The Rise of Woker-Than-Thou Evangelicalism

"Unless you have been living in seclusion somewhere, you will have noticed that a radical putsch is currently underway to get evangelicals on board with doctrines borrowed from Black Liberation Theology, Critical Race Theory, Intersectional Feminism, and other ideologies that are currently stylish in the left-leaning secular academy. All of these things are being aggressively promoted in the name of "racial reconciliation." This has suddenly given rise to a popular movement that looks to be far more influential—and a more ominous threat to evangelical unity and gospel clarity—than the Emergent campaign was 15 years ago. The movement doesn't have an official name yet, but the zealots therein like to refer to themselves as "woke." Evangelical thought leaders boast of their wokeness and vie with one another to be woker-than-thou.

In many ways, today's Woke Evangelicals are merely an echo of their Emergent forebears. The central threads of their rhetoric are identical, and many of their goals are similar—starting with their campaign to convince other evangelicals that gospel clarity alone will never reach a hostile culture. To do that, they say, we must strive for postmodern political correctness. We need to try to "make Christianity cool." Nowadays, that means race must be an issue in practically every subject we deal with. Meanwhile, diversity, tolerance, inclusivity, and a host of other postmodern "virtues" have begun to edge out the actual fruit of the Spirit in the language and conversation of some of our wokest brethren.

The Social Justice and Critical Race Theory Bandwagon: Should You Hop On it?

If you have not been hanging out on a remote island you have no doubt heard and read over and over again about the so called "gospel mandate" to fight the systematic oppression against African-Americans that is still rampant in our  nation and to expose "white privilege" and other forms of racism that are (allegedly) alive and well in the "conservative white evangelical" church today.

As you try and sort out what this all means, what the root problems are, and what the biblical way forward looks like for a "Gospel-centered" congregation I would encourage you to listen to Pastor Charlie Dates sermon from the MLK50 conference.  I do not agree with much of what Mr. Dates communicates in this passionate message but it's important that we understand where the "other side" is actually coming from; lest we construct "straw men arguments."  As if an entire conference on this subject wasn't enough.  This same issue was promoted again at another mega-conference the very next week.  People with power and influence are pressuring pastors and congregants alike to jump on the social justice bandwagon...Should you hop on it?

As you likely know, many evangelical leaders (John MacArthur, Tom Ascol, James White, Voddie Baucham, Robert Gagnon, yours truly, etc) have warned the evangelical church that "critical race theory" is grounded more in progressive ideology and in worldly thinking then in actual biblical proof texts.  This same camp has also warned the masses that the unintended consequence of all this will be to unnecessarily divide the Body of Christ.  This is not just speculation.  One Pastor admitted at the same MLK50 conference that 300 members left his church when he started emphasizing social justice theology.  This celebrity pastor quickly noted that it was necessary subtraction however because "ignorant fools" will never accept this teaching.  For men like Charlie Dates, Russell Moore, and Matt Chandler these are Gospel-centered matters (not political disagreements).  The recent MLK50 conference made this point loud and clear.

Though all sides in this debate agree that true racism is wicked and sinful (and thus has NO place in the Church-Galatians 3:28) there is a huge chasm when it comes to whether or not "racial justice, white guilt, white supremacy, systematic oppression, racialization, illegitimate hierarchies of segregation that continue to hold down people of color?