It was the year 2014 and my wife and I were heavily involved in a church in Indiana that was striving to be multi-ethnic. We eventually decided to move to a different church primarily due to an unhealthy and unbiblical emphasis on racial diversity in the hiring and volunteer selection process of the church.
I noticed this firsthand during my time as a member of the musical worship team. I remember feeling comfortable and encouraged early on to see such a broad spectrum of diversity among the musicians. Our leader was a Latin-American keyboard player, I’m a mix of African- and Irish-American, we had Latin-American bass players and drummers, and African-American as well as European-American vocalists. Surely this was a picture of Revelation’s great multitude from every tribe, tongue, people and nation beginning to develop on earth! I was so glad to be a part of the Lord’s work, until I began to realize that this diversity also came at a significant cost and was strategically manufactured by the leaders of the church. The more I was involved in the ministry, the clearer it became to me that I was merely a tall, multiethnic prop to present a diverse appearance to a crowd. This became painfully clear as I heard the worship leader decide to not allow another white guy into the band because we had enough of them on stage. No, according to him, we needed to keep an eye out for a talented Asian to join us. Wasn’t this favoritism?
Not only were individuals not being invited to join the worship team based on skin color, but the people who were on the team were held to very low standards of accountability and discipleship, yet were still allowed to continue their involvement. To press for greater accountability would risk losing what seemed to be most important: the diverse makeup of the team. I did not understand the terminology or concepts back then, but as I reflect on my experiences now, I was involved in a church hyper focused on being perceived as multiethnic and diverse by the culture.
The main point of this article is that the church should reject the ideology of wokeness. Although ethnic diversity in the local church is a wonderful thing, pastors and Christians must consider biblically the means by which that diversity comes about. In this article, I will look at some of the underlying concepts behind “wokeness” in order to see its foundations. I will then look at God’s Word in order to see clearly how He views ethnic diversity. Finally, I will offer some closing thoughts and practical applications for how true churches should graciously, yet firmly resist this ever-increasing trend of wokeism in broader evangelicalism today.
The Foundations of Wokeness
1. Pinpointing the exact origin of the slang term “Woke” (and the concept of wokeness itself) is very difficult and nuanced. Part of this difficulty is due to the ways the concept of wokeness today bleeds across various social topics such as sexuality, gender, economics, race, nationality etc.
As it is commonly understood and used today, to be “woke” is to be “aware of” or “awakened to” social injustices against a particular group of people.[1] In his book “Woke Church,” Pastor Eric Mason describes his understanding of wokeness as it pertains to racial issues in the church. Mason writes,
My desire in this book is to encourage the church to utilize the mind of Christ and to be fully awake to the issues of race and injustice in this country. Pan-Africanists and Black Nationalists use the term “woke” to refer to no longer being naïve nor in mental slavery. We have borrowed the term and redeemed it to be used in the context of being awakened from deadened, sinful thinking. In fact, every believer has been awakened from sins effects and Satan’s deception (Eph. 5:14). Thus, the believer is able to be aware of sin and challenge it wherever it is.[2]
2. Eric Mason, John M. Perkins, and Ligon Duncan, Woke Church: An Urgent Call for Christians in America to Confront Racism and Injustice (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2018), 25–26.
According to Mason, wokeness urgently presses all people to awake from their slumber and to resolve the lingering effects of slavery and oppression still plaguing America. Thabiti Anyabwile passionately supports the concept of the “woke church” when he argues that within the local church context, “we have to teach people how to be their ethnic selves in a way that’s consistent with the Bible and how to live fruitfully in contexts that don’t affirm their ethnic selves. Hence, we need a ‘woke church.’”
Samuel Sey makes a convincing observation that the concept of wokeness in our day significantly overlaps with the tradition of Black Liberation Theology “developed by James Cone in the 1960’s during the Black Power movement as a reaction to evangelical apathy on racial injustice.” He continues,
Black Liberation Theology is Martin Luther King Jr.’s social gospel and Malcolm X’s Black Nationalism in one. Black Liberation Theology exchanges the power of God for Black power. It exchanges the supremacy of Christ for Black supremacy. Black Liberation Theology is built on a foundation of bitterness and victimhood, with social justice as its chief cornerstone.
While Mason claims to have “redeemed” the concept of wokeness for the purposes of the church, we must recognize that it is neither legitimate nor helpful for Christianity to build upon such a shaky foundation. Although distinctions exist between Black Liberation Theology and woke Christianity, vast similarities unify the two theologies into one dangerous threat to the church.
Wokeism is also strongly informed by other philosophical ideas such as Critical Theory which undergirds most contemporary “social justice” movements.[3] This ideology essentially categorizes people into either oppressive or oppressed groups that are unified around various identity traits such as class, economic status, ethnicity, or sex. Critical Theory and Wokeism work hand in hand, for the first promulgates a narrative of oppression and the second demands a reckoning.
3. Owen Strachan, Christianity and Wokeness: How the Social Justice Movement Is Hijacking the Gospel — and the Way to Stop It (Washington, D.C: Salem Books, 2021), 8.
As it relates to local congregations, a woke church is a multi-ethnic congregation that strives to fight against racism and injustice by becoming heavily involved in social justice activism in its community. In the particular realm of worship ministry I was in, this meant giving skin color a much greater weight than either musical ability or character. The Woke Church Christianizes an otherwise secular way of thinking which has Black Liberation Theology and Critical Theory loaded into it. But what does the Word of God have to say?
Scripture and Wokeness
As we turn our attention toward scripture, we find that in the beginning, God created one man from the dust of the ground (Gen. 1:26–28). From the rib of this man Adam, God fashioned for him a helpmeet, Eve (Gen. 2:18–24), and every human being since has come from these two people. Genesis 10–11 is where we see the first references to various ethnicities, clans, nations and languages being established and developed in the world after Babel. God disperses and separates various peoples by language and geographic location. It is in these foundational passages where we are introduced to the concept of ethnicity, or what many in our day (erroneously) refer to as “race.” Immediately following Genesis 11, we are introduced to Abram in chapter 12 whom God, by his sovereign decree, separates for himself to become a new people who would be a great nation and a blessing to the other nations (Gen. 12:2–3).
Throughout the rest of the Old Testament, there is a God-ordained distinction and separation made between Israel, God’s covenant people, and the Gentiles, those outside of covenant with God. Though the sinful blood of Adam still ran through Israel, God, by way of covenant, set apart for himself a people who were to be a holy nation and royal priesthood who follow His commands and adhere to His law in the midst of the watching world (Lev. 20:26; Deut. 7:6; 1 Chr. 17:21). It is important for us to note that throughout the Old Testament, Gentiles could indeed become a part of Israel, and thus be woven into the fabric of God’s covenant people, regardless of their ethnic background. We see examples of this throughout the Old Testament as early as the Passover (Exod. 12:38) and in the case of Rahab’s family (Josh. 6:25). To be an Israelite was to be a part of the Old Covenant community of God’s people.
Over time, the distinctions between covenantal Israel and non-covenantal Gentiles became clearer and more separate. Through centuries of God-designed separation of people groups through location, culture, traditions, language, and even skin tones and physical features, the distinctions between the world’s people groups became that much more firmly contrasted and thoroughly defined. It is important for us to continually remember that even though ethnic distinctions became more sharply contrasted throughout human history, the essence of the sinful human nature remained the same in our common ancestor, Adam.
As we enter the New Testament, we are introduced to the central character of all of scripture, namely the long-awaited seed of Eve, Jesus Christ (Gen. 3:15; Luke 3:23–38). Jesus was and is the only true Israelite who has ever lived. Through perfect obedience to God’s law, Jesus Christ, the son of Abraham by the flesh (Rom. 1:3), accomplished and fulfilled all righteousness and upheld God’s covenantal requirements (Matt. 5:18). In His dying on the cross as a propitiation for the sins of his people, Christ fulfilled the purposes for which God the Father set Abraham apart back in Genesis, namely that through his offspring the world (and all ethnic categories therein) would be blessed (Gen. 22:18). Thus, the New Testament clearly explains that, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise” (Gal. 3:28–29).
This is the redemptive message and story of scripture: that the eternal son of God added to himself a human nature, died the death that Adam (and all of his variously shaded sons and daughters) deserved, and rose again on the third day, so that anyone who puts their trust in him can enter into the New Covenant through his blood. Jesus Christ’s sacrificial death and resurrection accomplished reconciliation between God and man, and subsequently between man and man, but only in him. In and through Christ alone, all human beings who, by the power of the Holy Spirit, get woke to these realities (regardless of ethnic background or nationality) can find forgiveness from their sins and salvation unto eternal life.
Thus, we read in Revelation 7 of a future day when John sees “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Rev. 7:9–10). These are the New Covenant people of God that are like an ocean of humanity ranging in skin color from the lightest of beige to the darkest of brown and everything in between. Scripture ends with this beautiful picture of a fully restored (and vastly diverse) humanity who will dwell with God and Christ for all eternity in perfect harmony and peace.
Summary & Applications for the Church
But as we move back to the middle of the story to our modern day, we might ask where does the woke church come into play in all of this? Some might argue, if scripture presents such a joyfully diverse picture of God’s redeemed people in Revelation 7, what’s wrong with the church pursuing that end now? What could be wrong with wanting to see glimpses of that multiethnic redeemed community now? At a foundational level, there is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to see ethnic diversity among God’s people today. As a multi-ethnic man myself, I love seeing the power of the gospel of Christ breaking down barriers between people who are so culturally (and even sometimes physically) different. I think this is the initial appeal and attraction believers have with the concept of wokeness. However, I have come to realize the importance of how this diverse community comes into being. The following are a few suggestions for how local churches can reject the ideology of wokeness and pursue true and biblical unity in Christ.
Use Biblical Terminology
As it pertains to our use of language, we ought reject the commonly used terminology of “race” and use the more biblical concept of “ethnicity.” We all belong to the human race, but each of us have roots in different ethnicities (a concept used in scripture to describe various people groups who are unified by languages, cultures, customs, and sometimes even physical features). As we discussed above from scripture, we are all sons and daughters of Adam, yet our ethnic identities vary. For example, a “white” Russian man, and a “white” South African man are two very different individuals coming from two incredibly different ethnic backgrounds even though they may have the same shade of skin. The same goes for a “black” man from Chicago and a “black” man from Zimbabwe. Yet according to many who have a woke mindset, these men are simply reduced to belonging to either the “black” or “white” race. This is an overly simplistic and harmful set of lenses to see the world through, yet these are the very lenses of wokeness. Wokeness emphasizes and exalts race relations, racial tensions, and racial reconciliation. But using racial terminology like this (which is solely based on outward appearance) only creates further distance between human beings who are all made in the image of God.
So we should utilize Biblical categories as we discuss ethnicity, and yet we should also let scripture inform how much of an emphasis to place on our various ethnicities. For example, how often does the Apostle Paul emphasize his ethnicity as a Jew? Biblically we see Paul describe a unique love and kinship with his ethnic people on multiple occasions (Rom. 9:3; 1 Cor. 9:20; Phil. 3:5). Yet broadly speaking, we see that Paul’s identity as a follower of Christ far surpasses his Jewish pedigree, both in importance and emphasis (see Phil. 3:1–11). Biblically speaking then, though ethnic distinctions and cultural differences are real (and should be embraced as God’s good design for humanity), these distinctions are ultimately insignificant in comparison to our unity and identity in Christ.
Build Relationships Organically
The woke church is loudly calling for “white” people to seek out friendships and to build relationships with “black” people to strengthen diversity. And in one sense, I am all for these kinds of diverse relationships. But in another sense, I am concerned that churches may be disobeying the biblical injunction against favoritism. Is it less sinful to show partiality towards “the ethnically different man” instead of “the rich man” (James 2:1–9)? This sort of woke-infused language puts ethnicity on the forefront of everyone’s minds in the church, and places a social target on the backs of those ethnic minorities in the congregation who will be pummeled with invitations to friendships at an unnatural pace. This can leave them wondering if there is actual interest in them as fellow believers and friends, or if they are merely another token minority relationship. If we’re going to develop authentic, Christ-centered relationships within the body, let it happen equally among all skin tones, and naturally through organic, side-by-side ministry efforts, without showing partiality for or against the melanin challenged!
Along those same lines, churchgoers as well as church leaders need to be careful to avoid putting on this pair of woke lenses which cause them to leave the ninety-nine in pursuit of the one—as long as that one is of a certain ethnicity. It would obviously be a form of sinful partiality to mainly pursue people who look like you for discipleship and evangelism. Likewise, it would be sinful partiality to appoint leaders in the church by that same outward criterion. But I want to remind Christians that it can be equally sinful to mainly (or exclusively) pursue people who do not look like you for ministry as well. Reverse racism is still racism, and the church would do well to avoid it all together. We rightly avoid this by putting on Christian lenses where human beings are not primarily identified as “black” or “white.” but rather as lost or found—as in Adam or in Christ.
Trust God’s Means for Accomplishing God’s Ends
4. J. I. Packer, A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life, 1st U.S. trade pbk. ed (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010), 86.
I want to make it clear that if a concept does not appear in or derive from the inspired, sufficient Word of God, we should not draw the attention of the church to it, no matter how culturally relevant it may seem. We don’t need to merge clearly biblical concepts about generosity, sympathy, hospitality, and true justice with modern philosophical terminology. If the foundation is rotten, the structure will fall. John Owen, as summarized by J. I. Packer, once said, “If private revelations agree with Scripture, they are needless; and if they disagree, they are false.”[4] The same idea applies with the concept of woke Christianity. If there is anything taken from secular culture that does not agree with scripture, in no way should we assume the church will benefit by partaking. If it does align with scripture, it offers us nothing new from that which is already supplied in the inspired, sufficient Word of God.
I am convinced that the Holy Spirit must do the work of unifying a strangely diverse people into one local assembly by the foundational means of the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ alone. It is the regular, faithful exposition of the full counsel of God’s Word which transforms hearts and reconciles individuals (not always entire ethnic groups) to God through Christ, and subsequently to one another. I like how Sey puts it: “The gospel seems too foolish for an enlightened and woke world. It seems too weak for Black power and Black Liberation. But we should not be ashamed of the gospel. The foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”[5]
5. Sey, “Black Liberation Theology and Woke Christianity.”
Closing Thoughts
The ideology of Wokeness, built upon the foundation of Black Liberation Theology and Critical Theory, should be rejected in the church today. Though we should rejoice in ethnic diversity in the church as a beautiful overflow of the gospel which will be present throughout eternity, the means by which that diversity comes about in our local congregations must be thoroughly Biblical, gospel-centered, and Holy Spirit-appointed to stand the test of time.
As I reflect on my worship team experience from years ago, I want to uniquely encourage pastors and church leaders toward a better, more biblical path. Don’t allow wokeness to pressure you into feeling guilty that the sheep among you happen to be all “white” or all “black,” or not enough this, or too much that. Take those worldly lenses off, and pursue sinners with the gospel. Feed the flock that is among you with the nourishing Word of Christ week in and week out. Appoint leaders based on Biblical qualifications and Christ-like virtues of the heart, not based upon the outward appearance. Be more concerned with the diet, health, and safety of the flock that is among you rather than obsessing over their ethnic ratio.
The local church who happens to be ethnically diverse is no more sanctified, holy, or beloved by God than the church where folks tend to look the same. The angels of heaven rejoice when one lost sinner repents, and they don’t rejoice louder if that sinner is red, yellow, black, or white—they are all precious in God’s sight. May we all be content in the slow, steady work of sanctification to maturity in Christ which develops in the hearts of the individual members of our local churches. And may true, authentic unity come through the regular, consistent proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ in our churches, as well as the patient, loving, discipling relationships we have with one another.
