I use the term woke ideology in a broader sense when focusing on churches, as it allows me to address multiple related issues. I hope every church would engage with and address these matters. Here are a few matters:
Promoting tolerance even for sin, compromising biblical standards and downplaying God’s holiness and authority to appear culturally relevant. They also teach that God’s Word must adapt to modern culture. Rewriting the gospel to fit cultural narratives. They relativize truth: suggesting morality is subjective or culturally defined.
Redefining marriage to include same-sex unions with churches openly advocating and allowing it.
Normalizing abortion or reproductive choices contrary to God’s design. (The Catholic Church is against artificial contraceptives, IVF - maybe an article for some other time). Also normalizing cohabitation or sexual relationships outside of marriage.
Measuring church success by cultural popularity rather than faithfulness to Scripture. Also elevating leaders who are culturally popular over those who are biblically faithful.
Encouraging dependence on government or societal structures instead of trusting God. They also encourage political affiliation as a measure of Christian faith. Many evangelicals worship Israel and the Jews without knowing they hate Christians, claim Jesus was born to a whore and today he is burning in a pile of excrement. Some issues I mentioned in these points has its roots to jewish traditions. But praise God many are accepting Christ today as their Lord and their messiah.
Reinterpreting or canceling biblical heroes to fit modern morals as modern feminists cancel St. Paul. They also teach that traditional gender roles are oppressive and must be abolished in the church.
They use church platforms to advance secular ideologies rather than proclaim the gospel claiming all religions are different paths to the same God. For example, the catholic priest would curse a pentecostal brother to hell for having different doctrines to his yet accepting Christ as Lord and Saviour. But he'd be happy to open the church for a Muslim to pray. Also links with encouraging believers to conform to the world for the sake of inclusion. (I am a Catholic btw and no the priests didn't teach me these things but the protestant preachers I look up to - yet I defend the apostolic churches - why? article in my website haha)
Promoting pseudo-spirituality that focuses on self-help or psychology rather than Scripture as most prosperity preachers do (I thought it's mostly among prots but I came across this group in the Catholic Church ~ their doctrines are nowhere near the official Church teachings and they prey on weak oppressed individuals). They shift from discipleship to self-affirmation programs.
They also preach feelings, self-esteem or personal happiness over obedience. You can bury them in doctrinal debates but they'd manipulate the weak to win their support and hence lead them astray. One of them I came across preached every human being has Holy Spirit in them, we ought to activate them....Is it your washing machine that you have to start and I gave a few verses. They changed the topic smoothly and preached "God loves us all, see what He has done for us" and the people forgot what the discussion was. The Early Church would have condemned them as heretics.
Elevating human opinion over apostolic teaching (some start a church if they want multiple wives - The Church of England and King Henry VIII) Each man becomes his own Pope and starts a church when there's disagreements hence 40000 denominations. Yet God will workout everything for good. We have to be united on the essentials - but today the problem is the essentials have been compromised as well.
Encouraging children to question God’s authority rather than submit to it which even ties back to, for example, the dad being a communist. Some preachers encourage compromise on biblical morality to attract younger generations. I like how Br. Cherian George puts it.."the means don't justify the end"
Promoting “progressive Christianity” that denies core doctrines such as sin and judgment. Teaching that sin is merely a social construct.
Downplaying the reality of hell, judgment, and eternal consequences like in some protestant denominations they have 2-3 views of hell, like annihilation, universalism rather than the Early Church of eternal conscious torment (ECT). These movements are growing as they are liberal. Who decides this? You won't believe if I say they have 4 views of justification. All of them claim to be driven by the Holy Spirit. These points would also be an encouragement to look into the Early Churches! They've got these things sorted and settled.
Downplaying the reality of hell, judgment, and eternal consequences like in some protestant denominations they have 2-3 views of hell, like annihilation, universalism rather than the Early Church of eternal conscious torment (ECT). These movements are growing as they are liberal. Who decides this? You won't believe if I say they have 4 views of justification. All of them claim to be driven by the Holy Spirit. These points would also be an encouragement to look into the Early Churches! They've got these things sorted and settled.
Making entertainment or popularity a central focus of worship as some churches do where the Holy Spirit only comes upon you when the dj lights go mad, the tempo is high and the cloud machine works overtime. Most of them use the name of the Holy Spirit to promote their garbage.
Teaching that salvation can be earned through social good rather than faith in Christ, hence regardless of where you are and what you believe, "be good, God loves, God take everyone heaven".
Prioritizing emotional experiences over obedience to God’s Word, also promoting selective obedience to Scripture based on convenience.
These trends are now widespread in many Protestant churches, largely because of the “each to his own” approach to authority and interpretation. What is especially tragic is that even historic, classical Protestant traditions; such as the Methodists, founded by a spiritual giant - John Wesley have given ground and compromised. Among the apostolic churches - Catholics and Orthodox, there may be no official, unified statements endorsing these ideas, yet in practice many priests and preachers openly affirm or quietly accommodate these same woke ideologies.
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