Accepting the Cannibal?

“The will of God is not something you add to your life. It’s a course you choose. You either line yourself up with the Word of God or you capitulate to the principle that governs the rest of the world.”
Elisabeth Elliot

“In our time, tolerance has become the substitute for truth.”
Richard John Neuhaus

“We must not think of the Lord Jesus as only one who blesses the meek and comforts the poor, but also as one who demands obedience and takes it for granted that He has a right to command.”
A. W. Tozer

“By our acceptance of tolerance as the supreme virtue, we have neutered truth.”
Os Guinness

“The depravity of man is at once the most empirically verifiable reality but at the same time the most intellectually resisted fact.”
Malcolm Muggeridge

“The world has lost the power to blush over its vice; the Church has lost her power to weep over it.”
Leonard Ravenhill

There is a kind of self-help gospel that makes its rounds these days, dripping in sincerity and soft tones, proclaiming that the deepest need of the human soul is to be accepted, just as it is. The highest moral virtue, it says, is to affirm others exactly where they are. To question the validity of someone’s journey is tantamount to cruelty. To ask for repentance or accountability? Legalism. Narrow-mindedness. Harmful, even. But let us test the fruit of that logic. What if someone’s journey takes them into abuse? Or bitterness? Or thievery? Or cowardice? What if, to put it absurdly and yet sharply, someone has discovered themselves to be a cannibal? Must we accept that too? The question may seem ridiculous, but its clarity helps pierce the fog. When the ethic of “accept me as I am” is left unchallenged, it demands affirmation of the self even when that self is in rebellion against God. And Christianity, which never flatters the flesh, will not comply. It offers no blanket endorsement of human nature, no gold star for self-expression. It offers something infinitely better: a cross.

The Gospel Is Not an Endorsement Letter
The trouble with the modern catechism of acceptance is that it quietly erases the very categories by which the Gospel makes sense. If there is nothing wrong with who I am, why would I need to repent? If all roads of self-expression lead to wholeness, why does Scripture speak of putting the flesh to death (Galatians 5:24; Romans 8:13)? If change itself is the highest good, then even apostasy can be reframed as courage. But Scripture will not play along. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9, ESV). Not misguided. Not unwell. Not merely wounded by others. Desperately sick. Which means our greatest need is not validation, it is rescue. Christianity is not a cosmic pat on the head. It is not a sentimental endorsement of self. It begins with something far more unsettling: the confession that we are not okay. That something in us is bent, broken, spiritually dead. And until we name that honestly, we are not candidates for healing. “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:17, ESV). The Gospel cannot reach those who demand to be affirmed as they are. It reaches only those willing to be told the truth—and undone by it.

From Acceptance to Transformation
Romans 12:2 does not tell us to accept ourselves more deeply. It tells us to be changed. “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind...” (ESV). The Christian life is not about finding your truth. It is about dying to self and being raised to new life in Christ. Modern psychology, in its most pop-culture form, treats the self as a holy relic. It must not be questioned. It must only be explored, honored, and expressed. But Scripture treats the self as a battlefield—something to be examined, disciplined, repented of, and sanctified. Not dismissed, not despised, but neither enthroned. The call of Christ is not “be more you.” It is “Follow Me.” And sometimes following Him means leaving behind parts of ourselves we thought were essential. Sometimes it means the painful death of old desires, old patterns, old pride. It always means the refusal to make peace with sin, no matter how cleverly it disguises itself as authenticity. “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry” (Colossians 3:5, ESV). Much of what passes for Christian counseling today is not Christian in its foundation. It is psychology with a Bible verse taped to the top. It borrows the vocabulary of Scripture but redefines the terms, love becomes affirmation, grace becomes permissiveness, and the highest relational ethic becomes non-confrontation. And so, in counseling offices across the country, the false choice is quietly installed: either you love someone, or you hold them accountable, but not both. If you confront, you are harsh. If you call sin what it is, you lack compassion. If you question someone’s “growth,” you are controlling or unsafe. This is where the Gospel must reassert itself. Love is not silence. Grace is not the absence of truth. And Christ Himself never once offered someone unconditional acceptance apart from repentance. He welcomed sinners, yes (Luke 15:1–2). But He never affirmed sin (John 5:14; John 8:10–11). He ate with tax collectors and sinners, but not to validate their identities. That table was not a reward for self-actualization. It was an altar of transformation. He came “to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10). His call was always the same: “Follow Me” (Matthew 9:9). Christ’s hospitality was not an open-armed shrug at sin. It was a merciful summons out of darkness and into light (John 8:12). “You are my friends if you do what I command you” (John 15:14). And no, not even Christian counselors, well-meaning as many are, get to redefine Christ’s terms. When we absorb secular psychology uncritically into Christian counseling, we end up with a domesticated Gospel. A therapeutic gospel. One that assures the cannibal he is just misunderstood and tells the wounded spouse to “do their own work on acceptance.” One that calls sin “trauma,” and rebellion “self-expression,” and discipleship “codependency.” But true Christian counsel always leads to the foot of the cross. Not to the therapist’s couch of self-justification. Not to the altar of self-love. To the place where we are seen clearly—and called higher.

The Lie of “They Could Not Accept Me”
A common refrain is heard in modern testimony: “They could not accept me as I am.” But the question must be asked: should they have? Should someone accept a partner who has grown proud, cold, or adulterous? Should a church embrace a teacher who has softened their convictions in the name of cultural relevance? Should we accept a loved one’s path if it leads them away from the cross? Acceptance, when divorced from righteousness, becomes something sinister. It becomes license. It says, “You may go your own way, and I will not hinder you.” But love never says that. Not real love. Real love intervenes. It warns. It weeps. It pleads. It clings to truth, even when truth is unwelcome. “Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth” (1 Corinthians 13:6, ESV). Love is not blind tolerance. It is fierce allegiance to the good. To the holy. To the call of Christ, no matter how unpopular that call may become.

The Accountability of the Cross
Accountability is a word that makes people squirm. It implies standards. It implies consequences. It implies judgment. But Christianity is not allergic to judgment, it simply insists that judgment belongs to God. That He alone sets the standard, and that all men are accountable to Him. “So then each of us will give an account of himself to God” (Romans 14:12, ESV). “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due...” (2 Corinthians 5:10, ESV). Accountability is not cruelty. It is clarity. It is the sober reminder that we are not our own. That we were bought with a price. That to follow Christ means being held to His Word, not to our own feelings. In that light, accountability becomes not a burden, but a mercy. It is the mercy of being corrected before destruction comes. The mercy of being called to repentance before judgment falls. The mercy of not being left to our own devices. There is no love in turning a blind eye to sin. There is no compassion in confirming someone’s delusion. The most unloving thing we can do is to nod along while someone walks straight toward the cliff’s edge.

Would You Accept the Cannibal?
Let the question remain in the air a little longer. If a person says they have changed, radically, dramatically, and now demand to be received on new terms, what is the Christian response? Would you accept the cannibal? Or perhaps less dramatically, the adulterer? The unrepentant liar? The professing Christian who now believes sin is virtue and virtue is sin? Acceptance is not the same as love. Affirmation is not the same as grace. Jesus does not accept sinners as they are, He receives them when they repent. The distinction matters. “Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out...” (Acts 3:19, ESV). “No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish” (Luke 13:3, ESV). God’s forgiveness is lavish, but it is never automatic. It is never offered without repentance. He does not wink at our rebellion and call it personality. He does not affirm our sin because it feels like growth. He says, “Come to Me.” But He never promises to leave us unchanged.

The Kindness of Not Accepting
There is, ironically, a deep kindness in refusing to accept someone’s sin. A kind of holy defiance that loves too much to go along with the story they are telling themselves. It is not judgmental to withhold endorsement. It is not harsh to say, “This is not who you were created to be.” That kind of refusal is not rejection, it is invitation. An invitation to return. To repent. To be made whole again. And that door is always open. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9, ESV). The cleansing is real. The washing is complete. But it is not offered to those who demand acceptance. It is offered to those who bow the knee and confess.

A Church Without Discernment Becomes a Cult of Self
The tragedy of many modern churches is that they have absorbed the world’s definition of love. They believe the highest calling is to make everyone feel welcome, comfortable, safe. But holiness was never safe. And comfort has never been the goal. The church is not called to be a mirror reflecting the culture. It is called to be a lamp, holding out truth in a dark age. A light that exposes. That purifies. That heals. “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden” (Matthew 5:14, ESV). But it cannot do so if it has been muzzled by the idol of acceptance. It cannot bear witness to the Gospel if it has been reduced to a support group for personal validation. To follow Christ is to be at odds with the spirit of the age. And the spirit of this age is allergic to accountability. Let the church be different.

To the One Who Has Changed
Perhaps this is you. Perhaps you have changed. You feel you have outgrown your past, awakened to some new truth, discovered a side of yourself that had long been dormant. And now you wish to be accepted as you are. But ask yourself this: has the change brought you closer to Christ or farther away? Has it led you into deeper humility, or deeper pride? Deeper obedience, or greater compromise? Does it bear the fruit of the Spirit or the fruit of self? “By their fruits you will recognize them” (Matthew 7:20, ESV). “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves” (2 Corinthians 13:5, ESV). Change is not always good. Sometimes it is a slide into darkness disguised as liberation. Sometimes it is not growth at all, but drift. But there is still time to return. Not to who you used to be. Not to the image you once projected. But to the One who sees all, knows all, and still offers mercy. Not acceptance. But redemption.

Dear reader, this is the scandal of the Gospel. It does not meet us halfway. It meets us in our grave. And it raises us to life. But only when we stop trying to be accepted as we are. The Christian life is not about defending your identity. It is about surrendering it. It is not about demanding others affirm your change. It is about asking God to change you again—this time, into the likeness of His Son. So no, I will not accept the cannibal. I will not accept the unfaithful, the cruel, the defiant, if by “accept” we mean approve, affirm, or enable. But I will walk beside the penitent. I will bind up wounds. I will speak truth with gentleness. I will hold the line with love. Because that line is not a weapon. It is a lifeline. And some will only grab it when the applause finally stops.