The coming schism in the Church of Woke

Left wing movements are often tormented by internecine warfare over purity and the true path to progress.

Long before terms such as ‘woke’, ‘critical race theory’ and ‘cancel culture’ entered the political vernacular, an American friend of mine told me that what he then called ‘modern progressive liberalism’ was turning into a religion. He contended that it had an original sin (privilege), its own sacred texts and shibboleths, interpreted and preached by its own priesthood, and its own punishments for blasphemy and apostasy.

“Think about the way liberal progressives react when you disagree with them these days,” I remember him asking me over a whisky. “Have you not noticed that they seem to respond with hysterical denunciation rather than reasoned debate? That’s not somebody who has taken a political position – it’s a fundamentalist responding to blasphemy.” I thought he was mistaken, but as with many of our disagreements, time increasingly seems to have proved him right and me wrong.

More recently, he has told me he sees similarities between Christianity and the Woke Religion. He argues that just as Christianity began as a small band of messianic Jews in Roman Judea, spread across the Eastern Mediterranean and eventually to Rome itself – and thence to the rest of the world – so the Social Justice fanatics came out of American universities and have rapidly converted the middle and ruling classes of the entire Anglosphere.

Based on this analogy, he continued, we should expect a schism in the Church of Woke before long. This seems likely. Left wing movements are often tormented by internecine warfare over purity and the true path to progress. With both intransigent sides viewing themselves as holding the correct interpretation of the doctrine, they end up splintering into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, the Independent Labour Party and the Labour Party, or into multiple groups, as was the case with the Worker’s Revolutionary Party in 1980s Britain. The scene in Mothy Python’s The Life of Brian in which members of the People’s Front of Judea are offended when Brian mistakes them for the Judean People’s Front cuts close to the bone.

Perhaps, my friend suggests, the Woke will divide over the question ‘Does salvation derive from renouncing racism alone, or through man's good works to eradicate racism and racists?’ He also suspects that Manichean Woke Heretics, who believe the Universe is divided between racists and non-racists, will be pitted against the Devout Woke, who believe racism is systemic throughout the Universe.

It is not difficult to imagine austere Lutheran Wokists coming to view the Establishment Woke’s connections with multinational corporations as nothing more than selling indulgences to help inherently sinful capitalists avoid the hard work of salvation. “As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, a CEO from cancellation springs,” they might bitterly lament as they pin their Ninety-five Theses to the top of their Twitter accounts.

There is no war as bloody as religious war, and the resulting battle for the fruits of the long march through Western institutions is likely to be vicious. The methods of the Woke Inquisition, previously reserved for conservatives, capitalists and anybody whose heritage might hint at Zionist sympathies, will be turned on Woke heretics, as reformation, counter-reformation and counter counter-reformation sweep back and forth through the universities, teaching colleges, primary schools, newspaper rooms, television studios and civil service ministries.

Like the Calvinists of the seventeenth century, some of the more austere Woke could choose to leave altogether – perhaps by dinghy, the proper anti-racist means of travel – so they may live away from the oppressive rule of the Establishment Woke. Many would probably aim for Portland in the state of Oregon, where they would be free to worship at one of the nightly Antifa riots, and would be close enough to Santa Barbara to go on pilgrimages to see Meghan the Oppressed in her hair shirt.

Others might prefer, rather like the Amish, to live simpler lives in lands free of the structures that perpetuate whiteness, racism and the patriarchy. Sub-Saharan Africa would be a good destination for this sect: a core tenet of the Social Justice scripture is that black people cannot be racist, so the Woke would assume these nations to be free of ethnic strife, and also likely to have enlightened views on LGBTQ rights. Furthermore, the shantytowns, pre-industrial villages and endless supply of people of colour would offer unbeatable material for a Woke Instagram account.

Eventually, when the fires of the Woke Reformation abate, and it becomes increasingly challenging to deny that Britain is one of the least racist or sexist countries in the world, new generations will become gradually less devout. At first, this trend will manifest in reduced attendance at Black Lives Matter and Trans Rights services, but, before long, few young people will even have read Robin DiAngelo and Ibram X Kendi: the language and some of the rules will stay woven into the culture, but the doctrine will be slowly forgotten. Some of the edgier Substack newsletters will then start mocking the inherent contradictions in Woke Scripture, criticising the Woke colonisation of native British culture, questioning why people should not commit to lifelong heterosexual marriage, demanding laws to protect the tiny remaining none-Woke conservative groups, and advocating for sex-based sport segregation.

“…ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.”