“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Mark 12:31
There’s a smug and dangerous behavior that’s become prevalent in the world today called cancel culture. Perhaps you’ve been a victim of it; I surely pray you’re not a perpetrator of it. It is a violation of God’s command to “love your neighbor as yourself”, and that’s wrong. Let’s take cancel culture to biblical court and see what the ruling is.
Proverbs 6: 16-19 says, “There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to Him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers.” Of the seven, haughtiness is first because maybe it’s the keystone of the other six, and anyone who participates in or embraces this abomination is 7 for 7 in that Proverb. Webster defines haughty as “blatantly and disdainfully proud: having or showing an attitude of superiority and contempt for people or things perceived to be inferior.” The censoring, diminishing, berating, or canceling of anyone with whom one has a difference is haughtiness. Universally, everyone on the planet needs to feel they have worth, that their lives are significant. So, is there any scenario where it’s okay to destroy a person’s worth and significance because we think we’re superior and dislike something about them? Biblically, the answer is a straight “no.” Anyone who practices or revels in any form of cancel culture cannot defend it against God’s Word.
Throughout His entire ordeal of being betrayed, arrested, crowned with thorns, beat, spat upon, mocked, and crucified, Jesus showed nothing but love and compassion for his accusers. Innocent of all charges, Jesus had the power to cancel every one of His disrespectors merely with a thought, but He chose to love and forgive. He is our model, but in our “civilized” society, we shut down and denigrate those whose lifestyles, looks, opinions, and politics deviate from our own. There is no pass in God’s court for a believer who looks down on a fellow creation of God, much less hates them enough to want a complete obliteration of their being. God Himself created absolute free will of thought and speech, and if the Judge is okay with it, we should be.
Practically speaking, one phenomenon in this world is that humans will swing the pendulum of disdain for others to extremes, forgetting that it inevitably swings back, and sometimes with tremendous vengeance. Who wants to be on the receiving side of that force? Respectful disagreement is virtuous in God’s “love your neighbor as yourself” world, and though compassion may not always beget compassion, hate almost always begets more hate.
We are to love, pray for, encourage, and civilly engage with all, especially those who think differently than us. The biblical court therefore sanctions the believer from hubris, haughtiness and dismissiveness, and orders the faithful to put ego aside and firmly set themselves against any culture that demeans their fellow man. All people are created in God’s image and have worth and significance.
Court is adjourned!