Articles
Addicted to Outrage
We are living in the age of the thin-skinned, hair-triggered and righteously indignant. It seems that no matter what you say, how you say it or what your intentions are, someone is “offended.” What follows are accusations of some “–ism” or “–phobia” (racism, homophobia, etc.), hateful comments, demands to apologize and delete your tweet or FB post.
Steve Martin found this out recently when he tweeted this tribute to Carrie Fisher: “When I was a young man, Carrie Fisher was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen. She turned out to be witty and bright as well.”
SEXISM!!! SEXUAL HARASSMENT!!! OBJECTIFYING WOMEN!!!
Martin was thus shamed into deleting his tweet. I am not interested in defending Steve Martin personally. But I do want to use this as an illustration to think about what has happened to public discourse in our society.
One of the consequences of adopting subjective morality is that people lose the ability to distinguish between finer points of motive and behavior. This sort of twisted thinking has taken over political discourse. Instead of careful analysis of issues, we are subjected to a barrage of accusations and interpretations by a speaker’s opponents no matter what he or she meant by their words. (Actually, why did I just write “he or she”? Because of feminist backlash against the use of the inclusive “he.”).
The apostle Paul was subject to this kind of hyper-critique. His opponents apparently used his change of travel plans to accuse him of vacillation or worse (2 Cor 1:15-2:2). After affirming his intention to always tell the truth, he explains, “I call God as witness against my soul, that to spare you I came no more to Corinth” (1:23). Paul wanted the Corinthians to solve their outstanding issues so that he would not have to wield his apostolic authority when he came (cf. 2 Cor 7:8-9; 10:8-11; 11:1-4; 12:20-21).
Further, our aggrieved mindset has confused being offended with being injured. There is an endless list of things that people not only complain about but demand to be changed because they don’t like it: a restaurant which plays Christmas music; an American flag displayed on a fire truck; removal of all Biblical imagery from public buildings and grounds; killer whales (oh, sorry, orcas) being kept in captivity, etc. There is a difference between being offended and being injured.
If it weren’t so dangerous it would be funny, for so many of these complainers are the very ones who say we shouldn’t judge others or that morality is subjective – until their ox is gored or their cause is violated. But these things arise because of our preoccupation with perceptions, opinions and public relations.
Some Christians have been shamed, bullied and cowed into silence – or at least watering down our convictions – by the fear of backlash. I fear that some churches have succumbed to this pressure by employing preachers who are so vanilla as to not offend anyone but who lack the boldness to “reprove, rebuke and exhort” effectively (2 Tim 1:8; 4:2-5). Let us be clear about what is happening: This is the calculated work of the ungodly who are bent on intimidating others into accepting their works of darkness.
There’s one other bit of hypocrisy to note. Did Carrie Fisher not objectify women when she appeared mostly naked as Jabba the Hutt’s slave in Return of the Jedi? You can excuse Carrie Fisher’s exploitation of her own body for money but castigate Steve Martin for simply noting her beauty?!
The Hollywood crowd has done more to excite illicit sexuality in our culture than any other single entity, yet they act shocked and indignant when men are conditioned to think in such terms by the sewage spewing from their products. What did you say? I can’t hear you; your hypocrisy is drowning you out.
Double standards, hypocrisy, bullying, false accusations, character assassination are all the order of the day. We must be wary and wise in our speech without losing boldness to defend truth.
