Cancel Culture, Woke and Christian Nationalism

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.