There are precious few sins that automatically slide off evangelicals like Teflon. It is precisely because we evangelicals are so worldly that it often happens that what we condemn in those outside the camp is soon enough found in the camp. In short, of course there are evangelicals who are guilty of cancel culture, and evangelicals who are victims of cancel culture. Such, however, doesn’t mean that victims within our camp are to blame. If karma is real, the last thing anyone ought to do is cheer when it catches up with others.
Jonathan Merritt, a gifted writer who manages to reach audiences both within and without the evangelical fold published this piece that could be read as taking delight in evangelicals getting cancelled. I get that temptation, having been cancelled myself by evangelicals. Fairness, however, would recognize that there is a fundamental difference between publicly recognizing when someone abandons a core value of a given group and when someone merely expresses a politically incorrect opinion. I’ll grant that it’s a nuance, but it is an important one.
Jonathan himself, not yet cancelled as far as I can tell, recently posted this which seems to suggest that one can enter the kingdom of God without repenting of one’s sins. I asked him if such was what he intended to say. He declined to respond. If someone says, “You can enter the kingdom of heaven without repentance” they are not evangelical. And evangelicals have no obligation to provide a platform for anyone whose message runs contrary to evangelicalism. It is not a sign of small-mindedness to warn people about this message, but a sign of fidelity to Jesus.
Sadly, cancel culture inside the church can be vicious. Some would insist not only on cancelling Jonathan, but cancelling anyone who didn’t think such needed to be done. Worse still, we cancel people not because they deny the gospel but when they confess their need for the gospel. As my friend Tullian Tchividjian has wisely pointed out, we all want a pastor that is zealous to confess from his pulpit that he is a sinner. If, however, he actually names the sin, he’ll be tarred, feathered and driven out of town. This is precisely what we mean when we bemoan the hard truth that the church of Jesus Christ is the only army that shoots its own wounded.
Grace. Grace is patient with anything but this- the denial of grace. Grace means that even if we end up “cancelling” someone for leaving the faith, we do so with tears, and with fear and trembling knowing we could be next. It means we seek restoration and reconciliation, and hold no grudges when the repentance comes. In I Corinthians Paul rebukes the church for turning “grace” into license as they paraded their broadmindedness in not disciplining the man who had his father’s wife. Paul insisted that the man be excommunicated. In II Corinthians Paul rebukes the church for turning their backs on the same man after he repented. And yet Paul corrected the church graciously.
Evangelicals are swiftly being cancelled en masse by the broader world. Pray we learn from the experience both our need for God’s grace and our calling to show it.
