Secular comfort is the inclination to look to the culture within which you live for relief and reassurance as you struggle with the difficulties of life or as you consider the plight of those whose struggles lead them to venture from the path that God has set out for them. Our culture is rampant with wokeism today as some have substituted empathy for love. We do need to be compassionate as we encounter those facing life’s difficulties but not to the point that we dismiss the love that God has called us to visit on others. Love looks to the “good” of the other and the “good” might not be the path that the other has chosen. Love peers behind the poverty, the physical or mental disability or the addiction and seeks to assist the other to face their struggles by rediscovering the path that God has chosen for them for God has chosen a path for each of us.
Of course, the culture today is a culture that is in many ways “godless” and those who do not know God or have rejected Him are left with just empathy when it comes to social justice issues. In observing those issues, they don’t do so through the lens of love that Jesus taught which is a love characterized by an unconditional, self-sacrificial agape love rather than a manipulation of God’s law to fit the individual’s choice when they have chosen to divert from the path chosen for them. These issues are supported by faith and for those who don’t have faith empathy becomes the gateway to wokeism. What is scary about this development is the degree to which we are prompted to utilize social engineering to assist the empathetic impulse. In the absence of faith and the realization that there is a path for each of us, we tend to widen the gateway to accommodate the person facing life’s difficulties rather than speaking the truth to them and helping them to relocate their path. In Canada many of our politicians have taken on the woke mantle even if they profess faith principles in their private life. What they don’t appear to realize is that they are failing to look to the “good” of the other as they parade these woke values and therefore, they are failing to love as Jesus taught us to love.
In the Public School system, the Sogie program is a good example of how the gateway is being widened. While no one should object to the program attacking the issue of bullying in the school system, gender identification is another issue and the program is being forced on those whose faith requires that the issues be addressed within the context of their faith commitment and many teachers in the school system have the attitude that they know better than the parents and they are determined to teach the Sogie values whether they have the support of parents or not. It is this type of apparent “mind control” that is forcing some parents to remove their children from the Public School System.
As Christians we have an obligation to practice love in the way that Jesus taught us and that is to look to the good of the individual. In doing so we must recognize that not everyone has the gift of faith and for those who are impoverished in matters of faith we recognize their handicap whether they recognize it or not. This calls us out of love to share Jesus with those who do not know Him and to call out those fellow Christians who take the easy way out by not witnessing to what they know is the truth to appease the uninformed.
