Critical Race Theory. Is it just a trending intellectual fad? A helpful tool for understanding race relations? A harmless philosophy unlikely to leave any lasting imprint?
Regrettably, my answers are no, no, and no.
It would be so much more fun if I could just get on board. It really would. After all, racism is an awful evil. Awful. It would be great if CRT played a helpful role in ending racism, but I fear from it the exact opposite result. What I’d like to do today is explain why.
So let’s start with a simple definition. It’s my own definition, so it’s not particularly academic, but I think that it captures the main thrust: Critical Race Theory seeks to understand and correct how our culture supports racial inequities. That doesn’t sound too dangerous – in fact it sounds admirable. And therein lies the problem.
You and I ought to think of CRT as an ideological framework and a revolutionary movement which has tentacles reaching into history (how do we understand the past, and particularly the power struggles of the past?), politics (how do we divide the structures of power?), law (how do we correct imbalances of power?), and faith (to what extent does our religious dialogue promote justice or injustice?). Again, I’m not an academician, but this is my take on it, and I hope you find it helpful on some level. Interestingly, I don’t think that the CRT movement started out with the intent to be “religious” in nature, but I’m making the case today that the CRT train has traveled well into the land of faith. Personally, I’m intrigued by all of these tentacles, but it’s CRT’s underlying and anti-biblical philosophy of “faith” which is fueling my gravest concern. And I’m using the word “faith” today in this sense: what I see happening widely, when it comes to CRT, is a demand for absolute adherence to its tenets. And those tenets include matters which are essential to our understanding of human personhood and human relationships – matters of deep, soul-level conviction which the Bible also clearly addresses.
For starters, please allow me to underline here what ought to be – for those of us who follow the Lord Jesus Christ – our unabashed commitment to the inherent dignity of every person (Genesis 1:26-27). At first glance, you might think that CRT shares that same commitment, but nothing could be further from the truth. I’ll elaborate.
CRT fails because it’s FLAWED. Its prominent adherents reject the scientific method. They reject rational argumentation, which is essential to healthy public discourse. They reject other analytical tools which carry with them as much or more credibility as their own. As it stands right now, many of the elites in academia, the media, and the arts have bought into a social construct with no foundation in the Word of God. That can’t possibly end up in a noble place.
CRT fails because it’s FALLEN. Any teaching not rooted in Scripture runs the risk of leading many people astray, particularly when its cultural weightiness reaches a fever pitch. And that’s where I fear we are right now. It is driving our nation to make decisions based upon skin pigmentation, and without respect for shared dignity, and without regard for individual talent or contribution, and without appreciation even for America’s historic gains in social justice. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., preached: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
CRT fails because it’s FIXATED. It is myopic, narrow, and dangerously obsessed. It views everything through the lens of racial oppression. It is a faulty view of humankind in the sense that it presents the “problem” as a subset of the population. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that we’re facing a whole lot of problems right now that are a whole lot more complicated than what we used to call skin-deep. Honestly, the fixation betrays the lack of honesty, in my humble opinion.
CRT fails because it’s FALLACIOUS. Blinded by its own false sense of enlightenment – “wokeness” –it writes off the legitimate voices of racial and ethnic minorities who display any lack of support for the theory or its implications. Those under its spell routinely display their own versions of ethnocentrism and racism. I’ll quote Ibram Kendi: “The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination.” Friends, if it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then we have to be honest and bold enough to call it a duck.
CRT fails because it’s FOOLED. It is steeped in Marxism and in evolutionary theory. I’ll share just one small example. Claiming to promote the value of family, it gets so caught up in overthrowing familial and societal “power structures” that it ends up dismantling the family unit, and depleting our culture of any real opportunity to encourage families to be healthy and whole. Just like other forms of Marxism which have failed miserably in every part of the world where they’ve been tried, and have resulted in widespread misery and death, CRT is built on shifting sand.
CRT fails because it’s FATALISTIC. It views racism as normative and inevitable. In sharp contrast, you and I have been given the hope of the gospel (e.g., Galatians 3:28): There is neither Jew nor Greek … for you are all ONE in Christ Jesus! If the Bible is true, then there really is only one race: the human race.
Racism is a real sin, and you and I should be the first to denounce any form of racial superiority. In fact, if the good news of Christ hasn’t humbled us to our very core, then we have very little evidence that His grace has taken root in us at all. But we can’t get there by flawed philosophies which hide the truth about human nature: we are all sinners in radical need of a Savior. You’ll hear me say it many times: we can’t get the good news ’til we get the bad news.
As always, Jesus is our only yes, yes, and yes!
Pastor Charles
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