Pat Sawyer

Challenging Woke Ideology with Biblical TruthA profound religious awakening has spread across America and has reached into every corner of society. But the religion in question isn’t Christianity. Fueled by academic ideas drawn from the discipline of critical theory, the “Great Awokening” accelerated the embrace of cultural values and practices that are in direct conflict with a biblical worldview. How can we effectively push back against woke ideology? By asserting a vision of race, gender, and sexuality that is rooted in the Bible's teaching. Writing for everyday Christians, Neil Shenvi and Pat Sawyer explore the origins of woke ideas and demonstrate their incompatibility with Christianity. In a respectful yet unapologetic manner, they offer a level-headed approach to engaging these issues with logic, grace, and truth. Post Woke is a guide for practical action. You will encounter examples, anecdotes, case studies, and diagrams throughout to help you recognize woke ideas in everyday life and respond effectively. You will come away not only with a fresh awareness of these issues, but with meaningful strategies for influencing society for good—and for opening people’s minds and hearts to the saving message of the gospel.

World Magazine 2023 Book of the Year Where Are Critical Theory and the Social Justice Movement Taking Us? Critical theory and its expression in fields such as critical race theory, critical pedagogy, and queer theory are having a profound impact on our culture. Contemporary critical theory’s ideas about race, class, gender, identity, and justice have dramatically shaped how people think, act, and view one another—in Christian and secular spheres alike. In Critical Dilemma, authors Neil Shenvi and Pat Sawyer illuminate the origins and influences of contemporary critical theory, considering it in the light of clear reason and biblical orthodoxy. While acknowledging that it can provide some legitimate insights regarding race, class, and gender, Critical Dilemma exposes the false assumptions at the heart of critical theory, arguing that it poses a serious threat to both the church and society at large. Drawing on exhaustive research and careful analysis, Shenvi and Sawyer condemn racism, urge Christians to seek justice, and offer a path forward for racial healing and unity while also opposing critical theory’s manifold errors.

Disney is a force of formative power in contemporary pop culture, which underscores the worth of engaging it apologetically. Walt Disney became a pioneer in twentieth-century musical animation and animated features, and an exemplar for using a nonsectarian canon of narratives in order to argue, subtly, for an objective moral truth and goodness that will overcome all evil, and the beauty of a kingdom inhabited by virtuous characters. Pop-culture narratives (like Disney films) possess a power to make abstract ideas more accessible. We do not so easily feel propositions, and so we do not necessarily feel the force of an abstract argument. A good story, on the other hand, like good music (and Disney gives us both), has more direct power to move us. This duology-two works in one-considers how Disney stories are enfolded by Christian moral theology. The first book explores how Disney can serve as an effective aid in cultural apologetics and moral dialogue. The second work, an edited volume featuring a number of scholars from differing backgrounds, investigates the power of imaginative storytelling, explores Disney's live-action animation and musical allure through the lens of aesthetics apologetics, and approaches a number of popular Disney narratives in order to draw out the moral and theological significance of these beloved Disney tales. "Enter into a serious examination of the whimsical worlds created by the kingdom of Disney through the eyes of those inhabiting a Kingdom centered in another world-the Kingdom of Christ. You will discover why Disney's moral logic of good and evil, darkness and light, move us toward affirming goodness and justice."-Annalee Ward, Director of the Wendt Center for Character Education and author of Mouse Morality: the Rhetoric of Disney Animated Films Disney as Doorway to Apologetic Dialogue is "a valuable resource to show how Disney films provide not only illuminating insights and inspiration for our children and our congregations; they also serve as bridges for the gospel in a world of people longing to find their true identity and true home and to see fulfilled their deepest desires to 'live happily ever after.'"-Paul Copan, Pledger Family Chair of Philosophy and Ethics, Palm Beach Atlantic University (Florida), and author of The Gospel in the Marketplace of Ideas and Is God a Vindictive Bully? Disney & the Moral Imagination "strikes just the right balance between academic and popular, scholarly and accessible.... It has much of value to say on the nature and power of music, virtue, beauty, imagination, and hope. "-Louis Markos, Professor in English and Scholar in Residence, Houston Christian University; author of On the Shoulders of Hobbits and The Myth Made Fact