Wake Up, Look Up

Hello, everyone. Thanks for listening to Wake Up, Look Up, a podcast where we connect events happening in real time to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Zach Weihrauch. In today's episode, we're throwing it back. And what I mean by that is this summer, a few times, we're gonna take a look back at some of our most popular episodes.

And now almost the year we've been doing wake up look up and ask ourselves, what have we learned from those? And in particular, what did the conversation around those episodes elicit from you, our listeners. And in today's episode, we're throwing it back to when we looked at Oklahoma and the state superintendent there requiring a bible in every classroom, and for every classroom up until the twelfth grade to include connecting the bible to their subject matter. Now this is one of our most popular episodes. Over a thousand people watched the video alone, not to mention the audio, and it elicited on YouTube 93 comments.

Many of them, I have to say, not super supportive of the view I took on this issue. So let me remind you. One of the things I said in this episode is that everyone brings their worldview to the work they do. In particular, when it's education, every teacher, every school system is bringing an ideological worldview to their work of education, choosing to highlight certain things and not other things, choosing to stress particular morals or character and not other aspects. In the original episode, I used the example of a math teacher that hangs the gay pride flag in his window.

Now the gay pride flag has nothing to do with math. It has nothing to do with the job he was hired to do. He is using his position to promote his worldview, and his worldview is that we should celebrate all expressions of sexuality. Now that can be his worldview, but what's that gotta do with math? And the reason why I brought that up are really two reasons, and there are two reasons I continue to believe and wanna continue to stress on this episode and in the future of Wake Up Look Up.

The first is this. Every single person who has ever lived is religious. Now when you read the YouTube comments, many people took issue with this because they argued that secularism or even atheism is not a religion, and in some sense, they're right. If you define religion as an ideology built around the concept of god, then atheism is not a religion. Secularism is not a religion.

But then again, neither is Buddhism if that's how you define religion. Buddhism doesn't hold to the idea of a god, but it is an ideological worldview seeking to tell people how to live and how to think. And in that way, when I say that everyone is religious, I mean everyone is bringing a worldview, an ideology to the table, and every one of us really deep down believes the world would be better if everybody simply lived the way we think they ought to live. When that math teacher hangs the gay pride flag in his window, he is saying not just I support students' rights to have varied sexual expressions, he is arguing that the school should be supportive of that, that ideologically society should be in support of that. He is being evangelistic about his worldview and it doesn't matter if it's in reference to God because it is an ideological moral claim he thinks all of society should follow.

He is being religious. Full stop. Christians have long since, bought into the idea that the so called separation of church and state means that we can't bring our worldview to work. Everybody else can, but we can't and we shouldn't. But, of course, that's crazy.

The the constitutional requirement that the state not sponsor a religion means that the state of Oklahoma cannot tell everyone they need to be a Christian. It does not mean that the state of Oklahoma can't say that as part of its curriculum, they need to teach that the Bible was foundational to Western civilization, which by the way is historical fact. Simply look at the way schools have pushed DEI initiatives or gender ideology. Listen, those things are simply the imposing of someone's worldview. And if the state doesn't blink at that, well then why should they blink if Oklahoma says, well, we don't want those things, but we do want to stress the importance of the bible.

So the first thing is that everyone is religious, including secular people, and everyone's evangelistic about their religion, including secular people. But the second thing is is I'm not looking for Christianity to get a bigger seat at the table than anyone else. I'm just saying if everybody gets to bring their worldview to work, then so also do Christians. If everyone gets to promote their worldview at work, so do Christians. If someone wants to argue that schools can be ideologically neutral, just teach math, just teach reading, just teach English, I'm here for that argument.

But when's the last time someone made that argument? Instead, what they mean is if you're a Christian, just teach math. But if you're secular, if you wanna push sexual identity, gender expression, DEI, well, by my by all means, shout from the rooftops. Well, those days, I'm happy to say, are over. Christians are realizing that we are entitled to the same ideological table that everyone else is and we should be, and we're not going backwards.

So if you haven't listened to the episode, do it. Maybe stay away from the comments, but stop apologizing for bringing your faith to work. You're not the only one doing it. Sit at the table with everybody else. Hey.

Thanks for watching this episode of Wake Up, Look Up. If you enjoyed it, please help us get the word out by sharing it with someone you think might benefit from it. And while you're here, make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to get further content or even download the CCC app where you'll find even more resources to help you grow in your faith and relationship with Jesus Christ.

Have an article you’d like Zach to discuss? Email us at wakeup@ccchapel.com!