A Shelter for the Anti-woke

I will, alas, readily admit to at least one failing:  I have little patience with what is called ‘woke’.  Denunciations of our first Canadian Prime Minister as “colonial”, blaming “the patriarchy” for all perceived modern ills, flying the rainbow flag as if it were a sacred standard, telling me what your “preferred pronouns” are as if I couldn’t figure out whether you were male or female, and beginning every public event by humbly acknowledging that you are standing on the “unceded land” of a First Nations tribe in the same way as previous generations began such events with prayer—all of it causes me to reach for extra-strength Gravol.  Such exhibitions of ‘woke’ cause my eyes to roll and my stomach to heave.  I admit this weakness so that what I am about to share can be placed in its true context.

       It is this:  the Church should not function as a shelter for those who are “anti-woke”, people whose calling is to swing the cultural pendulum from woke to anti-woke.  There is in the West a war being waged.  It is (mostly) a war of words and the battleground is primarily that of social and public media.  The previous relentless onslaught from the ever-vigilant and intolerant woke ‘left’ has provoked the inevitable response and backlash, so that now the woke and the anti-woke are beginning to face off across from each other, both contending for the soul of the nation.  

Both consider their cause to be a crusade, the struggle of light against darkness and both declare that the defeat of their cause will (to cite a popular epic) “cover all lands in a second darkness”.  Both consider the stakes to be ultimate and so the war is being waged with ferocious intensity.  Friends separate; families divide; civility is sacrificed.  Those who disagree with them are branded “The Enemy” and are branded as (wait for it) Nazis, Fascists devoid of any goodness or decency.  Never mind that their children play together happily at school.  All that counts is the label pinned on their parents.

In the midst of this war, many see the Orthodox Church as a shelter for the anti-woke, which makes them either applaud Orthodoxy or denounce it.  (Some of the woke who are Orthodox do their best to pull Orthodoxy from their traditional teachings into the woke camp; you know who you are.)  It is true that Orthodoxy is not naturally congenial or welcoming to much of woke ideology:  we declare that there are only two genders, both of which are expressed biologically, we declare that homosexual practice is sinful, and that abortion is murderous.  We value history and tradition.  All this makes attractive to the anti-woke.  Many people are now joining the Orthodox Church in number not previously seen and many of these have anti-woke tendencies.

Nonetheless, although I of course welcome the surge of converts into Orthodox churches, I still maintain that anti-wokism is essentially foreign to Orthodoxy.  Allow me to explain.

The struggle between the woke and the anti-woke is primarily political.  It has to do with the swinging of the political pendulum and is all about which ideology will be culturally ascendent.  Being primarily political, it often becomes politically-expressed, with woke people voting Democrat and the anti-woke voting Republican.  (Canadian politics is a bit different.  And much smaller and duller.  And quieter.) The disagreement over certain flash-point issues in politics usually leads to conflict and shouting (expressed online BY USING CAPITAL LETTERS) and sometimes even to mutual hatred and violence.  It is this division and mutual hostility, this labelling as The Enemy, of those with whom one disagrees that disqualifies anti-woke as an authentic Christian reality.

The Church is not primarily about the issues over which woke and anti-woke divide; it is about Christ and following His commandments.  Foremost among those commandments is the command to love—even loving those with whom one profoundly and deeply disagrees.  In an Orthodox mindset the fundamental thing about any human being—woke or anti-woke, straight, gay, bisexual, prolife, proabortion or whatever—is the fact that God loves them and that Christ died for them. 

It is true that many of the Church’s teachings coincide with the views of those who are anti-woke.  The difference between the Church and the anti-woke movement consists not in its views of individual issues (such as homosexuality or gender) but in its fundamental loyalty.  The Church’s loyalty is not to a political tribe but to Christ. Its focus is not the political battleground but the coming Kingdom of God.

Furthermore, politics and political realities are utterly irrelevant before this truth and before this commandment to love.  Yes, of course we may debate and disagree.  But those with whom we disagree cannot become The Enemy.  That job has already been filled:  as St. Paul wrote, “We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12).  Satan and the demons are our true Enemy. The deluded whom they have duped are souls for which Christ died and whom He calls us to convert by speaking the truth in love.

If my aging memory is reliable, I remember that in 1985 a number of celebrity singers calling themselves “USA for Africa” gathered to record a song entitled “We are the World” to raise money for charity.  Knowing how many high-powered and famous singers were gathering, someone taped a sign to the studio door which read, “Check your ego at the door”.  In the same way there is an invisible sign taped to the door of the Orthodox Church, which reads, “Check your politics at the door”—or at least your willingness to define yourself politically, including such self-definitions as “woke” or “anti-woke”.  We are not in either earthly camp; we are in the Kingdom of God, rooted in the age to come.

Orthodox Christians are not defined by being “anti” anything, but by being “pro-Christ”.  He is our life, our everything.  Orthodox Christians may vote and argue and debate; they can even march and demonstrate.  But written in invisible ink on the bottom of our voting ballots and our political pamphlets are the words from the Didache, written about 100 A.D.: “Let grace come and let the world pass away”.  Politics will pass as will the whole wide world.  Christ and His Kingdom alone remains.  Many may come to the Church because they are anti-woke, but they should only stay because Christ has become their life.