Salem, Massachusetts, witch trials of 1692 saw five people executed for witchcraft on this date. Among them, Reverend George Burroughs, once honored as a minister, was now charged with leading a band of witches. He lifted his voice and prayed the Lord’s Prayer word for word. People believed a witch could never do such a thing. The crowd wavered. Had they made a terrible mistake?

Fear won the day. Doubt was swallowed up by frenzy, and the execution went on.

That summer morning marked the largest single hanging of the Salem witch trials. By the time the panic ran its course, nineteen people had been hanged, one man had been crushed beneath stones, and more than two hundred faced charges. Strange dreams and shadowy visions were accepted in court as solid proof. A rumor could cost a person their life.

Three centuries later, the gallows are gone, but the same spirit lives on. We give it a new name: cancel culture. Reputations are destroyed, jobs are lost, and relationships are torn apart, often before the full truth is known and rarely with any path to forgiveness. Salem built scaffolds; we build hashtags. The mob still thrives, and mercy is still hard to find.

What drove Salem was not only fear, but also the law-spirit, the deadly idea that righteousness comes through accusation and punishment. In Salem, it wore the clothing of religion. Today, it wears the clothing of justice. But it is the same old voice: the accuser of the brethren.

Cancel culture is unforgiveness with a megaphone. It offers no way back and no redemption. It is bitterness institutionalized and broadcast. And as Hebrews warns, bitterness never stays small. It “defiles many.”

The Bible names Satan as the accuser. He says, “You are your worst moment. You will never escape it.” Cancel culture echoes him perfectly. But we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. His word is better: “You are mine. You are forgiven. You are clothed in My righteousness.”

The tragedy of cancel culture is not only that it destroys the accused. It enslaves the accusers. Those who throw stones live in fear of tomorrow’s stones aimed at them. When you live by the mob’s voice, you die by the mob’s voice. But when you live by the Father’s voice, you are unshaken, even if the whole world turns against you.

Cancel culture thrives on revenge. Christ calls us to forgiveness, total forgiveness. That means releasing the offender into God’s hands and praying for their blessing. Not after they repent, but before. That kind of forgiveness is not weakness. It is the strength of Jesus living in us.

Joseph looked at his brothers who betrayed him and said, “Ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good.” Cancel culture, like Salem, may intend evil, but God is sovereign even there. No accusation, no mob, no false charge can touch you unless He permits it. And if He permits it, He has already woven grace into the trial.

We may never face gallows or global scandals, but we all know what it feels like to be misrepresented, gossiped about, or judged unfairly. Sometimes the worst “witch trials” happen at the office, around the dinner table, or even in church.

So what should we do?

And smile a little too. In Salem, people claimed they saw the spirits of witches pinching them at night. Today, people say they “saw” something in your tweet that you never intended. Human nature has not changed significantly.

The Salem trials eventually ended. Leaders confessed their error. But some victims waited centuries for their names to be cleared. Shame once unleashed does not easily return to its cage.

Cancel culture is Salem in digital form, the same frenzy and the same destruction. It will not end until people rediscover what Salem forgot: that accusation without grace is not justice but bondage.

But here is the gospel. Where the mob cancels, Jesus restores. Where the accuser points to guilt, the Advocate points to the cross. Where bitterness poisons, forgiveness heals.

And when the world sees believers forgive, not after an apology but before, they will see a love that Salem never saw and cancel culture cannot comprehend. They will see Jesus.