I am still attempting to salvage and recover much of the damage caused by the legalism that drove my beliefs and (moreover) my teaching early on in my days of ministry. For many of us who grew up in the evangelical church of the 80s and 90s, there was a very hard foundation of fundamentalism laid underneath us. What you believed did not matter nearly as much as what you wore, what you drank (or that you didn’t drink), what you watched or listen to, or who you ran with. To put it another way: your faith was much less important than your fruit. But now, in keeping with the common and consistent cultural pattern of 20 to 30 years cycles, I am now seeing a swing of the pendulum to the opposite side. Allow me to explain.
Over the last five years or so, we have seen a drastic shift in our culture toward the tendency to write people off. We’ve even named the tendency. It’s labeled Cancel Culture. It thinks like this:
If someone disagrees with me or believes something different than I do on any level, my ears are now closed to their voice. If we don’t agree about everything, then we can’t agree about anything.
That’s essentially the mindset. How I see this impacting and influencing many Christians and the church is most visible in the younger generation — the “twenty-something’s”. There is now a mindset or worldview that says: I’m not really concerned with how you act, what you drink or eat, what you wear, or who you run with. I only care about what you say you believe. I’m not concerned with your fruit, just your faith. And if I don’t agree with you on every level, then my ears are closed. Our conversation is over. You’ve lost any opportunity or ability to sharpen me; you can only distract or dull my faith. Cancel Culture has made its way into the church.
If you believe something different about baptism, then we’re not going to break bread.
If your interpretation of spiritual gifts is different than mine, then I’m not interested in the bond of the Spirit.
There is an arrogance of belief that I’ve apparently figured out some things — I’ve gained a knowledge — that you’ve either missed, ignored or rejected. It’s a modern-day, Reformed version of Gnosticism. As another pastor put it in a conversation the other day: it feels like “theological snobbery.”
Do you grasp the impossibility of true and deeper knowledge of God leading to prideful disdain for others?
I am praying for the Lord to ignite a supernatural fire of repentance that burns this spirit to the ground.
Are you open to this?
If you’re 25-ish, you know everything.
Not really, but you feel like you do. You think you do. I sure did. And you wonder how so many others around you are so ignorant. How do they even manage to even tie their shoes? And then…you get a little older.
If you’re 35-ish, you start realizing you don’t know everything. You even start to wonder if you were possibly wrong about 1 or 2 things. (Only 1 or 2, though.) You begin entertaining the idea that you could still learn a thing or two. And then…you get a little older. And a little wiser.
If you’re 45-ish, you now very likely — through the sorrow and suffering life brings — have been crushed by the Lord into a fine powder, taken into his hands, spit upon, and begun to be molded and shaped into an unrecognizable shadow of yourself. You know you don’t know everything. In fact, there is way more you still have to learn than you have to lecture.
YOU still have more to learn than you have to lecture.
Young friend: the world is not as black and white as you see it right now. I promise.
Let me be clear: There are eternal truths that do not change. The Word of God stands. The Lord does not waver or falter. The Son of God, Jesus Christ, died for our sin, rose again and defeated death, and is coming again to make all things new. His Spirit has come to live within us and affirm that we belong to him. Some things do not change.
I’m not saying that what you believe about baptism, the rapture, the Lord’s Supper, spiritual gifts, deacons, tithing, or any other theological tenet necessarily needs to change. But what must change is your tendency to write everyone off that doesn’t think or believe what you believe. What must change - what must grow in each of us - is our propensity to listen before we lecture.
”For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.“ Romans 12:3
”But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.“ James 4:6-7
”Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus...“ Philippians 2:3-5
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