Woke: An Evangelical Guide to Postmodernism, Liberalism, Critical Race Theory, and More

Praise for Woke

I know of no other book that explains so clearly, with so lively a pen, and with such economy the various intellectual currents that are now disturbing our cultural peace. What is even rarer is that the author grinds no axes, treating both sides of the culture wars with thoughtful charity and a deeply Christian intelligence. 'Woke' has important things to say and it does so in a highly readable manner.

— Nigel Biggar, Ph.D., Regius Professor Emeritus of Moral Theology, University of Oxford

Woke

AN EVANGELICAL GUIDE TO

POSTMODERNISM, LIBERALISM,

CRITICAL RACE THEORY, AND MORE

JOHN G. STACKHOUSE, Jr.

THINKBETTER Media

Woke: An Evangelical Guide to Postmodernism, Liberalism, Critical Race Theory, and More

Copyright © 2023  John G. Stackhouse, Jr.

THINKBETTER Media, Moncton, New Brunswick

ISBN: 978-1-7380983-0-9

All rights reserved. Except for brief excerpts for review purposes, no part of this book may be reproduced or used in any form or media without permission from the publisher.

The information in this book was correct at the time it was published.

Cover Design: Sarah-Jane Britton

Interior Layout: Jonathan Puddle

to SJ,

who has awakened me

to so much

Contents

Introduction

Part One

1.Postmodernity

2.Critical Theory

3.Liberalism, Socialism, and Communism

4.Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

5.Critical Race Theory

6.Anti-Racism

7.Political Correctness

Part Two

8.Christians and Liberal Politics

9.Christians and Critical Race Theory

10.Christians and the Politics of Diversity

11.Postmodernity Revisited

12.Christians and the New Moralism

Afterword

About the Author

Introduction

This book is doomed.

It is doomed, that is, if readers come to it expecting a comprehensive treatment of every subject it addresses. Whole books, some of them good, have taken up just one or two of the many topics this booklet addresses: postmodernity, Critical Theory, liberalism, socialism, communism, multiculturalism, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), Critical Race Theory, anti-racism, and political correctness.

It is doomed also if readers come to it expecting a comprehensive presentation of the Christian Story, the Christian world-and-life view, fundamental Christian ethics, and the implications of all of that for life and witness today. Whole books of mine, some of them good, have taken up one or two of those topics as well.

What this small volume can do, however, is provide a brief introduction and response to the culture of woke for those professionals, pastors, parents, and other people too busy or otherwise disinclined to undertake a deeper study. My aim is to help Christians who don't have time to read a lot of books but who earnestly want to think better about these issues we all face—so that we can understand and respond to those issues with clarity, charity, vigour, and effectiveness.

If you read this book with that important, but modest, objective, then it ought to be worth your while.

Woke: An Evangelical Guide is in two parts. The first introduces and explains a range of key ideas—from postmodernity to political correctness—all of which help define aspects of woke culture. My strong sense is that these terms are often, even usually, used wrongly, and especially by people who ought to know better: preachers, pundits, and other purveyors of public opinion. In my experience, in fact, anyone who is not a scholar in a relevant field who uses any word starting with postmodern almost certainly misuses it. And all around us people are spouting off about Critical Race Theory, cultural Marxism, and the like while clearly being clueless about these ideas. So we will take time to do what Kong-zi (the sage we Westerners know as Confucius) said was the first step in any good thinking: the rectification of names—or, as we professors tend to say, defining our terms. The second part of the book offers Christian reflection on each of these cultural elements, resulting in practical advice to parents, students, pastors, educators, policymakers, and any other concerned Christian citizens. We want to think better in order to live better.

The first name we must rectify, of course, is the term "woke" itself. Woke refers to being awake, and specifically to whether Black Americans in the 1940s were awake to the systemic patterns of racial discrimination they were still experiencing, long after the abolition of slavery and the Civil War. Black Americans encouraged one another to stay woke to the injustices they were suffering and to refuse to accept them as simply an unavoidable and unchangeable part of life. In that original positive spirit, I stand in the long tradition of evangelicals who desire to keep our eyes and ears open to what is really happening to us and around us—and particularly to those of our neighbours who suffer injustice.

I appreciate that woke more recently has been used ironically and pejoratively by people on the cultural and political right to mock what they see to be self-righteous excesses of progressive zeal. So I will use woke in multiple ways throughout this booklet, sometimes in ways that progressives may not enjoy and sometimes in ways that conservatives may find challenging.

I should also define evangelical. I’ve written a lot on the question of defining this term, and readers are directed to Evangelicalism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2022) for a proper treatment. For now, I just mean vital, observant Protestant Christianity, the style of Protestantism between conservative (maintain the tradition) and liberal (open to changing nearly anything under the ‘Christian’ brand). I mean the kind of Christianity now exploding in China, Korea, India, Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and even Iran. I do not mean to restrict it to white American nationalism, as I recognize many readers might wonder if that’s what I mean to do. I mean the kind of Christianity fostered in the eighteenth century by the Wesleys, George Whitefield, Lady Huntingdon, and Jonathan Edwards and in our own time by organizations ranging from World Vision and the Salvation Army to the World Evangelical Alliance and the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students.

This little book has emerged from my journalism, public lectures, teaching, and books over the last decade or so. Those used to my more academic writing may notice I have maintained here a journalistic tone, right down to the omission of citations, merely noting sources in passing—as journalists get to do. I trust that that style will frustrate only the occasional reader (such as myself: I love footnotes) and will free everyone else to read through it at a pace convenient to you.

Thanks very much, then, to my Crandall University colleague Dr. Diandra Singh, who has worked with Critical Race Theory and whose personal experience as an Indo-Canadian woman has brought sober perspective to the parts of the book she helpfully critiqued. Thanks to the versatile Jonathan Puddle for crucial production and marketing assistance in launching this new publishing venture of ThinkBetter Media. And thanks to Sarah-Jane Britton, partner with me in ThinkBetter Media, among other projects (let the reader understand), who inspires the author to, on so many fronts, think better.

Part One

Chapter one

Postmodernity

When I was a student in the 1970s and 1980s, postmodernity was still cool. Then it became conventional. Then boring—and even irritating when someone breathlessly announced that she had just discovered it and wanted to celebrate it, or perhaps warn us about it. But now?

Now it's significant to everybody, because postmodernity is everywhere.

A book this short cannot possibly do academic justice to such interesting and paradoxical phenomena. But since pundits from Jordan Peterson to the late Tim Keller, as well as a host of lesser lights, have been offering their takes on these complex matters, let's plunge in and see what's what—especially since a lot of popular Christian speakers lump in all things woke with postmodernity.

And they shouldn't.

The post- in postmodernity tells us that the word means simply what comes after the modern. What comes after the modern, it turns out, is