Cancel Culture is a Golden Calf
Plenty has already been written about ‘cancel culture’; what it is, who participates in it, what are the goals, what are the failures and success of it, how it’s carried out, who is harmed and who is actually harmed, what is gained and what is lost. It’s become a rhetorical trope used by conservatives and liberals alike. It’s shown up in almost every area of life in this country; healthcare, elections, education, families, activist movements, religious organizations, and more. The best commentary I’ve heard about it describes it as a ‘moral panic’ and is explored in depth by Michael Hobbes and Sarah Marshall on their podcast You’re Wrong About.
Me being me, I connect almost everything back to scripture. But it’s not Jesus this time (though he actually said plenty about the cancel culture of his day). No, it’s Moses and the Golden Calf, i.e. idolatry.
Idolatry has many definitions and has caused countless schisms in spiritual communities as long as we’ve had spiritual communities, just like it’s doing now. The simplest definition I’ve found is “blind or excessive devotion to something.”
In Exodus, after the people were led out of Egypt Moses went up the mountain to have a little conversation with God about “What Next?” While he was gone, the people became frightened by his absence and requested that Aaron his brother make a new god that they could worship. And not just worship, but ‘go before them.’ As in something they could follow, something they could cede their power to, something they could worship instead of being present and mature during a liminal time of discomfort and ambivalence.
They wanted a god who would make them feel better about the unknown, their own confusion, and their fear. Aaron quickly obliges and instructs the people to give up their own gold jewelry and casts a golden calf.
I want to pause and note the difference between a living God who was even then appearing to Moses as a bush on literal fire, as a giant wind sweeping the earth, as a mysterious powerful force that could part the vast waters of the sea, as the spirit of life and death and blood and freedom itself… and a cold metal statue. And it was this very statue to which the people made offerings. So, you can understand why Moses would come back down the mountain - seriously not that long after he left - and be a little pissed.
The rest of the story is pretty gruesome, and worth a full read, but basically Moses flies into a rage and acts out vindictively, Aaron is a coward and sidesteps his responsibility, the people turn on each other and slice each other up with swords, they’re all made to drink the bitter ashes of the destroyed calf, 3000 lay slain, then God sends a plague just for good measure and promises to punish them when they die anyways. Sound familiar?
Cancel culture in any of it’s forms looks like this kind of idolatry to me. It looks like something that began as a great liberation from oppression, but in the moment of discomfort and not quite knowing the way forward, the people lose faith, turn away from Truth/God/Compassion/Wisdom/Mercy/Humanity and basically slice each other down for no reason at all other than fear, cowardice, and sheer vindictiveness. These are the fruits of idolatry. These are the fruits of worshipping what appears to be a perfect gold idol, instead of patiently and forgivingly seeking the living God whose mystery cannot easily be perceived and who often appears (and dissappears) as a deeply flawed prophet with a stutter.
In other words, Cancel culture seems like the idolatry of perfection. To be sure, there are vast and long-standing injustices in this complex world. There are people waking up way too slowly. There is lip-service and “I’m sorry you feel that way” apologies that cause more pain than if the person just claimed outright to be a bigot. There is unbelievable grief and anger and bitterness and loss. There is betrayal and vindication. There are grievous mistakes and sincere apologies. There is hope and prayer and action and work and second chances. There are so many people trying so hard and dedicating lifetimes and whole communities to the cause of restorative justice, freedom, and life. But there just isn’t any perfection. And perfection seems to be the only Golden Calf that cancel culture demands these days.
I am guilty of this too. I often awake suddenly and find myself worshipping at the hooves of a Golden Calf. The last thing I want is to go back into the wilderness of uncertainty and imperfection. I struggle admitting my own mistakes, I anger quickly when others make their own mistakes. I take things personally. I long to banish people to Never See You Again Island and I want to publicly campaign for everyone else to send them there too. And yet, as a religious and spiritual leader I am called to return to the wilderness of imperfection, forgiveness, and second chances. I am called to wait in the black night of pain and longing and injustice especially when I am the one who has caused it. I am called to the belief that God is out there, in the scary darkness, waiting for me to find Her as the mystery of howling wind, parting waters, and plants on fire. I hope you will join me there.
