Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 275 ｜ Critical Theory： A Disastrous, Unbiblical Worldview

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. I am so pumped for you to listen to this conversation that

00:00:16.620 I'm having today with Dr. Neil Shenvey. We are going to talk about critical theory and

00:00:21.240 y'all, it is about to blow your mind. So this is a longer episode and we honestly could

00:00:28.920 have gone on for maybe another hour or two. You just don't realize how insidious critical

00:00:34.640 theory is until you listen to this conversation. You are going to want to pause. You're going

00:00:39.660 to want to take notes. You're probably going to want to listen to it twice. You're going

00:00:42.540 to want to, you're going to want to send this to your pastor. You're going to want to send

00:00:46.960 it to your Christian friends, your secular friends, your mom, your dad, your brothers,

00:00:50.320 your sisters, your boyfriend, your spouse, everyone you know, you want to listen to this

00:00:54.960 episode. It's absolutely fascinating and I'm just so excited for you to listen to it. Okay,

00:01:01.160 since I think I've hyped it up enough, without further ado, here is Dr. Neil Shenvey. Neil,

00:01:06.440 thank you so much for joining me. Thank you, Allie. Can you tell everyone who you are and what you do?

00:01:13.280 Oh, my name is Dr. Neil Shenvey and I am actually a stay-at-home homeschooling dad at the moment,

00:01:19.020 but I am trained in theoretical chemistry and worked in academia for about 15 years.

00:01:26.100 Awesome. And can you tell everyone how you came to study critical theory and maybe more

00:01:33.720 specifically critical race theory? Yeah, so we have to go back a little bit. I became a Christian in

00:01:39.380 graduate school. I grew up in a great, very loving home, but not in a religious household. And I came

00:01:45.460 to faith through knowing my future wife, Christina, through reading C.S. Lewis, through going to church

00:01:50.420 and kind of realizing that I'd built my life on being the very best and the very smartest. And then

00:01:57.540 you come to me and say, actually, you're a sinner who needs forgiveness. And your belief in God is just

00:02:04.220 this vague build-a-bear God that you've never really wrestled with the real God. That was devastating

00:02:09.980 to me initially, but I realized I had to follow him if he's real. And so I trusted in Jesus. And

00:02:16.460 that began my Christian walk. But then I became interested in apologetics because I was in grad

00:02:23.480 school, surrounded by very intelligent, smart people, many of whom were atheists. So I wanted to 0.65

00:02:30.140 share with them, how do you convince them that Christianity is not just a fairy tale,

00:02:34.560 that it's true, the Bible is reliable, God exists. So I began reading about apologetics,

00:02:40.720 kind of the really standard stuff like C.S. Lewis. I read a lot of Tim Keller's work. And I was really

00:02:47.820 interested in the intellectual side of my faith and sharing the gospel with my colleagues who were

00:02:54.620 mainly atheists. So I was very apolitical. I was not interested in how you voted. I was not interested

00:03:01.460 in a lot of these social issues. Cultural apologetics was not on my radar at all.

00:03:07.240 Right.

00:03:08.020 So that was what I was doing for like a decade after becoming a Christian. And then about five years ago,

00:03:14.500 I began noticing both people I knew personally and even public Christian leaders beginning to drift

00:03:21.580 theologically. And it would often begin with an interest in social justice, which I assumed meant

00:03:28.480 applying biblical principles to our laws. But that's not what was meant. Because these same people

00:03:35.720 began espousing beliefs that were farther and farther away from orthodoxy. But I couldn't figure

00:03:41.640 out why. How do you go from saying, I want to care for the poor and I want to oppose racism? I'm like,

00:03:48.760 of course, sure, we should do that as Christians. But then they were saying things like,

00:03:53.040 well, I don't think Jesus is the only way to God. Or I think we need to embrace all forms of

00:03:58.720 sexuality as beautiful. And I was like, how do you go from point A to point B? I just couldn't

00:04:03.700 figure out the connection. So about four or five years ago, providentially, I met my really good

00:04:13.000 friend now, Dr. Patrick Sawyer, who has a PhD in education and cultural studies and teaches at UNC

00:04:20.780 Greensboro. And he was writing his dissertation on the social foundations that are related to

00:04:27.440 critical theory. And when he described his work to me, a scientist, I said, man, this sounds a lot

00:04:34.400 like what I'm hearing, even within the evangelical community. And he was just incredulous. He said,

00:04:42.080 I got into this area to share the gospel with my super secular progressive colleagues. I wanted to

00:04:48.440 build a bridge so I could speak their language. But there's no way that conservative evangelical

00:04:53.080 Christians are adopting these ideas. That's crazy. They're so wildly unbiblical. So we actually had 0.99

00:04:58.540 this sort of semi-heated conversation for a few weeks. And then we came to agree that actually, yes,

00:05:05.360 these ideas are finding their way into Christianity. And people are not just adopting a few new beliefs

00:05:11.880 about politics. They're adopting a new worldview. And that's why we're both very concerned.

00:05:18.320 So you would say that the bridge from Christians and maybe formerly conservative evangelical Christians

00:05:26.640 saying, hey, I care about racism. I care about injustice. We should apply social justice to these

00:05:33.320 areas in order to solve problems. The bridge between that and saying, hey, maybe other religions can also

00:05:40.800 find their way to heaven, find their way to God, and we should celebrate all kinds of sexualities. 1.00

00:05:46.320 Is critical theory that that's the bridge between those two things?

00:05:50.520 Yeah, at least for many people today. I think that's the water that we're swimming in right now

00:05:55.280 has been really, I want to say polluted. It's been tainted or by this ideology that derives from

00:06:03.640 critical theory, which is a very broad area of knowledge. So we have to be a little bit more precise.

00:06:07.460 But that's, yeah, that's why today people are going from point A to point B in their theology.

00:06:14.300 And tell us what critical theory is. And I know we'll spend a lot of time talking about this. But

00:06:19.460 first, if you could kind of just give a brief summation of what it is.

00:06:24.700 Yeah, I like to when people say, well, just give me a, you know, a one sentence definition of critical

00:06:28.500 theory. It's like saying, give me a one sentence definition of, say, feminism, 1.00

00:06:31.660 or a one sentence definition of science. Like, well, that's, that's pretty complicated. I'll try

00:06:37.560 to boil it down really in a brief synopsis. So people pretty much agree that Karl Marx alone

00:06:44.840 invites consensus as the first true critical theorist. That's a quote from Bradley Levinson's

00:06:49.360 book, Beyond Critique. And critical theorists in later decades didn't adopt his ideas about economics

00:06:56.500 per se. They were more interested in his ideas about how power operates to create social inequalities,

00:07:04.020 right? How does power function in our societies? So the term critical theory was coined by a guy

00:07:10.360 named Max Horkheimer in a 1937 essay. And he and other philosophers were trying to apply Marxist

00:07:16.780 theories more broadly than just economics. They wanted to apply it to things like culture and mass media.

00:07:22.400 But that was, that was in the thirties and forties, mainly a little later by Marcuse and people like

00:07:28.360 that. But the field of critical theory has grown tremendously. So if you look at like a genealogy of

00:07:35.800 critical theories, critical social theories, it includes entire disciplines like second wave feminism, 0.98

00:07:42.180 black feminism, post-colonial studies, critical pedagogy, queer theory, critical race theory. These are all

00:07:48.160 examples of critical social theories, and they're all concerned with understanding how power produces

00:07:55.680 domination and oppression and social inequality. Okay, gotcha. And how is that manifesting itself?

00:08:04.080 First, let's talk about how it's manifesting itself in evangelicalism.

00:08:08.380 Okay, well, let's back up a little bit. So although we, okay, that's where critical theory comes from,

00:08:13.240 but what are we seeing today? So today you hear terms like, you may have never heard the term critical

00:08:19.000 theory. Like what's critical theory? Well, you've probably heard these terms, intersectionality,

00:08:24.860 white privilege, white fragility, heteronormativity, colorblind racism. So you're like, oh, I've heard

00:08:31.400 those terms. In fact, they're on the news pretty much every night. I hear my senator using terms like

00:08:36.820 that. I see it in everywhere. If you've been on a college campus in the last five years, if you walk

00:08:42.880 past one, you've seen people talking about these ideas. So those terms come from what I like to

00:08:49.940 call, but Pat and I like to call contemporary critical theory. That's this manifestation of

00:08:54.380 critical theory that you see today that's influencing everything from politics to academia to the church

00:09:02.420 today. And people label it with things like cultural Marxism, identity politics, critical social

00:09:08.420 justice. Peter Lindsay and Helen Pluckrose coined the really funny term grievance studies.

00:09:13.800 All these fields that are unearthing these grievances regarding race and sex and sexuality and physical

00:09:21.240 ability. So whatever you want to call that ideology, that's what we're seeing in our culture today. And

00:09:28.340 it's based around sort of four central ideas. I'll really quickly run through them. And when I get

00:09:33.840 through them, I'm going to read just a few quotes from the primary sources. And you'll say, oh, man,

00:09:39.300 yeah, I totally recognize that thinking. I didn't know what to call it, though. So here's one quote.

00:09:44.640 This idea is the idea of the social binary. Here's a quote from the Cento and D'Angelo. They write,

00:09:50.900 for every social group, there's an opposite group. The primary groups that we name here are race,

00:09:56.820 class, gender, sexuality, ability, status, religion, and nationality. So they would view society

00:10:03.440 divided along oppressor groups and oppressed groups along lines of race, class, gender, etc. So

00:10:09.780 there are all these different groups, and you're either a privileged oppressor or you're a subordinate

00:10:15.400 oppressed group. And there are charts and figures and lists of these various oppressions. That's one

00:10:22.040 piece that, again, we recognize. That's why it's often called cultural Marxism. I dislike that term,

00:10:27.400 but you're kind of seeing how they're taking Marx's idea of class warfare and applying it to other

00:10:34.840 identity markers like race and sex and sexuality. Another key idea is oppression. So you hear oppression

00:10:44.740 today, and it doesn't really mean what the dictionary says it means. The dictionary defines oppression as

00:10:50.140 cruel and prolonged unjust treatment and control. That's oppression in the dictionary.

00:10:54.860 But the word oppression, like many other words, has been redefined. Here's a great quote.

00:11:00.980 In its new usage, oppression designates the disadvantage and injustice some people suffer

00:11:05.380 not because a tyrannical power coerces them. It's not what it means. It's because of the everyday

00:11:11.980 practices of a well-intentioned liberal society. So oppression is not about coercion, violence,

00:11:19.660 cruelty. It's about these subtle, insidious ideas that have shaped our culture and that we accept as

00:11:26.740 common sense. According to critical theorists. According to critical theorists, yes. So they're trying to

00:11:31.960 unearth the ways in which, quote unquote, oppression influences everything. But it's subtle. It's insidious.

00:11:39.320 So you don't notice it. You think what's common sense and normal, things like, you know, objectivity,

00:11:46.340 the meritocracy, work, hard work, those ideas that we take for granted as normal, and we see other

00:11:55.280 things as strange or wrong or abnormal. Those ideas are actually forms of oppression.

00:12:00.640 Right. Yeah. And can you tell me, where does it come in? Is it just strictly from the collectivist

00:12:09.820 nature of Marxism that in analyzing this so-called oppression or this new definition of oppression,

00:12:16.060 that they define oppressors and the oppressed not by any action that they have done or even any

00:12:23.460 attitude displayed, but strictly by typically like immutable characteristics, like you would be part of

00:12:29.520 the oppressed class just because you're a white male. Does it matter if you are also poor? Does it

00:12:35.120 matter if maybe you've actually literally been oppressed your whole life? How did they come upon

00:12:40.080 these categories of who is the so-called oppressed and who is the so-called oppressor just based on

00:12:45.300 your group identity? Yeah, it's very complicated. So the idea is kind of go back to Marx and also a man

00:12:52.380 named Antonio Gramsci, who is an Italian neo-Marxist thinker. But his idea was that he was asking,

00:12:58.620 why haven't the workers revolted yet? Why hasn't there been this glorious communist revolution?

00:13:05.800 And his answer was because the workers have, and this goes back to Marx too, they have absorbed the

00:13:11.300 ideas of the bourgeois. They have adopted these ideas like, well, if I work hard enough, then I can

00:13:17.040 make it. I can succeed. Or I deserve to be a worker because I'm not as smart as the ruling class.

00:13:23.300 So he said, Gramsci said, that they are actually participating in their own oppression because they

00:13:28.820 have absorbed this false consciousness and they need to be liberated in their thinking. So they need

00:13:34.840 to achieve what's now called a liberatory consciousness where they wake up to their oppression

00:13:40.120 and then they can actually work against the oppression that's creating this injustice.

00:13:45.260 And that again, and then you had Foucault much later saying that all truth claims are essentially

00:13:51.200 bids for power. And so whenever you make any claim about what's true, you're actually getting people

00:13:57.480 to buy into your, it's a bit, it's a, it's a way to gain power over them. So that's why you'd have

00:14:02.760 people that say, well, I, you know, I'm a white male, but I've never actually oppressed people.

00:14:07.300 I am not racist. They'd say, yes, but you're complicit in this regime of truth. You're

00:14:12.600 complicit in these, this racist culture. And you are part of this collective oppressor class,

00:14:19.000 not based on their actual behavior, but based on their social location. And similarly, you can have

00:14:27.140 a person who is actually quite privileged in terms of they're educated, they're rich, they're powerful,

00:14:33.860 but because of their race or their gender, their sexuality, they would still be considered part of

00:14:39.660 an oppressed group. And they, you see, that's, that makes very little sense. Although I'd actually

00:14:45.140 add that the idea of intersectionality says that, yeah, you actually can be both an oppressor and

00:14:50.280 an oppressed person at the same time. So a white woman like you, you'd be oppressed with respect to 1.00

00:14:56.020 your gender because you're a woman, but you'd be an oppressor with respect to your race because 1.00

00:15:00.920 you're white. So that's, again, the idea of intersectionality is that we can have overlapping 0.82

00:15:04.560 identities that contribute to our experience. And how do these intersectionalists or critical

00:15:10.460 theorists, I guess, whatever you want to call them, how would they rank? Because, so we've talked

00:15:15.120 about intersectionality on this podcast that you're not just saying, okay, here are your different axes

00:15:21.860 of oppression or here are your different oppression points, but they actually afford you some kind of

00:15:25.560 social capital or they affords you some kind of platform that, okay, if you have this race, 0.71

00:15:32.460 this sexual orientation, then you are trusted the most to talk about racism or whatever. 0.77

00:15:39.380 But you, for example, like you don't have any credibility whatsoever, even if you've studied

00:15:44.020 critical theory forever, you're not as trusted as the person who has the lived experience of someone

00:15:49.460 who apparently gives them the oppression points to be able to credibly talk about this stuff. How do

00:15:56.440 these critical theorists kind of like rank the oppression? Because in the conversations about

00:16:02.020 race that we're having right now, I am considered, you know, the most, the most privileged, even though

00:16:07.480 I technically have an oppression point from being a woman. So who decides, who decides, who gets the 1.00

00:16:14.220 social capital based on their oppression points to be able to talk about certain things?

00:16:18.540 What a great segue. So to understand that, the critical theorists will actually dispute the idea

00:16:23.640 that there's a, there's a hierarchy of oppression. They'll say there's no fundamental oppression,

00:16:27.280 or they will generally deny that. So they don't really, they claim to not rank oppressions.

00:16:32.260 However, you're absolutely right that they do believe that your social location, so where you are in

00:16:38.200 terms of your race or your gender or your sexuality, that does indeed give you authority 0.61

00:16:43.680 based on your oppression. Now, why is that? Well, this sort of third idea is, has to do with a

00:16:48.920 lived experience. The idea of lived experience is that, you know, we're all, we're all socialized

00:16:54.980 into these oppressive ideologies, right? We all buy into the patriarchy, just from our daily

00:17:00.980 interactions. We buy into white supremacy. We buy into heteronormativity. That's just, we're

00:17:05.660 inculcated into these ideas constantly because of the media, because of education, whatever.

00:17:10.260 That's like what the book White Fragility argues, right? That it's just

00:17:13.360 absolutely. It's just in us. We're, as a white person in the society, you are, she would say,

00:17:20.100 you are just, you have a racist worldview by the function of being a white person in a white 0.92

00:17:25.460 supremacist society. Now, but that's true. Now, critical theories would say, but that's really 0.95

00:17:30.340 true of all people. So everyone imbibes these ideas with their sort of mother's milk. However,

00:17:37.160 a person of color experiences life as a person of color. They, they, they can, and because of that,

00:17:44.840 they experience systemic racism, they experience being treated wrongly. And because of that lived

00:17:51.100 experience, they can achieve what's called a liberatory consciousness where they see through

00:17:56.320 these lies, these arbitrary bids for power that are, is imposed on them by the ruling class.

00:18:02.280 So that they, so that's how colloquially they get woke. They wake up, they say, wait a minute,

00:18:08.720 I can see through these lies now. And now they have what's called a double consciousness. They can

00:18:13.980 see themselves both from the perspective of the oppressor. And also they have this oppositional

00:18:19.480 consciousness and say, I now know that I have a better grasp on reality because you oppressed per 0.76

00:18:25.920 oppressor. You are blinded to reality because you have both conscious and subconscious reasons to

00:18:32.360 ignore the reality of your oppression. But as a person of color, as a woman, as an LGBTQ person,

00:18:38.860 I can see through my lived experience of a better access to the truth than you do. And so you need,

00:18:46.020 so I have what that knowledge comes authority. I have the authority to speak on my oppression in a way

00:18:52.320 that you shouldn't really contradict. So this is a phenomenally amazing quote from the book,

00:18:58.180 Race, Class, and Gender. The author is right. The idea that objectivity is the best reached only

00:19:03.460 through rational thought is a Western and masculine way of thinking, one that we will challenge throughout 0.53

00:19:09.280 this book. And they challenged that idea of objectivity through the testimonies of oppressed

00:19:16.080 people. Through lived experience. Through lived experience. Because their lived experience gives

00:19:20.480 them access to truths that you are blinded to as an oppressor. So is this the same thing as,

00:19:26.900 I have a very rudimentary understanding of this, but standpoint epistemology, is this similar to that?

00:19:32.780 Can you explain what that is? Yeah, standpoint epistemology also is a pretty broad

00:19:38.700 collection of ideas, but in the way it's used by critical theory, it would say that, yes, again,

00:19:44.860 your perspective on truth is conditioned by your social location, mainly whether you're an oppressor

00:19:52.140 or an oppressed person. And crucially, they're not just saying, well, it's all relative. They're not

00:19:56.940 saying that. It's not postmodernism. They're saying there is an objective truth out there,

00:20:03.260 but people that are at the bottom, people at the margins, people that are oppressed,

00:20:07.340 are better able to see that truth, because the privileged person is blinded by their privilege.

00:20:14.040 So that's the difference. So it's not just that, oh, you have your truth, I have my truth. They

00:20:19.900 actually would say, no, there is a truth, but some people are uniquely equipped to see that truth

00:20:26.440 because of their oppression. And when they're talking about truth, they're not, they're obviously

00:20:31.760 not talking about data, for example. For example, we hear a lot from far-left feminists, or I guess 1.00

00:20:40.160 just feminists in general, that there is a gender wage gap. And no matter how many times you tell them, 1.00

00:20:45.320 okay, but if you control for all of the factors between a male and a female, they actually don't

00:20:50.420 make different salaries. They actually make the exact same. But if it's uncontrolled, that's where the gap

00:20:56.500 is, whatever, they reject that data to continue to insist that we are oppressed by a patriarchy.

00:21:03.940 Is it because in this kind of standpoint epistemology world, or this idea that the oppressed has a

00:21:11.720 better understanding of what this so-called truth is than the oppressor, that they reject conversations

00:21:17.060 about data, or about numbers, or about things that whether you're an oppressed or an oppressor,

00:21:24.580 you can see because the truth that they're talking about isn't really, is it, I don't know. I guess

00:21:30.540 you said it is objective truth, but it, it can't be actually revealed by data. Does that make sense

00:21:37.160 what I'm saying? Is that what they're saying? Yeah, no, no. So it's interesting. It's a great

00:21:40.800 question, Allie. So what they would say, this is going to sound wild. They would say that when you

00:21:45.100 appeal to data and evidence and science, you're actually appealing to the master's tools. So you're

00:21:51.940 appealing to a system that's been devised to justify white supremacy and the patriarchy, right? So when

00:21:58.240 you start quoting these so-called studies, these so-called scientists, they're saying, well, we

00:22:04.120 reject that whole way of talking as a way to justify oppression. There are other, they would say there

00:22:11.020 are other ways of knowing. So this is going to sound wild. I'm going to quote to you from Ricky

00:22:14.600 Wilkins' book, Queer Theory, Gender Theory. She says that of all the, okay, this is, let me find

00:22:21.280 it. This is interesting. She's talking about gender, but she says, objectivity is meaningless

00:22:27.240 when it comes to gender and queerness, because the very notion of queerness, the production of some 0.73

00:22:32.860 genders is queer and the search for their origin and meaning are already exertions of power. So 1.00

00:22:39.200 that's gender and, and sexuality there, but she would take that sort of postmodern approach and

00:22:45.120 say, all of your claims, all of your appeals to evidence and science and reason are just a way for

00:22:50.240 you to justify why, oh, there's not really a wage gap. Well, yes, there is. And you can't see that

00:22:55.680 because you're relying on Western male forms of knowledge, but there are other ways of knowing

00:23:00.280 that are intuitive, emotive, that, that those are feminist ways of knowing, or those are indigenous

00:23:05.600 ways of knowing that are equally valid to them. They're there. It's, it's a weird kind of

00:23:10.460 objectivity where they're saying there is truth, but we're not going to accept the normal

00:23:15.740 definition of truth. Well, yeah, they would say, they would say that they're not, they're rejecting

00:23:20.980 the enlightenment model for how we know the truth. They reject that other ways, even going to,

00:23:27.940 I've seen this going around. You talked about, uh, James Lindsay. I've seen him retweet a lot of

00:23:32.680 this stuff. Obviously he's a math guy. Obviously I know that you, um, your expertise is chemistry,

00:23:38.300 but that requires you to deal with a lot of math. You've seen so-called math educators on Twitter

00:23:43.280 saying, well, two plus two doesn't always necessarily equal four. It depends on what two

00:23:51.360 is and what the other two is. And they play this game that I, I am not a math expert. That's what I do,

00:23:57.620 what I do now, because I like kind of subjectivity. I like being able to reach different conclusions

00:24:02.920 and things like that. But even I seem to recall something about units. So what these people do is

00:24:09.640 they say, okay, well, two cats and two dogs doesn't equal four cats. And so two plus two doesn't always

00:24:15.420 equal four. But again, we know that it equals four animals. I mean, so how are they, people who claim

00:24:23.340 to be experts in math, how, how are they arriving at these conclusions and what is the end results,

00:24:31.000 um, to pushing objectivity, even mathematical objectivity into the realm of critical theory

00:24:36.900 and total subjectivism? Right. So that you have to understand the great question. What's the

00:24:41.460 motivation? Why would you want to dispute the idea that two plus two equals four, right? Isn't that good

00:24:45.240 for everybody? Shouldn't we all want to affirm that logic is it? I mean, logic isn't a Western

00:24:49.540 construct. Like I seem to recall, like non-Western culture is dealing with things like syllogisms and

00:24:54.520 logic. They might've not formalized it, but the point is why do that? And the answer is the end

00:25:01.120 goal of critical theory kind of from the beginning was the transformation of society. And today the,

00:25:06.780 the term that's usually used is social justice. Their goal is to disrupt and deconstruct and dismantle

00:25:14.560 these oppressive systems and structures in order to create society in which social justice can be

00:25:20.060 achieved. Now that term's kind of slippery because it can be used in a biblical way. You can say,

00:25:25.200 I define social justice as biblical justice. Well, okay. You can define it that way, but the way that

00:25:31.760 they're defining it is not that way. So here's a quote from Mary McClintock. She writes, um, social justice

00:25:37.480 is the elimination of all forms of social oppression where social injustice takes many forms based

00:25:44.400 on a person's gender, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, et cetera. So she said, she

00:25:51.840 defines social justice as the dismantling of all these oppressive structures based on these axes of

00:25:59.660 race, class, gender, et cetera. So that's what critical theorists mean today. When they talk about

00:26:06.320 social justice, they mean undoing these oppressions as they're defined by critical theory. And so why play

00:26:12.760 these games with two plus two equals four? The answer is they're trying to dismantle colonialism.

00:26:17.460 They're trying to dismantle this Western way of approaching everything because in their minds,

00:26:22.520 we'll only get real social justice when we've torn down, you know, the idea that Western thought is

00:26:28.760 supreme, the idea that whiteness is supreme, the idea that, that men are supreme, that we have to tear 0.98

00:26:34.760 and we have to, we have to, there's a term, the technical term for it, which is they, they,

00:26:39.420 the queer theorists want to queer the space. They want to queer these ideas to basically destabilize 0.98

00:26:46.060 these values and norms and point out, yeah, this so-called objective knowledge is not so

00:26:51.180 objective as you think. That's why they're playing these games because they want to challenge

00:26:55.960 what in their mind, oppressive systems.

00:26:58.160 I'm not seeing the connection between masculinity and objectivity or colonialism and objectivity,

00:27:06.440 because like you said, two plus two equaling four is, is not a, an exclusively Western concept.

00:27:13.580 I would have thought, and I think most people would have thought that that's just a universal

00:27:18.180 concept. So who, who made that connection?

00:27:20.740 So they, okay, again, that's complicated. The idea is just that they tend to look at society

00:27:28.120 today. So they would say that the way these, so they would say, maybe you twist their arm,

00:27:33.920 they're like, okay, fine. We admit it, that people besides the Greeks believe that, or the Egyptians 0.94

00:27:38.900 believe that two plus two equals four. They, okay, fine. But today, society is functioning today

00:27:44.940 with certain values that are considered universal and good and right, like math or, or science or

00:27:52.900 logic or reason. And they would, they're trying to see the ways in which those supposedly objective

00:27:59.000 values are actually justifying oppression. So take the example of the, the gender wage gap,

00:28:05.320 right? You know, if you ask a feminist, if you press them really hard and say, are you really 1.00

00:28:12.080 claiming that reason is a masculine domain? Because that actually sounds pretty darn sexist,

00:28:18.620 right? They would say, well, they're not exactly saying that. They're just saying they want to,

00:28:24.460 to knock the weapons out of the hands of these people that are oppressing us. They're using it.

00:28:30.920 They're using reason and studies and science to create, to justify this oppressor oppressed

00:28:36.960 dichotomy. We want to dismantle that, that power. So, but again, it's, it's not,

00:28:45.200 we could go a long time here. They're very pragmatic. The, the, the, often if you press

00:28:51.620 on some of these ideas, even a little bit, they just collapse. Right. But the goal is not to create

00:28:57.620 this long, careful syllogism, this long deductive argument. Their goal is very practical. They want to

00:29:04.220 get rid of oppression and they will kind of do what it takes to get rid of the oppression.

00:29:09.680 And by oppression, they might not necessarily mean tangible oppression, because again,

00:29:15.460 you could point at the data and say, you know, women are, sometimes they're making even more than 1.00

00:29:20.580 men are. And you could talk the same about some areas of, um, systemic racism that people claim are

00:29:27.740 there. But when you look at the data, aren't, they're not necessarily talking about that. They might

00:29:33.180 just be talking about, uh, uh, uh, oppression of, of consciousness that again, you can't really argue

00:29:40.360 against because you don't know someone's consciousness. But if the oppressed say that,

00:29:44.800 well, the consciousness of my particular, or, uh, my particular oppression group is oppressed,

00:29:50.360 then the oppressor, the privilege just kind of has to agree with that because they haven't lived that

00:29:56.240 experience. And so you get something called, for example, like white guilt, where, okay, we say,

00:30:00.840 okay, well, what can we do? Like, how can we help you? And some critical theorists, I, I guess would

00:30:07.340 say, well, we need to upend the entire system and flip this over. And I don't know, move this into a

00:30:13.520 socialist society that they see as an egalitarian utopia. I don't know. Yeah. I think Christians 1.00

00:30:20.180 are often get, I don't want to say sucked in, but they get confused at a minimum because all of these

00:30:26.120 words have been redefined. Oppression we saw has been redefined very explicitly, uh, words like

00:30:31.700 white supremacy, racism. These words have been white whiteness. Another one you'll see it in a

00:30:37.380 second, maybe, but whiteness, that word does not mean what you might think it means. Not at all.

00:30:42.900 And so Christians will hear things like we need to stand up against oppression. They'll say,

00:30:46.820 absolutely. I mean, the Bible calls Jesus oppressed and afflicted. Of course. Right. So

00:30:51.620 as Christians, we say, absolutely. I'm going to get behind your anti-oppression efforts. I'm going 0.87

00:30:57.320 to get behind your anti-racist efforts. I'm going to get behind all these different efforts for social

00:31:02.220 justice. We don't question what those words mean until maybe a year or two later down the road,

00:31:08.980 we're like, wait a minute, what did I sign up for? Because we realize the way they were using these

00:31:13.260 terms all along is not how we as Christians, or even just the dictionary understand these words.

00:31:19.980 Right. This reminds me so much of, I've read some of, uh, James Cone, who is the father of

00:31:26.340 black liberation theology. And I was reading a quote from him the, the other day that was saying,

00:31:31.700 you know, one of the goals that we have to accomplish is, or one of the obstacles that we

00:31:35.740 have to get over is what he called, you know, the white middle-class resistance to what he probably

00:31:41.140 would have described as, you know, anti-racism or whatever. And he said, what we have to do is to

00:31:46.660 make these people hate their whiteness and see their blackness, which doesn't make sense until

00:31:52.860 what you just said, that whiteness and blackness in the kind of critical theory world don't

00:31:58.100 necessarily mean just your skin color. It's a state of oppressed or oppressor consciousness, right? 0.66

00:32:04.060 Yeah. So there's a incredible, there are examples from within the church of people using this

00:32:09.440 language. And I'll just read the quote to you. Now, keep in mind, the word whiteness has been

00:32:14.060 redefined in this entire book, but this is a book that was put out in 2018 by a major evangelical

00:32:19.760 publishing company. It grew out of a lecture series at a major evangelical seminary, but there

00:32:26.620 are statements like this. It's going to sound wild. Keep in mind, they're redefining whiteness here to 0.92

00:32:32.580 mean something like a system of white supremacy or an oppressive culture of racial supremacy. Okay. But

00:32:39.240 here's what they say. Whiteness is best understood as a religious system of pagan idol worship that

00:32:45.540 thrives on mutually reinforcing circularity between the image, the ideal or the form, and the social

00:32:51.800 construction of those who worship it. As idolatry, whiteness must be dealt with like any such cultic 1.00

00:32:58.300 system. Its high places must be torn down and its altars laid low. Christian discipleship that entails a

00:33:05.720 deconversion from whiteness is necessary. If any true experience of reconciliation with God, 0.52

00:33:11.560 others, their creation, and ourselves, it's to take place. That is an evangelical author writing

00:33:17.680 an evangelical book sponsored by an evangelical seminary. And there are just dozens of quotes

00:33:24.700 like those I could give you where they have just completely absorbed this way of thinking.

00:33:30.200 Yes. Yes. I can think of someone, there was actually, there was a women's conference a couple

00:33:37.000 years ago in which there was a female speaker. It caused quite the stir online where she was telling

00:33:44.580 her audience that they had to quote, divest from their whiteness. Now, of course, when we hear the word 0.88

00:33:51.240 blackness, typically in context, it is associated with terms like black excellence or almost kind

00:33:59.040 of a connotation of royalty. But when we hear whiteness, we just know, even I know and feel when 0.90

00:34:05.100 I see that word, that it is a very negative connotation. And we are being told even implicitly

00:34:09.900 that that's something that we have to repent of. But blackness is something that has to be manifested and 1.00

00:34:15.140 lived fully. I don't even know necessarily what my question is about that. I guess I want to know

00:34:23.500 how this started to infiltrate, this absolute craziness started to infiltrate evangelical circles.

00:34:31.600 Yeah. How did it start? I think it starts with appealing to people's compassion,

00:34:37.880 or even maybe their good theology. If you hear someone say, I want to fight oppression,

00:34:42.780 you know, what Christian is going to stand up and say, no, we need to be for oppression. No,

00:34:47.080 Christians should say, man, the Bible commands me to seek justice, to love mercy, to care for the

00:34:52.380 widow and orphan. So if you want to fight oppression, I'm behind you, I'm for you. So that it starts that

00:34:58.960 way. And then you see people that are actually hurting and experience racism. There is actual racism

00:35:06.060 in our society. There really is. I can show you data on the alarming number of people, even today,

00:35:12.780 who are opposed to interracial marriage. You can talk to your black or Hispanic friends and talk

00:35:18.600 about what they've experienced personally. And again, I talked to many people, but friends who

00:35:25.780 are super conservative politically and theologically, who are black and are no way interested in 1.00

00:35:32.080 complaining all the time about racism. And they're on the other end of the spectrum. But you talk to

00:35:37.480 them, they'll say, yeah, man, I have experienced some really nasty stuff from professing Christians. 1.00

00:35:42.860 And so we can't ignore that. And so when you hear those stories, you say, yeah, man, I want to be

00:35:48.040 an anti-racist too. So that's how people get drawn in. But then you don't realize these terms have been

00:35:55.420 redefined. So here's a great example of redefining a term like anti-racism. Ibram X. Kendi is a very,

00:36:02.360 very prominent author. His book, How to Be an Anti-Racist, was like number one, number two on

00:36:08.640 Amazon, number one, and number two on Kindle for weeks, right underneath Robin D'Angelo's White

00:36:13.920 Fragility. But here's what he says in his book about anti-racism. He says this,

00:36:21.320 anti-racist policies cannot eliminate class racism without anti-capitalism policies.

00:36:27.000 To truly be an anti-racist is to be feminist. To truly be feminist is to be anti-racist. 0.64

00:36:33.780 We cannot be anti-racist if we are homophobic or transphobic. To be queer anti-racist is to 0.97

00:36:39.640 understand the privileges of my cisgender, my masculinity, my heterosexuality, of their 0.59

00:36:46.300 intersections. So when he's defining the term anti-racist, he's bringing in all kinds of other

00:36:54.100 assumptions and other ideas from essentially his worldview that Christians should say,

00:36:59.880 wait a minute, that's not what I signed up for. I thought I was just going to oppose racial prejudice.

00:37:05.680 And so that's the one big way people get sucked in is by feeling compassion, wanting to help,

00:37:12.000 and then not realizing that there's really an entire worldview behind these ideas. The second way,

00:37:17.140 I'd say, is frankly, through its coherence. So people will think they can just, well, I'm not

00:37:25.940 going to read, I'll read D'Angelo, I'll read Kendi, but I'll just filter it through my Christian 1.00

00:37:34.180 worldview. I'll just pick up things I think are useful. And I don't really think this is a book

00:37:39.600 that has an underlying ideology or a viewpoint. And I'd say that's so naive. There is a worldview out

00:37:46.820 there. And telling, and I've seen, I'm trying to calm down. I've seen well-known evangelical

00:37:56.580 pastors, well-known evangelical organizations recommending to people positively to read

00:38:04.500 White Fragility, to read How to Be an Anti-Racist. Yes, so have I. And I think in their minds,

00:38:12.420 if they've read those books, they're thinking, well, Christians can just, you know, kind of eat 0.81

00:38:17.660 the meat and spit out the bones. Right. And I want to say that's a bad analogy. It's more like trying

00:38:23.280 to eat the meat and spit out the poison. Right. Because people don't know where the poison is.

00:38:28.040 They don't know they're reading a book that's essentially, I'm not, this is going to sound

00:38:31.020 provocative. This is almost like a religious text. Right. It's like saying, it's like handing someone

00:38:36.800 and saying, you know, I see that you're very anxious as a Christian. I recommend you read

00:38:42.500 this book on Buddhist meditation. Right. Because, well, and assuming that the person is going to

00:38:47.720 have the wherewithal and the, you know, reflectiveness to say, wait a minute, some of

00:38:51.760 this is Buddhist. I can't accept that. Right. I noticed that you're not very interested in 1.00

00:38:56.500 appreciative of science because science is a beautiful, wonderful gift that God uses for us to

00:39:01.220 appreciate his creation, to build technology, to wonder at what he's made. So I think you,

00:39:07.140 to appreciate science better, should start reading some Richard Dawkins, some Jerry Coyne. Right.

00:39:12.580 And the new atheists to combat your scientific illiteracy. So wait a minute here. Some of it, 0.99

00:39:19.520 they're scientists. There's some ideas they believe that are good and we can, but other,

00:39:24.120 this is built on a really rotten foundation. So I think that's the other big way that Christians 1.00

00:39:29.900 are getting sucked in. And then I guess the final way is through social pressure. I mean,

00:39:34.640 no one wants to be called a racist. No one wants to be called a sexist or a bigot. And so,

00:39:39.820 you know, young, young kids, especially, you know, you're in high school or college today.

00:39:44.340 It's hard when all your friends are, you know, wearing Black Lives Matter t-shirts and all your 0.99

00:39:50.320 friends are, you know, putting on safety pins and, you know, rainbow stickers to say, you know,

00:39:57.220 I do love you. I do love all people. You're all made in God's image, but I can't get behind this

00:40:03.920 worldview. Right. That's, that takes courage. Yes. And I understand how hard it is.

00:40:09.640 And I think that there is also a little bit of false advertising going on in this peer pressure.

00:40:16.140 So we talked about how a lot of these terms have all of these unbiblical assumptions packed into them.

00:40:22.100 So, for example, being a feminist, there are a lot of assumptions that are packed into being a 1.00

00:40:28.000 feminist, at least today, that, okay, you can't be a feminist unless you believe in abortion. You 1.00

00:40:32.460 can't be a feminist unless you are going to fight against the gender wage gap and unless you're going 1.00

00:40:37.420 to fight against patriarchal oppression, whatever that might be, even if it's just in your, in your

00:40:42.740 consciousness. You have to believe in all of these things in order to truly be a feminist. And yet, 1.00

00:40:47.400 when these young people get the peer pressure saying, you know, aren't you, aren't you a feminist? 1.00

00:40:52.380 They're told, well, a feminist just means that you believe that women are equal to men. And so they

00:40:57.100 say, oh, well, yeah, I do believe that men are equal to men. Okay. I am a feminist and I am going

00:41:01.500 to repost that. And I am going to talk about that. Maybe not even realizing that the assumptions are

00:41:05.960 packed in, or maybe eventually accepting the assumptions because they want to accept the basic

00:41:10.860 premise that women are equal and men equal to men in value. And it's the same thing with being an

00:41:16.300 anti-racist. I have a lot of genuinely Jesus loving Christian friends who have posted a lot of the

00:41:24.080 Black Lives Matter rhetoric about being anti-racist, anti-oppressive, because when they are talking to

00:41:31.080 a friend who has either experienced racism themselves, they feel compassionate, and then

00:41:35.780 they read some of the materials that they've been given and they hear, okay, to be anti-racist is to

00:41:40.180 just, it's just like standing up to a bully. That's what they hear. It's just like, you know,

00:41:43.980 if you see someone being bullied in class, it's not enough for you to just walk away and not bully

00:41:47.640 them. You have to stand up and say, hey, stop bullying them. That's what they think anti-racism

00:41:51.680 is. They think that oppression is actually, you know, some kind of physical or systemic

00:41:56.960 oppression. So they say, okay, yeah, I'm going to fight against that too. They accept the advertising

00:42:01.740 or the basic premises of these things without realizing that by propagating some of these terms,

00:42:08.240 they are also, you know, whether they know it or not, promoting all of the assumptions that are

00:42:14.740 packed in that they probably wouldn't agree with. Like they probably don't agree with Ibram X.

00:42:20.240 Kendi and, you know, you know, all that intersectional, whatever he was talking about in his book. But

00:42:26.940 in order to accept the basic premise that they believe that all people are equal in value,

00:42:31.740 they feel like they have to take, take this terminology another, sorry, I know I'm talking a long

00:42:36.600 time, but I just thought of something that the phrase Black Lives Matter is the same, is the same

00:42:42.720 way. There's this quote by Noam Chomsky, who I obviously don't agree with politically, but he

00:42:47.220 says the point of good propaganda is to pick a phrase that no one can disagree with. That's true

00:42:51.160 about Black Lives Matter. Do you believe that Black Lives Matter? Of course I do. But do you believe 1.00

00:42:55.580 in dismantling the Western prescribed nuclear family? Do you believe in being anti-capitalist? Do you

00:43:01.400 believe in being pro-abortion? All the things that they agree with? Well, no. So Christians have a 1.00

00:43:07.000 battle whether or not to use the terminology as they objectively know these words to mean, or whether

00:43:14.580 to not use the terminology at all and be at risk of being called anti-woman, anti-Black, or whatever,

00:43:24.800 just realizing that people are going to castigate them for not using the right language.

00:43:31.400 Yeah. And I think oftentimes you begin by mouthing the phrase and not subscribing to the worldview,

00:43:38.260 but you end by embracing the worldview, right? I think it was, is it Orwell? He said, you don the

00:43:43.840 mask and your face grows to fit it. So I think people should be very careful that they're not just

00:43:49.340 trying to use these hip terms because they get more and more comfortable. And I'm not saying the terms

00:43:54.420 are evil or sneaky. I'm just saying, be careful trying to just fit in and not being willing to say,

00:44:01.060 just, it's so simple, simple. Like, can you just tweet Black Lives Matter? Well, I know I tweeted a

00:44:06.440 hashtag like Black Lives are made in the Imago Dei or some long phrase like that, because I want to 0.96

00:44:11.980 absolutely say, I know you're hurting. You know, I know my friends are hurting. How can I show them

00:44:16.860 that I care about them, but just not just fall in with the easy, take the easy way and say, just,

00:44:22.000 just tweet. It's not going to hurt. Yeah. I just want to make clear to them that, hey,

00:44:25.320 I absolutely affirm the sentiment. Of course I do. And yet I really am concerned about these

00:44:32.200 other ideas that are out there that I want to make clear. I do not affirm, not because I'm a

00:44:36.700 terrible bigot, I guess, but because I think they're genuinely bad for people. Yeah. I want to

00:44:42.180 do what's good for you. And I don't think it's good for you to say, want to dismantle the nuclear

00:44:47.220 family. I think that actually would have hurt people. So I think that's a good way to frame it in terms

00:44:52.320 of, I'm not, I'm not refusing to, uh, to tweet this or to say this because I'm just a nasty,

00:45:01.700 hardened stickler. I'm doing it because out of love, I want to be very clear on what I believe

00:45:07.860 is good and beautiful as a Christian. Yes. Yes. So it's a better way to just frame that. Why are you

00:45:14.300 being such a prude or why are you being such a stickler out of, hopefully out of love. Right.

00:45:20.200 Can you talk a little bit more building off of that? Why critical theory and Christianity

00:45:27.420 are incompatible? I mean, the big one is that it's, uh, it's, it is a, what functions as a

00:45:35.960 worldview. What do I mean by that? And then I'm talking about contemporary critical theory,

00:45:39.680 these ideas, not going back to Horkheimer. I mean, no one's out there on campus quoting

00:45:43.760 Walter Benjamin and Horkheimer. They're quoting D'Angelo and Kendi and, uh, and other people,

00:45:50.220 uh, traditional Collins. They're quoting contemporary critical theorists, but why is it so incompatible

00:45:55.560 these ideas with Christianity? Well, why would you say it is a comprehensive, coherent worldview?

00:46:00.020 You can't have two worldviews, right? They're, they answer fundamental questions about like,

00:46:05.860 so for example, identity, who am I? Christianity says fundamentally, you are a creature of a holy,

00:46:12.640 loving and good God. That's fundamentally where identity is. What is contemporary critical theory

00:46:19.000 says is that your identity is found in different groups that are vying for power. That's the,

00:46:24.420 that's the core of who you are. You are, you are first of all, a, uh, you know, a black woman, 0.88

00:46:29.800 or you're first of all, a Hispanic, a poor Hispanic man, or you're first of all, whatever. But Christianity 0.92

00:46:34.920 would say, no, first of all, primarily you are a maiden God's image. Number one, number two,

00:46:41.120 you are a sinner. And number three, you're needed of a savior. And those, those are core parts of our 0.86

00:46:47.760 Christian identity that, that will conflict with someone who says, no, you're primarily,

00:46:52.240 you're based on your, you're defined by your race, class, gender, et cetera. Um, and there,

00:46:58.580 there are other, and then things like ethics, you know, what is oppressive? Uh, is God's design

00:47:05.760 for gender or sexuality oppressive? Is the gender binary itself oppressive? Queer theorists would say,

00:47:12.080 yes, the gender binary by definition, by existing is oppressive because it marginalizes people that

00:47:18.080 are non-gender binary. Whereas for Christians, we'd say, no, that will never be part of our 0.97

00:47:22.820 core ethical beliefs because we think God created gender and it's a very good thing. Um, a big one is 1.00

00:47:29.940 epistemology. That is how we know the truth. According to critical theory, you know, the truth

00:47:35.280 largely because of, of your social location. So if you are an oppressed person, you have this

00:47:42.360 unique authority to speak on the truth of social reality. And what's interesting is people say,

00:47:48.720 wait a minute, if you think that lived experience is so important, then why doesn't my lived experience

00:47:52.720 as a, say a white male, why doesn't that matter? And the answer is because you're a oppressor who's

00:47:57.280 blinded by his social location. So it's very asymmetric. And then the other thing that happens

00:48:02.820 is say, wait a minute. Well, I understand that as a white male, I am blinded by my oppressiveness.

00:48:08.180 Fine. But why can't I quote Thomas Sowell? You know, he's a super renowned black economist.

00:48:13.680 And they will say to you, because he's speaking from a position of white adjacency. He is, he is 0.62

00:48:20.720 speaking from a perspective of whiteness, even though he's a black economist, he has absorbed, 0.50

00:48:26.160 he's internalized oppression. And that's why he's saying what he's saying. So there really is no

00:48:31.740 response. If you say, well, I think the Bible teaches this, they'll say that is your perspective

00:48:37.140 as a white male. So my friend, Vati Bauckham says the same thing and he's black. Yeah, but he's 0.88

00:48:42.900 speaking from a position of a whitest. He's internalized his oppression. So there's no, there's 0.99

00:48:47.620 no way to appeal to scripture even, or to evidence or to reason, because your, your lived experience

00:48:54.500 as an oppressed person gives you authority to, you know, to stand on.

00:48:59.780 Yes. And that is unbiblical because we know that there, there is an objective truth. That

00:49:05.120 doesn't mean that experiences and emotions don't matter because they do matter. And of

00:49:09.840 course they can reveal things to us. There are things that I know from my experience that

00:49:13.620 you don't know from your inexperience and vice versa. All of that is true, but that doesn't

00:49:18.240 amount to absolute truth. And all of our experiences and emotions are subject to the word of God

00:49:23.200 and his definitions of things. And even, I think what we're realizing and what I hope

00:49:28.620 someone, for example, like, you know, James Lindsay realizes as someone who believes in

00:49:33.340 math, that two plus two equals four is actually, it's a theological statement. It's, yes, it's

00:49:38.700 a mathematic statement, but it's a theological statement. If God doesn't exist, objective

00:49:42.680 truth doesn't exist. Mathematic truth doesn't exist. Or it at least can be, it can at least

00:49:48.420 be malleable to what people want. Because if God isn't God, then we are all God and

00:49:53.940 we can define what truth is and what it's not based on our, based on whatever ends we

00:50:00.560 desire. Does that, does that make sense? And do you agree with that?

00:50:03.520 That's right. No, it's exactly right. Because the idea is, and this is what Foucault is saying,

00:50:06.940 because in the post-structuralists, we're saying, because there is no God's eye view,

00:50:11.280 there is no God, there's no God's eye view of reality. Therefore, it's all about your

00:50:15.420 own power to impose, this goes back to even Nietzsche, I guess, but saying you're just

00:50:20.340 imposing your power on others. Who has the most power to impose, impose their truths on

00:50:25.340 everyone else? Again, a critical theory would actually pull back on that because it's complicated

00:50:29.620 why, but they would say, well, there is truth, but the people that are oppressed or have better

00:50:35.000 access to it. So. Ethnic Gnosticism, kind of, what Foddy Bauckham talks about.

00:50:39.060 Foddy Bauckham, yeah. So yeah, so there, I would just say, and you can look at my website,

00:50:43.900 but there are lots of examples I give of how, if we really imbibe these ideas from

00:50:50.580 contemporary critical theory, it will just wreck our theology in any number of places.

00:50:55.640 And it really also, I think people, to go back to the idea of harm, it's going to hurt people,

00:51:01.200 it's going to hurt the church and cause incredible division. Just to pick on Robin D'Angelo,

00:51:05.820 who's so popular right now. She says things in her book that are just so,

00:51:10.660 if you accept these ideas, they will just wreck your church. They will tear it apart from the

00:51:17.740 inside. So she says, basically, first she says, white fragility is when whites just can't handle 0.99

00:51:24.060 the truth about racism in society. So they get, they're fragile and defensive. So what are some

00:51:28.220 symptoms of white fragility? Well, it includes things like saying you're generalizing, feeling

00:51:34.520 like you're being attacked or singled out, withdrawing, arguing, disagreeing is a sign of

00:51:40.500 white fragility. So you can either agree that you have white fragility or by disagreeing, prove that 0.79

00:51:44.700 you have white fragility. Then she goes on to say things like this. A positive white identity is an 0.54

00:51:51.620 impossible goal. White identity is inherently racist. White people do not exist outside the system of 0.99

00:51:57.120 white supremacy. And that does not mean you should stop identifying as white and start identifying 0.84

00:52:02.700 as Italian or Irish. To do so is to deny the reality of racism in the here and now. And this

00:52:08.780 denial would be colorblind racism. So you can't deny being white and be Irish. No, you are white and 0.61

00:52:14.260 you're racist. So what does she do? She says, I strive to be less white. To be less white is to be 1.00

00:52:21.240 less racially oppressive. So, and then she says in a paper called Addressing Whiteness in Nursing

00:52:27.500 Education, she starts with this quote, the question is not, did racism take place, but rather

00:52:33.100 in which ways did racism manifest in this specific context? It's everywhere. And even she says in

00:52:40.940 white fragility, it's part of every interracial friendship. She's emphatic. You cannot have an 1.00

00:52:46.740 interracial friendship that is not colored by racism. And white people are constantly trying to 0.87

00:52:52.700 achieve what she calls a white racial equilibrium. They're trying to reassert their dominance. 0.95

00:52:56.220 They use their white women tears to reassert their white supremacy. So can you imagine 1.00

00:53:02.700 if a person of color actually believed those ideas that every friendship I have was colored with a

00:53:11.820 white person, was tainted by racism, that everything they do is a way for them to reassert their dominance 0.63

00:53:17.360 over me. Can you imagine how paranoid and bitter and just miserable you'd be all the time? 0.98

00:53:24.260 Yeah. Well, that's what you're letting and hurt. Yeah. That's what you're, you're, you're letting

00:53:29.560 this into the church when you're recommending these books as positively. I think it's great to read

00:53:34.640 them sort of evangelistically to figure out. Yeah. But, but when you're saying this is a good way to think

00:53:39.520 about race, what is it? What I'm curious, what does D'Angelo think about a, like my parents, my dad's Indian,

00:53:45.840 my wife's, my mom's white or a couple, a black man and a white wife. How do they navigate the

00:53:53.180 relationship if they really believe that every day you didn't take out the trash? It's because

00:53:57.660 you're trying to reassert your white supremacy. It's, it's madness and it's going to eat us alive. 0.99

00:54:03.480 We embrace it. Right. How have pastors, and I just have a couple more questions because I know we've

00:54:10.140 kind of got a long time, but are pastors just, are they not thinking critically? Do they, do they not

00:54:17.440 know what's behind these? Have they fallen into that Kafka trap of thinking that, okay,

00:54:24.880 well, if I get defensive about white fragility, it's just because I'm, I am racist and I don't want 0.83

00:54:29.020 to be racist. So I have to embrace white, white fragility, the book, which by the way, is written 0.58

00:54:34.180 by a white woman who is making probably millions of dollars on what she would call anti-black 0.88

00:54:40.120 oppression. So if we want to talk about racism, we can talk about that, but the pastors, are they

00:54:44.580 just not being discerning? Are they giving in to peer pressure? I mean, these are evangelical pastors

00:54:49.320 who I know preach at otherwise very conservative churches, embracing things like white awake,

00:54:55.720 white fragility and things like that. Yeah. I'm not sure why. I think charitably, 1.00

00:55:01.240 I think pastors are just trying to, they're trying to reach out to, well, white pastors are trying to

00:55:08.820 reach out to blacks, Hispanics, people of color. The evangelical church for a while was actually

00:55:14.900 making a lot of gains in terms of, you know, multi-ethnic churches. People were actually looking

00:55:21.820 more and more like the actual kingdom of God, meaning a multi-ethnic kingdom. It's just true. 0.99

00:55:27.440 The kingdom of God is bigger than, you know, North Carolina where I live or the United States

00:55:31.940 or any country, right? The kingdom of God is made up of people from every nation, tribe, and tongue.

00:55:37.380 It is. And so it should bother us that we have an incredible amount of racial segregation in our

00:55:43.180 churches. That shouldn't bother us. We're like, that's not what heaven's going to look like. It's not

00:55:46.940 what the new heavens and new earth is going to look like. So people want to see multi-ethnic churches

00:55:52.320 as a witness to non-Christians that, you know, out there in the culture, there is ethnic strife.

00:55:59.180 There's, you know, there's gender warfare. There's class warfare out there in the world. But in here, 1.00

00:56:05.820 we are brothers and sisters in Christ. We want to show the world. Jesus said, they'll know you by

00:56:10.740 your love for one another, and they'll know you by your unity. So we, the pastors are looking out and

00:56:15.600 saying we see a racially segregated church historically, and even today, we want to overcome

00:56:20.840 that. So we want to make sure that people of all ethnicities, all races feel comfortable here.

00:56:26.920 Wonderful. I mean, I'm like, amen to that. But then we're imbibing it. Well, how do you get

00:56:33.540 ethnicity in your church? How do you fight racism in our culture? It exists there. How do you fight it?

00:56:40.100 What is it? And there, they're looking to secular voices that are growing increasingly influential

00:56:46.640 and loud in our culture. I mean, we're not saying that white fragility is only being embraced by 0.62

00:56:50.600 evangelicals. White fragility was like the number one bestselling book in the United States for three

00:56:56.080 weeks, and it's been on the bestseller list for two years. So I think they're just trying to achieve

00:57:02.220 a good goal, but aren't thinking about the means that they're using to get there, and they're not

00:57:08.500 really reflecting critically on what people are actually saying. I think this is all quite new.

00:57:15.220 So the social justice scholarship, they will actually see themselves really only took off

00:57:20.760 about 20 years ago. So if you went to seminary like 30 or 40 years ago, you maybe kind of knew

00:57:25.680 about postmodernism. You might have known about atheism, but you weren't really trained to recognize

00:57:31.820 contemporary critical theory at all. It didn't really exist in its modern form. So that's probably a

00:57:36.640 big reason why. And these theories and these books like White Fragility are actually pushing

00:57:43.560 churches and congregations away from the goal of unity. If your goal is unity and for us to all see

00:57:50.760 each other within the church as brothers and sisters in Christ, to tell someone that a white person is

00:57:57.360 always wrong and is always secretly racist no matter what they're saying to you, and a Black person is 1.00

00:58:03.500 always right because of their lived experiences or whatever it is, then you're just creating more

00:58:09.220 division. You're going to create fear around having friendships and relationships with people who

00:58:13.820 don't look like you from both races. The white people don't want to, you know, they don't want to, 0.91

00:58:18.400 they're afraid of saying the wrong thing, of coming across as racist or being seen as racist no matter 0.87

00:58:23.520 what. They might even assume that a person who doesn't look like them resents them because of their

00:58:27.900 whiteness. And then the other way around as well, Black people might start thinking that about 0.97

00:58:31.960 white people because this just kind of infects your mind like a mind virus. And I would say 1.00

00:58:37.180 that for, you know, I'm not a pastor and I can't give advice to all pastors, but if we believe that

00:58:44.400 God is who He is, that He is good, that His gospel is good, that His gospel is good for everyone, if we

00:58:50.160 believe Jesus when He says, my burden is light and my yoke is easy, and part of that is what, you know,

00:58:55.920 we're called to do in Ephesians, to leave all bitterness and wrath and anger along with all malice

00:59:01.440 and to replace those things with love and unity and thanksgiving. If we believe that those things are

00:59:06.300 good, and that is the way to true liberation and freedom and to a life of joy and happiness, and if we

00:59:13.240 love our brothers and sisters in Christ who are Black, who are brown, then don't we want that gospel for

00:59:19.900 them? Like, don't we want that message of reconciliation and forgiveness to also extend to

00:59:26.140 them? And that's not to say, hey, you should just forget about all of your, you know, experiences with

00:59:32.140 racism. Let's just not talk about those. You just need to get over it because that's what the Bible

00:59:36.640 says. I'm not saying that, but it seems like too many white pastors think that preaching perpetual

00:59:43.080 grievance to their darker-skinned congregants is more loving than preaching than the gospel of peace

00:59:51.600 and reconciliation and unity in Christ. And I think that if we love our brothers and sisters in Christ

00:59:56.280 who are Black, we would be preaching the gospel. Yeah, I think that there's a lot of, the best thing we can

01:00:03.680 do to combat critical theory in the church is dialogue. Dialogue is like kryptonite to critical theory

01:00:09.220 because the very premise is, there's not a dialogue, there's a monologue. There's the people

01:00:14.800 that are oppressed telling the people that are oppressors all about how bad oppression is,

01:00:21.620 whereas a dialogue is like, actually, we, and this is the way the Christian church should operate,

01:00:26.480 we're all sinners. We're all blinded not by our race, but by our sin. And so I need to hear,

01:00:32.840 okay, I'm half Indian, so it's complicated for me, but I need to hear from whites, I need to hear from 0.96

01:00:36.520 blacks, I need to hear from Hispanics, I need to hear from everyone and say, am I reading scripture

01:00:41.100 rightly? Do I understand how, wait, I don't know. So we need to gather around the scripture as a family 0.98

01:00:47.260 in Christ and say, my bond to you is unconditional, number one. It doesn't depend on you doing certain

01:00:54.540 things or behaving a certain way. It depends on what Christ has done for us, number one. And number two,

01:01:00.420 how can I, as your brother in Christ, lay down my rights and listen and empathize and then come

01:01:07.980 together as a family and say, now what does scripture say? How should we be viewing race or

01:01:12.420 gender or justice from a biblical perspective? And you might disagree, but as long as you're 0.90

01:01:18.160 willing to listen and you're committed to an actual dialogue, the hope is that God through the Holy

01:01:24.740 Spirit would lead you into all truth. And that, but that's not the way critical theory is very much

01:01:30.620 totalitarian in a sense. It tells you the solution and you're going to obey, or if you don't,

01:01:36.720 you're a racist, sexist, homophobic bigot. Whereas we have to say, no, as Christians, 0.99

01:01:41.700 we're commanded to think the best of our brothers and sisters in Christ. We're commanded. So if I harbor

01:01:47.040 resentment and bitterness and mistrust them, I have to question my own heart first. That goes for

01:01:53.120 everybody. And I would say one more thing. This is important. The best thing that Christians can do

01:01:58.700 to combat the growth of critical theory, especially critical race theory within the church is to resist

01:02:05.420 racism and to resist what I see as a racial backlash where white Christians are like, I'm sick and tired

01:02:11.580 of being told I'm racist. You know what? I'm going to be racist. I'm like, I'm sorry, that's on you.

01:02:16.860 Racism is a sin. And so you don't get to pay them back for sinning against you by sinning against them.

01:02:21.500 We have to resist this backlash. We have to resist racial apathy and saying, you know what?

01:02:27.040 Forget it. I'm just going to not care at all about anything except for reading my Bible and praying.

01:02:32.720 So no, Christians have always been called to care for the widows and orphans, to care about the pro-life

01:02:37.620 movement, to care about... So we can't neglect our duties as followers of Christ. And then I guess the

01:02:44.000 last thing I would say is, and again, mainly to white Christians who are listening, like you said,

01:02:49.060 Ali, listen to people's experiences. You don't have to subscribe to this whole worldview. You can just

01:02:55.520 listen to what they've actually experienced because there are so sad stories. I'm going to read

01:03:00.500 really one quick quote from Eric Mason's book, Woke Church, which I know those people are, I think it's

01:03:05.640 controversial, but there's some great passages in it. And one, he talks about how his own father was

01:03:10.440 beaten beyond recognition by a bunch of white men for a crime he didn't commit. And that story, 0.55

01:03:16.200 he heard that story growing up from his dad. And he said, he said this, the story of him being

01:03:22.640 beaten by white men unfairly. He said, these and other experiences colored how I was raised to deal

01:03:28.180 with whites, whether Christian or not. Just as my father's experiences impacted my perceptions about

01:03:33.480 race. So my perceptions will mark those of my three sons. This is how it works. One generation's 0.97

01:03:39.720 pain and fears are passed on to the next. Doesn't mean that we have to repeat the sense of racism and

01:03:46.060 bigotry of the past, but it does mean that they impact us in some way. Right. That understand when

01:03:53.440 people are, have experienced real hurt, real hurt. I have my friend Nerva Reddy talked about, she's a

01:03:59.920 immigrant. She was growing up in Chicago and she remembers the day when she was in school and she

01:04:07.200 heard some girls behind her making fun of her black skin and saying how ugly it was. I was so, 1.00

01:04:13.420 I was like, that's so messed up for a little girl to have to experience that. And then she,

01:04:18.200 and she wasn't bitter. She was just like, it hurt me. And we have to, white Christians say,

01:04:23.720 this hurts us too. This is not right. And we want to work against that. And don't assume that talking

01:04:31.260 about race and caring about racism is equivalent to critical race theory. It's not, it's totally

01:04:37.080 different. So listen to people, empathize, and then come together as brothers and sisters in Christ

01:04:42.100 to fight this with the gospel. Right. It takes so much effort to do exactly what you said, to

01:04:49.340 not allow the culture, whether it's secular conservative culture or secular liberal culture

01:04:54.760 to sway what we care about and to determine how we confront injustice and discrimination. Because

01:05:02.980 like you said, I do think that there can be a backlash from people who say, you know what,

01:05:07.180 it all seems like critical theory because, I mean, just to give them a little bit of benefit of the

01:05:12.800 doubt, when they have a pastor, for example, who is promoting things like white fragility and how to be

01:05:17.660 an anti-racist, they assume that from the people who they trust to be their evangelical mentors,

01:05:24.000 that this is the only way to care about racism. And they're thinking, okay, but I'm not anti-capitalist,

01:05:29.020 but I don't believe that everyone is just racist no matter what. They don't even know from their own

01:05:33.600 pastors what it looks like to, in a godly and biblical and gospel-driven way, to confront real prejudice

01:05:40.760 and to confront real racism. And so there are a lot of Christians who are, unfortunately,

01:05:46.200 because they don't buy into critical theory, they don't know what to do. So they assume that they

01:05:51.040 should just forego the conversation altogether. And then you've got people who also say, okay,

01:05:56.000 well, if this is the only way to confront racism, reading white fragility and to upending the systems

01:06:01.760 of oppression that we don't even know what it is and just embracing subjectivism and queer theory

01:06:06.860 and all this stuff, then some people say, Christians say, okay, well, I guess I'm on board with that 1.00

01:06:11.960 because I don't know how else to do it. But I think our obligation as Christians, which you said

01:06:16.800 so well, and especially as pastors who are shepherding flocks, is to make sure that we are

01:06:23.220 cutting through the noise and that we are looking to the objective truth of the Word of God to confront

01:06:31.520 real injustice, to confront real prejudice, to confront real unfairness, not with the strategies

01:06:37.560 of the world, not with the strategies of the flesh, but with the strategy of the gospel,

01:06:42.840 realizing that that does bring reconciliation. And that doesn't mean that there aren't actions

01:06:47.140 associated with those things in the same way that we try to fight against abortion.

01:06:51.880 But it does mean that we don't forego our base and our foundation and our worldview that is founded on

01:07:01.000 the Word of God. Do you agree with that?

01:07:05.520 I totally agree. Yeah, absolutely. I think there are dangers on both sides. I just want people to be aware

01:07:11.880 of both and to preach explicitly about both. For pastors, I just say no more dancing around the edges,

01:07:18.840 no more just using vague language about injustice in general. We have to call out explicitly what are

01:07:26.700 these ideas in our culture, what are they, and why we reject them. I also would avoid just using

01:07:32.780 jargon because people just say things like, well, we're against cultural Marxism. Okay, but what does

01:07:40.860 that even mean? You have to be specific because otherwise they'll just relabel it and repackage it

01:07:45.140 and sell the same lies. You have to say, this is why we don't believe that race and gender and 0.98

01:07:51.300 sexuality are all identical. They're not just different forms of oppressive axes. This is how

01:07:56.480 they're different. This is the basis for solidarity as Christians. God's creation of us, God's redemption

01:08:01.600 of us. We don't have solidarity primarily in race, class, and gender. We have it in our creation in

01:08:09.740 God's image. We have it in our sin. We have it in our redemption. So we have to do more than just

01:08:15.940 making these vague statements about how we disagree with these different movements, but why?

01:08:23.280 Christians are, I think, desperate for clear teaching that, again, will, I think, take a middle 1.00

01:08:30.300 road between, I think, well, two totally godless worldviews, one based on things like actual white 0.97

01:08:40.120 supremacy, which thank God our country has, truly thank God, God has purged us to a large extent of 0.74

01:08:46.320 those ideas that are so wicked. And yet there's another error too, which is to embrace this very

01:08:52.380 equally unbiblical idea around creating oppressors and oppressed classes. I think we have to, again, 0.70

01:09:00.760 say both of those are wrong. And here's what the scripture teaches about our fundamental solidarity as

01:09:05.520 believers.

01:09:06.500 Yes. I think that it would be so helpful if pastors, you know, I've talked about this on the podcast,

01:09:11.060 pastors want to talk about, you know, racism from the pulpit. I think that that is a worthy subject,

01:09:18.020 but rather than just parodying the things that we read from critical theorists and these kind of just

01:09:27.420 very vague and nebulous terms like systemic racism, define those things. Like tell your congregants,

01:09:34.960 I mean, there's a lot of controversy around whether or not systemic racism actually exists,

01:09:40.400 but if you're talking about injustice, if you're talking about discrimination, if you're talking

01:09:43.560 about prejudice, it's not enough. And I think ultimately it's divisive just to throw out these

01:09:49.660 terms without telling your congregants what they mean, how you see them manifesting themselves,

01:09:56.040 what the Bible most importantly has to say about these things, and what can actually be done.

01:10:01.100 I mean, that's what we do about, you know, the injustice surrounding abortion. We know exactly what

01:10:06.520 it looks like. We know where it happens. We know why it happens. We know the systems in place that are

01:10:12.720 continuing and the philosophies in place that are continuing to allow abortion to persist,

01:10:19.200 and we do tangible things. If racism exists in that way, it's a little bit more complicated because

01:10:25.840 so much of, you know, hatred just exists in the human heart. It's hard to define how it manifests itself.

01:10:31.520 But if that is your endeavor to talk about racism as a pastor, I do think that it is incumbent upon you

01:10:37.760 to know specifically what these terms mean and to not let critical theory define oppression,

01:10:43.740 define racism, and define those things. But to look at the objective truth, and I do think that while it

01:10:49.220 is so important to listen to experiences, I do think because we believe that there is an objective

01:10:55.000 standard-bearer in God, it is important also for Christians to know the data. So is a narrative

01:11:01.200 that a conservative or a liberal person in the media telling you is true. Is it true? Like,

01:11:07.920 is it true based on the numbers that a certain thing is happening all the time? Is that really

01:11:14.040 true? It might be true that some people feel that way, but if it's not true according to the data,

01:11:18.580 then it's not something that we need to be blowing out of proportion either. We just don't need to be

01:11:23.300 taking cues from the world is what I'm trying to say. Do you agree with that?

01:11:27.020 Yeah, definitely. I think I also appreciate pastors in general try to be apolitical,

01:11:32.740 but then I would say, but here's the thing. I do too, actually, when I talk about critical theory,

01:11:37.500 you know, I'm a political conservative. I'm not going to pretend I'm not, but I try to show people

01:11:42.340 that rejecting this ideology, this is a worldview. This has theological implications. You can be

01:11:50.500 extremely politically liberal as many like James Lindsay, for example. A lot of these atheists

01:11:56.360 are politically liberal and are still totally rejecting this, what they view as a dangerous,

01:12:01.880 pernicious religion based on critical theory. So the point I'm trying to make is you don't have,

01:12:08.300 don't turn this into a political debate. It's from, for me, my motivation is almost entirely

01:12:13.240 theological. I'm seeing people's theology being wrecked by these ideas.

01:12:17.640 Right. And so, and I understand that obviously politics should flow from our theology,

01:12:23.300 but the politics are downstream. I want to attack the headwaters. Where are these,

01:12:28.580 why are we having such, again, bad politics? And often it's because you can trace it back to

01:12:33.920 what I care much more about, bad theology. So I want to attack the problem there. And I know,

01:12:40.000 so I understand, I understand some pastors don't want to be political, but my point is these ideas are

01:12:46.340 not political. These are deeply, they will affect how we do things like, who is God? What is our

01:12:52.960 purpose in life? Who am I as a person? How do I relate to other people? You have to speak on those

01:12:59.580 questions because that is the entire biblical narrative. Yeah. You will destroy it if you give

01:13:06.080 into these ideas.

01:13:06.780 Yes. And when you hear things, like I've heard, for example, that believing that the Word of God

01:13:12.920 is inerrant and authoritative is in itself a white supremacist idea. Well, when you take that away,

01:13:21.400 then, you know, we don't have any basis from which to have conversations. So again,

01:13:26.280 I would encourage, like you've just encouraged Christians to know the fundamentals of our faith.

01:13:31.840 That's what all of this is built off of. If you know who God is, who Jesus is, the nature of the

01:13:39.440 Bible, the authoritative and inerrant nature of the Bible, these are all the things that we need to 1.00

01:13:44.680 know that we are building a worldview off of. And if we have those blocks, if we have those

01:13:51.680 founding blocks, then we can answer the other questions. It makes it a lot easier, I think, to

01:13:56.820 navigate these very confusing terms in the very confusing world of critical theory. But if you don't

01:14:01.880 have those foundational theological views locked in, if you don't know whether or not you trust the

01:14:08.780 Bible, if you're not really sure who the nature of God is, if Jesus really is the only way, truth,

01:14:13.860 in the life, if you don't really understand the gospel, then it's going to be very easy to make

01:14:19.440 critical theory your religion because a lot of the language of critical theory almost echoes

01:14:24.220 Christianity with oppression and justice and words like that. And like you said, 0.73

01:14:31.360 that is destructive, not just to your faith, but I would argue for entire societies.

01:14:37.880 Can I say two things quickly before I know we've gone around forever? This is great. I could talk

01:14:41.740 about this for hours. But can I say just two things, people, before we finish up? One would be to,

01:14:48.560 if you're a Christian who is listening, who's a person of color and who has been hurt by racism,

01:14:54.060 either outside the church or even within the church, what I would just really plead with you

01:14:58.680 to recognize is that while critical theory and critical race theory is, it's claims to care about

01:15:06.040 you, to want to give you, to make you flourish, to want to fight for you, it claims those things,

01:15:12.300 but it's not based on the gospel. And so I understand the pain that you probably might feel,

01:15:20.740 but this is not the way to solve it. And the church, as broken as she is, as full of sin as she is,

01:15:29.260 they're God's people. They're your siblings. And so, again, I want to say I understand and empathize

01:15:36.440 with your hurt, but don't give up on the church. Don't give up on the gospel. And the church and

01:15:45.220 the scriptures have rich resources to fight against the very things that you hate. And I just plead

01:15:52.220 that you would stay the course. And then for, if there are non-Christians who are listening to this 0.83

01:15:56.900 show, and this might be a little bit, for them, they're like, why don't I get critical theory is a

01:16:02.260 problem. But I want to also point people back to the alternative, which is, again, Christianity is 0.96

01:16:07.620 the true and good worldview. And it's not because, so critical theorists would say that their worldview

01:16:15.640 is for justice and against oppression. And Christianity is just another form of oppression, 1.00

01:16:21.660 actually. And I would say, no, no, you don't understand. Christianity, because it's true, 0.86

01:16:27.340 is the way to find what you're looking for, which is true justice. But here's the hard part.

01:16:33.760 Christianity starts with not seeking justice, but with your own injustice. All of us are actually

01:16:41.500 on the wrong side of history. The history ends with God winning. And you want to be on the right side.

01:16:46.880 Well, the only right side of history is God's side. And all of us are on the wrong side. No matter how

01:16:52.640 hard we try, we are all sinners. We are all wicked. And there's only one righteous person,

01:16:58.860 who is Jesus. And he came to rescue bad people like us. And so I think while your thirst for justice

01:17:06.700 is commendable, remember that you yourself are just as bad as the people you despise.

01:17:12.800 Jesus told a really great parable about the Pharisee and the tax collector. In his parable,

01:17:17.800 the Pharisee was this really religious person. The tax collectors were actually traitors. They

01:17:22.820 were oppressors. They would rob their own countrymen and give to the imperial colonialist 0.78

01:17:28.420 Romans the taxes. So you have a religious guy and an oppressor. And in the temple, they're both 0.68

01:17:34.700 praying. And the religious Pharisee says, thank you that I'm not like this guy. He's wicked. He's a

01:17:41.340 thief. He's immoral. I thank you, God. I'm not like him. And the tax collector, the oppressor said, 1.00

01:17:46.840 Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner. He knew how messed up he was. And Jesus said, the tax collector,

01:17:54.900 the sinner, the bad guy went home justified. Because the person who exhausts themselves will 1.00

01:18:00.960 be humbled. But the one who humbles himself, like the sinner, like the tax collector, like the 0.94

01:18:04.800 prostitutes, they will be exalted. So Christianity begins the opposite way. It says, you start by 0.98

01:18:10.720 realizing that you yourself are unjust and throw yourself at the mercy, at the feet of the just one.

01:18:16.840 So that's just a message to people. There's a way, a better way to approach reality in critical

01:18:24.020 theory.

01:18:24.760 Amen. You tweeted the other day, and I'm paraphrasing, you know, praise the Lord that

01:18:29.840 when he died on the cross, he didn't say do better. He says it is finished. Like how much more of a

01:18:37.020 satisfying and peaceful message can you get than that? Thank you so much for taking the time to have

01:18:43.860 this wonderful, long conversation. But I just know that God is going to be glorified through it. And

01:18:49.180 he's glorified through your study and your work in this field that not enough people are talking

01:18:55.280 about. Can you tell everyone where they can find you?

01:18:57.800 Sure. So the best way probably is Twitter. I'm just at Neil Shenvey, N-E-I-L-S-H-E-N-V-I. And my

01:19:06.120 collaborator, Dr. Pat Sawyer is real Pat Sawyer. Also on Twitter, R-E-A-L-P-A-T-S-A-W-Y-E-R.

01:19:14.320 And, but I have a website. I'm like the only Neil Shenvey in the world right now. I think if you

01:19:18.940 Google, not on this side, I just, it's kind of a rare name even for an Indian. But it's,

01:19:24.020 if you Google Neil Shenvey, you'll find my website, you'll find my Twitter handle. So you can go there

01:19:28.960 and there's lots of resources. We have an article at the Gospel Coalition. We have a booklet on critical

01:19:33.960 theory through Ratio Christi. It's free. It's 30 pages long. Lots of footnotes, lots of primary

01:19:39.660 sources. So yeah, that's Twitter or just Googling my name is the best way.

01:19:44.440 Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Dr. Shenvey.

01:19:46.960 Thank you, Allie.

01:19:48.940 Thank you, Allie.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - July 15, 2020

Ep 275 ｜ Critical Theory： A Disastrous, Unbiblical Worldview

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