Woke Is a Religion

By Stephen Schwager and Eddie Speir

To fully grasp the nature of the struggle we are engaged in, the true nature of woke/wokeism must be understood. Wokeism is more than an ideology or worldview. Wokeism is the blend of Critical Consciousness (Critical Social Justice, Critical Race Theory, Critical Pedagogy, etc.) and post-modernism (whose foundation is that nothing is objective truth, all are subject to bias, prejudice, privilege, and therefore those in power decide what is “objective truth” in furtherance of their power, wealth, and status). It permeates nearly all our societal institutions and should be described as a religion in the true sense of the term. We will explain why this is the case in this article.

Boiled down to its purest essence, a woke adherent believes society, when viewed through the lens of Critical Consciousness, is nothing more than a continuous power struggle between oppressors and victims, and one’s place is determined by a series of hierarchical identity markers such as race, sex, gender, ethnicity, religion, wealth.

In the religion of woke, we have the concept of original sin, which is racism expressed through slavery, segregation, and ongoing, present-day white supremacy and systemic racism. We have demons who are responsible for this sin, namely white, “cis-gender,” Christian males and their partners in crime, such as Jews and other people one might associate with being oppressed due to their skin color, ethnicity, or a historical record of actual oppression. But these markers are negated due to their “white adjacency,” which is the embrace of “whiteness,” resulting in power, privilege, and wealth.

In the religion of woke, as noted above, we have those who inflict evil, the demons who oppress the victims. The victims include the anointed BIPOCs (black, indigenous people of color), members of the ever-growing LGBTQIA+ community, women, Muslims, etc.

Wokeism has prophets who have written the sacred woke scrolls, such as Antonio Gramsci, Herbert Marcuse, Paolo Freire, Derrick Bell, Kimberle Crenshaw, and, more recently, Ibraim X. Kendi and Robin DeAngelo, plus a host of other major and minor scribes and contributors. And wokeism has priests who spread the word and proselytize, like college professors and teachers. Hence, we see the religion of woke spreading rapidly on college campuses and in our schools down to pre-K and kindergarten.

The religion of wokeism possesses a catalog of dogmatic beliefs and myths that require the suspension of belief and no proof or evidence. In wokeism, because it views everything as subjective (the post-modernism component), data, statistics, and basic observation of reality are not recognized as anything more than tools of oppression wielded by the oppressors to victimize the oppressed.

Wokeism’s myths include the idea that America was founded in 1619, the year slavery first arrived on the continent, that the American Revolution was fought to preserve slavery, that math is racist, and that merit, skills, and hard work are creations of the white patriarchy.

The dogmatic beliefs, which are impervious to data and observation, and must not be challenged, include the belief that racism and power struggles infuse every interaction between people, every societal system and institution, including the nuclear family. Wokeism has doctrines, including “microaggressions,” “white supremacy,” “white privilege,” and “the patriarchy,” as well as the means for adherents of woke to impose these doctrinal beliefs on others, namely DEI programs (diversity, equity, and inclusion).

Wokeism has rituals, such as kneeling, singing, self-flagellation, ritual humiliation, and native land acknowledgments. Wokeism has ways for privileged oppressors to atone for their sins. It is called “allyship” and involves supporting reparations, checking one’s privilege, keeping quiet when an oppressed person is speaking, and “doing the work” to dismantle white supremacy and the patriarchy. This also includes actions such as toppling statues, as we saw in 2020, and demonstrating in the streets while providing cover from police violence to “black and brown bodies.”

And, of course, wokeism has a heaven called Utopia. It is the goal that woke adherents must strive every day to achieve by tearing down the current racist, patriarchal systems of oppression and replacing them with ever-evolving new systems and programs. But as each new system and program necessarily spawns newer systems of oppression, and old systems reappear in different forms, the work of wokeism, of the woke adherent, is never done. And so wokeism will exist permanently in a perpetual revolution, tearing down, replacing, and tearing down again.

And this is what makes the woke religion so dangerous and destructive. It cannot be reasoned with, compromised with, or satisfied. It consumes all, over and over again, in cycles of never-ending trials, purges, revolutions, and, ultimately, wokeism lays waste to society.

What would declaring wokeism a religion accomplish?  It would most likely set off a series of events, discussions, and comparisons that would enable the public to participate and engage in a way that hasn’t happened for years.  It could also cause an awakening to the devasting effects that wokeism has had on our society.  Over a century of accretive ideologies started with Marxist, progressive, secular, liberal, and politically correct worldviews culminating in today’s religious wokeism.

With a heightened awareness and now legal protection as well as a legal test of the establishment clause, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,” current and future laws and public policies should be examined through this lens.