For most of my life I have lived in two very different worlds at the same time. In my most recent book, “I’m The Worst,” I describe my story of growing up as the child of a pastor and the son of a best-selling Christian author, living within the faith community many know as “the Christian Church,” while simultaneously working as a television and film actor in the entertainment industry, or as some know it, “secular Hollywood” for the better part of two decades.
If you listen to some preachers or much of the mainstream media, they would have you believe that both worlds are completely different, and from an outside perspective, fueled by blogs, headlines and comment sections, it makes sense. But having lived and loved both worlds, I can tell you that they have many wonderful things in common. They all revolve around great stories, they all have an immeasurable influence around the world, and they are all filled with people trying to make the world a better place. But while I shared many similar values during my time in Hollywood, I occasionally noticed the meaningful differences between the way of Jesus and the way of Hollywood.
One of the clearest examples I saw of the differences between these worldviews came in the late 2010s, with the seemingly sudden and rapid rise of the #MeToo movement – a movement that focuses on long-standing and often covered-up abuse that has plagued the industry for decades. And while the movement started in Hollywood, it quickly caught fire and spread to many other industries and communities, including the church.
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Much good came from the movement: justice for the victims, greater accountability for those in power, a greater sense of professionalism and security. Most saw these changes as good. But as with most things, from this moment another equally powerful and controversial thing was created. As the excitement about seeing justice grew, so did the online gang who, after lighting their digital torches, looked for public figures who were (or even remotely seemed) problematic to be taken down. This phenomenon was quickly and appropriately deemed “cancel culture.”
Christianity teaches a different set of values than Hollywood. (iStock)
It was fascinating to live in Hollywood during this time, when I would go to church on Sundays and be on set on Mondays, where I could see firsthand the effect that cancel culture had on the people around me, and the difference between the way Christianity and Hollywood handled the issue. Christianity is no stranger to dealing with broken and toxic people. However, it is unique in its philosophy and practice of how it works.
As I watched cancel culture unfold in the city and industry around me, I found myself remembering how Christ taught us to deal with these issues and how far secular culture had strayed from God’s way of dealing with people caught in sin. I started to worry, not about the justice being served and setting boundaries, but about some unintended consequences to the whole idea of “cancel.” And I wondered what God thought about the whole situation.
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By looking at Scripture and comparing and contrasting how justice and responsibility were practiced by the early church and how they were practiced by secular culture, I began to formulate where I saw the cancel culture movement going wrong.
First, that the threat of being canceled didn’t actually make people better, just better at hiding their worst sides. Then that cancel culture seemed to have become a mechanism for punishment with no chance of redemption, only condemnation. And finally, that cancel culture has made us all experts at seeing the shortcomings, mistakes, and sins of others, while hindering our ability to address or even see our own.
The God of Scripture is great at calling out and ending evil in swift, substantive, and even dramatic ways (overturning tables with a whip in the temple, destroying towers, turning people into salt). But He is also great in appearance And to be righteous inwardly, to be honest about our faults and need for help, and about forgiving, restoring, and redeeming broken people.
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While cancel culture began and operated out of a desire for justice in a broken world, without the guidance of God, it can quickly spiral into a gang-ridden witch hunt that does not solve, redeem, and rebuild, but only destroys. The way of the world turned out to be strictly reactive, punitive, and destructive, while the Christian way, which was of justice, was holistically redemptive and restorative.
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In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul says, “Be patient with one another and forgive one another if any of you has a complaint against anyone. Forgive as the Lord has forgiven you” (Colossians 3:13, NIV) – reminding us that we are all broken and in need of forgiveness, and that knowing the grace God has given us should change the way we judge and approach others. There is an old saying: “To err is human, to forgive is divine.” But maybe we could say, “To cancel is human.”
First, that the threat of being canceled didn’t actually make people better, just better at hiding their worst sides.
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It is a very human tendency to see and point out the shortcomings of others while ignoring our own. We have become experts at seeing the specs in the eyes of others while ignoring the logs in our own eyes. This is natural. But God calls us to a better way, a supernatural way.
Of course, living as a Christian in Hollywood, I have and still have the temptation when I see someone fail or fall to join the crowd, pick up some digital bricks and start swinging. Especially if it can distract me from my own shortcomings. But in making the choice to follow God’s way, I try to remind myself to choose a different way—a better way. One that both exposes bad behavior and offers the forgiveness I myself have received. One that both seeks justice And longs for redemption and restoration. One who is honest about the sins of others And the sins of myself.
