By Lois E. Wilson
You go through the years trying to live a good life when all of a sudden someone calls you out on something you said or did. The offense may have happened when you were a youth and had not developed all the social or political skills one needs in the world of today. The remark or action could have been a mistake or you were totally innocent at the time.
Now there are people who don’t care or consider the reason it occurred. It could be an act of revenge, superiority, or censorship. Whatever their motive, — they want you to pay for it. The cancel culture of today wants you shamed and punished in some way. You may lose your status at work or be fired.
I recently heard a person on TV ask, “Whatever happened to apology? It seems to be no longer accepted or exist?” My one son gave me the huge book, “Strong’s Expanded Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible.” It claims to have indexed every word of the King James Version. I looked up the word “apology” and found no entry for it.
This omission does not mean apologies are never appropriate. I believe in most of these cancel culture claims, apologies are in order for both sides. They can mean the offenders have grown in perspective and feel a need to make their current views known.
Others have been quoted about apologizing: “To no kind of begging are people so averse, as to begging pardon; that is when there is any serious ground for doing so.” (Julius Charles Hare and Augustus Hare.)
If an apology is given, what is the accuser to do? Alexander Pope in “An Essay on Criticism” observed “To err is human, to forgive divine.” The Bible has many quotes about the words forgive, forgiving, and forgiveness.
This cancel culture movement does not seem to have a valid reason for invading our country’s political speech and now educational system. It is erasing many people, causes and events of history. These are important legacies of which we should not be ashamed. We learn from our past.
When someone apologizes, it means they have become aware of the other’s concerns and hope to amend the situation as they go forward. Unless there is both sincere apology and forgiveness, it is not likely they will be able work together to identify and solve their differences.
In Matthew 7:3 (TNIV) Jesus advises: “Do not judge, or you will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”