By Scott Hilgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross

A few years back, I watched a rodeo producer deal with the repercussions of a clown who made a joke that for several on the crowd, crossed the line over gender issues. This was before it was the current hot topic in almost daily news stories.

While it wasn’t a large group that was offended, a few of them carried some pretty big sticks and the incident escalated into media coverage and increasing angry mob that, while not even present at the event to understand the context, were demanding the producer be shut down from putting on events. It didn’t matter that he didn’t make the joke, that some of it was being taken out of context or the intent of the clown who ad-libbed the remark and was more careless than intending offense.

With the use of so many different social media platforms, even in writing, it’s easy to get carried away and say something inappropriate or offensive. But what was seen as offensive ten years ago can potentially be seen as hate speech today.

The current cultural trend to “cancel” anything we disagree with puts anything we’ve ever posted online under scrutiny if a controversial incident occurs, no matter how long ago.

As young adults, students have lost scholarships for posts they made when they were barely a teenager, with those stripping the scholarship away not caring at all that in that time period, a young person is still learning who they are and what they believe and what they think about our culture. What they would have said five years ago is different than what they would say today.

This is especially true of Christians and even more so of adults who come to a saving faith in Jesus. Ideas they were once firm about, having gone through their formative years, have been changed as they learn more about what the Bible teaches and allow themselves to become more like Jesus.

Ephesians 4:21-24 assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, 22 to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.