"My conclusion for the church : we must stop making worship leaders, and thought leaders, or influencers or cool people or relevant people the most influencial people in Christiandom."  This is a portion of a larger quote from John Cooper, lead singer of the Christian rock band, Skillet.  I have never heard Skillet, as far as I know, but I've heard OF them.  Everyone in American church culture has heard OF them.  Mr. Cooper's quote goes on to warn us of a church culture who looks to "20 year old worship leaders" rather than the Word of God for our spiritual learning.  I came across this meme on Facebook, and all in all, it seemed like a pretty good point, so I reposted it.  In a short time,  this reply was posted by a friend: "As much as he makes a valid point here, a lot of other things he tends to say tends to perpetuate toxic masculinity. And he tends to be very vocal along those lines, I would air on the side of caution with this one. Lately he’s been really vocal against being woke, like it’s somehow going to lead to the destruction of America. I mean those are the major talking points of the anti-woke movement. " 

 Apparently, people who make "valid points" nonetheless need to be silenced if there is anything they've said that's "anti-woke".  No room for, discussion, debate, or God forbid, grace.  

(On a side note, I didn't know the "woke" actually referred to themselves as "woke".  I thought it was a sarcastic label put upon them by the anti-woke.  I just can't keep up anymore, I guess.)  Regardless, this exchange reminded me of another facebook squabble.  A few months ago I put up a meme saying something about how real faith is made apparent by our care for the oppressed.  I don't remember the author or the exact quote, but it was not unlike what James says about faith and works in his epistle (or, for that matter, what Jesus says in Matthew 25 among many other passages.)  Yet, due to this post, I was called into the office of a local pastor (not my home church) to be rebuked, not because of the content, but -like my woke friend above - because of the source.  You see, the meme was traced back to a web site called "Progressive Christianity".  As if speaking to a simpleton, he warned me about the dangers of progressive Christianity, complete with some literature to read when I went home.

At the risk of pleading ignorance too many times in one blog, I didn't know progressive Christianity was a movement any more than I was aware of John Cooper's 'toxic masculinity' - whatever that means.  Ignorance or no, these associations apparently necessarily negates any wisdom that was in either of the posted quotes.

Two different people from two different backgrounds both called me out, not over a quote that I posted - they both said they agreed with the points being made - but rather because of who wrote it.  It's not like I put up a quote from Josef Stalin or Idi Amin. Both of the sources I quoted are from presumably sincere believers, as were, I might add, both rebukes.  Is this what we've become as a Church?  Let the political wings do their canceling of the other side, this is not a game the church should be playing.

Not that Christianity hasn't had it's share of disagreements.  In the Acts of the Apostles we read that Paul and John Mark had such a strong disagreement that they couldn't even work together.  They brought their missionary work in two different directions for a period of time.  This, however, ddidn't lead to cancellation, but doubled the speed with which the Gospel spread during that time.  Also in Acts, Paul had to rebuke Peter for the latter's insistance that Gentile believers needed to be circumcised.  (This movement among early Jewish Christians was called the Circumcision Party!  Now there's a party I'd rather not be invited to.)  Regardless, these two Apostles handled their disagreement with prayer and a study of the existing Scriptures.  In other words, they resolved their differences respectfully and soundly.

I'll  concede, of course, that America has had a long history of cancel culture.  Hey, one of our first major political differences was settled with a duel!  Furthermore, I don't remember learning about the Trail of Tears, Japanese interment camps, or Thomas Jefferson's affair with his slave when I was coming through our fine public educational system.  These topics were cancelled to be sure.  But the church should be held to a higher standard than even the best of nations, and I have to believe that it CAN  reach that higher standard.

Certainly, in the post-Apostolic era, there have been times when the church has fallen far short of the unity Jesus prayed for in John 17, and cancellation was attempted.  Mostly notably, I suppose, is when the Vatican attempted the ultimate cancellation by putting a price on Martin Luther's head.  No attempt to reach neutral ground there.

But, what if cancel culture - by the left and the right - had been the norm in the 20th century church:

  "Proceed with caution with this CS Lewis guy.  He consumes alcohol. Only teetotalers should have a voice." 

"Dietrich Bonhoeffer needs to be silenced. He baptized babies after all." 

"Mother Teresa was Catholic, for goodness sake.  She has nothing of value to say." 

"Listen to nothing Martin Luther King has to say. He hangs out with liberals like Joan Baez and Bob Dylan."

"Who cares that Teen Challenge has the best recovery rate of any drug program in the world.  Dave Wilkerson is too fire and brimstone.  Silence him!"

Thankfully, the latter half of the 20th century at least was marked by Christian ecumenicalism, and not too much intolerant censorship.  Much of the credit goes to the Catholic Church's Vatican II movement.  "The restoration of unity among all Christians is one of the principle concerns of the Second Vatican Counsel," is the very first sentence of  Unitatis Redintegratio, the section of the Vatican Two decree on Ecumenism.  

The second great force for tolerance among believers during this time, I would argue, was Billy Graham.  He shared the podium with Dr. King in the 50's and Pope John Paul II in the 80's.  He was the spiritual advisor to all the Presidents - Republican and Democrat- from Truman to the second George Bush, and he was one of the first evangelical leaders to embrace contemporary Christian music when he organized Explo '72.  This event, held at the Houston Astrodome in 1972, featured Kris Kristopherson, Johnny Cash, Andrae Crouch, Larry Norman, Chuck Girard and Love Song, among others.  Many ultra fundamentalists squawked, but had little impact because they were squawking against "America's pastor", Billy Graham, after all.

Nevertheless, here we are, almost a quarter of the way through the 21st century, and both the woke and the fundy among us are so insecure in their faith that they want to silence any voice that does not agree with them on virtually any and all issues.  Oh, for the prophet Isaiah to come back for a day to remind us to "Come let us reason together." (Is. 1:18) , but today's voices seem more likely to cry out, "Go away, I don't want to reason with you.  I want to pompously assume I am right about everything."  I'm pretty sure that is not the church Jesus set out to establish.

Yet, the hopeful in me must reiterate, I have to believe that the church CAN  reach a  standard higher than it's present, polarized quagmire.