{"id":7993,"date":"2021-06-09T10:31:55","date_gmt":"2021-06-09T14:31:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/reintegrate\/?p=7993"},"modified":"2021-06-09T18:11:56","modified_gmt":"2021-06-09T22:11:56","slug":"crt-part-2-what-is-critical-race-theory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/reintegrate\/2021\/06\/09\/crt-part-2-what-is-critical-race-theory\/","title":{"rendered":"CRT Part 2: What is Critical Race Theory?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

It must be first stated that CRT is not <\/em>a fully unified school of thought. It started in the late 1970s as legal scholars like Derrick Bell, Kimberl\u00e9 Crenshaw, and Richard Delgado were trying to understand how American law perpetuated and exasperated racialization in the United States. They argued that racism and white supremacy were foundational elements of the American legal system despite the language of the Constitution claiming \u201cequal protection.\u201d It wasn\u2019t until the late 1980s that Kimberl\u00e9 Crenshaw coined the term \u201cCritical Race Theory.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Kimberl\u00e9 Crenshaw<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Since then, Critical Theory has been studied as it relates to other forms of discrimination (this is what \u201cintersectionality\u201d<\/a> means, what are the reasons a female who is Black experiences discrimination? What is the intersection of these two factors?).<\/p>\n

It has also been applied it to other disciplines other than law, and the further it moves away from its original academic discipline, the more people change it and the more it morphs into other things.<\/p>\n

So, it\u2019s difficult to say definitively what CRT is. Therefore, it is also difficult for some people to criticize it, because they inevitably see some aspects that they don\u2019t like and simplify and truncate the theory to those things, which ends up making \u201cstraw man\u201d arguments. Too many Christians rely on John MacArthur<\/a> or some other white conservative men to explain CRT to them or to point them to someone else who is critical of it (especially if that someone is Black)<\/a>.<\/u><\/p>\n

Many have turned to Voddie Baucham to critique CRT. In a recent interview with Faithwire<\/a>, he said, \u201cThis (CRT) is a religious movement. It has all the trappings of a religion. It has its own cosmology, it has its own saints, it has its own liturgy, its own law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Certainly, CRT is a secular scholarly discipline, and along with other secular disciplines, a certain kind of evangelical Christian has been trained to be suspicious and resistant. We\u2019ve seen this suspicion toward CRT especially with the Southern Baptists who been among the most vocal opponents (Baucham\u2019s education, both his M.Div. and D.Min. degrees, are from Southern Baptist schools. In November, the Southern Baptist Convention\u2019s six seminary presidents released a statement<\/a> calling the theory \u201cincompatible\u201d with the SBC\u2019s message, prompting at least four Black pastors<\/a> to break with the denomination.).<\/p>\n

But this isn\u2019t the only academic discipline that isn\u2019t rooted primarily in the Bible. We have all sorts of things to study in God\u2019s creation, so we\u2019ve created disciplines like Anthropology, Psychology, Sociology, Chemistry, Biology, Physics, Mathematics, Economics, Engineering, and Medicine. Conservative Christians are often suspicious of many of these secular disciplines: They opposed anthropology and psychology because they weren\u2019t built on a foundation of a biblical worldview. They opposed the sciences because so much of it relies on evolutionary theories. They oppose certain economic theories because they deem them too liberal or socialist. They don\u2019t drive across bridges or go to the doctor because\u2026 Well, they actually do <\/em>drive across bridges and go to the doctor.<\/p>\n

It should be said, however, that any ideology can become an idolatry. We\u2019ve seen the harm when people make all-encompassing idols out of ideologies, like economic ideologies, political ideologies<\/a>, psychological ideologies, scientific ideologies, and the rest.<\/p>\n

But because any of these can<\/em> become an all-encompassing idolatrous ideology does not negate that they also can <\/em>offer us insights to better understand the world around us.<\/p>\n

So we must echo the Lausanne Covenant<\/a>: Reconciliation with other people, while important, is not reconciliation with God. Political liberation, while important, is not eternal salvation. But making these statements does not negate that we have a Christian duty to seek socio-political justice.<\/p>\n

\"\"Baucham\u2019s new book on the subject, Fault Lines<\/a>, is subtitled, \u201cThe Social Justice Movement and Evangelicalism\u2019s Looming Catastrophe.\u201d Catastrophe? Really? This inflammatory rhetoric is a tactic to make Christians fearful in order to sell books. Are we really to believe that if we allow for the gospel to include social justice it will cause devastation to the faith? Remember that \u201cGod gave us a spirit not of fear<\/em> but of power and love and self-control\u201d (2 Tim 1:7).<\/p>\n

Another highly-read article on CRT appeared on The Gospel Coalition website in 2019. In an article titled, \u201cThe Incompatibility of Critical Theory and Christianity,\u201d<\/a> Neil Shenvi and Pat Sawyer offer several points, which I bullet point here. I\u2019m often struck by how few people have skipped over their first two points because they don\u2019t fit the narratives they want to believe.<\/p>\n