Uncanceled: Finding Meaning and Peace in a Culture of Accusations, Shame, and Condemnation

PREFACE

I’ve been wandering around this planet for over seventy years. For the first twenty-eight years, I was meandering aimlessly; I had no direction and no endgame in mind. I guess you could say I was just living day to day. I never thought about politics except to pass judgment on politicians. Hey, they’re all alike! Crooked as snakes. I also tried not to think about the Almighty, even though it was difficult to ignore him when I was in his creation pursuing wild game and fish. Instead, I was mainly focused on satisfying the desires of my sinful heart. One more bottle, one more woman, one more joint—that’s what I thought about.

Still, even though I was oblivious to the direction of politics, religion, and culture, it did not escape my attention in the 1960s that people were in the streets to protest one thing or another. It seemed like the world was on fire. In some cases, it actually was. Cities and college campuses across America were erupting in violent social unrest. Rocks, firebombs, and gunfire threatened to destroy us. Folks seemed more violent and fearful than they had been only a few years earlier.

Looking back, it’s now obvious that some things just weren’t right in America. For one thing, we were in a war we weren’t committed to winning. Our boys were being drafted into the army and sent halfway around the world to lay down their lives, and most of us didn’t even know why. Many of you know my brother as Uncle Si, but in the late 1960s, he was just a fresh-faced kid who had the misfortune of having his number selected in the draft lottery. The stories he told about the half-heartedly fought war gave me some insight into why people were reluctant to get behind the effort.

Another fire was also smoldering in our country at the same time. In the early 1960s, black Americans began to rise up and articulate their demand that America make good on its promise of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for them too. Until then, they had suffered under a two-tiered system that denied them equal treatment. I clearly recall the separate-but-equal doctrine in place in almost every Southern state at the time. It promised to bring equality of opportunity and government access to all people while maintaining ethnic segregation. By law, African Americans were served by different schools, they had different entrances to hospitals and theaters, they drank from different water fountains, and they used different bathrooms. Economic and employment opportunities were separate too. Separate but unequal!

The problem was, while the promise to keep things separate was kept, the promise to make things equal never materialized. For instance, black children learned from hand-me-down books that had been worn out in white classrooms. The restrooms reserved for black people were usually outside, at the back of filling stations and convenience stores, and were rarely cleaned or stocked with supplies. The best medical care was reserved for whites.

For many reasons, the 1960s were a chaotic and angry time, trust me. People were simply tired of the lies, empty promises, and corruption of government. They had grown weary of injustice and inequality, so many took to the streets. It was a rough period in our nation’s history, I can tell you that.

In many ways, the climate in America today may seem to mirror what was going on then. But I think most of us sense that something else is taking place that makes the sixties and seventies seem calm by comparison. In that era, if someone demanded an end to the war, for example, we might not agree, but we understood they simply thought the Vietnam War was immoral and our troops should be brought back home. Even if the most ardent racist in the sixties was unwilling to admit that segregation was evil, at least he understood what African Americans wanted. Most people had a sense of right and wrong, even if their view of morality was inconsistent. At least we understood (in theory) that evil was very different from good. Most of us were clear about that.

But now? I am aware that people are irate, and I think I understand why. The difference between today and the sixties, though, is that a lot of the injustices that cultural zealots claim to be enraged about just don’t make sense today. The rage in contemporary America doesn’t seem to be connected to any ideas of objective right and wrong. Instead, I suspect too many Americans are just plain angry and are looking for someone or something to take it out on.

Take, for example, James Corden, who used to have a segment on The Late, Late Show with James Corden on CBS called Spill Your Guts or Fill Your Guts in which he asked personal questions of famous guests. If they refused to answer, they were required to eat something gross. When Jimmy Kimmel refused to answer a particular question, he was offered a choice between several exotic foods that included a balut, a steamed fertilized duck egg popular in the Philippines.

A TikTok user took offense at the segment in which the late-night comedians’ description of the balut was horrific and really disgusting, saying the pair were incredibly culturally offensive and insensitive. She accused the men of encouraging anti-Asian racism.¹ Corden was then targeted with criticism and a petition circulated to cancel the segment. It was canceled.

While balut may be a popular food among Filipinos, it probably won’t make the menu at the Cracker Barrel. Most Americans would actually find the thought of eating a fertilized duck egg repulsive. And, hey, I get it. Miss Kay once posted a video of her preparing fried squirrel meat. You would be shocked to find out that people in other parts of our nation find fried squirrel to be horrific and really disgusting. While squirrels might be a delicacy here in Louisiana, eating them apparently isn’t wildly popular in the Bronx.

The question is, does being repulsed by the prospect of eating fried squirrel meat fuel anti-redneck hatred and racism? Is it a serious assault on my culture? Should I be offended? In my opinion, if George and Betty from New York City refuse to ingest the fried rodents I have prepared for them, then that can only mean one thing: there’s more for me to eat. I’ll just fix them a peanut butter-and-mayhaw-jelly sandwich.

Honestly, I don’t think this lady is really convinced that Asians will be disrespected because Corden and Kimmel turned their noses up at balut. I don’t think that’s what she’s really mad about at all, and she has been quoted as saying she mainly wanted to hold Corden accountable. But I think it all comes down to this: too many people are so dissatisfied with a life driven by consumerism and the pursuit of pleasure that being angry at least makes them feel alive. Being enraged gives a false sense that we have significance in a world where we feel insignificant and anonymous. I think it’s clear to most folks that an angry, crusading life compelled to burst out in anger at the slightest perception of injustice is a life that will never find what it searches for. That person will never be fulfilled.

I’ll make the case that a God-centered worldview is the only path to significance. My message is clear: people are hardwired to find fulfillment only in a trusting relationship with the God who created and died for them. Nothing else answers the question of why we are here and where we are going after we die.

Furthermore, nothing else can give us a meaningful framework for living joyfully in a world that is so full of injustice, violence, and hatred. Nothing else can offer emotional and spiritual peace in a culture that is increasingly committed to canceling folks who step out of line. My worldview insulates me from all of this. God is real! He loves us! He sacrificed for us! He’s coming back for us!

The reason I’m so concerned about the impact of cancel culture is that it has the potential to escalate from words to physical force to impose its worldview. And we are already seeing this shift take place. According to statistics provided by the FBI and reported in the New York Times, violent crime was up 24 percent in large cities by June 2021, which is on top of a 30-percent rise in violent crime in 2020.² This is not a good sign, America. Unbridled anger must have an outlet, and when words fail to provide the adrenaline rush we crave, the only alternative is to put our words into action, violent action. Are any of us comfortable with the notion that, when we don’t get our way, we just knock people in the head and take control by force? I hope not. But the evidence seems to be pointing to the possibility that this is where we are.

One of the most bizarre cases of irrational anger boiling over into even more irrational violence occurred in Memphis in June 2021. A Burger King customer ordered a spicy chicken sandwich and discovered the sandwich had too much hot sauce on it. After losing the argument with the employees, she went to her vehicle, where a male friend was waiting for her, and they opened fire on the employees from their car.³ I wonder if the couple had a conversation in the parking lot such as, I don’t get stirred up about a lot of things, but this is one issue I think we should take up arms over. I’m willing to kill or die for a spicy chicken sandwich. Thankfully, they were bad shots, and no one was killed.

Unfortunately, incidents such as this are becoming far too common. None of this bodes well for the future of our republic because the fruit of this outrage and hatred is that we are in danger of imploding as a society. No family, no community, no nation can withstand prolonged attacks on itself from within. Sooner or later (and I’m afraid it’s sooner), the fabric of our nation will be permanently shredded, and we will not be able to reverse the damage. I desperately hope I am wrong. I truly do.

INTRODUCTION

It was in the fall of 2013 that one of my more politically aware relatives burst into my home late one Wednesday evening. I could tell he was agitated. He’s a little high-strung.

If you don’t back down, he said, almost out of breath, you will have a platform to preach the gospel like you wouldn’t believe. I’ve written about this before, but let me give you the Reader’s Digest version.

I knew exactly what my relative was talking about. It was all over cable news. CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, all of the alphabet channels. They tell me the internet was ablaze with it too. Preachers were already preaching about it in their Wednesday night services. People who supported me were posting about it on social media. So were the people who hated me (and there were plenty of those too). The talking heads on cable news railed against me. Within a single hour, I was in the national spotlight in a way I had never anticipated.

It began innocently enough, that’s for sure. A few weeks before, a young writer for GQ magazine had sat across the living room from me and quizzed me on my views about various topics.

To be honest, he could have saved himself some time. A quick glance around my living room should have been enough to tell him what I was all about. To begin with, next to my chair, on a coatrack, hung a fully loaded AR-15 within arm’s reach, ready for action. Adorning the walls of our humble abode were Miss Kay’s Bible verses painted on slabs of rough wood that looked as if they’d been simmering in the muddy waters of the Ouachita River for a hundred years.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.

As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

Then, next to my rather large recliner (the one covered with trendy camouflage fabric), lay my well-worn Bible, held together with duct tape. Everything about the appearance of that book should have made it clear to the young man everything he needed to know about me. This man reads his Bible a lot!

Yes, the evidence of who we were was everywhere in our house. He didn’t have to interview me. It should have been apparent. We are God worshippers. We read and believe his Word. And we make it our aim to please him, to rely on the one who raises the dead. If God speaks it, we always go with what he says.

No doubt about it. There should have been no ambiguity at all about who I was. But he asked his questions anyway. Finally, he got to the one that poked the hornet’s nest. Standing nonchalantly before my recliner, he asked, Phil, do you believe that homosexual behavior is a sin? I realize now that it was a setup designed to marginalize any influence on our culture I may have had. What he didn’t know was that I was willing to be roasted by the press for telling the truth.

There’s no way the young reporter could have known this, but I had spent the last four decades poring over God’s Word, the Bible. I didn’t set out to memorize Scripture; it just happened. I had become so familiar with it by repeated study that large chunks of Bible passages were firmly committed to memory. So when he asked my opinion about homosexuality, I didn’t actually give my opinion. I simply gave him a Bible verse. He just didn’t know it was from the Scriptures; he thought I was just spouting off at the mouth on the subject. It was at least two weeks before the media figured out where my words were from:

Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. (1 Cor. 6:9–10)

That’s it! That’s all there was to it. A simple Bible verse that set the cyberuniverse on fire.

By the time the article was in print, they made it sound like I had equated homosexuality with greed, alcoholism, and swindling, that I had just pulled an opinion out of my hat. In the reporter’s mind, and in the minds of those who don’t know God or his Word, I immediately became a bigoted, self-righteous religious zealot, a new age neanderthal. I remember watching a minister on Fox News offer his opinion on my violation of the PC/cancel culture rule. I don’t remember exactly what he said, but it was something like, What do you expect from some redneck living in the swamps of Louisiana? He’s certainly no theologian! He didn’t know I had quoted a Bible verse either. To all of them I was a relic of a past that should be cast on the ash heap of history, right along with Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot. There’s no place in today’s enlightened world for the likes of me. At least according to them.

It’s worth noting I had included verse 11 in my response to the reporter:

And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

I explained that homosexuality was not unlike any other sin. I also went to great lengths to share the message of Jesus and how all sin can be eradicated by simply putting our faith in Christ. In fact,