We’ve reached peak Woke church, my friends! We’ve actually gone and done it, and I think we deserve to celebrate somehow. Maybe a really monster rave around a Golden Calf, set up at the site of Burning Man. We would all wear N95 masks, wave George Floyd signs (to make the gathering completely COVID-safe), and “transition” collectively, exploring each of the 47 genders, while Taylor Swift croons John Lennon’s “Imagine.” We can conclude this righteous orgy by drinking the Kool-Aid from Jim Jones’ People’s Temple, since death (both earthly and eternal) is the next inexorable step.

My own Catholic church is now run by the same kind of sniffy, high self-esteem, low-IQ “progressive Christians” we all used to laugh at when we sampled “Woke Preacher Clips.” But I’m not laughing now.

The highest levels of the Vatican are filled with men boldly and shamelessly preaching a new gospel instead of Jesus’. Because they really and truly feel that they are superior to Him. And we all know the word St. Paul used for men like that. (Hint: It rhymes with “poltergeist.”)

Evangelicals Are Only Racist Because Jesus Was

One of Pope Francis’ closest associates is Fr. Antonio Spadaro, editor of the semi-official Vatican publication La Civiltà Cattolica. Spadaro used that magazine back in 2019 to attack conservative evangelicals as the heirs of white segregationists, motivated by hate. Now Spadaro has decided to slam as racist not just Christians, but Christ Himself. Jesus was subject to racism and Pharisaical rigidity, but He came to repent of his sins.

Think I’m kidding? Here’s the translation from a recent sermon (in Italian) by Spadaro in which he accuses Jesus of being guilty of racism, then repenting:

Jesus is in Gennesaret, on the right bank of Lake Tiberias. The locals had recognized him and word of his presence had spread throughout the region, by word of mouth. Many brought him sick, who were healed. It was a land where people had to welcome and understand him. His actions were effective. But the Master does not stop. Matthew (15:21-28) – who writes for the Jews – tells us that he goes towards the northwest, the area of Tyre and Sidon, that is, in the Phoenician and therefore pagan area.

But behold, screams are heard. They are from a woman. She is Canaanite, that is, from that region inhabited by an idolatrous people that Israel looked upon with contempt and enmity. So, the story presumes that Jesus and the woman were enemies. The woman shouts: “Have mercy on me, Lord, son of David! My daughter is very tormented by a demon.” The body of this woman, her voice impose themselves erupting as if at the scene of a tragedy. Impossible for Jesus not to react to the chaos that abruptly interrupted the journey.

But no. “But he did not speak to her even a word”, writes Matthew laconically. Jesus remains indifferent. His disciples approach him and implore him, amazed. That woman was moving those who also ill judged her! Her screams had broken the barrier of hatred. But Jesus does not care. “Hear her, because she comes after us shouting!”, His companions beg him, trying to discreetly use the card of her insistence and the annoyance that her presence would have caused to the fireplace of the Master.

The silence is followed by Jesus’ angry and insensitive response: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel”. The Master’s hardness is unshakeable. Now even Jesus is a theologian: the mission received from God is limited to the children of Israel. So, nothing can be done. Mercy is not for her. She is excluded. There is no discussion.

But the woman is stubborn. Her hope for her is desperate, and she overcomes not only any supposed tribal enmity, but also appropriateness, her very dignity. She throws herself in front of him and begs him: “Lord, help me!” She calls him “Lord”, that is, she recognizes his authority and her mission. What else can Jesus demand in order to act? Yet he replies in a mocking and disrespectful way towards that poor woman: “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs”, that is to domestic dogs. A downfall in tone, style, humanity. Jesus appears as if he were blinded by nationalism and theological rigor.

Anyone would have given up. But not the woman. She is determined: she wants her daughter healed. And she immediately grasps the only crack left open by Jesus’ words, where he had referred to domestic dogs (and therefore not stray ones). They share their masters’ house, in fact. And so with a move that desperation makes astute she says: “It is true, Lord, and yet the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table”. Few words, but well posed and such as to upset the rigidity of Jesus, to conform him, to “convert” him to himself. Indeed, without hesitation, Jesus replies: “Woman, great is your faith! May it happen for you as you wish ”. And from that instant her daughter was healed. And Jesus also appears healed, and in the end shows himself free, from the rigidity of the dominant theological, political and cultural elements of his time. [emphases added by translator]

O Lord, I Thank You That I Am Not Like This Jesus

Pause for a moment to gag on this, my friends. Progressive Christians have exalted their name above all other names, both in heaven and on earth. They are not just superior to the traditions and faith of our ignorant ancestors. Nor merely to the apostles and saints who passed on the Christian faith for 2000 years. Nor even to the words of Scripture. They now have deemed themselves worthy to judge the thoughts and actions of Jesus Christ Himself.

I’m reminded of my high school religion teacher, who sneered at me when I cited Jesus’ words to refute some heresy or other he was teaching us on our parents’ dimes: “Jesus didn’t have an M.A. in theology from Catholic University. I do.”

But what Spadaro has written is infinitely worse than some washed-up ex-seminarian wielding the limp academic snobbery of a half-baked Master’s degree. Because Spadaro is accusing Jesus not of simplicity or ignorance (which would be blasphemous enough) but of sin. Not simply of any sin, but of the worst evil universally recognized and condemned by the principalities and powers who rule the world today: racism (loosely defined).

Mocking Christ with the Roman Soldiers

Spadaro admits that Jesus quickly “repented,” and holds Him up as a model for all of us to turn away from the “theological” rigidities that lead us to sin as Jesus did. If even Jesus isn’t immune to the shame and condemnation which progressives wield like a bludgeon, in collaboration with Caesar and Mammon, what hope do ordinary Christians have?

I’ve already written here that “We Should Be Exactly as ‘Racist’ and ‘Homophobic’ as Jesus — No More, and No Less.” Christ is the standard of our behavior, not some HR department head, or government agency, or Community Standards committee on Facebook. Nor even some crony of the pope.

The Gospel passage here is indeed one of the “hard sayings” that we must reckon with as Christians. We must wrestle with Jesus behaving in a way that makes us uncomfortable. It’s worth spending a little time exploring and understanding what Our Lord did here and why, in order to learn from it what the divinely inspired New Testament author intended.

Do We Have a Basic Human Right to Miracles?

First of all, the woman was a Canaanite, a member of the peoples who’d lived in the Holy Land before it was holy. They’d practiced fertility religions, which included human sacrifice, especially of infants. Whether or not that was still going on in Jesus’ day, the “gods” who’d demanded it were certainly demons. And if this woman was a Canaanite, then we have to conclude that she worshiped them, although unaware of their real, demonic nature.  

So a practitioner, albeit ignorant, of a demonic religion comes to Jesus to ask Him to cure her daughter, who is possessed. (Not an unlikely side-effect of growing up in a demonic religion.) In other words, not for a drink of water or a kindly word, but a miracle.

Do we have a right to miracles? Is God like our indoor plumbing, where we just turn on the tap and He pours out for us wondrous violations of the laws of nature, at our request? Is He our busboy, who brings us our napkins?

No, He’s the lord of the universe. And even the most fervent Christian cannot expect the answer he wishes to every prayer. The very definition of “grace” is that it’s undeserved, the free gift of God. In this story, we see a woman who’s not even a monotheist, who has unwittingly worshiped demons, beseeching Jesus for a miracle.

So He makes her jump through some hoops, makes it clear that her status (demon-worshipper!) presents some genuine obstacles, and insists on the uniquely privileged status of the Jews. (Which was also a free gift from God, not something they’d earned.) Then once she has proven her faith, He grants her request: a miracle.

That’s a lovely and hopeful story which ought to inspire more prayer from everyone who reads it, about a God who even grants wonders and blessings to those who have lived as His enemies.

But not to people who presume to judge Jesus Himself by the standards of our decadent, dying culture, and find Him wanting. If that’s not the “sin against the Holy Spirit,” then I can’t imagine what might be.

John Zmirak is a senior editor at The Stream and author or co-author of ten books, including The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Catholicism. He is co-author with Jason Jones of “God, Guns, & the Government.”