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."
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.
