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Purging public space of representations of (usually long-dead) individuals now considered persona non grata is the new past time of the American cancel culture.
Zealous woke social justice advocates are leading an effort to banish offending individuals forever from our presence, if not from history itself.
The latest: the names of 44 schools in San Francisco will be eventually dropped and changed. The San Francisco School Board decided that schools named after people who have "ties to racism" or have "dishonorable legacies” would be given new names, to be determined later.
“The city’s school board has voted to remove the names of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and others from the district’s buildings in a move it says it is intended to cut ties with historical figures who owned slaves or were involved in the “subjugation” of human beings.”
Other names include naturalist John Muir, Spanish priest Junipero Serra, American Revolution patriot Paul Revere and Francis Scott Key, composer of the “Star Spangled Banner,” Thomas Jefferson, Herbert Hoover, James A. Garfield, William McKinley, Daniel Webster, Robert Louis Stevenson, et al.
Searching for Purity
In 2020, this search for purity started with statues or sculptures of “white males,” who were thought to have owned slaves, being dragged down in public parks. This destruction took place around the country, in nearly every case the result of mob action, though later, some city, county, or state authorities got involved.
Ironically, the monument to the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, was defaced during summer 2020 protests. This unit, the second all-Black regiment organized during the Civil War, was depicted in the 1989 film, “Glory,” featuring Denzel Washington, Matthew Broderick, and Morgan Freeman. Why this monument would be defaced remains a mystery.
A statue in Philadelphia honoring abolitionist Mathias Baldwin was defaced by social justice protestors. Vandals defaced statues of George Washington in New York City, as were statues of Ulysses S. Grant, and the longtime equestrian statue of Theodore Roosevelt in front of the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan will be removed. Others included numerous statues of Christopher Columbus, Cleveland Soldiers and Sailors Monument, Mahatma Gandhi, World War I and World War II memorials, and Polish Revolutionary War hero Thaddeus Kosciuszko. The list goes on to include many Confederate Civil War officers featured in statues throughout the South, including Richmond, Virginia.
The trend continued with names being removed from buildings or statutes removed from lawns on public university campuses, including Woodrow Wilson’s name at Princeton University, and even Abraham Lincoln, the signer of the Emancipation Proclamation, deemed unworthy because he was labeled a representative of “white supremacy” for negatively affecting the lives of Native Americans, and Boston's Emancipation Memorial featuring Lincoln will be removed. If Abraham Lincoln is not safe, who is?
Let Any One of You Who Is Without Sin Be the First to Throw a Stone
I’ve written about this before: all historic and important figures, including those remembered in sculpture and statues, were imperfect sinful human beings. There are no perfect people. Indeed, if perfection or purity is our standard, we will honor no one but Jesus.
The Pharisees brought an adulteress woman to Jesus, noted the Old Testament said her sin was guilty of stoning, then asked Jesus what he would say. He pointed rather to their own sin and hypocrisy (John 8:3-11). The issue is again, everyone is sinful. “There is no one righteous, not even one,” (Romans 3:10).
The Apostle Peter denied Christ three times, yet Christ forgave him and worked through Peter to establish the Church (Matt. 26:69-75; John 21:15-17).
The Apostle Paul was once the persecutor of Christians, Saul, yet God forgave and used him to take the Word to the Gentiles (Acts 9:1-19; 22:6-21; 26:12-18).
“Great” men and women all come with chinks in their armor. Yet because of God’s common or his saving grace, his forgiveness, he allows men and women to achieve in ways that advance civilization and bless humanity. Why shouldn’t we honor them?
Candidate Bill Clinton said, “I smoked, but I didn’t inhale.” Candidate Barak Obama admitted in his own book to drug experimentation and what he called “youthful indiscretions.” The point here is not a judgment on these men or what they did but simply to note they had chinks in their armor too. Bill Clinton, and a host of others including Martin Luther King, Jr and Donald Trump, are known for their womanizing days. There was a time when this didn’t matter to the electorate. In the wake of #MeToo, no more. Point again is not to delve into these offenses per se but to note everyone, and I do mean everyone, who accomplishing anything in life has at some time sinned, failed, fallen short, engaged in unwise if not immoral behavior.
So now there’s this new cancel culture promulgating a Woke search for purity. Banish and disgrace anyone who, no matter how long ago, no matter how limited or actually inconsequential, did anything which now violates the social justice narrative. Judge the perceived “offending person” by current standards and narratives no matter how long ago or in what culture the person lived.
By now, for those living, the banishing pattern is apparent:
- Refuse to invite or cancel speaking invitations for any offending person,
- Trash the offending person’s reputation comprehensively, well beyond a given incident or expression deemed unacceptable,
- Try to get the person fired or not hired,
- Collude with others to prevent the offending person from accessing social media, publishers, etc.
“Off With Their Heads.”
In cancel culture there is no forgiveness, no grace. This is a problem on the Left and on the Right where ideological purity and power are ultimately all that matter. You are useful until, well, you are not.
The offending person, historical or current, gets no second chance, at least among the social justice advocates. Once deemed unworthy, it is, at least figuratively speaking, “Off with their heads.”
Cancel culture purges are a new form of social repression. The trend is nothing but bad, negative, and sinister for the future well-being of a free, pluralistic, and open society.
© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2021
*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.
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US Constitution, Amendment I
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
This is a public service announcement for all those who seem to have forgotten or want to ignore this remarkable statement, first of the "Bill of Rights" amending the US Constitution, approved September 1789 by the first Congress of the United States, finally ratified December 1791.
The First Amendment is the core essential ideal defining "America." And the First Amendment is one of the most momentous political statements ever written.
Politicians, bureaucrats, academics, journalists, CEOs, celebrities, and social activists now smugly advocating cancel culture against all who differ with them ignore history and flirt with a danger they apparently don’t comprehend.
Let them talk to people in North Korea, Iran, China. Let them ask immigrants why they sacrifice everything in an attempt to get to these shores.
Please God, let them not be seduced by power and open their eyes to the blessedness of freedom hard won but easily, and quickly, lost.
© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2021
*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.
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At the start of Year 2021 and what also happens to be a new Administration, I’d list the following as our most important and far-reaching, political or social concerns facing the country:
- Suppression of free speech.
I never thought I’d write, much less see the day in America, when freedom of speech, the First Amendment, is no longer considered sacrosanct in America’s list of essential identifying ideals, but it’s here.
It’s not just Big Tech acting to censor crazies or extremists but also conservatives they don’t like, and Christians. It’s also universities, once the bastions of free inquiry, that now shut down opportunities for students and personnel to express views considered unacceptable.
Yes, it’s true the First Amendment applies to government, not to private enterprise, but then again there is two centuries of case law adjudicating tensions between a free society’s interest in open and free speech and a private entity’s or person’s concern for perhaps privacy or libel, etc. Clearly the idea of freedom of speech characterizes the American character and experience, and this is what is being challenged and endangered.
If we lose the First Amendment, i.e., freedom of speech, which also includes freedom of religion and freedom of the press, freedom of the people peaceably to assemble, and freedom to petition the government for a redress of grievances, we lose America. This is not an overstatement.
- Moral relativism.
When Francis A. Schaeffer was still writing in the 1970s and early 1980s, he warned us what would happen if culture set aside truth. He even coined a phrase, “true truth,” to convey what he was talking about, objective truth, truth whether you or I like it or not, truth that stands outside human definition. Perhaps this sounds “oh so philosophical” and not a matter practical for everyday life? But it is. In fact, the idea of truth affects every aspect of our society, beginning with public morality, law, education and science, politics, and culture.
But American culture has long since set aside any concern for truth, which is why we now have words like “truthiness,” why we have Fake News, and why no one any longer can trust any judgment or standard other than their own, including the Bible, the US Constitution, law and the courts, or any other authority.
What we have left is chaos. Schaeffer talked about “freedom without chaos.” Now we must say we increasingly have chaos without freedom. We hoped for E pluribus unum but what we now have is “pluribus” but no “unum.” We have only argument, rancor, and the disillusionment that comes from this, and the only way of determining truth in the absence of belief in objective standards is power, i.e. might makes right.
This is not the America the Founders envisioned and that we have strived for the past two centuries.
- Sexual progressivism.
The whole spectrum of sex and gender issues, including LGBTQ+, same-sex marriage, sexual orientation and gender identity now with its own acronym SOGI, and trans activism is the point of the spear advancing a Leftist, illiberal agenda on collision course with religious liberty. Sexual progressivism is about a wholesale worldview, value revolution in American society. Indeed, religious liberty is already being challenged with preachers who share biblical views about homosexuality being accused of “hate speech” and Christian organizations beginning to be harassed for their personnel policies adhering to biblical doctrine and thus not hiring or maintaining LGBTQ+ individuals.
But advancing sexual progressivism is threatening to more than religious liberty. It undermines social order. If a person is a Gay man, he likes men, but he’s still a man. If a person is Lesbian, she likes women, but she is still a woman. If a person claims to be transgender, he/she is what? Where do they fit in the social order? What happens not just to male and female bathrooms or locker rooms, which is a legitimate discussion, what happens to male and female sports? What happens to family law and children’s issues, and how is this to be handled in education, not only in university but now in elementary schools? The list goes on.
Those who embrace sexual progressivism in any of its forms, which is increasingly a calling card in Hollywood and now politics, are not satisfied with freedom to be. They want society to endorse and promote their values in everyday life. This is a threat to the existence of a free society.
- Lawlessness.
Hypocrisy, what other word better describes American politicians and news media who ignored or even endorsed summer 2019 city riots, promoted “Defund the Police,” and then condemned the January 6, 2021 US Capitol riot? Surely the Capitol riot should be condemned and rioters prosecuted, but so should the summer and continuing riots in Seattle and Portland.
What we’re seeing is what Scripture long ago pointed out: “everyone does that which is right in his own eyes, (Judges 17:6).
A free society to be free must be one based upon law and order. Freedom does not exist in chaos or anarchy, and this is what we watched in Seattle, Portland, Minneapolis, and many other cities in summer 2019. I am, of course, not condemning or wanting to limit peaceful protestors, and these people expressed themselves in each city. But even they and their purposes were overwhelmed by the foolish kowtowing of city and state politicians to what they considered politically advantageous mobs.
Laws matter, for they restrain the sinful nature of humanity. Government exists, Romans 13 tells us, to hold accountable evil doers. When governing officials abdicate their responsibilities, the people suffer.
- Wokeism.
Being “woke” and the antiracist racism that is part of its embrace of Critical Race Theory is now not simply a threat to American education, business, government, and culture but is now a dominant force. Basic woke ideas, masquerading under the umbrella of fighting racism, are being embraced by corporations, major league sports, and government as some kind of panacea for perceived “systemic racism,” but what these ideas really promote is division, race and class or oppressor and oppressed warfare, and identity politics.
Being “woke” is now an expectation on most public university campuses. Universities are no longer hallowed halls inviting free and open inquiry.
The Left pushes victim theory, the idea there is an oppressor (defined as white or as capitalism) and the oppressed (defined as minorities, people of color).
Wokeism is a worldview contrary to biblical Christianity, and as such, it promotes a radical view of not simply the Church but American culture.
- Cancel Culture.
Cancel culture is an extension of loss of freedom of speech and an embrace of Wokeism, but examples of cancel culture may be found that do not tie directly to woke philosophy. It’s a new way not only to reject people’s ideas but the people themselves, to ruin their reputation, and possibly to get them fired or not hired or otherwise make them kryptonite to any employer.
Cancel culture is about dominance, not about unity but about submission. For example, a university professor lost his job because he said men cannot get pregnant.
Cancel culture is about suppression. It seeks to silence ideas deemed out of alignment with the “acceptable narrative,” like for example whether masks really need to be worn in public and whether they are effective, whether virus lockdowns promoted by state officials are about health or about power, or whether there is such a thing as “systemic racism” to name a few.
Cancel culture is a child of the social media age, but it is not healthy or sustainable in a free and open society.
- Self-serving politicians.
I am weary beyond measure of politicians who act like immature, nasty children.
Insulting language, no standard of objective truth just subjective “your/my” truth, smug self-righteousness, autocratic attitudes or behavior, lying as a way of life—despite at times being caught yet continuing with no visible remorse, incivility, vitriol, venom with little concern for etiquette or politeness, victimhood, lack of grace or forgiveness, moral degeneracy, emotion-driven irrational thinking, and no apparent commitment to time-tested values or lofty ideals just an allegiance to a “narrative” or agenda built on a drive for power.
Gender, race, party, ideology, wealth, education and nominal faith—none of these inoculate people from nihilistic nastiness.
I know a lot of people. Nary a one of them act like this. Yet the nation’s leaders do.
Lord Acton said, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men (women) are almost always bad men (women).” It appears he understood human nature.
But there was a time not long ago when civility triumphed over pettiness, helping to avoid polarization. It was when we believed in something more than ourselves, in liberty and truth, in an America where what mattered was character, opportunity, and sacrifice.
© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2021
*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.
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No greater question can be asked of any human being than what Jesus asked the Pharisees, “What think ye of Christ?” (Matt. 22:42). And once you answer that question, particularly if you trust in Jesus Christ and him alone for your salvation, you become a Christian, so then “How should we then live?”
This latter question was asked by the Old Testament prophet Ezekiel (Ezek. 33:10) and then by Dr. Francis A. Schaeffer as an influential book entitled, How Should We Then Live: The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture (1976).
I was recently privileged to speak on these questions at my church, First Baptist Church of Middleville, MI:
And then was blessed with a publication entitled, “Two Profound Questions: What Think Ye of Christ? How Should We Then Live?”
Americans now live in an irreligious society. How should we then live?
© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2021
*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.
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Are you stressed, distressed, obsessed, suppressed, repressed, oppressed, or just messed…up?
“Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
I say to myself, ‘The Lord is my portion;
therefore I will wait for him.’
The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him,
to the one who seeks him;
it is good to wait quietly
for the salvation of the Lord.” (Lamentations 3:22-26).
© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2021
*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.
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I appreciated the fact that, despite our culture’s pellmell, ongoing embrace of irreligious values, yet the Presidential Inaugural included an Invocation and Benediction, speakers, including the President, referred to Scripture, and they sang “Amazing Grace.”
At the end of the day, I’m glad for—
—the few hours of moving traditions and celebration of worthy ideals on Inauguration Day.
—for a peaceful transfer of power.
—for a day without violent incidents and thus the safety of people in the nation’s and state capitals.
—for a constitutional democratic republic, rule of law, free opportunity and enterprise, and inestimable civil liberties.
Now, is it possible that—
“With malice toward none with charity for all with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation's wounds...to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations,” Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865, about one month before he was assassinated.
© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2021
*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.