How to make sure your church is as woke as Jesus (book excerpt)

This is an excerpt from Chapter 6 of the new book "The Babylon Bee Guide to Wokeness."
 
Do you go to church? We won’t hold that against you, as long as your church is WOKE. Churches, with their dynamic leaders and pliable populations, can be powerful woke allies! Since wokeness requires abandoning the white Western values of logic and reason in favor of fanatical religious fervor, wokeness can be right at home with religious Christians who have decided their God wants them to be WOKE.

Why should Christians be woke? Easy! Jesus was the wokest person who ever lived! Just think about it.

How we know Jesus was woke

He was a brown man and a refugee:

Major intersectional points here. We also heard rumors that He may have been a person of size.

He fed five thousand people by raiding a nearby village and forcing them to pay their fair share:

Jesus was the original activist for food justice. And He fed the people bread and fish, completely avoiding climate change–causing red meat!

He refused to slut-shame the woman at the well or the woman caught in adultery: 

Our favorite part of this Bible story was the part when He organized the first slut-walk parade for all the temple prostitutes.

He held a political rally and inflamed the masses to seize control of the means of production:

What more proof do you need that Jesus was a tried-and-true socialist? This is definitely our favorite Bible story.

He punched a Nazi: 

The Gospel of Marx records this beautiful story of the Lord punching Nazis and then telling them to turn the other cheek for more beating.

He compassionately put the sick and blind on Obamacare plans:

One of the main reasons people believed Jesus was the Messiah was His amazing miracle of putting people on sensible ACA plans.

He hung out with tax collectors to thank them for their work: 

It’s thought that Jesus hung out with tax collectors to get them to repent of their thievery. But this is wrong. Jesus actually was thanking them for their valuable redistributive services.

Jesus distributed loaves and fish to everyone and then declared Himself General Secretary and sent millions of people to die in the Israeli gulags:

Jesus distributed the food equally, after making everyone wait in a sixteen-hour-long breadline. Then, it was the gulag for the non-believers!

Jesus went into an airplane hangar, overturned all the jets, and then demanded high-speed rail instead:

People think of Jesus as a gentle, kind soul, but He showed righteous anger sometimes, like in this narrative where He flipped over all the fuel-guzzling, carbon-heavy jets and threw His support behind the Green New Deal.

He also forcefully took 90 percent of the rich young ruler’s earnings and created free healthcare for all:

A lot of people think this narrative was to show the high cost of following Jesus, but it was actually to show how we should tax the rich by force in order to pay for healthcare and free internet.

In a powerful statement, Jesus triumphantly entered Jerusalem while driving an environmentally friendly Prius:

This was a powerful statement declaring Himself to be the Messiah and also really woke.

When Lazarus died, Jesus raised him from the dead so he could vote Democrat: 

Jesus performed this miracle a few times, raising hordes of people from the dead and leading them straight over to the voting booth so they could cast their vote for a Democratic candidate. Democrats are following in His footsteps and are still performing this miracle today.

Other woke Bible characters

It wasn’t just Jesus who was woke: take a look at these great examples of Bible characters who were woke AF:

Lucifer – He rebelled against the original patriarch and liberated himself. Lucifer is the original woke hero!

Eve – Lucifer's first student, she founded the women's liberation movement. Ain't no one gonna tell her what to do! You go, girl!

Pharaoh of Egypt - He set up hundreds of compassionate women's healthcare facilities in urban Hebrew areas to help them take care of their firstborns.

Onan – He pioneered birth control. We'll leave it at that. Go ask your parents.

Jezebel – She hunted down crazy prophets who were spreading a ton of fake news.

Pharisees – They pioneered the enforcement of strict social-distancing laws. Way to go, guys!

The robbers who beat up the traveler in the story of the good Samaritan – They were just protesting their oppression. We applaud their bravery.

The prodigal son – At least until he chickened out and came back to his overbearing dad.

The antichrist – A dedicated globalist hero who pioneers tracking technology for everyone's safety.

The harlot riding the beast – Refused to be slut-shamed. Slay, queen!

Ehud – Stabbed his sword right into a fat king, which is basically the patriarchy personified.

Mary Magdalene – Mostly for being a prostitute. She went downhill after that.

What does the Bible say?

These well-known Bible versesoffer pretty good proof too. Please note: these verses have been updated for correct thinking.

Blessed are those who don’t feel like working, for they shall be given free money.  – Matthew 5:8

Man looks upon the outward appearance, and so does God because He’s not colorblind.      –1 Samuel 16:7

What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and nobody seizes his riches?                – Matthew 16:26

In the image of the primordial soup created He him, black-skinned and white-skinned, created He them. – Genesis 1:27

Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, namely everything. – Mark 12:17

But I say unto you, love yourself, and cancel those who spew hate speech. – Matthew 5:44

In my Father’s house, there are many genders. I go to prepare a racially segregated safe space for you. – John 14:2

Learn to do good; seek social justice, correct systemic oppression; bring social justice to the fatherless, and plead the queer Palestinian’s cause. – Isaiah 1:17

After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude from every tribe, tongue, nation, skin color, sexual orientation, and gender identity, standing before the throne of God, for He had instituted a diversity quota in heaven. – Revelation 7:9

In spite of the fact that God doesn’t exist and the Bible is an ancient document that we should not look to for guidance, it’s clear that God and the Bible both tell you to be woke — so you should obey and be woke. It’s as simple as that!

How to guide your church on its woke journey

What follows is a guide to leading your church into deeper levels of wokeness. (IMPORTANT: If your church is new at this, only start with racial and political wokeness. Leave gender theory to the side for now. Once your church is thoroughly woke in the area of race and politics, it will be easier to transition to sexual wokeness. Patience, comrade!)

Go through the entire Bible and find every use of the word “justice.” Then simplyinsertthewokebuzzwordssuchas“social”inthere

“Learn to do good; seek [social] justice, correct [systemic] oppression; bring [social] justice to the fatherless, and plead the [queer Palestinian] widow’s cause” (Isaiah 1:17).

“But let [social] justice roll on like a river, and [race-conscious] righteousness like a never-failing stream [of wealth redistribution]!” (Amos 5:24).

Social justice pretty much means the opposite of boring old regular justice, but most of the people in church don’t know that. Just throw out these verses and they’ll follow right along!

Fire all the white male pastors and replace them with women and people of color

If you attend the average white American church, you have been given an incomplete Gospel. A complete Gospel can only be attained by hearing from a diverse set of voices and lived experiences! Jesus never meant for you to sit under the preaching of some white guy as he preaches from the Bible; He meant for you to gather in diverse spaces and imagine a better tomorrow as a community of radical socialists! Theology doesn’t matter when choosing your new church leadership. The most important thing is that you hear from marginalized voices who will enrich your understanding of other truths.

Keep in mind, if you try to correct the theology of a woman or person of color, that is an ungodly imposition of power. Jesus would never do something like that. Your white Christianity is only one way to understand the Gospel.

After you hire your new staff, learn to keep quiet and LISTEN. Make sure you hire marginalized people with a good understanding of liberation theology/communism. If you hire marginalized people who don’t like liberation theology, they are fake marginalized people who have assimilated into whiteness. Such people should not be trusted.

Remember, the end goal here is to be like Jesus by turning your regular church into a communist indoctrination center. That’s what the Gospel is all about!

Ask God to return all the guilt and shame He took away when all your white members became Christians

Are you white? Did God take away your guilt and shame? Yup, that was a mistake. He needs to give that back. Guilt and shame are important tools to ensure your congregation remains silent as you make these changes in the church.

Make sure to preach long sermons on the collective guilt of whiteness until your church members feel totally rotten about all the bad things other white people did in the past. The great thing about collective guilt is it can’t be forgiven without collective action! Unlike individual sins that people can confess to God, collective sins can only be atoned for by gathering together as a collective political movement to correct perceived power imbalances! Placing a heavy burden on your white members will ensure they keep eating out of your hand in hopes of relieving that guilt. As Jesus said:

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you additional burdens! Take my yoke upon you and learn by reading White Fragility, and listening to the lived experiences of marginalized people, for I am a revolutionary liberator, and you will find white guilt for your souls. For my yoke is a burden and it’s not light” (Matthew 11:28–30).

Segregate your worship center

Yes, the Bible says every “tribe, tongue, and nation” will worship around the throne, but it never says they will do it together in the same space. Seriously, that would be insane! Whiteness is an inherently hostile presence that always wants to invade spaces meant for marginalized people. Since God is woke, we know He would never erase oppressed people by forcing them to mix and assimilate with white oppressors in His Kingdom. Segregation is SACRED to God. Race is SACRED in God’s Kingdom. Your church should look just like the Kingdom.

Make the transition from the Bible to peer-reviewed sociology books

Now that you’ve used the Bible to make your church more woke, your church is ready to start listening to REAL wisdom from peer-reviewed sociologists. The academic peer-review system is widely known as the most reliable source of divine truth and is infallible in all its teachings. If someone who is not peer-reviewed attempts to teach you, let him be anathema, for he is a wolf in sheep’s clothing — and probably a white supremacist.

Finally, never stop progressing.

The revolutionary’s work is never done. If you’re careful and patient, you will transform your church from a bastion of white supremacy to a powerful political liberation movement! It worked with the Catholic Church in Venezuela, and today Venezuela is an oasis of socialist equity and fairness. Transform your church and be on the right side of history. You can do it!!!

Advertising your wokeness

Now that your church is WOKE, it’s time to let everyone know! We know you religious types love to virtue signal, right? Here are ten ways to proclaim your church’s wokeness:

• Set up a wacky, wild, and inflatable arm-flailing tube man outside that says “Black Lives Matter” on it

• Preach your entire sermon while taking a knee

• Replace the cross on your steeple with a giant raised fist

• Have the worship team lead the congregation in singing “Imagine” by John Lennon

• Have an indigenous worship Sunday complete with war paint and totem poles

• Drag Queen Sunday School Hour! (advanced stages of wokeness only)

• Have the entire church kneel before a giant black square

• Replace all the pictures of white Jesus with pictures of black Jesus

• Go into town to smash windows for justice while inviting people to church

• Replace all Bibles with the latest Robin DiAngelo book

Your church is a powerful means of wokeness.

It should be obvious by now that it’s totally cool to be a Christian — as long as you put wokeness first.

There was a wise (and woke) old philosopher named Screwtape, and here’s what he had to say about this:

“We do want, and want very much, to make men treat Christianity as a means; preferably, of course, as a means to their own advancement, but, failing that,asameanstoanything––evento social justice. The thing to do is to get a man at first to value social justice as a thing which the Enemy [God] demands, and then work him on to the stage at which he values Christianity because it may produce social justice. For the Enemy will not be used as a convenience.”

Wow — this guy was pretty smart! That’s exactly what Christianity is good for: making people care about our pet causes.

Now it’s time to go to church! Or not. Whatever. We really don’t care.