“You’re Canceled!” (Isaiah 53:3)

Cancel Culture.

 

If social media has not imposed enough untenable and politically correct mores, there is now a new one. It is also known as call-out culture or outrage culture and one definition is as follows:

 

Call-out culture (also known as outrage culture) is a form of public shaming that aims to hold individuals and groups accountable for their actions by calling attention to behavior that is perceived to be problematic, usually on social media.

Source: Wikipedia

 

Nearly every day, we learn of a new example of cancel culture with some celebrity or public figure involved in some misdeed or crime. No matter if the offensive event occurred in their youth or before they were ever readily recognized, once canceled there is no return. 

 

What I find disturbing about this trend is the very pundits who advocate for this cancel culture are many of the same who clamor for inclusiveness, tolerance, and diversity. It is inherently contradictory since one cannot be inclusive and tolerant and then shame another for behaving in a manner that they deem offensive. The cancel culture is hypocritical since it is predicated upon a relative standard of morality. What is acceptable for one person or group may be offensive to another. 

 

The cancel culture is also arbitrary with agitators in the social media deciding who has created an egregious offense, deserving of public shaming, but selectively excusing others for reasons known only to them. Their inconsistency is shocking and appalling but no one appears willing to call them out on it. 

 

Ironically the very behavior of the cancel culture should elicit a cancel culture!

 

This public shaming is nothing new. The Bible has numerous examples but perhaps no example is more disturbing than the public shaming of Jesus Christ. Arrested on false charges, convicted with circumstantial evidence, and tried and illegally convicted by a kangaroo court. 

 

He was despised and rejected—a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief.

We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care.

Isaiah 53:3 (NLT)

 

Jesus Christ was canceled by his own people, the Jews. He was canceled by the Romans, the ruling class. He was canceled and yet He committed no sin nor did He receive a fair trial. Did He fight back against the slanderous charges? Did He attempt to defend Himself? Jesus did not have to condescend to answer the accusations of the cancel culture of His day. He is God and lived a perfect sinless life. His standard of morality was not based upon an arbitrary sampling of the latest public trends, it was a life lived in complete obedience to God, the Father. 

 

Cancel culture. 

 

It always fails when held to the highest standard of morality, Jesus Christ. 

 

Love and trust the Lord; seek His will in your life.