Is Wokeism really secular heretical Christianity rather than neo-Marxism?

When his mother Mary is told by the Archangel Gabriel that she is pregnant, she says, "He hath put down the mighty from their seat: and hath exalted the humble and meek."

Jesus says at another place, "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."

So Wokeness places the underprivileged and the "victims" in an elevated position. And while this might in some cases feel just and right, it is a secularised misreading of words and concepts that underpin modern activism.

These words have lost their original sacred meaning, and to understand that meaning we need to understand better the world in which Jesus lived.

There were few, if any, atheists in the pagan world. Everyone believed in gods.

It was common to be careful with the gods and goddesses and make frequent sacrifices to them in a way we moderns would see as close to mere superstition-they could involve money or food, sometimes the sacrifice was consumed as a meal, or it might be burned and destroyed altogether.

The word "sacrifice" derives from the Latin words for sacred and work. Sacrifice was to do sacred work. The victim, "victima" in Latin, was the animal or person to be sacrificed.

Sacrifice didn't mean just to give something up, and victim didn't mean someone to whom something bad happened.

Those meanings came only recently, as the words were traditionally used to emphasise the seriousness of an event, or to ironically exaggerate it.

While soldiers might sacrifice themselves on the altar of patriotism - a use of the word which imparts gravity - you can be a victim of your own success, or sacrifice a point in a tennis match, phrases which play around ironically with the concepts.

Wokeness takes the Christian awe of the sacrificial victim, and transfers it to secular victims, valorising them, and lifting them up.

The Jews had a more modern religious system than the pagans who dominated the ancient world. They had only one God, he was so abstract you weren't allowed to say his name, he was the Creator of the world, and he represented the highest order, good and justice.