Christ Culture Over Cancel Culture

Cancel Cultue makes me want to plug my ears until it all goes away! It creeps into every empty crevice of our life and fills it with seeds that can’t wait to take root. All these empty spaces in our mind, heart and soul are the areas where we need to grow stronger in our faith. This is where Christ’s Culture comes in.

Cancel the Culture

Cancel culture has taken our country by storm, quite literally. Do you understand what cancel culture is and what is happening around us? Cancel culture began as a more profound type of political correctness. This wasn’t a good place to start. However, it turned into a whole lot more. Let me try to explain.

The trend of canceling someone began with social media and news outlets in the beginning. Individuals taking great effort to uncover information about someone’s past, then holding the person accountable today for those past actions. Canceling a person takes no consideration of a person’s age, whether they have made a change in their life since the event occurred, or if social norms and the words we use have vastly changed since the event happened. Early on, we mostly saw cancel culture happen when politicians, running for office, had something offensive dug up from their past. It could destroy their campaign. This strategy was working until Trump ran for president, and we still see it being played out in Hollywood often.

Around 2015, and even earlier, the meaning of cancel culture morphed into much more. It became a way to misrepresent someone’s actions, accuse someone of racism or sexism, and attack traditional Judeo-Christian values. Today it means you can lose your job based on your beliefs, or someone can harm another if they are on culture’s side. It’s an ever-changing, slippery slope. The rules change daily, and it’s never quite clear who’s making the rules.

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What is Christ’s Culture?

But hope remains because Jesus is on our side. Christ’s example is always clear to a discerning follower. The Bible is our rulebook and it’s message is straightforward and clear. We don’t have to agree with the current views on transgenderism, abortion, gay marriage, or the unyielding effort to sexualize our youth. We also don’t have to feel guilty for being a certain race or gender. The deconstruction of the church and false teaching muddy the water even more.

Christ Culture is a way of life that doesn’t fit in with our world. This reality can make us uncomfortable and want to give in to the current secular beliefs. Don’t do it. Remember what Jesus said.

Enter through the narrow gate.  For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.  But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.  -Matthew 7:13-14

Pushing Back

Staying in step with Christ and his culture is not easy. Probably you have even felt pushback at times from fellow Christians. We are feeling pressure at work, at school, and even from friends to accept new ideas, instead of relying on the Gospel that has been guiding believers for over 2000 years. If you are like me, you feel frustrated. We want to make a difference but it’s not always clear what we should do. As I have been searching for wisdom on these matters, here are a few things that I have found helpful. I hope they will bring you encouragement and courage.

Response to Cancel Culture

Pray, often. “Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who mistreat you.” Luke 6:28
Specifically pray for wisdom and discernment. Let those who are wise understand these things. Let those with discernment listen carefully. The paths of the Lord are true and right, and righteous people live by walking in them. But in those paths sinners stumble and fall. Hosea 14:9 And I love this verse as well. “My child, don’t lose sight of common sense and discernment. Hang on to them. ” Proverbs 3:21
Consume your Bible more than media. And when you do consume media, be thoughtful about what you are reading and watching. Angel Studios is a great alternative to Netflix! Unfollow those on social media that are a part of the Cancel Culture mentality and cause you to be anxious. Better yet, take a Screen Sabbatical for a season.

Active in the Culture

Be involved as a member at a local church. Community is everything. We need to support and build up one another. We need to pray for one another. And we need to grow our faith through the teaching of God’s Word. “And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.” Hebrews 10:25
Teach your kids and grandkids what is true. If you talk openly about God to kids when they are young, they will absorb your teaching and learn so much about God and they will know right from wrong. Be very diligent in this endeavor. I offer learning tools in my Etsy shop if you want to check them out. I will be adding more weekly.
Don’t stay silent. Take action where you feel God pulling you. If we pray for opportunities to speak the truth, God will provide them. (Maybe more than we want!) We need to be prepared, equipped with God’s Word, and trusting Him to provide the right words. This doesn’t mean things will be easy, but God didn’t promise us an easy life.
Equip yourself with scripture. Memorizing scripture is a lost art. It’s time to bring it back. Here’s a free printable download to help you get started with some important verses for acquiring wisdom and discernment as we strive for a Christ Culture over Cancel Culture. Memorizing scripture was a core part of our homeschooling days when my kids were young and in their teens. You will never regret the time you spend learning God’s Word.

Think on This

This is a passage from Natasha Crain’s book, Faithfully Different. I hope it gives you some perspective.

If you were a new Christian living in Rome around the year AD 200, you would have been required to do three years of schooling with an authorized teacher once a week, outside of the weekly church service. In order to be baptized – a minimum of 144 hours of lectures (granting a month off per year). Students studied the Scriptures in-depth, and the material was heavily apologetic, instructing new believers on how Christian truth stood superior to pagan philosophy and religion. To modern ears, this sounds rather intense. Today, we would fear that such requirements would turn away too many prospective believers. After all, there are barbeques to get to and baseball games to watch. But Christians of that period were a minority surrounded by a pagan culture and faced persecution. They had to put in the time to deeply understand their faith if they were going to persevere through great hardships.
Natasha Crain

I hope these thoughts inspire you to pursue Christ’s culture in every part of your life.

Wear Your Faith

One last thing, that’s a bit more fun! I have added some new Christ-Culture T-shirts in the shop that you might like. I hope they will inspire you to share your faith and strike up conversations. There are some great options for men, women and teens. I’ll be adding some mugs and journals soon.