Coping with cancel culture...

Those of us who lived through part of the twentieth century will remember that it was a time when many "freedoms" were won for mankind. Following on from the reforms of the nineteenth century, which saw, for example, slavery and child labour abolished in many parts of the world, the twentieth century saw quite a number of advances in the righting of injustices and prejudices, as well as in legislation protecting freedom of speech, freedom of religion, workers' rights, healthcare for the poor.... etc.

While most of the freedoms were positive, others were less so, leading to increases in divorce, abortion, and a variety of "alternative" lifestyles and sexual choices. But it seemed that the bad and the good mixed together in a general consensus that personal freedom was a good thing - unless it led to the committing of crimes, as in the case of a serial killer or child abuser.

In these first decades of the 21st Century, we're beginning to see the pendulum swing the other way. Having enshrined certain "freedoms" within our society and our education system - things like same sex marriage or the freedom for transgender women (biological men) to use women's bathrooms and participate in women's professional sports events - we've now pushed beyond that to the point where daring to express a different opinion could mean that you are accused of a "hate crime" and could face legal proceedings and even imprisonment.

Even beyond what could happen to you officially or legally for daring to say something like, for example, that there are only two biological genders, there's all the censoring, shaming, attacking and destroying of reputation that happens now by the pressure of what's "politically correct" and the power of social media.  This is what is known as "cancel culture." If you don't toe the political line, what you say or write might be censored outright by the powers that be, or you might find that people make a public spectacle of you, destroying your livelihood (if you're a celebrity) or your ministry (if you happen to be in Christian work.) 

2020 seems to have been a benchmark year for the suppressing of many freedoms that previous generations fought to win. On top of the political, social and educational power that had been granted to the LGBTQ movement in recent years, 2020 saw the worldwide coronavirus pandemic, closely followed by widespread race riots in the aftermath of an instance of police brutality in the USA.  These factors have all seemed to merge together in creating a culture where, if you express an opinion that is considered "undesirable," you could find your Twitter or Facebook post deleted by the authorities, thus "cancelling" your different point of view. Or you could be so shamed and vilified in the media, and social media, that the entire world is constantly faced by news reports of how reprehensible you are.

One example of this was when leading doctors spoke out, expressing medical opinions about Covid-19 or about the wearing of masks or the value of lockdown. It happened often that opinions which didn't align with what governments wanted people to know were simply censored and made "unavailable" on whatever media platform they had been written and posted.

Another example of this was seen recently when a well known British author said that, although she had nothing against transgender people, she felt that we should be allowed to express the opinion that two biological sexes do exist. Otherwise, she said, if we all have to say that there are no genders, but just a spectrum, it denies everything that billions of people around the world have experienced by being a man or being a woman. Some transgender people agreed with this, pointing out that they wouldn't need to take sex hormones or apply for gender-reassignment surgery if the existence of two biological genders wasn't a scientific reality. However, the author was publicly shamed and attacked in the press, as a worldwide outcry arose over her opinion that you are born biologically male or female.

And there have been countless other suppressions of freedom of speech and freedom of opinion over the past few months. Countless violations of what Americans would call their "second amendment rights." It's beginning to seem as if only minorities have their freedom of speech protected and so there's a "silent majority" who don't dare to express their opinion - for fear that the simple holding of an opinion or belief will cause them to be regarded as a bad person or be accused of "hate speech."

While civilised societies do need to have some measures in place to prevent genuine hate speech and inciting to violence, this is not the same thing as censoring or censuring an individual simply because they hold a different opinion. Creating a society where there is only one correct opinion has historically always been an expression of totalitarian regimes, such as Hitler's Naziism or different expressions of Communism or capitalist dictatorships in the past. The argument for freedom of speech has always been that people have a right to express their sincerely held opinion, even if that opinion happens to be wrong.

People of faith are always going to be particularly vulnerable in this area. We've all heard of times and places in the world where the church is persecuted and you can be put in prison or put to death for daring to speak about your faith in Jesus. Sadly, people of faith also seem particularly susceptible to expressing intolerance and perpetuating attacks on those who feel or think differently.  As Christians, we can only hang our heads in shame when we read of the millions of Muslims and Jews that were killed by the so-called "Christian" Crusaders in past generations.

History seems to have proved the reality that, whenever we try to silence or get rid of those who disagree with us, all kinds of atrocities generally happen. And history has also shown that the persecuted minority has sometimes experienced considerable growth when pushed underground and when allegiance became something costly. By opposing other people's right to express their opinion, we risk helping their opinion to gain sympathy and power. And by promoting a culture that silences socially unacceptable views, we risk creating a culture where even the truth can be muzzled and silenced.... just because the truth is deemed unacceptable and is now only believed by a minority.

In response to this recent trend of censoring and silencing "unacceptable" viewpoints, a number of celebrities recently wrote an open letter, expressing their concern about the censorship and suppression of freedom of opinion in our modern world. I guess quite a number of these people happened to be white, because their open letter and its expressed concerns were immediately hailed as invalid, because those who wrote it were writing from a place of "white privilege." If I understand this correctly, these people's opinion was considered unimportant and unacceptable, just because they happened to be white or because they happened to be rich. (They weren't even writing about race or about wealth; just writing about freedom of speech.) To cancel someone's opinion because they happen to be white is just as ridiculous as ignoring someone's opinion because they happen to be black. To deny someone an audience because they happen to be middle class is just as unjust as silencing their voice because they happen to be poor.

A similar thing happened just last week when the New York Times published an article claiming that people gathering together for church services was a "major source" of covid infection in the USA. However, in that very same article, they published statistics that proved that covid infections among churchgoers accounted for less than one tenth of one percent (0.216%) of the millions of coronavirus infections in the USA.

Someone wrote an article, pointing out this "false news" reporting on the part of the newspaper, and stating that contagion was more likely to happen in the context of thousands of people shoulder to shoulder in the streets for mass riots than it was in the context of a hundred people sitting respectfully in a church service with appropriate social distancing measures.  Needless to say, this seemingly logical observation was attacked and "cancelled" by many, who claimed that it was an expression of racism. Now, I have no idea whether the person who wrote the original article was black or white.... but the simple suggestion that mass rioting could represent a risk of people's passing on the virus to others in close proximity was deemed an invalid opinion and was therefore vilified and cancelled by many. Seemingly, the approved line in the current climate is that destructive rioting is a good thing while peaceful church services are a dangerous thing. To me, this seeming caricature is a true example of what cancel culture and suppression of free speech looks like.

I find it a worrying trend, because I know that people of faith are very often the victims of a cancel culture. We've seen believers' businesses destroyed because their conscience wouldn't let them make a cake for a gay wedding; we've seen priests and pastors fired or forced to resign because they were unwilling to carry out that same-sex wedding ceremony. We've seen people lose their jobs as teachers or TV presenters because they voiced the opinion that there are two biological genders or that it is inappropriate for our education system to teach six year olds about oral sex and masturbation. 

Of course, if we feel that freedom of opinion is worth upholding, we do risk seeing a lot of nonsense out there on TV and on social media. We live in a world of incredible moral confusion. Reading this week in the fifth chapter of the prophet Isaiah, I couldn't help thinking that verse 20 is like a description of our modern world: What sorrow for those who say that evil is good and good is evil, that dark is light and light is dark, that bitter is sweet and sweet is bitter... We do in fact live in a world where things that would have been unthinkable just a couple of decades ago are now embraced by the masses and protected by governments; a world where speaking out an opinion that pretty much everyone believed to be true in the relatively near past could now put us in the line of fire or even led to our being accused of a crime. Isn't freedom of speech too dangerous a concept in such a climate?

I tend to feel that freedom of opinion and freedom of expression are something valuable, even if it means that some people will misuse that freedom to to express wrong opinions or ungodly lifestyles. We need to find a balance between protecting the children and the vulnerable in our midst, without totally silencing those whose opinions are different from the majority (or from the more vocal and aggressive minority.) If we promote a cancel culture, I fear that we who believe the Bible may very often find ourselves being the ones who are cancelled and censured in the present and in the future.

Sudden endings and disappointments

It's a weird feeling when something comes to a sudden and unexpected end. At its worst, it can crash upon you with a sense of debilitating grief - like when a pregnant woman has a miscarriage, or a family member suddenly dies of a terminal illness, or a previously fit person becomes paralysed in a traffic or sports accident. At the milder end of the scale, it can leave you with a sense of disappointment - like when the electricity cuts off just before the climax of that movie or football match on TV, or when your dreamed-of trip to Niagara Falls becomes a wash-out because the rain or fog prevents you from being able to see the fabled landmark.

We're only in the second week of July, but already this month has had two "sudden endings" that brought disappointments with them for me.

One of those sudden endings was our ministry decision to postpone the Leadership Development Course that we had been planning to run here in southern Spain this autumn. Hundreds of hours have been invested over the past two years, communicating with the participants and staff, registering the course with the university, negotiating with the self-catering apartments that we'd be using for delegate accommodation.... and then, suddenly, we had to make the hard decision to postpone the course till next year - because of factors caused by the ongoing coronavirus situation around the world. What a sense of loss and disappointment that ministry decision brought with it.

Then, only a week later, another sudden ending crashed upon me: literally crashed, when a bizarre accident left my little car overturned at the side of the road. The day had started out with a lovely, peaceful walk in the forest, an opportunity to enjoy God's creation in the cool morning hours. But on the way home, when I'd only driven a few hundred yards and was travelling at a mere 6 kph, something seemed to malfunction as we went around the bend. A few seconds later, we had crashed into large rocks at the edge of the road, and my car had flipped over on its side.

I am so thankful to God for his protection: that the slow pace and the quiet road meant I emerged from the wreck relatively unscathed. But it brings many sudden endings with it: not only a sudden end to our pleasant morning outing, but probably an end to all the other outings (for swimming or hiking) that I might have done over the summer weeks, and very probably an end to the car itself... as I suspect that the cost of repairing it will probably be more than the market value of the car. (It's thirteen years old.) These bring their own sense of disappointment.

Encountering disappointments is a normal part of life and learning how to navigate them well and rise above them is a life skill that we need to be developing from our childhood years. If not, life's disappointments, especially the ones that come upon us suddenly, can derail us and rob us of all the good that the future holds for us. We've probably all met people who never seemed able to move beyond that divorce or bereavement, that loss of a job or end of a relationship... 

Learning to find our comfort and strength in God is crucially important at such times. I wrote about that a few years ago on this blog, in a series of three posts about what to do in a crisis, I reflected on David's response in a time of great loss. You can find those posts by clicking here.

But this morning, I was reflecting on a different way of avoiding disappointments - not the kind of disappointments that are thrust upon us by life's circumstances or by other people, but the kind that we can inadvertently cause for ourselves or for God. Read on in the post below to consider one way that we can minimise feelings of disappointment and regret.

Living life with minimal regret

I've recently begun reading the book of Isaiah in my morning times alone with God, and this morning I reached chapter 5, that well known prophetic parable about a man who planted a vineyard. Despite all the time and care that he put into it, it produced only sour grapes and he was bitterly disappointed that it didn't produce the sweet harvest he had been hoping for.

Of course, the story is an allegory of God's relationship with the people of Israel - that, no matter how much love and care and kindness He showed them, they turned to idols and to evil lifestyles. God looked for justice and righteousness in His people, but He found only injustice, oppression and violence.

It's a sobering thought to be reminded that God has emotions and that it's possible for Him to experience grief and disappointment when He looks at our lives and doesn't find there what He is hoping to see. When He looks for truth in our lives and finds lies; when He looks for generosity of spirit and finds selfishness; when He looks for trust and faith, but finds worry and doubt.... What a sense of deep disappointment that must bring to the heart of God.

I found myself writing a simple prayer in my journal: "Oh, Father, I don't ever want to be a disappointment to you. Keep me sensitive to the areas where my life isn't producing the kind of fruit you would long for." A key factor of the Holy Spirit's work in our lives is that He makes us aware of the things that need changed, the things that would bring disappointment or sadness to God. The Bible calls that "conviction" and it's a precious gift because it allows us to ask forgiveness and put things right.

If you develop that thought a little further, you realise that living life with intentionality is one of the ways that we can avoid disappointment and regret - not only the sadness that we might cause to our Heavenly Father, but also the sense of remorse and regret that we might cause to ourselves.

In the post above, I wrote about "sudden endings" and how they can cause us disappointment and grief. Sudden endings rob us of the opportunity to put things right. How many times have you seen a Hollywood movie where someone dies in a plane crash or suffers some other tragedy and one of the other characters says, "I didn't even say goodbye," or, "I never told her that I loved her," or, "We had a fight this morning before he left for work." There's a particular sense of grief and disappointment that comes with "unfinished business," with the sense that things didn't end the way they should have done.

One of the ways that we can avoid this sense of regret is by "keeping short accounts" with others in our lives. If we speak unkind words to someone or lose our temper with them... let's be quick to seek them out and ask for forgiveness.

Another way to avoid regret and disappointment is by deliberately living our lives as if time were short: making wise choices about how I spend the valuable time that's left to me; making decisions today that I wouldn't be sorry about if tomorrow were to bring some kind of sudden ending across my path.

There's no way to avoid all of life's disappointments, losses or trials. There's no way to foresee the sudden endings. But we can minimise our regrets by living each day with a conscious awareness of redeeming the time, loving God and seeking to bring joy to His heart.