"The Great Awokening"

"Like early modern Christians, they punish heresy by banishing sinners from society or coercing them to public demonstrations of shame, and provide an avenue for redemption in the form of a thorough public confession of sin. 'Social justice' theory requires the admission of white privilege in ways that are strikingly like the admission of original sin. A Christian is born again; an activist gets woke. To the belief in human progress unfolding through history—itself a remnant of Christian eschatology—it adds the Leninist twist of a cadre of heroes who jump-start the revolution.
"The same cultish dynamic can be seen on the right."

Andrew Sullivan at New York argues that "[t]he need for meaning hasn't gone away, but without Christianity, this yearning looks to politics for satisfaction." (Sullivan responds to critics the following week,) 

And Bo Winegard and Ben Winegard at Quillette discuss the sociology of "Wokeness."