An interesting piece from the end of last month in The Conversation and written by Christopher Schelin, who is an Assistant Professor of Practical and Political Theologies based at Starr King School for the Ministry.
https://theconversation.com/cancel-culture-loA oks-a-lot-like-old-fashioned-church-discipline-158685
I admit the opening paragraph’s references to the NCAA, “March Madness” and a “Sweet 16 matchup” meant little to me but I understood the underlying point and the fact that, as a result of her remarks, a journalist, [Hemal Jhaveri] was cancelled [i.e. dismissed from her job] by USA Today.
The article references the general perception that this phenomenon of the cancel culture originated on the Left, and that subsequently [at least according to the author of a linked article] it has become something to be attacked by the GOP along with “woke” people as part of the “culture wars”.
What is interesting is the article's comparison between this present state of affairs around cancel culture and the historically similar behaviour that was to be found among Baptist communities in the USA. [N.B. I would recommend that anyone who is seriously interested sources the entire article and clicks on to the links.]
"From their origins in the 17th century through the late 19th century, Baptists in America – most especially in the South – vigorously engaged in the practice of church discipline. Believers who had allegedly sinned would be accused, tried and then convicted by their peers – the verdict was decided by democratic vote. While the repentant were restored to fellowship, the obstinate were excommunicated, or to borrow from today’s parlance, “canceled.”
Baptists prosecuted their own for a panoply of offenses, including alcoholism, social dancing and erroneous beliefs. They disciplined white males for mistreating their wives and slaves, but they also disciplined wives for disobedience to their husbands.
At its height, the church discipline generated a massive turnover in membership. The historian Gregory Wills, in his book “Democratic Religion,” claims that Baptists in Georgia excommunicated more than 40,000 members in the years preceding the Civil War."
Schelin continues that while church discipline had relaxed and effectively disappeared by the 1920s some Southern Baptists today are trying to restore it within their congregations “as a bulwark against what they see as “moral relativism. For these Southern Baptists the restoration of church discipline would provide a means by which to address ”what they see as offenses such as homosexuality, sex outside of marriage and false teaching.”
The last section of the article is particularly relevant.
"At first glance, evangelical disciplinarians and progressive “cancelers” may seem worlds apart. Yet I believe they share certain key features. They both express what can be described as a purity ethic that aims to root out behaviors deemed to be harmful from the body politic. Both struggle with the question of appropriate response. Do the offender’s actions warrant exclusion? Is there an opportunity for rehabilitation and, if so, how is this achieved?"
Schelin also compares the idea of "sacred canopy" by linking the beliefs of an 1821 a Baptist who “maintained his sacred canopy, the Kingdom of God, in part through upholding church discipline”; with the views of a political activist today who might consider their “sacred canopy" [whether they call it freedom or social justice] is to be achieved by “ calling out opinions they consider too abhorrent to be tolerated in contemporary society.”
However, he offers a glimmer of hope in his final remark wherein he offers some advice in an attempt to bridge the social and political divide that exists across US society [and elsewhere] today , “The quest for moral accountability finds its greatest successes – and surprises – when rebuke and counterrebuke give way to authentic listening.”
https://theconversation.com/cancel-culture-loA oks-a-lot-like-old-fashioned-church-discipline-158685
I admit the opening paragraph’s references to the NCAA, “March Madness” and a “Sweet 16 matchup” meant little to me but I understood the underlying point and the fact that, as a result of her remarks, a journalist, [Hemal Jhaveri] was cancelled [i.e. dismissed from her job] by USA Today.
The article references the general perception that this phenomenon of the cancel culture originated on the Left, and that subsequently [at least according to the author of a linked article] it has become something to be attacked by the GOP along with “woke” people as part of the “culture wars”.
What is interesting is the article's comparison between this present state of affairs around cancel culture and the historically similar behaviour that was to be found among Baptist communities in the USA. [N.B. I would recommend that anyone who is seriously interested sources the entire article and clicks on to the links.]
"From their origins in the 17th century through the late 19th century, Baptists in America – most especially in the South – vigorously engaged in the practice of church discipline. Believers who had allegedly sinned would be accused, tried and then convicted by their peers – the verdict was decided by democratic vote. While the repentant were restored to fellowship, the obstinate were excommunicated, or to borrow from today’s parlance, “canceled.”
Baptists prosecuted their own for a panoply of offenses, including alcoholism, social dancing and erroneous beliefs. They disciplined white males for mistreating their wives and slaves, but they also disciplined wives for disobedience to their husbands.
At its height, the church discipline generated a massive turnover in membership. The historian Gregory Wills, in his book “Democratic Religion,” claims that Baptists in Georgia excommunicated more than 40,000 members in the years preceding the Civil War."
Schelin continues that while church discipline had relaxed and effectively disappeared by the 1920s some Southern Baptists today are trying to restore it within their congregations “as a bulwark against what they see as “moral relativism. For these Southern Baptists the restoration of church discipline would provide a means by which to address ”what they see as offenses such as homosexuality, sex outside of marriage and false teaching.”
The last section of the article is particularly relevant.
"At first glance, evangelical disciplinarians and progressive “cancelers” may seem worlds apart. Yet I believe they share certain key features. They both express what can be described as a purity ethic that aims to root out behaviors deemed to be harmful from the body politic. Both struggle with the question of appropriate response. Do the offender’s actions warrant exclusion? Is there an opportunity for rehabilitation and, if so, how is this achieved?"
Schelin also compares the idea of "sacred canopy" by linking the beliefs of an 1821 a Baptist who “maintained his sacred canopy, the Kingdom of God, in part through upholding church discipline”; with the views of a political activist today who might consider their “sacred canopy" [whether they call it freedom or social justice] is to be achieved by “ calling out opinions they consider too abhorrent to be tolerated in contemporary society.”
However, he offers a glimmer of hope in his final remark wherein he offers some advice in an attempt to bridge the social and political divide that exists across US society [and elsewhere] today , “The quest for moral accountability finds its greatest successes – and surprises – when rebuke and counterrebuke give way to authentic listening.”
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