Cancel Culture

 Traditional conservatives in Western Countries want us to believe that Cancel Culture is an evil revolutionary movement invented by angry black people and left wing activists.

Sometimes cancel culture can go too far. Some very significant men in history did very bad things. If we no longer celebrate their positive achievements, our understanding of history will suffer.

• King David had too many wives, and he was not always a good father.

• George Washington was the first president of the USA, but he owned a lot of slaves.

• Martin Luther persecuted Jews and Anabaptists.

• Johannes Brahms was a misogynist.

But wait a minute. Is Cancel Culture really a new thing? 

I am a lover of classical music. Over 100 years ago there were no women playing in some elite symphony orchestras. Now there are numerous wonderful composers and conductors who are women.

I am 74, and I have loved classical music all my life, but only in recent years I have heard a lot of music by female composers, which was previously ignored.

Very recently I heard of a woman who worked closely with Einstein. She was a genius and her ideas had a big influence on Einstein, but he got all the credit while she was forgotten.

When Spanish conquistadors took over Mexico and South America, they systematically set out to suppress indigenous languages and culture. Cancel Culture.

When European colonists invaded North America and Australia, they committed genocide and suppressed indigenous languages and culture. Cancel Culture.

I once met an African preacher who migrated to Australia. He told me that dancing was not permitted for Christians. For Africans, dancing is like breathing. Cancel Culture.

When I was a child in Australia, I went to a Church of England Grammar school. We learned about British heroes and colonial pioneers. 

We learned that Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin, but we were not told that an Australian professor and a German Jewish refugee shared the Nobel Prize for penicillin, when they took Fleming’s discovery and turned it into a life-saving medicine. Cancel Culture.

As a Christian, I had heard a lot about the Welsh Revival in 1904.

Some years ago some Welsh preachers visited our church in Australia.

 We learned that one of the most powerful ministries in the Welsh revival was the preaching of a 15-year-old girl. When she preached in city streets, crowds came to be blessed: politicians, business leaders, prostitutes, and everyone in between. 

She is ignored in most Christian history books. Cancel Culture.

Cancel Culture has been practised for centuries by conservative white Christians.

There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Ga 3:28 NIVUK84