Kerby Anderson
Back in the early 1970s, John Lennon wrote the song “Imagine” which was his vision of a future of global harmony. Jim Geraghty recently wrote about the culture war and corporate America. He encouraged us to imagine a future where businesses weren’t trying to be woke but instead catered to the needs of their consumers.
What brought about his comments was a headline in New York magazine that lamented that after the fiascos of Bud Light and Target, we were now entering a new era corporate caution. But he doesn’t see (nor do I see) any evidence of corporate caution. Here are a few things he thought we should imagine.
“Imagine a beer company that just wanted to make good beer and sell it to you. Imagine if that company wanted to sell beer to everyone but didn’t feel that its job was to make you more accepting of transgender individuals.”
“Imagine an everything store like Target that wanted everyone to shop there, but that had the good sense to realize that partnering with a brand that had ‘Satanist-inspired merchandise’ was not the way to win over shoppers in a country that is still roughly two-thirds Christian.”
“Imagine a sports team that declared everyone was welcome but didn’t formally and publicly roll out the welcome mat for the quasi-pornographic Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.”
He provides other examples, but you get the idea. It seems like every major company feels the need to lecture us about social, political, and cultural issues. In previous commentaries, I have recommended that companies stay out of the culture wars. Unfortunately, there are just enough progressive social warriors in some of these companies that they just cannot help themselves and eventually alienate half of their customer base.
I would love to imagine a world where corporations avoid lecturing us and merely produce goods and services. But I’m afraid they can’t imagine such a world.

Penna Dexter
One purpose of the National Religious Broadcasters Convention is to help Christian ministries, especially media organizations, figure out how to meet the challenges they face in getting their message out. This year, a key topic was the cancel culture and how to fight back against it.
In his keynote address at the opening session, Franklin Graham described how Samaritan’s Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association have taken steps to deal with cancellations by service providers like banks and payment processors. He warned leaders of the organizations gathered in Orlando, Florida, that the Left’s efforts to deprive Christian organizations of their funding could destroy their work if they do not take action to protect against it.
The risk of being cancelled applies, not only to large media ministries, but also to smaller online news outlets, individual journalists, podcasters, and even everyday Christians posting comments on social media. For them, cancellation can range from lost opportunities for communication to loss of livelihood.
The Christian Broadcasting Network’s David Brody moderated a helpful panel.
Panelist Allie Beth Stuckey, host of the popular podcast Relatable, said cancel culture is the fruit of moral relativism. Standards are arbitrary and are constantly changing. Christians must reject this because we have the unchanging standards of God’s Word. “We have the right and responsibility,” she said, “to say that which is good, right, and true.“  She reminded the audience that, throughout history, the Church has been persecuted, but the gospel cannot be cancelled.
To a question about cancellation by social media outlets, syndicated radio host Dennis Prager responded that 45% of young Americans say, ‘I believe in free speech, but not hate speech.’ Mr. Prager says, “Hate speech is anything the Left disagrees with.”
The Left claims compassion as its motive for curtailing certain speech. Allie Stuckey calls this “weaponized empathy.”  She said, “Ruining an individual’s life for something they said is the opposite of compassion.”
Cancel culture is the opposite of freedom.

Kerby Anderson
Christians have always needed discernment, but we especially need to develop our skill at discernment in our confused world. One book I would recommend is: Why Bad Looks Good: Biblical Wisdom to Make Smart Choices in Life, Love, and Friendship. The author is Dr. Wendy Patrick. She is a career prosecutor with not only a law degree but a master’s degree and a doctorate in theology. Her book helps you avoid falling victim to the hazards of misperception that she has seen in courtrooms as well as in life.
For example, she warns about the deception of public perception. We live in a world where abnormal is portrayed as normal. It is easy to follow the crowd right off a cliff. That is why her chapter begins with 2 Corinthians 4:4 where Paul reminds us that “the god of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers.”
Another chapter talks about when bad appears beautiful. She has seen this in her experience in prosecuting sexual predators. That is why she begins that chapter with John 7:24 where Jesus admonishes the disciples to “stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly.”
Another chapter advises us to use discernment when bad sounds good. We live in a world where smooth talkers can convince us and our friends of ideas that are counter to biblical wisdom. We should also be alert to the dark side of praise. Psalm 55:21 warns us about people whose “talk is smooth as butter.”
Another chapter explains how to react when bad feels good. We live in a world that emphasizes emotion over logic and flash over substance. Ecclesiastes 1:8 warns that “the eye never has enough of seeing.”
If you want to improve your skill at discernment, I recommend you get a copy of her book.