Guys, cancel culture and forgiveness

Here's my November article:

1st Hibaldstow and Scawby Scouting group bonfire 2025

It's been many years since I saw children outside shops asking for a 'penny for the guy.'  Even then it was a dying practice, and if you actually gave them just a penny they scowled at you!  The tradition of lighting bonfires to celebrate the foiling of the treasonous Gunpowder Plot started the same year, 1605.  The earliest records of effigies being burned on them was 1625, although these were effigies of the pope and the devil. An effigy of Guy Fawkes was used at a display in 1647 at Lincoln's Inn Fields. From then onwards, 'guys' have been made and burned on bonfires, sometimes representing Fawkes himself and sometimes representing other, usually contemporary, figures of public anger.

Although the anger directed towards these 'hate figures' can be deeply felt, it doesn't lead to actual violence against the person represented.  In some ways the 'guy' is a way to voice and to vent that anger in a controlled manner.  What is more dangerous is what has been termed 'cancel culture.'  This is when people or groups call for someone who they have deemed to have said or done something unacceptable to be ostracised, boycotted, shunned or fired.  The transgression may be a heinous crime or it could simply be an opinion that the 'cancellers' find offensive or merely disagree with.

Crimes should, of course, be exposed and punished, and the judicial system is the means to achieve that.  And throughout history there has been public dispute over opinions, often involving lambasting and lampooning – freedom of speech, including the freedom to criticise, is important to uphold.  What is different with cancel culture is the vitriol and the all-encompassing extent of the cancelling, which is often fuelled by social media.

The targets are not just cancelled from the time of their offence, but the whole of their previous history and achievements are demanded to be erased. It is a chilling echo of George Orwell's words in his book '1984': 

Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered.

However, more worringly, the deeming of someone as deserving cancellation results in them being seen as unforgiveable and even to their assasination as being both justified and a cause for celebration.

Because of his words and actions, Jesus was seen as a threat to the interests and power of both the religious and the secular leaders of his day.  They too wanted him cancelled, and they thought they had by crucifying him.  Jesus' response was not anger or vengeance, but forgiveness, both whilst he was dying (Luke 23:34) and when he came back to life again.  Though he was rejected by those he had created, which is the ultimate treason, he accepted death so that they, and we, could be forgiven (Romans 5:8).  We have offended God by our sin, but he doesn't cancel us, instead he offers us forgiveness and eternal life with him.

The antidote to intolerance and inhumanity

Here's my sermon from this year's Civic Service at Broughton. The readings were: Philippians 2:1-11 and Matthew 6:24-33

Last week I was having a conversation with a few people about the new exhibition in York of artefacts connected with the Gunpowder Plot.  It contains a crucifix belonging to a Catholic priest, Fr. Edward Oldcorne, who was innocent of any involvement in the Gunpowder Plot, but was captured in its aftermath with Fr. Henry Garnet, the then Catholic priest in Brigg.  Garnet did know of the plan through the plotters the Wright brothers of Twigmoor Hall, and even though he opposed it, he was found guilty of treason and was hanged, drawn and quartered.  Oldcorne faced the same fate and the label on the cross states that Oldcorne was ‘Born York. Racked 5 times. H.D.Q. April 7th 1606. Worcester.’

The conversation revolved around amazement of the fear of different beliefs and horror of the barbarism of the punishments: racking and being hanged, drawn and quartered being commonplace for those accused of treason. Whilst we rightly baulk at the intolerance and inhumanity of those times, perhaps the most remarkable feature of those times, at least to many people today, was that anyone could get that animated about matters of faith.

This year is the 75th Anniversary of the signing of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  Article 18 of the Declaration says that “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.”  This fundamental right to freedom of religion is a precious thing, but in the West which has been influenced by relativism, this leads to a general belief that because all religions are to be equally protected, that must mean they are all equally true and valid; and if they are all equally valid they are also all equally irrelevant.  Because if it doesn't matter which faith you have, then faith itself doesn't matter.

So we live in a society that is generally ambivalent towards God: as Jesus says in our reading from the gospel of Matthew, people are devoted to money and worry about what they will eat, or drink, or wear.  Easter is reduced to a matter of chocolate and chicks, and Christmas is all about Santa and parties.  Or they point to things like the Gunpowder Plot and its aftermath, or the Crusades, or the World Trade Centre attacks and say that religion is a cause of wars and atrocities.

The irony is that the justified criticism of these barbaric events is itself a product of the revolution brought about by Jesus.  Before Jesus' followers gained widespread influence, the Darwinian concept of the 'survival of the fittest' was seen to be the common sense, natural order of society – if you wanted to gain power you needed to fight for it, if you wanted to hold onto power you had to destroy your enemies.  Just ask the early Roman Emperors.  

But in Jesus we see a different way of living.  As our reading from Paul's letter to the Philippian church says, although he was divine, Jesus did not use his divinity for his own gain but emptied himself and became human.  He humbled himself, being executed like the worst and most shameful of criminals on the cross, so that by his death he could take the punishment we deserve for our sins.  As he taught many times, if you want to be great, you should be the servant to all.

The Church and those who follow Jesus have failed many times to live up to this ideal, and too often have followed the natural instinct that might is right. But even though our society is ambivalent to God or even glories in its rejection of God, we still revere the Christian instincts of justice, human rights, tenderness and compassion, disapproving of selfish ambition and vain conceit; and venerating 

valuing others above yourself.

However we cannot reduce Christianity to a set of moral values taught by a self-less spiritual leader, nor can we detach the Christian moral values from the faith that inspires them.  This is because, as Paul reminds us, we can only live out these values as far as we are united with Jesus and have his Spirit within us.  Without the recognition that we need forgiveness from God for the times we fail to live up to his standard, and the acknowledgement that we are unable to live his way without his help, we become intolerant of others and inhumane in our behaviour towards them.

Paul also reminds us that the Jesus who humbled himself is now exalted to the highest place, and will return to judge us all, and when he returns everyone will acknowledge that he is the Lord.

Ambivalence is not an option.

Being good is not enough.

Only a true and living faith in Jesus can enable us to live like him in this life and be with him in the next.

Father Edward Oldcorne's crucifix – Photo by Anthony Chappel-Ross from https://middlesbrough-diocese.org.uk/research-reveals-york-priests-crucifix-could-be-last-gunpowder-plot-raids-survivor%EF%BF%BC/