whole honor shame aspect where we say there is no such thing as redemption. There is no such thing as tolerance. There is no forgiveness. There is no sense whatsoever in which anything other than this person's complete obliteration from reality is worthwhile.

And that's the thing that even people who agree with this sort of head hunting aspect, I think they should be concerned about, even if they're not.

Regret, Context, and the Danger of Rash Judgment

Yeah, Jeff, something you said caught my attention in that I'm so glad there were not as many ways to record someone when I was a teenager as there are today. Because I said some really stupid stuff when I was a teenager and thank God there's no one there recording it.

Because I don't believe any of those things that I said. And even today, thankfully God has progressively installed a filter over my mouth to prevent me from saying stupid stuff, but stuff still occasionally squirts out.

I can even think several years ago, some friends of Melissa and I, an interracial couple. And I have absolutely no problem whatsoever with interracial couples. I don't believe it's biblically wrong. I don't believe there's absolutely anything wrong with it.

But in one of them had made a joke and in a moment of like just teasing each other, I said something that they didn't like. They weren't offended because they know me, but that exact same thing taken out of that context could have been very offensive to someone else.

And I learned from that, would never say it again. Totally regret even saying it, even though it was received in the spirit of it said. But it's like, wow, the idea of having to be so super incredibly careful with everything you say, that just makes, I don't even wanna talk anymore because just out of the fear of saying something that's going to be either misinterpreted, taken out of context and then used to discredit.

I don't care about me, but if any harm were to come to, I got questions. And just as a similar example, you take almost any sermon given by any pastor on any given Sunday. And if you look carefully enough, you could take a small snippet of that and have it sound incredibly offensive or inappropriate.

So this whole cancel culture of not doing the research into, okay, what's the context of what was being said? Why was it said? What did he mean when he say it? And even further, if something was said inappropriate or wrong, sinful, not giving the person the opportunity to repent or to apologize, to admit wrong, or even if the opportunity is given to not accept that.

That's what's so anti-Christian about the cancel culture concept.

Slow to Speak, Prejudice, and Nicodemus in John 7

Amen, Shay, to the fact that we did not have as many recording devices going back when we were growing up and some of the silly things that we said, even in jest that could be taken in a wrong way and all of that.

But the Bible does talk a lot about being slow to speak, James says. In the Old Testament, we have in the multitude of words, sin is not lacking. So, I mean, it's like the more you talk, the more you open yourself up to saying something that you'll regret, something that's just wrong.

I see an example of cancel culture, in a sense, in the New Testament where Jesus was canceled. That was like the ultimate cancellation right there because they killed him. The people that were behind this, the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem, the Sanhedrin, were dead set against Jesus.

They wanted him out of the way. They truly wanted to blot him out and erase him from history. But there was one in their midst, a guy by the name of Nicodemus. He was a Pharisee. He was a member of the Sanhedrin who was fair-minded and who was putting the brakes on their rush to judgment, their prejudice, which by the way, prejudice, the word prejudice comes, it literally means prejudge.

You see those two word parts in the word prejudice itself, to judge before, to prejudge. So you've formed your opinion before you've heard the matter out. And so the Pharisees are talking about how they can get Jesus, how they're plotting against him.

And here in John chapter seven, Nicodemus puts the brakes on in their condemnation of Jesus. And he asks this question, does our law judge a man before it hears him and knows what he's doing? And Nicodemus of course, was the one who had met with Jesus personally.

He had a one-on-one face-to-face conversation with him. Nicodemus asked questions. Nicodemus took the time to find out who Jesus was and what he was teaching. And he carries this attitude back to the Sanhedrin, the ruling body.

And he says, are we being fair with him? Do you guys even know what Jesus really is teaching? Have you talked to him? And does our law judge people preemptively? Have we all formed our opinion on this?

So in all civilized societies, there is a fairness built in. They take the time to hear both sides of an issue. And Nicodemus was pointing toward that. But the cancel culture, it's all about retribution.

It's all about silencing people. It has nothing to do with grace or mercy or forgiveness or love. And when you are anti-love, anti-forgiveness, anti-grace, anti-mercy, then you are anti-Christian.

There's nothing Christian about the cancel culture as we're defining it here today.

Legitimate Consequences, Redemption, and Not Participating in Outrage

I think that's something that people have to keep in mind is that there's aspects of this that are damaging spiritually, socially, culturally. But I do think we want to emphasize the idea or to reiterate the idea that first of all, there is such a thing as legitimate consequences that nothing about this is anybody saying anytime somebody gets called on the carpet for things they've done.

Shay, as an example, if you were to be recorded saying something like that and somebody would bring it up, it would be legitimate for somebody to say, that's the only time I've really heard that. And I've never seen anything in Shay's life that would indicate a problem.

Therefore, this is a good area for maybe an apology. And then that's the end of it. On the flip side, if somebody brings that up and then 10, 15, 20 other people pop up and say, yeah, he says that kind of stuff a lot.

Well, now we're not talking about cancel culture anymore. Now we're talking about what's done in secret being brought into the light. So we do need to say that, yeah, there's legitimate consequences. But I think that we do have to remember that the way for us as Christians to fight against cancel culture is along the lines of what Kevin was just saying about how Nicodemus approached Jesus.

The first way for us to battle cancel culture is to not participate in it, is to not become that kind of person. In other words, there's subtle ways that we can do that. When you see a headline on a particular website that says such and such a politician did this horrible thing, there's times you click on that article, you read through there and you kind of get down there and you're going, okay, what am I supposed to be upset about?

And then you look at it and you go, we're kind of pulling this a little bit out of context or blowing this out of proportion. Well, if all I do is go on social media and start lambasting that person for the thing that they supposedly did, well, I'm participating in exactly what leads to cancel culture.

It's outrage by proxy. I'm just taking rumor and innuendo and turning it on that person and causing that to become a bigger deal than it's really supposed to be. So I think as believers, we need to reflect the attitude that says we need to be careful not to overreact.

We need to be careful not to judge before we know what's going on, while at the same time, we should be supportive when there's real solid information or true patterns that come up. We should be supportive of saying, yes, we need to hold those people accountable.

And then the third side of that, the third leg on the stool is to say, we do need to provide for some kind of redemption. We don't want to be people who say that person did something that I think is immoral.

Therefore, that's it. It's over. It's done forever. That doesn't mean that we necessarily restore them to everything that they were at before. I don't want Harvey Weinstein running movie theaters anymore.

I mean, there's reasons that we can say, I think some aspects of life are probably gonna change forever, but we do need to be able to say, I'm not gonna overreact. I am gonna go for legitimate consequences, but I am gonna be open to the possibility of redemption.

And if we do those things, I think we can fight against cancel culture without getting dragged into it.

Yeah.

Right.

Forgiveness, Repentance, and the Christian Response to Cancel Culture

So I don't usually do this on the show, but we have an article on Got Questions about cancel culture. And there's one paragraph in particular that I think well summarizes what we're trying to communicate here.

Let me just read that. So cancel culture is unforgiving. Past instances of inappropriate or hurtful speech or actions, no matter how long ago, are not to be forgiven in cancel culture. Once a person is canceled, there's no way to restore that person to the good graces of society.

There is no grace. There's no chance for redemption. Rehabilitation and restoration are not the goal, and neither is learning from one's mistakes. The goal is to smear, defame, and malign. The Bible points to repentance and commands us to forgive one another.

Make allowance for each other's faults and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others from Colossians 3 .13. An unforgiving, loveless attitude has no place in the Christian's life.

To me, that's the biggest point we wanna make today of how unchristian cancel culture is. I hope the points we've brought up have been helpful to you, especially with Kevin's point. If anything, this is a good reminder of the biblical admonitions to be slow to speak, to think before you speak, to realize that what you're about to say could be taken out of context, especially if you're in some sort of public venue or have a following.

Be extra careful in our current culture with what you say and how you say it, because it could result in you being canceled and you having a reduced ability to speak the truth and love, and that's not obviously what we want.

So we wanna be messengers of the gospel, and we don't want anything to distract from that. So I hope our conversation today has been helpful to you. This has been the Got Questions podcast.

Got questions?

The Bible has answers.

We'll be fine.