Woke, Anti-woke, Critical Theory, and Historical Apologies

I think that we should be quicker to look within ourselves and notice our own fallenness and brokenness than to, um, 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 can often be divisive.

And I think that as Christians, we're called to a kind of love and charity that shouldn't be quick to have tribal alignments, and labeling others as woke, I think, is often used to that effect.

So there's a very popular thing going on in culture right now. It's being talked about by all kinds of people, and it's particularly pertinent because we're recording this in the early months of 2025. It's very much in the political scene, and that is this whole concept of woke or wokeness. And we're going to talk about that a little bit today.

And so today I'm joined by Jaren. Uh, he helped me start Anabaptist Perspectives, uh, a number of years ago, and Marlon, who's the current director of, uh, of Anabaptist Perspectives. And let's just open up with, why are we talking about the concept of wokeness? Jaren, why don't you kick us off?

Like you said, many people are talking about it now. It's a very live conversation in the culture, and it's something that has reached Anabaptist Perspectives, um, through some of the feedback that we've gotten from audience members. Hmm. You, uh, you engage with the audience feedback a fair bit, don't you? Yes. Yep. Emails, Facebook comments, Telegram messages, YouTube comments. Mm-hmm. All that comes to me. So I figure it would be pertinent just so people understand a bit of the context of what we're talking about. I'm going to actually read some of these, uh, these comments. Good. Uh, often these come on YouTube and, and things like that. So here's one. We did an episode a while ago, um, called We Must Make Schools Work for All Children.

And there's this bit of a long comment here. Um, and the person says, "That's because we recognize that education is simple, simply discipleship of one's worldview as it applies to different areas of life. We're discipling little image bearers of God who think biblically about maths and science and history and art. We don't have to drag in Marxist DEI categories, which are antithetical to God's law, in order to do so, which is what Koons or, and it was Ruth Anna Koons who, uh, did that episode, seems to think that we need to do. This is clear evidence that Liberty University has gone woke." She was a student at Liberty. Uh, okay. I was wondering if there was context that I had to read it from.

Um, perhaps Koons doesn't realize that she's im-imbibed aspects of their ideology as it pertains to education, but she's actually acting as a water carrier for them and unwittingly helping them to advance their Antichrist revolution. So pretty strong feelings, uh, coming from there. Uh, here was another one on trauma-informed churches. That was one you did with Janelle Glick. Uh, this person said, "One of the major red flags with the trauma movement is that it enables perpetual victimhood status. People never rise above whatever happened or did not happen to them. They spend the rest of their lives, the rest of their life wanting a, a handkerchief and a hand on the shoulder. This is simply not the way to help people."

Um, and there's a bunch more, uh, a short snippet. Someone says on another one, "Please reject woke nonsense." So w-we get this kind of stuff. This is just a, a slice. There's a bunch more of these. If people want to go comb through the comments, you'll find more. So that's a bit of the context. And one of the things we like to do with the podcast is to engage with the feedback we get, uh, from listeners.

So why don't we start with just a brief history of the term woke? Like, what are we even talking about when that term is used? It is used so much in so many different contexts. It's pretty easy to lose track of. So yeah, do you have anything on that?

Can we divert that to Marlon? Marlon, would you? Yeah. Yeah. I can't give a full history, but even, even just a little bit of what I've seen in my, my own lifetime and how I've seen that meaning shift. Um, I understand the term goes back before my lifetime, um, used by Africans, I think both African American and, um, still from the continent of Africa, uh, to simply refer to the idea of, you know, being awake and particular, being awake or aware of difficulties they faced or oppression or whatever. Mm-hmm. Obviously, it's come forward, got generalized.

Um, yeah, I remember, I don't know, 10 years ago or something like that, um, woke is a little bit more general term just of, you know, somebody who's aware of things, um, aware of social dynamics, and maybe some of that was anti-Christian stuff, but it was also just like, you know, if you're a man and you're aware of cultural dynamics and what the cultural expectations are on women and that whether it's double standards in regard to sexual morality or how you look at dividing up housework if both husband and wife are working or whatever. Um, so it's generally people using it approvingly, um, and in ways that, I don't know, I don't know what I think about all of them, but, you know, relatively innocuous.

And then I think a little later, I remember it being kind of used to indicate, I don't know, a kind of insincerity or something like, you know, somebody considers themselves woke because they can talk about how this is that as a problem, but, you know, they're not really engaged in it with real life. They're. Mm-hmm. Drinking their lattes and making statements about something. And so in that sense, it was a little pejorative in the sense of, you know, insincere or not really having skin in the game, but wanting to make statements about something or then, you know, lip service.

Um, but yeah, more recently, Wikipedia, thanks Jaren for pointing out the Wikipedia article, Wikipedia says something like 2019. I can't say exact dates. 2019. Where the real shift to woke coming from people on the right and using that as a, a way of insulting. Mm-hmm. Um, what they're considering as left generally, again, with some of the same tones about same ideas of, I think, insincere protest and so on.

Um, but it seems like recently it has generalized to become kind of a catchall for, you know, kind of anything that's perceived as potentially on the left side of the political spectrum or something. I don't know. And typically used by the right. Used by the right as derogatory. Is there any other functional definitions at this point where people would wish to use woke as a description for their own approach, or is it only pejorative at this point? Seems to me that pejorative is dominant.

But the idea of it as. Yeah. Positive, like we are awake, we are aware of what's going on. Mm-hmm. I mean, that was, that was certainly claimed as a positive term not very long ago. I think some still would. Probably. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, who wants to be asleep?

Yeah, that's a great, I guess I've never thought about this quite like that, but. Yeah, it's, it's awake, aware as opposed to in your doll slumbers, not realizing what's going on. I mean, that's the original idea. Yeah. But then thinking in terms of woke, uh, you know, I don't know if I've ever heard it except in the context of someone who would claim, "I'm not woke," and I'm calling something else woke, and it's used as a, uh, yeah, kind of insult or calling someone. So that's brought it so much more into the mainstream. Yeah. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense, which I think we were having a conversation at some point, uh, a few years ago, 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, uh, the comments started getting on, tended to be more nasty or hostile.

Do, do you remember this? It does seem like we've had more of the, "Oh, this is whatever woke or whatever buzzword." Seems like that's hitting the comments more now than it would have seven years ago, say. Yeah. It definitely intensified quite a bit over that time.

Now that's interesting. Is there anything more either of you all want to add as far as context, definitions, et cetera, on this? I mean, just to honor, there's a complex history to the term, and I think what we're going to be talking about now is mostly kind of responding to, to how it's used as a term of insult or a term of, yeah, insult or kind of a, a large negative characterization. Most people are using, the most dominant use of it now seems to be as seeing it as a bad thing, using it to criticize, and that's primarily what we're going to be responding to here. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And let's, and let's get into that where, yeah, some people use this as a way of criticizing and just labeling people or things.

Uh, let's engage with that. What are some, some things we want to add to that conversation, ways perhaps we want to respond, uh, especially because, yeah, it does seem in more recent years that that has started popping up in the comments more. And I'm sure those people who made those comments will be like, "Well, that's because 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 comments here and there. It's interesting. Um, yeah, I'd be curious what you'd have to say about, about that, Jaren. This is more about the way the term is used than the substance behind what the term actually means.

That there's definitely a conversation there. But in general, I am sad about the way I often hear the term being used for a few reasons, one of which is that it's often quite sloppy in the way that it's applied. Hmm.

There are a variety of different issues that it could legitimately be in reference to, some of which Marlon referred to, but when it's just used generally as a catchall for a particular approach to issues that we find disagreeable, I think it's quite sloppy and not helpful for constructive dialogue.

Also, and this especially applies when used among brothers and sisters in the church, but my same concern would be with anybody. It's used to create tribes of us versus them. Often when used pejoratively, you are woke, therefore I am not woke.

Implicitly, I have the moral high ground when I use it that way, and I'm labeling somebody else's approach to things as morally objectionable or inferior. I think that we should be quicker to look within ourselves and notice our own falleness and brokenness than to, um, 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 can often be divisive. And I think that as Christians, we're called to a kind of love and charity that shouldn't be quick to have tribal alignments, um, and labeling others as woke, I think is often used to that effect. Hmm. Could, do you have any examples? Some bring this down to earth a bit?

There's examples everywhere. It's a, it's a huge conversation in culture right now. Like we've read some comments for how people applied it to us. Mm-hmm. Um, I think it's kind of sad. I suspect that we're largely on the same page with the people who want to criticize us. Um, in evangelicalism right now, um, I think, what was the publication, Christian Post, I think, this week, and we're recording this in February, did an article writing about some significant disruption that Wheaton College is experiencing where some alumni have decided that Wheaton is woke and the pushing for some change in leadership there. So that, that's one particular occurrence of Christian against Christian, um, tension along the lines of woke versus anti-woke.

So I find it interesting. I, I think you're right that that, you know, putting out the term woke as a critique, um, often accomplishes exactly that, the kind of tribalism or a little bit of sense of moral superiority.

But not very long ago, when people were, you started using woke as a form of critique, or when I kind of encountered it as, you know, we'll use woke to critique your position, it was precisely critiquing people for a kind of self-righteousness because, you know, I know what to protest better than you know what to protest. Yeah. Yeah. And so woke was a, using the term woke to criticize people was originally meant to criticize that kind of self-righteousness and tribalism. Mm-hmm. That is, that, that's an interesting point because I remember hearing some of this, you know, say five years ago when someone would, would have some meaningful feedback of maybe an interaction with someone they knew, and it's like that felt awfully, whatever, woke, this, that, because they're, they're, you know, missing this.

And then it felt like there was a little more engagement with what was going on and almost like they were hiding behind, "Oh, I did the right, I checked the right box, you know, on the social justice, whatever." And then it became this criticism and that label kept getting applied to it. And then over the years, it almost feels like that's morphed to the point where I think you maybe, I'm not sure if you use this exact word, but almost like a sloppily applied to all kinds of things that we end up disagreeing with. Mm-hmm. I'm speculating. This is all just things I've kind of seen. I'm like, "Oh, that's interesting and whatever." And it feels like the term is being more sloppily applied, um, to where now if you're, I don't know, a vegetarian, now you're woke, or you, you don't use a plastic straw, you're woke, or you're this or that.

It, it just feels like it's used in so many different contexts. Mm-hmm. Does it have much meaning anymore, or is it just a word we throw around to people we disagree with? I, I don't really know. Honestly, I'm really confused, which is maybe why we're having the conversation because you guys can help me out with this. But do you, do you resonate with that? Like that sloppily, hastily applied, like, "I disagree with you, so hey, you're, you're woke. You don't, we don't align," or whatever.

Yeah. And it, the way it's used sloppily is definitely functional if we're interested in forming lines of tribal identity or those we disagree with. But I would say there's probably not an appropriate function that we should be seeking out. Hmm.

So I'd be interested in, can we just list some of the things that woke is intended to catch? You mentioned a few things, you know, I'm thinking of things maybe a little more serious than types of straws. Um, although. Well, environmental concern is a serious matter.

Yeah, that would definitely, that would definitely be one. Yeah. I, I guess when I, when I hear the term woke used as a kind of a, a blanket statement, um, I think they're trying to catch a lot of things under that. Mm-hmm. Things that we might assess in various ways.

Um, it does seem to be applied to anybody with a, you know, some sense of historical guilt or something. You feel guilty because of what your ancestors did, um, that is labeled as woke. That's, that's one. If you feel, yeah, you know, any kind of sense of kind of responsibility because of your, you know, social position, class, or race that quickly gets described as woke.

Um, one thing was mentioned in the comments, um, if there's a sense of stretching out victimhood and playing off of being a victim, that gets labeled as woke. Um, if you're in favor of same-sex relationships, um, that gets labeled as woke. Um, if you want people to freely identify with, you know, whatever gender they want, um, separate from their biological sex, that's labeled as woke.

Uh, there's probably a bunch more things that get caught in there, but I don't know. Does that resonate? It's a kind of a, a large kind of group of things that the term I think is intended to catch. But generally the observation of unequal distribution of power or oppressor versus oppressed, powerful versus disenfranchised, noticing those kind of dichotomies, I think often is a factor in this. So that, that could apply with gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity.

Right. Which is where it gets broader as well. Hmm. You know, wealth. Anything that seems connected to critical theory or especially critical race theory gets put there. Yeah. Oh yeah, definitely. Well, actually, okay, so interesting you mentioned that because there was another quote, I have a whole list here, but there was another one where we interviewed the historian John Ruth, uh, about how did indigenous lands in Pennsylvania become Mennonite farms, like in Lancaster. And he did this research of the land that he lived on and wrote this book about it. And someone left this comment, "Just remember also this stance that this man is taking is a form of critical theory, which is born out of Marxism and pits the oppressors versus the oppressed."

So that was, I think you mentioned that, and you, you also did as well, the power dynamic and so forth. This boomer has it so good all his life that the, that the land that his ancestors gave him, that he has no other recourse than to just sell out to, to his future generations, um, to calling him a sellout basically. Um, so that would be one, uh, Marxist DEI categories was in another one of the quotes. I think that comes into some of the frameworks you were describing with the maybe power dynamics and these Marxist, um, frameworks that are being in this, that is being accused, that is being, uh, portrayed, um, in these episodes, which again, I mean, I don't know, it kind of surprised me.

Like I, it's not really what I saw there, but like, but again, these things are, these labels are used in so many different ways. It feels so hard to pin down, I guess. Uh, and that's why I'm struggling a little bit with this. Um, I don't know if that just, that maybe just made things more confusing. Yeah. I mean, that's why, I mean, I agree with you, Jaren, like, you know, the term is generally unhelpful. Um, you know, at one point, I think the term woke was, you know, it could be helpful at one point within my memory, not very long ago. I think the term could be helpful in kind of pointing out, you know, a kind of glib, glib, shallow, you know, political correctness or certain political orientation.

Hmm. You know, a woker than thou because just say the right thing and kind of poking fun at it. Yeah. I think it, it had a use at that point, but at this point, with it being used for that kind of a blanket thing, it's like, I don't know, is the term useful anymore? Hmm. And I think it had a use too, in its more original sense of, you know, are you awake, are you aware of how society functions and not overly naive?

And I'm sure there was more dimensions to that, but you know, that was part of it. And, you know, I think that was useful for people who were using it. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Any more that you want to add there? Uh, based on maybe even the, the Marxist, the DEI element is packaged with wokism or woke, whatever you want to frame that as. Do we want to, uh, go down those rabbit holes at all? Do you have anything else you want to add?

Can we do just a, a very basic, a very basic, I mean, philosophical reflection on, you know, what is a theory? What is critical theory or whatever? Yeah. And so on.

And if you want to know what critical theory is, find somebody who has studied it extensively. Um, but when we're talking about a theory in this sense, we're talking about, you know, tools to understand the world. And it's a set of vocabulary. Um, just like, you know, the theory of gravity gives you tools, gives you equations to describe the world. Basic Newtonian physics gives you tools to describe the world that work pretty well for describing a lot of things. It doesn't describe the world perfectly, um, because, you know, you need quantum mechanics and general relativity and all of that to more fully describe the world. But Newtonian physics was helpful, still is extremely helpful because it describes the world we interact with very well.

Um, so let's wrap that around something like, again, critical theory. It's saying, here's some, it's here's some concepts, some tools we can use to understand the world. Now, one of the big reasons that Christians become suspicious of that is, well, where are these concepts coming from? Mm-hmm. Are these concepts rooted in, you know, other beliefs that are deeply un-Christian? And some of them are, but that doesn't mean that everything that somebody is seeing who's using critical theory to describe it, maybe it's not the best way to describe it. Maybe critical theory is not the best tool for describing this. It doesn't mean that the thing they're describing doesn't exist.

It just means that maybe there's a better way to describe it. And it doesn't mean that, you know, the term trauma is now not a helpful word for describing things, or for that matter, that diversity or inclusion are not helpful words for describing things just because they get used in theoretical frameworks that, you know, the framework as a whole might be messed up. But I don't, don't think that means that diversity or equity or inclusion or trauma are words that are somehow no longer helpful or don't help us see things. Hmm. I'm curious about something. You're talking about theory in the sense as a framework. I think that most people wouldn't be conscious of a theory that they're operating with.

Although I do know that some are. I first learned about critical theory, um, in an introductory literary theory class at a university I was at at the time. And so I understood it as a literary theory. And so I know that in academic study of literature is something that people are very conscious of. But outside of that context, is that, what, what, in what way do people operate with a theory?

In what way has it left academia and entered the mainstream? And is it actually, has it actually done that? I don't know how much it has done that. Yeah. It has much like woke and much at 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 term, well, that's CRT as a criticism. Mm-hmm. Um, and there's lots of things that could be labeled CRT that can be criticized.

Um, you know, to what 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, out of it. They're certainly not explicitly operating out of an articulated critical theory framework. I mean, I think one of the concerns expressed in the comments is, well, the way they're talking reveals that they are thinking according to that theory. That's the articulation. Hmm.

Again, I'm not familiar enough with the details of, you know, forms of critical theory or whatever.

When I hear critical theory at a very general level, and, um, and I'm thinking more from philosophy than literature, um, I'm thinking of really a consciousness of, you know, looking below the surface just a little bit. So critical theory likes to look at the statements that we make. We say why we do this, um, and look at them and say, well, what's, you know, what's the social dynamic there? Mm-hmm. Um, what's happening there? If you take an example a little further in the past, we've got the American founding documents. You've got the Declaration of Independence, and you've got famous language like, you know, all men are created equal and so on, and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights.

And then you have a constitution that gets passed where, what is it? A slave is, is it two-fifths of a person or three-fifths of a person? I forget which way that went in the constitution for the sake of determining, you know, how much representation a state gets and counting the population for political purposes.

Well, at kind of very basic level, I think of critical theory as picking up on the difference between here's the stated rhetoric and here's what got into the constitution about people who were enslaved and how they were actually treated in regards to being equal.

And things get obviously a lot more sophisticated than that. And critical theory also gets, yeah, I think it does get carried away to where you can get into that mode of operating where that kind of suspicion that, you know, what's being said is not real, that suspicion gets carried so far that you have a hard time seeing sincerity anywhere.

The hermeneutic of suspicion becomes, you have enough suspicion to expose everything to where it seems like there's nothing left. You don't recognize any goodness or take things at face value. And of course, somebody who's actually doing critical theory is probably going to say that I'm caricaturing them, and I probably am.

But I think that's what some people are reacting to when, you know, to see critical theory as a bad thing is, oh, well, you know, this is critical theory. This is what deconstructs everything, doesn't accept 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, and you were getting to this at the end, but I would have mentioned Marx for a Nietzsche, seen as the, um, sorry, say Marx, Freud, and Friedrich Nietzsche. Oh yeah. Um, masters of suspicion, often used in literary theory. Again, I don't know how this connects with philosophy, but especially, uh, Marx and Nietzsche seeing things through economic lens or the lens of power. And so when you're reading a text, you notice it says one thing on the surface, but you have the suspicion that if you look underneath, there's something nefarious going on in terms of power hierarchies or economic disparities.

It seems like that makes things, uh, much more complex, right? And mod could almost muddy, uh, the waters a bit. Is that true? Or is that just a suspicion that people have of the suspicion or something? Do you know what I'm saying? Because like people, when I talk to them about, like, um, you know, critical theory or CRT, it seems like that's the counter reaction to it. And then they're reacting off of each other and it just gets, it just gets so shrill and out of control. You just, you don't even know what you're looking at anymore. But maybe I'm totally misreading this. Speaking from my own experience, it can, 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. If you're always looking under the surface and suspecting that there's something pernicious going on.

Yeah. And so maybe when people throw these labels out as a derogatory thing of like, you're woke or critical theory or this or that, it's, I'm reacting to what you just described potentially. Is that perhaps what's going on here? I don't know. Enough of this is so confusing that it's kind of hard to know where all this even begins. Yeah. You know, uh, like CRT, especially a year or two ago, I was seeing yard signs where people say, no CRT.

And I was never quite sure when in mainstream popular conversations, when terms are used like that, I'm not exactly sure what it does or does not have to do with the way the term is used academically. I haven't sorted that out.

Well, I mean, yeah, because now another one that's really, at least again, this is my own personal experience that I'm seeing hit the mainstream a lot more and is becoming more derogatory is DEI. Like I remember not that long ago, that was just kind of whatever wasn't necessarily used derogatorily, but now it feels like I'm seeing that a lot more. Oh, that's DEI. Like so diversity, equity, and inclusion, um, for what those letters stand for. And now it's being used as like, this is really negative thing. And it suddenly it feels like the conversation is getting very confusing because that term is being thrown around for so many different things. It's like, whoa, I'm not really sure what we're talking about.

Well, I mean, it was in one of the comments here. Someone's claiming, oh, this is a Marxist DEI categories that are being used. I'm like, okay, I'm not quite sure what they're talking about because I don't even know what those letters mean anymore.

That's just a, I guess, more of a present-day thing that I've noticed. And I'm not quite sure what to do with that, actually. So yeah, diversity, equity, and inclusion, that was definitely, that was something that was embraced. It was the name of a, you know, universities have an office with that name and that kind of thing. Mm-hmm. Um, so as a Christian with a Christian sexual ethic, a Christian, um, sense of, you know, our biological sex is something that God gives to us and, you know, we need to make peace with that. And of course, acknowledging all complexities that can go with, with, um, gender identity and so on, but we need to make peace with God creating us male and female.

Yeah, there were things in there under diversity, equity, and inclusion that are not good. And specifically, you know, a promotion of, you know, same-sex relationships as good, um, you know, pushes to get people to put your pronouns in your email. Mm-hmm. 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 were, that 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 email might at the beginning of the semester or whatever might encourage it, but it's not like anybody was policing it. That part under DEI was definitely pushing against things that are against the Christian understanding of how God made people. Um, that is very true.

Um, but what I'm feeling, where I started to see the DEI, where I started picking up on that as a negative term, it was the implication that, oh, you're hiring people just because you need to meet a quota. You're hiring people that aren't qualified because you need to meet a quota of, oh yeah, hmm, a certain percentage of women or a certain percentage based on race or ethnicity or whatever. Mm-hmm. And you know, the accusation was, you know, this is distorting all kinds of stuff because hiring is happening based on representation and not on qualifications or something like that.

So in some ways, that was a continuation or maybe an intensification of the whole fight over affirmative action that goes back, you know, much further in this country. Like it's been debated in a lot of ways. Mm-hmm. So these are some of the criticisms that people have leveled. Uh, and, and to be fair, it's not just an enormous amount of these comments that we get, but it was enough that, hey, let's, let's talk about it on this podcast. Uh, yes. And I jump in on that. Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah. You know, those episodes, the amount of people who just found those very helpful in processing it. Mm-hmm. You know, even like, you know, the trauma-informed churches.

So I saw people saying, you know, this is using wrong categories and it's not helpful. Um, but I was also very keenly aware of, you know, a brother who had a difficult journey in life and also did his part to make the journey difficult and so on. And, you know, somebody, but somebody who's really growing in the Lord, um, clear testimony, everything.

And, you know, he makes a comment, it's like, you know, this describes what my life is like. Like you should listen to this so that you know what it's like for me. And so, okay, like this is credibility because I know that this is a person whose life has been turned around and is growing in the Lord. And he's saying, yeah, this is enormously helpful. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. And I think that is important context because it seems like back to something I've said before, you know, these terms are thrown around so 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 very politically charged right now, you know, trauma-informed churches, the one on, um, uh, indigenous lands in Pennsylvania becoming Mennonite farms, blah, blah, blah. All of these things, but it wouldn't matter what you said, someone's probably going to label it, put one of these labels on it just because those are better lightning rods for these types of things. Um, and that's a good point you raised because the, the one here that had the comment, this is Marxist DEI categories, the person says, you know, it was also the one episode I, I at least personally had more people reach out to me and say, that was so helpful than I think anything we've published, um, which was really encouraging to me to 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 some more comments on that episode. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. And so, so as we think about these buzzwords that we've been using in this episode so far, what are ways, um, or maybe examples you all could give of how we as followers of Christ can engage well, respond well to these types of conversations or in some cases, perhaps accusations? Um, how, how do we walk this?

So this is not about the accusations, um, but it's about some of these issues. Um, so like I mentioned that one of the, one of the things that gets labeled woke is when you have, when it seems like there's a sense of guilt or responsibility for, you know, things your predecessors did a number of years ago or whatever.

But, you know, we do have to reckon with the past, uh, in some way. And so the one example that I came across recently, um, came from a Lutheran church, uh, the Lutheran World Federation. Um, and, you know, for a little bit of context, you know, Lutherans and Anabaptists, um, emerged in Europe at the same time. Luther was not particularly fond of Anabaptists. Um, there were a lot of things that happened there, um, and carry that forward, right? We still have Lutherans and Anabaptists.

And so in the early 2000s, uh, there was a Lutheran group and a Mennonite group that worked through that history together and produced a joint, a joint description of the history. Like, let's, let's state this in a way that we can both say, yeah, this is an accurate description of what happened.

Um, and then out of that, uh, the Lutheran World Federation, so representing a number of Lutheran churches, um, ended up, you know, writing and adopting a statement, um, that was presented, which was a kind of statement of repentance. 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 dialogue, but I do find it meaningful. Um, so I'd like to read that statement if I could, and a little bit, uh, from the Mennonite response or part of the statement. So it was titled, Action on the Legacy of Lutheran Persecution of Anabaptists.

And it begins, When Lutherans today realize the history of Lutheran-Anabaptist relationships in the 16th century and beyond, as it is presented in the report of the Lutheran Mennonite International Study Commission, they are filled with a deep sense of regret and pain over the persecution of Anabaptists by Lutheran authorities, and especially over the fact that 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. Trusting in God, who in Jesus Christ was reconciling the world to himself, we ask for forgiveness from God and from our Mennonite sisters and brothers for the harm that our forebears in the 16th century committed to Anabaptists for forgetting or ignoring this persecution in the intervening centuries, and for all inappropriate, misleading, and hurtful portraits of Anabaptists and Mennonites made by Lutheran authors in both popular and scholarly forms to the present day.

We pray that God may grant to our communities a healing of our memories and reconciliation. And it goes on with some commitments. So I think about it. They acknowledged things. They said, this was wrong. We regret it. We're saying something to people who 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 thing that could easily be labeled as woke because, you know, why are they apologizing for what somebody did 400 years ago? And are they dishonoring their past and all of that? And I don't see it that. I see it as a straightforward acknowledgement. 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 significant differences between men, there are remaining, you know, significant disagreements and so on. Um, but yeah, I found it deeply meaningful. And I think it's just a good example of dealing with that. Um, and then just a little bit, uh, Mennonite World Conference, um, you know, presented a letter in response and just a couple snippets from that. Are we worthy to receive your request? We are painfully aware of our own inadequacy. We cannot bring ourselves to this table with heads held high. We can only come bowed down in great humility and in the fear of the Lord. We cannot come to this point and fail to see our own sinfulness.

We cannot come to this point without recognizing our own need for God's grace and forgiveness. And they go on to some specific responses and then a commitment, um, that is striking and a commitment that, um, I want to adopt personally. And I hope is the way, you know, Anabaptist perspectives functions. Um, that Mennonite letter said, we commit ourselves to take care that your initiative for reconciliation is known and honored in Anabaptist Mennonite teaching about Lutherans. Hmm. Because, you know, this is, it's to me, it is profoundly. Yeah. The apology has an effect. It produces an obligation in me. Um, you know, we talk about Luther and outrageous things 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, it creates a sense of responsibility. Like, oh, we can't go around talking about, oh, those Lutherans, they persecuted us without knowing and honoring. Like, you know, the Lutheran World Federation, representing a large group of Lutherans, has said, yeah, like that was wrong and we're sorry about that.

And that creates an obligation for us. So I, I bring this in here because, you know, I, I fear that anti-wokeism, if we can once again make something general, um, is 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 harder, um, to do these kinds of, I think, yeah, important reconciling work.

So, Jaren, as we think of ways to respond to these types of things as Christians, uh, yeah, what would you like to add on, on this or examples you would like to give? Well, first, I think that the exchange that Marlon read to us is very beautiful. And I really appreciate the exhortation, um, to not be intimidated by the labels that may be put upon us when there's a genuine opportunity for reconciliation, truth, and acknowledgement, such as happened in the conversation between the Lutherans and the Mennonites.

I think that, and I already alluded to this, but I do think that those labels can drive us towards, you know, political or tribal consciousness that the gospel doesn't have place for. So my addition would, addition would be, let's, let's avoid the tribal identities, the partisanship, and let's follow the way of Jesus and what that calls us to, which in many cases is, um, charity, reconciliation, and forgiveness.

So we've covered a lot of pieces in this podcast, and I'm curious to hear people's feedback on this. But as we wrap this kind of complicated, a bit messy, perhaps confusing topic and, and bring it down to earth, is there anything you would like to say in closing for this episode, either of you?

I think it's really important that we're not intimidated by labels and just to recognize we may get labels for various things. You know, let's be discreet. Let's not be, let's not be provocative purely for the sake of being provocative. Maybe let's not be provocative unless, you know, we need to get somebody to think about a particular point. Um, but we get labeled and we need to be aware of that. And we may get labeled from, you know, left or right or top or bottom or whatever the political categories are. And, you know, we can't hide from that. Um, so we may get labeled as homophobic. And if we're labeled as homophobic, um, simply because we have stood for, you know, sexuality within marriage as one man and one woman, um, then we can't be, can't be scared of that label.

Um, similarly, if it's simply because of speaking about, you know, God's gift of sexuality and, you know, embracing, 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 up for scripture, we nearly accept that.

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 winner's perspective, but from the loser's perspective, so to speak, um, you know, if we're labeled as woke for that, I think we need to accept that. Like this work we need to do. And I, you know, I think about it, you know, relation education, curriculum, how do we talk about things? How do we tell the stories of history?

And I think if we tell them honestly and in ways that honor God's kingdom, yeah, I think we're going to get caught in the anti-woke wave some. I think we have to accept that, not by provoking it, but we, we can't be scared of that.

There's a lot to think about in this episode. Uh, yeah, I just thank both of you for being willing to come on and engage with these questions that we've, or comments that we've received from listeners. And I encourage people listening to this, if you have thoughts, feel free to leave us a comment or, or, uh, contact us. But I think you've ended us with an important piece there, Marlon. Uh, follow what scripture teaches, follow Christ, and don't worry about the labels too much. I think that's some pretty important advice to end, uh, end and leave with our, our listeners. So thank you both for sharing.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Anabaptist Perspectives. If you found this interesting, you may want to check out the episode we did with Ruth Anna Koons. We referred to it several times throughout this episode, and you can find that linked in the description down below. Thanks again for watching, and we'll catch you in the next episode.