Spiritual Cancel Culture

“Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh,  which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.”

1 Peter 2:11-12

Our generation did not invent cancel culture.

Anyone who has read Buynan’s Pilgrim’s Progress will already have the categories in place, that this pilgrimage (or sojourn, or exile, or whatever one wants to call it) is not the kind of journey that is like a vacation, but the kind that is like a constant ambush along the path, where Satan’s snares are set to cancel the Christian—to undo the work of Christ in you—suddenly, subtly, to take you out of the game. One less warrior on the field. So that there is such a wreckage that you are left only to think that you are cut off from God.

Doctrine. The Christian pilgrim is called to conquer two cancellations: passions from within, and slander from without.1   

(i.) Passions from within aim to cancel the Christian.

(ii.) Slander from without aims to cancel the Christian.

(iii.) God’s glory through honorable conduct moves us to conquer these.

Passions from within aim to cancel the Christian.

First we are admonished, ‘to abstain from the passions of the flesh,  which wage war against your soul’ (v. 11b).

Before isolating which passions of the flesh are the most likely candidates here, this Art of War must start at the top, with knowing the arch-enemy (or enemies if there are more than one). Peter’s immediate focus is the enemy within. It is true that the trifecta of evil—the world, the flesh, and the devil—are always working in a concert of corruption to take you out; but there is an order of operations. Which one is nearest to you? The answer is you. Peter calls these ‘fleshly passions’ (σαρκικῶν ἐπιθυμιῶν), meaning that they are those habits you have by nature and practice and liking. You can’t say, “That came out of nowhere!” anymore than you can say that “The devil made me do it!” And James warns us,

Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death (Jas. 1:13-15).

Now this is a passage that parallels Peter’s whole point here very well. Not only does James agree with what the immediate enemy is (our own sinful passions), but also where it is headed if we do not wage war against it. Paul says, “if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live” (Rom. 8:13).

The perennial passions of the flesh for men are anger and lust and frivolity. This is the sense of that counsel of King Lemuel’s mother in Proverbs 31, as he was in danger of wasting his youth on his passions. The whole context of the so-called “Proverbs 31 woman” is this warning that comes first about wining and dining and wasting away that strength God gave young men to start leading and protecting the weak.

What are you doing, my son? What are you doing, son of my womb? What are you doing, son of my vows? Do not give your strength to women, your ways to those who destroy kings. It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine, or for rulers to take strong drink, lest they drink and forget what has been decreed and pervert the rights of all the afflicted (Prov. 31:2-5).

Not all are kings, or even statesmen, or business owners, or other leaders of men. And yet there are bursts of anger that will leave you unemployed or with a criminal record. Frivolous behavior—often in form of course humor—is the perversion of relief. When all else fails, when the thorns and thistles of life do not yield for the man, he turns not to true spiritual rest, but for gutter relief with those that the Scriptures often call “worthless fellows.”2 And so here too, a slip of the lip can sink the ship. All for a cheap laugh or to blow off steam.

Anger and lust and frivolity take a man who would be dangerous to the devil, and make him a laughing stock to the world. Other temptations to sin will ruin your life just as expansively, but none will do so quite as suddenly. High profile cases of ministers who throw it all away for such illicit behavior is an obvious case in point. Lives are ruined. Simple faith is disturbed. The gospel is discredited. There are fleshly passions characteristic of women as well, which the Scriptures treat as such, such an anxiety that turns to divisive and undermining contention, or gossip, which James groups together with those sins of the tongue; and he calls that tongue,

a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell (Jas. 3:6).

These are the passions that destroy a work of God in a home or a church or beyond, which the devil would tempt in us to stop us, to divide us, to cancel the Christian and therefore to cancel the kingdom of Christ’s next great advance.

This is a spiritual cancelling—far worse than a material cancelling. When Peter says that such ‘wage war against your soul’ he means this far greater spiritual cancelling. You see, with a material cancelling, even if you lose your job you can get another. Even if you lose your money, you don’t necessarily lose the limbs and wits that help you build back. But the more immaterial your cancellation, in a sense, the more you lose at the root. A good name is needed for a good job. Trust is necessary to relationship. Confidence is foundational to getting up and moving forward. If you lose those things in the spirit, you lose both the spiritual and the physical. And so a spiritual cancellation is actually a more total cancellation. Jesus said, “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:36) Therefore to keep one’s soul along the path is far greater than even to keep one’s body or material resources.

Slander from without aims to cancel the Christian.

How does Peter turn the Christian solider outward? ‘Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers’ (v. 12a).3

What spiritual snipers lay hidden along the path from the outside of ourselves? They fire verbal projectiles. Words meant to kill not the body, but the soul—and that through people’s whole impression of you. The word καταλαλέω carries both “against” (κατα) and the kind of speech that is everyday conversation (λαλέω). That means it will fill the air: “They encircle me with words of hate” (Ps. 109:3).

Perhaps you thought, by my title “Spiritual Cancel Culture,” that this is somehow removed from the present-day concrete cancel culture that we have talked about in recent years. Not so. In fact, material cancel culture is inside of—is a part of—spiritual cancel culture. If you doubt that, simply ask yourselves what positions will most readily get you cancelled economically, politically, relationally, and even medically (a few years ago). At the top of the list is distinctly Christian speech.

What is called for in opposition to this slander? Peter calls it ‘honorable conduct.’ Honorable here is from a general word (καλός) that, in other contexts, can simply mean good, or else wholesome, excellent, and even beautiful. The same word modifies the ‘good works’ (καλῶν ἔργων) in the same verse. But we still have two difficulties in understanding what Peter is commending here. In his commentary, Sproul presents one problem and then gives a brief definition. He says that,

the word honor has all but disappeared from our vocabulary; it belongs to a former era … Honor goes beyond respect; to honor is to bend over backwards to show respect for other people.4

That helps our awareness for how insensitive we may be toward this concept of honor, and that reminds us what it is. But one difficulty remains. Is Peter modifying our conduct with that word to direct our honorable conduct in a way that honors those in the world? So that they will feel honored? So that they will perceive that honor? In other words, if I act this way toward them, then perhaps they will not speak ill of me? The short answer is: not necessarily.

We begin with the assumption of spiritual war—of that light versus darkness we talked about last time—and, given that assumption, what will be the role of our conduct and their speech about it? Paul gives another angle of the same to Titus.

Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled. Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity, and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us (Titus 2:6-8).

Now, is Paul being naive here? Is he saying that all Christian speech that is sound speech will guarantee a reciprocation from the pagan that does not misrepresent us? No—of course not! Paul himself was slandered on many occasions and he knew that it was slander. Those last words about our opponents being “put to shame” and “having nothing evil to say about us” focuses on objective shame and objective evil—that is, true shame will be theirs in the end, and true evil will not be able to be attributed to us. The point is: Don’t actually act out their narrative. You be objectively, truly honorable. They may still cancel in this world, but they take you out on the true battlefield.

So, you avoid being cancelled from within; you avoid being cancelled from without. All that remains in Peter’s statement here is a question of how. What is the driving force that keeps your eyes on the prize?

God’s glory through honorable conduct moves us to conquer these.

Here is the motive that moves us through this war zone pilgrimage—that ‘they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation’ (v. 12b).

If the only motive you allow yourself for doing the right thing is it “working” with the immediate market in front of you, then your product will never be honorable conduct unto the Lord.

This parallels the words of Jesus where He said,

In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven (Mat. 5:16).

What is a good work? One key part of the biblical definition of a GOOD WORK is a work that is not a mirror to me, but a window to something about God. My neighbor sees what I do, and the focus goes to something about God.

The expression of a day of visitation refers specifically to God’s visitation. The word for “visitation” is not a casual word because it is not any old casual visitor. The word ἐπισκοπή is used, which is of the same root words that build the word for the office of “bishop” or “overseer,” namely “over” (ἐπι) and “watch” or “sight” (σκοπός). So, just as an overseer is one who “sees over,” who is charged to look after the whole, the big picture of the flock of God, so this kind of visitation, is an official showing up to inspect and make an evaluation or judgment of those under His care.

Calvin takes this to mean not necessarily—or, perhaps, not exclusively—the Last Day, but has reference to the way God uses our good conduct to eventually bring some to their senses. So he comments,

even that God employs the holy and honest life of his people, as a preparation, to bring back the wandering to the right way. For it is the beginning of our conversion, when God is pleased to look on us with a paternal eye; but when his face is turned away from us, we perish. Hence the day of visitation may justly be said to be the time when he invites us to himself.5

Practical Use of the Doctrine

Use 1. Correction. Another set of ditches to avoid: Reputation atop a shrine or reputation in the trash. In other words, inflating what the world thinks or utterly ignoring what the world thinks. But Peter says, ‘Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable’ (v. 12). It is true that the world doesn’t get to define what is honorable to God, but it is also true that we don’t get to use that as an excuse to be dishonorable in their midst. To be objectively honorable—that is, with biblically defined honor—is the compass that leads ahead, out from these two ditches. Speech on social media is the obvious go-to application here. The philosophy today is to be five times the racist and misogynist they say you are, which is a way of declaring that such words have no more power over our generation. The trouble is that there were always better ways to combat that. To the young man online, I would only say what I think accurately applies Peter’s words here:

Go deeper into the mind, not deeper into the gutter. Do not let the dishonorable rob you of honoring Christ. If you should not cast your pearls before swine,6 much less should you join them in throwing mud.

Use 2. Exhortation. Young men who have a unique window into what is happening in our world, I exhort you, based on Peter’s words here, or, as my grandfather who served in World War II once told me: “Matt, A slip of the lip can sink the ship.” I did not fully grasp the significance and the pervasiveness of this principle under much later. There is a great imagery in the Proverb relevant for your station in the battle:

A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls (Prov. 25:28).

You do not need to make the biggest splash as soon as possible. You need to stay in the game. The servants of the devil are watching you. They know that you know what needs to be known, and they are ready to cancel you and they know who to tell. This does not mean being inactive. This means being strategic—being, as Jesus said, “wise as serpents, and innocent as doves” (Mat. 10:16). This doesn’t mean staying quiet forever: it means saving your insight for people that God has prepared with an open ear.

Use 3. Consolation. I want to say one more thing based on Calvin’s reading of the end of verse 12. Suppose that was on Peter’s mind by “visitation,” namely God’s way of bringing salvation to someone through your honorable conduct. Remember, those Peter is talking about have either directly spoken against you, or were part of the mob that thought terrible things about you—and yet, perhaps someone you care about thinks ill of you because you follow Christ as you do.

Stay in the game for them. Run the race. Fight the good fight of faith. Persevere, and do not be cancelled for that day of visitation. For the hope of seeing them turn back to Christ, do not let inward passions or outward slander take you out.

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1. Stibbs and Walls comment, “One half of the demand is negative and private, a demand for abstinence in personal living. The other half of the demand is positive and public, a demand for behavior that is openly and recognizably virtuous in the eyes of men.” — 1 Peter, 106-07.

2. Deuteronomy 13:13; Judges 9:4; 11:3; 19:22; 20:13; 1 Samuel 2:2; 10:27; 30:22, etc.

3. Note that Peter now uses the word ‘Gentiles’ (ἔθνος) to contrast with the newly constituted “holy nation” of all believers. So that Gentiles now becomes a synonym for non-Christians or all unbelievers. Why “nations”? Because you are now among all of the nations.

4. Sproul, 1-2 Peter, 60.

5. Calvin, Commentaries, XXII.2.79.

6. Matthew 7:6