Racism, Wokeness, and Religion

I don’t know if you remember King Theoden who appears in the Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. He states, “I will not risk open war.” Aragorn (who some say represents Jesus in the series) responds “Open war is upon you, whether you would risk it or not.”

A little like Theoden, many of us struggle to engage the reality of spiritual warfare with spiritual tools. When I speak of spiritual war, I’m thinking of a broken America fighting itself over political differences, “wokeness,” and antisemitism.

The United States is roughly two and a half centuries past its founding. We’re powerful but many powerful empires have vanished after a few centuries. Historians routinely posit that nations and empires crest, then fall into decline somewhere between 200 and 250 years. They may linger but will do so as shadows of their former selves.

Decline usually begins in a time of great prosperity followed by the culture embracing and flaunting materialism and sexual depravity, with the third factor being a decline in its founding religious values. Greatness as a culture seemed the birthright of our nation until the past few decades. It certainly remains suspect today.

It is my earnest desire that we, the church, fully function as salt in the earth preserving our breaking society for decades if not centuries to come. However, that desire seems further from reach with each turn of the news.

Racism In Reverse

As far back as 2020 an African American woman in a wealthy suburb of Atlanta approached the (also Black) principal of a public school to request a (non-Black) preferred teacher for her seven-year-old daughter. She was assured of the arrangement.

However, the times are changing – the principal, in the name of justice and what is best for children later reneged on the agreement. It was the principal’s belief that separating children on the basis of skin color was more important than the particular skillset of the teacher preferred by the mother. In other words, Dr. King was wrong, and segregation benefits the segregated. The world has turned upside down.

This is only one example of thousands of decisions contributing to the polarization of our country and culture. Our constitution and the action of the Supreme Court set the boundaries in which state institutions are allowed to discriminate between citizens on the basis of ethnicity. A few decades ago, legal challenges to these protections arose from those who demeaned people of another color. Now, the problem emerges from those who genuinely believe that segregation benefits those whose skin color has otherwise hindered their progress in the larger society.

The story I just described has become common practice in private schools which have more latitude than public institutions. Some of the most elite schools in America group students around ethnicity in an effort to help them learn in a more comfortable cultural setting. The problem with this is that is can generate animosity between groups and lower the understanding of each other’s values.

How do you fit into the workplace among people with different social values than yourself when you’ve never interacted with them while growing up and building your education?

Advocates of re-segregating our schools, and perhaps neighborhoods, reject the idea of universal values, especially the Judeo-Christian ones. Free speech and equal opportunity are seen as perpetuating the marginalization of minorities, thus group identity becomes the best way to operate within culture.

Identity Categories and “Microagressions”

Overcoming supposed obstacles demands new identity categories, each interpreting social reality through its own lens and combatting slights via learned and shared “microaggressions” useful to that group. They fall in categories of race, gender and sexual identity. Social power thus gained is promised to the segregated clumps of the populace.

The problem exacerbates itself when the state gets called on to adjudicate new ways for any person or institution to treat each identity group. Each identity platform requires its own vocabulary for addressing individuals and each claims special rights tailored to its worldview.

While subverting universal values, or even such a concept, advocates believe they act for the good of the whole.

The trap gets sprung when identity groups rub up against each other or to those belonging to no specific group. They simply do not know how to work in harmony with one another. Hence a great deal of the polarization afflicting our nation.

The lure behind this thinking is a desire to engage and overcome centuries old injustice and move toward a nation of true equals. However, when any people identify another as “other” they tend to demean and dehumanize them. This was the problem in Germany in 1937 and it will become ours as our people continue to isolate ourselves from one another and reject universal values. I believe Dr. King, Rosa Parks, and all those other heroes of the Civil Rights Movement were right, and we’re headed for a train wreck.

In a recently published book, The Fourth Turning is Here, the authors suggest that we’re headed for a crisis such as a war, a financial crash or even a civil war generated by the vehement polarity in our culture.

An answer to these predictions is that spiritual awakening have pulled us from the brink several times in our history, and awakenings have occurred roughly every 80 years in American history. We aren’t due for another until around 2045 or 2050. So, what do we do between then and now? We make disciples and multiply churches.

Our national and cultural problems are at the root spiritual. And we’re often battling them with carnal tools. We have replaced relational disciplemaking with clever marketing joined to a weekend experience designed to please potential converts.