Cancelled

You have no doubt heard the song, There is a Balm in Gilead, which is a song devoted to the promise of healing and forgiveness for the one who would seize the promises of God.  There are several
references to that healing "balm" in Scripture, including Jeremiah 46, which states:
10 For this is the day of the Lord God of hosts, A day of vengeance, That He may avenge Himself on His adversaries. The sword shall devour; It shall be satiated and made drunk with their blood; For the Lord God of hosts has a sacrifice In the north country by the River Euphrates.
11 "Go up to Gilead and take balm, O virgin, the daughter of Egypt; In vain you will use many medicines; You shall not be cured.

Verse 10 describes what we deserve - judgment and destruction at the hand of Almighty God. Verse 11 references what we can have by accepting God's mercy and grace. In this case, it seems that one of the nations under judgment did not accept that healing balm.  In our individual lives and in the life of our nation, we have to make sure that we take hold of the healing hand of Jesus; He is the one who heals our souls and will heal relationships as we allow Him to have His way.

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There is a passage in Jeremiah chapter 8 that speaks to the condition of the human heart and the promise of healing and restoration, even though His people had forgotten God and begun to worship idols. There is still the chance of redemption.
19 Listen! The voice, The cry of the daughter of my people From a far country: "Is not the Lord in Zion? Is not her King in her?" "Why have they provoked Me to anger With their carved images-- With foreign idols?"
20 "The harvest is past, The summer is ended, And we are not saved!"
21 For the hurt of the daughter of my people I am hurt. I am mourning; Astonishment has taken hold of me.
22 Is there no balm in Gilead, Is there no physician there? Why then is there no recovery For the health of the daughter of my people?

The doctor has spoken, and if we are to experience harmony in our culture, perhaps we would do well to heed his diagnosis.

Ben Carson, the noted surgeon who now leads the Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, had some pointed comments on This Week with George Stephanopoulos on ABC this past Sunday, according to an article at ChristianHeadlines.com.  In his reply to a question by the host, the good doctor stated, “We’ve reached a point in our society where we dissect everything and try to ascribe some nefarious notion to it,” adding, “We really need to move away from that. We need to move away from being offended by everything, of going through history and looking at everything, of renaming everything."

Carson also said, “It really gets to a point of being ridiculous after a while...And, you know, we’re going to have to grow up as a society.” He also said, “We have to stop putting everything into the arena of combat. Let's see if we can find a way to work together because if we don't, we’re doomed..."

Most honest Americans and especially Christians should be able to agree on matters of racism (we're against it), justice (we are for it), and unity (it's a good thing).  It's just a matter of how you get there that seems to be the problem.  And, there seem to be levels of addressing these issues - and if you don't say the right thing in the right way with the right tone, you may risk being a victim of "cancel culture."

Take, for instance, the case of a cartoon show that National Review highlighted the other day.  The article says:

Paw Patrol, a children’s cartoon about doggie do-gooders, has as one of its principal characters a German shepherd called Chase, who is a police officer. (A police officer in an imaginary universe in which dogs have full-time jobs, drive cars, and wear jaunty caps.) According to the New York Times, which just fired its opinion editor for publishing opinions, Paw Patrol has run afoul of the new commandment: Thou shalt not make sympathetic depictions of police officers, including police officers whose beat is an imaginary universe in which dogs have full-time jobs, drive cars, and wear jaunty caps.

My Faith Votes tweeted this out recently: "In the age of cancel culture, in which anyone who says anything even mildly “controversial” there is a movement to get that person fired, deplatformed, or worse...How do we combat it? #PrayThinkAct"

It linked to a Faithwire article featuring U.S. Representative Dan Crenshaw.  CBN News published a report on Crenshaw and his new book, Fortitude:

In his new book, Fortitude: American Resilience in the Era of Outrage, Crenshaw shares advice on finding the strength to deal with life's challenges and create solutions where none seem to exist. He says the idea for the book came after many encounters with the "outrage culture" in America today. One T-shirt on a protester summed it up for Crenshaw. It said, "Stay Outraged."

"And it's this sort of strange notion that outrage is the ends," Crenshaw said. "That that is the point. Now, of course, in the end, they want some kind of revolution, but it's outrage itself that is the goal. They were not arguing for any policy, at least it was not apparent if they were, the goal was just to be mad, mad, mad, and to seek to manipulate people's emotions that way for whatever policy end the might have. But those are secondary to the first part which is irrational, emotional exuberance," he said.

Tim Challies linked to a piece on a website called, UnHerd by a clergyman from Great Britian named Giles Fraser, who writes:

The new, highly secular ‘cancel culture’ represents an extreme form of righteousness that has all the moral power of a certain kind of protestant Christianity, but none of the basic scaffolding of redemption on which such Christianity is built. And morality without forgiveness or redemption is a frightening, persecutory business.

Fraser goes on to say:

There’s a sort of furious moral vigilantism that encourages its adherents to trawl through our public utterances — in order to condemn and shame us in the high court of Twitter. Against this digital shoaling of the mob, any protestations of rightful innocence are impossible to make, and the fear of being targeted makes any exploration or confession of our hidden failings terrifying to contemplate.

I was pointed to a tweet the other day from Mike Stone, a Georgia pastor who is the outgoing head of the Southern Baptist Convention's Executive Committee, who tweeted: "The new religion of America offers no absolution even when you repent of those dreaded sins you didn’t even commit...That is not the gospel of Jesus."

People in leadership in America today are experiencing this firsthand.  Witness the social media outrage to a well-known pastor who clearly misspoke in a recent forum on race relations and how his attempt to apologize was deemed to be not enough.  Another pastor, also with an impressive track record, had liked some political tweets, apologized, but his church was still banned from doing ministry in certain facilities in his city.  An athlete spoke to a cultural issue in a manner that offended his teammates, and he apologized not once, but twice; his wife apologized, too - is it enough?  We'll see.

In some cases, it is never enough.  Never. Enough.  And so, cancel culture kicks in.

We need a doctor.  Not Ben Carson, mind you, although he is a great guy who speaks truth.  But, we need the Great Physician, the one who offers us what the Bible calls a Balm in Gilead.  The One who can heal our hearts and our relationships. Who brings forgiveness and enables us to forgive one another, because we have been forgiven much.

The Bible says there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  The Word says that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us.  That's absolute.  And, we should do no less for one another.  It is the work of the enemy to continually tell us that we're not forgiven, we have not done enough to cleanse the past, and there is no absolution - Christ is calling us to freedom, the enemy keeps us wrapped up in our past mistakes.

Thankfully, our sins have not cancelled us from having a relationship with Christ - He says that the person who comes to Him will not be cast out.  Rather, He provides a way that our sins can be cancelled and He gives every one of us the capability to extend forgiveness, whether or not a person asks for it.  Now, there will be the occasion where we need to ask for forgiveness from others in order for the healing to come; not out of intimidation or a false obligation or social shaming, but out of a heart that is truly devoted to making things right.