#124: How to be awake & proud of it

A Christian's perspective on practical love in 2025

Movements—like families or churches—should never be judged by their most extreme or dysfunctional elements. It’s unfair and ignorant.

To set us off on the right trajectory in exploring this idea, I want to introduce you to a close friend. He lives mostly in my mind, placed there by Doris Kearns Goodwin, who wrote Team of Rivals and many other seminal works on American history. His name is Frederick Douglass.

Douglass was born into slavery. His master’s wife, moved by compassion, taught him to read. At first, Douglass agonized over his learning, calling it a curse he wished he could undo. Learning, he said, had "woken him up," making him aware that before a good God, he was equal to white people. But he was still a slave so this new understanding clashed with his lived reality, causing a pain as sharp as a whip, making him wish he could go back to sleep.

But instead of retreating, or surrendering to fear, Douglass—a fierce follower of Christ—chose to live awake. He became a man of history, standing alongside Abraham Lincoln, not just to free slaves but to restore their dignity. In his autobiography, he wrote:

"The man who willfully and deliberately inflicts upon the poor, the helpless, and the oppressed, the bitterest and most agonizing wrongs, is the one who is the most in need of awakening."

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When & Why Did the ‘Woke’ Movement Start?

Equal before God. That’s the idea that kicked started the woke movement around the time of Fredrick Douglas - early 1900’s. At first, the word ‘woke’ was whispered by brave African American slaves like Douglass to their neighbours in the cotton fields. It was an encouragement to be brave and wake up! Recognize their shared humanity as those made in the image of God too.

The term woke first appeared in popular culture in 1938, recorded in the protest song Scottsboro Boys by Lead Belly. Before the song, he tells listeners:

"Best stay woke, keep their eyes open." Have a listen here.

Woke hit the mainstream in 1962 William Melvin Kelley, often regarded as the seminal voice in popularizing the term woke, published an essay for The New York Times Magazine, titled "If You're Woke, You Dig It". In the essay he explores the term "woke" and its significance within the context of African American life and culture. He reflects on how being "woke" is a sign of awareness and consciousness regarding the racial and social injustices Black people face. Kelley suggests that the term embodies a heightened vigilance against oppression and encourages a deeper understanding of the systems of racism and inequality.

So while I don’t subscribe to humanisim and its destructive trajectory, I do want to live my life awake and not asleep.

See my definition of awake here.

Why Does ‘Woke’ Scare Us So Badly?

Western culture and Christianity share much overlap, the thanks (or blame) for that goes to Constantine the Great (308 CE) and Theodosius I (338 CE) who enforced Christianity as mandatory for all Roman citizens. Think back to Christmas a month ago and try to unpick what is truly spiritual in our culture … that is the disastrous result of their choice on all of our lives.

But like the parts of the Woke movement at its heart Christianity is a spiritual movement of justice and love. Think about John 3:16. Think about Jesus sitting with the sinners in prayer. Think about Jesus with the woman at the well or his love towards Mary Magdalene screaming at the top of her lungs for freedom from demons.

So why the war between ‘woke-ism’ and Christian culture despite the fact that there are so many overlapping values?

The most obvious answer: fear.

Let’s be clear—there was some scary and dangerous stuff there. Some of it was so dangerous I felt personally compelled with to get into the mess and create a 7X course for teenagers aimed at bringing balance (see my 2X course on gender transformation and 1X course on race [here].

But movements, like families or churches, should never be judged by their most dangerous or dysfunctional extremes. It’s unfair and ignorant. And as Christians, we hate it when we are lumped together with the Crusades, witch hunts, colonization, apartheid, patriarchy, or the fall of prominent Christian leaders into sin. So if we don’t like to be treated unfairly why are we not affording the woke movement the same love and grace we want to receive?

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We’ve Become Pharisaical

I think the more reflective answer is we’re fighting humanism, the fast-growing religion on earth according to Noah Yuval Harari.

And it is in that fight that well-meaning Christianity, and the church, have slid into Constaine's slipstream and started to believe we are guardians of the world’s culture. And this focus has made us lose the person and attack our fears.

If you’re a Christian Pharisees still describe this kind of smelly behaviour best for us.

But unlike the Pharisees, Jesus was interested only in people. And actually a very, very small group of people. 5,000 people gather to hear him speak and he walks away to speak to his disciples instead of them (see the start of the Sermon on the Mount). Constantly he is leaving the crowds. Constantly he is addressing individual human hearts. Why? Inside-out. Upside-down. That is Jesus’s way. He wanted nothing to do with what we do and everything to do with what is going on inside our hearts (again, see Sermon on the Mount). Why? He knew that there was and is no shortcut to transformation. Only love sets us and those around us free from the inside out…

So with that in mind here’s what I think Jesus might be saying to us about how as individuals speak about the Woke movement right now —

JESUS' ADVICE ON HOW WE SPEAK ABOUT WOKEISM:

1. Let’s keep a watch on the "log in our own eyes": Most Christians are scared that humanist religion will or is destroying our values, and that is important when considering life-altering issues like abortion and affirmative gender transformation for those below 18. But very few of us have been called to the heavy responsibility of guiding Christian culture in government. For most of us who believe in Jesus, it is our job is to “love the Lord your God with all our heart, soul and strength and love our neighbour as ourselves”. As we lead in our sphere of influence it is a wonderful time to practice those hard Christian disciplines that can come only from a heart of love like forgiveness, turning the other cheek, bravery and wisdom

2. "Do not judge": I love this command of Jesus. It's possibly my favourite three words in the whole Bible. It takes all the power and control away from me and places it with Someone actually capable of doing that job well. Judgment is delicious because it is often the easiest way to distance ourselves from discomfort and complexity. It simplifies the world into 'us' and 'them,' absolving us of the responsibility to understand and love others as they are. Jesus' command (and it is a command when it applies to people) challenges us to embrace humility and compassion instead of condemnation. This tension is costly. Love always is. But it is only love that creates space for real transformation—both in ourselves and others.

3. "What is true religion?" James answers this well. He describes it as the love and care for the orphan and the widow—the most vulnerable in society (and guarding our tongues). In South Africa, 60% of our neighbours (mostly black) still can’t put food on the table for their kids. They are our widows and orphans and the danger of fighting Woke-ism is we lose sight of the real, God-inspired transformation that needs to take place all around us today

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A Story to Close

I was a preacher by 22 and divorced by 28. Like the conversation above, it created a war between our families as we fought to protect ourselves. One conversation in that time has shaped my life. My ex-wife's older brother came to me quietly and, in his gentle, beautiful way, smiled at me and said,

“There are three sides to every story.”

Never before had I felt so loved.

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Something Practical to Do

This post feels incredibly dangerous. It straddles a knife edge of living with love and discernment in a humanist world that is hurting and helping people. So let’s end simply and practically. For those of us who aspire to be like The Christ, our goal should be to taste like salt. Things always taste better when we add the right amount of salt, right? So we never want to lose this saltiness! But if we add too much salt, that makes the meal yuck too…

How do we find the right balance? I suppose it is different each day, each second. But the start is respecting every thought in our minds, every story we’ve been told, and every word on our tongue and the power they hold in God to make things more delicious. Food for thought.

Hope you have such a great week.