Awaken

Are you awake?  Are your spiritual senses sharp?  We have to recognize that there is a battle occurring between light and darkness, truth and fiction, and God's Word helps us to be sharp in
thinking and speaking Biblically. Romans 13 states:
(11) ...now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed.
12 The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light.
13 Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy.
14 But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.

People are not our enemy, but the enemy of our souls brings people's minds under his control.  We have to watch that he doesn't use his influence to deceive us, as well.  There are those who are supposedly "enlightened," who follow the tenets of the one who disguises himself as an "angel of light," according to 2nd Corinthians 11.  We must identify ideas that are contrary to Scripture and speak truth in a compelling and compassionate way, with a firmness in our convictions, on a foundation built on Christ's principles.

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We are in a world that is full of spiritual warfare, and there are ideas that are inspired by God that conflict with those that are contrary to His ways - forces generating and driving the ideas.  And, we
are called to walk in the light. Ephesians 5 says:
11 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them.
12 For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret.
13 But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light.
14 Therefore He says: "Awake, you who sleep, Arise from the dead, And Christ will give you light."

I talk often about what messages that the media culture is attempting to send to us.  A recent story on The Guardian website mentions of few examples of what might be termed, "socially conscious" advertising.  One example the story uses is an ad for Airbnb that includes the words: “We believe no matter who you are, where you’re from, who you love, or who you worship, we all belong.”

This is just one example of how companies are attempting to reach younger people through their ads, by offering a "progressive" point of view.  The author of the Guardian article, who writes from a liberal perspective, it seems, Alissa Quart, writes:

...advertisers are constantly looking for future markets, and younger Americans are ostensibly more liberal than their parents. Brand loyalty starts in the cradle and ends in the grave, as I wrote in my first book, Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers. The increasingly progressive messages in marketing campaigns are clearly a mercenary attempt to entice millennials: they are trying to be “woke”.

Quart spoke with urbanist Richard L Florida about this, and wrote: "He thinks that these ads are reflecting a bifurcated country, one with different consumer tastes and different amounts to spend on said tastes: the Whole Foods shopper and the plain old grocery shopper, the 'creative class' member who drives the cliche Prius versus the equally cliche rancher driving the pickup truck.

But, Rob Briacco, a creative executive at the BAM Connection thinks that these “issue” ads "may warm the hearts of millennials," but he also says they are highly suspect”. Quart writes:

He highlighted the fakery of their woke-ness: “Companies are avidly and aggressively trying to get involved in a socially responsible space, and they are doing it horribly – they are grabbing at straws.

Briacco adds, “Sometimes...a Pringle is just a Pringle.”

So, it appears that this concept of being "woke," or the state of "wokeness" has something to do with social consciousness, being aware, in an enlightened sense.  A past generation might use the phrase "with it."  Millennials, in their quest to show their socially conscious bent, have coined that word and that concept.  The word is now on the MTV list of top 10 teen slang words.  And, pop star Katy Perry, in her pursuit toward reflecting a socially conscious rebranding, has come to be associated with that word, as in to be more "woke."  

There are actually two threads I wanted to explore:  One is the thought that there is a significant segment of the younger generation that is obsessed with matters of social re-engineering.  What has worked before isn't good enough, and now there is an expressed desire to turn things upside down. And, the more "enlightened" ones of the millennial generation embrace a variety of issues, many of which contradict the teachings of the Scriptures.  And, just a hunch, while people are now condemning and congratulating Katy Perry's quest to be "woke," there just may be a conflict between her Christian upbringing and finding an image that is  - well, not in line with that background.  Call it cognitive dissonance, if you will...that's at least what I'm picking up from the amateur analysts of the Internet.  

But, as these advertisers believe, and I do believe have a point about, there is a yearning among many for something outside of themselves, a greater cause, a reason to exist, a desire to belong; I don't necessarily think that is germaine to the 18-35-year-old demographic. That's the second thread - for the Christian, we don't need to be "woke," in the progressive sense, just awakened.  Because, perhaps we have been asleep to what is going on around us.  

We need to have an awakening of discernment and an awakening of realizing that God's truth provides the answers to the yearning of the heart, an antidote to the emptiness that many are seeking to fill.  The so-called "enlightened" ones turn their back on religious practice, but what has occurred is that they are duped by spiritual forces, influencing them to think that unbiblical social causes will somehow make the world a better place.  What makes the world a better place is not the empty philosophy of humanity, but a relationship with a living God.  Want to change the world?  A change of heart, or better said, a change in the human heart, can help people realize that there is Someone who is greater than themselves.