By Tom Klocek

Cancel culture is nothing new. It is prevalent today but has existed in the past. St. Paul warned his protégé, Timothy, about the deceitful world and its effect. “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths.” (2 Timothy 4:3-4)

Those who consider the Bible as myth and outdated without any application to today’s world are misguided, possibly ignorant (of the Bible), and in many cases deceitful. As St. Augustine pointed out, “Therefore, do they hate the truth for the sake of that thing which they love instead of the truth. They love the truth when she shines on them and hate her when she rebukes them. For, because they are not willing to be deceived, and wish to deceive, they love her when she reveals herself, and hate her when she reveals them.” (Confessions, Bk X, Ch. 24)

They only like the truth when it works for them. Otherwise, they live in a world of lies and deceit, a dark world. Yet they claim to hold the truth by denying that there are absolute truths. They push the idea that science is the only truth and yet deny science when it does not suit their desires, as in the cases of transgenderism, sexuality, and abortion.

Cancel culture rallied its forces recently when the star kicker of the Kansas City Chiefs, Harrison Butker, spoke at the commencement exercises of a small Catholic college in Kansas. The problem? Butker spoke the truth. Even though his remarks were directed at Catholics graduating from a Catholic college, and speaking as an individual, the fact that this was public riled the progressives who deny the truth.

So what truths did Butker mention? He mentioned the truth that men are important in society, yet today’s world has emasculated them and tried to make them unimportant. The real truth is that, without true men (not “macho” men) and fathers, society is crumbling, as evidenced by crime statistics, among other things. He also mentioned the importance of true womanhood and motherhood and the scourge of abortion and the culture of death in general.

“In times of deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act.” —George Orwell (1903-1950)

These and other truths he mentioned opened him to attacks from God-denying leftists, who reacted as then-Cardinal Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) predicted decades ago: “It is not Christians who oppose the world, but rather the world which opposes itself to them when the truth about God, about Christ and about man is proclaimed. The world waxes indignant when sin and grace are called by their names.” (The Ratzinger Report, 1985)

While proclaiming science as the only truth (and at the same time denying so many of its truths), they overlook the fact that science has not disproven the existence of God. In fact, the deeper scientists study the world and the universe, the more obvious it becomes that there had to be a “first cause” that put the whole universe (or multiverse, if you like) into being. That first cause had to be outside the whole thing, and the only explanation is an intelligent omnipresent being: God! The statistics of random effects are so minuscule as to be impossible. Consequently, there are more scientists who believe in a first cause being than do not.

Of course, God already told us this. In the book of Exodus, when Moses asked who was he to say sent him to the Israelites, “God replied, ‘I am who am.’ Then he added, ‘This is what you shall tell the Israelites: I AM sent me to you.’” (Exodus 3:13-14) This simple expression of “being” tells it all. As Dr. Peter Kreeft says, “God has to keep reminding us of the two most obvious truths in the world: that we are not him, and that he is not us.” (Food for the Soul, Cycle C, p. 548)

However, people today are so wrapped up in themselves, their wants and desires, their lust for power and pleasure that they cannot open their minds and hearts to the truth. Many want to deny God because they see the darkness of humanity everywhere they turn. They don’t understand how God could allow such things. Yet, these are the same people who insist that freedom means they can do whatever they please, regardless of how it affects others. They totally misconstrue the meaning of “free will” and the fact that God so wants our love returned to him freely that he will not mess with that freedom of our wills.

Perhaps we can find some insights in the writings of St. Paul.

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth. … Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature … has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. … Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie … For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their error. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a base mind and to improper conduct. They were filled with all manner of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity, they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s decree that those who do such things deserve to die, they not only do them but approve those who practice them.” —Romans 1:18-32

Fr. Amorth, former chief exorcist of Rome, summed it up this way: “The most frequent weak points in man are, from time to time, always the same: pride, money, and lust.”

Many have observed this dilemma and, having sought truth, found it in God. “For where I found truth, there found I my God, who is truth itself.” (St. Augustine, Confessions) Cardinal Burke reiterated this fact in his book, Hope for the World: “Truth and meaning are found only in the Lord and in a relationship with Him.”

By denying the truth, they will remain in darkness and continue to bring darkness to the world. Jesus tried to tell us that when he told the apostles, “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now. But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth.” (John 16:12-13)

Let us turn to God and the truth.

“Jesus said, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life…’” (John 14:6)