Whether it’s compliance with pushing woke ideology or just attempts to keep their businesses afloat, corporate America is playing a big role in towing the Marxist ideology behind the woke trend, said Pastor Lucas Miles.
And much of it may be driven by a fear of being doxxed.
Behind the scenes, Mr. Miles said that companies getting involved in social justice messaging are primarily being driven by newly introduced metrics like the “environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) corporate equality index,” which is becoming systemically embedded as a process “used to hold companies to this woke ideology.”
“If they don’t tow the line, or if they don’t push the right messaging or use the right spokesperson, then they’re going to be doxxed somehow on their ESG score, and that’s going to affect their access to liquid capital,” Mr. Miles said of the current corporate landscape, which he believes needs to be dealt with at a policy level.
But as has become apparent with the protest against an anti-Christian performance by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence and Anheuser-Busch’s Bud Light saga, this is where the American consumer has a significant role to play in setting America’s cultural landscape.
Mr. Miles was speaking in relation to the recent decision by Major League Baseball, when the Los Angeles Dodgers chose to honor LGBT activist group Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, known for their anti-Christian satire, at the team’s LGBT Pride celebration on June 16.
During the performance, the group advocated an anti-Christian message, which included performing strip shows on images of Jesus on a crucifix.
Thousands of protesters gathered outside Dodgers Stadium on June 17 to voice their displeasure at the stunt’s anti-Christian messaging.
The protesters held signs declaring “men cannot be nuns/sisters,” and others bore Bible verses expressing the beliefs of the Christian faith.
Speaking from the Christian perspective, the pastor said: “I think that corporations need to get the message that if they are going to try to push these ludicrous and really wicked ideologies on the American people, that the American people have the right to shop elsewhere. And we’re seeing that.”
The protest also came on the heels of a corporate showdown for Anheuser-Busch, which has plummeted in its market position over its partnership with transgender social media influencer Dylan Mulvaney, who with nearly 13 million followers across TikTok and Instagram was to promote what was the nation’s number one selling beer brand, Bud Light.
Now faced with hemorrhaging sales, which saw a 20 percent dip by end of May that continued into June, Anheuser-Busch may be one of many companies faced with business decisions that are increasingly tied up in social justice and moral messaging.
Anheuser-Busch is still trying to placate angry customers who have forced a steady decline in sales. A statement of apology that the company “never intended to be part of a discussion that divides people” also provoked backlash from progressives and alienated supporters of the wider transgender community, leading to boycotts from the other side of the issue.
‘Herbert Marcuse Playbook’
According to Mr. Miles, the position being advocated by the woke left is “right out of the Herbert Marcuse playbook,” referring to the trend-setting neo-Marxist who in the 1960s enticed America’s youth into a Marx-inspired cultural revolution.Marcuse, among other contributions to the public consciousness like identity politics, reframed the way Americans thought about how to be a tolerant person.
“And that is that true tolerance, liberating tolerance as he called it, is basically a full acceptance of every idea that comes from the left, but a total rejection of any idea that comes from the right,” Mr. Miles explained.
So American popular culture has become very tolerant of sexual identities and preferences beyond the West’s traditional Judeo-Christian norms, while becoming intolerant of Christians advocating for what they see as a healthy view of sexual relationships for believers of the faith.
“Here, we see they’re literally twerking on the cross to a person standing in as Christ,” Mr. Miles said of the performance by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. “I mean, this is disturbing stuff.
“Set aside the ideological difference; it’s just bankrupt, it’s corrupt, it’s wicked, it’s disgusting. I don’t see any reason why a Major League Baseball team, a professional corporation and franchise like this should be celebrating [the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence] … There’s a lot more groups that would deserve an opportunity to be highlighted in front of the stadium than this group.”
‘Anti-Christ in Nature’
Any sort of Marxist ideology is anti-Christ in nature, Mr. Miles added. The Marxist world view stands “opposed to Christian messaging and Christian doctrine.”However, with the emergence of leftist thought within the church, some in the faith are now unwittingly submitting to Marxism, he said.
“The church is more divided today than it was even during the Protestant Reformation,” he said. “There is a giant chasm.”
Mr. Miles said he is currently writing a book about how Christianity has splintered within itself and how this trend has developed since the 1700s, with some groups embracing more socially progressive ideas.
“During the Protestant Reformation, in many ways, there were micro doctrines that were separating the two sides. Today, we have major issues of orthodoxy that are dividing the church. And so we have this strand of Orthodox Christians, evangelicals, who are Bible-believing, that hold to the Bible as the inerrant word of God, that believe in and celebrate and submit to the lordship of Jesus.
“And then we have other Christians that are sort of Christian-in-name-only: they don’t see the Bible as necessarily authoritative, they cherry pick and choose the verses that are meaningful to them, and they really are using Jesus as sort of this propaganda figure to promote a lot of leftist ideas.
“They see Jesus more as a great example, a great social figure, but not necessarily a savior,” he said.
“What I try to help people understand is that, where we are today, it didn’t just come here overnight—this has been slowly developing. But now, we’ve kind of hit this critical mass, and it’s moving very, very quickly.
‘Christianity Villainized’
He also noted that for the first time in 2,000 years, “Christianity has been villainized.”“The early church faced a lot of persecution for several centuries of its expansion. Basically, they weren’t understood in Rome; they were accused of being incestual because they called their spouses ‘brothers and sisters in Christ,’” he said.
The early church was also accused of destroying the economy because the faith attracted people away from pagan worship.
“The temple economy around all these sacrifices was disrupted,” he said.
“Since that time period, Christianity has been viewed as really the best thing for civilization, that it’s a benefit to Western culture. In fact, it is the thing that holds Western culture together and shapes it, in many ways. And today, we’re starting to see that narrative return once again to ‘Christianity is bad. Christianity is full of bigotry, Christianity is racist.’
“Christianity is really being villainized as, ‘The Christians are the ones who are making society a bad place, that are creating these injustices, etc.’ And so therefore, we have to silence it, we have to do away with it.’
“If this continues, I fully expect to see an uptick in persecution. I hope I’m wrong, but I think that the U.S. is in for some darker days before it gets better,” the pastor said.
But Mr. Miles encouraged all Christians to stand strong in their faith, while cultivating the heart for having open and respectable debate with people.
“I think that people have to remember that we have to stand strong during times like this. I mean, it’s very easy to get discouraged and fall apart and to just kind of go back to life as normal. But I think that consistency matters,” he said of advocating for viewpoints on social issues.
He also reminded Christians to treat individuals with respect.
“When I’m speaking broadly, I’m able to really tear down these ideologies and expose the fallacies. But that’s different than when I’m dealing with an individual person. I think it’s important that we don’t lose the humanity and the dignity of an individual, and so I might disagree with the person in front of me, but I can still find a way to love them, to minister to them where they’re at.
“As a pastor, that’s something that I have to sort through every single day and I think that a lot of people out there feel that as well.
“We can’t allow the hate and the corruption around us, and the wickedness around us to cause us to begin to mistreat our fellow person. And so as we fight for truth, we need to remember to love those around us,” he said.
