Christians Need to Have Conversations About Race, But CRT Is Not the Path to Follow

As Christians, and particularly as leaders, we are called upon to talk about topics that are polarizing and difficult. Race is one of those topics. A recent study by LifeWay Research shows that pastors are more hesitant to talk about race and racial reconciliation today than they were in 2016. At the pace division is growing in America, my guess is even this survey, conducted in September 2020, is dated.

There is little room for conversation and deep discussion on issues of race in American culture as a whole or even within the church. We are all too fearful of being branded a racist for simply trying to understand a complex topic from another’s perspective.

At the center of much of the controversy within our culture and specifically within the Southern Baptist Convention is the issue of Critical Race Theory (CRT).

Prior to 2019, most Southern Baptists and Americans had never heard of Critical Race Theory. In June 2019, during the SBC Annual Meeting in Birmingham, AL, SBC Messengers approved Resolution 9, “On Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality.” Again, I argue that many SBC Messengers voted on this resolution without fully understanding or appreciating the premise from which Critical Race Theory originates. There is even disagreement within the Resolution Committee over the intent and purpose of the resolution.

Clearly, much has been written about CRT in the months following the adoption of Resolution 9. Unfortunately, all the conversation in the form of news articles, podcasts, blogs, etc., has provided little clarity on the issue.

The purpose of this article is not to debate the pros and cons of Critical Race Theory, but to argue that as Southern Baptists, we need to find a way to have deep, meaningful conversations on the issues of race and racial injustice without invoking the tenants and historical baggage encapsulated in Critical Race Theory.

Two Clicks to Understanding Critical Race Theory

Let me take you on a brief web excursion to demonstrate my point. Let’s assume I am Cindy Christian sitting in my Southern Baptist Church on a Sunday morning and the topic of Critical Race Theory is brought up. I haven’t a clue what this means except to acknowledge that smart people on both sides of the issue seem to have very different opinions.

Knowing little about the issue, I do what everyone else does when confronted by a topic I know nothing about: I google it. I type the words “Critical Race Theory” into my trusted Google search box, and the top entry on the first page is an article from Wikipedia on the topic, so I click on the link and read the first paragraph:

Critical race theory (CRT) is a framework in the social sciences that examines society and culture as they relate to categorizations of race, law, and power in the United States of America. It began as a movement in American law schools in the mid- to late 1980s as a reworking of critical legal theory on race issues.

As the word "critical" suggests, both theoretical frameworks are rooted in critical theory, a social philosophy which argues that social problems are influenced and created more by societal structures and cultural assumptions than by individual and psychological factors.

It is loosely unified by two common themes:

First, that white supremacy exists and exhibits power maintained over time, and, in particular, that the law plays a role in this process.

Second, that transforming the relationship between law and racial power, as well as achieving racial emancipation and anti-subordination more broadly, are possible.

Sounds decent enough, but what is “critical theory”? Not knowing, I click on the link to “critical theory.”

Critical theory (also capitalized as "Critical Theory" to distinguish the school of thought from a theory that is in some way "critical") is an approach to social philosophy that focuses on reflective assessment and critique of society and culture in order to reveal and challenge power structures. With origins in sociology and literary criticism, it argues that social problems are influenced and created more by societal structures and cultural assumptions than by individual and psychological factors. Maintaining that ideology is the principal obstacle to human liberation, critical theory was established as a school of thought primarily by the Frankfurt School theoreticians Herbert Marcuse, Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Erich Fromm, and Max Horkheimer. Horkheimer described a theory as critical insofar as it seeks "to liberate human beings from the circumstances that enslave them."

In sociology and political philosophy, "Critical Theory" means the Western-Marxist philosophy of the Frankfurt School, developed in Germany in the 1930s and drawing on the ideas of Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud. Though a "critical theory" or a "critical social theory" may have similar elements of thought, capitalizing Critical Theory as if it were a proper noun stresses the intellectual lineage specific to the Frankfurt School.

Modern critical theory has also been influenced by György Lukács and Antonio Gramsci, as well as second-generation Frankfurt School scholars, notably Jürgen Habermas. In Habermas's work, critical theory transcended its theoretical roots in German idealism and progressed closer to American pragmatism. Concern for social "base and superstructure" is one of the remaining Marxist philosophical concepts in much contemporary critical theory.

Ok, so I am two clicks into my research and here’s what I have learned about Critical Race Theory:

• it is rooted in Critical Theory

• it talks about white supremacy, racial emancipation and anti-subordination?

• Critical Theory comes from something called “the Frankfurt School” formed in 1930s Germany. (Layman’s understanding of history: nothing good came out of Germany in the 1930s.)

• it draws from the ideas of Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud.

• it has been influenced by two guys named Lukács and Gramsci, which Wikipedia tells me were both Marxist philosophers.

That is about as far as most people will go when they research Critical Race Theory. Tell me, how should the average Christian respond when they hear their pastor, denomination leader, or politicians talk favorably about Critical Race Theory? What is in that brief layman’s definition that would make the average person think, “that’s something we should depend upon to have meaningful, biblical conversations about race”?

This is my point: to espouse Critical Race Theory as the starting point for any conversation on race is to start the conversation on a losing premise from the beginning. The words point to a complex theory that carries with it tremendous historical, philosophical, theological, and theoretical baggage.

Brothers and sisters, we need to have conversations about race, but Critical Race Theory is not the proper instrument, tool, device, theory, construct, or any other descriptor we want to apply to make it sound acceptable. For the Christian, it is not. It is rooted in a worldview that is completely antithetical to a biblical worldview. (I would argue Marxism is Satanic in its origin, but that's for another article.)

To my fellow pastors and leaders who insist we use CRT as the basis for our discussions on race my question is simple: why? Why insist on using a theory that any grandma with a computer can learn in two clicks is Marxist in its premise and foundation? If your objective is to help increase understanding and clarity on issues of race, haven’t you lost the battle before you utter a single word?

Yes, we need to have deep, meaningful, biblical conversations about race and racial injustice in America. Yes, we need to acknowledge that culturally, there are differences of perspective on the issue of race. Yes, we need to acknowledge that Christian leaders in the past and the present hold to beliefs on race that are unbiblical.

We need to have these conversations, but we can’t as long as we are bickering over the issue of CRT. Let's denounce CRT as unbiblical (because it is); let’s begin with a biblical understanding that because of the gospel, we are all brothers and sisters in Christ, and because you are my brother and sister, I want to understand some of the cultural narratives that have impacted your life. I want to have these conversations because I love you as a brother or sister and I appreciate hearing your perspective and learning from you.

Don’t miss this opportunity to have these conversations.