Tonight the bonfires are lit all over Denmark.<\/p>\n
It's Sankt Hans, Midsummer's Eve. We eat sausages. We sing the midsummer song. The witch goes up onto the top of the bonfire, the fire is lit, and we gather around the good old tradition.<\/p>\n
It's cozy. But it's also a culture of remembrance, even if we've forgotten it.<\/p>\n
Because there was a time when it wasn't straw dolls that went up. It was people. Many were burned across Europe while the witch hunts raged. Mostly women. Almost all innocent. Almost always after group pressure and a crowd of people who had made up their minds in advance.<\/p>\n
And this year I've been thinking: we remember this with bonfires. But are we perhaps also doing it again, just in digital form?<\/p>\n
That's the question I'd like us to wrestle with today.<\/p>\n
What witch burning actually was!<\/p>\n
It wasn't just medieval foolishness. It was something far more recognizable.<\/p>\n
Massive public shaming. The whole town showed up.<\/p>\n
Driven by fear. Often during plague, famine, or war, when a scapegoat had to be found.<\/p>\n
Without a fair process. The evidence was rumors, accusations, or \"tests\" rigged in advance.<\/p>\n
Permanent. Once the flames were out, there was no way back.<\/p>\n
Religiously legitimized. The church often cooked up the theology that made the whole thing acceptable.<\/p>\n
That last part we as the church must never forget. We led the way with judgment where we were meant to show mercy and grace.<\/p>\n
The comparison to our own time<\/p>\n
Cancel culture isn't flames on a bonfire. But look at the elements:<\/p>\n
Massive public shaming. A single post can reach millions in an afternoon.<\/p>\n
Driven by fear. Fear of losing status, job, social relationships.<\/p>\n
Without a fair process. The accusation is often the evidence.<\/p>\n
Permanent. The internet doesn't forget.<\/p>\n
Morally legitimized. \"He deserved it.\" \"She did something terrible.\"<\/p>\n
The difference is not insignificant. No one dies physically in cancel culture. That's a blessing we shouldn't downplay.<\/p>\n
But socially and professionally? People lose jobs, friends, the chance to come back, their name in the public square. For some it ends in depression or suicide. For many it ends in isolation.<\/p>\n
The new thing isn't new<\/p>\n
It's easy to think cancel culture is a new phenomenon, something the internet invented. It isn't.<\/p>\n
It's an old impulse in human beings. The crowd against the one. The moral self-righteousness that can't tolerate resistance. The need for a scapegoat.<\/p>\n
It's the same impulse Jesus met.<\/p>\n
The original cancel scene<\/p>\n
John chapter 8 is one of the most striking scenes in the whole Bible.<\/p>\n
A woman is dragged before Jesus. She's been \"caught in the act of adultery\" (John 8:3). Where's the man? Never mentioned. Already there, something is wrong.<\/p>\n
The scribes have Scripture on their side:<\/p>\n
\"The Torah says that such women are to be stoned to death. What do you say?\" (John 8:5)<\/p>\n
Notice two things.<\/p>\n
What they say is accurate. She has in fact sinned.<\/p>\n
And their reference to the law is accurate too. Stoning was prescribed.<\/p>\n
They're not factually wrong. They just have wrong hearts. Their rightness is poisoned by their motives:<\/p>\n
\"They were trying to get him to say something they could later use against him.\" (John 8:6)<\/p>\n
That's exactly the dynamic in cancel culture. People are often right about a factual detail. They're wrong in the way they use it.<\/p>\n
What Jesus does<\/p>\n
Jesus bends down and writes in the dust. We don't know what. Maybe it was the names of those in the crowd. Maybe it was their own sins. We don't know.<\/p>\n
Then he straightens up:<\/p>\n
\"Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone.\" (John 8:7)<\/p>\n
And then one of the most awkward moments in the Gospels:<\/p>\n
\"When they heard that, they slipped away one by one \u2014 the eldest first.\" (John 8:9)<\/p>\n
The eldest first. Those who had lived the longest, and who knew themselves best.<\/p>\n
In the end, two are left. Jesus and the woman.<\/p>\n
\"'Was there no one to condemn you?' 'No, Lord,' she answered. 'Then neither do I,' said Jesus. 'Go on your way, but from now on don't sin anymore.'\" (John 8:10-11)<\/p>\n
Two things at the same time. He didn't condemn her. And he didn't approve of what she'd done either. He said: go on your way, but from now on don't sin anymore.<\/p>\n
That's what we as the church need to learn again.<\/p>\n
To you who've been hung out to dry<\/p>\n
Your pain is real. It wasn't fair. You probably weren't without fault, but you didn't deserve this either. And your identity doesn't lie in what the crowd said about you. It lies in what Jesus still says about you.<\/p>\n
He's still writing in the dust. He's still kneeling between you and the crowd.<\/p>\n
To all of us as the church<\/p>\n
We must never take part in throwing people onto the bonfire, not even the digital one. Neither when they come from the left nor the right. Neither when it's about a friend or a political opponent.<\/p>\n
We're to be the opposite. The place where a \"cancelled\" person, even those who actually did something wrong, can meet something other than the crowd. Truth and grace. Both. That's the whole Jesus.<\/p>\n
When a Christian leader falls<\/p>\n
Let me be concrete. This gets especially hard when a Christian leader falls, because then three things cross each other that aren't the same: forgiveness, community, and leadership trust.<\/p>\n
Forgiveness must always fall immediately. That's the whole gospel. The one who repents is forgiven. There's no other biblical currency. If forgiveness doesn't come instantly, then it's not the gospel we're preaching.<\/p>\n
Restoration to the community, being allowed to sit at the table again, is also Jesus. He ate with Peter after the denial, before Peter had done anything to earn it. That's the church's particular beauty: that you come home before you've proven anything.<\/p>\n
But trust and full restoration to leadership ministry are not the same as forgiveness. Trust is rebuilt over time. Certain leadership tasks require conditions that may not be there again. That's not a punishment. It's care for the person, for those who were hurt, and for the congregation.<\/p>\n
I would far rather be in a community that shows grace than in a witch-burning mob that hunts its own. The one builds God's kingdom. The other tears it down.<\/p>\n
But grace doesn't mean everything continues as before. Grace means the person is embraced again. Not necessarily in the same role.<\/p>\n
That's the narrow way. Where Jesus stood, and last I checked, he's still standing there.<\/p>\n
And it starts in a very simple place, just as Jesus himself said it:<\/p>\n
\"Don't judge others, or you'll be judged yourselves. The measure you use for others will be used for you.\" (Matthew 7:1-2)<\/p>\n
Tonight the bonfires burn. The witch goes up. We sing the midsummer song.<\/p>\n
Let it remind us of something we've forgotten: the crowd is always there. It always finds someone to throw on the fire.<\/p>\n
Jesus stood in the middle.<\/p>\n
That's where we're to stand.<\/p>\n
One question, before the bonfires are lit tonight:<\/p>\n
Where in your own story has someone chosen grace over the flame?<\/p>\n
Maybe you were the one the crowd pointed at. Maybe you were the one who stepped in between. Tell me about it \u2014 here in the comments, or confidentially in a message.<\/p>\n
This isn't a debate to win. It's a conversation to enter together.<\/p>\n
Happy Sankt Hans \ud83d\ude4f<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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