The Problem with Calling People "Conservative" and "Woke"
We need to stop letting the culture dictate terms of Christian discussion.
You have almost certainly heard the good news that according to a leaked opinion draft on the case of Dobbs v. Jackson, the Supreme Court looks poised to overturn Roe v. Wade and end the nationalized “right to an abortion.” If the Court overturns Roe v. Wade, it will affirm the greatest of triumph justice since the Civil Rights movement. Dozens of states would immediately end the availability of elective abortions, and so. many. babies. will live instead of die.
As an orthodox, evangelical Protestant Christian, the abolition of abortion has been the single-minded focus of nearly every vote I’ve ever cast, because abortion is the most pressing issue of social justice in my lifetime. The pro-life cause has been generally a “conservative” political issue, and, again, as a politically conservative Christian, I’ve gladly voted for life whenever I’ve punched a ballot or filled a bubble in the voting booth.
Since the news about the likely decision broke, however, a small but loud group of orthodox, evangelical Protestant Christians (folks like me) has taken to questioning the pro-life credentials of many other orthodox, evangelical Protestant Christians (again, folks like me). They have argued, for example, that truly pro-life Christians will work toward statutes for murder charges against both abortion providers and abortion patients (i.e., mothers). Instead of celebrating an historic triumph of justice and getting (back) to work on the ground for the sake of life, these folks seem to want to find any way to outflank their fellow orthodox, evangelical Protestant Christians on the right. “We are the real pro-life conservatives,” they tweet into the world for anyone who will respond.
Now, the point I want to make in these thoughts isn’t so much about the abortion issue, per se, but about the way that various words and terms attach to various concepts and content. For example, many today in my theological tribe seem to think that “conservative” is synonymous with “orthodox.” That is, true Christianity is “conservative” Christianity, they say. If by “conservative” someone means the inerrancy of Scripture, the substitutionary atonement of Christ, the Nicene doctrine of the Trinity, or the Chalcedonian definition of Christology, then yes. But the value of “conservative” Christianity (or politics) is only as good as the content of that conservatism. In other words, the goodness of conservatism directly correlates to the goodness of what is being conserved. We can, unfortunately, conserve wrong things, and conserve things (good or bad) in wrong ways. See here the sad case of the Saducees.
The Sad Case of the Sadducees
The Saducees were more conservative than Jesus, both politically and theologically, yet they knew neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. The story of the Jewish people in the few hundred years from the close of the Old Testament canon until the arrival of Jesus Christ is complicated and intriguing. Over the course of this time, Judaism consolidated into several distinct sects or groups. Those who have read the New Testament will recognize some of these: Pharisees, Sadducees, along with those such as the Essenes and Zealots. Zealots were militant revolutionaries. Essenes sometimes lived in something like monastic communities. Pharisees, the well-known antagonists of Jesus in the New Testament, largely believed the truth but missed its heart. The Sadducees were the most political, powerful, and conservative of the groups. They believed that only the Torah (Genesis through Deuteronomy) was Scripture. Because the doctrine of the resurrection appears most clearly in other parts of the Bible (Daniel 12:2, Ezekiel 36–37), they denied the doctrine of the resurrection. As our Sunday school teachers explained to us, this is why they were “sad, you see.” At one point in the gospels (Matthew 22:23–33, Mark 12:18–27, Luke 20:27–40), the Sadducees try to stump Jesus with a question about the resurrection.
Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him and questioned him: “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, leaving a wife behind but no child, that man should take the wife and raise up offspring for his brother. There were seven brothers. The first married a woman, and dying, left no offspring. The second also took her, and he died, leaving no offspring. And the third likewise. None of the seven left offspring. Last of all, the woman died too. In the resurrection, when they rise, whose wife will she be, since the seven had married her?” (Mark 12:18–23)
Jesus rebukes them and answers ingeniously from the part of the Bible they did believe:
Jesus spoke to them, “Isn’t this the reason why you’re mistaken: you don’t know the Scriptures or the power of God? For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like angels in heaven. And as for the dead being raised — haven’t you read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the burning bush, how God said to him: I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob? He is not the God of the dead but of the living. You are badly mistaken.” (Mark 12:24–27)
From this dialogue and the Lord’s strong rebuke we see played out the principle I noted above. Being “conservative” is only good insofar as you’re conserving good things in good ways. To “conserve” means: “to protect (something, especially an environmentally or culturally important place or thing) from harm or destruction.” The Sadducees wanted to conserve or protect the witness of the Torah. They viewed the Scripture through such a conservative lens that they reduced the canonical witness from thirty-nine books to five. They wanted to hear only the founding author of the Hebrew scripture, Moses. They didn’t want to hear from Joshua, Samuel, and David, nor from Elijah, Isaiah, and Daniel. Just from Moses. They were, quite literally, more conservative than Jesus. And this was a devastating and soul-threatening position. They denied the Scripture and the power of God. They denied the only hope for eternal life. And they even denied the doctrine of resurrection present in the Scripture they did believe, as Jesus demonstrates.
Today’s Danger
The danger of conserving the wrong things or conserving things in the wrong way presents itself to orthodox, evangelical Christians in America today. Matthew Continetti, in his excellent new volume, The Right: The Hundred-Year War for American Conservatism, argues that various strands of post World War II conservatism were held together by anticommunism, and thus the conservative political movement has fractured since the fall of the Soviet Union. For thirty years, political operatives on the Right have worked to find a replacement for the anti-communism that kept the movement together for 50 years. Recently, rightward political operatives have worked to use “CRT” and “wokeness” to reignite those anti-communist sentiments to mobilize conservatives and cobble together political victories this year and in 2024. Thus, the definition of “conservative” has started to include elements of being “anti-CRT” or “anti-woke,” and this political definition has cross-pollinated with the theological definitions of some of my fellow orthodox, evangelical, Protestants. Thus those who express something less than vitriol or something more like nuance toward these ideas are wrongly and uncharitably labeled “liberal” or “woke,” and thus “not orthodox” and not truly Christian. While some of the concern about CRT is legitimate (and I share it, as I’ve outlined in detail), there is also a sense in which the orthodox, evangelical Protestant church (my tribe!) is just parroting partisan political jargon.
For example, whereas “woke” started as a word to describe awareness of black pain, it’s now used as an epithet for “anyone I think is to the left of me” and “wokeness” has become a hollow term for “anyone more liberal than me” on any given issue. Orthodox, evangelical Protestant Christians have taken to labeling fellow orthodox, evangelical Protestant church Christians with these terms, even though the supposedly “woke” Christians affirm biblical inerrancy, gender complementarianism, an historic sexual ethic, the Trinity, the hypostatic union, justification by faith, and on and on. To use some technical language—it’s just plain silly.
For example, stuff I have written on race and CRT has provoked some to say or ask if I have gone liberal (nope), voted for Biden (didn’t), or am becoming egalitarian or rejecting an historic Christian sexual ethic (no and no). Again, in technical terms, this is silliness we’re dealing with.
The Point
While I cherish the conservative theological and political tradition, perhaps “conservative” as it relates to theological confessionalism isn’t the best term any more. Words like “conservative” and “liberal” and “woke” have become increasingly unhelpful blanket terms, because they too closely mirror the cultural discourse, instead of creating a distinctly Christian discourse. I would suggest using “orthodox,” “historic Protestant,” “heterodox,” and such terms instead, because each has a more technical and meaningful referent. Likewise, Christians should stop using “woke” to describe LGBT+ issues and “affirming”/“non-affirming” to describe LGBT+ convictions. For example, I don’t use the language of “affirming” or “non-affirming” for same-sex marriage. Instead, I say a “revisionary” or “historic/classic” sexual ethic and a “rejection” of a historic, Christian sexual ethic. That is, those who “affirm” same-sex marriage are in fact rejecting the historic, biblical standard set out in Scripture and taught by the church for thousands of years. We could apply these standards to any number of loaded terms that different folks lob like grenades at one another. (Some have argued that I have used terms like “neo-fundamentalism/ist” in this way. I have tried to define and use these terms technically and not pejoratively, but I’m still open to correction on this point. For times I have acted in an unloving way, I ask for forgiveness).
Here’s the upshot: We need to stop letting the culture dictate terms. As Lesslie Newbigin said, “What if instead of trying to explain the gospel in terms of our culture, we tried to explain our culture in terms of the gospel?” While we can appreciate and even appropriate cultural language to explain the gospel, we must also draw a line with the authority of biblical truth and say, “Thus far and no further.”
What if we traded the grenades of “conservative” and “woke” and the whole armory of terms we’ve taken from the culture war and instead continued to reclaim in earnest the heritage of Christian terminology for both our beliefs and for our Christian brothers and sisters? I’m not talking about pasting on some cheap clichés, holding hands and singing kumbaya, but instead merely acknowledging that words and names matter and we should use them carefully and kindly.
Because I’m certain that the Father doesn’t enjoy watching his kids call each other names.