Wokeness is a new religion, and it’s coming to convert you

Wokeness is a new religion, and it’s coming to convert you

In case you haven’t noticed, a new fundamentalist religion has been born in the streets of America and is spreading across the world. It’s the religion of Woke — the religion of people who believe they have been given a special revelation about how society should be formatted. They have ‘discovered’ that society has been irredeemably racist and heteronormative and, therefore, must be torn down. They were blind but now they see. They were asleep but now they’re woke. And they think we all must be woke too — even if it takes the violent occupation of city streets and squares to wake us up to the truth of their religion.

It’s a fundamentalist religion. This ‘faith’ of the woke people is narrow, puritanical, and righteous. Those who don’t conform to its catechism — the heretics — are quickly expelled or “cancelled.” As with other fundamentalist faiths, the new religion appeals not to reason, but to emotions. The proof of one’s faith is shown by the repetition of mindless slogans and by passionate demonstrations of commitment.

Strangely — or perhaps not so strangely — woke people do not worship a Supreme Being. They look not to God, but to the State for answers to life’s problems.  The promised land is not in heaven, but here on earth. And it can be achieved once the woke people take control of government.

The basic assumption of this woke religion is that there is nothing higher than humans and the institutions we create. Despite the pleasant-sounding name, “humanistic” religions regularly end up committing human sacrifice of one kind or another. The good of the individual is sacrificed to the needs of the state. Pre-born babies are sacrificed to a better “quality of life.” And dissenters from the official woke creed are simply exterminated.

Idealists and humanitarians were initially attracted to movements such as Nazism and communism because of their humanistic promises. Indeed, the Nazi Party platform of 1934 was in many respects a “progressive” document which promised cradle-to-grave welfare for all German citizens.

What is less well-understood is that both Nazism and communism were ‘religious movements’ which attempted to replace worship of God with devotion to the leader — Hitler, in the case of Nazi Germany, and Lenin and Stalin in the case of Soviet communism, Mao in the Chinese revolution. Even today, North Koreans are expected to treat their own “Dear Leader” (Kim Jong-un) as a divinity, and in China, Christians are being forced to replace Christian symbols with portraits of Chairman Mao Zedong and President Xi Jinping in their own homes.

But there is a religious ‘impulse’ built into human nature, and if it is not directed toward God, it will be directed towards some unworthy substitute for God. In the process, God Himself becomes the enemy. It’s not surprising then that the woke faithful, like their communist compatriots, tend to be anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, and anti-God. They destroy stained glass windows, tear down statues of saints, and vandalize dozens of churches and synagogues. Hostility to religion is a hallmark of ideological movements. In the USA, the current Kmer Rouge or Red Guard of the woke movement are Black Lives Matter and Antifa. Both are avowedly Marxist groups. In other parts of the world other ideologically totalitarian groupings like LGBT, ISIS, El-Shabaab, Boko-Haram, the Taliban, Neo-Nazis,… strive to impose their choices on societies.

The most visible manifestation of the Woke religion are the rioters who tear down national or religious symbols, set fire to public buildings, and take every opportunity to loot all they can. But the Church of Woke is larger than that. It includes politicians, local and civil office holders, teachers’ unions, professors, television anchors, naïve religious leaders, celebrities, young professionals and middle-aged CEOs. Moreover, the Church of Woke is engaged in ceaseless evangelization. The Woke evangelists inserted themselves into every position of influence and their impact permeates all aspects of life: television shows, websites, social media, corporate advertising. Barely a single product, app, or promotion these days comes without a free ‘woke sermon’.

And the Church of Woke has established a legion of missionary-teachers to convert children to its radical faith. Wokeism is becoming the established faith of the establishment culture. As the number of those who identify as Christians continues to decline, the number of Wokes continues to increase.

Which raises a question. How is the Christian and Catholic leadership responding to the rise of this new religion? Not only is the religion of Woke drawing souls away from Christianity, it is, in many respects, diametrically opposed to the Christian faith. Members in good standing of the Woke alliance, like BLM, strongly support abortion, while the LGBT agenda brazenly declares that dismantling the traditional family is one of its objectives.

The religion of Woke is a religion of rebellion. Whatever their immediate complaint, the ultimate complaint of the woke people is against God and the order He created, especially against the God-ordained institution of marriage as between one man and one wife.

In cities across the world, tensions have soared as the troops of the militant Church of Woke set fire to buildings. And as businesses go up in smoke, so do the chances of the poor for rising out of poverty. When times get tough in the cities, the middle and upper-middle classes to move out, leaving the poor stranded in urban areas with shrinking opportunities.

And you can’t be only ‘moderately woke’. If you don’t convert to full wokeness, you will be subject to an inquisition, and, if found guilty, the righteous members of the congregation will list you among the casualties of ‘cancel culture’, and destroy your reputation if not your life. They are fanatical like the Jacobins during the Reign of Terror of the French Revolution, or the Red Guard during Mao’s Cultural Revolution, or the Kmer Rouge in Cambodia’s uprising.

To make the world safe from fundamentalists, we need to take a closer look at the religion of the Woke. We may wish to try to dialogue as a solution to temper the woke intolerance and extremism. But the Woke refuse to dialogue. They do all the shouting and want you to just shut up. Just as the Nazis in Hollywood movies “have ways of making you talk,” the Woke have ways of silencing you. And, as surveys have shown, they’ve been hugely successful in doing this.

A survey released by YouGov and the Cato Institute, revealed that sixty-two percent of respondents find that the “political climate these days prevents them from saying things they believe because others might find them offensive.” Almost a third feared that saying the “wrong” thing could get them fired. The only category of persons in which a majority felt free to express themselves were “progressive liberals” i.e. the Woke.

 August 2020 – Based on an article published by Turning Point Project.

(Shortened and altered by SAFCAM)