Commonalities Between Woke Culture and Religion

From a recent article by psychologist Valerie Tarico titled, “The Righteous and the Woke – Why Evangelicals and Social Justice Warriors Trigger Me in the Same Way.”

It occurred to me recently that my time in Evangelicalism and subsequent journey out have a lot to do with why I find myself reactive to the spread of Woke culture among colleagues, political soulmates, and friends. Christianity takes many forms, with Evangelicalism being one of the more single-minded, dogmatic, groupish and enthusiastic among them. The Woke—meaning progressives who have “awoken” to the idea that oppression is the key concept explaining the structure of society, the flow of history, and virtually all of humanity’s woes—share these qualities.To a former Evangelical, something feels too familiar—or better said, a bunch of somethings feel too familiar.

Tarico then lays out many of the similarities in detail. The similarities include:

Righteous and infidels
Insider jargon
Born that way
Original sin
Orthodoxies
Denial as proof
Black and white thinking
Shaming and shunning
Selective science denial
Evangelism
Hypocrisy
Gloating about the fate of the wicked

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Erich Vieth

Erich Vieth is an attorney focusing on civil rights (including First Amendment), consumer law litigation and appellate practice. At this website often writes about censorship, corporate news media corruption and cognitive science. He is also a working musician, artist and a writer, having founded Dangerous Intersection in 2006. Erich lives in St. Louis, Missouri with his two daughters.

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