A discipline often promoted by progressive activists on the left, critical theory (CT) has become a hot button issue among evangelicals, with some accepting it as a useful analytical tool and others (mostly on the right) rejecting it outright as a threat to biblical faith. Thus, for example, the Seminary presidents of the Southern Baptist Convention recently issued a statement saying that “affirmation of Critical Race Theory, Intersectionality and any version of Critical Theory” is incompatible with the Baptist Faith and Message, the denomination’s core beliefs. In response, Jemar Tisby, author of the bestselling book The Color of Compromise, referred to critical race theory as the “theological and ecclesiastical equivalent of the ‘Red Scare.” He said, “Slap anyone with the label ‘Critical Race Theory,’ and they automatically become enemies of the church.”[1]
Given the limitations of space, it is not possible nor is it necessary to focus on this internal debate. What I will attempt to show is that as a theory of social justice CT is both useful and potentially harmful. We can agree in principle with Thaddeus Williams’ observation that it is critically important to distinguish between “Social Justice A,” which is compatible with biblical Christianity, and “Social Justice B,” which conflicts with a biblical view of reality.[2] The question, of course, is when does a particular theory of social justice cross the line from being helpful to being harmful? Many assessments (both positive and negative) of CT are made without a clear understanding of what it is. Therefore, I will attempt to answer (at least partially) three questions: 1) What is CT and its application to the issue of race, CRT? 2) How might it be useful in identifying the reality and effects of injustice and oppression? 3) When does it veer into a version of religious fundamentalism and become a threat to both biblical Christianity and the body politic? Given the inherent complexity of this issue, our discussion here will be somewhat longer than our treatment of Christian Nationalism. But, as we will see, the two issues are closely inter-related.
What is Critical Theory?
Given the fact that CT is often not well understood, some knowledge of the historical background and context is important. In 1923, a collection of leftist and neo-Marxist philosophers, cultural critics, and sociologists formed the Institute of Social Research in Frankfurt, Germany. They developed a way of critiquing societal power structures known as critical theory. As the threat of Nazism increased, the Institute moved from Germany to Geneva in 1933 and subsequently to New York in 1935. The ideas of critical theory were sown in the second half of the twentieth century, particularly among the young people of the New Left in the 1960s and 1970s, and “came to fruition” in the US in the 2000s. The election of Donald Trump as President in 2016 was the last straw for many of those on the left. Interest in the Frankfurt School spiked. For many of the liberal progressives (as well as disaffected youth) critical theory finally became an “interpretive grid” for looking at life generally.[3]
Thus, while many people are not familiar with CT, it has profoundly influenced out culture. This will become more apparent as we proceed. So, please bear with me as we look briefly at this theory.
Since there are many versions and strands of critical theory, it can be difficult to summarize.[4] In a nutshell, the primary concern of critical theory is with revealing hidden biases and underexamined assumptions to understand and rectify “problematics,” or ways in which society and its social systems are going wrong.[5] However, CT cannot be properly understood apart from another movement which in some respects was its offspring—postmodernism, which I will describe in greater detail shortly. As a philosophy, CT goes further in maintaining that power operating through social systems and structures is what produces unjust outcomes and perpetuates social inequalities. The powerful have, both intentionally and inadvertently, organized society in ways that benefit them and perpetuate their power. Oppression is not necessarily intentional or the result of a consciously coordinated conspiracy. It can be perpetuated through “social systems” and structures which privilege some groups over others.[6] Within this framework, the task of critical theory is thus to identify and “map” the ways in which power shapes our understanding of the world. This is the “critical” first step toward resisting and transforming social injustices.
Critical race theory (CRT) applies these concepts to the issue of race. It says that power structures based on white privilege perpetuate the marginalization of people of color.
Within CRT (and CT generally) two other concepts are particularly important: “intersectionality” and “dominant discourse.” Intersectionality basically means that power and oppression operate in complicated and interlocking ways, particularly in areas of race, gender (male/female), sexual-orientation, and gender identity (transgender). Dominant discourse is the idea that language does not merely describe reality—it creates it. Language is used to disguise, “mask,” or hide power structures behind claims of “objective truth” or “divine truth.” Thus, as David French describes this concept, “legal theorists will often deconstruct any given story or narrative to look for hidden ways that power, privilege, and assumptions about language color our decisions and our discourse.”[7]
CT /CRT : Helpful as an Analytical Tool
As French and others point out, to the extent that CT/CRT is presented as a comprehensive “totalizing ideology” that explains everything it is deeply flawed, violates core scriptural truths, and ultimately veers into its own version of religious fundamentalism. However, as one analytical tool among many, it can be useful in helping us identify and understand the persistence of inequality and injustice in the United States. In its diagnosis of the reality of various forms of oppression it can motivate us to follow the dictates of Micah 6:8 to “seek justice.”[8] Before discussing problems of CT/CRT, then, I will show how this perspective can be useful in illuminating some social realities we often miss or ignore.
French gives the following illustration based on his own experience. Several years ago, after the Parkland school shooting, the county offered one of the Christian schools (which he advised) a county sheriff to serve as a school resource officer, free of charge. The purpose of this offer was to deter/respond to potential school shootings. Although a number of board members were initially enthusiastic about the idea of “free security,” the school headmaster spoke up and quickly changed their minds. Not only were the chances of a school shooting remote. The presence of law enforcement in the halls would likely lead to a “criminalization” of “normal” school discipline. A fight between students would be treated as an “assault;” and a student found with weed would be judged a “drug offender.” The headmaster maintained that the school needed to maintain “maximum freedom” to raise and discipline its students without outside interference. He prevailed. The board rejected the county’s offer and devised its own school security plan.
“What,” asks French, “does any of this have to do with critical race theory?” After all, the subject of race never came up in the discussion, and to anyone’s knowledge none of the participants had a racist bone in their bodies. “But viewed through the CRT lens, the entire incident was absolutely laden with power and privilege, and that exercise of power and privilege reinforced existing racial disparities.”
How? Well, let’s look at the disparities between the disproportionately white private school and the disproportionately black public school that was located a mere five miles away. First, there is a difference in power. The private school parents had the wealth to create and maintain a separate and independent institution. Unlike the public-school parents, they had the ability to accept or reject the presence of law enforcement in their school halls. Secondly, this power translated into a significant privilege—the private school students had the “privilege” not afforded public school students of committing low-level crimes and learning from their mistakes without fear of ending up in the claws of the criminal justice system.
French concludes:
Power and privilege thus distorted our language and understanding/ How could one even begin to understand, for example, the true difference in crime rate between the public and private school? If a fight is an assault in one place and just a ‘scrap’ in another, how do we know which school is more dangerous? If a marijuana purchase is a drug deal in one place and a ‘mistake’ in another, how do we know which environment is more perilous for vulnerable youth?
Now consider an event like this in the larger context 246 years of slavery; 99 years of Jim Crow laws; and the forces that have shaped our cities such as residential segregation, redlining, and “white flight”—all factors that have contributed to the concentration of black families in poor neighborhoods with run-down schools. It is then that you start to have a “aha!” moment. You begin to understand the reality of “white privilege” and “systemic” racial injustice in our country. [9]
Ken Wytsma rightly points out in his revealing study The Myth of Equality: Uncovering the Roots of Injustice and Privilege that the fact that we no longer find slavery or overt legally enforced segregation acceptable does not mean that the attitudes and other social forces that supported slavery and Jim Crow have been totally erased.
A boat does not stop immediately when it is throttled down, and its wake continues even longer. Likewise, race, racial bias, and racially constructed social patterns don’t immediately pass from memory when they are discredited. They linger in the shadow of our laws, in the ways society is represented in movies and music, and—in a deeper and more profound manner—in the ways we perceive ourselves as privileged or not.[10]
Critical race theory can therefore be positively used to help explain persistent disparities, build empathy, and motivate us to do what we can to ameliorate the effects of disparate power and privilege.
In some respects, CRT-infused analysis is compatible with efforts to connect Judeo-Christian values to being an American. Let’s return to the seeming anomaly that in the Christian nationalism index, almost two-thirds of African Americans (65%) are either sympathetic or strongly supportive of the idea of a “Christian America.” When black Americans express a belief in America’s essentially “Christian” identity they are using this idea to challenge the legacy of racial injustice, not bolster white supremacy. In other words, they have a different vision of a “Christian America.”
Various black leaders have used the idea of a Christian America as a rhetorical device to catalyze social change. In his speeches and writings. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., for example, regularly challenged America to live up to its professed “Christian” identity. In his Letter from a Birmingham Jail he declared that those who fight for racial justice are fighting “for the most sacred values in our Judeo-Christian heritage, thereby bringing our nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers. . . .” King thus used religious and democratic language to draw a connection between America’s founding ideals and its Judeo-Christian heritage.[11] He did so in a way that underscored his commitment to racial equality—a commitment which he believed was rooted in numerous scriptural passages that call for social justice. Thus, he engaged in a sort of “prophetic politics” that encouraged Christians to be more faithful to their biblical traditions.[12] But he also knew that appeals to the biblical ideals of justice were not enough. Such appeals had to be combined with actual structural policy changes—particularly the ending of segregation. Here, again, is where CRT analysis is helpful.
CT/CRT: Harmful as a Philosophy
Does this mean that critical race theory is always compatible with true Christian faith? Of course not. In fact, the irony is that despite the stated goal of CT/CRT to defend the rights and perspectives of people of color there are also significant ways that as a philosophy or totalizing ideology it marginalizes the African American Christian tradition.[13] To see why, we need to return to its expression in the form of postmodernism. A fundamental feature of postmodernism is the “knowledge principle” of radical skepticism regarding our ability to attain any knowledge of “objective truth.” Postmodernism therefore rejects any type of metanarrative, or broad cohesive explanations of the world. All claims to objective truth are value-laden social constructs and all metanarratives (including the Christian story of redemption) are attempts to legitimize power structures. For example, in our nation’s history the concept of “manifest destiny” was used to justify the near extermination of Native Americans. There is certainly truth in this observation. Human sin has resulted in terrible abuses of power; and religion (including Christianity) has, sadly, been wrongly used to legitimize such abuses. But extreme forms of postmodernism say that reality itself is socially constructed and governed by power. The result is radical relativism. Given the central role of Christianity (both as a belief system and a basis of morality and ethics) for a strong majority of African Americans, the postmodern worldview is destabilizing.
CT/CRT holds that the self (like everything else) is socially and culturally constructed. The notion of an autonomous individual is largely a myth. This anthropological premise is fundamentally at odds with the African American Christian tradition which holds that each human being “has an eternal self and soul whose dignity consists in its nature as imago Dei (that is, being made in the image of God).” In other words, as an essentially atheistic philosophy, CT/CRT undermines the belief of generations of African Americans that a personal God gives them dignity and worth even under the most dehumanizing circumstances.[14]
Historically, CT/CRT aligned itself with the Black nationalist/Black power movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s, which was deeply hostile to Christianity. It also has found expression in various theologies of liberation, particularly James Cone’s Black theology, which conflict in various ways with the traditional beliefs of most African Americans. Overall, the tendency of CT/CRT to view social reality almost exclusively as the product of power relations constructed by human beings results in a social determinism and relativism which diverges in a number of respects from the theology of the Civil Rights movement as articulated by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.[15] King rightly emphasized: 1) the dignity and worth of the human personality; 2) the “God-given” nature of all human rights; 3) the equality, yet “tragic sinfulness,” of all humans; 3) the necessity of a spiritual and moral transformation of the individual; 4) the goal of racial reconciliation (or what he called “Beloved Community”); 5) love and non-violence; and 6) the normative vision of a “divine order” which gives hope that evil will be defeated and justice will ultimately prevail. As I discuss further in my next post, despite some areas of overlap, these beliefs which are rooted in the Christian tradition, are fundamentally at odds with the philosophy of CT/CRT.
[1] Hobbs, “Is Critical Race Theory a Religion?” [2] Williams, Confronting Injustice without Compromising the Truth, 4-5. [3] Plasterer, “Critical Theory’s Advent in the Christian World.” [4] For a helpful summary of the historical development of critical theory, see Kellner, “Critical Theory and the Crisis of Social Theory.” [5] See Lindsay and Pluckrose, Cynical Theories, 13-14. [6] Ibid., 35-38. [7] French, “On the Use and Abuse of Critical Race Theory,” 3. See also Keller, “A Biblical Critique of Secular Justice and Critical Theory.” [8] Ibid., 6-7. [9] Ibid., 3-4. [10] Wytsma, The Myth of Equality, 80. [11] Perry and Williams, “Christian America in Black and White,” 7-8. [12] See Sanders, After the Election, 73-74. [13] See Paradise, “How Critical Race Theory Marginalizes the African American Christian Tradition.” [14] Ibid., 131-33. [15] Ibid., 175-204.
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