Exposing the Cancel Culture Lie - Charisma Advocates for Canceling Salvation Army - By Anthony Wade

Found here. Our comments in bold.

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Rev. Wade appears yet again in our blog. Sort of like a car accident, we simply cannot look away from his obtuse writing. 

Today he levels his sights on critics of Cancel Culture. With an unawareness of his own irony bordering on satire, he accuses, denies, excuses, and dances around. He explains nothing, documents nothing, and enlightens no one.

Rev. Wade will initially deny Cancel Culture exists, then endorse it four separate times. That is, "You're crazy if you think there is such a thing as Cancel Culture. But they deserved being cancelled."

As we have begun to routinely note, Rev. Wade is a leftist masquerading as a truth-teller. He has withering criticism for Republicans, but never has criticized or even discussed the follies of the Left.

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Whoever sows injustice will reap calamity, and the rod of his fury will fail. - Proverbs 22:8 (ESV)

Overwhelming Criticism Prompts Salvation Army to Remove Racism Guide From Website Charisma News

Charisma News is the "go-to" source for news for many in the apostate church and evangelical circles. It is indeed a virtual cesspool of false teachers, false prophets, and political operatives disguised as Christians. Their leader, Stephan Strang is one of the foremost dominionists in the world, constantly pushing a secular, carnal, political ideology and calling it Christianity. As such, he is completely beholden to and in league with the world, or more specifically a portion of the political world designed to consolidate power and wealth and using Jesus Christ to those ends. As such, Charisma routinely stakes out positions that are incomprehensible to anyone who actually understands the bible. (A Bible rarely quoted by Rev. Wade. Other than the opening Scripture, which Rev. Wade provides as spiritual window-dressing, there is no Bible verse, Bible exposition, or Bible principle in his entire screed.)

If the Republican Party defends a 17-year-old child carrying an illegal semi-automatic weapon across state lines to kill two people, (A leftist trope and an irrelevant tangent. 

Rev. Wade apparently hasn't heard that Rittenhouse was found not guilty.)

Charisma News must follow suit and dress it up somehow in pseudo-piety. One such area that Charisma has routinely supported is the propagation of the lie known as "cancel culture." Yes, cancel culture is a lie. (Emphasis added. Let's see if Rev. Wade will demonstrate the untruth of this. Hint: He won't. In fact, he will celebrate incidences of it.)

It is a political weapon designed in Republican think tanks to dupe people into believing that one side of the political spectrum is all about "canceling" you if they do not like you. ("Cancel culture," aka "call out culture" as it was originally known, has been in use since 2014 as part of the #MeToo movement... The phrase cancel culture gained popularity since late 2019, most often as a recognition that society will exact accountability for offensive conduct. More recently, the phrase has become a shorthand employed by conservatives in the United States to refer to what are perceived to be disproportionate reactions to politically incorrect speech.

So Rev. Wade is correct when he states that Cancel Culture means one side of the political spectrum is all about "canceling" you if they do not like you. Unfortunately for him, he thinks this is false.)

A great deal of this was forged when several colleges decided to cancel speaking engagements from right wing ideologues who had a history of false and often times bigoted points of view. (So we have cited the correct history, and we now know Rev. Wade is incorrect. Further, Rev. Wade denied the idea of Cancel Culture yet heartily endorses the cancellation of "right wing Ideologues." This is the kind of muddled thinking that galls us.)

Cancel Culture was born and has metastasized over time with the political right crying victimhood anytime something just did not go their way. (Indeed, since the phenomenon is real, the victimhood is real.)

And Charisma News followed. Stephen Strang even recently wrote a book about Cancel Culture, which he sells by claiming 64% of Americans believe Cancel Culture as a threat to their freedom. (Unfortunately for Rev. Wade, it is true that Cancel Culture is a preemptive censorship of free speech, and therefore a threat to freedom.)

This is a typical political strategy where they create the problem out of thin air and sell it to the public as a grave threat. (Except the problem is real. Notice that Rev. Wade has simply offered summary denials. He has provided no facts or evidence for his claims.)

Then after it has resonated, they conduct a poll to prove the legitimacy of what they created. Now do not get me wrong, people have been canceling things they disagree with for as far back as civilization has existed I am sure. (Now Rev. Wade turns to dissembling. And he admits for a second time that cancellation is real.) 

What is intrinsically evil here is assigning the practice of such cancelation to only one side and pretending you are virtuous in this area. (The first step of course is to claim everyone is doing it. 

And as is our wont, we require documentation. Who is assigning cancellation to only one side while pretending to be virtuous?)

Oh, and then pretending this has anything to do with the cause of the Gospel, which it does not. (Um, yeah, no. If a person can be cancelled for speaking because he is conservative, then someone else can be cancelled because he is Christian. And this is happening right now, and it's close to home.)

One of the most famous cancel cases involved right-wing provocateur Ben Shapiro (Notice the disapproving characterization. Leftists hate Shapiro because he is smart and articulate. Since the Left cannot rebut his arguments, they cancel him. And Rev. Wade, a leftist, is heartily on board.)

being canceled from speaking at the University of California (For a third time Rev. Wade admits cancelling is real.)

once the university discovered his planned speech was a thinly veiled attack on many of the campus' beliefs, such as Black Lives Matter and safe spaces. ("Thinly veiled?" No, blatant. And correct. BLM and "safe spaces" are not immune from criticism, and in fact richly deserve scrutiny as does any other issue.)

Shapiro responded by calling them "jack booted thugs" and suing until they relented and let him speak. The university's position was roundly attacked as cancel culture but let's be fair, this is not new. (For the fourth time Rev. Wade admits cancel culture is real.)

Free speech does not mean you have the freedom to speak anywhere.(Shapiro was INVITED to speak. Because the leftists didn't like him, they tried to silence him. Leftists don't like dissent.)

I say this as the backdrop to the story linked above, found on Charisma News today. (Finally after several paragraphs he get to his point.)

It seems the Salvation Army had posted a guide regarding racism on their website. This guide implored people to evaluate their racist attitudes according to Charisma and specifically for Christians to do so. According to the Christian Broadcasting Network, another pillar of false teaching in the Apostate Church, the guide posited that white culture needed to strive to overcome the denial of racism and defensiveness about race, as well as to stop trying to be "color blind." (That is an opinion about a pertinent societal debate. On what basis should one opinion prevail over another, particularly if one side is silenced?)

Does any of that sound remotely anti-Christian? (Rev. Wade's innocuous description notwithstanding, the issues being presented are all based on the idea that certain ideas are approved, while others are forbidden.)

Being asked to merely evaluate our attitudes towards an entire swath of people we call brother and sister? (Again Rev. Wade whitewashes the issue. If this was the case, really, who then would object? Since there are objections, maybe the issues aren't as non-controversial as Rev. Wade thinks.

The Left shouts down any opposition to their hateful, totalitarian ideas. To disagree with them is never principled, thoughtful dissent. No, it's always racist, homophobic, classist, and evil.)

If you do not hold any racial animus or bias then why be so afraid to evaluate your positions? (Continuing with his false premise, Rev. Wade uses a variant of the classic false trope,  "if you're really innocent, what do you have to hide?" 

People can choose for themselves what to believe, how to evaluate what they believe, if they want to evaluate what they believe, and be skeptical of someone's agenda or accept it. This all is perfectly reasonable.)

The reality is that it is a political reaction to be offended at such things and Strang must use his Charisma platform to prop up this absurd position. (Now dissent is absurd...)

In doing so however, Strang gave up the façade regarding Cancel Culture as the article above opens with the following:

"Many who drop money into the red kettles of the Salvation Army during the holiday season may rethink their financial giving this year as the organization is taking heat for an online publication it recently distributed called "Let's Talk About Racism" in which it urged Christians and "White Culture" to evaluate their racist attitudes." - Charisma News

If this was not clear enough the article also threw this in:

'Christian apologist Greg Koukl wrote an open letter to the Salvation Army on Facebook earlier this month telling the organization that he was terminating his monthly donations and "directing them to another organization."' - Charisma News

Yes, in deliciously dripping irony, the author of God and Cancel Culture has now advocated for canceling the Salvation Army because he disagrees with their suggesting that Christians need to evaluate themselves for racial biases. (If it wasn't clear before, it should be now. Rev. Wade simply doesn't understand Cancel Culture [or he deliberately wants to misrepresent it]. He makes Koukl's decision to not support an agenda he disagrees with into a social movement.)

Greg Koukl will now pull his monthly donations from the organization. The unforgivable sin? Koukl claims that they have fallen for Critical Race Theory, lock stock, and barrel. Never mind that the Salvation Army does so much good charity work. ("The protests were mostly peaceful." "Planned Parenthood spends only 2% of its money on abortions." "Jeffrey Dahmer was a nice and helpful neighbor." 

Apparently Rev. Wade has some sort of mathematical formula that compares the good and the bad, and in this case he determines the good outweighs the bad. And since that is his determination, everyone else should adopt his criteria. Anyone who doesn't is eeevil and hypocritical.)

Never mind that their CEO makes a normal salary while peers rake in absurd salaries. For example, Franklin Graham earned nearly a million dollars per year in salaries from being CEO of Samaritan's Purse and the Billy Graham charity just a few years ago. We do not have more recent data because he changed his charities with the IRS to "collective of churches" to avoid having to reveal salaries. This despite the fact that his charities are most certainly not collectives of churches. But hey, he doesn't challenge white people to examine their underlying biases. (A gratuitous attack, and completely irrelevant to the subject matter.)

It is a shame that the Salvation Army relented and pulled this guide from their website but at least it served to expose this pre-fabricated narrative about Cancel Culture. It further exposed Charisma News, which has no issue publishing absurd theology such as "sneaky squid spirits" but draws the line when someone considers examining race in this country. Anyone truly found in Christ should not take issue with examining themselves for sinful attitudes, which racism most certainly would be. (If racism is sin, we think Rev. Wade would be able to cite Scriptures to that effect. But as usual, he makes undocumented claims.)

Christians should not be a party to anything that denigrates anyone, for any reason. Consider the key verse today from Proverbs. Anyone sowing injustice, will reap calamity and the rod of his fury will fail. The furious rod of Cancel Culture has been exposed and will fail. (Now, finally, at the end, Rev. Wade makes a superficial appeal to Scripture to add a stamp of spirituality to a base, worldly presentation.)

It is time to cancel Charisma News, oops, I mean be more discerning where we get our information from. (Remember the "deliciously dripping irony" of Koukl pulling his support of the Salvation Army? Rev. Wade rephrases his disposition to do the very same thing, as if using different words makes his decision legitimate. As such, his "debunking" of Cancel Culture is negated by his own words.)