Is ‘Woke Religion’ an ‘Extreme Form of Christianity’?

In a recent interview, eccentric billionaire Peter Thiel made comments about the nature of wokeness and Christianity that are likely to provoke nearly every hearer. Before dismissing the method, remember that even the unsightliest strip mine can uncover a rich vein of ore. At the very least, Thiel’s suggestion should provoke us to think. In this case, I propose that there are two distinct kinds of valuable insights to refine from the raw material of Thiel’s real-time brainstorming:

“Christianity, the main religion of the Western world, it always takes the side of the victim. And there’s something where — it is like some kind of deformation or intensification. And maybe you should think of wokeness as ultra-Christianity or hyper-Christianity. It’s just like an extreme intensification. There’s no forgiveness, and you still have original sin, and you have all these bad things that happen in the past, the past is terrible, and you can never overcome it. But there surely is a religious interpretation of this. What happened is, let’s say, the church lost a certain amount of authority, but people didn’t become rationalist, atheist people; they went into this sort of Woke religion, which I would interpret as a certain, extreme form of Christianity.” After a pause, he added, “there’s a religious interpretation, there’s an economic one ….”

Before you react, consider who the speaker is. Thiel is legally married to another man. He subscribes to right-wing politics, espousing “National Conservatism” and cultivating close ties with Senator J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), the Republican vice presidential nominee. He strayed from his evangelical upbringing but still describes himself as a Christian, albeit with “somewhat heterodox” beliefs. He is heavily influenced by the late Rene Girard, an “avant-garde” Catholic who, like Thiel, emigrated from Europe. Thiel also made a fortune in Silicon Valley; he co-founded PayPal, invested early in Facebook, and launched a plethora of high-tech ventures.

The purpose of this brief biographical portrait is to show that Thiel is a complex person and an independent thinker who defies easy categorization. More to the point, considering this portrait makes it seem unlikely that Thiel’s comments, provocative though they may be, were intended as flippant mockery of either wokeness or Christianity. The interpretation must lie deeper. By going deeper, we can draw out insights about wokeness and insights about Christianity.

Wokeness

The wokeness vein lies uppermost, as that seems to be the primary subject of Thiel’s concern in this interview. He seems to be aiming beyond a mere comparison of wokeness to Christianity. Rather, he appears to be engaged in the thorny business of defining wokeness and, furthermore, how this bizarre philosophy gained so much power so quickly. Instead of providing a dictionary-style definition, Thiel opted instead for a definition by analogy, acknowledging that there are multiple approaches (religious, economic, etc.) to defining wokeness, each of which offers unique insights.

Thiel chose to pursue a “religious interpretation,” likening “woke religion” to “a certain, extreme form of Christianity.” He suggests it could be called “ultra-Christianity, or hyper-Christianity,” or “some kind of deformation or intensification,” even “an extreme intensification.”

To support this interpretation, Thiel argued that wokeness was like Christianity in that it “always takes the side of the victim.” He also suggested it had a concept of “original sin,” which he described (with wokeness in mind) thus, “you have all these bad things that happen in the past, the past is terrible, and you can never overcome it.” He proposed that wokeness is more extreme than Christianity in that “there’s no forgiveness.”

Thiel then applied this interpretation to explain the cultural dominance of wokeness. He suggested that wokeness filled the vacuum left by a declining church because for many people it better fit their post-Christian values than the alternative, a “rationalist, atheist” worldview.

So far, I have tried to interpret Thiel’s argument faithfully, without comment. Now, I will turn to consider how his suggestions about wokeness fit with a biblical worldview.

There are many ways in which wokeness looks, acts, and feels like a religion. It proclaims certain dogmas about the nature of man and his purpose in the universe, anathematizing anyone who strays from those dogmas. It imposes moral demands on not only its adherents but on all people. It articulates an eschatological vision of a world freed from injustice. It implements an evangelistic program to spread its gospel to every corner of the world. It prioritizes instruction of its religious tenets, particularly subjecting children to its catechism. It even boasts a clergy and sacred texts, both of which shape its thought. In many ways, wokeness not only seems like a religion but a religion quite similar to Christianity.

However, Thiel was closer to the truth in calling woke religion a “deformation” of Christianity rather than an “intensification.” While it intensifies, exploits, or at least retains some aspects of Christianity, such as caring for the poor and oppressed, woke religion throws the whole system out of balance. In other words, woke religion doesn’t create something new; it simply twists something God created for good into a hideous, unrecognizable shape.

Isn’t this what Satan has been doing from the beginning? When the serpent appears in Genesis 3:1-7, he does not introduce a new world or law to rival God’s; instead, he slanders God’s generosity and reverses the created order. Satan mixes in truth to make his lies subtler, which explains why people abandoning the church pursue Wokeness as an acceptable substitute, as Thiel noted.

For proof that “deformation” more accurately describes the relationship between Wokeness and Christianity, look no further than Thiel’s point that woke religion offers no forgiveness (although it demands repentance). Forgiveness lies near the heart of Christianity, featuring prominently in Jesus’s sacrificial death (Ephesians 1:7), the Lord’s Supper (Matthew 26:28), and the gospel proclaimed in the first Christian sermon (Acts 2:38). There is no Christianity without forgiveness, so a religion without forgiveness cannot be a more intense version of Christianity.

Christianity

Thiel’s comments, while primarily making a point about wokeness, also advanced claims about Christianity, chiefly that Christianity “always takes the side of the victim.”

It is true that Christians have always been concerned to care for and provide justice to the powerless and oppressed. This was a prominent concern for early church offices (Acts 6:1-6), to early church letters (James 1:27), to early church councils (Galatians 2:10). Christians care about this because the Scriptures emphasize that God cares about this. The readiest example (out of countless) comes from this Wednesday’s Stand on the Word Bible reading, “When they [the righteous poor] are diminished and brought low through oppression, evil, and sorrow, he [God] pours contempt on princes and makes them wander in trackless wastes; but he raises up the needy out of affliction” (Psalm 107:39-41).

However, as this verse illustrates, the Christian focus is not merely on “siding with the victim.” That is far too purposeless and amoral. First, there is a double reversal at play; the poor are lifted up, and the rich are cast down. Second, the moral dimension of this reversal is more important than the economic one; God rescues those who trust in him and destroys those who oppose him. The principle at work is encapsulated in the statement that “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6).

The primary purpose of this double reversal is not to rectify injustices against the oppressed, although that is a by-product, but to magnify the name of God Almighty who demonstrates his power and goodness through his work in the world. The God of the Bible is supremely concerned with promoting his own glory (Habakkuk 2:14). Christianity is not so much about taking the side of the victim as it is about taking the side of God.

In one sense, of course, God is the victim, if we define “victim” not as “a powerless sufferer” but as “one against whom a wrong has been committed.” As the greatest, most glorious being, God created all mankind to worship him (which is the best possible thing we could do). But we each “did not honor him as God or give thanks to him” (Romans 1:21). We rejected his wisdom and beneficent leadership to pursue our own dark counsels, to our own destruction. God is the one innocent party, and we are all guilty of perpetrating cosmic treason against him.

There is another sense in which God is the victim. Because we have all committed capital crimes against the rightful sovereign of the universe, God has a just claim against us that can only be satisfied by capital punishment. As a perfectly just God, he wills that the requirements of justice are fully satisfied. But God is also abundantly merciful; so, to highlight this glorious aspect of his character (Ephesians 1:6), God devised a rescue plan whereby he himself came down to earth (as Jesus Christ) and suffered the death penalty we deserved. God is the offended party, the righteous judge, and the one who bore the punishment of his own infinite wrath.

God’s selfless sacrifice is good news for us because it made a way whereby God can justly forgive sinners who repent and believe in the person and work of Jesus, thereby saving them from his wrath. Once he reconciles them, God gives these redeemed sinners a new nature that no longer seeks rebellion, and he even gives them his own presence forever. This good news is the gospel message; Christians proclaim it because this news is too good to keep others from hearing.

And here’s where Thiel’s description of Christianity goes a bit wide of the mark. While he mentions some aspects of Christianity — helping victims, forgiveness, original sin, the church and its authority — he never mentions the core of Christianity, the person of Jesus Christ. If Christianity were only its ethical teachings, it might not look all that different from, say, rabbinical Judaism. But “Christ”-ianity is about a person who loves us, saves us, forgives us, and teaches us how to forgive and love others, too.

Jesus Christ is what sets Christianity apart from every other religion, including wokeness. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). It’s not just a verse for tracts and Christmas cards. It summarizes the plan and requirements for salvation, envisioning a future infinitely superior to the equalized future at which wokeness angrily aims.