A common criticism of modern progressive activism – the movement that has come to be called woke – is that it is religious. What is meant by this is that progressives have an all-encompassing worldview which purports to have explanatory power, and direct application, across all domains of life, from politics to art to personal relationships. At the risk of over-simplification, the keystone of this belief system is that social and political relations should be understood primarily in terms of power dynamics, and that there is a powerful class of oppressive and controlling persons, the proverbial straight white Christian men, who must be resisted by the rest, a ragtag rebel coalition of oppressed minorities and their allies.

Not everyone accepts the characterisation of wokeism as akin to religious belief, for various reasons. It seems to me a useful if not perfect way of understanding how left-wing politics has developed in the last decade or so. But regardless of how persuasive we find that framing, there is one important respect in which wokeism, for want of a better word, is quite unlike religion, or at least quite unlike Christianity, which remains the background religious noise in the countries where identity politics is most strongly embedded.

The vital difference is that progressive morality has no consistently defined content, and no clear pathway to reconciliation and restoration. US vice-presidential candidate JD Vance noted this in his recent interview with the podcaster Joe Rogan. He put it this way: “What most world religions have, but the woke stuff doesn’t have, is forgiveness….it has the excommunication part, but it doesn’t have the redemption part.”

If you doubt this, consider any of the thousands of cancellations or attempted cancellations that have occurred in the last decade or so. The victim will be subjected to an initial storm of indignant rage and vituperation. Their employer will be contacted, usually with a sort of deniable pseudo-innocent expression of concern: “are you aware that your employee holds these views?” Typically, the targets have been forced to apologise, or to step down from some role. They have frequently been sacked, or otherwise had their means of making a living undermined. 

And then what happens? Nothing much. The mob moves on, having secured its pound of flesh and sated, temporarily, its spite. Mechanisms by which wrongdoers can be restored or forgiven have no interest to these fiercely moralistic progressives.

We need not rehearse too extensively the case against cancel culture, which has been made a thousand times. But it is important to reiterate several points. First, that the purported moral code being enforced is not really a moral code at all, because it is essentially incoherent. The categories of offence for which one might be cancelled – racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia and so on – are so broad and vague that no-one can be certain which of their utterances might be seized upon as problematic. 

It’s also the case that the enforcement is itself arbitrary and disproportionate. Arbitrary because of the mostly random element in what comes across the radar of social media users with too much time on their hands, and disproportionate because there is no interest in making the punishment fit the “crime”. Is loss of employment really an appropriate sanction for an off-colour joke? Should people have their reputation dragged through the mud because of a badly-phrased argument, or some controversial arguments made half a decade previously?

Cancel culture is an impersonal and remote kind of moral gatekeeping. Normally, the target is a person who is not previously known to the cancellers; they have no genuine interest in the individual’s moral welfare. What happens to them after the storm has passed is generally a matter of supreme indifference to their persecutors.  

Compare and contrast with Christianity. Certainly, there is no denying that Christianity has an extremely demanding moral code. The strictures on sexual behaviour are the most obviously irksome to modern people, but the commands about peace-making, sacrificial love, generosity to the poor, and practical service of neighbour are equally challenging. 

Nevertheless, these requirements are at least understandable and clear. We can know what is required of us in specific terms. Moreover, the fact that we will inevitably fall short is acknowledged explicitly in Christian doctrine. There is a stark contrast here to the rigorous and unyielding moralism of progressive activism, where the right behaviour and speech is simply demanded at all times, on pain of severe punishment, endless recrimination and eternal suspicion.    

For Christians, when we do get thing wrong, there is a defined way back: honest confession, repentance and restitution. We can try to mend damaged relationships, and in the case of a serious transgression, find restoration to the moral community. Christian ethics is also preoccupied with actions and not actors. Progressive morality should be regarded as more judgmental and self-righteous than traditional religious morality, because it seeks to label persons, not acts, i.e. to make vast sweeping judgments about the arc of an individual’s life and their whole character based on certain statements, beliefs or actions. 

Christian moral discourse is also usually taking place within a community of people already known to each other, where it is possible to offer moral exhortation and correction in the context of an ongoing relationship of love and affection. And crucially, in Christianity the moral code is not really the point of the exercise. Admittedly, Christians have often lost sight of this fact, but Christianity is not fundamentally about rule-following. The rules are a means to an end – to grow in love with God and our fellows – not an end in themselves. 

I mentioned earlier comments made by JD Vance. One of his opponents in this week’s presidential election, Kamala Harris, is fond of saying that we need to imagine the future “unburdened by what has been”. This is a classic bit of fake profundity, but there is a kernel of truth in the sentiment. Ironically, however, it is Christians rather than their ferocious critics in progressive activism who have an intelligible and tested approach to truly putting past transgressions behind us and starting afresh. And without such an approach – without the possibility of genuine reconciliation with our neighbours on terms of humility and equality, rather than on terms of submission dictated by supposed power relations – civilisation is ultimately unsustainable.