Tag: Woke

The New S-Word-

Lisa M. PriceLeave a comment

Blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven, And whose sins have been covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account- Romans 4:7-8 NASB

There are some words we just don’t hear anymore in churchy circles. 

Oddly enough the MIA words are not just the standard four-letter variety no one has ever said out loud in church. Nor are the absentee words the grey-area badish words that aren’t really BAD words but aren’t nice either, words like butt or crap or dang.

It is also conceivable this issue isn’t really an issue at all. It could be a figment of my fevered imagination and there is no “list”. Maybe the words ARE being used and I’m just missing them. This could be a geographical issue. I live in a unbelievably woke place. Politics and social standards affect all sorts of strange things, even how Christians do church.

That said. 

I’m not wrong. There really are words we don’t say in church anymore, or at least we don’t say them very often. These words were once a standard part of our Christian vocabulary. Old-fashioned Bible words like guilt, depravity and judgment. Then there’s the new S-word: Sin. No one says sin anymore. 

Sin, guilt, depravity and judgment are words many Christian leaders resist using in Church. There are reasons for the resistance to these words. Many of those reasons come from a decent place. All Bible believing Pastors and Bible teachers REALLY want to see people come to know Jesus. Sadly, we live in a culture where people hate to be offended by anything. Pastors and Bible teachers understand people are easily triggered by anything that smacks of the teeniest-tiniest iota of disapproval. The bottom-line result of all these factors is that many Pastors and Bible teachers have adopted a kinder, gentler gospel that does its level best to avoid triggering people and turning them off to Jesus with “insensitive” words like sin, guilt, depravity and judgment.  As well-meaning as this change of language is, it is also a truly terrible idea. When we stop using certain words, churches and Christians also lose a whole bunch of other spiritually critical things. 

These things include:

The ability to generate conviction- 

Conviction is the sense a person has violated God’s commands. Conviction, if handled correctly nearly always leads to repentance. Repentance is awesome. Repentance is best defined as “a change of mind” regarding our attitudes and behaviors (Acts 3:19, Acts 17:30, 2nd Peter 3:9). Repentance is the awakening of conscience that leads to a change of behavior.  Repentance is also the starting place of a right relationship with God. No one can have saving faith until they acknowledge their own sin and change their mind about it. When we stop using words like “sin”, “depravity” and “judgment” there is no good soil for conviction to take root. No conviction equals no repentance equals no salvation. All that equals no relationship with Jesus. 

Sorrow over sin- 

In his letter to the Corinthians the Apostle Paul talks about a spiritual experience he calls, godly sorrow. (2ndCorinthians 7:9-10) Godly sorrow is best defined as the sadness and regret a person feels when they realize they have violated God’s commandments and offended Him with their actions or attitudes (Galatians 5:19-21, 1stTimothy 1:8-11, Revelation 21:8, Colossians 3:4-10, Romans 1:29-31, 1st Corinthians 6:9-11). Godly sorrow is a very good thing because the Bible teaches all people have sinned (Romans 3:23, 1st John 1:8-10). Godly sorrow over sin leads to repentance and a clear conscience before God (1st Timothy 1:5). No one can experience godly sorrow without a clear understanding that sin is a violation of God’s laws and what exactly qualifies as a sin. If the word sin disappears from our Christian vocabularies no one will experience godly sorrow over their sin. 

Authentic salvation- 

Contrary to popular opinion, salvation is more than just “asking Jesus into my heart”. In order for salvation to take place a person must believe the following:

There is a God.

God has standards of behavior that are perfectly reasonable because He’s God and God gets to make the rules. 

Violating those standards is sin.

EVERYONE violates the standards. Therefore everyone is a sinner. 

All sinners will be judged by God for their sin.

God made a way for humans to avoid the penalty of sin (death). 

Faith in and obedience to Jesus Christ is the only way to avoid paying the penalty for our own sin. 

No one can experience salvation without understanding and believing those basic facts (Luke 19:10, John 3:16, Romans 3:23, Acts 2:21, Romans 1:16, Titus 2:10-11, Hebrews 11:6). It is impossible to explain salvation without using words like, sin and judgment. 

Because language is necessary for human communication, Christians have replaced the verboten words with new words The primary word used in place of sin or depravity is brokenness. Brokenness is a terrible substitution for both. The word “brokenness” sends the weird passive message that we (the human race) is messed up because we had a bunch of things happen to us that led to our “getting broken”. Sin, on the other hand conveys the message that we are messed up because of the things we did on purpose because we wanted to do them (lying, treachery, fornication, thieving, etc.). The Church must revive the doctrine of sin quickly, without it, salvations will become increasingly more rare and revival will be entirely out of reach. 

Should Christians be Woke?

Lisa M. PriceLeave a comment

This is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ- Philippians 1:9-10 NIV

“Wokeness “ or “being Woke” is a relatively new way of thinking that has captured the hearts and minds of many Christians.   According to the Online Dictionary being “woke” is officially defined as: 

Being alert to injustice in society, especially racism. 

 A lot of well-meaning, caring Christians have jumped on the woke bandwagon. But should they? 

So here’s the thing: 

The vast majority of Christians loathe injustice and racism. After all, God Himself conceived the whole concept of social justice (Exodus 23:11, Deuteronomy, 24:14-15, Zechariah 4:10, Malachi 3:5). Moreover, God is and always has been on the side of equity and impartiality when it comes to issues of race and nationality (Exodus 23:9, Leviticus 19:34, Romans 1:16, Galatians 3:28, Colossians 3:11, Revelation 7:9). Any Christian with even a shallow understanding of Scripture should realize that racism and social injustice are never okay. Period. 

All that being said:

The “woke” movement is about a whole lot more than being attentive to issues of injustice and racism. Wokeness is intertwined with the teachings of Critical Race Theory or CRT. CRT began as an academic theory that presupposes all humans are born into one of two categories: oppressors or victims. Victims are people of color and women. Oppressors are white men. Anytime someone is born white and a man they just naturally victimize minorities and women, sometimes unknowingly. The propensity to subjugate others is literally a part of white male DNA. Sadly, DNA is tough to overcome. The only way a white person can cease to be an oppressor is to develop enough self-awareness to see their wickedness and confess their sins. Some proponents of CRT teach that in order for transformation to really occur the oppressor must experience the same bigotry and bias they have forced on others.  If a white male, or a white female for that matter, claims to NOT be racist that is verification they are the very worst kind of racist. The kind that lacks self-awareness and is therefore hopeless from a redemption standpoint.   Victims are always depicted as people who lack free agency, they have no real way to break free of their oppressed status and are destined to stay victims. According to proponents of CRT the only way to solve the problem of racism is for society to step in and turn the oppressors into the victims. 

In my humble opinion Christians would be wise to stay far away from the woke movement.  Here’s why:

Wokeness is a weird post-modern religion- 

It just is. The Woke do not worship a specific deity. Those who embrace wokeness can be agnostic, Christian, atheist and or even a member of another faith community. Most people who support wokeness don’t realize that it is a religion with its own set of rituals and story of original sin (racism). It has its own priesthood. In this case the priesthood is those that teach and propagate CRT. Critical Race Theory has an elaborate system of language that can only be understood once a person is fully enlightened.  Like all religions Wokeness has a path that disciples must follow in order to be restored to perfection (a nonracist state). There is a word for mixing other belief systems with Christianity, its syncretism and it’s a form of idolatry that eventually led to the destruction of the nation of Israel (Isaiah 44:9, Jeremiah 18:15, 1st John 5:21, Deuteronomy 6:14).  

Wokeness is one-hundred-percent incompatible with Christianity-  

Seriously.  Wokeness teaches that racism is the original sin of mankind. It also teaches that not everyone has been stained by it. The oppressed are good and righteous simply by virtue of being born victims.  Therefore, they have nothing to repent of.  Christianity teaches that all human beings have sinned and need redemption (Mark 10:18, Romans 3:23, 1st John 1:10, Ephesians 2:1-3). In Christianity teaches that racism is a sin (John 7:24, Galatians, Galatians 3:28, Colossians 3:11) but it is not the only sin people need to turn from. Furthermore, Christianity teaches that no one can save themselves and that no amount of good works will bring a sinner into right relationship with God. Only faith in the sacrifice of Jesus can do that. Wokeness teaches that people can save themselves by repenting of their racism and following the elaborate rituals of the woke. None of these views are even a tiny bit compatible with Christian doctrine. And therefore, must be avoided by sincere Christians.

Wokeness separates and divides rather than heals-

Christians are commanded by God to be forces for good in this world (Galatians 6:9-10, Romans 12:2, Romans 12:21, 1st Thessalonians 5:15, 1st Timothy 6:18). One aspect of being a force for is bringing peace to divisive situations (Romans 12:18, Romans 14:19, Ephesians 2:14-17, Ephesians 6:15). Wokeness and CRT teach that peace is incompatible with social change and is therefore and undesirable state. 

We would do well to remember that Christianity has done more to bring racial reconciliation to this world than any other religious and social movement in history.  The world doesn’t need a new movement it’s just needs Christians to work harder to apply biblical principles to the social issues of our day. If we do that wokness will be unnecessary.