What is “Critical Race Theory?” Well, there is no universally agreed on definition. However, across definitions and descriptions there are some common and agreed on features.
Critical Race Theory (CRT) holds that racism against Blacks is endemic to American society. It is not just individuals who are racists; American society is racist, especially the parts of it that are dominated by Whites. And most of it is dominated by Whites in that every White person in America enjoys “White privilege” and few do anything about it. That is, few White people use their White privilege to lift the oppression of Blacks.
CRT has become controversial because it is widely held and taught in universities and colleges and now even in many high schools. Many White families have pushed back against that, as have many students. Some professors have pushed back against it but they know they can suffer sanctions for that, so most don’t.
Among Christians, especially conservative evangelical Christians in America, CRT has been vilified as divisive and harmful to racial reconciliation. A few years ago some conservative evangelical seminaries forbade teaching CRT. A few whole denominations have passed resolutions against it. Allegedly, the reasons for those rejections of CRT is that it is divisive, driving wedges between White and Black Christians.
CRT is not really new. One could cite, for example, Frederick Douglass as a forerunner of it. Theologian James Cone taught it even before the term CRT was coined.
I believe a reason many Whites reject CRT is that they see it aiming at reparations. The American government pays reparations to Native Americans; why not to descendants of slaves? Evidence shows that many American companies and businesses benefited tremendously from slavery. By and large, White people do not want to pay reparations to anyone. Most probably don’t even know the government pays reparations (not called that) to Native Americans/Indigenous People.
Is White racism against Blacks endemic to American society? What does that mean? It means that racism against Blacks is “built into” the structures of American society, often in ways almost nobody but Black people sees. One example is so-called “red-lining” by insurance companies that boost premiums in certain neighborhoods for no other reason than the majority of residents are Black. Another is that primarily Black schools tend to get less government support than primarily White schools.
So what is a way forward for Christians in this controversy? Instead of rejecting CRT in knee-jerk fashion, we should invite Black advocates of it to speak to us and we should enter into dialogue with them in non-defensive manner. Examine the evidence with an open mind.
One example of good Christian response is the so-called “Memphis Miracle” of 1994 in which the Pentecostal Fellowship of North America (PFNA) voluntarily dissolved and asked the Church of God in Christ (COGIC) to found a replacement organization. My uncle was a major driver in that event. He was then president of a Pentecostal denomination. He and other PFNA leaders discovered in the archives that when the PFNA was founded they consciously excluded Black Pentecostal denominations such as COGIC. The PFNA was racist from the beginning. It had to go. Simply inviting Black Pentecostal churches to join was not enough. In doing what they did, the White leaders of PFNA implicitly acknowledged the truth of CRT.
According to many historians, the Southern Baptist Convention was founded by all slave-holders and to defend slave-holding ministers and missionaries from sanctions by the anti-slavery Triennial Convention. Should the SBC disband and ask a primarily Black Baptist group to set up a new convention? I don’t see that happening. But perhaps some SBC leaders turn their backs on CRT because it might suggest such a thing.
American Christianity should not be divided between Blacks and Whites as it largely is. Simply acknowledging that would go some way to solving the problem. We need to get rid of the mentality that says racism is only an individual thing, not something embedded in the structures of American society.
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