Clergy - Cancel Culture
I’ve been reluctant to write this piece, but it’s been niggling away at me over the last few months. I know other pastors will identify with what I write here and I hope members of congregations take note.
I was sitting with a friend when the conversation shifted to “cancel culture” and I started to laugh. In that moment I was hit by the realization that every pastor I know has had people try to cancel them. We may not have the high profile of celebrities and politicians who are cancelled, but we face the constant reality that people are seeking to cancel us.
Ask any pastor if they have had people try to have them “cancelled” and, if they trust you and are willing to share, every one of them will have numerous stories to share. The reality is that almost all of the attempts to cancel pastors have little if anything to do with theology, it’s almost always, politics and personalities.
One of the most common forms of clergy cancellation comes when a disgruntled church member just walks away from the congregation and says that a particular church isn’t for them and they are looking for a better fit. Unfortunately this usually ends up with that person speaking negatively about their former congregation and pastor. It also reveals their unwillingness to be part of the body of Christ in such a way as to work to strengthen the whole. For folks like this it’s about finding a place that “meets their needs.” In other words it’s essentially a selfish motivation at work. Many of these folks will cancel multiple pastors and congregations over the course of their lives. While always disappointing, most pastors can handle this type of cancellation, but it does wear on us.
People don’t always walk away quietly. There’s the story of a couple who decided to “cancel” the church by mailing in their pledge card with $0 written on it and a note stating that they were done because the leadership of the church was too liberal and were showing their true colors. The puzzling piece about this story is that the pastor of this congregation was more theologically conservative than any of their predecessors. Tragically theological orthodoxy was not what mattered. This couple were seeking political allegiance to a conservative agenda. All too often politics trumps theology in the church. This form of cancellation was probably most evident when Greg Boyd lost almost a third of the congregation at Woodland Hills for refusing to endorse George Bush and preaching a sermon series that became the book, The Myth of a Christian Nation.
It’s one thing when people cancel the pastor by walking away, it still hurts and the wounds do cut deep. We often feel like we have somehow failed that person and there are times when we lie awake at night wondering how we could have reached them with the way of Jesus. However, every pastor has had to deal with the congregation member who won’t leave, but does everything they can to undermine the work of the pastor in the hopes that eventually they will leave of their own accord or be forced out.
I was told the story of one church member who anytime they were ill got upset when the pastor didn’t visit. They would of course share this information with all their friends as they tried to make this pastor out to be a horrible insensitive person. What they always omitted from their conversation was that they never called the pastor or notified the church that they were ill either. The pastor was just supposed to know. They worked to have the pastor cancelled.
I think every pastor has someone in their congregation who loves to be the center of attention and when they’re not it’s a full out attack on the pastor. Got to cancel the pastor. There’s a story about a church member who lived in a big fancy house, pretending to be a model church member, making the most of every opportunity to be seen in the church, while never giving a dime to support the work of the church. Everything is about them, it is all a show. Behind the scenes they complain about the leadership, it never measures up to their expectation and no matter who the pastor is you can find them asking others, “What are we going to do about the pastor?” They love to gossip and seek to complain and undermine the leadership whenever possible. They live for themselves and love to try and cancel the pastor.
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been cancelled. How many people have tried to stab me in the back (it’s rarely a full frontal attack). After thirty years of ministry I can tell you it’s a lot. It hurts and it wears on you.
Over the last five years, due to the political division in the United States and so many so-called evangelicals embracing conspiracy theories I’ve been cancelled by more people than I can remember. I’ve had longtime friends in ministry cancel me without a word or attempt at reconciliation. I’ve spoken with colleagues who have left the ministry through burnout or been forced to step aside. The research suggests that over the last year almost 30% of pastors have given serious consideration to quitting full-time ministry.
As pastors we are constantly striving to show the way of Jesus to the world. We are driven by theology, not political ideology. Good theology, orthodoxy, leads to living the right way and doing the right things, orthopraxy. Of course this often leads to us being cancelled, because people often want things their way. Remember the story of the rich young man who walked away from Jesus? Jesus offered him the opportunity to follow him, but the young man wanted it on his terms, too many of us are like that. In the end the political and religious folks decided Jesus needed to be cancelled too, so they crucified him. Faithful theology will challenge assumptions across the political spectrum, it will challenge anyone who is self-absorbed and people will walk away and cancel pastors and congregations. This makes me sad.
