New Book 'Woke Jesus' Uncovers Real Dangers to Christianity in America
ORLANDO, Florida -- Author Lucas Miles has never been afraid to take on some of the more controversial topics facing Christendom today. From liberal thought hijacking the Church to finding the one true God we can embrace, Miles has always been painstakingly clear on where he stands on the foundational truths rooted in Scripture.
In his latest book, Woke Jesus: The False Messiah Destroying Christianity, this pastor from America’s heartland seeks to uncover the real dangers to Christianity and America from the Christian Left. Through a wealth or research juxtaposed against the core tenets of Scripture, Miles contends that the radical alternatives being introduced by this aforementioned movement contradicts traditionally held beliefs on marriage, gender, racial equality, and even original sin.
I recently sat down with Miles to discuss how to grow in the truth of God’s word by expanding one’s understanding of solid orthodox theology, the concept of Christian Nationalism and its effect on the Body of Christ, and some practical suggestions on how to defeat Woke Christianity.
If you were trying to convince someone to pick up a copy of your book and read Woke Jesus, what would you say to encourage them? What would your sales pitch be?
With Woke Jesus, I really sought out to make this the definitive guide to understanding wokeness and its effects on the Church. What can we do about it? And ultimately to really compare, to hold up the claims of woke and this woke Christ that we've seen presented by the Progressive Church to the Biblical Christ. Let's see how he measures up. I see this in many ways too. For example, in the Old Testament where the prophet has the two altars built, one for Baal and one for the Lord. And he says, “Let's see who calls down fire. And I think that the biblical Christ is obviously true, but there is no better. This issue of justice is such a primary focus in our culture today, and injustice is talked about all the time, our Christ, our biblical God that we worship, He is the champion for true justice. And I think you're going to see that in this book.
I want to dig a little deeper into the topic of wokeness. It seems that Woke Christianity is on the rise here in America. Where does the notion of Woke Jesus actually come from?
In looking at the history of woke Christianity or progressive Christianity, it has multiple names. And I think it's important to point out that this is a spectrum that not everybody who holds some of these tenets are necessarily outright Marxist, but they've let go of orthodoxy in some form in order to drift into this. Yeah. Woke is really something that started after the post-enlightenment period. I start this book by detailing what's known as the historical Jesus ideology. This was a quest that theologians, specifically in Germany, went on after the enlightenment period in the late 1700s. And it really lasted all the way up until the early 1900s, of trying to understand Jesus in a post-enlightenment world.
So, in a world where logic and reason (prevailed), the scientific method was king, right? They had to try to make sense of the miraculous. What they did in order to try to understand and interpret Scripture after the enlightenment was they started downplaying the divine aspects of Christ. In other words, the miracles, the resurrection, heaven and hell, and these types of things. And they uplifted His humanity. But Jesus ended up as a byproduct of this, becoming more of a champion of the people, or the great social organizer rather than the savior of the world.
Changing gears, while accusing traditional Christians of being guilty of “Christian Nationalism” it is rather the progressive left who is redefining Jesus and Christianity to fit the needs of the state. How does weakening the truth of Christ in order to make him nothing more than a caricature fit the narratives they advance as they consolidate power over American culture?
When you look at this term, Christian Nationalism, that's brought up by the media and by leftist politicians a lot, I believe it's a dog whistle. And it's a dog whistle that is being projected onto evangelicals. Essentially, if you love God and you love your country, you're a Christian nationalist. Author Andrew Whitehead addresses the dangers of Christian nationalism in his book, Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States. His portrait of Christian nationalists was anybody who voted for Trump, anybody who believes in evangelism, and in sharing their faith. He even references soccer moms as part of tending to be Christian nationalists. There's a push for if you believe the return of Christ, you're a Christian nationalist. And so, his description would essentially sum up every evangelical Bible believing Christian that that is there.
When you look at this, I think that there is a tendency on the left, and we could go back to Stalin or Mussolini to see a pattern here of accusing individuals or their enemies of being the thing that they themselves are. You're a fascist. I'm anti-fascist. So really the anti-fascist is the fascist in those situations. With Christian nationalism, I think it's very similar in that this dog whistle is trying to compare Christians to Nazis essentially, that's where Christian nationalism is thought of. That's the genesis of it, if you will. There's an association that's being made in people's minds. But the reality is, if you look at the church in Nazi Germany during the Third Reich, what you saw was that there were two churches, there was the confessing church, or the professing church, which Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Carl Barton, and others were part of.
And then there was the German Nazi-fied church and what was known as positive Christianity. That was the church that was willing to bend on these orthodox truths of the Bible and sort of navigate away from scriptural reality and the principles of Christ in order to bow onto the agenda of the state. And so, the point that I make in Woke Jesus is that the true Christian nationalist, based upon the definitions that we see in Nazi Germany, would be the church that's gotten away from a biblical paradigm, not the one who's standing up for it, the progressive church, the Nazi church in Germany. Christians should be justified in loving God and loving the country. That's not Christian nationalism, that's just being a good citizen and a God-fearing Christian.
We have been discussing and shaping what Woke Christianity is and how it is affecting the evangelical faith community and drawing a circle around its effects. What are some ways that we can defeat Woke Jesus?
What we're really defeating is we're defeating woke. And woke has this false holograph that they're holding up, that is, they're attempting to portray it as if it's Christ. But, I think it's important to remember that this is a doctrine of demons. It is a woke virus. And I think that to really defeat it, we have to understand it. When COVID-19 first came on the scene, everybody was trying to understand the nature of the virus. And because we didn't understand it, I think we made some bad decisions from a policy standpoint, as well as probably some personal health decisions along the way too. And I think that woke is a similar thing as a virus, so is the mind and the spirit that people are trying to figure out how to respond to it.
There's all sorts of ideas, much like with COVID. Oh, we need to do this, we need to do that. Well, the reality is we need to understand it. And I think that it's important if we're going to untangle Christian orthodoxy, good Christian doctrine from this false heretical view that is woke. We have to take time to know them both well enough, to be able to distinguish them.
What are some practical ways that we, as the body of Christ can do that? Something that is basic and tangible.
The first thing that we can do is what Paul tells us in Ephesians 6. That is, we can put on the armor of God. That is what we do in every aspect. When you look at the armor of God, it actually helps us defeat various heresies. For instance, if our feet are fitted with the readiness of the gospel of peace, that tells me that there's a need for evangelism. Woke doesn't promote evangelism. It actually promotes universalism that everybody is saved because of God's goodness, that there's a blanket salvation upon everybody, or because of individual merit everybody's saved. You're made in the image of God, so therefore you're saved and your behavior doesn't matter.
Your faith in Christ doesn't matter. So, our feet are fitted with the readiness of the Gospel. Peace shows us that there is a need for evangelism. We put on the belt of truth. We put on the breastplate of righteousness. This tells us that there is something that's true. It's not my truth or your truth. It is the truth that we're putting on. And so, practically speaking, what that looks like is, we have to know what our church believes that we're attending. We have to take time to interview our pastors and church elders. If we hear a message that sounds a little wonky and off track, we need to say something and ask about it. And if we feel like our church is getting off track, then we need to vote with our church attendance and our tithe money.
If you're just going to a church for the first time and you hear a woke message, you need to get up, leave, and go find a new church. You don't need to talk to anybody. If you've been there for a while and you feel like they're starting to deviate, take the time to have the meeting, because you might be able to save them.
Do you believe that pastors will have the backbone to stand up and take a stand on many of the things you have just talked about?
My hope is that pastors are up for the challenge that is facing this nation today. I have concerns. I certainly think there's some that aren't. And there's some that I have major, major reservations about. When you look at pastors in America, there's a spectrum on one side. There are those who are in the fight against woke. They're talking about it, they understand it. They and the churches ask to circle the wagons. Now, when you have a major heresy like this, that this has been true multiple times, this is why we had creeds and councils in early church history. We're in a similar time today with that need. There are some pastors that don't want conflict. They don't want to see their congregations torn apart. I lost 40 or 50% of my church in 2016 when we started teaching strongly about cultural issues leading up to the election.
After people have had the opportunity to read Woke Jesus, as an author what would you like them to get out of the reading experience? What is your greatest hope for the book?
My hope is that Woke Jesus begins to connect the dots on the various things that we're seeing in society today to understand culture better, and how to address it. You'll understand critical race theory and how to address it. You'll understand some of the accusations about Christian nationalism better. I think it's going to empower people with language that they can use, whether it's at the Thanksgiving dinner table or at the workplace in the day-to-day or on social media to defend your faith with grace and truth. There's so much negative response. I don't want this book to weaponize people. I'm not looking to create an army of angry people that are just shouting at people about these truths. This is why it's important to read the book all the way to the end, because you really see this revelation of the Biblical Christ by the end of the book.
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