November 13, 2019
Leadership Notes
So, who's crazy now, listening to Christmas music the first week in November? Not this guy. "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas," "Let it Snow," "Sleight Ride, "White Christmas," "Walkin' in a Winter Wonderland," "Frosty the Snowman," and "Snow," to name a few. I'm always ahead of the curve.
Snow is not the main point of this Leadership Note, though. President Barack Obama, "cancel culture," and the winsomeness of the Christian life is.
First, a definition. Cancel culture is "the practice of no longer supporting people, especially celebrities, or products that are regarded as unacceptable or problematic. The danger of cancel culture is that there's an arrogance attached to it."
Another way to put it would be to say that cancel culture is sanctimonious at its core. There is a sense of hypocritical holiness where one acts as if one were morally superior to others. We saw that on full display during the last presidential election.
Here's how one of my favorite satire sites addressed cancel culture:
Local woman Heather Tipton is bravely boycotting over 450 different stores, restaurants, and retail chains for various reasons. But such noble activism comes at a price: the courageous virtue-warrior started to have trouble remembering which stores she was boycotting at any given time.
- The Babylon Bee, 11/5/2019
Last month, President Obama commented on cancel culture at the Obama Foundation Summit:
"This idea of purity and you're never compromised and you're always politically woke, and all that stuff, you should get over that quickly. The world is messy. There are ambiguities. People who do really good stuff have flaws. People who you are fighting may love their kids, and share certain things with you."
President Obama also suggested some people were focusing more on casting judgment on others than advancing positive change. I couldn't agree more. As we live out of the values of Galatians 5:22-23, God is calling us to project winsomeness. It's always a good thing when followers of Jesus Christ are attractive or appealing in character.
Obama concludes:
"There is this sense sometimes of the way of me making change is to be as
judgmental as possible about other people, and that's enough. Like, if I tweet or hashtag about how you didn't do something right or use the wrong verb, then I can feel pretty good about myself, 'cause man, did you see how woke I was? I called you out. That's not activism. That's not bringing about change. If all you're doing is casting stones, you're probably not going to get that far. That's easy to do."
What kinds of conversations to you want to be having with people? What do you want to post on social media? Nothing would make me happier than to be able to talk about these things with Barack Obama over a nice cold beverage.
Be of Good Cheer,
Richard
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