Relevant Magazine hosts some of the most “woke” of all the Evangelical “wokeness.” From David Platt to Lecrae, they are relevant (no pun intended) along the entire spectrum of social justice warriorism. With the site’s top referrers, like The Gospel Coalition and John Piper’s Desiring God (according to Alexa), the magazine is broadcast to pew-sitters and pew-skippers, conservatives and progressives alike.
Recently, however, the owner of the magazine, Cameron Strang, is accused by former managing editor, Andre Henry, accuses him of racism and sexism. Basically, the woke magazine’s owner isn’t, well, woke. Cameron Strang is the son of Steve Strang, who owns the politically opposite but just as (if not even more so) doctrinally-flaky Charisma Magazine.
Henry says that he was hired to make decisions about content to be published on the magazine’s website, and during February — Black History Month — he lined up a bunch of woke articles to be published every day. According to Henry, he was met with hostility toward his decision by his boss, Strang and other leadership, who he argues acted differently about Black History Month than they did Native American Heritage Month the previous November.
Henry writes,
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This approach seemed copacetic until that day in January when the leadership realized that I’d be using the same approach for Black History Month.
“Wait,” said Publisher-Founder-CEO Cameron Strang. “We’re going to publish something every day for Black History Month?”
“Yes,” I answered.
“Well, no one talked to me about it,” the boss complained.
Not knowing he needed Strang’s permission to publish these articles — which he argues Strang said are a distraction — he says he bit his tongue and kept his feelings to himself about it.
[Strang] scrolled through February’s 28 days on the computer screen, and his lip curled as he looked at placeholders on each day for an article related to Black History. “What about people who aren’t interested in that?” he asked.
Henry appears to be upset as he questions the motivation to be brought in for this job, to begin with. As is typical in woke organizations, tokenizing employees for selfish reasons is never off the table.
At that moment, a seed of ambiguity had been planted about what I’d actually been brought to RELEVANT to do. Was I brought there to lead, to use my taste to shape the kind of content they published, to use my voice, as I’d been told? … I eventually came to feel like a token.
Basically what we have here is the typical fruit of the “woke church” movement. The movement, spearheaded by Southern Baptist leaders and The Gospel Coalition operates on the assumption that multiculturalism and diversity are the end goal and that whatever means is necessary to reach it should be put into place. It isn’t about advancing the gospel and creating true unity centered around Christ and the gospel — it’s about caving to the demands of the culture and artificially forcing these “virtues” onto the populace. What you end up with is a bunch of fake social justice warriors who have no real interest in biblical reconciliation and are only interested in numbers, money, and power.
This is the Evangelical woke movement.