Is the Church a Victim of Cancel Culture?
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I asked my daughter – Rosilind from A Little R &R – to share her recent post on my blog as a guest post because it reflects what I have been wanting to write.
Instead of writing a post about this, I am sharing with you what she wrote – I pray it will encourage you to gather your spiritual weapons and engage in this spiritual battle we are in right now.
2020 began just like any other year, but little did we know that 2020 was in store for us… for the Church.
Barely 3 months in to 2020, and we were locked in our homes and doing church online, while the medical community researched this thing called COVID-19.
The Church banded together in an effort to encourage and build each other’s faith with statements such as “The Church isn’t a building – it’s us.”
I was one of those, because it was what we needed in March, 2020.
Is the Church a Victim of Cancel Culture?
We’re now in July, 2020 is over halfway done, the curve is long since flattened, and we know a lot more about COVID-19 than we did 4 months ago.
Yet the Church in some states is still restricted, in others it is cancelled until further notice, and many Christians are still self-isolating.
There are two responses I’ve read in this effort to cancel Christianity.
1. There are those who are still reminding us that the Church isn’t a building.
On one hand, they are right. The Church isn’t a building, but this isn’t the point any longer.
The Bible – Hebrews specifically – commands that we not forsake gathering together. And it wasn’t talking about Zoom.
Zoom isn’t gathering – there is no such thing as virtual gathering.
2. There are others who say, “Well, I guess it’s time to move to house church, after all, that’s how they do it in China.
We’re not China… yet.
There is this little thing called the First Amendment to the Constitution that guarantees our right to assemble and that erects a wall of separation from the State to withhold that right.
Why is the Church so ready and willing to relinquish that right?
Have we grown so weak and cowardly in the face of a virus that we’ll let the State cancel us without a fight?
Even during the Bubonic Plague, which was far more deadly than COVID-19, the Church wasn’t canceled.
It used to be that when the world faced a crisis, she looked to the Church for stability and hope; but the Church has grown so irrelevant and so void of the power of the Holy Spirit that the world no longer views her as a rock of stability.
Now the world turns to science, counselors, and psychologists for stability and hope.
In the face of COVID-19, even Christians were throwing out hotline numbers to psychologists for those experiencing depression due to self-isolation.
Where were their pastor’s numbers? Why weren’t pastors on the front lines offering hope and biblical counseling?
Where was the Church?
Why weren’t Christians reaching out to the depressed with the hope of Christ?
Have we forgotten that the same power that raised Christ from the dead has quickened our mortal bodies?
But instead, the Church was busy sending the world to psychologists filled with an empty, cream-puff hope, void of the true source of hope – Jesus Christ!
And we weren’t even ashamed!
In fact, we didn’t even wait for the State to cancel us, we canceled ourselves by failing to see our true mission when it really counted.
Instead of reaching out to a world in need, we were busy on Zoom calls, sharing memes about how the Church isn’t a building, and allowing the daily COVID-19 numbers to fill us with fear.
All the while, sending the world to “professionals” to find their hope and comfort.
What’s even more tragic is that many have grown comfortable doing church from their homes.
They’ve allowed this to become their new normal, numbing their conscience by saying that they’re doing this for the safety of others; while at the same time ignoring the fact that going to the grocery store presents a far greater risk than attending church.
Where is our faith to believe that we can tread on serpents and scorpions, and eat any deadly thing and it will not harm us?
Where is our faith to believe that Jesus granted us the power to heal the sick, raise the dead, and cleans lepers?
Dear sister, COVID-19 isn’t just a virus, it’s a spiritual battle and the Church is losing big-time right now.
Over the next few weeks, I want to share with you what God has been laying on my heart for the Church.
I want to see us rise up in faith and holy boldness, because the world needs the Church to be battle-ready, on the front lines, ready to kick the devil in teeth…
not cowering in the corner on Zoom calls or doing house church, scared of a little virus.
Why?
Not only because that is what the Church was designed to be, but because this is only a test run for what is to come.
If we fail this test, there isn’t a chance that we’ll stand when our faith is tested with the type of persecution that the Bible tells us about in Revelation.
Do you want to be battle ready?
