History was my favorite subject in High school. I especially enjoyed learning about conquests, the rise and fall of empires, and how good people overcame bad people.
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This is why I found my national origin story so enchanting: we overcame the tyranny of the British monarchy and created a new world of freedom…
…right?
Something evil exists in this broken world: humans rank each other and dominate over one another. Even in the story I find so enchanting, a story of conquest I benefit from, someone next to me likely experienced pain as a result of this “enchanting” story.
We could point to many areas of the origin story of America where certain people groups suffered at the hands of European immigrants. One of them is the atrocious making of race in the colonial era, a constructing of categories for human beings that make us somehow less like each other and thereby can more efficiently justify our domination over one another, as was the case with the slave trade.[1]
One could say, “Wait a minute! We got rid of slavery a hundred and sixty years ago.”
But we all know that simply fighting a war to outlaw something doesn’t change the hearts of men. In fact, we know that merely putting laws in place doesn’t change the hearts of men.
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This article is a part of a series of articles addressing the question, “How should Christians process Critical Race Theory?”
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As legal scholars, activists, and lawyers observed this reality and saw how civil-rights-era victories had stalled and were being eroded, they began developing theories about it. In a world with affirmative action and color-blindness, why did employment still tend to run along racial lines? Why did white youth tend to more easily gain entrance into universities than colored youth?[2]
You see, racial disparities exist.[3]
We could analyze them many different ways. Even among those who have personally dealt with racial disparities, there are more than two or three perspectives for why these disparities exist and how to solve them. That’s why it is important, then that even when we see one of these theories has tremendous holes in it we don’t ignore the problem it seeks to address.
The challenge for Christians is not figuring out which problematic theory to stand against; it’s figuring out a Jesus-centered, Gospel approach to actually solving the problem.
As we’ve already looked at, a biblical worldview understands that injustices indeed exist. It further understands that the Gospel includes advocating on behalf of the oppressed.
The question for us is are we willing to be a part of problem solving according to the full message of the Gospel?
Or are we primarily concerned about alleviating any sense of discomfort we feel when we hear about the problems in the first place?
Critical Race Theory (CRT) started as a critique of liberalism challenging the incrementalist approach to social transformation. “CRT examines social, cultural, and legal issues primarily as they relate to race and racism in the US. A tenet of CRT is that racism and disparate racial outcomes are the result of complex, changing, and often subtle social and institutional dynamics, rather than explicit and intentional prejudices of individuals.”[4]
Again, these things shouldn’t surprise us as Christians. We know mankind is fully capable of harboring prejudice in a way that works itself out subtly and not explicitly. We know that a conglomeration of complex and changing social and institutional dynamics can result in disparate outcomes. That is, in part, how abortion has become rampant in America.
The concern seems to have more to do with the fact that some people don’t think disparate racial outcomes are important problems to solve.[5]
Some questions I have as I observe this conversation is why do white conservative Christians tend to freak out more about CRT drawing from Marxist thinkers like Antonio Gramsci than they do about America being founded by Enlightenment philosophers like Benjamin Franklin? People claim Franklin as being a sort of quasi-Christian because he was a “deist.” They forget, however, that they are looking back at Franklin from the context of a world where “atheists” exist.
Atheism didn’t exist in Franklin’s day. Deism was the movement toward atheism from theism. So, in Franklin’s day, he would have been considered a “godless one,” as some consider progressive liberals today. He was the progressive of his generation, and we have Enlightenment thinkers like him to thank for being the doorway to the secularized society we have now.
Another question I have is why do they claim CRT has “Marxist origins”?
Yes, early CRT theorists drew from Marxist thinkers, but they also drew from Christian statesmen like Frederick Douglass and Seventh-day Adventist abolitionist Sojourner Truth.[6] It’s sort of like claiming that America was “founded on the Bible” when the Bible was merely one of many sources the founding fathers drew from. We seem to arbitrarily assign primary influence for theories and movements based on whether we personally like them.
And if we can assign a certain theory as having poisonous or evil origins we don’t have sort through the ways the Gospel overlaps with it.
If we want to have a conversation about specifically dangerous aspects of CRT, we can. We could discuss how CRT (and critical theory in general) sort of postures people to view the world through grievances and how, unchecked, this leads to depression, alienation, and despair and doesn’t help solve the problem.
We could also address intersectionality. Throughout history, as well as in scripture, we see how when a person embodies a combination of despised attributes (i.e. Samaritan, female, and having had five husbands) it leads to an amplified level of discrimination.[7] However, when combined with moral relativism, the sexual revolution, and the individualism our capitalistic idealism has created in us, intersectionality becomes an intersection of confusion and chaos.[8]
But our concerns for dangerous aspects of CRT should not keep us from acknowledging the problem that exists and the solution the Gospel offers.
Humans rank each other and dominate over one another. One way this manifests itself is through racial prejudices that lead not only to individual actions but societal norms and structures which hinder some groups of people while helping others.[9]
The Gospel calls those of us who hear the Good News and become disciples of Jesus to advocate for these people.
Most people talking about CRT as being dangerous want to reject more than CRT. They want to reject the problems CRT seeks to address. They want to be able to say that such concepts as racial disparities, systemic racism, white supremacy, and equity are tethered together with the core of CRT and need to therefore be rejected.
These people don’t exhibit a posture of being willing to enter into their brother’s pain and find a way toward true, redemptive healing. So I’m not too convinced CRT is actually what people are most concerned about. I think many just don’t want to acknowledge the problem of racial injustice.
If we’re going to counter CRT with a biblical approach to racial justice, we have got to be willing to acknowledge the problem. If you’re willing to do that, join me in the next article as we look at scripture more closely and see how sin indeed causes mankind to explicitly and subtly dominate over one another.
Feel free to share your responses to this article in the comments below. Please be respectful to each other as you do. Grace and peace.
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Footnotes
[1] See pages 25-39 in Jemar Tisby’s book, The Color of Compromise.
[2] See Kindle locations 500-501 in Jean Stefancic’s book, Critical Race Theory: The Cutting Edge.
[3] For a more in-depth look at this, check out this Facebook Live event put on by Restorative Faith.
[4] Ansell, Amy (2008). “CriticalRace Theory”. In Schaefer, Richard T. (ed.). Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Society, Volume 1. SAGE Publications. pp. 344–346. | ”Critical race theory”. Encyclopedia Britannica. June 16, 2021. | Bridges, Khiara M. (2019). Critical Race Theory: A Primer. St. Paul, Minn.: Foundation Press. p. 7. | Crenshaw, Kimberlé; Gotanda, Neil; Peller, Gary; Thomas, Kendall, eds. (1995). Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings that Formed the Movement. New York: The New Press., p. xiii. | Gillborn, David; Ladson-Billings, Gloria (2020),”Critical Race Theory”, SAGE Research Methods Foundations, SAGE Publications, archived from the original on June 22, 2021, retrieved June 21, 2021. | Iati, Marisa (May 29, 2021).”What is critical race theory, and why do Republicans want to ban it in schools?”. The Washington Post.
[5] If you haven’t already, please read my article, A Biblical Theology of Creation, Sin, and Justice (the place to begin with our view of the world).
[6] Beloved Republican Presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson is also Seventh-day Adventist.
[7] To be clear, I am not saying Samaritan, female, and having had five husbands are inherently despised attributes. Rather, they were despised in the setting in which the woman at the well of John 4 lived.
[8] For a robust dialogue on the negative influence of critical theory, check out this interview with Kimi Katiti on the Theology in the Raw podcast.
[9] Please consider the books Just Mercy, Forgive Us, I’m Still Here, Under Our Skin, The Color of Compromise, and Be the Bridge for more background on this. These are books written by Christians seeking to address the real problem based on their lived-experience and love for Jesus and His church.
