Perhaps it’s not a coincidence that Coke rhymes with woke. Or perhaps it is. Nonetheless, #WokeCoke is a thing now, and The Coca-Cola Company doesn’t mind the association one bit. The company has been training its Caucasian employees to “try to be less white”, and so far a mass migration of Coca-Cola employees have not stampeded out of there. That means a good chunk of the peeps are swallowing wokeness whole (no news there), so the problem is not just with Coke’s HR Department (although, a hefty amount of it is). I’m surprised they still allow the White Polar Bear to be Coca-Cola’s mascot. Now voting ID laws in Georgia are the new trigger points, and Coca-Cola is back in the spotlight as the Woke Prophets, along with Delta Air Lines, Major League Baseball, and other organizations.
There are those who are boycotting Coca-Cola for Pepsi, as if Pepsi is any better. They must have forgotten all the raucous the BLM-related commercial Pepsi attempted just a few years ago. The commercial showed a Hollywood star “protester” making peace with the cops by handing them a Pepsi, just before holding her fist in the air. In turn, Pepsi was accused by BLM supporters of trivializing the sacred movement, because the advertisement suggested that Pepsi was the answer to the problem. Obviously, an act of kindness cannot solve such a complex, nuanced, and deeply engraved issue. The only reason Pepsi may be “less woke” is because of their ignorance in communication, not because they didn’t attempt the message. HR is the same. But the Marketing Department might be underpaid.
Although woke doesn’t rhyme with everything, its odor seems to be everywhere. Eric Mason, Ligon Duncan, along with many other Evangelicals apparently are apostles for the Woke Church. Even Dan Cathy of Chick-fil-A has bent over on stage to shine Lecrae’s shoes as a sign of repentance for being white, with Lecrae suggesting to Cathy that he can go one step further by gifting him ownership shares of Chick-fil-A. An awkward chuckle from Mr. Cathy followed. It’s as if most everybody has fallen into the black water of wokeness (that’s a reference to J.R.R. Tolkien’s Enchanted Black River which put its visitors to sleep.) Wokeness fails to deliver on its promise, and puts its bearers in a haze, instead of waking them up.
If anybody with a sensitive trigger gauge (not the kind on a firearm, but the kind that makes your blood boil upon hearing something you disagree with), is reading this, I must offer a qualification. I really am making an effort to tread carefully and avoid unnecessary mockery, sarcasm, or any trigger points. But like walking through a mine field with more mines than rocks, navigating this topic may prove difficult. Perhaps if I build some credibility first, following that age-old adage: “They don’t care how much you know, ever.” My skin color is white, but my blood is red, so I can still empathize.
I am a descendent of the Slavs, the barbarian tribes whom the Roman Empire conquered in the early Middle Ages. The captive people of the Slavic Tribes were accurately referred to as Slavs as that was their tribal name. In time, however, the word “Slav” became associated with anybody held in captivity, eventually evolving into our Modern English word “Slave.” The amount of wars the Russians have lost is actually an interesting tangent. Perhaps that’s why the word slave is derived from Slavic history. It’s in our blood. We were the Original Slaves.
In a way, I mention slavery in my ancestral history tongue-in-cheek. But in a bigger way, not at all. Without dismissing any culture’s heritage or the pain associated with the past of a specific culture, slavery and the consequences of it have been with the human race as long as there have been other people-groups to enslave. I am condoning nothing here, but simply pointing out that slavery has not been limited to any specific culture or nation. This is a long-standing problem, with repercussions changing future histories of nations and families. These consequences do need to be addressed and dealt with. But that will never happen if the problem the diagnostic reveals is not the actual problem. A misdiagnosis is not just useless, but only serves to provoke the issue further.
The problem of treating other image-bearers with less dignity than He, in whose image we are made, commands, whether that’s manifested in abusive slavery, legal partiality, or any other way, is not rooted in prejudiced dispositions against skin tones and levels of melanin, although that has been an outlet throughout history. The root of the slavery and prejudice issue is the unregenerate heart of mankind being a slave of sin. Slavery to sin produces pride and malice, driving us to an evil end by evil means.
Why it’s so important to not misdiagnose the problem is so that our solution would not exacerbate it further. If we believe the root issue of our time is that the wrong group is wielding the power (whether that division is between ethnicities, economic classes, or any other subjective divide), then the demise of the perceived “oppressors” becomes the top priority. Why would it not? 100 years ago in Russia it was private property owners, called Kulaks, who needed to go. Today in America, you better “be less white.” (Kulaks are also a problem in America now. Especially if they’re Russian. Did those Russians not learn the first time?!) And so, the pendulum of wicked rule swings back and forth, landing on different groups, as the “oppressors” become the oppressed and the oppressed, oppressors. That’s the only thing Marxism can accomplish. That’s actually Mr. Marx’s stated objective. A game of King of the Hill. Around and around we go.
It’s when we diagnose our main societal problem as our individual and collective slavery to sin, we can start talking about a solution. Slaves of sin are by nature and choice slaves all the way to the core. Without freedom from sin, there can be no talk of freedom from anything else. There is only talk of power. Whoever holds the power, holds societal control. The individual or tribe with more power, whether that be by might, majority, or microphone, gets to enslave others under its own sinful nature. When the bearer of the power shifts, as it always does, so goes the control.
Without freedom from sin there is no freedom. You can have an illusion of liberty or live under someone else’s freedom umbrella. But true liberty, the kind that’s written in permanent ink, only exists when our shackles to sin are unbound. In that case, the conversation is not about oppressors and oppressed, but about principled freedom and the responsibility that it brings. For individual freedom always brings with it individual responsibility for our own life before our Maker.
It’s something slaves of sin can’t understand. How can I be responsible when I am an oppressed victim? My situation in life is the result of my oppressor’s actions. And so, we wallow in self-pity, victimhood, and a slave-mentality. This attitude doesn’t have to manifest itself on a scale of a national movement. No, that’s a few miles downriver. The tempted wellspring of victim-mentality has it’s starting point the moment our eyelids open up and discontented envy starts to seep in. The life lived out of self-pity and entitlement (the system owes me) is the same attitude present in the guy throwing bricks through the retail front.
This attitude, like all sin, destroys everything it touches, climaxing with destruction of the one having it. But the one soaked in woke doesn’t see the end. He can’t. Because Wokeness has the effect of Mirkwood’s Black Water.
“There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.” – Proverbs 16:25, ESV
Slavery to sin is self-deceiving and self-destruction. That’s why the Jews in Exodus, even after crying out to God for deliverance from their oppression and receiving the deliverance, continued wanting to go back to slavery. They grumbled against God and Moses for the freedom they had. They didn’t want it. Freedom is scary and requires responsible work. Physical shackles caused by spiritual ones are somehow more tolerable. That’s why many Russians coming out of the Communist Regime that stole from and murdered their own, still excuse that system. When you’re in it, you grumble and complain as a victim. When you’re out of it, you vie for the handouts. I’m amazed when I hear some Russians speak well of Communism. You would think they’d know better. But I shouldn’t be surprised. That’s the way a slave thinks. I’m oppressed. There’s nothing I can do. The system has me.
With all this said, other’s sin can and does hurt and oppress us. The pain is real, and the consequences are life changing. The solution is not to stuff it, pick yourself up by the bootstraps, and take personal responsibility. No, that doesn’t work because it’s also delusional. There is no justice in stuffing it. A cry for justice is not unwarranted. It is a righteous cry. The question is, to whom is our cry directed? Slaves of sin direct it to other slaves of sin, who are incapable of bringing about justice and freedom. They’re boots are in the same gunk, perhaps just a bit closer to the surface of the water because they’re standing on a pile of bodies labeled Social Justice.
Freedom from sin means God is in the master’s seat, and to Him come our appeals and cries. Only He can give us justice. The place we find it is at the cross. At the cross, the sins of men are judged. There, those who by faith accept His Sacrifice are forgiven and cleansed. And there, those who in arrogance reject it are condemned. The little issue with finding justice at the cross, however, is that there we find not just justice for the sins of our oppressors, but for our own sins as well. For every sin that has been committed against us, we’ve committed ten times more against our Maker. We come to the cross as supplicants for justice, yes. But only after we come as worshippers and confessors. At the cross, we do not find wokeness. We find forgiveness. We find justice. At the cross is where we find our freedom.
Leave a Reply