I’ve been quite outspoken with regard to Black Lives Matter. I believe we are all racist to a degree – a reflection of our upbringing in the UK. But I struggle with cancel culture. Our history is our history. Warts and all.
So when a statue of a philanthropist who was also a slave
owner is pulled down, we are trying to change our history. We can celebrate the
philanthropist whilst denouncing the slave owner, without the need to ditch the
statue.
We have a couple of strong narratives in our society at present. One is ‘woke’ culture. And the other is Christian Nationalism.
The BBC are the very biased promoters of wokeism. ‘Woke’ is the
past participle form of ‘wake’, or ‘to awaken’. It suggests a need to wake up and
see things differently. And there has been much we need to wake up to. But in
recent times, it has become synonymous with a cancel culture. If a point of
view doesn’t fit well with woke views, it should be cancelled, it should not be
debated. Back to that statue again.
It can be seen in the appalling treatment of J K Rowling.
She pointed out that a man in a dress shouldn’t be using the women’s loos. And for
that she was cancelled from her own show. It can be seen in the prevalence for
minority actors being given the lion’s share of roles. Actor Christopher
Ecclestone comments that ‘white, straight, middle-aged men are [the] ‘new
pariahs’’. It can be seen at the BBC with over 11% of staff relating to ‘other
than heterosexual’ when the percentage in the UK as a whole is less than 2%.
And in case I’m accused of becoming right wing and reactionary
(I vote Labour usually), there’s a similar problem with the Christian Nationalists.
This is seen more in the US than over here, and is highlighted with the worship
of Trump, so to speak. He was seen as the Christian messiah for US politics,
despite his less than pure character and his tendency to belittle his enemies
with the cruellest of taunts.
That Christians in the US still believe that the US election
was stolen reflects on how far Christian Nationalism has had a hold. Christian Nationalism
looks to see Christian principles in government at every level. What’s wrong
with that? Nothing were they to be reflective of the Bible. But they’re not. They
are reflective of an often-extreme right-wing view of politics, as shown with
the storming of the Capitol building. People died for that warped view.
Woke and Christian Nationalism. Two narrative cultures of
the current age. I’d like to suggest that neither is right. Both are extreme
and lead to extremes. Against this is a 2000-year Christian view. It may not be
popular with the cancel culture brigade, but it hasn’t changed. The narrative
of the Bible has been expounded through the last 2000 years by people such as
Tertullian, Athanasius, Martin Luther, right through to Billy Graham and Mother
Teresa. Neither Woke nor Nationalist, it speaks up for the poor and
downtrodden. It declares the values of marriage and community. It shouts from
the rooftops that there is a God, that He came into our world through Jesus
Christ, and that He still changes lives today.
It's a 2000-year narrative. And it can’t be cancelled.
