Timestamps:
00:00 – 00:54 = Intro 00:55 – 06:47 = Topic Introduction and Context (Cancel Culture).
06:48 – 11:02 = Society, Hate Speech and its impact on modern age.
11:03 – 19:10 = What can be Response to Cancel Culture?
19:11 – 22:27 = Closing remarks of Padre and Stina.
22:28 – 25:39 = Truth Beauty and Goodness.
25:40 – 26:00 = Closing.
- Watched and listened to prominent Christians talking about balance to be a witness to Christ and trying not be cancelled.
- Look back on great saints, and they lost their lives.
- Now we lose our name, respectability and careers are taken due to the means of acceptable in our culture.
- On the one hand we can be gun-ho about being a witness to Christ with no concern for consequences, OR we can be consumed by the possible consequences and let it dictate our every move. Is there a way to strike a balance?
- Generally, people in society want to achieve a society where offence is minimised. That’s not a bad aim. But the they want to go about it is to remove personal support for, or publicly pose opposition against any person who goes against the loudest voice on any given area of conversation in our society .Then that’s a problem.
We assume the person and make them silent.
Leaves open number of issues worth discussing:
- The moment society wants to say ‘you can’t… because that’s not loving’ in any shape or form, we have to ask the question – since when did society become the judge of what is and isn’t loving? As Christian’s we’ve been given a standard for love, by God himself, and we’re expected to form societies that align with His Word, not with the loudest voice in our community.
- Once civil discourse ceases to be part of society, where dissenting opinions from the orthodoxy of the day cannot be held, we have ceased to have a civil society, and we might as well be living in George Orwell’s 1984.
- Many people use this line: ‘I’m not intolerant. I’m only intolerant of intolerance.’ A sentence, which when examined for longer than a nano-second, simply exchanges one kind of intolerance for another. No sensible statement. It syas the fact that ‘I don’t like what a person is saying, is reason to be intolerant of them.’ It’s the exact thing you’re saying you’re against.
- So-called hate speech. Who gets to decide what hate speech is? If hate speech is anything which is insulting and anything verbalised can be construed as insulting, then the label of hate speech is little more than one person’s attempt to control another person’s words and ideas.
- Accountability – we’ve spoken about this before – genuine accountability only happens within the context of a truly trusting and loving relationship – everything else is either a legal action OR a personal judgement of another’s intent – neither of which the everyday person has the power to genuinely judge. Accountability only works when someone you are in a solid relationship with, comes to you and suggests you consider altering your speech or action because it goes against the standard of love that God has set out for us, AND you can trust their judgement call of the situation. Cancel Culture trying to do what it is trying to do, is not genuine accountability.
Balance
- Move about the world with some sensitivity – Be mindful we’re called to be in the world and not of it – cancel culture is run by fear, we are to live amongst it, but we are not to become one with fear, we are to be set apart from it
- Don’t let judgement consume you – neither judging yourself nor another for what they choose to do against you. Don’t know their heart or personal experience.
- Can speak the truth. Speak what is true, but not allow the judgment to enter the situation on yours or their part.
- The fear of losing your sphere of influence is not an insignificant fear – to some degree we should be protective of that sphere in so far as we’re all called to bear witness, and we only do that in community.
(If you become cancelled even after being measured, take heart – your sphere of influence has not left you, it’s merely become smaller even as small as your loved ones and close friends. )
Gandhi – ‘The truth is the truth – even if a minority of one believes it.’
Ephesians 4:14-15 – ‘So that we may no longer be infants, tossed by waves and swept along by every wind of teaching arising from human trickery, from their cunning in the interests of deceitful scheming. Rather, living the truth in love, we should grow in every way into him who is the head, Christ.’
LAST EPISODE OF SEASON 3
We will return in August – stay tuned to socials to find out when we return.
TBG – Favourite episodes of the season
Padre – Book Study Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 & Christ Centred Friendships
Stina – Bobby Angel & High Value Woman
If you enjoy our Show Notes, you can listen to our Living Fullness Podcast on Spotify, Apple podcasts, directly from our website or watch our guest interviews on YouTube! Also check out our social media pages Living Fullness Podcast on Instagram , the closed Facebook group for links and discussions, and Virtue Ministry on Facebook and Instagram.