April 10, 2025 • 49 mins
The hosts of Anabaptist Perspectives respond to concerns that some of our guests are “woke” (or associated terms). This term can be used to identify awareness of social dynamics, to advocate for specific agendas regarding gender and sexuality, or as a catch-all term of critique. The currently popular “anti-woke” movement brings its own set of dangers. How can we think well about these terms, and what do they mean?
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
I think that we should be quickerto look within ourselves
and notice our own fallennessand brokenness
than to, identify
another person as the other or outside
my camp of people.
And so just the way it's used
with just bolstering tribal identities
(00:23):
can often be divisive.
And I think that as Christianswere called to a kind of love and charity
that shouldn't be quick to have tribalalignments.
And labeling others as woke,I think, is often
used to that effect.
(00:46):
So there's a very popular thinggoing on in culture right now.
It’s being talked about by all kindsof people, and it's particularly pertinent
because we're recording thisin the early months of 2025.
It's very much in the political scene.
And that is this whole concept of wokeor wokeness.
And we're going to talk aboutthat a little bit today.
(01:08):
And so today I'm joined by Jaran.
He helped me start AnabaptistPerspectives a number of years ago.
And Marlin, who's the current director of,of Anabaptist Perspectives.
And let's just open up with
why are we talkingabout the concept of wokeness?
Jaran, why don't you kick us off?
Like you said,many people are talking about it now.
(01:30):
It's a very live conversationin the culture,
and it's something that has reachedAnabaptist perspectives.
Through some of the feedbackthat we've gotten from audience members.
You, you engage with the audiencefeedback a fair bit, don't you?
Yes. Yeah. Emails, Facebook comments.
Telegram messages, YouTube comments,all that comes to me.
So I figured it would be pertinent.
(01:52):
Just so people understand a bitof the context what we're talking about.
I'm gonna actually read some of these,these comments.
Often thesecome on YouTube and things like that.
So here's one.
We did a episode a while ago, called
We Must Make Schools Workfor All Children.
And there's this bit of a long commenthere.
And the person says that's becausewe recognize that education is simply,
(02:13):
simply discipleship of one's worldviewas it applies to different areas of life.
We're discipling a little imagebearers of God
who think biblically about mathsand science and history and art.
We don't have to drag in Marxist
DEI categorieswhich are antithetical to God's law.
In order to do so, which is what Kuhns...
And it was Ruth Anna Kuhns who, did thatepisode seems to think that we need to do
(02:35):
this is clear evidencethat Liberty University has gone, woke.
She was a student at Liberty.
Okay.
I was wonderingif there was context for that. Okay.
Perhaps Kuhns doesn't realizethat she's imbibed
aspects of their ideologyas it pertains to education,
but she's actually actingas a water carrier for them
and unwittingly helping themto advance their anti-Christ revolution.
(02:57):
So pretty strong feelings.
Coming from there.
Here's another one on traumainformed churches.
That was one you did with Janelle Glick.
This person said one of the majorred flags with the trauma movement
is that itenables perpetual victimhood status.
People never rise above whatever happenedor did not happen to them.
They spend the rest of their lives,the rest of their life
(03:19):
wanting a a handkerchiefand a hand on the shoulder.
This is simply not the way to help people.
And there's a bunch more, a shortsnippet someone says on another one.
Please reject woke nonsense.
So we get this kind of.
So this is just a a slice.
There's a bunch more of these.
If people want to go combthrough the comments, you'll find more.
(03:40):
So that's a bit of the context.
And one of the things we like to do with
the podcast is to engagewith the feedback we get, from listeners.
So why don't we start with
just a brief history of the term woke?
Like, what are we even talking aboutwhen that term is used?
It is used so muchin so many different contexts.
It's pretty easy. To lose track of.
(04:00):
So yeah. Do you have anything on that?
Can we divert that to Marlin?
Marlin would you.
Yeah. Yeah.
yeah.
I can't give a full history, but even
even just a little bitof what I've seen in my,
my own lifetimeand how I've seen that meaning shift.
I understandthe term goes back before my lifetime.
(04:20):
Used by Africans.
I think both African-American and,
still from the continent of Africa.
To simply to refer to the idea of,you know,
being awakeand particular being awake or aware of
difficulties they faced
or oppression or whatever.
(04:43):
Obviously, as came forward,got generalized.
Yeah.
I remember.
I don't know, ten years agoor something like that.
Woke is a little bit more general termjust of, you know,
somebody who's
aware of things, aware of social dynamics
(05:06):
and maybe some ofthat was anti-Christian stuff,
but it was also just like
you know, if you're a manand you're aware of cultural dynamics
and what the cultural expectations are onwomen, and that, whether it's double
standards in regard to sexual moralityor how you look at dividing up
(05:26):
housework, if both husband and wifeare working or whatever.
So it's generally peopleusing it approvingly.
And in ways that I don't know.
I don't know what I think about all ofthem, but, you know, relatively innocuous.
And then
(05:46):
I think a little later, I remember it
being kind of used to indicate,
I don't know, kind of insincerityor something like,
you know, somebodyconsiders themselves woke
because they can talk about how thisor that is a problem.
But, you know, they're not really engagedin it with real life.
They're
drinking their lattes and
making statements about something.
(06:07):
And so in that sense, it was a littlepejorative in the sense of,
you know, insincereor not really having skin in the game,
but wanting to make statementsabout something.
Or, and then, you know, lip service.
But yeah, more recently
Wikipedia.
Thanks, Jaran,for pointing out the Wikipedia article.
(06:28):
Wikipedia says something like 2019,I can't say exact dates.
Where where the real shift to woke
coming from people on the rightand using that as a a way of insulting,
whatthey're considering as left generally,
(06:49):
again, with some of the same tonesabout same ideas of,
I think, insincere protest and so on.
But it seems like recentlyit has generalized to become kind
of a catchall for,
you know, kind of
anything that's perceived as
potentially on the left sideof the political spectrum or something,
(07:09):
I don't know.
and typically is by the right.
use, by the right as derogatory?
is there any other functional definitionsat this point where people would
wish to use wokeas a description for their own approach,
or is it only pejorative at this point?
It seems to me the pejorative is dominant,
but the idea of it as
(07:31):
positive.
Like we are awake,we are aware of what's going on.
I meanthat was, that was certainly claimed
as a positive term not very long ago.
I think some still would Yeah.
Yeah.
And I mean who wants to be asleep.
Yeah.
That's a great
I guess I've never thought about thisquite like that but but it's awake
(07:51):
aware as opposed to in your dull slumbersnot realizing what's going on.
I mean that's the original idea.
But then thinking in terms of woke,
you know,I don't know if I've ever heard it
except in the context of someone who would
claim I'm not wokeand I'm calling something else woke.
And it's used as a, yeah, kind of insultor a calling something out.
(08:12):
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, whichI think we were having a conversation
at some point a few years agowhere we were talking about the engagement
we have with our audience on the podcast,and it seemed like 2019 or the Covid era.
I guess you could say the comments started
getting tended to be morenasty or hostile.
(08:33):
Do you remember this?
It does seem likewe've had more of the oh,
this is for whatever woke or whateverbuzzword seems like that's hitting
the comments more nowthan it would have seven years ago, say
definitely intensified
quite a bit over that time.
Now that's interesting.
Is there anything more eitheryou all want to add as far as context
(08:53):
definitions, etc. on this?
I mean, just to honor there'sa complex history to the term, and I think
what we're going to be talking aboutnow is mostly kind of responding to
to how it's used as a term of insultor a term of
insult or kind of a large negativecharacterization.
Most people are usingthe most dominant use of it
(09:15):
now seems to be as
seeing it as a bad thing,using it to criticize.
And that's primarilywhat we're going to be responding to here.
Yeah.
And let's and let's get into that where
yeah some people use thisas a way of criticizing
and just labeling people or things.
Let's engage with that.
(09:37):
What are some, some thingswe want to add to that conversation.
Ways. Perhaps we want to respond.
Especially because yeah,it does seem in more recent years
that that has startedpopping up in the comments more.
And I'm sure those people who madethose comments will be like,
well, that'sbecause your your podcast has shifted
and it's become more woke and blah,blah, blah, whatever.
I know I've heard that from a few commentshere and there.
(09:57):
It's an interesting, yeah, I'd be curious
what you'd have to say about about thatJaran.
This is more about the waythe term is used than the substance behind
what the term actually mean, that there'sdefinitely a conversation there.
But in general, I am sad about the wayI often hear the term
(10:17):
being used for a few reasons,one of which is that
it's oftenquite sloppy in the way that it's applied.
There are
a variety of different issuesthat it could legitimately be
in reference to,some of which Marlin referred to,
but when it's just usedgenerally as a catchall
(10:38):
for a particular approachto issues that we find disagreeable,
I think it's quite sloppyand not helpful for constructive dialog
also, and this especially applies
when used among brothers and sistersin the church.
But my same concern would be with anybody.
(10:58):
It's used to create tribes of usversus them.
Oftenwhen used pejoratively, your are woke.
Therefore I am not woke.
Implicitly I have the moral high groundwhen I use it that way, and I'm labeling
somebody else's approach to thingsas morally objectionable or inferior.
(11:19):
I think that we should be quickerto look within ourselves
and notice our own fallennessand brokenness
than to, identify
another personas the other or outside my camp of people.
And so just
the way it's used with just bolsteringtribal identities
(11:43):
can often be divisive.
And I think that as Christianswere called to a kind of love and charity
that shouldn't be quickto have tribal alignments.
And labeling others as woke,
I think, is often used to that effect.
(12:04):
Do you have any examples.
There's some bring this down to eartha bit.
There's examples everywhere.
It's a it's a huge conversation in cultureright now.
Like we read some commentsfor how people apply it to us.
I think it's kind of sad.
I suspect that we're largelyon the same page with the people
who wish to criticize us.
(12:25):
In evangelicalism right now.
I think, what was the publicationChristian Post,
I think this week, and we'rerecording this in February, did an article
writing about some
significant disruptionthat Wheaton College is experiencing,
where some alumni have decidedthat Wheaton is woke
and the pushingfor some change in leadership.
(12:45):
There.
so that that's one particular occurrenceof Christian against Christian,
tension
along the lines of woke versus anti-woke.
So I find it interesting,I think you're right
that, that, you know, putting out the termwoke as a
(13:05):
critique, often accomplishesexactly that, the kind of tribalism
or a little of the senseof moral superiority.
But not very long ago,
when people were started using woke
as a form of critique,or when I kind of encountered it,
as you know,we use woke to critique your position.
(13:26):
It was precisely critiquing people for
a kind of self-righteousness, because,
you know, I know what to protest betterthan, you know what to protest.
And so woke was the usingthe term woke to criticize
people was originally meant to criticize
that kind of self-righteousnessand tribalism.
That is
that's an interesting pointbecause I remember hearing some of this,
(13:49):
you know,
say five years ago when someone would,would have some meaningful feedback of
maybe an interactionwith someone they knew.
And like that felt awfully whateverwoke this that because they're,
they're, you know, missing thisand then felt like
there was a little more engagementwith what was going on and almost like
they were hiding behind.
Oh, I did the I checked the right box,you know, on the social justice whatever.
(14:10):
And then it became this criticismand that label kept getting applied to it.
And then over the years,
it almost feels likethat's morphed to the point where I think
maybe I'm not sure
if you used this exact word,but almost like a sloppily
applied to all kinds of thingsthat we end up disagreeing with.
I'm speculatingthis is all just things I've kind of seen.
I'm like, oh,that's interesting and whatever.
And it feels likethe term is being more sloppily applied.
(14:32):
To where now, if you're,I don't know, a vegetarian now you're woke
or you don't use a plastic straw,you're woke or you're this or that.
It just feels likeit's used in so many different contexts.
Does it have much meaning anymore,
or is it just a word we throw aroundat people we disagree with?
I don't really know.
Honestly. I'm really confused. Which ismaybe why we're having the conversation.
Because you guyscan help me out with this.
(14:54):
But do you resonate with thatlike that sloppily or hastily apply
like I disagree with youso hey, you're you're woke.
You don't we don't align or whatever.
Yeah.
And it the way it's usedsloppily is definitely functional.
If we're interested in forming lines oftribal identity or those we disagree with.
But I would say there'sprobably not an appropriate function
(15:16):
that we should be seeking out.
So I would be interestedin can we just list some of the
things that
woke is intended to catch.
And you mentioned a few things.
You know I'm thinking things might be alittle more serious than types of straws.
(15:37):
Although environmental concernis a serious matter.
Yeah that would definitely thoughdefinitely be one.
Like I guess when I, when I hear the term
woke used as a kind ofa, a blanket statement,
I think they're trying to catcha lot of things under that,
thingsthat we might assess in various ways.
(16:01):
It does seem to be applied to anybodywith a,
you know, some sense of historical guiltor something.
You feel guiltybecause of what your ancestors did.
That gets is labeled as woke.
If you feel,
you know, any kind of senseof kind of responsibility because of your,
you know, social position,
(16:21):
class or racethat quickly gets described as woke.
One thing that was mentionedin the comments,
if there's a sense of,
stretching out victimhoodand playing off of being a victim
that gets labeled as woke,
if you're in favor of same
(16:43):
sex relationships,that gets labeled as woke.
If you.
Want people to
freely identify with,
you know, whatever gender they want,
separate from their biological sexthat's labeled as woke.
(17:04):
There's probably a bunch more things thatget caught in there, but I don't know.
Does that resonate? It's the kind of a
a large kind of group of things thatthe term I think is intended to catch.
but generally the observationof unequal distribution of power
or oppressor versus oppressed,powerful versus disenfranchized
(17:25):
noticing those kind of dichotomies,I think often is a factor in this.
So that that could apply with
gender, sexuality,
race, ethnicity.
Right. Perhaps a bit broader as well.
You know, wealth,anything that seems connected
to critical theory or especially criticalrace theory gets put there.
(17:48):
Yeah Definitely.
Well actually okay, so you mentioned thatbecause there was another quote,
I have a whole list here, but
there was another one where we interviewedthe historian John Ruth, about
How did indigenous lands in Pennsylvaniabecome Mennonite farms, like in Lancaster?
And he did this
research of the land that he lived onand wrote this book about it.
And someone left this comment.
(18:08):
Just remember, also,
this stance that this man is takingis a form of critical theory
which is born out of Marxism and pitsthe oppressors versus the oppressed.
So that was I think you mentioned that youyou also did as well that power dynamic
and so forth.
This boomer has it so goodall his life that that the land
that his ancestors gave him,that he has no other recourse
than to just sell outto, to his future generations.
(18:30):
That calling him a sellout, basically.
So that would be one.
Marxist, DEI categories was in anotherone of the quotes.
I think that
comes into some of the frameworksyou were describing with the maybe power
dynamics and these Marxist, frameworksthat are being in this
that is being accused, that is being,portrayed, in these episodes.
(18:52):
Which again, I don’t know. Itkind of surprised me.
Like I it's not really what I saw there,but like but again, these things are
theselabels are used in so many different ways.
It's feels so hard to pin down.
I guess, and that'swhy I'm struggling a little bit with this.
I don't know if that just that maybejust made things more confusing, Yeah.
I mean, that's whyI mean, I agree with you, Jaran. Like,
(19:16):
you know, the term is
generally unhelpful.
You know,
at one point I think the term woke was
and it could be helpful at one pointwithin my memory not very long ago.
I think the term could be helpfulin kind of pointing out.
You know, a kind of glib,
(19:39):
glib, shallow.
You know, political correctnessor a certain political orientation,
you know, a woker than thoubecause you say the right thing
and kind of poking fun at it.
Yeah, I think it had a use at that point.
But at this point, with it being usedfor that kind of a blanket, things like,
(20:00):
I don't know, it'sa term used for anymore.
And I think it had a use toand it's more original sense of,
you know, are you awake?
Are you aware of
how society functionsand not overly naive?
And I'm sure there was more dimensionsto that.
But, you know, that was part of it.
(20:20):
And, you know, I think that was usefulfor people who were using it.
Yeah.
Any more that you want to add there.
Based on maybe even the, the Marxist,
the DEI element is packaged with wokeism or woke whatever.
You want to frame that as do we wantto, go down those rabbit holes at all.
(20:43):
Do you have anything else you want to add?
I mean, can we do just a
very basic,
a very basicand a philosophical reflection on,
you know, what is a theory,
what is critical theory or whatever?
Yeah. And so on.
(21:03):
And if you
wanna know what critical theory is, findsomebody who has studied it extensively.
But when we're talking about a theory
in this sense, we're talking about.
You know, tools to understand the world.
It's a set of vocabulary, just like,
you know, the theory of gravity
(21:24):
gives you tools, gives you equations to
describe the world.
Basic Newtonian physics gives you tools
to describe the world that work prettywell for describing a lot of things.
It doesn't describe the world perfectly.
Because,you know, you need quantum mechanics
and general relativity and all of thatto more fully describe the world.
(21:45):
But Newtonian physics was helpful still isextremely helpful because it describes
the world we interact with very well.
So let's wrap that around somethinglike, again, critical theory.
It's saying here's some
it's here's some concepts, some toolswe can use to understand the world.
(22:05):
Now, oneof the big reasons that Christians
become suspicious of that is, well,where are these concepts coming from?
Are these concepts rooted in,
you know, other beliefs that are.
Deeply unchristian.
And some of them are.
But that doesn't mean that
(22:26):
everything that somebody is seeing who's
using critical theory to describe it,
maybe it's not the best wayto describe it.
Maybe critical theory is not the best toolfor describing this.
It doesn't mean that the thingthey're describing doesn't exist.
This means that maybe there'sa better way to describe it,
and it doesn't mean that,
you know, the term trauma is now
(22:50):
not a helpful word for describing things,
or for that matter, that diversityor inclusion are not helpful
words for describing things
just because they get usedin theoretical frameworks that,
you know, the
framework as a wholemight be messed up, but
I don't I don't think that means
that diversity or equity or inclusion
(23:12):
or trauma are words that are somehowno longer helpful or don't help us
see things.
So I'm curious about somethingyou're talking about
theory in this sense as a framework.
I think that most people wouldn'tbe conscious of a theory
that they're operating with,although I do know that some are.
(23:32):
I first learned about critical theory,in a
introductory literary theory class,at a university I was at at the time.
And so I understood itas a literary theory.
And so I know that
in academic study
of literature it’s something that
(23:53):
people are very conscious of.
But outside of that context is that.
What in what way
do people operate with the theory?
What way has it leftacademia and entered the mainstream?
And is it actually it?Has it actually done that?
I don't know how much it has done that.
It has much like woke.
(24:13):
And much the same time CRT Critical Race
theory became
a way for again.
Basically the same set that uses woke
as a criticism started using the termwell that CRT as a criticism.
And there's lots of things
(24:35):
that can be labeled CRTthat can be criticized.
You know, towhat extent is the theory operating?
I don't think that everybody
who's using the word trauma and
diversity is, you know,
yeah,they're operating out of the framework,
(24:56):
out of certainly not explicitlyoperating out of an articulated
critical theory framework.
I think one of the concernsexpressed in the comments is,
well, the way they're talking.
Reveals that they are
thinking according to that
theory, that's the articulation.
(25:18):
Again, I am not familiarenough with the details of,
you know, forms of critical theoryor whatever.
When I hear critical theory
at a very general level and,
and I'm thinking more from philosophythan literature,
I'm thinking.
(25:40):
Of really a consciousness of,
you know,
looking below the surfacejust a little bit.
So critical theory.
Likes to look at
the statements that we make.
We say, why we do this?
(26:03):
And look at them and say, well, what's.
You know, what's the social dynamic there?
What's
happening there?
I've taken examplea little further, in the past,
we've got the American founding documents.
(26:24):
You got the Declaration of Independence,
and you've got famous language like,
you know, all men are created equaland so on,
and endowed by their creatorwith certain inalienable rights.
And then you have a constitutionthat gets passed where
what is it a slave is
is it 2/5 of a person or 3/5 of a person?
(26:47):
I forget which waythat went in the Constitution
for the sake of determining,you know, how much representation
a state gets and counting the populationfor political purposes?
Well, a kind of very basic level,
I think, of critical theory as picking upon the difference between here's
the stated rhetoric and here'swhat got into the Constitution about
(27:09):
people who were enslavedand how they were actually treated
in regards to being equal.
And it things get obviouslya lot more sophisticated than that.
And critical theory also gets kicked.
Yeah,
I think it does get carried away to where.
You can get into that
mode of operating wherethat kind of suspicion that, you know,
(27:33):
what's being said is not real,that suspicion gets carried so far that
you have a hard timeseeing sincerity anywhere.
The hermeneutic of suspicion becomes.
You have enough suspicionto expose everything
to where it seems likethere's nothing left.
You don't recognize any goodnessor take things at face value.
(27:54):
And of course, somebody who's actuallydoing critical theory is probably going
to say that I'm caricaturing them,and I probably am,
but I think that's whatsome people are reacting to.
And, you know, to see criticaltheory is a bad thing is,
oh, well,you know, this is critical theory.
This is what
deconstructs everything, doesn't accept
(28:15):
anything at face value, subverts,
subverts authority.
So on,
I don't know,I have somebody who actually studied
literary critical theory,which is probably where this originated.
one junior level class.
But anyway, get into this at the end.
But I would have mentioned Marx, Freud,and Nietzsche seen as the,
(28:35):
Marx, Freud and Friedrich Nietzsche,
Masters of suspicion,often used in literary theory.
And I don't know how this connectswith philosophy,
but especially, Marx and Nietzsche,seeing things through economic lens
or the lens of powerand so when you're reading a text,
you noticeit says one thing on the surface,
(28:57):
but you have the suspicion thatif you look underneath, there's something
nefarious going on in terms of powerhierarchies or economic disparities.
It seems
like that makes things,much more complex.
Right?
And it could almost muddythe waters a bit.
Is that true?
Or is that just the suspicion that peoplehave of this suspicion or something?
(29:20):
You know what I’m saying,
because like peoplewhen I talk to them about like, you know,
critical theory or CRT, it seems likethat's the counter reaction to it.
And then they're reactingoff of each other and it just gets
it just gets so shrill and out of control.
You just you don't even knowwhat you're looking at anymore.
But maybe I'm totally missedand misreading this
speaking from my own experience, it can.
(29:42):
When one functions that way regularly,
it can make me a bit
less trusting,
more mistrusting than I ideally would be.
It can also sap some of the enjoyment
of engagement,in my case of art and literature,
(30:03):
if you're always looking under the surfaceand suspecting that there's something
pernicious going on.
Yeah.
And somaybe when people throw these labels out
as a derogatory thingof like your woke or critical theory
or this or that, it's, reacting to whatyou just described, potentially.
(30:23):
Is that perhaps what's going on here?
I don't know enough ofthis is so confusing
that it's kind of hard to knowwhere all this even begins.
You know, like CRT,especially a year or two ago.
I would see yard signswhere people say no CRT.
And I was never quite sure when
in mainstream popular conversationswhen terms are used like that,
(30:46):
I'm not exactly sure what it does
or does not have to do with the waythe term is used academically.
I haven't sorted that out.
Well, I mean, yeah, because now.
And another one that's really it.
At least that again,this is my own personal experience
that I'm seeing hit the mainstreama lot more
and is becoming more derogatory is DEI.
Like I remember not that long agothat was just kind of whatever
(31:10):
wasn't necessarily used derogatorily,but now it feels like
I'm seeing that a lot more.Oh, that's DEI.
So diversity, equity and inclusion,what those letters stand for
and now is being used as likethis is really negative thing.
And it's suddenly it feels likethe conversation is getting very confusing
because it's that term is being thrownaround for so many different things.
(31:30):
It's like, whoa, I'mnot really sure what we're talking about.
Well, I mean, it was inone of the comments here,
someone's claiming, oh, this is a Marxist,DEI categories that are being used.
I'm like, okay, I'mnot quite sure what they're talking about
because I don't even knowwhat those letters mean anymore.
That'sjust a, I guess, more of a present day
thing that I've noticed, and I'm not quitesure what to do with that actually.
(31:51):
So yeah, diversity, equity and inclusion,that was definitely
something was embraced.
That was a name of a, you know,
universities have an office with that name
and that kind of thing.
So as a Christian
with a Christian sexual ethicand a Christian,
(32:12):
sense of,
you know, our biological sexis something that God gives to us. And,
you know, we need to make peace with that.
And of course, acknowledgingall complexities that can go with,
with, gender identity and so on. But
we need to make peace with God createdus, male and female.
(32:35):
Yeah.
There were things in thereunder diversity, equity and inclusion that
are not good.
And specifically,
you know, a promotion of,
you know, same sex relationships
as good.
You know, pushes
(32:55):
to get peopleto put your pronouns in your email.
Yeah.
You know, the sign of,you know, freely adopting pronouns.
And so on.
And no, I didn't find those helpful.
You know,
fortunately context where I werethat was not something that was enforced.
So nobody was coming after me and saying,hey, you need to add the pronouns.
I mean, there were, you know, an emailmight at the beginning of the semester
(33:18):
or whatever might encourage it,but it's not like anybody was policing it.
that part under DEI
was definitely pushing against thingsthat are against
the Christian understanding of
how God made people.
That is very true.
(33:40):
But what I'm feeling
where I started to see the DEI,where I started picking up on it
as a negative term, it was the implication
that, oh.
You're hiring peoplejust because you need to meet a quota.
You're hiring people that aren't qualifiedbecause you need to meet a quota of,
a certain percentage of women or a certain
(34:00):
percentage based on
race or ethnicity or whatever.
And, you know, the accusation was,you know,
this is distorting all kinds of stuffbecause hiring is happening
based on representation and not on
qualifications or something like that.
(34:22):
So in some ways that was a continuation,or maybe an intensification
of the whole fight over affirmative actionthat goes back,
you know, much further in this country,like it's been debated in a lot of ways.
So these
are some of the criticismsthat people have leveled.
And and to be fairit's not just an enormous amount
of these comments that we get,but it was enough that hey let's,
(34:45):
let's talk about it on this podcast.
Yes. And I jump in on that, you know,
those episodes.
The amount of peoplewho just found those very helpful
in processing it, you know, even like,you know, the trauma informed churches.
So I saw people saying, oh, this is usingwrong categories and it's not helpful.
(35:06):
But I was also very keenly aware of,
you know, a brother who
had a difficult journey in life and
also did his partto make the journey difficult and so on.
And, you know, somebody,somebody who's really growing in the Lord.
Clear testimony,
(35:29):
everything.
And, you know, he makes the comments like,
okay, this describeswhat my life is like, like
you should listen to thisso that you know what it's like for me.
And so, okay,
like this is credibilitybecause I know that this is a person
whose life has been turned aroundand is growing in the Lord,
(35:52):
and he's saying,yeah, this is enormously helpful.
Yeah.
I think that is important contextbecause it seems like
back to something I've said before.
You know these terms are thrown aroundso much it's kind of hard to know
if they mean much anymore.
And these we're talking about episodes,you know, one on education.
You know that's a very politically chargedright now.
(36:14):
You know, trauma informed churches
the one on, indigenous landsin Pennsylvania becoming Mennonite farms.
But, all of these things,about wouldn't matter what you said,
someone's probably going to label it,
put one of these labelson it just because those are
lightning rods for these types of things.
And that's a good pointyou raised, because the,
(36:35):
the one here that had the commentthis is Marxist DEI categories.
The person says, you know,it was also the one episode I,
I at least personally had more peoplereach out to me and say,
that was so helpful than I thinkanything we've published,
which was really encouraging to meto be like,
okay,we got maybe a few comments like that,
but it was helpful to a lot of people,and that's encouraging.
And I got similar commentson that episode.
(36:57):
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
And so
So as we think about these buzzwordsthat we've been using in this episode
so far, what are ways,
or maybe examples,you all could give of how
we as followers of Christ can engagewell, respond
well to these types of conversationsor in some cases, perhaps accusations.
(37:23):
How do we walk this?
So this is not about the accusations.
But it's about some of these issues.
So like I mentioned that one of the,
one of the things that gets labeledwoke is when you have one,
it seems like there's the sense of guiltor responsibility for,
you know, things your predecessors did
(37:46):
a number of years ago or whatever.
But, you know,we do have to reckon with the past,
in some way.
And so the one example that I cameacross recently,
came from a Lutheran church,
the Lutheran World Federation,
(38:07):
And, you know,for a little bit of context,
you know, Lutherans and Anabaptists,
emerged in Europe at the same time.
Luther was not particularlyfond of Anabaptists.
There were a lot ofthings that happened there.
Carry that forward.
(38:28):
Right.
We still have Lutherans and Anabaptists.
And so in the early 2000s,
there was a Lutheran groupand a Mennonite group
that worked through that history togetherand produced a joint,
a joint description of the history, like,
let's, let's state this in a waythat we can both say,
(38:49):
yeah, this is an accurate descriptionof what happened.
And then out of that,
the Lutheran World Federation,so representing a number of Lutheran
churches, ended up,you know, writing and adopting a statement
and that was presented,which was a kind of statement of
repentance.
(39:10):
And, you know, for me, as an Anabaptist.
Well, I didn't know about this.
I wasn't involved, you know,with the groups that were in dialog, but.
I do find it meaningful.
So I'd like to read that statementif I could, and a little bit,
from the Mennonite responseor part of the statement.
(39:32):
So it was titled action on the Legacy
of Lutheran Persecution of Anabaptists,
and begins when Lutherans todayrealize the history of Lutheran Anabaptist
relationships in the 16th centuryand beyond, as it is presented
in the report of the Lutheran MennoniteInternational Study Commission.
(39:52):
They are filledwith a deep sense of regret and pain
over the persecution of Anabaptistsby Lutheran authorities,
and especially over the factthat the Lutheran reformers
theologically supported this persecution.
Thus, the Lutheran World Federation,
a communion of churches, wishes to express
publicly its deep regret and sorrow,
(40:14):
trusting in God, who in Jesus Christwas reconciling the world to himself,
we asked for forgiveness from God
and from our Mennonite sistersand brothers for the harm
that our forebears in the 16th centurycommitted to an Anabaptists
for forgetting or ignoring thispersecution in the intervening centuries,
and for all inappropriate, misleading
and hurtful portraits of Anabaptistsand Mennonites made by Lutheran authors
(40:36):
in both popularand scholarly forms to the present day,
we pray thatGod may grant to our communities
a healing of our memoriesand reconciliation.
And it goes on with some commitments.
As I think about it,
they acknowledge things they said
this was wrong.
We regret it.
(40:57):
We're saying something to peoplewho are descendants of these Anabaptists.
We want a healing of our memories
and reconciliation.
I find that meaningful.
That strikes me as the kind of thingthat could easily be labeled as woke.
Because, you know,why are they apologizing for what somebody
(41:18):
did 400 years ago and
are they dishonoringtheir past and all of that?
And I don't see
it that I see it as a straightforwardacknowledgment
and, you know,
they didn't say, well,we can't call ourselves Lutherans anymore.
And the statement goes on to mention,you know, there are remaining
(41:40):
significant differences between men.
There are remaining, you know,significant disagreements and so on.
But yeah, I found it
deeply meaningful.
And I think it's just a good example of it
dealing with that.
And then just a little bit, Mennonite World Conference,
you know, presented a letter in response
(42:03):
and just a couple snippets from that,
Are we worthy to receive your request?
We are painfully awareof our own inadequacy.
We cannot bring ourselves to this tablewith held heads held high.
We could only come bowed down in greathumility and in the fear of the Lord.
We cannot come to this point and failto see our own sinfulness.
We can't come to this pointwithout recognize
(42:24):
our own needfor God's grace and forgiveness.
And they go on to some specific responses.
And then a commitment,
that is striking and a commitment that,
I want to adopt personally,
and I hope it's the way, you know,Anabaptist perspectives functions.
(42:45):
That Mennonite letter said,we commit ourselves
to take care that your initiativefor reconciliation is known and honored
in Anabaptist Mennoniteteaching about Lutherans.
Because it's to me, it is profoundly.
Yeah. The apology has an effect.
It produces an obligation in me.
You know, we talk about Lutherand outrageous things.
(43:08):
He said.
And yes, we have remaining
theological differences with Lutherans,but the fact that a statement
like this was made.
It actually
not only is it healing, itcreates a sense of responsibility like,
oh, we can't go around talking about,
oh, those Lutherans,they persecuted us without
(43:29):
knowing and honoring, like,you know, the Lutheran World Federation,
representing a large group of Lutheranshas said, yeah, like that was wrong.
And we're sorry about that.
And that creates an obligation for us.
So I bring this in here because, you know,I fear that.
anti-woke ism.
(43:49):
If we can once againmake something general,
it's going to
I fear that that attitude, you know,labeling things woke and labeling
this kind of consciousness,awareness of these things as woke
is just going to make it harderto do these kinds of,
I think, yeah, important
(44:10):
reconciling work.
So, Jaran, as we think of ways
to respond to these types of thingsas Christians.
Yeah.
What would you like to add on on thisor examples you would like to give?
Well, first, I think that the exchangethat Marlin read to us is very beautiful.
And I really appreciate the exhortation.
(44:34):
To not being intimidated
by the labels that may be put upon uswhen there's a genuine opportunity
for reconciliation, truthand acknowledgment
such as happened in the conversationbetween the Lutherans and the Mennonites.
I think thatand I already alluded to this,
but I do think that those labels can
(44:56):
drive us towards,
you know, a political or tribalconsciousness
that the gospel doesn't have place for.
So that's my addition would
addition would be let's let's avoid
the tribal identities,
the partizanship,and let's follow the way of Jesus.
(45:19):
And what that calls us to,which in many cases is,
charity, reconciliation
and forgiveness.
So we've covered a lot of
pieces in this podcast
and I'm curiousto hear people's feedback on this.
But as we
(45:40):
wrap this kind of complicated,a bit messy,
perhaps confusing topicand bring it down to earth,
is there any thing you would like to sayin closing for this episode?
Either of you?
I think it's really important that
we're not intimidated by labels.
And just to recognize
(46:03):
we may get labels for various things.
You know, let's be discreet.
Let's not be.
Let's not be provocativepurely for the sake of being provocative.
Maybe let's not be provocative unless,
you know, we need to get somebody to thinkabout a particular point.
But we’ew going to get labeled,and we need to be aware of that.
(46:25):
And we may get labeled from,
you know, left or right or top
or bottom or whateverthe political categories are. And,
you know, we can't hide from that.
So we may get labeled as
homophobic.
(46:46):
And if we're labeled as homophobic,
simply because we have
stood for,
you know, sexuality within marriageas one man and one woman.
Then we can't becan't be scared of that label.
Similarly, if it's simply
(47:07):
because of speaking about,
you know, God's gift of sexuality and,
you know, embracingand embracing our biological sex.
And it's not done in,
you know, insensitive or unhelpful ways,but it's, you know,
if we're labeled that for standing upfor Scripture, we need to accept that.
(47:30):
And in the same way.
If we're labeled as woke for.
You know how we talk about wrongs done by
the United States government
or how we tell history,not just from the winners perspective,
(47:52):
but from the losers perspective,so to speak.
You know, for labeled as woke for that.
I think we need to accept that, like,this work we need to do.
And, you know, I think about it
in our relation education curriculum,
how do we talk about things,how do we tell the stories of history?
(48:13):
And I I think if we tell themhonestly and in ways that
honor God's kingdom.
Yeah,
I think we're going to get caughtin the anti-woke waves.
And I think we have to accept thatnot by provoking it,
but we can't be scared of that.
There's a lot to think aboutin this episode.
(48:34):
Yeah.
Just thank you, both of you, for beingwilling to come on and engage with these
questions that we've or commentsthat we've received from listeners.
And I encourage people listening to this.
If you have thoughts, feel freeto leave us a comment or, contact us.
But I think you've ended uswith an important piece there Marlin.
Follow what Scripture teaches.
(48:56):
Follow Christ,and don't worry about the labels too much.
I think that's some pretty importantadvice, too.
And, and and leave with our, our listeners.
So thank you both for sharing.
Thanks
for listening to this episodeof Anabaptist Perspectives.
If you found this interesting,
you may want to check out the episodewe did with Ruth Anna Kuhnz.
We referred to itseveral times throughout this episode,
(49:18):
and you can find that linkedin the description down below.
Thanks again for watching,and we'll catch you in the next episode.
I think that we should be quickerto look within ourselves
and notice our own fallennessand brokenness
than to, identify
another person as the other or outside
my camp of people.
And so just the way it's used
with just bolstering tribal identities
(00:23):
can often be divisive.
And I think that as Christianswere called to a kind of love and charity
that shouldn't be quick to have tribalalignments.
And labeling others as woke,I think, is often
used to that effect.
(00:46):
So there's a very popular thinggoing on in culture right now.
It’s being talked about by all kindsof people, and it's particularly pertinent
because we're recording thisin the early months of 2025.
It's very much in the political scene.
And that is this whole concept of wokeor wokeness.
And we're going to talk aboutthat a little bit today.
(01:08):
And so today I'm joined by Jaran.
He helped me start AnabaptistPerspectives a number of years ago.
And Marlin, who's the current director of,of Anabaptist Perspectives.
And let's just open up with
why are we talkingabout the concept of wokeness?
Jaran, why don't you kick us off?
Like you said,many people are talking about it now.
(01:30):
It's a very live conversationin the culture,
and it's something that has reachedAnabaptist perspectives.
Through some of the feedbackthat we've gotten from audience members.
You, you engage with the audiencefeedback a fair bit, don't you?
Yes. Yeah. Emails, Facebook comments.
Telegram messages, YouTube comments,all that comes to me.
So I figured it would be pertinent.
(01:52):
Just so people understand a bitof the context what we're talking about.
I'm gonna actually read some of these,these comments.
Often thesecome on YouTube and things like that.
So here's one.
We did a episode a while ago, called
We Must Make Schools Workfor All Children.
And there's this bit of a long commenthere.
And the person says that's becausewe recognize that education is simply,
(02:13):
simply discipleship of one's worldviewas it applies to different areas of life.
We're discipling a little imagebearers of God
who think biblically about mathsand science and history and art.
We don't have to drag in Marxist
DEI categorieswhich are antithetical to God's law.
In order to do so, which is what Kuhns...
And it was Ruth Anna Kuhns who, did thatepisode seems to think that we need to do
(02:35):
this is clear evidencethat Liberty University has gone, woke.
She was a student at Liberty.
Okay.
I was wonderingif there was context for that. Okay.
Perhaps Kuhns doesn't realizethat she's imbibed
aspects of their ideologyas it pertains to education,
but she's actually actingas a water carrier for them
and unwittingly helping themto advance their anti-Christ revolution.
(02:57):
So pretty strong feelings.
Coming from there.
Here's another one on traumainformed churches.
That was one you did with Janelle Glick.
This person said one of the majorred flags with the trauma movement
is that itenables perpetual victimhood status.
People never rise above whatever happenedor did not happen to them.
They spend the rest of their lives,the rest of their life
(03:19):
wanting a a handkerchiefand a hand on the shoulder.
This is simply not the way to help people.
And there's a bunch more, a shortsnippet someone says on another one.
Please reject woke nonsense.
So we get this kind of.
So this is just a a slice.
There's a bunch more of these.
If people want to go combthrough the comments, you'll find more.
(03:40):
So that's a bit of the context.
And one of the things we like to do with
the podcast is to engagewith the feedback we get, from listeners.
So why don't we start with
just a brief history of the term woke?
Like, what are we even talking aboutwhen that term is used?
It is used so muchin so many different contexts.
It's pretty easy. To lose track of.
(04:00):
So yeah. Do you have anything on that?
Can we divert that to Marlin?
Marlin would you.
Yeah. Yeah.
yeah.
I can't give a full history, but even
even just a little bitof what I've seen in my,
my own lifetimeand how I've seen that meaning shift.
I understandthe term goes back before my lifetime.
(04:20):
Used by Africans.
I think both African-American and,
still from the continent of Africa.
To simply to refer to the idea of,you know,
being awakeand particular being awake or aware of
difficulties they faced
or oppression or whatever.
(04:43):
Obviously, as came forward,got generalized.
Yeah.
I remember.
I don't know, ten years agoor something like that.
Woke is a little bit more general termjust of, you know,
somebody who's
aware of things, aware of social dynamics
(05:06):
and maybe some ofthat was anti-Christian stuff,
but it was also just like
you know, if you're a manand you're aware of cultural dynamics
and what the cultural expectations are onwomen, and that, whether it's double
standards in regard to sexual moralityor how you look at dividing up
(05:26):
housework, if both husband and wifeare working or whatever.
So it's generally peopleusing it approvingly.
And in ways that I don't know.
I don't know what I think about all ofthem, but, you know, relatively innocuous.
And then
(05:46):
I think a little later, I remember it
being kind of used to indicate,
I don't know, kind of insincerityor something like,
you know, somebodyconsiders themselves woke
because they can talk about how thisor that is a problem.
But, you know, they're not really engagedin it with real life.
They're
drinking their lattes and
making statements about something.
(06:07):
And so in that sense, it was a littlepejorative in the sense of,
you know, insincereor not really having skin in the game,
but wanting to make statementsabout something.
Or, and then, you know, lip service.
But yeah, more recently
Wikipedia.
Thanks, Jaran,for pointing out the Wikipedia article.
(06:28):
Wikipedia says something like 2019,I can't say exact dates.
Where where the real shift to woke
coming from people on the rightand using that as a a way of insulting,
whatthey're considering as left generally,
(06:49):
again, with some of the same tonesabout same ideas of,
I think, insincere protest and so on.
But it seems like recentlyit has generalized to become kind
of a catchall for,
you know, kind of
anything that's perceived as
potentially on the left sideof the political spectrum or something,
(07:09):
I don't know.
and typically is by the right.
use, by the right as derogatory?
is there any other functional definitionsat this point where people would
wish to use wokeas a description for their own approach,
or is it only pejorative at this point?
It seems to me the pejorative is dominant,
but the idea of it as
(07:31):
positive.
Like we are awake,we are aware of what's going on.
I meanthat was, that was certainly claimed
as a positive term not very long ago.
I think some still would Yeah.
Yeah.
And I mean who wants to be asleep.
Yeah.
That's a great
I guess I've never thought about thisquite like that but but it's awake
(07:51):
aware as opposed to in your dull slumbersnot realizing what's going on.
I mean that's the original idea.
But then thinking in terms of woke,
you know,I don't know if I've ever heard it
except in the context of someone who would
claim I'm not wokeand I'm calling something else woke.
And it's used as a, yeah, kind of insultor a calling something out.
(08:12):
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, whichI think we were having a conversation
at some point a few years agowhere we were talking about the engagement
we have with our audience on the podcast,and it seemed like 2019 or the Covid era.
I guess you could say the comments started
getting tended to be morenasty or hostile.
(08:33):
Do you remember this?
It does seem likewe've had more of the oh,
this is for whatever woke or whateverbuzzword seems like that's hitting
the comments more nowthan it would have seven years ago, say
definitely intensified
quite a bit over that time.
Now that's interesting.
Is there anything more eitheryou all want to add as far as context
(08:53):
definitions, etc. on this?
I mean, just to honor there'sa complex history to the term, and I think
what we're going to be talking aboutnow is mostly kind of responding to
to how it's used as a term of insultor a term of
insult or kind of a large negativecharacterization.
Most people are usingthe most dominant use of it
(09:15):
now seems to be as
seeing it as a bad thing,using it to criticize.
And that's primarilywhat we're going to be responding to here.
Yeah.
And let's and let's get into that where
yeah some people use thisas a way of criticizing
and just labeling people or things.
Let's engage with that.
(09:37):
What are some, some thingswe want to add to that conversation.
Ways. Perhaps we want to respond.
Especially because yeah,it does seem in more recent years
that that has startedpopping up in the comments more.
And I'm sure those people who madethose comments will be like,
well, that'sbecause your your podcast has shifted
and it's become more woke and blah,blah, blah, whatever.
I know I've heard that from a few commentshere and there.
(09:57):
It's an interesting, yeah, I'd be curious
what you'd have to say about about thatJaran.
This is more about the waythe term is used than the substance behind
what the term actually mean, that there'sdefinitely a conversation there.
But in general, I am sad about the wayI often hear the term
(10:17):
being used for a few reasons,one of which is that
it's oftenquite sloppy in the way that it's applied.
There are
a variety of different issuesthat it could legitimately be
in reference to,some of which Marlin referred to,
but when it's just usedgenerally as a catchall
(10:38):
for a particular approachto issues that we find disagreeable,
I think it's quite sloppyand not helpful for constructive dialog
also, and this especially applies
when used among brothers and sistersin the church.
But my same concern would be with anybody.
(10:58):
It's used to create tribes of usversus them.
Oftenwhen used pejoratively, your are woke.
Therefore I am not woke.
Implicitly I have the moral high groundwhen I use it that way, and I'm labeling
somebody else's approach to thingsas morally objectionable or inferior.
(11:19):
I think that we should be quickerto look within ourselves
and notice our own fallennessand brokenness
than to, identify
another personas the other or outside my camp of people.
And so just
the way it's used with just bolsteringtribal identities
(11:43):
can often be divisive.
And I think that as Christianswere called to a kind of love and charity
that shouldn't be quickto have tribal alignments.
And labeling others as woke,
I think, is often used to that effect.
(12:04):
Do you have any examples.
There's some bring this down to eartha bit.
There's examples everywhere.
It's a it's a huge conversation in cultureright now.
Like we read some commentsfor how people apply it to us.
I think it's kind of sad.
I suspect that we're largelyon the same page with the people
who wish to criticize us.
(12:25):
In evangelicalism right now.
I think, what was the publicationChristian Post,
I think this week, and we'rerecording this in February, did an article
writing about some
significant disruptionthat Wheaton College is experiencing,
where some alumni have decidedthat Wheaton is woke
and the pushingfor some change in leadership.
(12:45):
There.
so that that's one particular occurrenceof Christian against Christian,
tension
along the lines of woke versus anti-woke.
So I find it interesting,I think you're right
that, that, you know, putting out the termwoke as a
(13:05):
critique, often accomplishesexactly that, the kind of tribalism
or a little of the senseof moral superiority.
But not very long ago,
when people were started using woke
as a form of critique,or when I kind of encountered it,
as you know,we use woke to critique your position.
(13:26):
It was precisely critiquing people for
a kind of self-righteousness, because,
you know, I know what to protest betterthan, you know what to protest.
And so woke was the usingthe term woke to criticize
people was originally meant to criticize
that kind of self-righteousnessand tribalism.
That is
that's an interesting pointbecause I remember hearing some of this,
(13:49):
you know,
say five years ago when someone would,would have some meaningful feedback of
maybe an interactionwith someone they knew.
And like that felt awfully whateverwoke this that because they're,
they're, you know, missing thisand then felt like
there was a little more engagementwith what was going on and almost like
they were hiding behind.
Oh, I did the I checked the right box,you know, on the social justice whatever.
(14:10):
And then it became this criticismand that label kept getting applied to it.
And then over the years,
it almost feels likethat's morphed to the point where I think
maybe I'm not sure
if you used this exact word,but almost like a sloppily
applied to all kinds of thingsthat we end up disagreeing with.
I'm speculatingthis is all just things I've kind of seen.
I'm like, oh,that's interesting and whatever.
And it feels likethe term is being more sloppily applied.
(14:32):
To where now, if you're,I don't know, a vegetarian now you're woke
or you don't use a plastic straw,you're woke or you're this or that.
It just feels likeit's used in so many different contexts.
Does it have much meaning anymore,
or is it just a word we throw aroundat people we disagree with?
I don't really know.
Honestly. I'm really confused. Which ismaybe why we're having the conversation.
Because you guyscan help me out with this.
(14:54):
But do you resonate with thatlike that sloppily or hastily apply
like I disagree with youso hey, you're you're woke.
You don't we don't align or whatever.
Yeah.
And it the way it's usedsloppily is definitely functional.
If we're interested in forming lines oftribal identity or those we disagree with.
But I would say there'sprobably not an appropriate function
(15:16):
that we should be seeking out.
So I would be interestedin can we just list some of the
things that
woke is intended to catch.
And you mentioned a few things.
You know I'm thinking things might be alittle more serious than types of straws.
(15:37):
Although environmental concernis a serious matter.
Yeah that would definitely thoughdefinitely be one.
Like I guess when I, when I hear the term
woke used as a kind ofa, a blanket statement,
I think they're trying to catcha lot of things under that,
thingsthat we might assess in various ways.
(16:01):
It does seem to be applied to anybodywith a,
you know, some sense of historical guiltor something.
You feel guiltybecause of what your ancestors did.
That gets is labeled as woke.
If you feel,
you know, any kind of senseof kind of responsibility because of your,
you know, social position,
(16:21):
class or racethat quickly gets described as woke.
One thing that was mentionedin the comments,
if there's a sense of,
stretching out victimhoodand playing off of being a victim
that gets labeled as woke,
if you're in favor of same
(16:43):
sex relationships,that gets labeled as woke.
If you.
Want people to
freely identify with,
you know, whatever gender they want,
separate from their biological sexthat's labeled as woke.
(17:04):
There's probably a bunch more things thatget caught in there, but I don't know.
Does that resonate? It's the kind of a
a large kind of group of things thatthe term I think is intended to catch.
but generally the observationof unequal distribution of power
or oppressor versus oppressed,powerful versus disenfranchized
(17:25):
noticing those kind of dichotomies,I think often is a factor in this.
So that that could apply with
gender, sexuality,
race, ethnicity.
Right. Perhaps a bit broader as well.
You know, wealth,anything that seems connected
to critical theory or especially criticalrace theory gets put there.
(17:48):
Yeah Definitely.
Well actually okay, so you mentioned thatbecause there was another quote,
I have a whole list here, but
there was another one where we interviewedthe historian John Ruth, about
How did indigenous lands in Pennsylvaniabecome Mennonite farms, like in Lancaster?
And he did this
research of the land that he lived onand wrote this book about it.
And someone left this comment.
(18:08):
Just remember, also,
this stance that this man is takingis a form of critical theory
which is born out of Marxism and pitsthe oppressors versus the oppressed.
So that was I think you mentioned that youyou also did as well that power dynamic
and so forth.
This boomer has it so goodall his life that that the land
that his ancestors gave him,that he has no other recourse
than to just sell outto, to his future generations.
(18:30):
That calling him a sellout, basically.
So that would be one.
Marxist, DEI categories was in anotherone of the quotes.
I think that
comes into some of the frameworksyou were describing with the maybe power
dynamics and these Marxist, frameworksthat are being in this
that is being accused, that is being,portrayed, in these episodes.
(18:52):
Which again, I don’t know. Itkind of surprised me.
Like I it's not really what I saw there,but like but again, these things are
theselabels are used in so many different ways.
It's feels so hard to pin down.
I guess, and that'swhy I'm struggling a little bit with this.
I don't know if that just that maybejust made things more confusing, Yeah.
I mean, that's whyI mean, I agree with you, Jaran. Like,
(19:16):
you know, the term is
generally unhelpful.
You know,
at one point I think the term woke was
and it could be helpful at one pointwithin my memory not very long ago.
I think the term could be helpfulin kind of pointing out.
You know, a kind of glib,
(19:39):
glib, shallow.
You know, political correctnessor a certain political orientation,
you know, a woker than thoubecause you say the right thing
and kind of poking fun at it.
Yeah, I think it had a use at that point.
But at this point, with it being usedfor that kind of a blanket, things like,
(20:00):
I don't know, it'sa term used for anymore.
And I think it had a use toand it's more original sense of,
you know, are you awake?
Are you aware of
how society functionsand not overly naive?
And I'm sure there was more dimensionsto that.
But, you know, that was part of it.
(20:20):
And, you know, I think that was usefulfor people who were using it.
Yeah.
Any more that you want to add there.
Based on maybe even the, the Marxist,
the DEI element is packaged with wokeism or woke whatever.
You want to frame that as do we wantto, go down those rabbit holes at all.
(20:43):
Do you have anything else you want to add?
I mean, can we do just a
very basic,
a very basicand a philosophical reflection on,
you know, what is a theory,
what is critical theory or whatever?
Yeah. And so on.
(21:03):
And if you
wanna know what critical theory is, findsomebody who has studied it extensively.
But when we're talking about a theory
in this sense, we're talking about.
You know, tools to understand the world.
It's a set of vocabulary, just like,
you know, the theory of gravity
(21:24):
gives you tools, gives you equations to
describe the world.
Basic Newtonian physics gives you tools
to describe the world that work prettywell for describing a lot of things.
It doesn't describe the world perfectly.
Because,you know, you need quantum mechanics
and general relativity and all of thatto more fully describe the world.
(21:45):
But Newtonian physics was helpful still isextremely helpful because it describes
the world we interact with very well.
So let's wrap that around somethinglike, again, critical theory.
It's saying here's some
it's here's some concepts, some toolswe can use to understand the world.
(22:05):
Now, oneof the big reasons that Christians
become suspicious of that is, well,where are these concepts coming from?
Are these concepts rooted in,
you know, other beliefs that are.
Deeply unchristian.
And some of them are.
But that doesn't mean that
(22:26):
everything that somebody is seeing who's
using critical theory to describe it,
maybe it's not the best wayto describe it.
Maybe critical theory is not the best toolfor describing this.
It doesn't mean that the thingthey're describing doesn't exist.
This means that maybe there'sa better way to describe it,
and it doesn't mean that,
you know, the term trauma is now
(22:50):
not a helpful word for describing things,
or for that matter, that diversityor inclusion are not helpful
words for describing things
just because they get usedin theoretical frameworks that,
you know, the
framework as a wholemight be messed up, but
I don't I don't think that means
that diversity or equity or inclusion
(23:12):
or trauma are words that are somehowno longer helpful or don't help us
see things.
So I'm curious about somethingyou're talking about
theory in this sense as a framework.
I think that most people wouldn'tbe conscious of a theory
that they're operating with,although I do know that some are.
(23:32):
I first learned about critical theory,in a
introductory literary theory class,at a university I was at at the time.
And so I understood itas a literary theory.
And so I know that
in academic study
of literature it’s something that
(23:53):
people are very conscious of.
But outside of that context is that.
What in what way
do people operate with the theory?
What way has it leftacademia and entered the mainstream?
And is it actually it?Has it actually done that?
I don't know how much it has done that.
It has much like woke.
(24:13):
And much the same time CRT Critical Race
theory became
a way for again.
Basically the same set that uses woke
as a criticism started using the termwell that CRT as a criticism.
And there's lots of things
(24:35):
that can be labeled CRTthat can be criticized.
You know, towhat extent is the theory operating?
I don't think that everybody
who's using the word trauma and
diversity is, you know,
yeah,they're operating out of the framework,
(24:56):
out of certainly not explicitlyoperating out of an articulated
critical theory framework.
I think one of the concernsexpressed in the comments is,
well, the way they're talking.
Reveals that they are
thinking according to that
theory, that's the articulation.
(25:18):
Again, I am not familiarenough with the details of,
you know, forms of critical theoryor whatever.
When I hear critical theory
at a very general level and,
and I'm thinking more from philosophythan literature,
I'm thinking.
(25:40):
Of really a consciousness of,
you know,
looking below the surfacejust a little bit.
So critical theory.
Likes to look at
the statements that we make.
We say, why we do this?
(26:03):
And look at them and say, well, what's.
You know, what's the social dynamic there?
What's
happening there?
I've taken examplea little further, in the past,
we've got the American founding documents.
(26:24):
You got the Declaration of Independence,
and you've got famous language like,
you know, all men are created equaland so on,
and endowed by their creatorwith certain inalienable rights.
And then you have a constitutionthat gets passed where
what is it a slave is
is it 2/5 of a person or 3/5 of a person?
(26:47):
I forget which waythat went in the Constitution
for the sake of determining,you know, how much representation
a state gets and counting the populationfor political purposes?
Well, a kind of very basic level,
I think, of critical theory as picking upon the difference between here's
the stated rhetoric and here'swhat got into the Constitution about
(27:09):
people who were enslavedand how they were actually treated
in regards to being equal.
And it things get obviouslya lot more sophisticated than that.
And critical theory also gets kicked.
Yeah,
I think it does get carried away to where.
You can get into that
mode of operating wherethat kind of suspicion that, you know,
(27:33):
what's being said is not real,that suspicion gets carried so far that
you have a hard timeseeing sincerity anywhere.
The hermeneutic of suspicion becomes.
You have enough suspicionto expose everything
to where it seems likethere's nothing left.
You don't recognize any goodnessor take things at face value.
(27:54):
And of course, somebody who's actuallydoing critical theory is probably going
to say that I'm caricaturing them,and I probably am,
but I think that's whatsome people are reacting to.
And, you know, to see criticaltheory is a bad thing is,
oh, well,you know, this is critical theory.
This is what
deconstructs everything, doesn't accept
(28:15):
anything at face value, subverts,
subverts authority.
So on,
I don't know,I have somebody who actually studied
literary critical theory,which is probably where this originated.
one junior level class.
But anyway, get into this at the end.
But I would have mentioned Marx, Freud,and Nietzsche seen as the,
(28:35):
Marx, Freud and Friedrich Nietzsche,
Masters of suspicion,often used in literary theory.
And I don't know how this connectswith philosophy,
but especially, Marx and Nietzsche,seeing things through economic lens
or the lens of powerand so when you're reading a text,
you noticeit says one thing on the surface,
(28:57):
but you have the suspicion thatif you look underneath, there's something
nefarious going on in terms of powerhierarchies or economic disparities.
It seems
like that makes things,much more complex.
Right?
And it could almost muddythe waters a bit.
Is that true?
Or is that just the suspicion that peoplehave of this suspicion or something?
(29:20):
You know what I’m saying,
because like peoplewhen I talk to them about like, you know,
critical theory or CRT, it seems likethat's the counter reaction to it.
And then they're reactingoff of each other and it just gets
it just gets so shrill and out of control.
You just you don't even knowwhat you're looking at anymore.
But maybe I'm totally missedand misreading this
speaking from my own experience, it can.
(29:42):
When one functions that way regularly,
it can make me a bit
less trusting,
more mistrusting than I ideally would be.
It can also sap some of the enjoyment
of engagement,in my case of art and literature,
(30:03):
if you're always looking under the surfaceand suspecting that there's something
pernicious going on.
Yeah.
And somaybe when people throw these labels out
as a derogatory thingof like your woke or critical theory
or this or that, it's, reacting to whatyou just described, potentially.
(30:23):
Is that perhaps what's going on here?
I don't know enough ofthis is so confusing
that it's kind of hard to knowwhere all this even begins.
You know, like CRT,especially a year or two ago.
I would see yard signswhere people say no CRT.
And I was never quite sure when
in mainstream popular conversationswhen terms are used like that,
(30:46):
I'm not exactly sure what it does
or does not have to do with the waythe term is used academically.
I haven't sorted that out.
Well, I mean, yeah, because now.
And another one that's really it.
At least that again,this is my own personal experience
that I'm seeing hit the mainstreama lot more
and is becoming more derogatory is DEI.
Like I remember not that long agothat was just kind of whatever
(31:10):
wasn't necessarily used derogatorily,but now it feels like
I'm seeing that a lot more.Oh, that's DEI.
So diversity, equity and inclusion,what those letters stand for
and now is being used as likethis is really negative thing.
And it's suddenly it feels likethe conversation is getting very confusing
because it's that term is being thrownaround for so many different things.
(31:30):
It's like, whoa, I'mnot really sure what we're talking about.
Well, I mean, it was inone of the comments here,
someone's claiming, oh, this is a Marxist,DEI categories that are being used.
I'm like, okay, I'mnot quite sure what they're talking about
because I don't even knowwhat those letters mean anymore.
That'sjust a, I guess, more of a present day
thing that I've noticed, and I'm not quitesure what to do with that actually.
(31:51):
So yeah, diversity, equity and inclusion,that was definitely
something was embraced.
That was a name of a, you know,
universities have an office with that name
and that kind of thing.
So as a Christian
with a Christian sexual ethicand a Christian,
(32:12):
sense of,
you know, our biological sexis something that God gives to us. And,
you know, we need to make peace with that.
And of course, acknowledgingall complexities that can go with,
with, gender identity and so on. But
we need to make peace with God createdus, male and female.
(32:35):
Yeah.
There were things in thereunder diversity, equity and inclusion that
are not good.
And specifically,
you know, a promotion of,
you know, same sex relationships
as good.
You know, pushes
(32:55):
to get peopleto put your pronouns in your email.
Yeah.
You know, the sign of,you know, freely adopting pronouns.
And so on.
And no, I didn't find those helpful.
You know,
fortunately context where I werethat was not something that was enforced.
So nobody was coming after me and saying,hey, you need to add the pronouns.
I mean, there were, you know, an emailmight at the beginning of the semester
(33:18):
or whatever might encourage it,but it's not like anybody was policing it.
that part under DEI
was definitely pushing against thingsthat are against
the Christian understanding of
how God made people.
That is very true.
(33:40):
But what I'm feeling
where I started to see the DEI,where I started picking up on it
as a negative term, it was the implication
that, oh.
You're hiring peoplejust because you need to meet a quota.
You're hiring people that aren't qualifiedbecause you need to meet a quota of,
a certain percentage of women or a certain
(34:00):
percentage based on
race or ethnicity or whatever.
And, you know, the accusation was,you know,
this is distorting all kinds of stuffbecause hiring is happening
based on representation and not on
qualifications or something like that.
(34:22):
So in some ways that was a continuation,or maybe an intensification
of the whole fight over affirmative actionthat goes back,
you know, much further in this country,like it's been debated in a lot of ways.
So these
are some of the criticismsthat people have leveled.
And and to be fairit's not just an enormous amount
of these comments that we get,but it was enough that hey let's,
(34:45):
let's talk about it on this podcast.
Yes. And I jump in on that, you know,
those episodes.
The amount of peoplewho just found those very helpful
in processing it, you know, even like,you know, the trauma informed churches.
So I saw people saying, oh, this is usingwrong categories and it's not helpful.
(35:06):
But I was also very keenly aware of,
you know, a brother who
had a difficult journey in life and
also did his partto make the journey difficult and so on.
And, you know, somebody,somebody who's really growing in the Lord.
Clear testimony,
(35:29):
everything.
And, you know, he makes the comments like,
okay, this describeswhat my life is like, like
you should listen to thisso that you know what it's like for me.
And so, okay,
like this is credibilitybecause I know that this is a person
whose life has been turned aroundand is growing in the Lord,
(35:52):
and he's saying,yeah, this is enormously helpful.
Yeah.
I think that is important contextbecause it seems like
back to something I've said before.
You know these terms are thrown aroundso much it's kind of hard to know
if they mean much anymore.
And these we're talking about episodes,you know, one on education.
You know that's a very politically chargedright now.
(36:14):
You know, trauma informed churches
the one on, indigenous landsin Pennsylvania becoming Mennonite farms.
But, all of these things,about wouldn't matter what you said,
someone's probably going to label it,
put one of these labelson it just because those are
lightning rods for these types of things.
And that's a good pointyou raised, because the,
(36:35):
the one here that had the commentthis is Marxist DEI categories.
The person says, you know,it was also the one episode I,
I at least personally had more peoplereach out to me and say,
that was so helpful than I thinkanything we've published,
which was really encouraging to meto be like,
okay,we got maybe a few comments like that,
but it was helpful to a lot of people,and that's encouraging.
And I got similar commentson that episode.
(36:57):
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
And so
So as we think about these buzzwordsthat we've been using in this episode
so far, what are ways,
or maybe examples,you all could give of how
we as followers of Christ can engagewell, respond
well to these types of conversationsor in some cases, perhaps accusations.
(37:23):
How do we walk this?
So this is not about the accusations.
But it's about some of these issues.
So like I mentioned that one of the,
one of the things that gets labeledwoke is when you have one,
it seems like there's the sense of guiltor responsibility for,
you know, things your predecessors did
(37:46):
a number of years ago or whatever.
But, you know,we do have to reckon with the past,
in some way.
And so the one example that I cameacross recently,
came from a Lutheran church,
the Lutheran World Federation,
(38:07):
And, you know,for a little bit of context,
you know, Lutherans and Anabaptists,
emerged in Europe at the same time.
Luther was not particularlyfond of Anabaptists.
There were a lot ofthings that happened there.
Carry that forward.
(38:28):
Right.
We still have Lutherans and Anabaptists.
And so in the early 2000s,
there was a Lutheran groupand a Mennonite group
that worked through that history togetherand produced a joint,
a joint description of the history, like,
let's, let's state this in a waythat we can both say,
(38:49):
yeah, this is an accurate descriptionof what happened.
And then out of that,
the Lutheran World Federation,so representing a number of Lutheran
churches, ended up,you know, writing and adopting a statement
and that was presented,which was a kind of statement of
repentance.
(39:10):
And, you know, for me, as an Anabaptist.
Well, I didn't know about this.
I wasn't involved, you know,with the groups that were in dialog, but.
I do find it meaningful.
So I'd like to read that statementif I could, and a little bit,
from the Mennonite responseor part of the statement.
(39:32):
So it was titled action on the Legacy
of Lutheran Persecution of Anabaptists,
and begins when Lutherans todayrealize the history of Lutheran Anabaptist
relationships in the 16th centuryand beyond, as it is presented
in the report of the Lutheran MennoniteInternational Study Commission.
(39:52):
They are filledwith a deep sense of regret and pain
over the persecution of Anabaptistsby Lutheran authorities,
and especially over the factthat the Lutheran reformers
theologically supported this persecution.
Thus, the Lutheran World Federation,
a communion of churches, wishes to express
publicly its deep regret and sorrow,
(40:14):
trusting in God, who in Jesus Christwas reconciling the world to himself,
we asked for forgiveness from God
and from our Mennonite sistersand brothers for the harm
that our forebears in the 16th centurycommitted to an Anabaptists
for forgetting or ignoring thispersecution in the intervening centuries,
and for all inappropriate, misleading
and hurtful portraits of Anabaptistsand Mennonites made by Lutheran authors
(40:36):
in both popularand scholarly forms to the present day,
we pray thatGod may grant to our communities
a healing of our memoriesand reconciliation.
And it goes on with some commitments.
As I think about it,
they acknowledge things they said
this was wrong.
We regret it.
(40:57):
We're saying something to peoplewho are descendants of these Anabaptists.
We want a healing of our memories
and reconciliation.
I find that meaningful.
That strikes me as the kind of thingthat could easily be labeled as woke.
Because, you know,why are they apologizing for what somebody
(41:18):
did 400 years ago and
are they dishonoringtheir past and all of that?
And I don't see
it that I see it as a straightforwardacknowledgment
and, you know,
they didn't say, well,we can't call ourselves Lutherans anymore.
And the statement goes on to mention,you know, there are remaining
(41:40):
significant differences between men.
There are remaining, you know,significant disagreements and so on.
But yeah, I found it
deeply meaningful.
And I think it's just a good example of it
dealing with that.
And then just a little bit, Mennonite World Conference,
you know, presented a letter in response
(42:03):
and just a couple snippets from that,
Are we worthy to receive your request?
We are painfully awareof our own inadequacy.
We cannot bring ourselves to this tablewith held heads held high.
We could only come bowed down in greathumility and in the fear of the Lord.
We cannot come to this point and failto see our own sinfulness.
We can't come to this pointwithout recognize
(42:24):
our own needfor God's grace and forgiveness.
And they go on to some specific responses.
And then a commitment,
that is striking and a commitment that,
I want to adopt personally,
and I hope it's the way, you know,Anabaptist perspectives functions.
(42:45):
That Mennonite letter said,we commit ourselves
to take care that your initiativefor reconciliation is known and honored
in Anabaptist Mennoniteteaching about Lutherans.
Because it's to me, it is profoundly.
Yeah. The apology has an effect.
It produces an obligation in me.
You know, we talk about Lutherand outrageous things.
(43:08):
He said.
And yes, we have remaining
theological differences with Lutherans,but the fact that a statement
like this was made.
It actually
not only is it healing, itcreates a sense of responsibility like,
oh, we can't go around talking about,
oh, those Lutherans,they persecuted us without
(43:29):
knowing and honoring, like,you know, the Lutheran World Federation,
representing a large group of Lutheranshas said, yeah, like that was wrong.
And we're sorry about that.
And that creates an obligation for us.
So I bring this in here because, you know,I fear that.
anti-woke ism.
(43:49):
If we can once againmake something general,
it's going to
I fear that that attitude, you know,labeling things woke and labeling
this kind of consciousness,awareness of these things as woke
is just going to make it harderto do these kinds of,
I think, yeah, important
(44:10):
reconciling work.
So, Jaran, as we think of ways
to respond to these types of thingsas Christians.
Yeah.
What would you like to add on on thisor examples you would like to give?
Well, first, I think that the exchangethat Marlin read to us is very beautiful.
And I really appreciate the exhortation.
(44:34):
To not being intimidated
by the labels that may be put upon uswhen there's a genuine opportunity
for reconciliation, truthand acknowledgment
such as happened in the conversationbetween the Lutherans and the Mennonites.
I think thatand I already alluded to this,
but I do think that those labels can
(44:56):
drive us towards,
you know, a political or tribalconsciousness
that the gospel doesn't have place for.
So that's my addition would
addition would be let's let's avoid
the tribal identities,
the partizanship,and let's follow the way of Jesus.
(45:19):
And what that calls us to,which in many cases is,
charity, reconciliation
and forgiveness.
So we've covered a lot of
pieces in this podcast
and I'm curiousto hear people's feedback on this.
But as we
(45:40):
wrap this kind of complicated,a bit messy,
perhaps confusing topicand bring it down to earth,
is there any thing you would like to sayin closing for this episode?
Either of you?
I think it's really important that
we're not intimidated by labels.
And just to recognize
(46:03):
we may get labels for various things.
You know, let's be discreet.
Let's not be.
Let's not be provocativepurely for the sake of being provocative.
Maybe let's not be provocative unless,
you know, we need to get somebody to thinkabout a particular point.
But we’ew going to get labeled,and we need to be aware of that.
(46:25):
And we may get labeled from,
you know, left or right or top
or bottom or whateverthe political categories are. And,
you know, we can't hide from that.
So we may get labeled as
homophobic.
(46:46):
And if we're labeled as homophobic,
simply because we have
stood for,
you know, sexuality within marriageas one man and one woman.
Then we can't becan't be scared of that label.
Similarly, if it's simply
(47:07):
because of speaking about,
you know, God's gift of sexuality and,
you know, embracingand embracing our biological sex.
And it's not done in,
you know, insensitive or unhelpful ways,but it's, you know,
if we're labeled that for standing upfor Scripture, we need to accept that.
(47:30):
And in the same way.
If we're labeled as woke for.
You know how we talk about wrongs done by
the United States government
or how we tell history,not just from the winners perspective,
(47:52):
but from the losers perspective,so to speak.
You know, for labeled as woke for that.
I think we need to accept that, like,this work we need to do.
And, you know, I think about it
in our relation education curriculum,
how do we talk about things,how do we tell the stories of history?
(48:13):
And I I think if we tell themhonestly and in ways that
honor God's kingdom.
Yeah,
I think we're going to get caughtin the anti-woke waves.
And I think we have to accept thatnot by provoking it,
but we can't be scared of that.
There's a lot to think aboutin this episode.
(48:34):
Yeah.
Just thank you, both of you, for beingwilling to come on and engage with these
questions that we've or commentsthat we've received from listeners.
And I encourage people listening to this.
If you have thoughts, feel freeto leave us a comment or, contact us.
But I think you've ended uswith an important piece there Marlin.
Follow what Scripture teaches.
(48:56):
Follow Christ,and don't worry about the labels too much.
I think that's some pretty importantadvice, too.
And, and and leave with our, our listeners.
So thank you both for sharing.
Thanks
for listening to this episodeof Anabaptist Perspectives.
If you found this interesting,
you may want to check out the episodewe did with Ruth Anna Kuhnz.
We referred to itseveral times throughout this episode,
(49:18):
and you can find that linkedin the description down below.
Thanks again for watching,and we'll catch you in the next episode.
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