
In one of my all-time favorite quotes, the great Thomas Sowell pointed out, “The most fundamental fact about the ideas of the political left is that they do not work. Therefore, we should not be surprised to find the left concentrated in institutions where ideas do not have to work in order to survive.”
Similarly, wokeness is only tenable inside a protected bubble, while reality is a sharp needle hovering only inches away.
As described in Part 1, wokeness entails a militant relativism where objective reality is seen as judgmental, narrow-minded, and passe. Woke adherents tout slogans such as “true for me and not for you” and “speak your truth,” assuming that each individual is entitled to determine truth. Consequently, woke ideology rejects many fixed aspects of the created order, otherwise known as reality. That is how woke culture can embrace such apparent absurdities as a man becoming a woman merely by thinking he is one, or that skin color is more valuable than competence.
Consequently, wokeness is a luxury of the wealthy and comfortable. It is only able to survive so long as there is no significant cost to denying reality. But when the thin veneer of civilization falters, reality is an awful, impartial juggernaut that steamrolls over bad worldviews.
Reality Bites
Professors in faculty lounges across America can muse about the fluid nature of gender, but there is no confusion about what a woman is among the Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram. Leftists can insist that abortion is essential “reproductive healthcare,” but the birth rates in most developed countries have fallen dangerously below replacement levels. And most recently, the citizens of Los Angeles no doubt congratulated themselves for selecting the first lesbian fire chief with her focus on DEI policies, yet hiring a diverse workforce did not stop the flames or put water in the fire hydrants.
As Christians, we believe in the reality of spiritual warfare. The primary weapon of the enemy is nothing more or less than a lie (John 8:44). Rather than power encounters with the devil, the battle of the Truth versus the Lie is the most likely way that Christians will skirmish with forces of darkness.
Because Truth corresponds with objective reality, the Lie always seeks to subvert some aspect of God’s creation – moral, physical, or spiritual. Reality is God’s kill switch that limits the wickedness of mankind. Lies, and ideological systems built on lies, ultimately fail because they simply can’t work. Either they will collapse under their own weight, or they destroy the people that follow them.
Soviet-style Communism is the prime example of an anti-Christian ideology that was defeated more by its own internal contradictions than outside forces. As Rod Dreher records in Live Not By Lies, Christians in Soviet bloc countries believed that Communism would persist for centuries, yet it ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the late twentieth century. Why?
The USSR enforced Communist ideology in every aspect of science, politics, culture, and economics. This pernicious worldview forced the USSR to reject correction whenever reality highlighted a systemic failure, most obviously in the contrast between the economic prosperity of the West compared to the poverty of the USSR. As the late Rush Limbaugh was fond of saying, the USSR was a third world country with a first world military.
Reality Wins
On the flip side, God’s commands in Scripture are designed for our holiness, safety, and ultimate happiness. God isn’t a cosmic hall monitor who hands down arbitrary dictates just to deny us any fun. Since He is our Creator and He is Good, God knows what makes the human machine run well. His rules are guardrails that, among other purposes, keep you and me from being squashed by reality.
Currently, woke ideology in America is on its sickbed. But whether it dies in 2025 or ten years from now, it must eventually fail because it goes against the grain of reality.
But the fact that wokeness is ultimately doomed does not mean that Christians can grow complacent. History has shown that harmful, deceptive philosophies rise and fall in unbroken succession as part of the ebb and flow of the Truth vs. the Lie. In a brief survey of the twentieth century alone, Western society saw the high-water marks of spiritualism, anarchism, scientific positivism, social Darwinism, master race ideology, the sexual revolution, Eastern Mysticism, and the New Age, just to name a few – and that ignores numerous cults and heretical religious movements.
Scripture promises that there will be new and worse deceptions than wokeness until the day Jesus comes again (2 Timothy 3:1-5). Something else will take its place, and it will also be hostile to the Gospel of Christ (2 Timothy 3:12-15). But no matter how dark the horizon or how big the giant, Christians everywhere can take heart and stand firm.
Reality always wins.
Brandon Aldinger is a chemist with a doctoral degree who works in an industrial research laboratory. He’s had lifelong interest in issues of science and faith, and he is passionate about training fellow Christians to think clearly about and stand firm on their beliefs within a hostile culture.
The post Reality, the Giant Slayer appeared first on The Stream.
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