A broad spectrum of people who care about the preservation of Western Civilization are trying to fight Greenism, socialism, radical feminism, Critical Race Theory, Transgenderism, LGBTQIA+ radicalism, anti-natalism, COVIDism, abortion, sanctification of “People of Color”, and Globalism. These are usually fought as if they are all independent political movements with some overlap. Nothing, of course, could be further from the truth. All these “movements”, and more, are mere heads of a single hydra known as “Woke”. Regardless of which head you are battling at a given time, all spring from the same body – an underlying faith based on hatred, self-loathing, envy, and irrationality.
Neither Woke, nor any of its constituent elements, should be considered political movements, philosophies, campaign strategies, or even ideologies. Woke is a full-blown political religion. Either understand what your enemy truly is, or be doomed to defeat by it.
A political religion contains traditional religious elements such as rites of purgation, penitence and renewal, cultic patterns of behavior, and heresy. In contrast to a traditional religion, however, a political religion is focused exclusively on solving current problems through human action in the here and now. For adherents of a political religion such as Woke, this world is all there is, and this world can be made perfect if the true believers have complete control to implement their glorious plans for our salvation.
Who needs to go to Heaven when we can build it for ourselves?
A traditional Christian is merely a sojourner in this world, always looking eagerly forward to the eternal life Christ brings upon His return. What happens in this world has significance, of course, but we know that we can never make the world perfect without Christ. Nor can we ourselves be made perfect through our own actions. Such humility tempers our expectations and limits our goals for human development. Better to focus on our own souls so as to be united with God. Religious people may organize politically, but it is not their primary focus. It is, at most, a sideline from their normal activities of worshipping God, raising families, helping the poor, etc.
But for adherents of political religions, such as Woke, politics is the religion and the religion is politics. They see their earthly endeavors as imbued with cosmic, sacred significance. They are pursuing the path of pure righteousness. Their drive for greater and greater power is ordained from on high. Those in opposition are not merely mistaken, they are standing against the Divine Will. It is never “just” an election. It always an epic battle for the ages of pure Good (the “Woke”) versus pure Evil (the rest of us). Since politics is religion, martyrs are those who are politically useful to the cause. George Floyd was a career criminal, but was reborn a sacred object of veneration. A man such as John Fetterman, who can scarcely complete a sentence, becomes a righteous champion of all that is holy.
Politics, then, is a holy war of the believers versus the infidels. Average Americans believe in Constitutional rights for everyone, including for those with whom they do not agree. Too bad for them, that the Woke do not believe they are worthy of any rights at all. When political conflicts become sacred battles, then enemies become personifications of universal Evil. No sacrifices are too extreme to defeat them. No laws need stand in the way of victory. The attitude of the Woke reminds one of the most extreme Jihadists. Hussein Mussawi, the former leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah, summed up the extremist view this way, “We are not fighting so that the enemy recognizes us and offers us something. We are fighting to wipe out the enemy.”
The Woke are not trying to achieve a few policy objectives, after which they will leave you alone. They are not seeking dialogue that will lead to a just compromise for all parties. They are seeking absolute power to transform the world into their image and likeness. There are no limits to what they will do to anyone in their way. Nor will they feel even the slightest guilt for any of their actions, no matter how cruel. When you are trying to build a perfect world, there must be sacrifices.
The Woke only want to defund the police they don’t control. The ones they do get more money and more power. This lesson is not lost on the police themselves.
The unWoke often try to point out the hypocrisy of the Woke on a broad range of issues. The unstated assumption is – if only we can show them how cognitively dissonant their thinking is, then they’ll abandon this stupidity and we can talk sensibly with one another. A typical example of engagement is to ask, “How can it be my body, my choice when killing a baby, but not concerning a vaccine mandate? Do you have a right to bodily integrity or not?” The unWoke expect that pointing out such inconsistencies in Woke thinking can lead to constructive, logical dialogue.
Unfortunately, that is impossible. Reason and logical consistency have no place in any discussion with the Woke. Woke is all about faith in the dogmas alone. Abortion is dogma. Transgenderism is dogma. COVIDism is dogma. Climate Change is dogma. An unborn baby is not a baby, because the dogma says so. Transwomen are women, because the dogma says so. Masks work with no negative impacts and untested mRNA jabs are safe and effective, because the dogma says so. Green energy is good, even if it destroys our civilization while causing a myriad of environmental problems, because the dogma says so. In any disagreement with the Woke, you will inevitably be called a “racist”, “anti-Semite”, “xenophobe”, “anti-woman”, “Nazi”, “Neo-confederate”, “transphobe”, “Christian Nationalist”, “White Supremacist”, “hater”, “homophobe”, or some combination of the above plus even more.
You might say to yourself, and anyone who will listen, that none of those labels actually apply to you. There you would be wrong. Woke is an anti-rational, pseudo-mystical political religion against which no argument is allowed. Rejecting Woke dogma is heresy. All of the typical insults from “Nazi” to “racist” (regardless of their true meanings) should be understood as synonyms for the word heretic. What you actually believe is of no consequence to the Woke Inquisition. You have fallen short of the True Faith, which is enough to warrant your excommunication from society and eternal damnation. You do not have the right to be wrong. Prepare for cancellation and re-education.
Woke is very unique when compared to most political religions. A political religion is usually based on a traditional religion, such as Islam or Roman Catholicism, which provides it with a sacred text and foundational dogmas with which to work. While political religions readily alter such traditional teaching to their benefit, think Roman Catholic Theologians crafting justifications for Liberation Theology, at least there are some historical constraints.
Woke has no sacred text and no traditional set of dogmas which might guide it. Woke is thus free to borrow ideas, methods and symbols from other religions and secular ideologies (such as Communism) as needed to further the cause of obtaining absolute power. The result is an evolving, eclectic and incoherent body of beliefs with an ever-shifting focus. Certain dogmas seem untouchable such as LGBTQ adoration, the moral superiority of non-Whites, and abortion. Other dogma seems to wax and wane in importance. For example, Greenism focuses on the need to save the sacred Earth from the horrors of Climate Change. A nuclear war over Eastern Europe, which the Woke are more than willing to risk at the moment, would seem to be a poor way to protect Mother Earth. Be that as it may, getting Russia is the dogmatic focus right now, regardless of what might happen to the environment or all those people the mask zealots claim they are trying to protect.
Priorities, right?
Woke has no God and no sacred text of its own to stand behind its various dogmas. That can be problem. Some Woke compensate by pretending their beliefs are a product of TheScience™! That is a tough sell due to all the unscientific, pseudo-mystical, crackpot ideas that Woke pushes – “pregnant men” and all that. Nor does Woke have any philosophical consistency reflective of deep, underlying, universal principles. It’s really a fragile mess. If you push too hard on the various Woke dogmas, you realize they simply topple over. A lack of spiritual grounding can also lead Woke adherents to collapse into a pile of Nihilistic goo. If man is a meaningless outcome of random chance, if the Earth is just some ball in space, if there is no meaning to our existence – then what is the point? The globalists running the show behind the Woke curtain may be mostly cynical Nihilists, but they need the rank and file to really believe that the future is worth fighting and sacrificing for.
Scroll Down to Continue
For many Woke, a vague sort of spirituality seems to suffice: Reiki crystals, hymns to Mother Earth, maybe a couple of Wiccan spells, some light Paganism mixed in with a few Yoga classes, some pop Buddhism, a little Satanism, maybe, for the truly edgy. For others, however, a deeper foundation is needed to underpin Woke dogma. Given that Woke is primarily a Western religion, it was always inevitable that Christianity would be co-opted as a base of support. Many Western Christians, and even non-Christians, have re-interpreted, edited, and misconstrued Christianity to affirm Woke dogma. “Love your neighbor” becomes an instruction to affirm homosexuality. The parable of the Good Samaritan becomes an endorsement of open borders. “To care for the least of these” is an endorsement of mandatory vaccination and masking. Because the Earth is the Lord’s Creation, we must sacrifice our economies to stop Climate Change.
The Woke do not care about the historic Christian Faith, even if they happen to be ordained into it. They care about justifying the accumulation of temporal power that flows from the enforcement of Woke dogmas. For them, the conclusions are already reached, all that is necessary is to twist the Christian Faith as necessary to support them. This is the primary reason the Orthodox Church has emerged as such a target for Woke. The Orthodox Church has a 2,000 year witness to truth that contradicts Woke dogma and points to a radically different way of organizing society. This source of opposition is potentially fatal to the whole Woke enterprise.
Traditional Christianity opposed usury, championed the poor, celebrated the local and traditional, and even gave birth to a worldwide movement to end slavery – a near universal blight on mankind for almost all history. In Christianity, every single person has worth and some measure of rights because of being created in the image of God. Christianity has a higher power under Whose judgement we all fall. Regardless of who you are, there are standards of right and wrong. Such a Faith is always a potential danger to the unscrupulous who wield economic, political, and/or military power.
Not so with Woke, which is a religion that worships power. As long as they are perceived as “Woke” by the true believers: billionaires, multi-national corporations, pharmaceutical makers, grifter politicians, bureaucrats, media personalities, banks, government officials, police, etc. can all get away with anything. They can lie. Cheat. Steal. Pollute. Mass murder. “Hypocrisy” does not matter as these eminent persons are Woke. Their power makes them useful in the “struggle” to destroy Western Civilization and supplanted it with a modern version of Serfdom.
In the technocratic age to come, the powerful become Transhuman – deathless gods served by a carefully selected plebian class and masses of obedient machines. Most humans are to be killed off as “useless eaters”. Much of the world will be restored to a natural state for the new overlords to enjoy. Procreation, of course, will be tightly controlled and reserved only for the privileged few. Progeny will be gene edited for perfection and grown carefully in artificial wombs.
Clearly thinking, happy, well-adjusted people don’t want to see their own society destroyed. They don’t want to be enslaved by degrees until they are little more than cattle. They don’t want to “transcend” their humanity, or be part of this Brave New World the Woke want to build. The Woke dream is their nightmare. Which is why such normal people simply will not do.
Woke needs the losers, the misfits, the insane, the criminals, those who feel cheated by the current system, sexual deviants, perverts, the greedy, the power hungry, the easily manipulated, the ignorant, and the isolated. The people who have no stake in the current system, other than wanting to burn it down. These are the true revolutionaries that form the foundation of Woke.
Using societal mutants as a revolutionary vanguard was actually pioneered by Vladimir Lenin. As a method it worked before. It appears to be working again:
‘biological Leninism,’ or ‘bioleninism’ It was and remains a means to an end; namely, absolute power.
In its original incarnation, bioleninism aimed to ‘exterminate the natural aristocracy of Russia and build a ruling class with a bunch of low status people’. Candidates aplenty were found among workers, peasants, Jews, Latvians, Ukrainians. In fact, ‘Lenin went out of his way to recruit everyone who had a grudge against Imperial Russian society. And, it worked, brilliantly’! Like the corporate plutocracy of our own time, the Bolsheviks of the ‘early Soviet Union promoted minorities, women, sexual deviants, atheists, cultists and every kind of weirdo.’
Communist revolution just wasn’t much fun in the consumerist ‘society of the spectacle.’ Eventually, however, leftist groups wised up and, more or less openly, allied with the commanding heights of the corporate economy in support of revolutionary social and cultural change. Their joint modus operandi is to agitate among low status people, life’s losers of all sorts, offering to enhance their status, at the expense, of course, of the middling ranks of more successful white people; particularly, white men.
Black Lives Matter this year; lower-case white lives never do. Trannies, fat-shamed feminists, even ‘furries’: who can keep track of the rapidly multiplying marginal identity groups (composed largely of ‘spiteful mutants’)
Classical Marxism failed because the Proletariat were never much for revolution. They just wanted better lives for themselves and their children. Often being Christian, their true treasures were laid up in Heaven, eternally free of moth and rust. Even the poorest workers have always felt they had at least some interest in keeping society going. Not only did they feel themselves a part of that society, but most nurtured at least some hopes for their children’s futures. Such men are more likely to build than to destroy.
The Woke Orcs, on the other hand, just want to burn the whole thing to the ground.
The unWoke are often confused by the ongoing campaign to groom kids (adults too as much as possible) into homosexuality, Transgenderism, race-based anger, ignorance, drug use, obesity, poor health, emotional isolation, and other forms of self-destruction. Normie confusion is easy to understand, because destroying people, especially children, seems to make no sense. From the Woke perspective, however, ruining as many people as possible is absolutely essential. There are not naturally enough Orcs in Western society to provide the muscle necessary to really destroy it. If you can’t find enough of them, then you have to make them. Think of Woke as a proselytizing religion, constantly seeking to twist more souls into caricatures of demonic, ignorant hate.
Sauron needs more Orcs if he is to crush the West. Through education, media, entertainment, COVID mandates, coercion, and porn – Woke seeks to provide him a limitless supply.
Still can’t believe this guy actually bragged to us on undercover camera about his underage students playing with dildos and butt plugs in class…unbelievable! pic.twitter.com/L8viPsw76X
— Eric Spracklen🇺🇸 (@EricSpracklen) December 29, 2022
Neo-cons & classical liberals want to be pro-gay/pro-gay-marriage, but anti-trans; at least where children are involved. Impossible. Because when you tell a so-called "gay" child to defy physiology due to their sexual orientation, you already told them to defy their physiology.
— Joseph Sciambra ☦ (@JosephSciambra) December 30, 2022
No matter the pressure and inducements, not everyone can be twisted into an Orc. So fellow travelers, who are mostly normal but sympathetic to Woke, are also produced. They may not be ready to battle in the streets, but they are willing to go with the Woke flow, particularly to gain power or avoid pain. For the rest of the Normies, if Woke can simply intimidate them into silence, that is good enough for now.
Interestingly, the definition of who is “woke” is just as fluid as most Woke dogmas. It varies depending on the needs of the Woke masters, which is quite a departure from traditional religion. For example, an Orthodox Christian is one who has been baptized into the canonical Orthodox Church and who is eligible to partake of Church sacraments. We could quibble on the definition, but the point is that in a traditional religion such as Orthodoxy, there is a bright line between members and non-members. In a political religion such as Woke, that distinction is not so easily drawn. There seems to be a vague sense of “who is with us” that is quite situational. For example, Woke prioritizes LGBTQ “rights” and feminism, yet takes a very soft stance towards Islam. In the West, Muslims are even allowed to claim Woke status as “POC”, despite the discrimination and violence to which women are subjected in their communities.
The differing treatments of nationalism, however, are perhaps the most blatant examples of the situational nature of Woke “membership”. Woke is a universalist religion, which makes it incompatible with traditional nationalism. Nationalism is, by definition, confined to a local people, place, and time. For Woke to succeed, Western peoples must be freed from petty, local concerns and instead must embrace Global solutions to Global problems. Nationalism cannot be tolerated, and so must be undercut in the West in every way possible. That includes open borders to overwhelm the native languages / cultures of Western states, while delegitimizing the West overall as inherently evil based on its murder, enslavement, and exploitation of “People of Color”.
However, nationalism that is perceived to be useful to Woke is not only tolerated, but even celebrated – Slava Ukraini being just the most current, glaring example. An American patriot cannot be “Woke” and is, in fact, an evil person. On the other hand, a Ukrainian Nazi, who is rabidly committed to protecting Ukrainian borders and expelling his fellow Russian-speaking citizens, is Woke. The Woke not only don’t see a contradiction here, they are completely incapable of seeing one. The Woke do as the Woke are told. Don’t expect true believers to deeply analyze this or any other situation. Woke is a mental straight jacket. You do not argue anyone out of Woke so much as you deprogram them.
The Woke must be careful, however. Just as easily as one can be “in”, so can one be “out”. The ability to globally coordinate Woke messaging, Woke focus, and even the membership of Woke is as impressive as it is terrifying. Such levels of control almost seem to transcend the capabilities of mere humans.
The Apostle Paul warned us in Ephesians 6:12 that, “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” His words directly apply to our current battle with Woke. Politics would be an argument over marginal tax rates or the portion of the budget to spend on building highways. Our battle with Woke is completely different. It is a battle over the very meaning of human existence. It may, in fact, be the last battle we ever fight in this world.
Paul is an Orthodox Christian who converted as an adult from Roman Catholicism. He is a former US Army officer who currently practices corporate law.
[…] 10. Understanding The Political Religion of “Woke” […]
Fantastic article. Follows very much along the lines of the topic of ‘political theology’ that I have been covering on my program. I would like to offer the author an opportunity to come onto my program and discuss this article or other work that he may be interested in sharing.
Thank you.
Tom To
Woke was a very difficult concept for me to grasp until I finally understood it as a fluid form of political, scientific and religious modern Gnosticism, propelled with satanic vehemence.
[…] The religious war that is raging beneath the surface of our politics, https://orthodoxreflections.com/understanding-the-political-religion-of-woke/ […]
Great article Paul! Thank you.
The really sad part is that so many inside The Church (Bishops, Priests, Seminary Professors, Theoria TV, etc.) are actively working for the woke side.
I like this article…you have presented a different perspective on “Woke” that I think is going to help me understand what is going on. I have been confused by the unreasonableness and illogical thinking but this helps to explain it. Thank you for your insights.