Christians awake; Christians awoke (2)

Two years ago, I published an article titled “Christians awake; Christians awoke”. Since the issue has NOT gone away and has become even more evident of late, I wish now to publish a sequel.

I began my article two years back: “I want to talk about two trends I see influencing the professing church (including many who are part of the real Church, i.e. true followers of Jesus): Christian (lack of) awakism and Christian awokism. Some of what I share may appear confrontational, but my main intentions are conciliatory and to get people thinking”. My observation and intention remain.

Before I get going on this update, it is well to get definitions out of the way first. When I googled the term “woke”, one recurring definition was “aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues”, which I felt was soft but fair, something on the face of it that is mostly desirable, noting the use of the term and Christians becoming more woke is a relatively recent phenomenon. Awake in the literal sense is more straightforward; it is to stop sleeping, but is used by conspiracy theorist types to categorise those who dispute the explanation of what is going on in the world given by most in the Unholy Trinity that comprises media, politicians and societal elites. My argument is while it is good to be woke with respect to the above definition, the wokeism often on display among Christians takes this to the point of obsession and imbalance. As for being awake, it is not possible to be fully cognisant with all what is going on around us, whoever we are, but we should question what we are told and do our own research, remembering the call of Jesus to watch and pray and not to fall into deception.

Like all earnest Christians, I am on a journey. While never ultra woke or anti-woke, I have oscillated between the two extremes and, having seen what I have seen, I tend nowadays to operate in anti-woke mode with caveats. As for my journey, my early Christian upbringing could be described as anti-woke. I recall a shock to the system in my student days attending a meeting of young people in my church set-up, where the consensus among the attendees was tolerance was an important virtue. Thirty years on and I embarked on my third career as a community worker, I was indoctrinated and enlightened at the same time to believing inclusion and diversity were important and began to take an interest in addressing the six equality strands: Race, Religion, Age, Gender, Disability and Sexual Orientation. While never sold on climate change, I came to see issues such as immigration, racism and (younameit)phobia to be important. Yet I have also seen Christians lose their nerve. When one Christian leader shared with me that a group who had been using his church premises had decided to stop doing so because of the church’s stance on transgenderism, I congratulated him for, unlike senior CofE clergy in this “His Homosexual Marriage Speech SHOCKED the UK, then THIS Happens” video, it had chosen to stick to biblical principles rather take the woke route of appeasement, which sadly many church set-ups have done. 

As for being awake or unawake, in recent years I have become much more awake than previously and to a point that my earlier obsession and imbalance criticism levelled against those I saw as being in the strongly woke camp is one that can also be levelled against me. As with so much in life, it is a matter of pursuing truth and maintaining balance, that is if we are serious about doing God’s will. I suppose, I have always been one not to go with the flow and is why my own journey has sometimes been painful as those I might have expected more from have chosen to misunderstand and reject me (God’s problem incidentally) because of my views and the positions I take. In more recent years, my view of the world has radically changed, e.g. US (and other) election steals, the War in Ukraine and the Corona pan / plan / scamdemic along with the poisonous shot are three issues where I reject the official narrative and the views of many of my peers. I really do believe there is an evil cabal trying to bring in their anything but good ideas of the Great Reset, and we the people are being fed lies. For that reason, whatever the news stories, I tend to evaluate what is going on cautiously, with all this in mind.

Where this leaves us and is the counsel I end with, is while social justice does matter, the pendulum has swung too far to woke as opposed to not woke, evidenced by the curtailment on free speech if disapproved by the woke brigade or getting offended if their views are challenged or their heroes are called out as anything but. As for awake and non-awake, I fear many of my Christian brethren are a lot less awake than they should. I don’t expect them to have done all the checking out I have. Nor do I expect them to share my views on what is going on in the world but I do expect a degree of integrity and wisdom not to be taken in by the lies of those who don’t fear God.  After all, the Almighty has not called His followers to understand all what is going on behind the scenes and often it is ok to agree to disagree, although He does call us to follow the two Great commands and all that entails. Sadly, polarisation among Christians today is as great as ever I have known it and is the main reason why I have written in the forthright way I have. Of course, we must not compromise on truth matters and neither will we agree if fools and villains claim superiority when it comes to them being beholden to truth. Nor must be brow beaten or guilt laden into doing what the leaders of woke say we should. Our assignment is to continue as His unprofitable servants, doing whatever it is He has called us to do as best we can, with His help, loving God and our neighbor.

Edit 18/03/23: A friend commenting on this post helpfully said: “understand your frustration John, A post I put out once to another frustrated brother was. I get to know what God wants me to know when I need to know it. A verse also assists me All things work for good for those who love God according to His purposes! Love you Brother ❤️ hang in there!” I think it is important we do just that … hang in there I mean and at the same time encourage others to do so. Seeing scum in high positions get away with nefarious activities and lauded by the very Christian leaders we look up to who at the same time patronise and demonise the good guys or at least them who have the bottle to stand up to the scum is depressing and often my wish is to give up and exit from this life. But we are in a war and the good news is that God wins and he too is telling us to hang in there. Not that I need it, but I have just been watching another video by way of a break from preparing my next installment in my Priests of the Bible series. It is titled: “SECRETS OF THE UNITED NATIONS – What everyone should know!”. Having watched it and as for awake and awoke, other than needing to get even closer to God, I feel it merely confirms I am thinking on the right lines. I shared this video with some friends also waking up (sadly many aren’t) along with the comment: “just come across and am now watching this powerful video that provides important pointers to the answer to the million dollar question: “what is really going on in today’s world gone crazy“?” So once again …