Nothing Woke Under the Sun

Ryan Cox • April 20, 2022

Nothing Woke Under the Sun

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.
Ecclesiastes 1:9

Woke: “aware of and actively attentive” – Merriam-Webster.com

Woke: “having or marked by an active awareness” – Dictionary.com

Many in the culture feel that they’ve been awakened (i.e., “woke”) to an awareness of new truths that will change the world. Unfortunately for their feelings of great revelation, nothing of their newfound insights is anything new under the sun.

For instance, the term “woke” is nothing new. It can be traced back to a 1938 song by folk singer Huddie Ledbetter. It was then somewhat popularized by a 1962 New York Times Magazine article “If You’re Woke You Dig It” by novelist William Kelley. Around the turn of the century, the term applied to being aware of potential infidelity, and now exists in the vernacular with its current connotations. 

Notre Dame

The current push of woke culture in identity politics and social justice is also nothing new. When the ten northern tribes separated themselves from Judah and Benjamin, their first king, Jeroboam, quickly realized they needed a new identity or else the people would return to follow the house of David (I Kings 12:26-27). His brilliant idea was to make “two golden calves; and he said to the people, ‘It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem; behold your gods, Israel, that brought you up from the land of Egypt’” (I Kings 12:28). Even this was nothing new as it was exactly what their ancestors did in their rebellion at Mt. Sinai (Exodus 32)!


Another example of woke culture can be found during the French Revolution. Construction of Notre-Dame cathedral began in 1163 and was completed in 1345. The cathedral stood as a prominent symbol of the Catholic faith for over 400 years until the revolution. In the late 1700s, revolutionaries had spread violence throughout the land, leading to a breakdown of law and order with attacks on aristocratic properties. As a new National Assembly, King Louis XVI, and Marquis de Lafayette worked on a new constitution, the economy worsened with food shortages and more violence. The government finally approved an end to feudalism, extended voting rights, and imposed state control of the Catholic churches. 24% of the clergy pledged their allegiance to the government; the rest stood in opposition to the government takeover. 

In Nov. 1791, the Assembly gave the remaining clergy 8 days to comply or face conspiracy charges. King Louis vetoed the decree. In April 1792 as French armies were attacking Austrian and Prussian forces, the Assembly again threatened the clergy to swear an oath or be deported. King Louis again vetoed their decree. In August, the Assembly voted to “temporarily relieve the king”. The French First Republic replaced the monarchy in September, and King Louis was placed on trial. On Jan. 17, 1793, the Assembly condemned Louis to death for “conspiracy against public liberty and general safety”, and executed him on Jan. 21. The Committee of Public Safety became the reigning power, which led to the “Reign of Terror”, seeking the elimination of counterrevolutionaries, resulting in over 16,600 executions by July 1794. Again, all of this was done for “public safety”.

Heads of the Kings of Judah statues

In the midst of this, Notre-Dame was seized and rededicated to the Cult of Reason in 1793, France’s first state-sponsored religion of atheism. They beheaded 28 statues of Biblical kings in the cathedral, tore down all the other statues, and the Goddess of Liberty was erected and enshrined. Eventually, a compromise was attempted with a new state religion of deism called the Cult of the Supreme Being.


When Napoleon Bonaparte seized power, he banned both cults and restored Notre-Dame to the Catholic Church in 1801-2, though the building itself remained and still is property of the state. The cathedral was in such great disrepair after the Napoleonic Wars that Victor Hugo wrote and published The Hunchback of Notre-Dame in 1831, generating great support for its restoration, which was so ordered by King Louis Philippe in 1844.


Fast-forward to today, and there’s nothing new under the sun. After the tearing down of statues and in the midst of ever-increasing violence, food prices, shortages, etc., a Nov. 26, 2021 article in London’s The Telegraph entitled “Notre-Dame interior faces woke ‘Disney’ revamp” claimed the addition of several “woke” and “politically correct Disneyland”-type displays in the current renovations and restorations from the 2019 fire.¹ The question today will be how many of the clergy this time will stand up against the forces seeking to eliminate the vestiges of Christianity.

While CTF does not condone Catholic church polity nor hold to several of Catholicism’s tenets (especially its acceptance of evolution),² we do want to sound the alarm for Christians throughout the world, including America. Cultures, governments, etc. can quickly turn on us. For a frightening example, consider the treatment of minister Artur Pawlowski in Canada.³

Therefore, have you resolved in your heart, in your family, in your church to “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you” (Deut. 31:6)?


1. Henry Samuel, “Exclusive: Notre-Dame interior faces woke ‘Disney’ revamp”, The Telegraph, 26 November 2021, <https://www.telegraph.co.u/worldnews/2021/11/26/notre-dame-
    risks-becoming-woke-disneyland-controversial-renovation/>, accessed 14 April 2022.
2. Consult: <https://www.catholicbridge.com/catholic/catholic-creationism.php> or <https://catholicexchange.com/brief-exploration-catholic-position-evolution/>
3. DailyMail.com, “Pastor jailed for speaking to Canadian Freedom Convoy says he was kept in cage, made to sleep on a concrete floor, deprived of his Bible and repeatedly strip-
    searched”, 10 April 2022, <https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10704959/Pastor-jailed-speaking-Canadian-Freedom-  Convoy-says-sleep-concrete-floor.html>.
   DailyWire.com, “Canadian Pastor Who Faces 4-Year Jail Sentence For ‘Inciting’ Church Warns Americans: ‘The Enemy Is Not Hiding Anymore’”, 23 August 2021,
   <https://www.dailywire.com/news/canadian-pastor-who-faces-4-year-jail-sentence-for-inciting-church-warns-americans-the-enemy-is-not-hiding-anymore>, accessed 14 April
   2022.
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As many of you may know, I appreciate space. Not space around me, although the older I get the more I appreciate that as well. The things in the heavens fascinate me and have for a large chunk of my life. I love working with our telescopes, allowing people to see for themselves objects that the Lord made on the 4th day of history. When I was younger I followed our Space Shuttle program, and over the years I have had the opportunity to see a couple of those shuttles around the country. Now it is great to see all the renewed interest in exploring the heavenly creation. I know most of it is for evolutionary reasons, yet over and over again something is discovered that points to the trustworthiness of God’s Word. After all, we are to study His creation as Genesis 1:28 states. On a recent trip to El Paso, it occurred to me that Blue Origin’s launch facility is in west Texas somewhere. After some quick searching I realized we were within an hour and half of it, and there was a rescheduled launch window during the time of our meeting. So, with some persuading of my colleagues, we arose early one morning to make the launch. We made it with just minutes to spare. It was spectacular! The whole launch to just beyond the Karman Line (space boundary, 62 miles/100km) and return of the rocket and capsule is about ten minutes total. While Blue Origin is best known for its New Shepherd rocket that carries paying customers to space and back with the biggest windows ever in a capsule, this NS-29 launch was purely experimental with a payload of instruments to measure simulated lunar gravity. Even though it was not a Saturn V, Space Shuttle, Starship or Falcon launch, it was great to hear and feel a launch for the first time, from blast off to the sonic boom return. It has piqued my desire to see a bigger launch now. As I began to reflect on what I experienced, the Lord reminded me of His design. Earth, our home planet, is so well designed for life. There is literally nowhere in all the universe like it. Yet He gave us the ability to discover creation beyond it. The only reason we can launch rockets and do space exploration is because He set it up in an orderly way. Physics works because He established it to work in a predictable fashion. As much as we may never understand everything in the universe from our position here, it works on an ordered reality that is reinforced by God’s Word. This is what drove Sir Isaac Newton in his understanding of physics. He wrote, “The motions which the planets now have could not spring from any natural cause alone but were by an intelligent Agent.” Evolutionists may come up with theories about the origin of things in the heavens, but over and over again they are being shown through experimentation and observation to be wrong. The Lord set the order of everything in the beginning and sustains it by His Word (Hebrews 1:3). So as you look to the heavens tonight, gaze into the depths of space and observe the different facets the Lord placed up there for our eyes (Genesis 1:17). Peer through a telescope at the lesser light of the moon with marvel and anticipation of further human study in the coming years. Check out the amazing observations being made by the James Webb telescope from deep in space. All of these place a perspective of how awesome our Creator is and how much we depend on Him. Our design becomes more and more obvious with every discovery, yet in our universe we appear so minuscule and fragile. Thanks be to God that His infinite focus has, is and always will be here on us! Blessings.
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