Short Takes: Cancel Culture of Acts 21

Theology and Politics from a Conservative, Biblical Perspective

This short article highlights our newest Short Takes (see link below).

I wrote an article previously on today’s cancel culture and their attempts to cancel out anyone who disagrees with their narrative and agenda. You’ll recall the words of actress Gina Carano who was recently fired from her acting gig on Disney’s The Mandalorian:

‘Jews were beaten in the streets, not by Nazi soldiers but by their neighbors … even by children,’ Carano wrote. ‘Because history is edited, most people today don’t realize that to get to the point where Nazi soldiers could easily round up thousands of Jews, the government first made their own neighbors hate them simply for being Jews. How is that any different from hating someone for their political views?’

Even though her words were labeled “abhorrent” by LucasFilm, the truth is that she was expressing historical truth. But unfortunately, inconvenient truth today is what is abhorrent, because the Left doesn’t like it. They have an agenda and a narrative that they must pursue and install. Anything that goes outside that narrative and agenda must be silenced.

This isn’t new at all. The Bible is filled with examples of the cancel culture then doing their best to destroy people’s lives because they wanted to censor the truth.

Acts 21 is a perfect example of people attempting to “cancel” Paul. In those days, religious leaders and fanatics would cry out for the blood of those whom they believed were guilty of breaking the Mosaic Law.

In Acts 21, we read where Paul was falsely accused and without a trial, was attacked and beaten by the cancel mob wanted him dead. This wasn’t the first time this happened to Paul. In Asia Minor, a group of cancel culture Judaizers followed him from place to place stirring up the madness, anger and threats of cancellation against Paul in the hopes that he would be stoned to death.

God always intervened. God always protected Paul and kept him from actual death (even though on at least one occasion he was beaten and left for dead; Acts 14:19-28), until the appointed day of Paul’s actual death when God took Paul home to heaven.

We constantly read throughout the Bible that we should not fear our enemies. Christ went further and commanded that we pray for those who spitefully use us and wish us harm. That is the difference between the authentic Christian and the world. That is also the difference between the professing Christian and the authentic Christian who works out his salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12).

As Christians, we are not to fear those who attack us and want to cancel us. We are to carry on and be about the Father’s business. That will mean we may become targets of the cancel culture. Our response? Do not give in or give up. Carry on.

Here is the link for this episode of Short Takes: Cancel Culture of Acts 21 where you can listen to it as an audio or watch it as a video.

Theology and Politics from a Conservative, Biblical Perspective