LEAven Blog

Do you ever yearn for a return to the good old days? You know, a time we could enjoy a government friendly toward Christians. A time when each day really felt like a “day that the Lord has made” (Ps. 118:24)? A time when good leaders were examples of courage, morality, truth, and wisdom. A time when God’s chosen acted like they were divinely appointed to respectable positions.

Well, friends, you’re living in it. Of course, the bad travels (and multiplies!) with the good.

Anyone brave enough to watch the six o’clock news and familiar with the Bible will agree that there is little difference between now and “then.” God repeatedly gives us many blessings, and Satan—with or without our instigation or cooperation—finds ways to corrupt or impede them. Same old, same old. No matter where you start a time line, you’ll find that there is “nothing new under the sun” (Eccl 1:9).

You could rightly claim that no news is new news. Every modern-day sin has a long ancestry. Sinners just find up-to-date tools to express their rebellious ways.

So, what do we do about it? What do we as contemporary Christians serving in a Lutheran education environment do about it? How do we address the disgusting and disrespectful romp and consequence culture and its persistent resistance to Scriptural truth?

We get angry.

We grouse about it at the church picnic—using incendiary language similar to that which “they” use on us. We snarl and curse “them” or find other ways to say, “Just wait until Jesus comes again. They’ll get theirs. Let’s see them woke that away!” We sit as did Jonah once did, leering and anticipating the heathen’s cancellation. Now let’s see, how did that story end?… (Jonah 3 & 4).

Okay, so wrath and exclusion aren’t the answers to our plight, er… challenge, today. We need to check our persistent ire in what Scripture has to say. (Even if we’d rather be mad.)

• Review and recommit to Romans 1:16— For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, and also to the Greek.
• Be brave. For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but one of power, love, and sound judgment (2 Tim. 1:7).
• Indeed, we need to teach what God says about whatever sins are most prominent today—those sensitive issues such as gender identity, homosexuality, cancel culture, absolute authority, and the like.
• Think ahead. Anticipate encounters if you see even a hint of sin’s darkness on the horizon. Pray for vigilance and discernment. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding; in all your ways know him, and he will make your paths straight (Prov. 3:5–6). And Don’t worry about anything, but in everything through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God (Phil. 4:6). Once upon a time is now!
• Be gracious in the words you choose while teaching or discussing or defending— Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you should answer each person (Col. 4:6), and The Lord’s servant must not quarrel, but must be gentle to everyone, able to teach, and patient, instructing his opponents with gentleness. Perhaps God will grant them repentance leading them to the knowledge of the truth (2 Tim. 2:23–25. AND…
• Be realistic. Your peaceful demeanor and truthful teaching won’t always work. Paul warned Timothy, “But know this: Hard times will come in the last days. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, proud, demeaning, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, without love for what is good, traitors, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to the form of godliness but denying its power. Avoid these people.” (2 Tim. 3:1–5). Lots of “uns” to resist! Also see THE Objective Truth (David Black in Shaping the Future).
• Don’t nap while brumming under a broom tree (1 Kings 19:4 NIV).

All quoted Scripture is from the Christian Standard Bible (CSB) unless otherwise indicated.

For more in-depth coverage of this topic and a resource for this article see A Biblical Response to Cancel Culture by Eric Lyons for Apologetics Press.