Canceling Truth
To say that the world is in a state of turmoil would be an understatement. Just here in the United States alone, we’ve witnessed our streets erupting in violence and political battles taking on a new and frightening combative tone. That’s saying a lot since our culture and politics have always had the tendency to be divisive.
But something is different, and most of us can sense it. A couple of years ago, a new term began to trend in social media that perfectly describes what is taking place in America. I’d never heard of it until sometime last year when one of my cohorts came to me and said, “Hey, Phil, you’ve been canceled.”
“Canceled?” I asked. “What in the world is that?” I really had no idea what he was talking about.
It turns out that the term Cancel Culture has come to mean the practice of publicly humiliating folks you disagree with. The purpose of cancellation is to cost someone their job, admission to college, or otherwise harm them financially or professionally. Usually, this is done using social media where the damage is multiplied over the internet.
If someone is going to publicly humiliate other people though, shouldn’t there be some standard of truth that they can appeal to in order to do that? Surely, they would have to be able to point to a behavior and say, “See that! See what she did! She’s wrong, so she deserves to be publicly shamed.”
A good example of cancel culture is what took place during March Madness of this year. Oral Roberts University defeated the University of Florida to earn a spot in the Sweet Sixteen. Usually, the media loves an underdog, but not this time. Within hours, the media hound dogs began to attack ORU for their belief in Biblical marriage and their view on same sex relationships. USA Today ran a headline that read, “Oral Roberts University isn’t the feel-good March Madness story we need.” The article went on to explain that ORU’s “bigoted LGBTQ+ policies can’t and shouldn’t be ignored.” Quite a few people were calling for ORU to be booted from the tourney.
I don’t want to discuss LGBTQ+ theory, but I do want to point out one fact that should be clear to everyone. If you’re going to boot someone from the NCAA basketball tournament, cost them their job, or ruin their career, shouldn’t you be able to point to something and say, “See that law there? See that code? That’s how we know what truth is. That’s why we canceled that person! ”
I suppose that USA Today thinks they did just that. They would probably argue that ORU’s core principles violated a morality that almost any reasonable person in 2021 would agree on. But should that be the standard? 2021 morality? Does morality and the truth it is based on change over time? The answer is, YES! It does change when man is in charge of defining truth. And that’s the problem we face in the Cancel Culture era. Truth keeps shifting depending on how man defines it.
Unfortunately, this is what happens when a society removes God from public life. Without God, how would we know what to correct? What would we base the correction on? The latest trends of popular opinion? Just pull truth out of thin air? In my opinion, it should be obvious—that’s pretty shaky ground. No, unless a being far greater than man reveals truth to us, we can’t really have truth—at least not objective truth (truth that is the same all of the time). I would just encourage you to take a quick look at humanity’s track record when it kicks God to the curb and instead relies on its own intellect to determine what truth is.
Pol Pot, Hitler, Stalin, and the abortion advocates in the United States. All of them rejected the idea that there is a holy, righteous, eternal, all-powerful and loving God who has already given mankind a clear and unchanging moral code. Instead, they constructed their own morality based on their own understanding. And what was the outcome of tossing God out? The answer is that millions died. Just those three movements alone are responsible for the deaths of close to 100 million people.
“So, what’s your alternative, Phil? I’m glad you asked.
When Jesus said that he is the way and the truth and the life in John 14:6, he changed the game plan by giving us a new definition of truth. According to Jesus, truth isn’t just an idea or a concept. Once Jesus appeared on the scene, we don’t need to look in dictionaries for the definition, we simply look to Him.
This matters because the only way we can find real life is to embrace the Almighty as our Father. But in order to find him, I must admit the truth (that God has revealed to me) about myself—that I am a rank sinner and that I deserve condemnation. I also must admit the truth about the Father and Son—He is infinitely holy, majestic, and loving. I must admit that I had a death sentence hanging over my head that the Almighty paid for at His own expense.
When I came to Christ, I relinquished my addiction to the lies and false notions of truth that Satan had enticed me to embrace. I began to filter my thoughts through the person of Jesus instead of relying on my own understanding. Now, if my thoughts are out of line with the Word of Christ, I realize that my thoughts must be abandoned in favor of what the man of Truth tells me is real.
In my opinion, America and the rest of the world will continue to experience chaos and turmoil until it finds it in its heart to embrace Jesus as the embodiment of truth. I pray that we turn from our self-reliance and run after the one who said to the Father, “Thy word is truth…” There’s not a doubt in my mind that I can trust whatever He tells me to be true. One thing is for sure, no one can cancel a person when he follows Jesus as the way, the truth, and the life.
Phil Robertson is an elder at White’s Ferry Road Church and preaches Sundays at WFRU on ULM campus. Be on the lookout for Phil’s new book, “Uncanceled” coming to bookstores in early 2022.