Critical Race Theory

What is Critical Race Theory and why must it be rejected?

In a nutshell, Critical Race Theory (CRT) is a leftist academic theory which utilises neo-Marxist analysis to understand culture – and to change it. CRT is part of the broader Critical Theory that the Frankfurt School and cultural Marxists developed. Marxism has always been about power, but while economics was everything for the earlier Marxists, culture has now replaced that. So now we find everywhere power struggles within culture.

Now it is not just capitalism and the bourgeoisie oppressing the proletariat, but Westerners – especially white Christian males – who are oppressing everyone else. Thus Western culture is inherently and systemically racist, sexist, homophobic, etc., and it all needs to go – now.

All Blacks are oppressed by all Whites all the time, whether they know it or not. Thus groups like Antifa and BLM are morally justified in doing anything – be it rioting, arson, and leveling entire neighbourhoods – to ‘correct’ the problems of oppression and injustice.

An even briefer, but still accurate, way to describe things is this: the ones doing the most to keep racism alive are leftists pushing things like CRT. As Black American commentator Thomas Sowell put it back in 2012: “Racism is not dead, but it is on life support — kept alive by politicians, race hustlers and people who get a sense of superiority by denouncing others as ‘racists’.”

Or as Black American conservative Candace Owens has put it, “If you’re looking for institutional racism, it exists within Critical Race Theory. Ban it. At every level. It is the new Jim Crow.” Plenty of other Blacks have denounced this dangerous neo-Marxist movement.

Here in Australia Indigenous leader Nyunggai Warren Mundine AO recently penned a piece with this title: “Critical race theory is the eugenics of our time – a white supremacist doctrine dividing us by colour.” As he tweeted a few days ago: “I have fought against racism all my life. Critical Race Theory and White Privilege is the most racist theory I have read in the past 30 years.”

As mentioned, CRT is especially being pushed in academia. Another Black American economist, the late Walter Williams, said this last year:

Political scientist Zach Goldberg ran certain grievance studies concepts through the Lexis/Nexis database, to see how often they appeared in our press over the years. He found huge increases in the usages of “white privilege,” “unconscious bias,” “critical race theory” and “whiteness.” All of this is being taught to college students, many of whom become primary and secondary school teachers who then indoctrinate our young people.

Black Christians have also been speaking out against this. American Pastor Voddie Baucham actually says this about CRT: “I’m worried about a rise in white supremacy and actual racism because of the rise of CRT. We have run away from the only solution to racism—the Gospel—in favor of a non-solution. ‘Savior theology’ is the answer.”

And his brand-new book Fault Lines (Salem Books, 2021) is all about this issue. So important is this volume that I will discuss it further in a proper book review, so stay tuned. But see this 16-minute video of his for more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuSMvIVtd0A

Another Christian writer who says he is “half white and half black,” Ryan Bomberger, had an important piece published a few days ago called “Critical Race Theory: It’s a Cancer Not a Cure”. It is well worth quoting from. He says:

My melanin doesn’t change my worth or my propensity to sin. Yet we live in a culture where we are told that our skin color confers upon us a status that is fixed, assigned by an elite class of humans who call themselves “scholars.” They want us to see everything through the broken lens of “race”—a human construct that has only served to dehumanize us throughout history. As a person with brown skin, I reject my assigned “status” and refuse to see everything through that distorted prism.

 

It leads to blindness. Instead, I choose to see through the breakthrough filter of Scripture that opens our eyes to the truth of our identity, the perfect bond of love, our oneness through Christ, and the freedom of forgiveness. Our human condition, and the frailty that marks us, can never be illuminated by the darkness of tattered theories.

 

And that’s exactly what Critical Race Theory (CRT) is. How can a theory derived from anti-Semites who were virulent racists hell-bent on abolishing the family and religion bring healing to the sin of racism? Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels saw Christianity as an impediment to their socialist ideology. How can a godless theory be used as an “analytical tool” to address issues needing a Godly solution?

 

I’m particularly irked by Christians who don’t want the struggle of wrestling with solutions but simply hop aboard the latest bandwagon sponsored by an insanely profitable victimhood industry. Racism is evil as is every other sin known to humankind. Sin diminishes and destroys us. It is a brokenness that cannot be remedied by more brokenness. But for many, the goal is not to offer a solution but a continual subscription.

He continues:

As Christians, we are all privileged to know and worship a God who could’ve merely condemned us but chose to redeem and rescue us (John 3:16-17). We are privileged to no longer be slaves to sin (Romans 6:6). We are privileged, through Christ’s strength, to be more than conquerors (Romans 8:37).

 

The Bible tells us to no longer conform to the pattern of this world in Romans 12:2, yet this is exactly what we do when we embrace the warped worldliness of CRT. Blame, Deceive, Repeat. This destructive pattern is recognizable throughout Scripture. Satan is the accuser, and he constantly coaxes us to embrace the lie instead of the Light.

 

CRT is a debilitating disease. Its malignancy in the body of Christ is spread by pastors who don’t believe the Word is enough. Some of these leaders apparently think the World has the answers to the temporal and eternal devastation of sin.

 

Mainstream media gave voice to a handful of black pastors who support using CRT and several who left a major denomination over it. Pastor Charlie Dates, of the Progressive Baptist Church in Chicago, exited the Southern Baptist Convention over SBC Seminary presidents’ rejection of Critical Race Theory, despite their clear denouncements of the sin of racism. I thoroughly agree with their statement. I’m not a Southern Baptist, so I have no interest in defending a denomination but merely want to uphold the Truth. Pastor Dates, who embraces unbiblical Black Liberation Theology and the Black Lives Matter movement, issued a defiant (and historically challenged) OpEd sharply condemning those who oppose CRT. He claims the rejection of CRT is due to “fear of liberalism.” I don’t fear liberalism. I wholeheartedly disagree with it because of its dependence on deception and division. Dates strangely then attributed certain social movements to “liberalism” (aka the Democrat Party) such as abolition, women’s suffrage, and civil rights. On all three, Republicans led the fight. But CRT and its advocates value feelings far more than facts. https://www.christianpost.com/news/critical-race-theory-its-a-cancer-not-a-cure.html  

Much more can be said on this, but it is encouraging to know that so many Blacks and so many Christians are speaking out on this. But be fully aware of this: if you dare to speak out against it that only means that you are guilty of it! As one commentator explains:

Critical race theorists have constructed their argument like a mousetrap. Disagreement with their program becomes irrefutable evidence of a dissenter’s “white fragility,” “unconscious bias,” or “internalized white supremacy.” I’ve seen this projection of false consciousness on their opponents play out dozens of times in my reporting. Diversity trainers will make an outrageous claim—such as “all whites are intrinsically oppressors” or “white teachers are guilty of spirit murdering black children”—and then, when confronted with disagreement, adopt a patronizing tone and explain that participants who feel “defensiveness” or “anger” are reacting out of guilt and shame. Dissenters are instructed to remain silent, “lean into the discomfort,” and accept their “complicity in white supremacy.” https://www.city-journal.org/how-to-fight-critical-race-theory

But the good news is, there is some pushback now going on, especially in the US. As one article on this begins:

President Joe Biden may have revoked his predecessor’s ban on critical race theory and embraced its concept of “equity,” but several US states have adopted laws against the doctrine, setting up a showdown with the White House.

 

On Tuesday, Arkansas passed legislation banning critical race theory (CRT) “indoctrination” in public agencies and prohibiting the state from promoting collective guilt, segregation, racial stereotyping or scapegoating.

 

Idaho was the first state to ban public schools from promoting CRT last month, followed by Oklahoma. Similar proposals are currently being considered by state lawmakers in Texas and Tennessee. One of the activists campaigning for the new laws is Christopher Rufo, the researcher whose revelations about the spread of CRT in the federal government prompted President Donald Trump to ban it last year. Rufo called Idaho law a “historic win” in the fight against CRT, which he dubbed “state-sanctioned racism.” Russ Vought, Trump’s former director of Office of Management and Budget (OMB), is involved in getting Tennessee to ban CRT. https://www.rt.com/usa/522921-states-ban-critical-race-theory/

That is good news indeed. And Australia needs to move in this direction as well. Consider just one school where parents are concerned about this leftist indoctrination:

In Sydney, a ‘progressive public school’, the oddly-named Lindfield Learning Village, has been criticised by One Nation MLC and Spectator columnist, Mark Latham, for teaching social studies with a slant to the woke and politically correct. Latham highlighted a poster-making exercise allowing students to extol the Marxist and anti-capitalist Black Lives Matter movement, and parrot BLM messages about ingrained racism and police brutality against non-white people.

 

The school reportedly insisted this wasn’t teaching content, but a student brain dump of what they had heard about BLM, and all that has flowed from it, before they commenced studying ‘recent Aboriginal history’ – no doubt with a Critical Race Theory and pro-BLM foundation. Following parental and public outrage, the NSW education minister, Nationals MP Sarah Mitchell, intervened and the offending materials were withdrawn, with the school undertaking to never do it again. Until next time. https://spectator.com.au/2021/04/how-about-some-right-minded-activism-in-schools/

The radical left never sleeps nor eats, but agitates for revolution 24/7. And it never changes – certainly not in its ultimate goals. It simply morphs into new versions and wears differing masks, but it is the same old same old. The war against the West continues unabated, and CRT is just one of the more recent fronts in which we find this happening.

You have been warned.

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