One of the most prominent voices speaking out against Christians using Critical Race Theory (CRT) as a framework for understanding injustice has been pastor Voddie Baucham.
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Baucham outlined his criticisms of CRT in his book Fault Lines: The Social Justice Movement and Evangelicalism’s Looming Catastrophe, released April 2021. In Fault Lines, Baucham argues that Critical Theory and its subsets, Critical Race Theory-Intersectionality and Critical Social Justice are grounded in Western Marxism, the public social justice conversation is perpetuating misinformation, and CRT is incompatible with Christianity as a competing worldview.
I discovered Baucham a number of years ago.
So far, Teresa and I have homeschooled our children and he has been a major figure in the homeschooling movement over the years. I love hearing him preach—he’s got an awesome voice! And he preached one of the most profound sermons on ethnic unity I’ve ever heard, based from Ephesians 2:11-22.
My strongest critics probably don’t realize it, but Baucham’s sermon on Ephesians 2 has significantly shaped much of the content published on here addressing God’s heart for unity within the church among brothers and sisters of ethnically and economically diverse backgrounds.
This article is the tenth of a series of articles addressing the question, “How should Christians process Critical Race Theory?”
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Interestingly enough, however, Baucham wants nothing to do with social justice.
He signed and promulgated the Dallas Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel drafted by Tom Ascol and signed by other evangelical leaders like John MacArthur and James White. He has provided many a Christian YouTube Watchdog with soundbites to expose and unveil the evil agenda behind the social justice movement.
I’ve spent a number of hours listening to him talk about the issue and recently worked through his book, Fault Lines, to see for myself what he has to say.
As you might expect, Baucham gets some things quite right. For instance,
- Growing ethnic tension is not the main problem in America. It’s A problem, but not THE problem.
- All cultures are fallen. All need to be transformed.
- Real just requires Truth. The pursuit of justice must include the pursuit of Truth.
- He makes a good point about the evidence requiring two or three witnesses to be established according to God’s view of justice.
- We should remember we alone are merely one witness. We are biased. When we’re saying justice for ________, we are one witness.
- Media DOES often misrepresent cases. This happens regardless of the bias of the particular media outlet.
- The data around police shootings is far more complex than mainstream media presents it as.
- We must be careful not to draw conclusions too quickly when it comes to looking at stats.
- There is a concerning legalism among the progressive Left (similarly to what exists among conservatives, in my opinion).
- The root sin is not racism; rather, sin is the root of racism.
- We do need to be careful not to just silence those who disagree with us.
- Abortion IS the unspoken epidemic in black America (although, if he thinks CRT is an “unbiblical worldview,” he shouldn’t be talking in terms like this).
- The DNC does probably care more about votes than actually solving issues.
- We are supposed to fight with “the truth of the Gospel” and “biblical justice”…………………..
- We should destroy arguments and speculations (but if we misrepresent the arguments and speculations, we are then participating in arguments and speculations, not “destroying them”).
- Black Lives Matter is a dangerous organization.
- Forgiveness is part of the process of healing our wounds. It is also a part of justice.
To be clear, I am not going describe in details the points listed above.
Rather, they are observations Baucham shares that I believe are fair critiques of the social justice movement.
But this does not tell the whole story of Baucham’s critique of social justice. He also gets some things quite wrong. I’ll address those in my next article on how Christians should process CRT.
Until then, if you want to evaluate the tenants of CRT on your own, I suggest checking out the following resources for yourself:
- Critical Race Theory: An Introduction (book)
- Critical Race Theory: The Cutting Edge (book)
- Slow to Write: Critical Race Theory (blog articles)
- This Is Why I Hate Critical Race Theory (video)
- Discrimination and Disparities (book)
- Race, CRT, the Gospel, Social Justice, Evangelism, Systemic Racism: Thabiti Anyabwile (podcast episode)
- Critical Theory, Tim Keller, and David Fitch (article)
We asked pastors how to have conversations about racism without causing unnecessary division, and put their responses into a free guide called, How to Talk about Racial Issues as a Church without Destroying It in the Process. Click here to access your own copy.
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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