When the Law of Moses Is Called Woke: Why Even Pretend to Be Christian?

Strange Times

A strange thing has happened in modern Christian discourse. For decades, many believers have insisted that the Law of Moses is timeless and binding when it speaks about sexuality, especially when quoting Leviticus 18:22 or Leviticus 20:13 regarding homosexuality. “The Bible is clear,” we’re told. “God’s law does not change.”

But when that same Law commands love for immigrants, when Leviticus 19:33–34 says, “You shall love the stranger as yourself,” suddenly the conversation changes. What was once treated as eternal moral clarity is now reduced to context, to ancient Israel’s civil code, to something embarrassingly “woke.”

Recently, when John Piper quoted Leviticus about loving the sojourner, some Christians responded by calling him “liberal” or “woke.” A conservative Reformed pastor quoting Moses was labeled progressive. The question almost asks itself: when did the Law become too liberal?

The Selective Obedience Problem

The issue isn’t disagreement about immigration policy. Christians can reasonably debate border enforcement, asylum processes, and national sovereignty. The issue is theological consistency.

If Leviticus is binding moral law when it condemns homosexuality, why is it suddenly negotiable when it commands protection and love for foreigners? Both commands sit in the same holiness code. Both are introduced with the same authority, “I am the LORD.” Both are part of Israel’s covenantal ethic.

Yet many Christians treat one as eternally moral and the other as politically inconvenient. That isn’t biblical fidelity. It is cherry-picking.

The Stranger in the Law

The Hebrew word ger, meaning sojourner or foreigner, appears repeatedly in the Torah. Israel’s memory of being strangers in Egypt was meant to shape their national character.

Exodus 22:21 commands, “You shall not wrong a sojourner or oppress him.” Deuteronomy 10:18–19 declares that God “loves the sojourner… Love the sojourner, therefore.”

This was not sentimental humanitarianism. It was covenant obedience rooted in redemptive memory. To mistreat the stranger was to forget Egypt, to forget deliverance, and to forget who they once were. When Christians dismiss those commands as naïve or politically dangerous, they are not arguing with cable news pundits. They are arguing with Moses.

This Isn’t Self-Preservation

Some may accuse me of bias here. After all, I am a foreigner living in the United States. But this isn’t self-preservation. If it were, I would get rid of my moral convictions and adapt myself to whatever rhetoric was most socially rewarded. I would happily nod my head every time someone applauded a sexually immoral politician for steering this nation back to Christ. I would stay quiet when Scripture is used selectively, as long as the selective reading benefited me.

That would be easier. But I have had my own prejudices. I have harbored resentment toward Afghans in my own country. I know how tribal instincts form and how quickly they harden, and I’ve been on the receiving end of that resentment, being a follower of Christ in Pakistan. I am no stranger to hostility. If my own people can reject me for my faith, I surely do not expect love from Americans.

That is precisely why this matters. This is not about demanding comfort or protection. It is about demanding consistency. If we claim allegiance to Christ, then our moral convictions cannot expand or contract depending on who holds power or which group makes us uneasy. The standard must remain the same, even when it challenges us personally, because faithfulness that only applies when it costs nothing is not faithfulness at all.

Is Jesus woke?

The trajectory does not weaken in the New Testament; it intensifies. In Matthew 25, Jesus identifies himself with the stranger, saying, “I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” In Luke 10, the moral hero is not the religious insider but the Samaritan, the ethnic and theological outsider.

Jesus does not reduce neighbor-love; he radicalizes it. The irony becomes sharper when Christians who fiercely defend “biblical morality” in one domain recoil when biblical morality confronts tribal instincts in another.

Law, Power, and Political Identity

For many believers, the Law has become a cultural weapon rather than a covenant mirror. When Leviticus reinforces pre-existing political convictions, it is treated as divine clarity. When it challenges nationalistic impulses, it is dismissed as outdated. Scripture is not shaping politics; politics is filtering Scripture. This dynamic is not new.

Throughout history, Christians have selectively emphasized texts that support social hierarchies while sidelining those that disrupt them. The same Bible that was once used to defend slavery also contained the seeds of its abolition. The question has never been whether the text speaks, but which parts we are willing to hear.

What Are We Actually Defending?

If you defend Leviticus on sexuality grounds but ridicule Leviticus on immigrant grounds, what exactly are you defending? It cannot be “the authority of Scripture,” because that authority appears conditional. It cannot be “unchanging moral law,” because the consistency disappears when the law cuts across political comfort.

What is being defended is not Moses but identity, tribe, and power. When tribal identity becomes primary, the name “Christian” becomes branding rather than discipleship.

The Cost of Honest Faith

There are serious debates to be had about how modern nation-states apply ancient commands. Loving the stranger does not eliminate the role of law, order, or prudence, and Christians can disagree on policy without abandoning conviction. What we cannot do, at least not honestly, is call one part of Leviticus eternal and another part “woke” simply because it unsettles us.

Scripture does not erase the role of the state. What it does require is moral consistency. If we invoke the Law as binding authority, we must apply it with integrity rather than convenience. If loving the stranger feels politically uncomfortable, that discomfort should lead us back to the text, not away from it.

© Joel Sarfraz

References:

Leviticus 18; 19:15; 19:33–36; 20.Leviticus 19:34.Isaiah 58:3–7.Amos 5:21–24.Micah 6:8.Matthew 23:23.James 2:10.Galatians 3:28.The Institutes of the Christian Religion, by John Calvin, Book II, on the moral law and its enduring authority. Summa Theologica, by Thomas Aquinas, I–II, Q. 99–108, on the moral, ceremonial, and judicial precepts of the Old Law.

Image Credit: Rembrandt. The Good Samaritan. 1630. Oil on panel. Musée du Louvre, Paris.