Indeed, God does all these things... that a person may be enlightened with the light of life.
Job 33: 29-30
First of all, what are the definitions of 'woke' and 'enlightened'? Dictionary.com describes:
woke - having or marked by an active awareness of systemic injustices and prejudices, especially those involving the treatment of ethnic, racial, or sexual minorities.
enlightened - factually well-informed, tolerant of alternative opinions, and guided by rational thought.
The first time I heard the term 'woke' I thought that I was in that group - I care about systemic injustice. What I have come to realize is that I actually reject its spirit. I've found that, ironically, the spirit of wokeism is authoritarian and oppressive. It leaves no room for grace for those who do not share the same ideas as the movement. Wokeism, to me, is merciless in its cancelling of people's rights to free speech on social media platforms, censoring anyone who has an alternative view to wokeism. With religious fervor, it seeks to indoctrinate society with a pseudo-compassion for apparent minorities that is just as oppressive as the paradigm it attacks. Wokeism in one sentence to me would be, "Conform to our beliefs or there will be consequences".
I'd like to believe that people caught up in the woke movement have motives for good in their hearts but are misled in their actions. I believe that the woke actually wish to be enlightened. To be enlightened is to have true compassion for your fellow human being. Putting yourself in their situation before harshly judging them for the way they live. 1 Corinthians 4:4-5 says,
My conscience is clear, but that doesn't prove I'm right... So don't make judgements about anyone ahead of time - before Jesus returns. For he will bring our darkest secrets to light and will reveal our private motives.
What I gather from this passage is to choose a spirit of humility and grace concerning those who think differently from us. We don't know everything, and we certainly don't know the motives of people's hearts. Too often we are immediately offended by others' lifestyles without stopping to consider why that person is behaving that way. A lot of times we are projecting our own judgement onto them because we practice the same dysfunction in a different form. An example of this from the Bible would be when the Pharisees attempted to stone a woman caught in adultery. The scripture says that a group of religious elites (in modern terms the woke mob) came to Jesus and demanded that a woman they dragged to him be stoned to death. They claimed to have caught her in the act of adultery and according to the law of Moses she deserved to be stoned. Last time I checked it took two people to commit adultery, but they only chose to punish the woman. Jesus saw the hypocrisy of the situation. He reacted in a rational way:
But Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger. They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, "All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!" Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust.
John 8:6-8
Jesus behaved in an enlightened manner by being well-informed of the Pharisees own sins and wasn't falling for their hypocrisy. It is believed that what Jesus wrote in the dust was scripture from the book of Jeremiah that all of the Pharisees would understand as they watched Jesus write:
Lord, you are the hope of Israel; all who forsake you will be put to shame. Those who turn away from you will be written in the dust because they have forsaken the Lord, the spring of living water.
Jeremiah 17:13
If it's true that Jesus indeed wrote that verse in the dust, it makes sense that the Pharisees realized their own condemnation and walked away without condemning the woman. It continues in John 8 that every one of the Pharisees walked away, starting with the oldest down to the youngest. Jesus then asked the woman, "Where are your accusers? Has no one condemned you?" She replied, "No sir, they have all left." Then Jesus declared, "Then neither do I condemn you. Go, and sin no more."
Wokeism in my opinion is a substitute for true enlightenment. It masquerades as a movement that brings 'freedom and justice for all'. What I believe it brings is confusion and callous judgement on anyone with the audacity to not conform with its demands. In the religion of wokeism there is no path for redemption. I choose to walk the path of enlightenment as best I know how, by following my teacher Jesus. How about you?
Cheers, friends.