Hello friends. Great to have you with us. Welcome to The Case for Life. I’m Scott Klusendorf, president of Life Training Institute, and we aim to help you understand pro life apologetics better than you did before you watched. Uh, be sure to visit us on our social media sites. We will have show notes, other resources there for you, including past episodes of this podcast.

We’d love to have you join us. Last time we started a discussion. about wokeness and how it relates to the pro life view. And we did two things in the last session. We defined wokeness. Wokeness is a comprehensive worldview that divides people into two groups. You’re either an oppressor or you’re oppressed.

And if you’re an oppressor, you are so not based on your behavior, but based on the group identity you are linked to. So if you’re a white male, you are automatically an oppressor racist, not because you’ve done anything racist, but because you’re part of a group that has been identified as intrinsically racist.

So all racism, all oppressive acts are reduced to group identity, not individual behavior. What I want to do today is look worldview of wokeness impacts the pro life view And give you some ideas on how you might navigate that woke world so that you can engage people who’ve bought into it. More and more, I find not only secular people, but Christians who have bought into this view.

And a lot of them have bought into wokeness not because they’re bad people, they genuinely have a heart. for justice. They genuinely don’t want to see people treated badly based on skin color. And as Christians, we should support that. Of course we oppose racism. And if there is racism, we should repent of it.

You’re not woke if you celebrate Jackie Robinson Day at the ballpark. You’re not woke if you celebrate Martin Luther King Day. You’re not woke if you quote Martin Luther King and support his view of a colorblind society. You’re not woke if you recognize that in the past, our nation has done things to people of other skin color that is wrong.

In World War II, we wrongly interred Japanese Americans in what really amounted to prison camps just because we were suspect of them. There’s no doubt that slavery was evil. There’s no doubt that Jim Crow laws were bad and that people were discriminated against unjustly based on skin color. We can admit all of that and say as, as Christians, that grieves us and may it never happen again without going to the embracing.

of a comprehensive worldview that is distinctly not biblical and one that is harming to human life in general. So today what I want to do is look at that worldview in a little bit closer way. I mentioned in previous podcasts that all worldviews have to answer five key questions and it does not matter whether you’re a naturalist who believes the Darwinian thesis that the universe came from nothing and was caused by nothing.

Or you’re a postmodernist who believes there’s no such thing as objective truth. Or you’re a Christian theist, like I am. Whatever your worldview, you’ve gotta answer five key questions, and all worldviews do this. So what are the five? The first question they have to answer is one of what we call metaphysics.

That’s a big word, don’t let it throw you. It just means, what is ultimate reality? What’s ultimately real? For the Christian theist, what’s ultimately real is a transcendent but personal God who created the universe and it’s his sovereign will that is unfolding the story of the human race and the universe in general.

If you’re a naturalist, you believe that the universe came from nothing and was caused by nothing. Ultimate reality is just blind, random chance. If you’re a postmodernist, you believe that you construct reality. There is no objective reality. You make it. You’re constructing it is what makes it. Uh, wokeness also has.

a view of ultimate reality. We’ll get to that in just a minute. You also, if whatever your worldview, you have a view of knowledge, what we call epistemology. That’s a big word. Do not let it freak you out. It just means how we know things. That’s what epistemology means. How do we know things? How can we claim knowledge about something?

Is knowledge strictly physical, something we get through the five senses? Or can knowledge include non physical things like morals, logic, mathematics? And does philosophy presuppose, or rather, does science presuppose philosophy? That’s an epistemology question. Very legitimate one we need to answer, but Wokeness and Christianity give two very different answers to that question.

All worldviews also have to answer the question of anthropology. What does it mean to be human? What gives humans value in the first place, if anything? All worldviews have to grapple with that question. They also have to grapple with the question of ethics. What’s right and what’s wrong? And principally, What’s wrong with us?

And what’s the fix? Is there a fix? And what does that fix look like? All worldviews have to address that question. They also have to address the question of cosmology. Where did we come from? Where’s history going? How does this story ultimately sum up this story of human existence? So whatever your worldview, you’ve got to grapple with those questions.

And here’s why it’s important for you as a pro lifer to know that. There will be people, particularly of the Darwinian naturalistic worldview, who will come along and say, Oh, we don’t have a worldview. We’re neutral. There’s nothing religious about our view. We’re just skeptics. No, that doesn’t work.

Everybody is dealing with those five questions that I just went through. Nobody gets a pass on them. We give different answers to those questions, but there’s nobody who’s truly neutral, including the woke person. So let’s look at the woke worldview and contrast it in this session with the Christian worldview.

What does the woke worldview say about Ultimate Reality? Well, on the woke worldview, Ultimate reality are intrinsically racist structures that form everything we, we understand about reality. Uh, all of society is shot through with intrinsic racism. All of our social structures are created with racism in mind for intentionally oppressing victims.

And that there is a class of people that that is their sole reason for existence to create these racist structures that impose oppression on victims and other people. Uh, what is knowledge on wokeness? Knowledge on wokeness is not objective. We talked about this last time and it’s the most important thing for you to grasp about wokeness.

On Wokeness, knowledge is not real and knowable. We don’t ascertain knowledge by looking at evidence and drawing reasonable conclusions. In fact, rationality itself is racist under Wokeness. It’s a tool of oppression used to silence minority voices. That’s what Wokeness says. On Wokeness, the only thing that counts as truth is the standpoint of the victim, or The oppressor classes, if you’re a white male and you make a rational argument for same or for man woman marriage or against abortion or for capitalism, you are automatically disqualified in virtue of being member, being a member of an oppressor class, being male and being white.

In this case, you got two strikes against you. The only people who have a right to weigh in with moral authority are members of so called oppressor classes who have experienced injustice and because of that, so the argument goes, they have a unique ability to see moral truth that you do not if you’re not part of that oppressed class.

So you’re… Ability to claim that your argument is sound or valid has nothing to do with the merits of the argument and everything to do with what class you’re in. Now, right away, I think you can see this commits the genetic fallacy. It’s basically evaluating arguments based on their origins, not on their merits.

That’s a fallacious way to argue, and yet up and down newspaper pages, editorials seen on the evening news, websites you visit, you will see arguments grounded in the genetic fallacy that are put forward based solely on the source they’re coming from rather than the merits of the actual argument being advanced.

Uh, Wokeness also has a differing view of humanity or anthropology. Wokeness says that there’s only two types of people, oppressors and oppressed. The Bible. presents a very different view. The Bible says that all humans, regardless of skin color, in fact, God doesn’t even distinguish based on skin color, because the Bible’s clear.

He judges by the heart, not outward appearance. And what, what Wokeness says is, what matters is skin color, appearance. The biblical view of humanity says, no, it’s not oppressor versus oppressed. It’s redeemed versus unredeemed. But even with unredeemed people, Everyone bears the image of God and thus has intrinsic value.

And the great thing about the biblical worldview, it can account for human equality. The biblical worldview comes along and says it does not matter what your gender is. It does not matter what your skin color is. It does not matter what you, uh, what nationality you come from or your economic status. All human beings have Equal value because they equally bear the image of God, and as image bearers, they have intrinsic value, not merely instrumental value.

Intrinsic value means you as an individual have value, a fundamental value, that doesn’t hedge on how smart you are, how self aware you are, what your GPA is. And even if you drive a Toyota Prius, you still have value because of whose image you bear. Although on that Prius question, I might challenge a bit and push back.

I do wonder, people who drive those cars, if they really do have intrinsic value. But we’ll set that aside right now since this isn’t a car show. But the truth is, on the biblical worldview, your value is solely grounded in you bearing the image of God. On the woke worldview, your total identity is based on what group are you part of.

Are you part of an oppressor group or an oppressed group? That’s what determines your fundamental value. And all of your humanity is reduced to one of those two groups. That’s it. And by the way, if you’re part of the oppressor group, you can never And that leads to the next category of ethics. What’s wrong with us?

Well, on the biblical worldview, I think, you know, what’s wrong with us. What’s wrong with us is we have sin natures. We are dating all the way back to our first parents, Adam and Eve. Rebellious creatures against our creator. We basically told our creator, get lost. We can do this without you. Uh, what happens with wokeness is wokeness comes along and says, no, your fundamental problem is not original sin.

Your fundamental problem is intrinsic racism. And if you’re an oppressor, you can never change categories. You will always be one. The only thing you can do is become woke. to your internal racism, and do the work of becoming an anti racist, as Angela D’Angelo would say, or, uh, Gene Stefanik, or Richard Delgado, any of the main authors that promote this worldview.

They all say the same thing. You can never change if you’re an oppressor. All you can do is do the work of becoming an anti racist. This is why you saw video clips in 2020. of white people going and bowing down and literally in an act of worship before black people. It was the idea of, I can never change, all I can do is practice self negation, do the work of anti racism, which means I admit I am just awful to the core and there’s nothing I can ever do about it.

That’s the, the brutality of the woke worldview. Now contrast that with the Christian worldview, the Christian worldview comes along and it doesn’t tell us to do the work to get right. It tells us to trust. Romans chapter 4, to believe and trust in the God who justifies the ungodly. What a statement! I mean, think of that a moment.

A God who justifies the ungodly. Well, how can God do that? How can God just declare ungodly people justified? Well, we know the answer through the gospel. What makes us right with God is not that we do the work. of earning his favor, which we can never do, because our bad deeds will never be atoned for by our good ones.

Our good deeds aren’t enough to erase the debt we owe. Rather, we trust in him who justifies the ungodly, and here’s how he does it. He sends Jesus to stand in our place condemned, bearing the full weight of of our judgment that we deserve in our place so that those that trust in Jesus alone for salvation are declared righteous.

Now this is a key point. On, on wokeness, you could never be declared righteous. You can only do your best to work as hard as you can. to become an anti racist, though you’ll never succeed at it. The Bible says you and I, though we remain sinners, and we are, let’s face it, even if we’re redeemed Christians, we still sin, right?

The Bible says we get declared righteous in virtue of what Jesus did for us, so God the Father looks at us as sinners. And if our trust is in Jesus, He declares us righteous in virtue of what Jesus did for us. Wokeness says you can never get rid of your sin. The Bible says, And such were some of you, but you were justified, you were cleansed, you were washed.

Colossians chapter 3 verse 13. Paul talks about those who believe in Jesus being transferred. from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God’s beloved son. That’s a legal transition that takes place in virtue of God declaring sinners justified. Wokeness utterly rejects the Christian gospel of atonement and says you’ve got to do the work of becoming an anti racist and you’ll never succeed, by the way.

You will never change. The Bible says, Such were some of you, but you were washed. The woke worldview gives you no hope. And think about the person who’s had an abortion. If they do not accept the Christian gospel, and they spend their entire life trying to undo that choice, trying to do the work of atoning for that child they killed through abortion, If they have a woke worldview, they have no hope of ever coming around to finding, uh, resolution and healing.

Where on the Christian worldview, even the worst of sinners can be redeemed and made righteous or declared righteous in virtue of what Jesus did for them. So that’s a distinction on ethics. What about cosmology? Well, on the Christian worldview, the storyline of history goes like this. Creation. Fall.

In other words, the whole thing’s gonna happen. God’s gonna bring it all about. He’s gonna restore this earth one day. Wokeness says, no, it’s not restoration we work toward, it’s revolution to tear down inherently racist structures. And that’s the ultimate end of history, is to tear down every racist structure, including the nuclear family, man woman marriage, pro life advocacy.

All of these things are deemed oppressive, and this is where it relates to abortion. And you need to understand this. How does this woke worldview directly relate to abortion? Well, um, we are told that if you oppose abortion, you are inflicting oppression on a victim class, namely women. You are denying them something they need to achieve fundamental equality.

And because women need abortion to achieve fundamental equality, if you are pro life and you oppose abortion, you’re an oppressor because of, you’re preventing women from achieving the equality with men that they need. Now think about this for a moment. What kind of worldview says to, to women, you have to go get a special surgery abortion to achieve equality with men.

Does that sound like a very tolerant and, and, uh, just worldview? No, it sounds like one that says women are implicitly inferior to men because they require special surgery. to achieve equality with men. I don’t know why people think that’s somehow an enlightened worldview, but they bought into it. But as a pro life advocate, you need to understand you are viewed as an oppressor.

That women need abortion to achieve equality, and if you’re standing in the way of that, whether you’re a man or a woman, you’re going to be deemed not only as wrong, but evil. You’re part of that oppressor class. But let’s ask this question for a moment. What happens in the act of abortion? Doesn’t the mother act as an oppressor against her own child, which means on the woke worldview, wokeness itself is justifying a practice that is unjust, that allows an oppressor to unjustly treat her dependent offspring.

And, uh, even Abram Kendi, who’s one of the major, uh, lack of a better term, uh, leaders on this whole woke movement Says that all human beings ought to be viewed as equal Well, that’s true And if the unborn are human as we’ve argued on this show many times that they are Then they too are members of the human family and aren’t we acting in an oppressive way against them?

When we intentionally kill them because they’re in the way of something we want and they prevent us from getting all we want out of life. Isn’t that the very definition of oppressing, of oppression, treating people badly and treating them horribly because we want something they prevent us from getting.

That’s the problem with wokeness. Ultimately it ends up being a world, a worldview that oppresses others. There’s one other thing about wokeness that I think is worth pointing out. Ultimately its view of knowledge is self refuting. If there’s no such thing as objective truth, and if any time you make an objective truth claim you’re being oppressive, and if there’s no way to say truth corresponds to reality, Then isn’t the claim that society is shot through with intrinsic racism just a particular viewpoint and not objectively true?

It would mean there’s no such thing as objective victims, because after all, to claim that there are, to claim that it’s really true there are victims, We’re engaging in oppressive language because we’re using objective truth claims to make our point. Well, if that’s true, then that just rules out the whole idea that society is shot through with intrinsic racism.

It wouldn’t be true. It would just be true, maybe, from the perspective of an alleged oppressed person. Only from their standpoint, not objectively true. Anyway, there’s a lot more that could to get you might…

Approach people who’ve bought into this woke worldview. Again, I recommend the books that I, I mentioned last time in particular, Owen Strand’s book, Christianity and Wokeness, Neil Shenvey’s book on The Critical Dilemma that just came out is very, very helpful. Both those books will give you more than enough Information to handle this.

Also, you can visit our our social media sites. We will have show notes on wokeness posted there. They’ll be up and ready by the time this show goes live. So you’ll see it. It’ll be there. We’ll have those notes. In the meantime, remember this. The biblical Christian pro life view does a better job for accounting for human dignity human knowledge, ultimate reality, and where history is headed than secular rivals like wokeness.

Until next time, Scott Klusendorf, look forward to seeing you again soon.