Jesus Was Not Woke

In the current cultural moment, “woke” has become the term du jour to signal one’s adherence to and promotion of a progressive socio-political agenda. One’s wokeness signifies the degree of their agreement with ideological notions such as multiculturalism, feminism, redistribution of wealth, racial equity and abortion rights, often typified in antagonism towards what is perceived to be the opposing forces of white privilege, patriarchy, capitalism, the pro-life movement and patriotism. It has become the new face of political correctness, much of it without the pretense of social decorum.

As they are so wont to do, the Evangelical and Mainline strains of progressive wokeness have attempted to claim that, as our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is Himself the epitome of love for the poor and compassion for the downtrodden, He is clearly the most representative example of wokeness humanity possesses. In their minds, to be Christlike and godly is to be woke.

Without jumping too quickly to the real meat of this blog, I would like to point out first that part and parcel of this leftist social agenda is the conceit that to disagree with their policies and methods is to disagree with the need for a solution entirely. By way of example, many progressives seem to believe that a disagreement with the already-bloated and ever-expanding welfare state as the best solution to urban poverty must mean that their opponent can only be either a racist or, at best, completely indifferent and uncaring to the plight of the poor. Intellectually honest and objective considerations of the discussion would lead a person to a different conclusion, but when good intentions and intensity of feeling carry more weight than facts, data, and history, jumping right to ad hominem seems to be a favored response for many in the face of challenge.

Put simply, disagreeing with one method of addressing a particular problem does not mean that you disagree that there is a problem. Wokeness is not the only moral option. There are many ways to skin a cat, as they say (but being woke most likely requires some measure of advocacy for animals rights, as well, so perhaps I chose an unwelcome metaphor).

With that said, I’d like to analyze just how woke Christ was not.

Oh yes, He cared for the poor and downtrodden. But He cared for them as individuals in need of solutions to their individual problems, not as avatars of whatever identity group they happened to belong to. As humans, we possess the universal need for a savior. All have sinned. But our individual circumstances, lifestyles, and problems are unique. So, Christ stands as both the mediator of all repentant people and the Lord of our individual lives.

We are more than the color of our skin, the land of our heritage, or our gender. Those things are certainly parts of each of us, but they do not completely define us. So, Christ’s interaction with the Samaritan woman at the well was different than that of His interaction with Mary and Martha or the woman caught in adultery. They were all female, but they were all more than merely female.

We are more than the sum of our modern socio-political categories. No one knows that more than Jesus.

Furthermore, Christ was not the advocate of this or that political party or ideology. He was neither Republican nor Democrat, liberal nor conservative, libertarian nor socialist. He was not Labour, Constitutionalist, Green, or Freedom. He did not stand for any particular political agenda.

What He is interested in, what He did advocate for, and what He is all about is truth. He identified Himself as the very embodiment of truth itself (John 14:6) and stands opposed to any and all things that are not true (John 8:44), regardless of the claims of this or that political entity. The point, then, is to get on His team, not to co-opt Him onto ours.

But wokeness has shown itself to be less concerned with truth than it is with narrative, intention, and in the higher positions, power. The ideologies and positions it represents are utopian in their vision and built with the nuts and bolts of humanism. Wokeness seeks to build on earth a heaven made in its own image.

To contrast, I would like to point to several passages that reveal Jesus’ ministry to be decidedly un-woke, while nevertheless maintaining His commitment to love, longsuffering, compassion and truth. I believe the passages speak more than loudly enough for themselves; I will instead simply categorize them according to the dimensions of anti-wokeness they represent:

Toxic masculinity:

The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple He found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. And making a whip of cords, He drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And He poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. And He told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father's house a house of trade.” His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” – John 2:13-17

Religious exclusivity:

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” – John 14:6

Cultural superiority:

The woman said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship Him. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” – John 4:19-24

Right to self-defense:

And He said to them, “When I sent you out with no moneybag or knapsack or sandals, did you lack anything?” They said, “Nothing.” He said to them, “But now let the one who has a moneybag take it, and likewise a knapsack. And let the one who has no sword sell his cloak and buy one.” – Luke 22:35-36

Traditional family values (marital fidelity; gender binary; heterosexuality):

And Jesus said to them… “But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”

[T]he disciples asked Him again about this matter. And He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.” – Mark 10:6-12

Rejection of victim identity:

There were some present at that very time who told Him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And He answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”- Luke 13:1-5

Say what you will about Christ and His care and concern for the marginalized elements of humanity, but it is impossible to identify Him as “woke”. He simply will not properly fit the category. All of His love, all of His justice, and His entire ministry are anchored in the truth of who He is, who human beings are, and how the world actually works. This in no way means that He does not care. It simply means that He cares without forsaking His commitment to truth (Ephesians 4:15). It does not mean that He looks past the pain and problems people experience, but that His solutions are the things that will actually help them and are not meant to earn Him easy moral clout or cultural applause (Matthew 6:1-4). It does not mean that He is unwilling to meet people right where they are, but that His help does not altogether rid people of responsibility (“Go and sin no more,” He told the woman caught in adultery after declaring that He had forgiven her.)

Christ’s instructions, lessons, commands and teachings contain direction for everyone, regardless of what part of the political spectrum they happen to land on. (The same can be said for the Apostles in the rest of the New Testament.) What Christ and the Bible do not abide, however, is humanistic thinking. The notion that it is up to us to fix our own problems and that we have the capacity and capability to do so is decidedly anti-Christian. And wokeness is simply one of the latest in a long line of ideologies aimed at fixing the world according to how a particular segment of political thought thinks it should be fixed.

The problem here is that God is love (I John 4:8), and what that means is that God determines what love looks like and how it operates. So, all of our best and most well-intentioned attempts to deploy compassion through policy and legislation are destined to be counterproductive failures if they contradict what He has said. The proper solutions are His, not ours.

So let us love each other as Christ demonstrated: as individual people, deserving of more attention and respect than what the cultural Marxists and political operators decide accrue to us according to the mere characteristics of our ethnicity, gender, or economic status. Let us allow our political positions to exist in subservience to the tenants of our faith and not allow our faith to be molded and shaped by our politics. Let us have the courage to turn from worldly systems of thought and value and the acceptance and commendations of a culture which seems to be less and less interested in the things of God every passing day. Let us realize that all of our best intentions and purest motivations must be informed and anchored in truth for them to be effective, truly good, and glorifying to God.

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Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth – I John 3:18

If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. – James 2:8-9

You shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor. – Leviticus 19:15

Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment. – John 7:24