Christianity and Wokeness: How the Social Justice Movement Is Hijacking the Gospel - and the Way to Stop It

by Owen Strachan

It means instead that we must first distinguish Christianity from all other systems.

I do not think this is true. This is Owen's true thesis and what drives him.

We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God,

Owen has yet to truly show that wokeness is anti-thetical.

As with all the apostles, and as with Christ Himself, Paul’s calling was not to offer people a palatable Christianity that would please the natural man.

This is a strange critique.

However, our brief summaries have demonstrated that these works are soaked in a worldly ideology of wokeness.

Tisby's work is defenitively not a work of CRT, yet Owen wants to combine it in there because it makes his argument stronger.

As I argue extensively in Reenchanting Humanity, God made the man in His image and made the woman from the man’s rib (Genesis 1 and 2).

Well that's just wrong!

Racial theory, in fact, owes to genuine racists, who made it up to exalt themselves and justify their evil partiality.

This is the point CRT is making. So it appears that Owen is woke!

Wokeness denies all this. It fundamentally emphasizes not human oneness, but human diversity—and diversity without any meaningful hope of unity.

I don't think this is trus.

Wokeness in our time opposes such a conclusion.

I don't think this is true.

Wokeness does not try to tackle the ugliness of sin at its deepest level.

This is a question of hamartiology that i think Owen will not dive into.

But to convict all “white” people of such wrongdoing is wrong and unbiblical.

It changes our fundamental condition from one of individually willed sin to one of inherently racist “whiteness,” which makes horizontal transgression against men of greater import than vertical transgression against God.

There's alot here. But it does seem that sin, as practi ed throughout the centuries, is not just against God, but also against his image bearers.

Though we often assume that ethnicity or common background yields iron unity, in actual fact, people of the same ethnicity often kill one another, hate one another, and divide from one another.

This doesnt refute the point.

But like the political data above, even a moment’s extra thought punctures such a view.

These differences do not negate the white experience.

But even if such patterns exist, we should nonetheless be painstakingly careful about breaking people down according to skin color and then concluding that we know who a given person is based on that color.

This is where intersectionality can and does provide additional clarifying data.

I was reminded of this reality when learning online of a Coca-Cola training session on whiteness in February 2021.

Once again this demonstrably false story arises to prove a point.

His fall is our fall.

These are the two core groups of the human race.

Owen sets up a biblical dichotomy and then claims it is the ONLY dichotomy. Yet we know Owen does not see men and women as equals but as two distinct groups which complement one another.

This is not a biblical approach.

The minor prophets beg to differ.

Men are not inherently abusers if they lead churches as pastors, exercising spiritual authority over the flock.

Here we see the issues. Owen believes that the only way to have authority is through oppression, or he believes that authority IS oppression. One can have authority and not oppress.

But intersectionality (and wokeness more broadly) poisons our understanding of authority and leadership, a move we must reject. In general terms, unless a clear pattern of misdeeds exists, we must not identify “oppression” with any one group over others.

But Owen has rejected the evidence at times.

Sixth, wokeness gives approval to evil—both in the public square and in rejecting God’s design for the sexes.

This critique has some merit, but it also fails miserably. Because Owen has constructed false gender roles, his argumenf will not have the full force that it should.

So we see an essential truth: Wokeness is not friendly to biblical complementarity.

No one should be a friend of "Biblical Complementarity."

We think here of 1 Corinthians 11:3,

We think here of Owen supporting the ESS Heresy once again.

Seventh, wokeness overturns the Gospel’s “no condemnation in Christ” promise.

This whole section is painful.

This antiracist engagement must consist of concrete acts of secular penance.33 It is in every sense a works-based system.

There's no need for secuar language, repentance and works are biblical.

In wokeness, we can be saved, be justified by faith in Christ, and yet still be guilty of our “white complicity” in “white supremacy.”

I'm not sure what the critique is here.

Here is where we see wokeness (and CRT) at its absolute deadliest. According to this system, there is a condition that Gospel faith does not make right. Only “antiracism,” a regimen of ritual confession and penance on the individual side and political improvement and public policy on the communal side, makes our racist wrongs right.

Isn't this simply corporate repentance?

There is more for sinners to do than just believe and repent.

No, it's focusing on what we repent of.

and though in Scripture a given people’s past crimes in no way render their descendants culpable for their actions.

Well, except for Adam and King Saul.

Neither can we free our children or grandchildren from this system, notably. If they participate in “whiteness,” they too are condemned. Like us, they can never outrun their guilt, but only identify it and try their hardest to work against it. But mark it: The Gospel won’t be enough for them. They won’t overcome their natural condition; they’ll only be able to undertake ritual self-denunciation, penance, and self-loathing in trying to meet a standard they never will achieve.

Owwn seems to equate the guilt/shame of "whiteness" with a biblical guilt without backing up this premise.

This unbiblical system will not save you.

I wasn't aware it was trying to save me.

First, wokeness corrupts true justice, making it distributive and not retributive.

We're starting on a bad foot here Owen. You have yet to show that true justice is retributive, though I imagine the book will attempt to tell me why it is.

In the New Testament, however, Church and state are distinct, with each possessing a unique function and particular mission (Matthew 22:21).

No, just no with this horrible prooftext.

Biblical justice is retributive in nature, recompensing people for their deeds.

Still haven't proven this or cited anything that shows this.

Yet though his children suffer the effects of David’s sin, they are not judicially guilty for it.

This is not a good argument against reparations.

Yet the New Testament nowhere teaches ancestral guilt. Nor does it institute a system of payment (in monetary form or otherwise) for wrongs done by one people group to another.

This is an agument from silence.

Yet Paul nowhere taught that justly aggrieved peoples (including people of different ethnicities) should recompense one another for past wrongs in a reparational scheme.14 Instead, they were told to realize their union with Christ, to embrace being one body, to overlook wrongs, and to forgive one another (Ephesians 4:32).

But a strong component of the "one body" idea is that people do take care of each other.

Biblical justice is not distributive, we see. It is fundamentally retributive, focused not on creating equal outcomes, but rather righting past wrongs and removing unfair impediments.

First citation and it doesn't even touch on the issue at hand regarding biblical justice.

Furthermore, biblical justice is not mercy. It is sometimes conflated with mercy, but it should not be. Justice is distinct from mercy. Let me explain: while justice is God giving us what we surely deserve, mercy is God not giving us what we deserve (in spiritual terms, the full force of His holy wrath).

I'm not sure this is biblically correct.

But the justice executed at Calvary means the legal condemnation of the Son; it is the mercy poured out at Calvary that purchases our pardon.

And here is the reformed basis for Owen's view.

Where wokeness is embraced, suspicion, hostility, and eventually division will follow.

What?

The belief that “white” people are inherently racist means that even good-hearted acts—acts that involve tremendous self-sacrifice, financial commitment, and the changing of an entire pattern of life to welcome an adopted child—are seen as racist.

I think Owen is misreading the room here.

According to Howard, he effectively sacrifices his “blackness” in marrying a woman of a different skin color.

Owen really misses what Kyle is saying here.

Minority exegetes can see things that “white” exegetes cannot.

Is Owen saying this isn't true?

Christianity depends upon propositional truthfulness; truthfulness is grounded in the character and identity of God.

Yes, our personal experiences factor into our theological work, but never in such a way as to affect a text’s meaning; instead, they help us appreciate the depth of biblical truth, and they open our eyes to ways to apply (not interpret) the Word.

This can't be real life, right?

God’s truth is true at all times and in all places. We should not pursue a system of truth that molds to us; if we are to know God, we need a system of truth that molds to God.

I'm not sure Owen has really shown that wokeness considers truth this relative.

First, unless you truly believe that having “white” skin really is evil in fundamental terms, you will eventually find yourself struggling to substantiate how “white supremacy” creates “structural racism.”

Ok, so if the data exists, do we ignore it?

However, for the year 2019, the Washington Post’s database of fatal police shootings showed fourteen unarmed “black” victims and twenty-five unarmed “white” victims.

This isn't a "however" as unarmed Black individuals still make up 35% of those killed.

But to use just three recent instances, our culture did not frame the shootings of George Floyd, Jacob Blake, and Breonna Taylor in a careful manner, recognizing the need for judicial process, the rule of law, and courtroom proceedings to play out.