When someone tells me what it takes to be ‘woke,’ I have to pause. Because I don’t want to be asleep to injustice. I want to be awake to compassion, awake to wisdom, awake to the God who reminds us we are all one.
This is a statement that was said to me that I believe many people would agree with, “to be “woke” it’s necessary to give in to the idea that white people deserve less and non white people deserve different things based on only their skin tone instead of us all just being treated equally.”
What I have to say is that there’s still a lot of talk right now about dismantling DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion). Some say equality is enough — everyone is treated “the same.” But equality and equity are not the same thing.
- Equality gives everyone the same box to stand on.
- Equity notices that some people need more, some less, so that all can actually see over the fence.
- Justice asks: why is the fence there at all?
Additionally, this was also stated, “you can’t be “woke” if you have to believe that every person in this world has the right to enter any other territory without permission or advanced notice to anyone else.”
What I have to say to this is that it’s easy to say we believe in love and fairness. But too often what we practice is selective care: compassion for our own group, suspicion toward the stranger. Selective love says: “I will help those who look like me, believe like me, come from where I come from.”
Yet scripture, wisdom texts, and even the story of this land tell us differently.
- Hebrews calls us to welcome the stranger, for in doing so “some have entertained angels unaware.”
- Jesus calls us to love even our enemies.
- Our own history reminds us this land was not empty when our ancestors arrived. It was stewarded by Native peoples who were displaced and often destroyed.
If we forget that history, then turn around and refuse to welcome those who come here now from other lands, what story are we living?
Unconditional love is harder — it asks us to see the image of the Divine, the spark of Wisdom, the dignity of humanity in every person. It asks us to remember: we are guests too.
Every nation has the right to set boundaries. But the way we treat people at those boundaries defines who we are.
A compassionate border recognizes the humanity of those arriving — families, children, seekers of safety. It uses order, yes, but with dignity, care, and fairness.
A cruel border treats people as threats before it sees them as human. It relies on cages, brutality, fear, and separation. And cruelty always grows violence: it hardens hearts, deepens desperation, and sows division.
When we foster compassion, we strengthen community. When we foster cruelty, we fracture it.
The choice is not between chaos and cruelty. The choice is whether we will see our neighbors as humans with stories — or reduce them to problems at a line in the sand.
History has shown: walls may divide, but they never heal. Only compassion can do that.
The question for us isn’t whether we can “afford” equity or compassion. The question is: can we afford to live without them?
Finally, this statement is another I would like to address, “you can’t be “woke” unless you believe that a man can become a woman or vice versa through surgeries or just claiming it to be so… you can’t be “woke” if you don’t support a woman’s right to kill her unborn child,”
What I say is a reference to Galatians 3:28, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” Early Christian communities were reminded that divisions of gender, class, or ethnicity were not ultimate in God’s kingdom. Since I am strictly staying within the canonical Bible here I won’t include what Jesus had to say in the Gospel of Thomas, Mary and Phillip but if you are curious, it is in the Gnostic Gospels, the ones that King James thought too threatening to include in the Canonical Bible…
As for the rest of the statement, the Bible doesn’t really mention abortion; however, we can see in Numbers 5:11-31 that discusses ‘bitter water’ for a suspected adulteress that includes a ritual that may cause miscarriage if she is guilty indicating that induced miscarriage (abortion) was not always treated as murder. Though this is deeply patriarchal and).
None-the-less, creating law based on religious ideology for a nation is dangerous and creating laws that are, in design, for selected portion of people (women) is warned against in the Bible. We see it in Exodus 1 where Pharaoh oppressed the Hebrews and forced them into harsh labor because their population was growing. This is a picture of a government controlling a targeted population based on fear…sound familiar?
Isaiah 10:1-2 – “Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless.” This is an example of condemnation of laws written to favor one group and harm the vulnerable.
I can (and will) continue! Acts 5:29…“We must obey God rather than any human authority.”
Revelation 13…A vision of the empire as “the beast,” demanding allegiance and crushing dissent.
At the end of the day, these debates aren’t just about politics, policies, or labels like “woke.” They’re about how we see one another. Do we choose fear, or do we choose love? Do we build fences higher, or do we remember that every person bears the image of God? Scripture doesn’t let us off the hook — it calls us to equity, to compassion, and to resist laws that crush the vulnerable. To be awake is not to be partisan. To be awake is to be human, and to remember that justice and mercy are the heartbeat of God.
And this is not only a Christian conviction:
- Buddhist teaching reminds us that compassion (karuṇā) is the path to liberation and that to harm another is to harm ourselves.
- Humanist values affirm the dignity and worth of every person, insisting that equality and justice are essential for a flourishing humanity.
- Pagan traditions honor the web of life, teaching that what we do to one strand of the web we do to the whole.
- And common decency whispers the same truth: we all know, deep down, that kindness heals and cruelty destroys.
Different voices, same wisdom: Love without condition, seek justice without exception, and remember that our humanity is bound together.
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