Anti-woke is Anti-Jesus

I know this is a bold and controversial statement to make, but after years of seeing the religious right use Christianity as an excuse to spew hate, bigotry, racism and more, I feel I need to speak out. 

My Religious Past

I’m not a pastor or a theologist.  I’m just a practicing Christian who is very active in my Presbyterian congregation. I’m an Elder and I serve on Session and committees. My religious journey has been long and fraught with much introspection and education.  I was raised Catholic. As a child and teen I attended Sunday school, went to church camp, attended church regularly and went through catechism.  As an adult I have tried a number of different congregations and found my current one about 7 years ago.

What drew me to my congregation was the Pastor and the people.  He would read the scripture and then begin to apply it to our life today.  He included the disenfranchised, people of color, immigrants, LGBTQ and other marginalized groups in our Joys and Concerns prayer time.  Every week I left wondering how I could be a better person.  How I could help other as Jesus taught us.  How I could be the hands of Jesus in this modern society.  I never left angry, or with hatred or bigotry in my heart.  I never left thinking I had to vote a certain way. He never brought politics into his sermons but instead inspired us to be vessels of God and make the world a better place for everyone. I left inspired.

My Challenge

During Trump’s first term, I found myself shying away from being public about my religion.  I saw the religious right twisting Christianity into something I didn’t recognize. I saw people equating Christianity with the conservative agenda because a very vocal minority were spewing hatred, racism and bigotry.  I felt embarrassed.  I felt confused because I didn’t see how a Christian could back such an un-Christian like agenda or person.  Trump’s past was littered with un-Christian like behavior.  The affairs, the way he talked about and treated women, the hatred, the name calling, the incessant lying, the vicious attacks on people, his calling meixican immigrants all criminals, rapists and murders and so much more.  And he never once repented for any of it.  He doubled down on all of it over and over and over again   His agenda spelled it all out for everyone to see. I had never seen any public figure who personified the antithesis of the teachings of Jesus as Trump.  And then to see Christians embracing someone like that?  Saying he was chosen by God? To have blind faith and to be adamantly supporting him? It was inconceivable and it was scary.

So, sadly, I pulled back and didn’t talk about my religion.  I didn’t push back when people associated all Christians with the religious right. I didn’t push back against the anti-woke crowds as a Christian, only as a person.  Like Peter, I was denying my faith, and I am ashamed by my actions.  Like I wrote in my article I Am a Racist, I was being complicit in the religious right taking over my religion because I didn’t speak out or stand up to emphatically say “NO, this isn’t ALL Christians!”.  

Last year I made the decision to start speaking out.  When someone would post or say something implying all Christians felt a certain way, I wouldn’t let it slide. I started speaking MY faith and that it’s not all Christians, but a vocal minority called the religious 4ight they don't speak for me and they don't represent the Christianity that I practice.  And in doing so I felt truer to my faith than ever.  THAT is why I wrote this post.

What is Woke?

That brings us to today.  There is a outright attack against anything “woke”.  The government is literally being dismantled to remove anything woke from websites, documents and actions.  Here is a list of the words they are removing that define woke to them. The GOP has made destroy anything “woke” a top priority.  The MAGA crowds are saying we must NOT be “woke”.   And frankly I just couldn't understand how anyone who is a Christian would be against anything “woke”.  Did I somehow misunderstand what “woke” is?  So I looked it up and found Websters defined it as:

Woke - adjective

chiefly US slang

1: aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues especially of racial and social injustice

That’s how I have always perceived the definition as well.

So I started asking people who were anti-woke what THEIR definition of woke was. Why was woke such a terrible thing?  What specific aspects of being woke were they objecting to? I have yet to get a specific definition from anyone.

What does Jesus teach us?

Using the definition, I started looking to the bible to see what Jesus taught us.  Was Jesus anti-woke like the very loud religious right Christian faction suggested?  To me, the answer was clear. If Jesus were in America today, he would absolutely be considered woke. 

How do I support that? It’s pretty easy.  Last year my congregation became a Matthew 25 Initiative church.  The Presbyterian church defines it as:

Rooted in Jesus’ teachings in Matthew 25:31-46, this movement invites churches to engage in three core pillars: building congregational vitality, dismantling structural racism, and eradicating systemic poverty.  

Well, that sounds pretty woke to me. 

And then there’s Matthew 25:31-46, The Goats and Sheep, which is what the initiative is based on.  It's where, at judgement day, Jesus separates people into Goats and Sheep.  He then tells the Goats that they didn’t cloth, feed, visit him in prison or help him when he was in need.  They replied incredulously that they had never denied him any of those things.  He replies ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me’.  

Yep, definitely woke.

And the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:25-37 .  Here Jesus defines the meaning of “Love thy neighbor” by telling a parable of how a Priest and a Levite saw and walked by a man in need, but a Samaritan stopped and helped him.and he asked “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?". 

Again, decidedly woke.

Here's one that I think is extremely relevant today.  The Golden Rule, Luke 6:31.  Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  Wow… I don’t know of anyone who would want to be treated the way the right is treating the disenfranchised and marginalized groups.  I read this to mean we should treat everyone with kindness, dignity, equality and respect regardless of their gender, sexuality, color of their skin, status of their immigration, religious beliefs or anything else.  We are ALL God's creatures made in God's image.

Undeniably a very woke concept.

And let’s take a quick look at all the billionaires now in charge of our government, including the richest man on the planet.  How does Jesus talk about them? Luke 12:13-21 is the parable of the Rich Fool, where Jesus warns those who hoard wealth.  I think anyone would agree that he was talking about people who hoard billions of dollars, and in at least one case hundreds of billions of dollars. 

Would Jesus, as shown us in the bible, be woke if he were here today?

So, getting back to my original statement, there are a myriad of passages in the bible that show Jesus as being and as teaching us to be woke.  I welcome anyone to post the right’s definition of woke along with their explanation of how Jesus would support that definition. 

I will leave you with one last thing.  If there was a person of color that was an immigrant who associated with prostitutes and sinners, preached about the social issues and injustice, was gaining a gathering of followers and protesting the current administrations anti-woke actions, how would he be treated?  Well, we have only to look at the case of Mahmoud Khalil, a LEGAL green card holder who was involved in campus protests at Columbia University last year against the treatment of Palestinians in Gaza. Last week he was arrested by ICE with the intent to deport him immediately, leaving his 8 month pregnant wife, an American citizen, without her husband and their child without a father. There are many more examples since Trump took office of ICE abusing their power and detaining people for days or weeks, deporting, or refusing entry to people who have a legitimate right to be here or enter the country, just because their views are not flattering of the Administration.

I believe that if Jesus were in America today, he would be imprisoned in an El Salvador prison, deported or sent to Guantanamo Bay.

So, is anti-woke really anti-Jesus?  I say unequivocally YES!