As we read the Scriptures, we face temptation to make Jesus fit our intentions. For some, we like to read Jesus as a neo-Marxist liberator, who frees sinners from the punishment of oppressive structures. He challenges the authorities upholding standards—Pharisees, Sadducees, religious and political leaders receive his sharpest rebuke while the oppressed (Samaritans, sinners, tax collectors) find themselves welcomed.
For others, we see Jesus as the one calling for absolute righteousness and holiness before God. He welcomes the sinner but points to greater righteousness rather than less. He tells the adulterous woman to “go and sin no more” (Jn. 8:11). He calls people to “be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt. 5:48). Rather than free people from traditional forms of righteousness, he deepens their call (e.g. “You have heard it said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery…” Mt. 5:27-28).
First century world knew Jews for their righteousness. Many coming from a pagan background found the pursuit of righteous living at odds with their Greco-Roman culture attractive.
As the Jews culturally pursued righteousness, they socially enforced these ideas. The unrighteous and the sinners were cast out from society. Tax collectors, prostitutes, and many other sinners were welcomed by Jesus.
This isn’t to suggest that Jesus cared little about righteousness. To the contrary, he demanded a greater righteousness than the Pharisees of the day (Mt 5:20) to enter the kingdom.
Shame Culture
A more communal understanding is arising, where sins are culturally enforced. Old Tweets or bad behavior are resurrected to “cancel” somebody. Meaning, if your sins (at least particular sins) are found out, a mob of people may harass your employers until you’re fired and cast out of polite society.
What employer will risk the wrath of the mob to hire someone so tainted by these sins? The internet never forgets, so the scarlet letter perpetually hangs on the neck of every sinner.
How do we see the enforcement of such shame culture?
Over the past couple years, or really weeks for that matter we’ve seen a dramatic escalation of canceling behavior.
A church loses its lease because the pastor liked some facebook posts that disagreed with the board’s politics. Despite the pastor apologizing and the church doing a lot to help the disenfranchised, including giving free COVID testing and operating a health clinic.
Those who proclaim the loudest for a wife’s autonomy from their husbands, fired a lady’s husband because of her post.
An announcer was fired for tweeting “ALL LIVES MATTER…EVERY SINGLE ONE” in response to being asked on his take on BLM.
Drew Brees, the quarterback for the Saints, who sees the American flag as the symbol for the ideal which America is pursuing rather than the symbol of all her historic flaws was dragged through the mud until he (and his wife) offered their mea culpa. The public ritual of being dragged before the public before you bow to the authoritarian mob to say, “You are right. I am the problem.” Some are forgiven, others are not. Largely it depends if they find you useful enough.
Students who said bad things during their time as children in high school and had apologized for them, lost their spots at Ivy League institutions.
JK Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books and noted far left liberal, has the mob trying to cancel her from departing from transgender orthodoxy.
Whom does Jesus Liberate?
We’re living in a unique age where the traditional values and authorities are not what enforces canceling but the avant-garde morality mob. have divorced the power structures from the social structures. The neo-Marxists view the former as the oppressive forces from which to liberate people. Yet at the same time, they are the ones able to cancel people who diverge from their orthodoxy or orthopraxy. While not fully in control of the structures, they wield society. Meaning, they cannot jail you but they can ban you.
In Jesus’ day, the cultural powers enforced a more traditional morality, so when we see Jesus offering mercy to sinners, from whom does he liberate them?
The Neo-marxist reads Christ as offering grace to the oppressed—those who have been put under the boot of the hierarchical structures. Jesus turns the structures on their head, reminding us, “the last will be first” (Mt. 20:16). Jesus, reduced to a neo-Marxist liberator, we believe nods along with approval at the canceling of those dubbed oppressors.
However, these same events can be seen as Jesus offering grace to the “cancelled.” Not just against the power structures but those feeling the effects of power. The cast-out sinners find grace. Those cancelled by society, Jesus invites in.
Like it or not, the mob enforcing their morality are as much a part of the power structure as those they are looking to overturn. Replacing the rules by which we cancel one another does nothing to replace the oppressive or authoritarian nature of the canceling mob.
Jesus as Liberator
Jesus is the liberator who takes not only our guilt but our shame. Yes, the power structures pronounced him guilty but the mob pronounced him shameful. For our shame as well as our guilt, he died.
Jesus does indeed liberate the oppressed. He offers grace to sinners, whether it’s those violating traditional morality or our cultural norms. Jesus offers liberty to the captives, whether it’s Rome, abusive cops, or the thought police. He offers community to repentant sinners, whether the prostitute or the racist.
For this radical grace, we despise him. We want our enemies to be his enemies. We demand his wrath on them, but we find Christ more gracious than we desire. His grace is utterly impractical, so we find ourselves among the mob shouting, “Crucify him. Crucify Him.”
The physician calls the sick not as approval for sins but the healing of sinners. Jesus’ restorative grace to humanity distinguishes his kingdom from the never-ending evolution of oppressing agents.
And so, we take Jesus seriously when he says, “My kingdom, is not of this world…” (Jn.18:36).
Thanks be to God that it’s altogether different!
- Hospitality in a Covid World - December 17, 2020
- Jesus, the Liberator We Don’t Want - June 12, 2020
- Why I’m NOT an Inerrantist - June 11, 2020
