Eighteen months ago, I had no clue what Critical Race Theory (CRT) claimed. But there I was, being told I had bought into CRT and Marxist thinking.
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I didn’t think I had. I had simply listened to enough first-hand accounts to know racism existed and still affected societal structures today—even in the church. But I didn’t know the theory, so I didn’t know why people labeled me as a “CRT advocate.”
This sent me on a search to understand what CRT was and how we should we process it as Christians. In the eighteen months since, I have learned a lot about CRT, and Critical Theory at large. I’ve also had a number of people ask me what I thought about CRT and how Christians should respond to it.
One of the things I learned is that there is incredible nuance to it all.
Therefore, I do not claim to completely understand Critical Theory. However, I have had and observed enough conversations in the last eighteen months to feel confident in saying that most people talking on social media about CRT as if they do understand it all completely have probably only ever heard other people talk about it and never researched it for themselves.
CRT is the big boogey man in Christian circles today, but many facets tend to get missed in conversations about it. I have read many good articles and listened to numerous profound and helpful podcast episodes on it that it feels pointless for me to write about it. Yet, as I observe conversations in specifically conservative Anabaptist circles, I have realized most people never will read those articles or listen to those podcasts.
In an effort to help the conversation discuss more holistically the real issues at hand, I am going to respond to this question in a series of articles on how to process Critical Race Theory.
Some articles will be lengthy while others will be quite short, but here is what the rough outline is going to look like *(some articles are still in the making):
How Should Christians Process Critical Race Theory?
- A Christian Thinks about CRT: 3 Clarifications
- The place to start for our view of the world: a biblical theology of creation, sin, and justice.
- The place to start for our view of current events: conversations with real-life people.
- Acknowledging the problem: racial prejudices that led not only to individual actions but societal norms and structures which hindered groups of people while helping others.
- Acknowledging that sin manifests itself in humans by causing us to dominate over one another.
- Acknowledging that privilege exists.
- “How Come There’s No ‘Asian’ Privilege?”
- How white Christians have found it hard to work with Christians of other races.
- A historical run-down of why conservative Christians react to social justice.
- When Christians married capitalism to “a biblical worldview,” and why that matters when processing CRT.
- Where Voddie Baucham gets it right.
- Where Voddie Baucham gets it wrong.
- Mandated equality will not end well.
- Why CRT coming from a secular source isn’t the primary concern and why expecting us to only use scripture to determine an appropriate way through racism is neither honest nor necessary for a biblical response to it.
- How Christians Should Process CRT: Responding to Questions
- Jesus Tore Down Walls of Ethnic Division and Oppression
- Racial justice is to Democrats what abortion is to Republicans: a wedge issue.
- How white supremacy and Christian nationalism are bigger threats to the Church than CRT.
- CRT is not the answer to the sin of racial prejudice. But what is? And what are you doing to address the sin?
- Learn Biblical theology, not capitalistic or socialistic theology.
- Listen.
- Lament.
- Legislate.
- The radical call of Jesus to “make disciples,” and how we should have been thinking about it differently all along.
This summer, my family and I had lunch with some friends of ours.
Over the course of conversation, one of our friends leaned in and said, “Let me ask you something. What do you think of this CRT? What is it?”
I sat there rather dumbfounded. It wasn’t the first time this had happened to me. But my friend is black, and I was planning to ask him about it.
I have found that very few of my friends of color know what CRT is. They didn’t read a book on Critical Theory one day and decide, “Oh, yeah. I’ve been experiencing systemic racism!”
They have experienced it firsthand.
And far too many of them are calling for the Church to address this lived-experience for us to single-handedly swipe away any notion of racism (individually or systemic) as a made-up concoction of CRT.
CRT did not create racism; CRT seeks to explain why it exists.
There is something real we need to address, and it needs to consume more of our energy than condemning CRT.
We cannot have any further conversation about CRT, however, until we are willing to start at the right places. It is important to ground our rationalization of man-made theories in real-life conversations with people who are experiencing the issues addressed. But it is even more important that we ground our thinking in a biblical view of creation, sin, and justice. And that is where this series begins.
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.
