Listen closely to American preaching and you will hear it. The church no longer bears witness to the simple message of Christ and him crucified. Rather, churches have added other emphases to their message in an effort to appear as “allies” to the oppressed (e.g., injustice, inequity, abuse, etc.).

The good news of the Christian gospel is that a man can be born again or regenerated by the Spirit of God. When this happens, a man’s eyes are opened to see the love of God in Christ for the very first time.

The Neo-Marxists have a perverted version of this kind of experience. Eyes are indeed opened, but not to behold any good thing. To become “woke” means that your eyes have been opened to see all the privilege and injustice that exists in our world.

For a person like me (i.e., a wealthy cis gender male of European descent), becoming woke would require that I recognize myself as a natural born member of the oppressor class. After such a recognition, I would then have to bow before the god of revolution and, ultimately, die (because my very existence hurts others).

Short of voluntary death, is supposedly the option of becoming an “ally” to the oppressed classes, which is only a longer path toward death because it involves a conscious working against my own interests in society until I am eventually replaced.

A corollary doctrine to that of Wokeness is Intersectionality. Just as the oppressor can have different levels of evil attached to them, the oppressed have different levels of good attached to them.

For example, and returning to the previously explored areas of inequality in America, if women have historically been the largest oppressed group, then I should champion women’s rights. Yes, even to the detriment of my own.

Further, if a woman happens also to be black, we now have an “intersection” of two identities that have suffered oppression. Recognizing this, I should champion black women’s rights. Yes, and again, even to the detriment of my own.

We can take it yet another step forward in light of our current cultural revolution. The only thing more oppressive than being a black woman in American society is being a queer black woman, so again, having become woke, I should now champion queer black women’s rights. Yes, again and always, even to the detriment of my own.

Finally, do not forget about the Marxist’s historical obsession with economics. If you add poor to any of the oppressed classes previously mentioned, their experience of oppression only increases and, therefore, my woke duty to champion their cause only increases.

The summary of wokeness and intersectionality is that it can be acknowledged that most Christians might find this content of this article a little too blunt. The Neo-Marxists do not hesitate to use words like white, black, cis, queer, etc., so why is that today’s Christians experience such unease? The answer, it seems, is fear.

The fear of being called as a misogynist, or a racist, or a fascist causes most polite Christians simply to avoid the topics of wokeness and intersectionality. Many more (especially in mainline evangelicalism) actually over-correct in their speech patterns. This proves that the institutional church was not exempted from the long march of the Neo-Marxists.

Listen closely to American preaching and you will hear it. The church no longer bears witness to the simple message of Christ and him crucified. Rather, churches have added other emphases to their message in an effort to appear as “allies” to the oppressed (e.g., injustice, inequity, abuse, etc.). We shall consider this over-correction in the next article.

Christian McShaffrey is a Minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and is Pastor of Five Solas Church (OPC) in Reedsburg, Wis.