It was Rome, 313 A.D. and the Edict of Milan just passed ending to the 10-year Reign of Terror upon Christians. The late Caesar Diocletian had perpetrated this 10-year holocaust which we read about in Revelation 2:10— to kill every last Christian. Constantine, now the new Caesar, had recently converted to Christianity. One day he summoned and spoke to the exhausted remaining Christian leaders (let’s use our sanctified imagination).
Rome & the Church—Let’s Make a Deal
“Now, I am your emperor and have ended your death sentences. I even want to convert to Christianity, but some of your teachings have got to change. Let’s deal! Now when in Rome, you Christians must do what Rome says and obey your emperor! For example, we Romans worship on the venerable day of the Sun throughout all the empire. Your Bible says the seventh-day. Can this change if I convert?”
The weary Christian leaders were so taken back by the supposed conversion of this new emperor that they bent over backwards to accommodate his every request. Many argued that it was a miracle of God which had converted Constantine.
“Oh yes, we can. Yes, Yes! We can call Sunday the Lord’s Day and switch it by a simple vote,” the Christians leadership capitulated.
Sadly, what these exhausted Christian leaders really wanted to say was,
“Please Emperor Constantine, anything you say; just make the crucifixions, Christian burnings and our children being slaughtered in the colosseums come to an end—Uncle, In God’s name make the pain stop.”
Some Roman leaders claimed to speak in God’s name—while others claimed to be god (Acts 12:22). Constantine continued, “We Romans also like our images?” Again, “Agreed” said the church fathers and “we can rename them after the saints.” “What about praying to the dead and Christians fighting in wars?” he must have asked. “Yes sir, we can just say the dead are the saints in heaven who hear our prayers. As for the army, Emperor Constantine has marched them across the river and that was enough for both conversion and baptism!”
The Catholic church boasts of Emperor Constantine’s conversion as being an act of God. Pagan Rome now officially would be Papal Rome. Actually, the dragon couldn’t beat the woman and the remnant of her seed (Rev. 12) and if you can’t beat them—join them.
What is Woke
What we have in this above paragraph was a textbook case—when a new paradigm/viewpoint would overtake a nation and everyone would soon go overboard to accommodate this new outlook. In a sense, it didn’t matter what was right or wrong from before Constantine—for now either you did support the new Roman Church/State or you didn’t. Those supportive were heralded as great Christians and placed in the new leadership; those that objected were eliminated. This illustrates how a controversial view may be mandated upon a nation and then transform a society—for example, today’s controversial view of being “woke”.
What is woke? Google’s definition states, “The Oxford English Dictionary traces the earliest such usage to a 1962 New York Times Magazine article titled "If You're Woke You Dig It" by African-American novelist William Melvin Kelley, describing the appropriation of African American slang by whites”. So, what does it mean to be woke? It means to be aware and in the know to social matters that other people (non-hip) people are blind to.
In the 1900s, the term hip is recorded in African American Vernacular English (AAVE). . . it had become a common slang term, particularly in the African-American-dominated jazz scene. (wikepedia, 2021). By the 1960s, the “hippies” were leaders of the American counter culture war and they demanded a cultural revolution. The American cultural war raged for decades and the Left finally won, many agree, by the time gay marriage and marijuana became legal. Being woke? Manning explains, “Woke is being aware of injustices to society, especially racism. . . If you are truly “woke” your actions will reflect it, and you won’t have to tell people you are” (quora.com).
Is Jesus Christ Woke?
Let’s consider the question, has this social justice—this American wokeness influenced America’s Christian church? We know Imperial Rome shredded the gospel and Romanized doctrines until Bible truths were utterly discarded in place for Roman decrees. Did the Left’s cultural war in the same way shred Bible truth in the church? Well, some argue that America’s church should follow leftist culture above the Bible and embrace social justice and be woke. Many politicians openly embrace mixing political wokeness with the gospel. Matthew Dowd just tweeted,
“As I sat in church today I was thinking that if Jesus were here today he would be accused of being woke” (Nov. 7, 21, twitter).
Now, in case you are a new Adventist, please know that our SDA doctrines did not originate out of social justice—instead they were established from the Bible alone.
Seventh-day Adventist Doctrines—A Biblical Foundation
The Adventist church took its foundation from the Protestant Reformation which claimed Solo Scriptura regarding what they believed—the Bible Only. Sadly, most reformed churches today do not hold much resemblance to their purer early churches which their reformation fathers created. This conundrum can only be understood when we study their digression using philosophy.
It goes back to a big word called epistemology and the study of truth. Epistemology is the theory of knowledge and it answers questions regarding knowledge, reason and truth—especially how it shapes what we humans believe to be right or wrong. Early Adventist pioneers heralded the greatest truths—that God is love and that Jesus died on the cross for our sins. As a reforming church, Seventh-day Adventists proclaim Righteousness by faith just as the protestant reformation fathers had done. The Adventist church discovered many other Bible truths—but some were less popular; let’s consider a few for example: (i.e.) that alcohol and drug use is a sin (Pro 20:1); homosexuality is a sin (Lev. 18:22); that God created male and female genders (Gen 1:27), human sexuality is only for within heterosexual marriages (Mar 10:8); wives submit to your husbands as to the Lord (Eph 5:22); groundless divorce and remarriage (according to Jesus) is adultery (Mt 19:9); the headship of the husband in the role of the man (Eph 5:23); and many more things. The prior sentence contains Bible doctrines no longer popular, but have become things that today’s “woke” American culture thinks to change.
Applying the Illustration
Heathen Roman culture devoured most Bible truth and turned the medieval church into baptized paganism. Roman dogma soon replaced the truths which the Bible had taught. In the same way, the 1960s Cultural Revolution and Woke theology have both replaced Bible truths and they have become epistemology replacements for what many churches today preach instead of the Bible.
Back in Rome, those new Roman Christian leaders bent over backwards to inject Roman culture into Christianity until Martin Luther’s 95 thesis boldly indicted the church in 1517. Today’s Woke church leaders likewise bend over backwards to accommodate Woke Theology—instead of focusing on the Bible’s true message. They want to see a Woke church: tolerant to booze and drug use; proclaiming that gay people are basically good and should have church weddings; tolerant to men who feel they are possessed by a female inside; woke regarding human sexuality; declaring both male and female headships; and granting 2nd and 3rd chances for divorce/remarriage.
These false teaches take their epistemology from wretched American carnal culture. We must lift up the Bible and proclaim the word of God as it is written and not be afraid of offending everyone. The true church must declare the 10 Commandments and call sin by its right name. The Bible is not “Woke” and Jesus is not “Woke” because He says that He doesn’t change. Herein we identify the problem; just as the Roman church followed Roman epistemology which led to the dark ages; Churches today are following Postmodern Woke principles instead of the plain, “Thus saith the Lord.”
Even in my own denomination, many people cannot remove themselves out of their postmodern culture and read the Bible just as it is written. Instead, they have to filter God’s Bible back through their Postmodern Woke rose colored glasses. They are as deceived as Eve when she was beguiled by Satan promising her a deeper understanding and to be like God. Eve was saved, but at the time she didn’t have the capacity during temptation to believe the words that God had spoken to her. After she had heard Satan’s side of the story, she was beguiled and could no longer discern truth.
Thank God, Jesus was our 2nd Adam who defeated Satan’s temptations by declaring, “It is written.” As long as we follow the epistemology of the 2nd Adam and not the surrender by Eve, we can be victorious in not allowing false teachings into the church. “Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression.” (1 Tm 3:14)
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Ryan Counsell is Pastor of Belgreen, Ionia & Portland MI churches