Is Wokeness a New Religion? How Evangelical Worldview Theory Activates Fundamentalism against Critical Theories and Enables Misdirection about Religious Freedom

As various critical-theoretical tools and vocabularies on offer within the academy made their way into public discourse, Right-wing activists have resisted not only progressive policy suggestions but the very terms and sources of their criticism of the traditional social order. In the Christian Fundamentalist activism along these lines led by Southern Baptist thinkers, Evangelical Worldview Theory (EWT) grants culture warriors the feeling that they are operating with their own “biblical critical theory.” EWT enables them to frame and criticize opponents’ worldviews over against “the biblical worldview” while rejecting out of hand any feedback coming from beyond the biblicist fold as poorly founded. This paper will demonstrate how EWT drives Right-wing Christians to see a “religious” worldview (rhetorically framed in various ways, ranging from secular humanism to “Utopian Judicial Paganism”) being established in public school curricula, setting up a religious freedom argument for channeling public funds to “other” religious K12 schools.