This distinction, between actions and beliefs as the locus of ethics, was one of the most important ideas I took away from Divinity School. In the language of philosophy, it’s the difference between orthodoxy (right belief) and orthopraxy (right action). It’s a common debate in the early church between the Jewish Christians (who were more orthopractic) and the neo-Platonic Greek Christians (like Paul—who was more orthodoxic). It’s amazing how much of ethics comes down to a version of this argument.

It is becoming increasingly clear to me that the "Liberal vs. Woke" divide mirrors the early Church’s struggle between the pragmatism of the Jerusalem Christians—who focused on right action and communal adherence to the Law—and the later, Greek-influenced push toward right belief and doctrinal purity.

My reflections on this have led me to several conclusions:

• The Secular "Sola Scriptura": There are direct parallels between the Protestant Reformation’s removal of institutional authority and our current cultural moment. By shedding the tempering, stabilizing forces of tradition and objective legalism, we have empowered a subjective, hyper-individualized interpretation of our social rules. Just as the early Protestant sects splintered into an ever-narrowing focus on theological minutiae, the "Woke" movement is fracturing into a frantic, endless search for fringe ideological purity.

• The Focus on the Abstract: This focus on orthodoxy (right thought and right language) demands an ever-shifting standard. Because this movement defines itself by ideological adherence rather than measurable, utilitarian outcomes, it won’t be satisfied with equality under the law. Instead, hunts for more granular forms of victimhood and more radical departures from common sense to distinguish the heretics.

• The Demand for Submission: The most extreme positions we see today (e.g., the insistence that gender ideologies be mandatory expressions of belief) are not just issues to be debated but acts of submission. By demanding that I reject my own sensory experience and common sense in favor of a rapidly changing, dogmatic lexicon, the movement essentially requires a confession of faith.

• The Erosion of the Public Square: To me, this marks a fundamental shift away from the universal. When we prioritize identity-based equity over the objective, action-oriented standard of the law, we lose the common reality necessary for a functional society. We are trading a system that asks for compliance for one that demands total ideological alignment, creating an inherently unstable environment in which the right belief today becomes the heresy of tomorrow.

Ultimately, I am convinced that what we are witnessing is the denial of a shared public reality, replaced by a Gnostic pursuit of "truth" that is untethered from the practical, legal, and historical foundations that once allowed us to coexist despite our differences. So, yes, I agree with you/Sol entirely. His Mods vs Exes is just another terminology for the Libs vs the Wokes and, in other contexts, the orthopractics vs the orthodox.

(Sorry if this is more reading than you were hoping for. This is a topic I bang on about all the time. My wife just has to hear the word “orthopraxy” and runs for the other room.)