Michael Bird, a well-known biblical scholar from the Land Down Under, took to the keyboard in response to a video of Jeff Durbin speaking against evangelical wokeness and a series of videos by Owen Strachan on Christianity and wokeness. His article, as the title suggests, makes the claim that a war on wokeness is a war on Christian love. In addition to the outlandish claim, Bird stoops to the level of a subtle ad hominem attack by calling both Strachan and Durbin, and, by extension, anyone in agreement with them, "fundamentalists." This, of course, begs the question whether being against wokeness automatically makes one a fundamentalist or not. I'll leave it to Bird to explain himself, should he ever read this article by little ol' me.
Rather than quibbling about his use of the word "fundamentalist," however, I'd rather get to the substance of his article. Bird would have us believe that he "knows wokeness." His credentials include living in Melbourne, or "Melbingrad" as he calls it, the articles he wrote against progressive authoritarianism, and his consumption of articles and books from conservative magazines and authors such as Douglas Murray. I'd love to say that this makes me feel better, but it doesn't because, when we get down to it, the fact that he appears to be confused as to what constitutes wokeness and Christian love tells me he really doesn't understand wokeness.
Let me explain. Bird tries to make the case that anyone involved in working for social justice is simply doing what the Bible tells us to do, that is, love your neighbor. "In my mind," he writes, "acknowledging racism, discrimination, and injustice--whether historical, cultural, institutional--and determining to change it, does not require adherence to a Marxist narrative, or becoming Woke." He explains,
Churches and Christian leaders who are concerned with racism, police brutality, affordable healthcare, protecting refugees, acting on poverty, ending sex-trafficking, urging sustainable environmental policy, ensuring LGBTI people have the right to work, as well as defending the unborn, promoting end-of-life care as an alternative to euthanasia, safeguarding religious freedom, opposing gambling and pornographic industries, they are not whoring or compromised. They are simply doing what Christians have been doing for 2000 years which is loving their neighbor, remembering the poor, being the Good Samaritan, imitating Jesus, hating evil, loving good, and establishing justice in the gate of the city.
There are some things on Bird's list that I might scratch my head about, but I won't get into it right now. The important thing is that all of this, he claims, is simply an outworking of the "liberal political tradition rooted in a Christian worldview." And to make it sound like he's on the right side of history, he quotes George Washington quoting the Bible, "Everyone will sit under their own fig tree and no-one will make them afraid."
The problem is wokeness is not a matter of simply acknowledging injustice and working for justice. Wokeness is an ideology. Wokeness is NOT rooted in the liberal political tradition that is based upon a Christian worldview. Wokeness has its roots in philosophies of resentment and discontent from socialism to Marxism to Critical Theory. Bird apparently understands the ideological backdrop, for he writes, "I also know very well that the progressive identity hierarchy divides everyone into either the oppressor or the oppressed, it imputes to ethnicities certain immutable moral characteristics, and (worst of all) it viciously attacks minorities if they do not obediently perform their roles in the identity hierarchy." What Bird doesn't appear to grasp is that the ideological background of wokeness determines for people which issues are worth fighting for and which ones aren't, what injustice and justice look like, and what methods will be involved in bringing about change--it even determines what change should look like.
The fact of the matter is Christianity and woke ideology do not agree on the definition of justice, injustice, and change. This is most evident in how woke progressives talk about racism, privilege, white guilt, white fragility, etc. I've written about justice here, so I refer you to that to understand better how justice has been defined in the classical and Christian tradition. Anyone who would take the time to study how justice is defined in the classical and Christian tradition will be able to point out the differences in how the ideology behind wokeness defines it. Woke progressivism has a paper trail of calling evil, good and good, evil (go to the BLM website and see what kind of things they stand for) and of fabricating history to make a civilization sound like it was founded upon injustice (The 1619 Project, for example).
Now, here is the important point. Scripture says that love is the fulfillment of the law (Romans 8:8-10; Matthew 22:37-40). According to the prophet Micah, fulfilling the law means that we must do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God (Micah 6:8). Justice, mercy, and love go hand in hand. Since, therefore, woke ideology differs in its concept of justice, it follows that it differs in its concept of love.
I'm not opposed to Christians calling out injustice and using whatever talents and resources they have to do what is just in the face of evil. I highly doubt Owen Strachan and Jeff Durbin are opposed to it too. What I am opposed to is when people like Michael Bird make outrageous claims that anyone who stands against woke ideology is only serving to "deny ethnic minorities have any grievances and white churches have any responsibility to do anything about it." If Bird truly knows what woke progressivism is capable of, then it is really surprising that he seems to be unaware of how its ideology affects the terminology, methodology, and final outcome of doing justly. And, again, since the woke version of doing justly is not the same as the Christian version, it follows that their version of love is not the same as Christian love.
