Apologetics,  Culture,  Current Events,  Health,  Paul Backholer

Is Being Woke Christian or Antichrist?

You’ve seen it on TV, a group of protestors is burning down a building in the name of woke ‘social justice’ and politicians refuse to condemn their behaviour because they’re ‘on the right side of history.’ In the Bible, there are many people who are condemned for their terrible choices. In the Book of Revelation, Jesus declares He hates the deeds of Nicolaitans. These former Christians are condemned for conforming themselves to the pattern of this world; they replaced the simplicity of the gospel with new teaching which shifted their eyes away from Jesus Christ and focused on the enemy.

You hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate

– Revelation 2:6

Christians today are also in danger of turning away from the purity of the gospel to embrace post-Christian progressive thinking; we must choose God’s path, not submission to the world. There is no centre ground. To the Galatians, Paul describes the beautiful unity of the gospel, eliminating all barriers between believers and removing their former worldly identities, making them one in Christ (Galatians 3:28). Everything we need is found in Christ and the problems in society can be resolved by faith and action in Jesus Christ.

Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage

– Galatians 5:1

Today, the modern religion of the world is wokeness and when you examine its heart, you find wokeness is divisive and antichrist in nature. Those who embrace woke ideology claim to be distinctly aware of social justice problems and aim to eliminate all inequality. These people ‘awakened’ by the contemporary gospel of ‘justice’ believe this can be achieved by tearing down the old oppressive patriarchal order and by embracing all forms of diversity, inclusion and equity (DIE).

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world…and this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world

– 1 John 4:1, 3


Burning down buildings or dividing communities through violence is fine for woke protestors because they think it addresses ancient injustices. One famous woke warrior was asked about the violence and stealing within the movement, and replied, “I don’t care if someone decides to loot a Gucci or a Macy’s or a Nike store,” adding, “That is reparations, anything they wanted to take, they can take it.”

The command of Exodus 20:15, “You shall not steal,” is not the only problem woke activists have with God’s Holy Scripture. All those limited Christian definitions in the Bible about human nature and sin, created by God, must be rejected and replaced. In short, they believe we must repent and renounce the gospel.

Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son

– 1 John 2:22

All Christians should be committed to ending racism, but that desire does not extend to endorsing an antichrist movement that is in rebellion against God’s expressed will. One principle to guide Christians to discern if they are working with the spirit of antichrist, is to consider, who ideologically stands with them. When I see a bishop marching in protest for ‘a good cause’ with protestors, including an Islamist (who wants to wipe Israel off the map), and an atheist (who is committed to defying Holy Scripture), I discern a bishop abiding with the antichrist spirit. Be careful what cause you endorse because you may be making God your enemy.

To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this Word, it is because there is no light in them

– Isaiah 8:20

This woke ideology claims it can solve the problems of the world without Christ. In fact, Jesus Christ represents a problem for the spirit behind woke. The Lord’s limited definition of male and female, marriage and justice are sinful to the awakened woke warrior. For them, Jesus just doesn’t understand how discriminatory He is! How arrogant: they have ‘exchanged the truth of God for a lie’ (Romans 1:25). Apostate leaders of historic Christian denominations have also confessed the new faith and repented for their woke sins. Also, young progressive Christians have filmed themselves repenting for what they identify as Jesus’ sins of racism, bigotry and xenophobia, despite the Bible defining Christ as sinless (Hebrews 4:15).

For if he who comes preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted – you may well put up with it!

– 2 Corinthians 11:4

According to progressive woke ideology, God is hindering true justice. The Bible’s precise description of the two sexes is discriminatory for those who identify as one of 68, 69, 70, and counting different gender expressions. The boundaries keep moving in this movement (Proverbs 22:28), but Christ is the anchor of all truth. The Holy Scriptures represent continuing symbols of the oppressive patriarchy, to those who keep inventing a new series of gender-inclusive pronouns, as their feelings or demonic beings guide them.

Jesus said to him, “Come out of the man, unclean spirit!” Then He asked him, “What is your name?” And he answered, saying, “My name is Legion; for we are many”

– Mark 5:8-9

Wokeness exploits people’s hurts and their desire for justice, by commanding total obedience to its modern doctrines of faith. It’s a black and white faith; you must choose to be on the right side of history or be condemned. As part of your submission to the spirit of wokeness, you must bow the knee and bring to its altar freedom of speech, religious liberty, truth, evidence and your biblical beliefs.

He who hates his brother is in darkness and walks in darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes

– Mark 5:8-9

Those who ‘go woke’ have been manipulated to believe they are establishing a just order; but they end up defining themselves by what they hate. They fall out with friends, family and colleagues, and hate the country that gave them everything they possess. They believe that those who compiled the Bible, or Magna Carta in 1215, the Bill of Rights in 1689, or the US Constitution in 1787, are nothing more than deplorable, unredeemable bigots, whose thoughts should be cancelled. To embrace woke justice, the past must be killed.

At the time you hear the sound of the horn, flute, harp, lyre, and psaltery, in symphony with all kinds of music, you shall fall down and worship the gold image that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up; and whoever does not fall down and worship shall be cast immediately into the midst of a burning fiery furnace

– Daniel 3:5-6

Like Daniel and the image of the false god, the spirit of wokeness demands you bow the knee before the altar of the god of division and give your sacrifice. But Christians must join Daniel and resist, as we watch people compelled by judging eyes to embrace all the new acts of worship by bowing down, chanting, singing and tearing down the statues of unwoke sinners. Those flawed heroes who fought for our freedom and founded democracy are now called evil because they said something the woke spirit – the antichrist spirit hates.

Wokeness exploits a confused person’s desire to be perceived as good and compels him or her to obey progressive leaders in pursuit of an empty lie of justice. It’s about the leaders power and wealth, not justice

Those who refuse to acknowledge this new god of wokeness and sacrifice to it, are warned they will be cast out into the fire of poverty, unemployment and the loss of all things. Try to reason with the woke spirit and you’ll encounter the demonic spirit which motivated Nebuchadnezzar into rage and fury. The command is direct: obey our woke god or be condemned.

Nebuchadnezzar, in rage and fury…

– Daniel 3:13

Christ’s sacrifice defines a Christian’s identity. It’s not our skin colour, wealth, status, history or the injustices our ancestors’ experiences that define us – it’s Christ’s resurrection power. Jesus said, “Whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 7:12). When you get right with God, peace enters and you’ll want to treat others with the mercy you received.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength

– Deuteronomy 6:5

The religion of wokeness generates a fraudulent copy of the faith and supplants it. Wokeness demands total obedience, public confession and contrition; it expects absolute faith in its values and demands public humiliation for those who fail it. Those who sin against the woke religion must publicly confess with tears. Instead of submitting to Jesus in repentance, you must kowtow to the bullying crowds online – this is wokeness.

Then all the land of Judea, and those from Jerusalem, went out to him and were all baptised by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins

– Mark 1:5

As wokeness is a faith, it additionally has a demonic inquisition of hatred. The woke belief compels you to hate those who disagree with the ‘justice’ you are bringing. You can cancel, despise, spit, harm and kill those who disagree with you because they’re evil. It provides its servants with a pass to abuse those who think differently.

Jesus said, “The time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service”

– John 16:2

The woke ideology is never wrong. The religious leaders in the woke movement also claim to be following Jesus, but they reject everything He taught about personhood, marriage, sexuality, love, mercy and compassion! Therefore, Jesus cannot be their Lord. They serve the spirit of antichrist, anarchy and a demonic agenda which seeks to expel Christ from the throne of our heart.

There will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them

– 2 Peter 2:1

In the woke religion, Christian beliefs about justice and truth are supplanted with contemporary doctrines of equality, LGBTQ+, aggressive feminism, anti-capitalism, cultural shame, historical national sin, legacy guilt, claims of privilege, intersectionality, micro-aggression, critical race beliefs, BLM, compelled speech and inclusion of all self-identities; but there’s no tolerance for those who challenge the woke faith. The woke spirit takes a young person who desires to do good and shifts them into a hating machine, an angry, bitter person.

For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light

– 2 Corinthians 11:13-14

When woke ideology is confronted by facts, it is enraged and censors them. To the woke spirit, truth itself is a form of injustice: Burn the facts, throw the books away, cancel the Constitution, overthrow the rule of law, close the churches, and lock the unwoke sinner out of their social media accounts.

The woke faith is bitter, divisive and unaccountable. It hates the truth the cancels its expression

The woke ideology cannot accept that the history of the world is one of suffering for all. It doesn’t want to hear that millions of those ‘privileged’ people lived in abject poverty, were thrown into the workhouse, were slain by machine guns in their millions by war, and struggled for centuries to escape poverty and establish democracy. Wokeness creates the very hatred, racism, division and poverty it claims to be resolving! It robs people of their independent thought and the ability to rise above poverty, misery and division.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new

– 2 Corinthians 5:17

The Christian faith is different from wokeness; faith in God defines the believer. But the woke religion commands people to be defined by the hatred of all that does not bring the ‘justice’ it believes in. Thus, a woke person can claim to be a feminist, whilst hating biological women because these females do not accept that a man in a dress is also a woman.  

Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ

– Colossians 2:8

In the woke religion, semantics and syntax are exploited to undermine anyone questioning their faith. Words are shape-shifted to ascribe new meaning, as they manipulate the language to serve their alternative definition of worship to their god of ‘justice.’ All unwoke sinners must embrace their lexicon or they will shriek at you online or in public, and demand an investigation to cancel you. If you don’t confess their pronouns in submission, their world falls apart and you become the target for them to project all their self-loathing onto.

Thus, the woke religion empowers ideology, not people. This is why real biological women have to be sacrificed on the altar of the rights of men who feel they are women. A female athlete is therefore a bigoted sinner if she doesn’t celebrate the victory of the man who just stole her rightly earned gold medal.

So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them

– Genesis 1:27

Woke is the new worship and the false god of strife demand we sacrifice the truth of the gospel to it. Those who resist must be hunted down, everything they posted online a decade ago must be exposed, until they become sacked, scorned, ostracised and unemployable. Why is there no forgiveness for alleged past errors? Is it because the Devil is a liar and the father of all lies?

Jesus said, “If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you”

– John 15:19

In the woke faith, Christian heroes of the past are cast aside as simpletons of injustice, who tried to impose the gospel onto others. They replace these heroes with new martyrs, often violent criminals who suffered under a failed policing policy. These criminals’ violent pasts are washed away, as they are recast as holy, sacred martyrs to the new justice. If you dare speak about the victims of their criminal behaviour, often women and children who were cheated, abused, threatened or beaten, you just don’t understand how bigoted you are.

Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil;

Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness;

Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

– Isaiah 5:20

The woke warrior is a victim of an unrealised injustice. He or she is being manipulated by forces they don’t understand, based on a twisting of history that casts people against each other. The woke spirit exploits their pain and turns them to hateful activism, instead of peace with Christ. In woke ideology, someone else is always to blame. In Christianity, you are responsible before God to repent, work hard, serve and support others. You help heal yourself by giving and denying self. The woke faith does the opposite, as it demands the spotlight of the world to shine on its suffering and calls for restitution.

Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labour, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need

– Ephesians 4:28

On a national level, state-sanctioned wokeness uses its power to censor, persecute and undermine those who follow the biblical Christian faith. Believing your Bible is now an expression of bigoted prejudiced, xenophobic racism and hateful toward people who feel differently from you. If a man enters a female changing room in a dress, you’re forewarned to submit and renounce your faith, instead of standing up for truth.

A woman shall not wear anything that pertains to a man, nor shall a man put on a woman’s garment, for all who do so are an abomination to the Lord your God

– Deuteronomy 22:5

The goal of the woke spirit is to rule by demonising all doubters, destroying their platforms and demolishing their lives. Woke ideology rules by fear. If you don’t obey, you will be cancelled. As an unacknowledged religion, the woke faith evangelises the world with its own antichrist doctrines, acts of worship, commands to proselytise and protests. It replaces devotion to Christ with competing claims to alternative forms of woke repentance, bowing down, confession and antichrist atonement.

Do not go after other gods to serve them and worship them

– Jeremiah 25:6

Christians must view our history and culture through the eyes of faith. Yes, we have sinned against others and God, but we must not submit to divisive evil spirits and ideologies. We acknowledge injustice, violence, racism and hatred as sins against God and ask for His love and restoration. Christians also acknowledge the heart is where all division and hate beings.

The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; who can know it?

– Jeremiah 17:9

The Bible declares that it’s not your family, heritage, job, claim to victimhood, nation, or the colour of your skin that defines you, but your faith in Jesus. You were created in God’s image, therefore celebrate His design. You can be free in Christ if you choose to be.

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus

– Galatians 3:28

Christians shouldn’t be buckling their knees to an ideology with antichrist claims. We shouldn’t be joining protestors that burn down businesses and neighbourhoods, sowing seeds of division, hate, poverty and fear. Christians shouldn’t be putting the Bible down and taking up books authored by those who hate God and embrace their unacknowledged faith. We serve God through the Holy Spirit, not the spirit of wokeness – the spirit of antichrist.

You shall have no other gods before Me

– Exodus 20:3

Jesus is the Light of the World. He is the Person who awakens us, shines His light into our hearts and commands us to repent of our sins. We can therefore achieve true reconciliation by following Jesus Christ and His pattern of life because in Christ, we are brothers and sisters under God. We are redeemed, saved and are being sanctified because of Jesus. The Prince of Peace is our Lord and He forged the path to true justice at the cross, and God asks us to follow His selfless, sacrificial example of love.

Jesus said, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself”

– Mark 12:31

By Paul Backholer. Find out about Paul’s books here.