GOSPEL MATTERS: ‘Culture Wars’

Dr Christine Wood, Director, Office of Evangelisation & Catechesis

Should the Church involve herself in culture wars? History has shown that if we remain passive bystanders we will be stripped of our freedoms when political power embeds authoritarian ideologies into social institutions.

Christians live in the world, but should not be of the world. Christ told his disciples to be the salt of the earth, and that if we lose our saltiness we will be cast out to be trodden under foot.

Christians bring flavour to social discourse by proposing transcendent perspectives of what it means to be human and how society might flourish.

With the advent of social media we have entered a new cultural context, driven by what’s come to be labelled as “woke” philosophy.

Political philosopher, Eric Kaufmann, defines “woke” as “the making sacred of historically marginalised race, gender, and sexuality identity groups.” He calls this the “Big Bang” of our new moral order. Like any revolution, it’s brought widespread upheaval to the social fabric.

Kaufmann remarks that these identity groups cannot be offended. If you’re unfortunate enough to say something that the most sensitive members of these groups deign to be offensive, you’ll be labelled as a blasphemer of the “sacred.” Consequently, you will be cancelled or “excommunicated” from social discourse.

This “woke” philosophy has its own religious character. Like many humanly devised religions wokeism is heavily seasoned with emotional attachments driven by empathy for the perceived underdog.

Older religious and ethnic identities are now seen as oppressors, out of step with the new cultural norms. The Church is threatened with deplatforming, even legal action, unless she radically revises her traditional teaching on marriage, family, and sexuality.

Wokeism isn’t entirely new though. Christ himself confronted a version of it, too. The pharisees oppressed the Jewish people with their narrow-minded view of religious purity. They loaded up the people with heavy burdens and didn’t lift a finger to help them carry them. Pharisaic law imposed the sentence of “cancellation” upon those who were not up to date with the norms of the ruling elite.

Christ confronted this pharisaical mentality when he reached out and touched the outcasts of his day: the lepers, prostitutes, and tax collectors. The elites came down hard on him, and he was executed.

Likewise, our modern pharisees impose heavy burdens upon us, penalising anyone who dares to think differently, and casting them out of society to spend the rest of their days in social exclusion with the lepers of history, or to be stoned for the new version of blasphemy.

But never forget that Christ rose from the dead. Persecutions come and go. In us, Christ will have his victory yet.