We have preached defeat and now we own it. We have taken hope for the future away from our youth, and then we are surprised when they leave the church for something else or just sit around with no purpose in life–or even join forces with the enemy. The woke-movement has discovered the old tenets of the Puritans and secularized them.  They are on the march with optimism, seeking to capture our children, and continually capturing the powers of political legislation. It’s the domination of a new religion.

The woke-movement (Wokism) is not merely a cultural or political movement.  It is a religious movement.  It is seeking to substitute itself as a new religion for the old Christendom that has permeated the western world for hundreds of years.  As such, it has certain tools in its quiver that are propelling it to victory – a victory that may destroy the old Christian America.  Our civilization is on the precipice of devastation, and Christians need to understand the enemy, and how they fight.

There are three fundamental tenets upon which the woke-movement operates.  They use the old Puritan theological beliefs which most of the church today has rejected. These powerful tools are a secularized version of what Christianity has in the past called Postmillennialism, Covenantalism, and Theonomy.  While the modern church has as a whole rebuffed these views, the opposition has adopted a corrupted version of them as instruments of warfare, and they have become very powerful and effective. Let me explain the essence of these secular tenets and how the Christian must fight against them.

1. Postmillennialism

This is the description of a particular eschatology that has an optimistic view of the future on this earth. Think optimism!  Contrary to pre-millennialism which is looking for an escape from the earth (the rapture), and contrary to a-millennialism which believes things will get worse on this earth before the end, post-millennialism has an optimistic view of the future on this earth before Christ returns again.  Christ will not return to secretly rapture us out of this world, neither will he return to a world of devastation, but he will return to gather his saints who have spread the gospel from nation to nation and Christianized the whole world.

Wokism has adopted this paradigm, secularized it, and therefore believes that its future on this earth is bright.  They are optimistic. They know that there will be a fight.  There will be resistance.  It will take time, but eventually they believe they will win.  With a slow march through the institutions of our nation, capturing them one-by-one, the theology of wokism will become the new religion of America.  LGBT rights, statism, government schools who own the children, Big Tech censorship, and the marginalization of Christians – all of these they see as the future of this country.  This world is important and they intend to own it. This is one reason they are winning.

The only antidote to this is a healthy optimistic view of the power of the gospel not only to save men’s souls, but to send those men out to capture the world by applying Christian principles to all of life.  The Christian Faith does not stop with piety, but beginning with piety it becomes a great whirlwind that spreads all over the world and throughout every institution, as evidenced in the Protestant Reformation.  Such optimism used to belong to the church, but it has been rejected and now has become a basic tenet of wokism.

2. Covenantalism

When you think about the covenant you should think about your children and their future.  It’s about the children!  The promises of God are to a thousand generations. The world does not end when you die.  Most of us will leave children and grandchildren.  Many generations will follow us.  While heaven will be a joy for us, yet our focus here now must also be on the generations that follow us.  People of the covenant expect to see their children and grandchildren in church.  We expect Christ to capture their hearts and make them love the Kingdom of God.  We work hard to accomplish this by taking them to church, teaching them about Christ wherever we are, praying with and for them, and giving them a world-           and-life view based on the Scriptures.  We fight to keep our children in the faith.

Wokism is a secularized covenantalism and wants to capture your children. Your children are their target, few of them having any children of their own.  Children are malleable and if we send them off to government schools and modern universities, wokism believes it can convert them.  They have been doing this for years, only Christians did not know it.  Secretly, they have been capturing our children.  With the public “coming out of the closet” of doctrines like Critical Race Theory, parents are beginning to see now what has been happening behind their backs for years.  It’s now out in the open, and there is a push-back.  Hopefully, for the present generation, it is not too late.

Hyper-pietism has no hope for generations to come on this earth. Its focus is on the human heart and heaven.  We are told that our purpose on earth is to get the few elect saved and let the world devour itself.  However, the Kingdom of God is greater than that.  We need a revival of covenantalism in the church where we are focused on the future of our children after we die.  We must pray that God will impact a thousand generations in the future with his blessings.

3. Theonomy

Theonomy is merely the application of God’s law to society. Think political legislation!  As Rushdoony once said, the source of the law in any society is the god of that society.  Even though the law does not justify us, for Christians who have been justified, it is a means to capture the world for Christ.  The Ten Commandments (as applied in both the Old and New Testaments) must be foundational for any society if that society is to enjoy the blessings of God. Theonomy is the medium of bringing the law of God into all areas of life.  The Bible speaks of issues surrounding economics, science, education, business, and all other areas of life.  Theonomy is bringing to bear God’s Word on all the decisions I have to make every day in the workplace and at home.

Wokism applies their own laws to society.  They are imposing their law-system on all of us via political legislation.  Every society will be ruled by some law.  The question is whose law.  They know this and they will use any means necessary to rule over all men. They will use federal, state, and local politics to impose their law-system on everyone.  Secularized Theonomy has become a tool of Wokism.

The Church needs to raise up a new generation of men who will go into all the disciplines of life and conquer them for the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.  We have too many seminary students and not enough law students.  Not enough business students.  Not enough engineering students.  We need godly men sitting on Corporate Boards, in the public universities, in Congress, and on the Supreme Court.  We have abdicated our place in the world, and we have let the woke-movement take control.  Apart from those truly called to the ministry of the word, we need men studying the systems of politics and philosophy rather than the systems of theology.  We have departed the market-place and now we are paying the heavy price.

Christendom is dying. A victorious view of the future: a hope for our children, and the application of the law of God to all areas of life has been lost.  As the generation in wilderness had to die, so my generation may have to be removed from this earth so that God can raise up a new generation not afraid to fight for the land God has given us.  However, we have lost our tools of dominion. We have preached defeat and now we own it. We have taken hope for the future away from our youth, and then we are surprised when they leave the church for something else or just sit around with no purpose in life–or even join forces with the enemy. The woke-movement has discovered the old tenets of the Puritans and secularized them.  They are on the march with optimism, seeking to capture our children, and continually capturing the powers of political legislation. It’s the domination of a new religion.

However, our God still rules in the heavens and in the future I sincerely believe that some Christian generations will see, before the second coming of Christ, the glory of the Lord cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.

Larry E. Ball is a retired minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and is now a CPA. He lives in Kingsport, Tennessee.