“Radical” is relational. Being a radical means nothing in and of itself; like a musical note, it relies on context to mean anything. What was radical years ago can be conservative now based on changing circumstances. And there will always come a time when what used to be common knowledge or widely accepted truths get forgotten or bent out of shape by another, older mode of thinking which now seems radical by comparison.
“What the hell are you talking about, Alex?” You know, sometimes I don’t know. But this time I do. Kindly read on and you’ll understand.
It has come to my attention that Christians are being blamed for all the ills of the modern world. I find this bemusing, given that the modern world is largely non-Christian. In fact, some might say it is anti-Christian.1
One particular criticism is that wokeness, however defined, is directly attributable to the teachings of one Jesus Christ. Wokeness, which we’ll call far-left progressivism to keep it simple, has a heavy emphasis on both racial and other identity categories and radical egalitarianism, the idea that we’re all equal in both ability and worth, and that any and all differences between and among peoples, i.e., the outcomes, are the result of negative social forces, including and especially racism, and including and especially white people.
While critics have not all cited Galatians 3:28 as ammunition against Christianity, it has been bandied about as a particularly problematic verse:
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.
This was written by St. Paul, and not spoken by the Lord. However, it underscores one thing Christ taught, which to provide the CliffsNotes version, was that there was no racial component to being saved and being loved by God. The Jews had been the chosen people, but by coming to Earth in human form God expanded this to all of humanity. The time was right.
That some people later took this to mean all social distinctions should be leveled is an ascriptural interpretation. All are humbled before God. All will be called to account before God. This ties in with the twin criticism that Christianity fetishizes weakness, exalts the feeble and incapable, and actively discourages the strong.
No.
What Christianity does is to the strong is demand that it be mindful of what they use their strength for. Was the strength of a mighty warrior king used to defend the faith, to protect his people, and to lead them to virtue? Or was it to subjugate the weak and the poor, to rape and pillage and loot indiscriminately, and to act as though one was a god unto themselves?
A central tenant of Christianity is that there is still one above all kings. A King of Kings, if you will. That some earthly kings abused their power doesn’t negate this principle, as everyone will be called to account in the end. How one views this as “glorifying weakness” is mystifying to me, almost as if it’s not based on an accurate and honest understanding of what Christianity actually teaches.
Look: I’m not here to convert anyone. But if you’re going to criticize a religion, at least get it right.
Ah, but see, Christ let himself be killed. He didn’t save Himself, or perform a miracle to get Pilate off his back! What a pussy, unlike those real awesome gods like Zeus and Odin or whomever! Now those guys knew how to party!
Why, it’s almost like the central point of Christianity just wasn’t a thing!
You see, Christ allowed Himself to be killed in order to descend2 into the underworld, the resting place of the dead, which is commonly called Hades. In order to descend, one must be human, so God became man both to teach humanity more directly and to go down to Hades and free the souls there, including the first humans, Adam and Eve. Christ defeated death. That’s far more badass than Zeus impregnating random women or cursing people on a whim.3 True, without the Resurrection, Christ died for nothing—St. Paul agrees with this!—but to be a Christian is to believe in the Resurrection. If one does not believe in the Resurrection, then they are not Christian. It’s as simple as that.
This is Christianity 101. At least for Orthodox Christians, and I’m sure Catholics. Probably most Protestant denominations too. However, I may be overestimating the level of teaching in some churches. All I know is that us Greeks get criticized for “never reading the Bible,” and then I see arguments that Jesus allowed Himself to be killed because he was a weak cuck or something. Who’s not reading Scripture here?4
To reiterate: I care not if one believes in the supernatural or the metaphysical, but if you’re going to criticize something, get the facts straight. I’m doing you a favor, honestly. I’m steelmanning your arguments.
Anyway, back to woke. Back to radical egalitarianism. Christianity has led to radical ideas like equality before the law, regardless of social standing and abolishing slavery. I don’t know about you, but I think those are good things.
Oh, oh, here’s another one: stopping cousin marriage generally. Related to this, being against sex with children. Man, this Jesus Christ and his followers sure sound great to me, but your mileage may vary.
Do you know what else was a Christian innovation? Being against human sacrifice. A lot of early European Christians were horrified at the blood-stained altars they’d find out in the BASED PAGAN wilderness. The Romans? Did becoming Christian really destroy their civilization? My history books say that the Roman empire continued another thousand years after becoming Christian. Europe, in general, flourished. Centuries later, the Spanish conquistadores were stunned at the level of cruelty and barbarity of many Meso-American religious practices. We can debate how Christian the conquistadores were in practice, but when confronted with towers of skulls and people sacrificing other people to appease some sun god, if your answer is “The Aztecs sound based and vitalist,” then we’re never going to get along.
Look, I get it. Morality is lame and boring. Being an upright citizen is prudish. Puritan. Hedonism is popular. It always has been, and it always will be. Further, superstition is gross and weird. Much easier to have none above us and be our own masters, sovereign individuals, and so on. Will to power. Manifest greatness. Bend the universe to your will. Okay. That can be your thing. Just get Christian theology right.
So I have attempted to rebut the idea that Christianity glorifies weakness and necessarily leads to radical egalitarianism. Christians throughout history have, in fact, proven remarkably resilient to ideas of radical egalitarianism and progressivism generally, and the Church is often the first thing targeted for subversion or corruption by radically egalitarian regimes. Because these regimes see God as competition. Even in our current day, most Christians are not on the left, ore are relatively evenly split between the left and the right, especially when compared to other religions in America. But I take all polls with a grain of salt, even this one: actions speak louder than anonymous answers to Pew, and I call things as I see them: America isn’t really all that Christian. I guarantee that Europe is much less Christian. Which is to say, I don’t think Christian arguments were made to get the public to support things that are very much antithetical to Christian teachings.
Ah, but there’s still the argument that wokeness is a logical outgrowth of Christian ideas, divorced from any metaphysics or supernatural woo, so of course we must blame the entire faith. To that I say . . . you are kind of correct! However, I must add that they are willful and deliberate corruptions of Christian ideas cynically twisted and inverted in order to give very bad people earthly power. The Devil used Scripture to try and tempt Christ in the desert:
4 Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”
4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’[b]”
5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. 6 “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:
“‘He will command his angels concerning you,
and they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”7 Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9 “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”
10 Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’”
11 Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.
The woke do the exact same thing. That people were duped by this doesn’t mean Christianity is inherently flawed. It means humanity is inherently flawed. Bad ideas often sound good. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, etc. and so on.
Blaming Christianity for its twisting by those whose fruits are evil is the same as blaming Nietzsche for the bad deeds done by anyone who has read him. Or blaming video games for violent acts committed by the mentally unstable. I find it shockingly amateur that so many see a Christian-to-woke pipeline—which, to be sure, exists in some of the wackier heretical denominations—and conclude that the entire religion was a mistake from day one.
Do you know what I really think it is? I think it’s that too many want freedom from consequences. Hedonism and materialism are just more fun. There is a strain of thinking that sees progressives as Puritans—which, in a way, they are—and doesn’t want the woke priestly class telling them what to do . . . and doesn’t want any priestly class telling them what to do. Christians, they see, are just the woke who believe in the supernatural stuff. Far better to be allowed to be promiscuous and impose one’s will on the world by crushing the weak than be held accountable for any behavior. Might makes right. We’re all our own gods, and the sooner we can dispense with the supernatural, the better off we’ll be.
Which has been tried. Multiple times. And it’s always sucked. Sorry to burst your bubble. Anyway, the vacuum ends up getting filled by something else masquerading as faith. This could be a hostile, alien religion. It could be politics. It could be . . . wokeism. This impulse to believe in something bigger than ourselves is ingrained into every human being. The question isn’t if a civilization will have a religion. It is which religion will it be? Which moral system will run your culture?
I’ll tell you which one it isn’t, at least in the contemporary West: Christianity. De-Christianizing an already de-Christianized West is fighting an enemy by tilting at phantoms.
The abuse of the idea of human rights is another one laid at the feet of Christianity. Again, the idea that all humans are equal in the eyes of God doesn’t absolve them of the duty to act in accordance with God’s law. This gets twisted by heretics and non-Christians to mean “Everyone should be allowed to do whatever they want, and it’s all equally valid.” This is something I think Christians can do a better job of combatting, and all it will take is a little bit of theology thrown into the mix. To repeat, being equal in the eyes of God does not mean, nor has it ever meant, to Christians that you are perfect and blameless and can do whatever the hell you want, no standards and no judgment.
Again, though, this is not an attempt to convert anyone. It is one lay Christian’s effort to set the record straight in plan and simple and hopefully easy to read terms that you can’t blame Current Year on us, okay? We tried to warn you, got mercilessly mocked,5 and then shoved into the cultural locker. Christians don’t matter in the West anymore. Maybe we will again someday, and if that time comes to pass, maybe we’ll do a better job of expressing our policy preferences and why they’re more beneficial than what we’ve got now. Maybe you’ll be more inclined to listen.6
There is also the idea of cultural Christianity surviving, taking all the good parts of the past 2,000 years with none of the Christianity, all of the trappings and benefits with none of the actual faith. Good luck rebuilding those beautiful cathedrals when they’re burned down by hostile foreigners without the motivation to build those beautiful cathedrals in the first place. Good luck maintaining these trappings of Christianity without Christians.
In conclusion, no, Christians aren’t perfect and neither are the various Christian churches. It’s impossible for them to be, because no human being nor human institution is perfect. This is also Christianity 101. However, this doesn’t mean that God is to blame.
I think faith might be growing as people realize that material temporal evil has a spiritual component. I also think that any coalition-building minded person out there opposed to the forces of this world should really think twice about alienating a potentially large base of allies.
By all means, keep the criticisms coming. Steel sharpens steel. But be careful what you wish for.
At the end of the day, Christianity, and religion generally, provides an immutable standard by which human behavior shall be judged. Absent something objective and immovable, you get subjective standards which can change at any given moment. If a society decides that it wants to reimpose slavery or allow sex with children, what do you do to stop that if you have no objective standards of goodness or truth or right?
You don’t. Unless you stake a claim.
And where does that claim come from?
And what is to prevent someone else from staking a different claim should circumstances change?
What indeed.
Maybe the fear of God has been a net benefit for civilization. Just saying.
- Alexander
PS Special thanks to
for this post and for this post, both of which inspired me to articulate these thoughts in a much more thoughtful manner than this post’s first few drafts.I appreciate you reading even if you disagree with me and aren’t religious in the least. I know not everyone enjoys such posts, but I felt a need to get these thoughts out. So here you go. Thanks for your support. Feel free to check out my books on Amazon, or buy me a coffee at Buy Me A Coffee. Thank you, and God bless.
Here’s a related post:
We’ll use “descend” and “ascend” Biblically, that is, metaphorically, because the underworld isn’t literally underground, nor is heaven literally up in space.
Zeus sounds awesome if you’re the kind of person who thinks power should be used for selfish, hedonistic reasons. While I am Greek, and love and appreciate the old Greek myths, I for one certainly understand why my ancestors became Christian.
Not to mention all of the atheists who I am reliably informed have read the entire Bible MULTIPLE TIMES, and know it so much better than every single Christian they’ve ever met. Truly remarkable people, enlightened by their intellect.
And with some good reason; I love my Evangelical and Born Again brethren, but man, you were cringe back in the 80s and 90s. You were also right about a lot, but your messaging needed a lot of work.
Remember: the slippery slope is an iron law.
The assertion that Christianity is no good because it led to Wokeness misses the point so badly it isn't even wrong. Christianity led to EVERYTHING. The words I am typing, the alphabet I am using, the electricity in the wires and chips that make this computer and internet work, the concepts we use to have these conversations, ALL OF IT, our entire civilization, is rooted in two thousand years of Christianity. Even the arguments and vocabulary used to attack Christianity are derived from Christianity. Trying to rewind the movie two thousand years to the misty woods of Northern Europe and recreate a Norse pagan world, or whatever other juvenile nonsense people claim to derive from Nietzsche, is a non-starter. Childishly, some people imagine themselves as Conan, crushing their enemies, etc. No. A return to a barbaric, pagan order would lead to nothing but misery. These current cultural and political issues have to be addressed and resolved with the tools our own cultural and political history provide, and they should be sufficient, particularly where the woke ideology is so utterly at odds with reality that it will not be sustainable for any length of time.
What an outstanding post man, Im going to have to save this and bring it out every year the new batch of 19 year olds discover Nietzsche.