[City Journal] The Theology of Identity Politics

Wokeness runs counter to God’s plan, but also to liberal politics. J. Mitchell offers a lucid look at what has become a fully religious phenomenon, though not as novel as we tend to think.

American Awakening: Identity Politics and Other Afflictions of Our Time. By Joshua Mitchell. Encounter Books; 242 pages; $28.99.

“The Amazon, New York Times bestseller lists […] all had books about the racial injustices in our system as people seek to know what the facts of them are”. Now Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s credentials were so immaculate that an attempt to derail her otherwise impressive performance at her confirmation hearings was made by reference not to her actual command of criminal law, but to what the mass of Amazon customers and NYT readers have been made to understand its injustices to be. Beyond its ochlocratic undertones, the tactic deployed by Sen. Booker [D-NJ] was deeply revealing of identity politics and the moral paradigm it embeds — the constant presumption against the “oppressors”, the moral high ground accrued from claiming the mantle of “victim” and the injustices allegedly so glaring that merely hyperventilating about them spares one the need to actually verbalize them.

Continue reading the entire piece at City Journal here.