When Cancel Culture Comes For Your Family

The idea of ‘cancel culture’ is pretty well known. Usually we see it happen when a high profile person, whether a celebrity or politician says something that a large activist group hates, so they make a campaign to ‘cancel’ that person.

Cancellation might be in the form of blitzing social media with negative comments about you. It could get more serious if someone contacts your employer and demands that you be fired. Or in extreme cases it could include threats of harm and physical attacks.

Many of us can prepare ourselves for attacks from people against us personally. We might be used to criticism. Maybe we know that the jobs we are employed in will invite a lot of pushback and argument. So the idea of being ‘cancelled’ is not as scary.

But what about our family?

It is always difficult to watch family members or close friends go through suffering. We can’t fix it for them. We can’t relieve the difficulty. All we can do is pray (that’s actually the most important thing), and support them as best as we can.

One of the ways we can support our loved ones when they are being cancelled, is to inform ourselves about the tactics being used, and try to re-affirm our loved ones in the areas where they stand on the truth and where they stand blameless.

Unfortunately, what I’m seeing now is a trend where even regular people, mums and dads, co-workers, teachers or students, all people from all walks of life are adopting the tactics of cancel culture. This is hard to admit because we can assume that only professional activists would use such tactics. But the problem is that regular people have been so immersed in cancel culture, that they have adopted the tactics without thinking.

The result is that we are more likely to face these attacks personally. Even our family members will have these tactics used against them.

From my observations about the tactics of cancel culture that regular people are using, I see a series of common features, which I list below.

Are the following cancel culture tactics the same ones that you see or that have been used against you?

High Drama

When someone sets out to cancel another person, whatever the issue is, the drama is cranked up. The drama is completely out of proportion to the alleged offense.

For example, descriptive, dramatic language such as horrified, terrified, awful, disgusting, grotesque, shocking, and violent are routinely used as a tactic to cancel someone. It used to be that those adjectives were reserved for murders, terrorist attacks, and other types of physically violent assaults. But now they are regularly employed to create a sense of drama. The alleged problem might be merely how someone “felt”. So those feelings which might be powerfully felt, are given the high drama of elevated language to describe the alleged perpetrator who created these negative feelings in another person.

Of course, dramatic language is always a bid for attention. If there is a terrorist attack, the dramatic language is appropriate because the severity of the attack warrants everyone’s attention. But when someone feels uncomfortable about a co-worker’s opinion, they are now entitled to elevate the drama and call it a micro-aggression. The problem with micro-aggressions is that only the person with hurt feelings can adjudicate them. It’s the worst kind of childish “brat” behavior extended across a whole society. It is good to note what Proverbs says:

"There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers." Proverbs 6:16-19.

Lack of Evidence

When it comes to cancel culture, another tactic is to play fast and loose with truth. Specifically, there is a low regard for having proof of wrongs done. All that is required is to have a feeling that something was done. Evidence is ignored. Hearsay is welcomed. Suspicion is enough evidence to cancel someone. A tactic is to create enough suspicion about the target that everyone will think, “where there’s smoke, there’s fire”. This is how reputations are destroyed quickly, even if the truth comes out later that vindicates the accused. It’s too late, the cancellation was already successful.

Biblically speaking, in the 10 commandments, the necessity of truth-telling was enshrined by God in his revelation to Moses: "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor." Exodus 20:16. When Christians adopt the tactics of cancel culture and condemn people without any evidence, they are breaking the Ninth Commandment.

Proverbs indicates that the tactics of cancel culture work, unless there is a commitment to “cross-examine” the claims.

"The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him." Proverbs 18:17.

Your Confidence is Threatening

Cancel culture tactics can be directed toward the person who is confident in their beliefs. If those beliefs are viewed by others as not only wrong, but harmful, then the confident person is an even greater threat.

I find this routinely when people discover that I am a Calvinist, a complementarian, a cessationist, and many other labels. Because of the caricatures people have regarding those labels, they assume that I must eat small children and kick the dog for fun.

When a person has “unacceptable views” and they are confident in their positions, they are viewed as a threat. The cancellers can’t imagine that anyone would hold such views, and your confidence is an indication that you are potentially dangerous.

It doesn’t really matter if you have done anything wrong. Your beliefs are wrong, so your confidence is viewed as a ticking time bomb. The confident woman is viewed as unhinged. The confident man is viewed as a menace to society.

Viewed in this way, a canceller will feel completely justified in attacking their target. They will think they are performing a good social service. They are crusading to protect others. And this in turn will warrant that they can use any tactic, “by any means necessary” to discredit the confident person with “unacceptable views”.

When Stephen was debating with the Jewish leaders, and testifying about Jesus Christ with overwhelming confidence, Luke summarizes it by saying:

[They] rose up and disputed with Stephen. But they could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he was speaking. (Acts 6:9b-10).

When a person is confident in their views, and they don’t wilt or concede to the pressure of others who want to dismiss, shame, or silence them, then that confidence can be perceived as an existential threat.

Your Different Beliefs Cannot Be Tolerated

When someone is targeted for their beliefs, not their actions, then their beliefs are viewed as being intolerable and unacceptable. There is no right for those beliefs to exist. As Don Carson said in his aptly named 2009 book, The Intolerance of Tolerance, “contemporary tolerance is intrinsically intolerant. It is blind to its own shortcomings because it erroneously thinks it holds the moral high ground; it cannot be questioned because it has become part of the West's plausibility structure”.

So if you or a family member has beliefs that do not fit within contemporary society’s parameters of tolerance, you must not be tolerated. Cancel culture, in the minds of the cancellers, is completely justified in such cases.

Of course the bible records such instances, most obviously in the intolerance of the Jewish leadership toward Jesus’ messianic mission. But even later, regular folks, such as Stephen faced intolerance for their beliefs. Having unsuccessfully debated Stephen, we are told that the Jewish leadership, “secretly instigated men…they stirred up the people…seized him and brought him before the council…and they set up false witnesses” (Acts 6:11-13).

Cancel culture may come for your loved ones because of something they did, but like Stephen, you’re loved ones may be attacked for what they believe.

Power Plays

The last tactic of cancel culture is for some type of power play to be employed. As Acts 6 illustrated, the group in verse 9 made a bid to get coercive power to silence Stephen. They couldn’t defeat Stephen with rhetoric, so they reverted to social and state power. Today we commonly call this a power play. It can occur in an office, at a school, in a municipality, or in a denomination. Power plays are an effective tactic for cancelling someone else because they are not based on truth or fairness. They are only based on who has access to power and is willing to wield it.

The book of Esther in Scripture documents how Haman used a power play to not merely cancel the Jews but to exterminate them (see Esther 3:1-15).

Remember that if someone is reverting to a power play, they have given up on their ability to argue against your position. They are admitting they lost, but they still want to hurt you by not playing by the rules.

Conclusion

Identifying what is going on when the cancellers come knocking will help you to be prepared and to not panic.

In a follow up post, I will suggest a series of responses you can make when the tactics of cancel culture are being marshalled against you and your family.