Ferndale will resist the woke.

Recounting the first time he heard of hippies and marijuana, Dave Renner said, “what is taboo for one generation, the next generation tolerates and the third generation accepts as normal.” (71 Reunion Committee & Our Story Staff, “Riders on The Storm,” Our Story: The Ferndale Museum, 42 no. 3 [May-June 2021]: 7.) This is how it seems to work, isn’t it? And not just with social taboos, but with morals, too.

Charles Spurgeon described what Mr. Renner observed another way. He said, “The house is being robbed… but the good people who are in bed are too fond of the warmth, and too much afraid of getting broken heads, to go downstairs and meet the burglars….” (Owen Strachan, Christianity and Wokeness [Washington D.C.: Salem Books, 2021], 205.)

Spurgeon’s words present toleration and the acceptance of sin in terms of contented selfishness and cowardice.

The words attributed to Edmund Burke address moral creep in yet another way. “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Amen! And Ferndale has them. Good men. That’s why I’m confident we will resist the wokeness that has infected our country. We have too many good men to tolerate and accept Marxism as the norm. I can already hear them getting out of bed, heading downstairs, and meeting the woke burglars where they stand.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

Like Communism, wokeness derives from the ideas of Karl Marx. It’s “an activist social religion [that] specializes in mobilization. It creates a false society-wide sin pattern, raises the alarm to solve it, marshals support from the public square, and then agitates for sweeping social and cultural change to combat it,” (Strachan, Christianity and Wokeness, 203). You might say that the woke rally cry urges Ferndalers to be indivisible in a way that marches to that ol’ Marxian maxim, workers of the world, unite! (Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto, Gutenberg, January 25, 2005. https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/61/pg61.html)

But as I said, good men are already out of bed. They can hear the woke doublespeak. They have recognized that wokeness is not about unity, equality, or justice. They see that it is divisive and that it encourages neighbors to despise one another. They recognize that it promotes a pride that condemns people who have different thoughts and how it robs us all of joy and peace. They see that it directs us away from the Gospel of Jesus Christ, makes us bitter, traps us in error, makes it difficult for forgiveness and mercy to prevail in our hearts, and distracts us from God’s presence. (Strachan, Christianity and Wokeness, 201-202.)

Good people in Ferndale have begun to see the truth and many of them are already in action. They are countering wokeness by returning to the values upon which Ferndale was built.

If you are not afraid to confront the burglars, then Owen Strachon offers advice on how to combat wokeness.

1. Be a happy member of a local church. The local church is where we see that the Gospel saves people of every background, sin pattern, and skin color. It is the place of true unity, equality, and justice.
2. Be salt and light. Anywhere you see it, fight injustice. Anywhere you can, spread the hope of Christ to your neighbors.
3. If needed, make the hard decision to leave a compromised church. Respectfully express your concerns to your pastor and elders, pray for them, and if they do not repent of woke preaching and teaching, find a local church that has not been taken captive by a false gospel.
4. Protect and help your children. Raise your children in the church. Don’t assume your child is being trained well by others. Take ownership of their education, whether secular or spiritual. Model the Christian faith for them.
5. Pray daily for the church and the world. Give your greatest effort to preserving and strengthening the church. The Christian faith is a public faith. Live it for all to see.

If you would like further guidance on how to resist wokeness in Ferndale, Owen Strachon’s book, Christianity and Wokeness, is available at Chapman’s Bookery. Or you can connect with me via the contact [page].

Your servant in Christ,

Pastor Bramwell