Jesus listens as people ask him about the sin of murdered “Galileans whose blood Pilate mingled with the blood of his sacrifices.” The people are coerced by rulers to believe those murdered were sinners who deserved their suffering and death. Jesus rejects it all, “Do you think… the Galileans suffered (because) they were greater sinners?” “By no means!”
When faced with innocent people suffering and dying we might respond as the people in the Gospel. We assign guilt to the innocent people, like the Cancelled Galileans, while we assign innocence to the guilty people, like the ruler Pilate, who cancel them and cause their suffering. Rulers founded and continue to operate Cancel Culture. U.S. rulers Cancel the Culture of indigenous people, people who are Black, poor, women, and others. All have been made to suffer horribly. But we challenge rulers less for causing that suffering and challenge the sufferers more for being guilty and deserving it (poor people are lazy, unarmed Black men are a threat, women provoke rape,…). Social media is providing a voice for people who are cancelled. It cannot be surprising that as a reaction, the mostly wealthy, white, men who founded the cancel culture system of reservations, plantations, colonies, and more, are currently claiming it is they who suffer – from being cancelled. What they suffer from is exposure to truth. Truth can challenge us, maybe even transform us, and thus rulers evade truth. Often they do so by projecting their guilt – onto people they have cancelled. Such is the case of Jordan Peterson. He hints at suffering cancellation as a professor, with financial resources of a podcast, speaking engagements, fans, and able to express his ideas, some of which support violence. One fan is Catholic Bishop Robert Barron who says Peterson’s “presentations are kind of cool and brainy.” Barron concurs with Peterson that youth are cancelling religion, “In the West, we have been withdrawing from our tradition – religion… (and) falling prey to the desperation of meaninglessness… nihilism… (we need) religious stories of the past.” But it is religion’s cancel culture through supremacism, colonialism, and violence that has produced the meaninglessness and the nihilism. Peterson speaks no truth to the Cancel Culture of traditional white evangelical supremacists guilty of causing innocent people – Black, gay, Muslim, women – to suffer. Nor to its capitalists with their financial resources indebting people. Nor to its Pilate-like ruler Trump, guilty of causing murderous chaos. Guilty of projection, Peterson claims it is the people who make known their undeserved suffering that cause chaos. They upset the order rulers like Pilate, Barron, and Peterson value, “Chaos is the domain of ignorance… It’s the foreigner, the stranger… Chaos is symbolically associated with the feminine.” “Order, by contrast… is the hundreds-of-millions-of-years-old hierarchy of place, position, and authority… the structure of society… provided by biology… the flag… tradition… In the domain of order, things behave as God intended.” Rulers like Pilate, Barron, and Peterson always assert a god intends their order, which sanctifies violence and thus cancels people, “(T)he parameters for my resistance are well defined… we talk, we argue, we push, and then it becomes physical… That’s forbidden in discourse with women… the threat is (not) there.” But of course the threat and the practice of the Cancel Culture of violence against women is always there. It is there in Pilate’s and Peterson’s still operative “hundreds-of-millions-of-years-old hierarchy” that justifies violence, including against women, who know that to return violence is un-Christ-like or, absurd unto deadly. The Cancel Culture of violence is especially justified by Peterson supporting the military and teaching the righteousness of warrior myths. Bishop Barron champions Peterson’s un-Christ-like teaching for men to “internalize the warrior myths… and find the heroic vocation.” Bishop Barron never champions the heroic vocation of indigenous leader Leonard Peltier nor of Black Lives Matter founders Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi who make known the sufferings of their people. All are warriors, but against his wealthy, white, male order. They stand against the blood sacrifice of people to modern day Pilates. Unlike Jesus, they do not reject all violence. Like Jesus, they reject the belief that their people suffer because “they were greater sinners?” “By no means!” Ruling warriors Peterson and Barron claim enemies are guilty of “Identity Politics” (“a tendency for people of a particular religion, race, etc., to form exclusive political alliances”). But that too is projection as Peterson and Barron routinely identify themselves as wealthy, white, males gladly supportive of the “hundreds-of-million-of-years-old hierarchy” aligning them as rulers. Bishop Barron is such a fan of Peterson, Barron calls him a “spiritual teacher.” Bishop Barron is thus not learning from the spiritual teacher that is Jesus of Nazareth.
The peacemaker Jesus’ spirituality, or experience of God, is as a power to transform. We can transform projections into truth. We can furthermore transform rule into equality, abuse into love, and violence into healing. Living such a witness is likely to get us cancelled by the ruling class of Pilates, Petersons, and Bishops who cancelled Jesus.
Prayer: Holy Spirit, transform me.
Question: What is my experience with the rulers’ Cancel Culture?
March 20, 2022 Gospel Luke 13:1-9 Third Sunday of Lent