Society's dictionary is constantly evolving and some of the new words I have learnt over here in my native Australia include 'rubberneck', 'wideneck', and 'covididiot'. You may be familiar with some of these.
But another more frequently used new word is 'woke', and where I live, a popular saying among conservatives is 'if you go woke you will go broke'.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, woke is defined as being 'alert to injustice in society, especially racism.'
If that is the pure definition of woke, then I see no problem with Christians being woke as such. Our God is a God of justice and as his hands and feet in this world, it is our duty to be alert to the things that are 'unjust'.
If anyone was suffering injustice it was Paul. He suffered in a Roman prison for nothing more than practising his faith but he modelled joy in the midst of his suffering, repeating the word 'rejoice' (Phil 4:4), and exhorting believers to be anxious for nothing.
My concern with so-called 'woke culture' is that it does the opposite and leads people into movements that are not of Christ.
Take the organisation Black Lives Matter (BLM) as one example. It is one of the main bodies fighting racism around the world and one of its symbolic gestures, taking the knee with the raised fist, has crept into a lot of aspects of our culture, especially sport.
You may have seen Premier League teams taking the knee before every game, or the South African cricket team forcing their players to take the knee before every game in the recent T20 World Cup.
But Marxism underpins BLM. Its two main founders are well-known Marxists, with Alicia Garza telling an American magazine in 2015 that "social movements all over the world have used Marx and Lenin as a foundation to interrupt these systems that are really negatively impacting the majority of people".
That same year she told a gathering of world communists, The Left Forum, that "it's not possible for a world to emerge where black lives matter if it's under capitalism and it's not possible to abolish capitalism without a struggle against national oppression".
Similarly, co-founder Patrisse Cullors confirmed her belief in Marxism that same year when she stated, "Am I a Marxist? ... I do believe in Marxism. It's philosophy that I learned really early on in my organising career."
Five years later, in a June 2020 interview, she that she and Garza are "trained Marxists".
The President of Greater New York Black Lives Matter said last year that if change does not happen, then "we will burn down this system".
By all means fight racism but when it comes to Christians at least, we should be advocating the most inclusive tool - the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
It's not only aspects of the racism debate that cause concern as there is a fair bit of post-Christian thought creeping into the climate change discussion as well.
Take Greta Thunberg's speech back in 2019 when she said, "The eyes of future generations are upon you and if you choose to fail us, I say we will never forgive you."
Now as Christians, yes, we should care for God's creation but I do not believe a commitment to stewardship is driving the whole climate change discussion. It may well be what motivates Christians involved in the movement but I don't believe it is the focus of the global effort because if you scratch beneath the arguments, it goes way beyond stewardship of God's creation and is about an entirely different worldview.
As one example of this, Stuart Basden, co-founder of Extinction Rebellion, which counts many Christians among its number, said back in 2019, "Extinction Rebellion is not about the climate; the climate's breakdown is a symptom of a toxic system that has infected the ways we relate to each other to humans and to all of life."
He then goes on to post several anti-European sentiments describing his aim as dismantling oppressive colonial systems. It's an anti-West, anti-capitalist agenda.
So as Christians should we take part in woke culture? If it fits it's true definition of addressing injustice then, yes. However Christians would do well to be careful about being caught up in ideologies or movements that are not of Christ.
Ben Kruzins is a Pastor of The Hub Baptist Church in Regional New South Wales Australia. He has written articles in The Canberra Times and The Sydney Morning Herald.
