A little over fifty years ago China was having a Cultural Revolution. The stated goal of what became a decade of chaos and madness, was to reinforce Communism in China by removing any traces of capitalist, traditional, and cultural elements from Chinese society. Young people were employed as Red Guards to cause havoc. Historical sites were destroyed. Those who didn’t tow the line were denounced, shamed, and re-educated. It created untold damage and left many people dead, psychologically harmed, and the economy in tatters. Ironically, even though the political ideology has remained totalitarian, China later embraced a capitalist economy.
Why is this relevant to us in 2022? The reason is because there are many similarities to the Woke cultural revolution which is taking place in the West today.
When I lived in China in the 1990s and read about some of the bizarre and crazy things that took place during Chairman Mao’s cultural revolution, I never imagined that similar non-sensical things could ever happen here in the West. But, we are witnessing today some equally unbelievable changes taking place.
Cultural Marxist Roadmap
To really understand what is going on and why, we need to know something about another Communist, an Italian philosopher, Antonio Gramsci. Gramsci wrote a series of essays and books while he was imprisoned by Italian fascists in the 1920s/30s. His Prison Notebooks birthed Cultural Marxism and set out the roadmap to enable Communism to take hold in Western nations.1 Essentially, it involved a two-stage process. Firstly, destroy the current cultural norms and worldview. Then, seize power.
Break Down Culture
To prepare the way for cultural revolution, all the elements of the existing traditional culture have to be undermined. It will be impossible for anything new to take root unless what is already in the soil of society is dug up. Existing roots to the prevailing worldview have to be cut.
In China, the old culture, old ideas, old customs, and old habits (‘the 4 Olds’) were broken down. Chinese architecture and classical literature was destroyed. The cemetery of Confucius was vandalised. Teachers were sent to re-education camps. People were shamed and publicly humiliated and physically attacked if they didn’t comply with the ‘new thinking’. Propaganda and Mao’s re-education was disseminated through his ‘Little Red Book’ of sayings which students had to learn and recite daily.
In recent years we have seen the introduction of political correctness and speech censorship. This is moving towards the censorship of thought. We have seen the tearing down of statues, monuments, and other historical icons and symbols. We have seen a redefinition of marriage, gender, and identity. We have seen objectivity and absolute truth replaced with relativism and individual ‘truth’.
For decades the traditional nuclear family has undergone a seismic attack. As a key cultural centre and purveyor of core values, the family has to be disrupted and dismantled. Definitions that used to be no-brainers (e.g. what is a woman?) are now difficult to explain. All traditionally held views must be critiqued and deconstructed. During China’s cultural revolution, people had to attend self-criticism meetings and publicly announce their ‘crimes’ while paraded wearing dunce caps. Today, those who don’t change their views will be ‘cancelled’ and ‘de-platformed’. They will also be demonised and accused of being bigots, racists, phobic, and even fascist.
Education curriculum is now saturated with Critical Theory (the driving force of Cultural Marxism) and diversity training. If you are white and male then you have ‘white privilege’ and are guilty of oppression. In China, Mao criticised the dominant Han Chinese referring to ‘Han chauvinism’. Grievances are stoked up among groups that feel oppressed (e.g. women, blacks, gays). These people must see themselves as the victims that need to be liberated. They are immune from criticism. Society is therefore divided into the oppressors (who can never be victims) and the oppressed.
Gradual Takeover
Gramsci understood that to have revolution, you first had to take over the pillars or spheres of society – churches, education, media, literature, music, visual arts, and so on. You had to win ‘cultural hegemony’ (rulership) over a nation. It was a long-term strategy, ‘the long march through the institutions’, a reference to Mao’s Long March to eventual victory in the Chinese Civil War.
Violence was not necessary, but culture had to be infiltrated and captured through non-coercive means. Society’s collective mind could be transformed gradually over a period of a few generations. Education is key and redefining norms early in children is essential. The aim is to get people to think and feel for themselves that certain values and practices, such as same-sex marriage and gender fluidity/identity, are common sense, fair and even natural. It is classic indoctrination.
Church Awake not Woke
So where does this leave the Church? Firstly, Christians need to be informed about what is happening. We cannot afford to be ignorant and passive. An over-spirituality that remains in some Christian ghetto will one day be shocked that the freedoms once enjoyed will no longer be tolerated. The Church must wake-up and recognise that while it has been sleeping, the enemy has sowed tares (Matt. 13:25). Judeo-Christian roots have been cut. The institutional churches have all been ‘captured’. This ideology aims to eliminate Judeo-Christian values from Western culture. It is a modern-day Tower of Babel.
Secondly, as Christians we need to be discipled effectively so we can once again teach and disciple our cultures and nations that the best way for human and societal flourishing is by embracing Jesus’ revolutionary new world order, the kingdom of God. Wokeness is often associated with social justice which can appear to be something Christians should support. However, social justice is not biblical justice. Woke ideology is often inconsistent and sometimes hostile to the Bible. White people are not inherently racist because of their skin colour. The issue is not skin, but sin!
Revolution at the Cross
The gospel is that we are all one in Christ Jesus. Jesus offers forgiveness and redemption, and the hope of new creation. The message of the cross is foolishness. But it is the great leveller. It is the one place where our fallen humanity is exposed. But also where God is able to lift us up and truly set us and our culture free!
1 Gramsci’s ideas influenced the Frankfurt School which developed critical theory and seeks the overthrow of capitalist societies.
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