Woke

When I served as a college missionary in East Malaysia, those I sought to reach were not my enemies. To the contrary, they were people for whom Jesus died and who deserved to know the One I knew. I was simply a beggar helping other beggars find bread.

In the same way, in cultural conflicts, our opponents are not our enemies. Satan is the enemy; those who reject biblical truth are his victims. This is why “speaking the truth in love” should be our daily aspiration and mantra (Ephesians 4:15). Rather than fighting our opponents as cultural warriors, we should love them as cultural missionaries sharing God’s word and grace in the place and time he has assigned to us.

An Indiana pastor is challenging ministers across the nation to sign a pledge to combat wokeness.

Woke America hates the true God and hates this incredible nation that God established. This is why they're trying to shame us into silence by labeling us or by defining us according to skin color. We may be "woke," but we are worse off.

Christians and Jews believed that all persons were made in the image of God. Thus, every person had intrinsic worth and dignity, no matter their race, ethnicity, gender, or strength. On this basis, oppression of the poor and weak was condemned. Neither might nor wealth made right. Christianity further emphasized the spiritual and moral equality of all people. Not only do we all share the same humanity, but we all suffer from the same problem (sin) and are in need of the same solution (salvation through Jesus).

Skillet frontman John Cooper recently asserted that woke culture is at "war" with Christianity and that believers need the courage of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to stand up against it.

It's not by chance that God uses powerful words from the pulpits to spark change. The pulpit has always led the way, from promoting God-given freedoms when the nation was born to the abolition of slavery a century later and from turning the tide of liberalism to directing the nation back to God. We find ourselves at a similar crossroads today—will pastors wake up, repent, and turn back to God, or will they continue to be woke but asleep to the things of God?

Because of globalization and the internet, as well as the marching zeitgeist of postmodernism, words and their definitions have become more and more slippery. To help, we've compiled a list of crucial ideas that the Denison Forum frequently comments on, along with brief definitions (though their connotation may change in mere years), and biblical responses.

In the end, wokeness is built on a worldview without salvation and offers an eschatology with no real hope. Though the proclaimed goal is to end oppression, it’s what the late sociologist Philip Rieff called a “deathwork,” dedicated to tearing down things but unable to build, or offer, anything better.

In an impassioned address last week, Senator Ted Cruz called on the church to "wake up" in order to defeat the "woke assault" on conservatives in the United States.

Subjecting every discipline to woke racial ideology will only stifle true diversity, and buzzwords like “vibrant” and “new perspectives” can’t conceal that. Still, I guess students ought to study the new jargon well. It may be the only language they learn at Princeton.