Free speech is muzzled.
Christian viewpoints are silenced.
Cancel culture is a seemingly unstoppable stampede.
Have you ever asked yourself how we got to this place? There is no single answer. But let me tell you what I think is at the core of much of it: a hijacking of language.
This hijacking took place when Christians—and others—who disagreed with the alternative lifestyles many embraced were told our opposition was “hateful.”
Mind you, I disagree all the time with my wife—and she with me. That doesn’t mean we hate each other. Any parent of a teen disagrees with their kid’s lifestyle choices—and often! But that doesn’t mean they hate! Good friends are good friends precisely because they can disagree—and still love each other.
Nevertheless, the hate label took off. And that rush to calling any opposing opinion hateful was timed with the emergence of hate speech sympathies in our culture and legal system.
Hate speech laws can now make almost anything illegal. In this new twisted logic, to disagree is to hate—and to hate is illegal. Therefore, disagreeing is illegal! It’s crazy. Maddening. And more.
I hate no man. I hate no woman. Because I serve a God who “so loved the world that He gave His only son, that whoever believes in Him will not die, but have eternal life.”
If any speech can be called hate speech, then there is no such thing as free speech.
Let no unwholesome word come out of your mouth, but if there is any good word for edification according to the need of the moment, say that, so that it will give grace to those who hear.
-Ephesians 4:29