These types of preachers were originally called “social justice warriors,” but it has come time to assign them a more honest label. They are, in all actuality, hate preachers. No, they do not call for acts of violence against anyone, but they are constantly calling people like me (i.e., straight, white, cis, male) to hate ourselves and to hate how our very existence oppresses others. This has caused psychological and spiritual trauma to millions of evangelical Christians, and you can hear it in the strange way they now talk: Virtue Signaling.

All the most popular preachers in America are now woke. They betray this sad fact in their frequent mention of the plight of the oppressed and also of our obligation as oppressors to make atonement for our historical sins. Remember, our “sin” in not something we actually did, but something we inherited from our fathers.

These types of preachers were originally called “social justice warriors,” but it has come time to assign them a more honest label. They are, in all actuality, hate preachers. No, they do not call for acts of violence against anyone, but they are constantly calling people like me (i.e., straight, white, cis, male) to hate ourselves and to hate how our very existence oppresses others. This has caused psychological and spiritual trauma to millions of evangelical Christians, and you can hear it in the strange way they now talk: Virtue Signaling.

Virtue signaling is when you modify your normal way of speaking in order to signal, or send a message, to others that you are sufficiently woke. For example, a normal person might say, “Hey, I was having dinner last night with a friend and he said the funniest thing…”

If you add a little wokeness to that conversation, you will end up with a virtue signal, “I was having dinner with a friend last night, who happens to be black, and he said the funniest thing…” The signaled virtue is obvious: I have dinner with black people, so I am obviously not a racist.

If you add even more wokeness to the conversation, you end up with even more signaling, “I was having dinner with a friend last night, who happens to black, and he said the funniest thing about his boyfriend…” Now the signaled virtue is twofold: I have dinner with gay black people, so I am obviously not a racist or a homophobe.

There is, actually, no end to the virtue that clever wokesters can manage to signal, “I was having dinner with a friend last night, who happens to be black, and he said the funniest thing about his boyfriend who’s running for a democrat seat in the Senate…” The signal is now threefold: I have dinner with gay black democrats. Notice that the joke has not even been told! What was the funny thing that he said? It doesn’t ultimately matter, because sufficient virtue has been signaled.

Listen for this kind of talk and you will be surprised by how prevalent it truly is. Virtue signaling is the Neo-Marxist’s twisted version of personal holiness or witnessing and if you do not learn to do it, you are doomed.

I am probably doomed, by the way, for writing these articles, but I do not care and cannot care because of a solemn vow I took on the day of my ordination, “Do you promise to be zealous and faithful in maintaining the truths of the gospel and the purity, the peace, and the unity of the church, whatever persecution or opposition may arise unto you on that account?”

I said, “Yes” to that vow. I plan on keeping it until the day I die and that makes me most willing to face the wrath of the Neo-Marxists. Yes, there is true wrath there, but this we will explore 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.