New Things

Apparently cancel culture is a growing trend that can’t be ignored. It seems like every day more and more books, movies, magazines and even people are getting cut out of our lives. And I feel like it’s gotten to the point that I can’t just scroll past it. So I finally took some time to see what was going on.
And as I read through some of the reasons, many of them made a lot of sense to me. It is probably going too far and some of this cancelling comes from being overly sensitive, but I also see there is good that is being done, too. And I get the backlash to cancel culture, because I feel it too. But I also know, for me anyway, my backlash comes from personal feelings and experiences rather than logic and reason.
And what I mean is so often we get caught up into emotions about things, especially from our childhood. It’s no accident that movies, TV shows, books and even toys are being brought back from my childhood. These childhood references lead to nostalgia and good feelings and then, also, to spending more money.
But those emotions about a movie, event or toy should not get in the way of how we live today. Right? Maybe I’m way off base, but if a TV show from the past condones or even promotes things like racism, violence against women or hate of any kind, we should be more than okay with them being cancelled. In fact, followers of Jesus should really lead the charge against them. The problem we often face is that we don’t always remember the negative aspects of those things. We only remember the positive. We don’t remember the racism of faceless black workers in Dumbo, we only remember the loving relationship between his mother and him. We don’t remember the sexist and inappropriate Pepe le Pew who wouldn’t take ‘No’ for an answer, we just remember his humor.
And I say all of this to make this point: just because we feel emotionally connected to something doesn’t mean it was a good something. I know I find myself looking at the past and seeing more of the good than the bad, but we should be glad some of the bad things from the past are being cancelled. Racism is an evil that needs to be cancelled. Hate needs to go away. The degrading of women needs to be a thing of the past.
Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 5.17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” Christ came for us to be new, to continue to grow, change, adapt and to form new habits. I pray we continue to be open to new and different ways of living, all to honor God. God bless.