The observation that the centuries long tradition of Christian critique of power seems to have ended with Trump rings very true, even if it bewilders me. It feels like not only have virtually all conservative Christians (which is most Christians these days) utterly given up on holding leaders “on their side” accountable, but are actively indulging their worst instincts. The complete abandonment of charity and open sadism toward the less fortunate is a particularly sad development to me. Before there was the excuse that you had to support the right as a Christian because they’re the pro-life and anti-gay side, but Trump’s current stances on those issues don’t even align with that, so it just seems motivated by their pure inexplicable love of him. Paul’s description of the man of lawlessness comes to mind.
Great article Matt! While I am certainly no Christian—nor ever will be—it was refreshing to see a spiritual intellectual veer away from the apologism that is pervasive in today’s culture and smack America in the face with some sound philosophy. The Big Hope (or Good News as you put it, despite referencing something else entirely) is that we in the West wake up (not “woke up”) and begin to strive again toward the underlying humanity which is at the heart of what you speak to here. Christian, Atheist or otherwise, at the end of the day we are all people and deserve to be treated as such. I hope we can get back to that someday…
I'm a Christian and I agree, sadly. I think that's why you start to see advocates for it such as Jordan Peterson who themselves aren't Christians but see it as culturally or politically "true." Many actual Christians are essentially no different in their view of what it is and what it's for.
Apparently there is increasing support for Putin too, a 'defender of christian values' by which they mean someone actively anti-gay and anti anything other than two genders. Is that what 'Cristianity' is reduced to? - very sad. I suspect there is more Christian about what 'woke' originally meant before the left overplayed CRT / DEI and the right (rather more effectively) weaponised the backlash against these things.
I do not usually comment, yet in this aspect I believe it's important to observe thoroughly the confluence of thought which build the American nation-state in particular, and the 'vulgar' Christianity which permeates it's culture.
My vantage point is not American. My cultural bias emanates from the European 'Christian Democracy' belief. So I, for example, would consider the GOP to be at odds with itself once taking stock of guys like Paul Ryan, and J.D. Vance. Their appeal is towards a 'vulgar' Christianity, whose appeal are binary points if law, which leads to the erroneous conclusion that Putin is 'more' Christian than the Pope.
Isn't the point of Christ, as with any serious philosophy, whether Confucius or Plato, matters of a personal consciousness, and it's effects on the polis? Christ in particular refrained from detailed instructions on a designed polis, yet it is clear that His philosophy is meant to dig the human conscience, from which a 'City of God' is residue. There is irony in those who speak of first things, yet respond only to last flings.
Well argued but a bit vague in application. To be a Christian is not an easy road, as Christ tried to teach us. The same Christ who taught us to turn the other cheek proclaimed that to reject him was to face eternity in hell. Granted, they did not just slap his face. They tore out his beard, beat him unmercifully, screamed to their Roman abusers to crucify him.
I don't understand where to draw the line. All of his disciples faced certain death rather than deny him, after having denied him and deserted him in his trial and execution, because they had seen him, eaten with him, and being taught by him after his resurrection. He even said that those, like myself, who believe in him without having seen him are more blessed than those disciples. So I am blessed even though I am not poor in spirit, nor meek, nor merciful, nor pure in heart, nor a peacemaker,
I demand my "God given" rights, and more. And in my almost eighty years I have abjectly failed to go into any of the world and preach the gospel, nor have I ever been willing to sell all I have and give it to the poor. I don't love my neighbors, nor the poor. I hate my enemies. I disdain most of my fellow Christians, and am quick to judge others. Yet I claim to be Christian.
I am not a literalist, but I believe that God created the universe and all living things. I don't believe he did so in 4004 BC nor in seven billion BC. I think that the big bang and evolution are as preposterous as Bishop Usher's dating of creation. Nor do I wish to speculate on the end times, though I believe that we and the rest of material existence will end and we will all face our Creator to answer for our behavior. And I believe that our creator has, from creation to whatever befalls, taken an active part in the outcome. I believe that human actions have rewards and consequences, both now and in eternity. I believe that God can and does reveal his will to us, but not directly and certainly not in all detail. We have the abilities necessary to receive his revelations, and the ability to accept, alter, or reject his will. We are personally responsible for any compliance or noncompliance and for any degree of understanding.
There's a question. Short and probably inadequate answer: Woke as a word has an origin in the black community as a positive term to remind them to stay awake to past and present oppression, and was coopted by particularly left wing political movements as a word that generally referred to performative moral policies and movements such as gender ideologies, and was then appropriated as a pejorative by the right as a way of mocking said movements. Hence the word is mildly contentious among some people, although a it has become a by-word to describe the recent brand of democrat politics with its DEI policies and all that stuff. Some people, for example among the black community, might be offended by its use in that way, so I generally use it with apostrophes.
It is mostly used by the right as a pejorative for anything they dont like since ~2017 -- find me anyone (other than myself) self identifying as woke.... and then find the whole cottage industry of heterodox grifters moaning about everything under the sun and calling it Woke
I think it may have some genuine use as a word for a kind of performative morality derived from things like group identity, but as you have pointed out I have generally come to find that use very muddied by people on the right using it to mean anyone or anything they don't like.
I think it's far too amorphous to have any content to it. And I think if we're in the business of clearly articulating values and aims that underpin political ideologies, something that has no content whatsoever isnt useful for that aim.
If you wanted to start a right wing podcast and sell supplements and science misinformation, then maybe saying it would be useful in order to identify you with the in-group though.
Phew … picking through that a bit is it the case that when you say hypocritical moral mess, you are talking about “performative moral policies and movements such as gender ideologies”?
tbh I don’t really understand “movements such as gender ideologies” but leaving that aside, is it your position that there is no value in performative moral policies ? and also out of interest how do these differ from just moral policies?
Specifically I'm talking about things like intersectionality and its cordoning of people by group identity on the basis of things like "privilege." By performative I mean that this makes its way into things like DEI policies that companies enact because it makes them look good but it does absolutely nothing to solve any problems. The fact that a) many of these companies were only doing it to please certain groups of people and b) that they don't work is kind of proved by how many companies are retracting them as soon as Trump has been reelected.
Ok yeah that sounds reasonable but is that the totality of “woke”? Are woke and identity politics completely synonymous? Are performative policies instituted by capitalists the only achievement of “woke” moralising?
I think as Nathan pointed out in the other comment, the word is becoming increasingly amorphous and you are naturally generalising. I would narrow it to intersectionality, identity politics and ideologies around sex and gender, all of which take dynamics from twentieth century left-wing thought, but honestly I wouldn't complain if the word as a catch-all was binned, I could probably be more specific when I use it.
Your hatred of Trump has driven you mad. You don’t even believe the Scriptures. Personally, I don’t understand it. Trump loves our country but is hated for it. I guess it shouldn’t surprise me, as half this country desires a fundamentally opposite path for the nation.
I find it humorous—the hatred from mainline Christianity, which is only Christian in name. It’s nothing more than social justice advocates clamoring for each person’s ‘truth’ because the truth itself is found to be offensive.
The observation that the centuries long tradition of Christian critique of power seems to have ended with Trump rings very true, even if it bewilders me. It feels like not only have virtually all conservative Christians (which is most Christians these days) utterly given up on holding leaders “on their side” accountable, but are actively indulging their worst instincts. The complete abandonment of charity and open sadism toward the less fortunate is a particularly sad development to me. Before there was the excuse that you had to support the right as a Christian because they’re the pro-life and anti-gay side, but Trump’s current stances on those issues don’t even align with that, so it just seems motivated by their pure inexplicable love of him. Paul’s description of the man of lawlessness comes to mind.
As an American, I have to let you know this is a wonderful read. Thanks for penning this and I’ll fwd this onto my friends.
Great article Matt! While I am certainly no Christian—nor ever will be—it was refreshing to see a spiritual intellectual veer away from the apologism that is pervasive in today’s culture and smack America in the face with some sound philosophy. The Big Hope (or Good News as you put it, despite referencing something else entirely) is that we in the West wake up (not “woke up”) and begin to strive again toward the underlying humanity which is at the heart of what you speak to here. Christian, Atheist or otherwise, at the end of the day we are all people and deserve to be treated as such. I hope we can get back to that someday…
This might be an unpopular opinion but it appears to me that Christianity has become less and less a religion and more of a social political position.
I'm a Christian and I agree, sadly. I think that's why you start to see advocates for it such as Jordan Peterson who themselves aren't Christians but see it as culturally or politically "true." Many actual Christians are essentially no different in their view of what it is and what it's for.
Apparently there is increasing support for Putin too, a 'defender of christian values' by which they mean someone actively anti-gay and anti anything other than two genders. Is that what 'Cristianity' is reduced to? - very sad. I suspect there is more Christian about what 'woke' originally meant before the left overplayed CRT / DEI and the right (rather more effectively) weaponised the backlash against these things.
Lovely political critique.
So long as we agree that Jesus—the Savior—is neither from the Left nor the Right, but from Above.
And that He is God.
And that we are not.
I do not usually comment, yet in this aspect I believe it's important to observe thoroughly the confluence of thought which build the American nation-state in particular, and the 'vulgar' Christianity which permeates it's culture.
My vantage point is not American. My cultural bias emanates from the European 'Christian Democracy' belief. So I, for example, would consider the GOP to be at odds with itself once taking stock of guys like Paul Ryan, and J.D. Vance. Their appeal is towards a 'vulgar' Christianity, whose appeal are binary points if law, which leads to the erroneous conclusion that Putin is 'more' Christian than the Pope.
Isn't the point of Christ, as with any serious philosophy, whether Confucius or Plato, matters of a personal consciousness, and it's effects on the polis? Christ in particular refrained from detailed instructions on a designed polis, yet it is clear that His philosophy is meant to dig the human conscience, from which a 'City of God' is residue. There is irony in those who speak of first things, yet respond only to last flings.
Well argued but a bit vague in application. To be a Christian is not an easy road, as Christ tried to teach us. The same Christ who taught us to turn the other cheek proclaimed that to reject him was to face eternity in hell. Granted, they did not just slap his face. They tore out his beard, beat him unmercifully, screamed to their Roman abusers to crucify him.
I don't understand where to draw the line. All of his disciples faced certain death rather than deny him, after having denied him and deserted him in his trial and execution, because they had seen him, eaten with him, and being taught by him after his resurrection. He even said that those, like myself, who believe in him without having seen him are more blessed than those disciples. So I am blessed even though I am not poor in spirit, nor meek, nor merciful, nor pure in heart, nor a peacemaker,
I demand my "God given" rights, and more. And in my almost eighty years I have abjectly failed to go into any of the world and preach the gospel, nor have I ever been willing to sell all I have and give it to the poor. I don't love my neighbors, nor the poor. I hate my enemies. I disdain most of my fellow Christians, and am quick to judge others. Yet I claim to be Christian.
I am not a literalist, but I believe that God created the universe and all living things. I don't believe he did so in 4004 BC nor in seven billion BC. I think that the big bang and evolution are as preposterous as Bishop Usher's dating of creation. Nor do I wish to speculate on the end times, though I believe that we and the rest of material existence will end and we will all face our Creator to answer for our behavior. And I believe that our creator has, from creation to whatever befalls, taken an active part in the outcome. I believe that human actions have rewards and consequences, both now and in eternity. I believe that God can and does reveal his will to us, but not directly and certainly not in all detail. We have the abilities necessary to receive his revelations, and the ability to accept, alter, or reject his will. We are personally responsible for any compliance or noncompliance and for any degree of understanding.
Good article but where you write this
Of course “woke” and everything it represents is no less of a hypocritical moral mess
Maybe you’ve covered this in another article but what is “woke” and what does it represent?
There's a question. Short and probably inadequate answer: Woke as a word has an origin in the black community as a positive term to remind them to stay awake to past and present oppression, and was coopted by particularly left wing political movements as a word that generally referred to performative moral policies and movements such as gender ideologies, and was then appropriated as a pejorative by the right as a way of mocking said movements. Hence the word is mildly contentious among some people, although a it has become a by-word to describe the recent brand of democrat politics with its DEI policies and all that stuff. Some people, for example among the black community, might be offended by its use in that way, so I generally use it with apostrophes.
It is mostly used by the right as a pejorative for anything they dont like since ~2017 -- find me anyone (other than myself) self identifying as woke.... and then find the whole cottage industry of heterodox grifters moaning about everything under the sun and calling it Woke
I think it may have some genuine use as a word for a kind of performative morality derived from things like group identity, but as you have pointed out I have generally come to find that use very muddied by people on the right using it to mean anyone or anything they don't like.
I think it's far too amorphous to have any content to it. And I think if we're in the business of clearly articulating values and aims that underpin political ideologies, something that has no content whatsoever isnt useful for that aim.
If you wanted to start a right wing podcast and sell supplements and science misinformation, then maybe saying it would be useful in order to identify you with the in-group though.
Phew … picking through that a bit is it the case that when you say hypocritical moral mess, you are talking about “performative moral policies and movements such as gender ideologies”?
tbh I don’t really understand “movements such as gender ideologies” but leaving that aside, is it your position that there is no value in performative moral policies ? and also out of interest how do these differ from just moral policies?
Specifically I'm talking about things like intersectionality and its cordoning of people by group identity on the basis of things like "privilege." By performative I mean that this makes its way into things like DEI policies that companies enact because it makes them look good but it does absolutely nothing to solve any problems. The fact that a) many of these companies were only doing it to please certain groups of people and b) that they don't work is kind of proved by how many companies are retracting them as soon as Trump has been reelected.
Ok yeah that sounds reasonable but is that the totality of “woke”? Are woke and identity politics completely synonymous? Are performative policies instituted by capitalists the only achievement of “woke” moralising?
I think as Nathan pointed out in the other comment, the word is becoming increasingly amorphous and you are naturally generalising. I would narrow it to intersectionality, identity politics and ideologies around sex and gender, all of which take dynamics from twentieth century left-wing thought, but honestly I wouldn't complain if the word as a catch-all was binned, I could probably be more specific when I use it.
Tbh that might be best. Too vague and contested a word. Thanks for the convo
What is "Woke"?
Your hatred of Trump has driven you mad. You don’t even believe the Scriptures. Personally, I don’t understand it. Trump loves our country but is hated for it. I guess it shouldn’t surprise me, as half this country desires a fundamentally opposite path for the nation.
I find it humorous—the hatred from mainline Christianity, which is only Christian in name. It’s nothing more than social justice advocates clamoring for each person’s ‘truth’ because the truth itself is found to be offensive.
I'm not American and I don't hate anyone.