The decline of “woke” is here, but what comes next?

Evangelicals like me have been on the losing side of the culture wars for decades. The sexual “revolution,” rise of LGBTQ ideology, legalization of abortion and same-sex marriage, proliferation of online pornography, legitimization of prostitution and polygamy, escalation of adultery and divorce—the list goes on.

But things are changing.

In his 2024 book The Third Awokening, Eric Kaufmann, a professor of politics at the University of Buckingham in England, described his damaging personal experiences with the liberalism and cancel culture of “woke” ideology. A year later, he is able to write a new Wall Street Journal article titled, “Welcome to the Post-Progressive Political Era.”

Dr. Kaufmann documents the retreat of DEI mandates, a “substantial rightward shift among young people from 2021–24,” and a rising backlash against transgender medicine and men in women’s sports. In addition, declining birth rates, crises in youth mental health, and rising deaths of despair show that cultural progressivism is “part of the problem rather than the solution.”

Then he asks: “We are leaving the age of progressive confidence, but what will replace it?”

The question is obviously critical to our national future. You and I can answer it in the only way that changes souls and transforms culture for the glory of God.

“America stands at the crossroads of her national destiny”

Billy Graham once warned:

Christianity to many people has faded into mere form, lost its relevance to life, and holds no central allegiance in our lives. When a nation loses its faith, it loses its character. When it loses its character, it loses its purpose for living. And when it loses its purpose for living, it loses its will to survive.

I am convinced that America stands at the crossroads of her national destiny. One road leads to destruction, and the other leads to prosperity and security. Most are going down the broad road that leads to destruction. We are going the way of Rome rather than the way of the cross.

Many will blame the Republicans or the Democrats. But it is the American people as individuals that should take the blame. We backslide as individuals before we begin to decay as a nation. 

Dr. Graham wrote these words in 1958, the year of my birth. Across my lifetime, I have seen our nation slide much further down the moral slope of which he warned, as I noted earlier.

We can blame those who champion such immorality, but it’s a fact that lost people act like lost people. So did you and I. We ought not be surprised: “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14).

Suppose, however, that a group of people knows better but does not do better, that God calls them to be the “salt of the earth” but have lost their “taste” and effectiveness by compromising with what they are supposed to be converting (Matthew 5:13). Are they not significantly to blame for the demise of their culture?

If they live by the Bible and share its truth but are rejected, that’s one thing. If they do not do both, the fault is not with the message but with the messenger (or lack thereof).

“When God is all in all”

My purpose today is not to inflict guilt. Rather, it is to point to a way forward by sharing an insight I recently found to be both encouraging and empowering.

On Maundy Thursday, Jesus told his disciples, “A new commandment I give you, that you love one another” (John 13:34a). The famed theologian St. Augustine (AD 354–430) asked, “Wasn’t this commandment already part of the ancient law of God, where it is written ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself?’ Why, then, is it called a new one by the Lord, when it is really so old?”

Then he notes the rest of Jesus’ statement, “just as I have loved you, you are to love one another” (v. 34b) and comments: “This is the love that renews us, makes us new men, heirs of the New Testament, singers of the new song.” When we experience Jesus’ love, we are transformed into his character (Romans 8:29) and empowered to love others “just as” he loves us.

Augustine noted that such people:

…love one another as those who belong to God. All of them are children of the Most High and consequently brethren of his only Son. They share with each other the love with which he leads them to the end that will bring them fulfillment and the true satisfaction of their real desires. For when God is all in all, there is no desire that is unfulfilled.

Imagine Christians around the world experiencing Jesus’ love in such a joyful, transforming way and then loving others as sacrificially, unconditionally, and passionately as Jesus loves us. No wonder he could promise, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).

“Remember what you are saved for”

Here’s the practical response to which we are called today:

Ask the Holy Spirit to help you experience Jesus’ love so fully that you love him in return and thus love people as he loves people and hate sin as he hates sin.

We treat well those we love; we typically refuse what we hate. When we hate sin as Jesus does and love people as he loves us, how can our world be the same? How can people not be drawn to Christ in us as they were drawn to Christ incarnate (cf. Matthew 4:25)?

Oswald Chambers was adamant: “Remember what you are saved for—that the Son of God might be manifested in your mortal flesh.” Consider the difference Jesus made in the world by himself. Now imagine if the world had two billion “little Christs,” or two million, or even two dozen.

Why not you and me?

Why not now?

Quote for the day:

“The same Jesus who turned water into wine can transform your home, your life, your family, and your future. He is still in the miracle-working business, and his business is the business of transformation.” —Adrian Rogers

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