People who say “good” people are often bad are targeted these days. They get the snarky label of a “woke mob” in speeches by Gov. Sanders of Arkansas and Gov. DiSantis of Florida. Many on the political right have seized on that label gleefully.
But notice that they don’t give specific names. Here’s help: “Christians,” who venerate the Bible, need to be reminded that the first ones in that “woke mob” are in the Bible. The “mob” is not the hostile foreigners — Egyptians, Assyrians, Bablyonians, Philistines, or Romans. It’s their own prophets — Amos, Hosea, Micah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and others in pre-Christian times, and John the Baptist and Jesus later — who call people to wake up.
Though their hearers claim status as God’s people, their actions belie that claim. Any who doubt that judgment just need to read any or all of their writings. They may find themselves chastened, humbled, and impelled to a new way of thinking and a new, more compassionate path in life.
Fred Reklau
Oak Park
