By David Hegg
Through a conversation with a learned friend, I recently came to see the eerie reality that what we know as “woke” ideology is a post-modern adaptation of the ancient philosophy, gnosticism. The gnostic worldview, coming from the Greek word for “knowledge” (gnosis), taught that the material world was created by a lesser deity and has always been fatally flawed. It could only be transcended through “secret knowledge.” That is, “salvation” was found in an esoteric wisdom that granted a person the ability to see the errors and terrors around them, which the average person was blind to.
Today, woke ideology trumpets the same belief. The woke folk believe the rest of us are asleep and unable to see, much less recognize the social systems of capitalism, traditional religion with its sexual restrictions, “whiteness” and many other things in Western civilization, as structurally oppressive and active in perpetuating inequality and injustice. Just like gnosticism that insisted on a new order, woke ideology looks at the Western world and concludes it is fraught with unsolvable, inherent evil and cannot be fixed. Instead, it must be destroyed and replaced with a new, enlightened order equipped with a woke ethical, moral and practical cultural system.
To this end, the woke folk follow the gnostic playbook. In gnosticism, humanity was divided into groups and labeled in a manner that promoted the gnostic agenda. The primary division is between those who are awake and aware of what is happening and those who are snoring while their society is being ruined. To the engineers in the woke party, the rest of us are asleep and actually blind to the heinous powers that have us shackled in a dream world. The woke movement categorizes people in pejorative ways (oppressors vs. oppressed, privileged vs. disadvantaged, white vs. non-white, etc.) and, in so doing, insists these categories represent one’s moral character and ability to see reality. The woke folk define everyone as either helping or hurting society. Those who have “awakened” and are seeing the truth are labeled as intelligent, worthy and humane. Those who resist and oppose are demeaned, ridiculed and often canceled, increasingly through violence.
Here is where the idea of a secular “religion” comes in. In gnosticism, “salvation” from the evil world came from an enlightenment, an exceptional grasp on the knowledge necessary to escape that world. In the same way, woke ideology’s gospel is one of liberation that comes only by recognizing society’s evil structures, tearing them down, rejecting traditional virtues and standards, and replacing them with those ideas that celebrate their woke ideals.
How does the woke agenda work? It comes down to the rejection of objective truth. Just as gnosticism downplayed the material world and insisted truth was esoteric and not dependent on coherence with evident reality, so too does woke ideology insist truth is relative, subject to individual desires and needs. Thus, apprehending criminals is inhumane, but aborting human life is applauded. There are a growing number of genders and sexual identities, and trans men in women’s sports is a good thing. These biological men transitioning to women, even though they have never menstruated, endured menopause, or given birth, are to be seen as women just the same. I could go on to many other examples of how the woke agenda insists on jettisoning undeniable biological truth and, with it, plain old common sense. Woke ideology is certainly not ancient gnosticism, but it is structured in the same way. It is replaying the gnostic agenda with its arrogant and false distinction between the “enlightened” and the ignorant. But, in reality, the “woke” are not awake but rather inebriated, intoxicated on their own rejection of the societal restraints that have always curbed foolish, harmful thinking.
I believe the woke ideology is first a rejection of the truth that, as humans, we are accountable to the transcendent God who created us. Consequently, even those who believe they can sever that relationship and live without regard for a future reckoning will still find themselves responsible for their actions. But to whom? The woke folk have made their “psychologized self” the only god they serve. It is, conveniently, the only power to which they feel responsible. When people proclaim there is no power, no cultural norm, no tradition, no objective truth to which they must align their lives, we can be sure they are not seeking the benefit of all.
Maybe it is time we join the truth-telling little boy watching the parade and dare to shout, “The emperor has no clothes.” In this case, the woke ideology has the wrong ideas.
Local resident David Hegg is senior pastor of Grace Baptist Church. “Ethically Speaking” appears Sundays.
