Spiritual Enslavement

Wokeism's exploitation of Christianity in America

“You really like that St. Cyril quote.”

Yes, I do, it is entirely apropos to today where Christians seem incapable of formulating a response to something pernicious which exploits many of Christianity’s surface values. Exploit in the meaning of hack or inappropriate but seemingly legitimate use.

This is nice, hey why are there horns

There are many working through a history or construction of Wokeism and the competing arguments around how to classify it. Yoram Horazny has his version which is working backwards from how they use language and exploit particular divides along the intersectional-critical-theory oppressed/oppressor axes and dubs it “Cultural Marxism” whereas Paul Gottfried does a comparative review and says no, not really. I don’t think an exacting philosophical-ideological-whatever history is necessary beyond that which allows one to formulate a response. For my purposes it is good enough to understand that by Wokeism I mean an anti-Christian and anti-white animus which will include and discard groups as it sees fit for the sole purpose of destruction of the aforementioned with hand waving promises of utopian humanity through equality¹. It doesn’t matter that the utopia looks like a horror film in the current day because better days are ahead. The GOP/right wing/e-right/dissingdent right or whatever is firmly stuck on naming the thing as if this is The Black Company² and knowing the true name will strip the enemy of protection and power and we can destroy the Great Evil. This type of thinking consumes untold amounts of energy and defuses attempts at response because they get wrapped around the axles over a question which doesn’t matter on nearly the scale they imagine that it does.

What mechanisms does the movement use to exploit its opponents and disarm them? I believe there is a two-prong approach at the outset which is dependent on our American/Western particularities one the one hand and a weasel subversion of Christian characteristics on the other. Each prong has a number of different ways to work into the armor and prevent an effective response. They also interact with each other as mutual weapon and shield; changing roles where it is suitable. The point of the techniques is not internal consistency: the point is to cow you, to make every man a poltroon where he stands, and eventually to erase what they hate from the earth. This is a spiritual battle and we must understand that we fight not just to prevent physical corruption, but for the literal souls of the nation, and we do not fight against flesh and blood but against Powers and Principalities. The egregore, or thought demon as I render it, is pointing to this - the infectious and insidious spread of malicious influence. As Christians, we must not forget that there is reality aside and above us in the material plane, neither should we ignore the tactics deployed against us in the here and now as a total response is necessary.

The first technique often used is one straight from the sexual revolution: what you do in your own home matters only to you. Home privacy can be extended to bodily autonomy on topics ranging from drug use to sexual license to obesity, and it is used to excuse behaviors which we typify as self-destructive but in fact represent losses which resound across the social fabric. This leans on the American identity which is centered around individualism³ to remove the obvious defenses on seismic social change: social technique and taboos are hard won and, though we may have forgotten why they are there, they are there for a reason and it’s best to change things slowly. The common line one is apt to hear is “why do you care so much about {some thing that isn’t imminent physical or financial harm to you}?” Disarm.

This is also a weapon - the dynamic vision of changing society, freeing people from the shackles of the past, and taking bolds strides on the path of progress is truly an easier sell then the opposite which is viewed as fuddy duddy and fear based. That’s one of the areas where the Woke are more correct than the mainstream conservatives because I still haven’t seen an articulation of a positive and forward looking⁴ vision in this mindset and I consider it key for having people sign up to any movement. Don’t you want people to be free to do what they want? Same argument used in a different manner. There is another mode of attack tied to individualism: keep your faith and your morals and your beliefs in the privacy of your home. This is a joke, of course, as the state religion is shoved in our faces constantly and corporations change their logos to show their fealty for at least one month out of the year. As I said earlier - consistency is not the point.

Consistency cannot be the point because while the use of individualism is design to weaken there is the emphasis of collective identities at the same time provided they are useful identities to the cause. The Christian collective identity, the Church, is not useful because it stands against the mission to subjugate humanity to their sinful natures. Christianity is attacked, and even infiltrated through subverted seminaries, in order to create a skinsuit Christianity which is useful to the cause even if it simply parrots the state religion’s beliefs without the core of Christianity which is theosis by becoming Christlike. Christ, of course, fulfilled the law itself with perfection, and while we are saved by Grace and faith we are reminded that while everything may be permitted not everything is beneficial. We are also told that faith without works is meaningless as we must constantly repent and align ourselves to the Will of God. The meaning of this is that we are called to live lives of discipline and right morality for the purposes of right relationship to each other, to creation, and to God.

Squirrel!

I think the most common appeal from the other prong can be formulated as “love is the highest good” and preventing people from pursuing what they want or being who they want to be is not allowing them to “love” themselves. This is downstream of the notion of God is love which is corruption of the concept that the Triune God is in a constant communion and movement of love and reduces God to a pithy saying while ignoring that those who face God in a state of rebellion are destroyed by the same energia that those who are in tune and resonating⁵ with God find peaceful and joyous. That saying about God is combined with the commonplace notion⁶ that Christians are nice, and that niceness is a virtue to which all Christians strive, and we are reminded that “Love is patient, love is kind[…]”. Christians are hard-pressed to respond, even though they have answers in the Bible, in the Lives of the Saints, and in the Tradition that has seen us through two thousand years of oppression, strife, and union with various state entities. It is used as a weapon: I thought you were all about love, but clearly you hate these people and want to genocide them therefore you are the problem. The reverse is true as well: These people just want love!

There is a word game baked into the love and personal expression arguments made capable by English’s overloading of the word love. There is also an unwillingness on the attacking side to be charitable. Christians are taught to love the sinner, and despise the sin, but are all too easily made incapable of effective response when people conflate themselves with their sin. “Of course I love you, but…” “Why do you reject who I am?" Christians are often familiar with the Greek language’s differentiation of love into distinct types: philia, agape, eros, and storges. English renders these all as “love” and relies on contextual clues and adjectives to provide specificity in meaning, and our culture generally sublimates love to mean romantic love with an emphasis on eros as type. However, as pointed out earlier, Christians are called to align themselves with God in will and action and we cannot stand idly by while people fall into sin. Doing so is letting our agape love of humanity slide by us because it is easier to be quiet rather than face hatred, persecution, the loss of our employment, the starvation of our children, and other consequences of our belief. It is not loving to let people destroy their bodies, nor is it loving to let them fall deeper into their delusions, nor is it loving to watch people become consumed by their sin.

There are, of course, other tactics employed but these are representative of the rhetorical and should get us thinking about how to address them rather than get lost in minutiae or tripped up over dumb word games: witness the recent define woke wave that washed over the interwebs and soaked up so much time, energy, and attention.

We are called to stand firm and we are called to forego even our familial bonds for the sake of Christ.

“Whatever I tell you in the dark, speak in the light; and what you hear in the ear, preach on the housetops. And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.

Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven.

Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to ‘set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and ‘a man’s enemies will be those of his own household.’ He who loves father or mother more than me is not worth of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.”

We render to Caesars what is Caesars, but when they seek to make you deny your faith and abandon its precepts and teachings we must remember and respond with Christian virtue which is not the virtue of this world and which sees beyond mere temporal restrictions. This is an all-encompassing ideology that demands fealty from everyone. They seek to enslave us spiritually and we must awaken to the battle and put on the armor and equip ourselves. There will be temptations on all sides and in all ways - to embrace a new morality, to acquiesce, to change thousands of years of Tradition; including Scripture. We must make ready, and we must stand fast.

1. Where equality is a laughable goal all rounds from every side - people are not equal, nor are cultures, economies, et al

2. Or Bungie’s Myth: The Fallen Lords and Myth II: Soulblighter which borrowed some elements heavily and are games everyone should play and love even if it’s probably a bear to get the running on a modern box. Fun fact: the initial 1.0 release of Myth: TFL contained code in the uninstaller which targeted the root of a drive and would wipe every file if you uninstalled the game!

3. Which is rugged individualism but we forget the part where it was meant to be about self-sufficiency because that’s not happening in our hyperconnected Just in Time world for almost anyone

4. RETVRN has appeal but no one wants to go backwards and be inconvenienced

5. Thinking about this lately - we resonate with the earth and respond to it in a literal way, we also believe in the transformation and renewal of the body and not just the spirit (note that this is part of the reason the relics of the Saints are venerated and kept which, as an ex-Evangelical, I still find weird but I’m working on it), reference the warmth and light witnessed emanating from some Saints which is the Uncreated and Unwaning Light

6. Probably derived from turning the other cheek, praying in private instead of ostentatiously and loudly in public, and other teachings of that ilk. Probably