In 1972, a year after I became a Christian, The Doobie Brothers’ version of “Jesus Is Just Alright” was released. Well yes, he is alright – and much, much more of course. When presented and understood properly and biblically, he is the greatest person to have ever walked the earth. Indeed, he was God the Son visiting this planet.
But sadly Jesus is often NOT represented accurately. We expect non-Christians to misrepresent him and make him in their own image. But it gets worse when Christians do this as well. The “progressive” arm of Christianity, the religious left, has for a while now been in the business of presenting us with a woke Jesus.
One of the authors and books I mentioned in that latter piece is Lucas Miles and his 2021 volume, The Christian Left: How Liberal Thought Has Hijacked the Church (BroadStreet). Well, he now has a new book out, looking further at these matters. I refer to Woke Jesus: The False Messiah Destroying Christianity (Humanix, 2023).
Let me spend a bit of time discussing this book and quoting from it. And I begin by restating something that always needs to be said: Christianity ultimately transcends mere party politics. But it is also true to say that some political, economic, social and ideological positions are further away from biblical teachings than others. And when radical left and socialist gospels ends up replacing the biblical gospel, then it needs to be called out.
There have long been attacks on Christ and Christianity, on the gospel message and Scripture. So modern religious leftism is not new, but it is new in the sense of adapting and adopting more recent leftist ideology and radicalism. In his opening chapter Miles says this:
Woke Christianity, also known as “Conscious Christianity,” is broad-stroke terminology describing Christians who are intentionally conscious of oppression, racism, and injustice. Author and pastor Eric Mason says the term implies “being socially aware of issues that have systemic impact.” Often compared to the wise virgins in Matthew 25, Woke individuals strive to stay “awake” to issues of social justice while waiting for the Bridegroom to return. Consequently, the term “Woke Christians” describes believers who subscribe, whether knowingly or unknowingly, to the alternative Gospels of Critical Theory, including Critical Race Theory (CRT) and its pseudo-Christian counterpart, Liberation Theology.
Like all heresy, Woke Christianity is rooted in an element of truth (as in God’s opposition to injustice), but it encapsulates this truth with a convincing web of anti-biblical ideology and extremism. As such, scripture is either downgraded, stripped of its authority, or frequently ignored, as personal experience, like suffering or oppression, and personal enlightenment take center stage in crafting Woke theology. (p. 2)
Woke Jesus: The False Messiah Destroying Christianityby Miles, Lucas (Author)
He looks at various issues such as race, sexuality, and concepts of justice, showing how the progressive gospel is just a religious version of secular leftism. The “morality” of the Christian left is often indistinguishable from the “morality” of the secular left; abortion on demand, the sexual revolution (including all things homosexual and transgender), and moral relativism.
It is “a new fabricated morality, built around political correctness, cancel culture, hedonistic values, obsession with public health, allegiance to the Leftist state, universalism, and virtue signaling.” (xiii) As such it is just more of the failed and destructive radicalism we have seen for so many decades now.
And Woke Christianity is especially enamoured with secular Critical Race Theory (CRT). Says Miles:
Critical Race Theory is built upon a foundation of atheistic materialism, a godless ideology, completely opposed to Christianity, which holds that time, matter, and human experience form the sum total of existence. Furthermore, Christianity affirms objective, universal truth. CRT promotes varying moral standards based on the color of a person’s skin, instead of God’s righteous judgment. This epistemological difference is rejected outright in Proverbs 20:10 (NIV), “Differing weights and measures – the Lord detests them both.” (pp. 62-63)
Miles reminds us that while the gospel message teaches that we are all sinners in need of salvation, CRT argues that some people are more sinful than others (whites) and that preferential treatment must be given to non-whites. Indeed, whites are seen as having greater guilt than non-whites, and societies, law and cultures must be remade to reflect those claims.
It is hard to see how Paul’s insistence that in Christ there is ‘neither Jew nor gentile, male nor female, slave nor free…’ (Galatians 3:28) can be applied here, when instead of emphasising one common race (we are all sinners in Adam, we are all made alive for those who are in Christ ), we have a new racism being promoted, with some races being seen as superior to others.
Consider also the role of the believer in relation to the State. Recall during the Covid lockdowns and mandates, it was usually the religious left that insisted that Christians should happily go along with all the Big Brother dictates, including the closure of churches.
Those who were willing to face jail time because they knew the worship of the living God was not some take-it-or-leave-it activity were those on the conservative side of the spectrum. They knew that when crunch time arrives, we are to obey God rather than man. Writes Miles:
“Yet, when it comes to the Christian Left, they not only recommend not fleeing from the abuse of the State, but that as Christians, we should see such instances of force, from shutting down churches, to masking our children in schools, to calls for forced vaccinations, as direct expressions of our duty to Christ that demand our full submission.” (p. 89)
He goes on to make these comments about how we are to understand Romans 13:
In this passage, Paul makes it clear that true authorities, established by God, are in place in order to punish wrongdoers and protect God’s people, as well as all citizens who submit themselves to their benevolent leadership. This passage is not describing unjust leaders, tyrants, or dictators, who applaud rioters and worship criminals, while punishing the common man. Such a government or leader has fallen from the position which God has established, becoming a terror against those who do right, and an ally for those who do wrong.
Romans 13 can’t possibly apply to a truly totalitarian regime, because such a regime not only ignores God but seeks to take His place. As such, Romans 13 isn’t about unquestioned obedience to the State; rather it’s about recognizing the role one plays within the context of an ordered world in a civilised society. (pp. 89-90)
Toward the end of the book Miles speaks of how appealing Woke Christianity can be to so many:
Wokeism … is appealing, especially to Millennials and Gen Zs, because an allegiance to it appears to be accomplishing something or participating in a real way towards solving problems. Protests, boycotts, and even looting and rioting, are upheld by many to be viable methods of driving social change and are attractive to those with a bent toward activism. Rarely, though, are Woke actions considered in light of the scriptures. As long as biblically sounding generic terminology can define and justify each action (e.g., “ love” and “justice”), then hardly ever are Woke behaviors held accountable to any sort of genuine Christian standard. If they were, then we would quickly see that Wokeism has only led to increased racial tension, unbalanced scales of mob justice, sexual libertinism, and a complete lack of personal responsibility. None of those traits aligns with the biblical ideology and none will ever help contribute to a more just society. In the end, Wokeism only promotes evil and injustice, but what else should we expect from an ideology that has its roots in one of the most heartless and malevolent movements to ever befall of the Western world? (p. 168)
He concludes by saying that the Woke left are into playing the “long game.” They know it will take time to radically reshape society in their own image. Christians too need to be in it for the long haul. He offers five practical ways we can get involved – just the bullet points of which I will offer here:
-Don’t attend a Woke Church.
-Know what your child is being taught in school.
-Support a conservative candidate, or run for office.
-Serve in a helps ministry.
-Plant yourself in a local church.
As I mentioned above, many good books now exist that warn of the dangers of this recent assault on the faith. This volume is one of the newer ones, and one of the better ones.
Postscript
If you prefer watching videos to reading articles, the ever funny and reliable satire site Babylon Bee has this hilarious 6-minute video on the Woke Jesus. It pretty well sums things up in a nutshell: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyXLLF-L8_0
