{"id":35698,"date":"2024-02-09T00:09:47","date_gmt":"2024-02-09T08:09:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=35698"},"modified":"2024-02-09T00:09:47","modified_gmt":"2024-02-09T08:09:47","slug":"grace-and-not-or-justice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/grace-and-not-or-justice\/","title":{"rendered":"Grace and (not or) Justice"},"content":{"rendered":"

Do you know what cancel culture is?\u00a0 Have you been mysteriously ghosted after a night out?\u00a0 Have you had a long-lost relative jump out of the woodwork and begin to attack your latest post?\u00a0 Well, The Canceling of the American Mind <\/em>by Greg Lukianoff and Rikki Schlott may be the book for you.\u00a0 Lukianoff comes from a left-leaning liberal background and is a freedom of speech lawyer and Schlott comes from a Libertarian background and is a journalist.\u00a0 This is refreshing as they encounter what it means to be \u201ccanceled\u201d from both sides of the political line.\u00a0 In my first run through of this book it feels to be very even handed and calls out both sides of the political agenda on what we are responsible for and how we can help<\/p>\n

Canceling of the American Mind <\/em>gives us what cancel culture is, how cancel culture works and what to do about it.<\/p>\n

What Cancel Culture is:<\/p>\n

Lukianoff and Schlott warn that \u201cfor decades, free speech advocates warned that American higher education was headed for disaster- that colleges and universities were straying from their core mission of pursuing truth wherever it led through freedom of speech and the scientific method\u201d.[1]<\/a> My first love in all the careers I\u2019ve had was in Higher Education.\u00a0 I worked as an Admissions Counselor at my Alma Mater in South Dakota, and then at 24 years old, I had had enough of small-town life, and I moved to Chicago, IL and became a Residence Hall Director and eventually Director of Residence at North Park University.\u00a0 As someone who has worked on a Christian campus and has watched culture and faith collide, at George Fox as well, it has become very tenuous. How does a university hold on to is core beliefs and values, and allow freedom of speech? \u201cIn fact, several of the warning schools are Christian Universities who rank as \u201cAbysmal\u201d for free Speech rankings, including Hillsdale, Pepperdine, Baylor, Brigham Young and Saint Louis University.\u201d[2]<\/a>\u00a0 Colleges and Universities need money to run, students bring the money, diversity in a student body is great for learning, and yet, have our Christian institutions learned how to embrace our students where they are at?\u00a0 Do we allow diversity of faith and culture at Christian schools the freedom to express free speech?<\/p>\n

How Cancel Culture Works<\/p>\n

I found their chapter on Science and Medicine to be very interesting.\u00a0 Cancel culture not only affect higher ed, but it has had some significant effects on medicine and research.\u00a0 \u201cCanceling dissenting voices-or even the voices of those associated with dissenting voices, has allowed some pretty bizzare concepts to go unchecked in the Medical world\u201d.[3]<\/a>\u00a0 In a world of research and finding new ideas, there is an awareness to making sure we are being inclusive in our research, writings and study, but can lead to danger for researcher as it can present a landmine for being canceled.\u00a0 I was the chairperson for a few years for my organization for DEIB.\u00a0 DEI is highly recognizable group but what I thought was a meaningful aspect to our group was the B\u2026Belonging.\u00a0 Ever since we entered kindergarten, aren\u2019t we just all seeking a sense of belonging?\u00a0 So in my opinion, there are times when an idea should be canceled, but we seem to only be satisfied with canceling and entire person and their sense of input and belonging in this world, and this is not what Christ modeled for us.\u00a0 He could\u2019ve canceled a lot of people, and perhaps, because of what he stood for, he was \u201ccanceled\u201d, crucified.\u00a0 I am appalled by all the stories in this book.\u00a0 I consider myself a high social justice pursuer, and yet what has happened to people canceled has my justice hackles raised.\u00a0 All of this leads me to my greatest fear, my children being canceled for a misstep.<\/p>\n

What to do about it.<\/p>\n

As a parent I devoured reading chapter 10; \u201cRaising Kids Who Are Not Cancelers\u201d.\u00a0 My 11-year-old had some severe behavior issues in 5th<\/sup> grade that forced us to change schools.\u00a0 It was our idea as parents because I could only think of all the ways this behavior was going to follow him all through school.\u00a0 While it was hard to go through, I\u2019m glad we gave him a fresh start at least for the end of his 5th<\/sup> grade year. \u00a0\u201cKids are inherently anti-fragile, meaning that if they\u2019re left to their own devices and allowed to fumble, they become more resilient in the process.\u00a0 But if parents swoop them up before they ever trip up, the process is undermined\u201d.[4]<\/a>\u00a0 THIS IS IT! My children are my literal heart beating outside of my body, I would do anything to protect them, and yet this is the world we send them out into, it is seriously scary!\u00a0 My son had to relive some of his bad choices as rumors flew around him as all the kids joined for middle school, and all I could do was prep him for his reactions, as that is what they were looking for, he needed to walk away and correct bad thinking but not get mad or angry. We told him if he did this, it would eventually go away\u2026so far it has, but I do worry he will be canceled.\u00a0 He was only 10, still a child, and yet was encountering the adult world and not knowing what was appropriate or not.\u00a0 I appreciate how this book gave me hope and tools to use, to help myself, my coworkers, and most importantly my children navigate the cancel culture.<\/p>\n

Grace!\u00a0 \u201cFor all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.\u201d Romans 3:23-24.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Lukianoff, Greg and Schlott, Rikki. The Canceling of the American Mind. <\/em>\u00a0(New York, Simon and Schuster, 2023)<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Lukianoff and Schlott, 329<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Ibid, 194<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Ibid, 21<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Do you know what cancel culture is?\u00a0 Have you been mysteriously ghosted after a night out?\u00a0 Have you had a long-lost relative jump out of the woodwork and begin to attack your latest post?\u00a0 Well, The Canceling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff and Rikki Schlott may be the book for you.\u00a0 Lukianoff comes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":187,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3006,3005,1535],"class_list":["post-35698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-cancelling","tag-schlott","tag-lukianoff","cohort-dlgp02"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/187"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35698"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35700,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35698\/revisions\/35700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}