Awake, Not Woke: A Christian Response to the Cult of Progressive Ideology

 
“Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light.”
—Ephesians 5:14  
The long-simmering crisis that grips our culture has exploded in recent years, leaving us divided and intransigent. Discourse seems futile when we are no longer a people with shared principles or even a shared understanding of reality. What seems obvious to one person is patently absurd to the next. 
 
This collapse of meaning is not accidental. It has been plotted and documented for decades, and now presents in its current form as Woke ideology. 
 
Awake, Not Woke unmasks this ideology by examining its history, major players, premises, and tactics, showing us that “Wokeness” at its core is an ideology of rupture. Indeed, it is an ideology with fundamentalist and even cult-like characteristics that is on a collision course with Christianity.
 
With a wit and clarity that both exposes the absurd and mourns the brokenness of our culture, 
Noelle Mering provides answers to such questions as:  
 
 

• Why does tolerance seem to only go in one direction?
• How does the ideology create enemies, eroding friendship across the sexes and races?
• Why is violence the natural end of Woke ideology?
• Why are the Woke considered blameless?
• Why have politics become all-absorbing?
• Why is the corruption of children a logical outgrowth of Woke principles?
• How is the movement fundamentally a rejection of the Logos?

“Noelle Mering pierces the dark heart of wokery, and, with her characteristically engaging and often funny prose, sheds bright light on matters notorious for their heat. This is the field manual of bad ideas we have been waiting for. Highly recommended.”
 
-Patrick Coffin
Author and Co-founder, CoffinNation.com
 

“Noelle Mering’s Awake, Not Woke is essential reading to understand the dominant views of social justice today. It is an engaging and serious book that distills the animating principles of the “woke” movement, and explains the intellectual history behind it.  But Mering doesn’t stop at critical analysis. She takes seriously the claims and grievances of racism, injustice, and abuse and offers a response rooted not in power and conflict, but in deep interpersonal relationships and the human need to live in truth and to be known and loved.”
 
-Michael Miller, Senior Research Fellow at the Acton Institute and Director and Producer of Poverty Inc. 
 

“Awake, Not Woke presents a clear and crushing critique of an ideology that is at this very moment poisoning our culture. With tremendous skill, wit, understanding, and compassion, Noelle Mering traces the historical roots of wokism, its dogmas and methods of indoctrination, and its heart-breaking fruits. She also identifies the path to restoration. How I wish every American could read this book!”
 
– Kenneth Hensley, co-author of The Godless Delusion and host of ‘On the Journey’ show and podcast
 

“A powerful pseudo-religious movement now threatens the very survival of Christianity in the west. Christians and their leaders not only refuse to confront this dangerous political and cultural revolution, but increasingly embrace its destructive heresies. Others realize they are under attack but are confused about why and what to do about it. Noelle Mering is the brave, insightful, and vital prophetic voice they desperately need to understand what is happening, and how to counter it. She elegantly exposes this movement for what it is. All Christians—and anyone seeking to understand what is now happening in America—need to read it.”
 
-- Matthew J. Peterson, Founding Editor of The American Mind and Vice President of Education at The Claremont Institute
 

Awake, Not Woke is an invaluable resource for today’s cultural confusion. Mering deftly sifts through the jargon to understand, explain, and refute, the current state of the Progressive movement. Though analyzed in a Christian context, much of the weight of the argument is grounded in universal principles of human nature. It’s a book driven less by politics and more for the care for people and concern for the wide and lasting harm of a dehumanizing ideology.
 
--Carrie Gress, Author of The Anti-Mary Exposed and Theology of Home
 

Noelle Mering is a Fellow at the Washington DC-based think tank the Ethics and Public Policy Center. She is the co-author of the Theology of Home book series and an editor for TheologyofHome.com.  She is a frequent contributor for National Catholic Register, The American Mind, The Federalist, and Catholic World Report. She lives with her husband and six children in Southern California.