The city of Chicago plans to reevaluate its monuments, and Fox News is unhappy. If the libs knock Abraham Lincoln off his pedestal, what’s next? “If they start canceling American presidents, they’ll come after Bible characters next,” said host Bill Hemmer. “Mark my words, right?”
Well, Bill, I’ve marked them. I have pondered the possibility for five minutes of my wild and precious life, and I have concluded that this will probably not come to pass. But it would be very funny if it did.
I wish our cities did erect statues to Haggai or Zephaniah or Huldah the prophetess. Carve them all like Precious Moments angels. Nothing would be more American, not even that theme park where Confederate dinosaurs eat the Union army. (It’s called Dinosaur Kingdom II, and it’s real.) I would cancel it all with a torch. I would be a weapon of God. Like Jael, canceling General Sisera with a tent spike to the temple.
Nobody loves canceling Bible characters more than God does. Ask Lot’s wife. Or the residents of Sodom and Gomorrah, or the firstborn children of Egypt. The Bible is one long account of cancel culture run amok, Bill. Fail to accept Jesus as your LORD and Savior, and God will cancel you into a lake of fire. Sometimes the cancellations are rather extreme, though it’s hard to blame them on liberal hysteria. We are talking about God, the omniscient and omnipotent. He has little in common with the undergraduates of Oberlin. Perhaps, Bill, you could analyze the fate of Ananias and Sapphira and then tell me what you think. Turn with me now to the Book of Acts, chapter 5:
“Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property. With his wife’s full knowledge, he kept back part of the money for himself but brought the rest and put it at the apostles’ feet.”
Very dumb! God knows everything, and He hates a liar. I’ll save you the effort of reading further: Ananias “fell down and died.” So did his wife, a mere three hours later! “Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events,” observes the author of Acts, and no shit. That’s what happens when a divine scold cancels people for being entrepreneurs. Consider the implications for free speech.
There is a limit to God’s censorious streak, and how fortunate for us! He spared Noah and his family from cancellation by drowning. Job longed to be canceled — to self-deport in the fashion of Bari Weiss — but God did not oblige him. Then we have Enoch. Not canceled at all, even by old age! God took him up to heaven in a chariot of fire. This is extremely metal, and it probably won’t happen to you. Don’t lose hope, though: Jesus was canceled for only three days. Redemption is possible.
Well, for most of us. Satan, I’m sorry to say, remains in permanent exile. In a hideous twist, the canceled became the canceler, torturing the heterodox forever. Be wary, Bill. Sometimes a Notes-app apology just isn’t enough.
