00:01:38.640Our title for our episode today is Critical Race Theory, When Good Intentions Go Back.
00:01:45.140Critical Race Theory, When Good Intentions Go Back.
00:01:49.320Founders Ministry, both Tom and Jared have done a lot of great work on this,
00:01:53.200as well as other wonderful men of God like Bodie Bauckham, John MacArthur, James White.
00:01:58.640And so I wanted to just take some time to ask some specific questions with Jared on the top of critical race theory,
00:02:06.440but especially in regards to, although both of us believe that it is a demonic ideology
00:02:13.800that really is forged and nothing less than the pit of hell,
00:02:18.020We do believe that there are many genuine, regenerate brothers and sisters in Christ who are well-meaning and that have been played.
00:02:26.680And so I want to really be able to address that and pick Jared's brain on this topic.
00:02:31.920So first question, just diving right in.
00:02:34.980Jared, could you just define for our listeners what is critical race theory and what makes it so dangerous?
00:02:40.960Yeah, critical race theory is a hard thing to define, even when you start to poke into the scholars a bit. It seems like they're reworking things and changing things. I was introduced to it through Richard Delgado, who's got a brief PDF online. It's helpful. Delgado's not a Christian. Delgado's a leading critical race theorist.
00:03:02.080But it basically holds that racism is a universal, it's just a universal reality.
00:03:08.540That's one of the core tenets and perhaps one of the central tenets that exist.
00:03:13.460And then there's an experiential knowledge that is central to critical race theory.
00:03:19.180And so they want to labor for this black voice that has a greater reliability or greater credibility based on the fact that it is black and has experienced racism and therefore can be better positioned to speak to the issues of racism.
00:03:44.560So those are a few of the tenets, but it's going to be rooted in critical theory.
00:03:48.420So you've got to go back and understand critical theory.
00:03:50.460You're going to spend some time in the Frankfurt School to understand that.
00:03:52.700And then you're going to end up at a foundation of a metaphysic, an understanding of reality that is materialistic.
00:04:02.440And by having that kind of worldview, you can go from that and begin to use all sorts of words like justice and like equality.
00:04:11.720but you actually mean something different than the supernatural Christian understanding of God's world.
00:04:20.260I've heard that with that, you know, that it's just a given, a universal racism.
00:04:25.660I've heard people say that it's not just white people are racist.
00:04:28.860Everybody's racist under the lens of critical race theory.0.89
00:04:32.400The problem is that white people, because they're the dominant demographic,0.52
00:04:36.640because of the majority, um, they have power and therefore their racism, uh, it, everyone's racist,0.97
00:04:43.780but, but white people benefit the most from being racist and therefore they are extra complicit,
00:04:50.460extra, you know, they, they bear an extra degree of moral guilt, um, for that universal racism.0.84
00:04:58.380Is that true? Well, if it's, well, not true. Is that true to, to the worldview? Yeah. So
00:05:06.500So what's happening with somebody saying that is you're getting to the fundamental problem with critical race theory and with critical theory and identity politics is another way of saying the same thing or intersectionality, which is really another way of saying the same thing.
00:05:20.520It's a worldview where there is the oppressor and the oppressed, but where Marx, it was strictly financial in the way that he was understanding this.
00:05:30.960You now have it developed where you have an oppressor and oppressed categories that begin to be divided up along different lines with intersectionality and critical race theories focusing on race.
00:05:40.840And so you just walk around with the presupposition that, well, if you're white, well, then you're in the oppressor category, and if you're black, you're in the oppressed category.
00:05:50.100And so you get confused about all sorts of things like hegemony.0.57
00:05:58.860Yeah, well, again, according to theory, it's going to be that the oppressor class is the one who sets the customs,
00:06:08.500who sets the patterns or the values of that given society.0.93
00:06:14.600And the problem is Christians come in and they say, well, isn't it true?
00:06:17.600Some Christians come in and say, isn't it true that those who are in positions of power do indeed set the norms of a given organization or a given institution or a given society?
00:06:29.400And I have no problem saying, of course it's true, people that are in power.
00:06:33.240But the problem is that's not what theory is teaching.
00:06:35.760Theory locks in those categories of oppressor and oppressed along the lines of intersectionality.0.54
00:06:43.160Critical race theory is going to do that with white and black.0.58
00:06:45.560And therefore, it doesn't matter who's in a particular organization that really has the power and therefore is setting the customs or traditions of that given entity.0.88
00:06:55.300It's just, well, you're white, so you categorically are, you are the hegemony.0.80
00:07:03.600You are the one who is going to set the customs, which is really not the case.0.72
00:07:10.080And that's the problem with, so people want to come in and kind of harmonize it and say,
00:07:15.060well, don't we do know that people with power do indeed set custom?
00:07:18.520Well, yes, but at that point, you're not talking critical theory or critical race theory anymore.
00:07:25.020Yeah, I've noticed that one consistent theme with many liberal ideologies is a disintegration of the individual,
00:07:33.860whether it's the individual's right to own property or whatever it is.
00:07:38.060But with this group dynamic, the identity politics, it's just that there's no such thing as individual moral responsibility or individual, you know, there's just no individual entirely.
00:07:50.320You're just immediately categorized with a group based on some kind of exterior characteristic.
00:07:59.060In the case of critical race theory, it would be your ethnicity.
00:09:53.000If you're someone who doesn't have as much stuff as another person, well, begin to classify people that way.
00:10:00.020And so where the Marxist system didn't work as well, because you only have two classifications,
00:10:05.200you have basically the have and the have-nots, where you can advance the idea with intersectionality.
00:10:11.660You can divide the world up into male and female, into white, into non-white, into straight, into all the different versions of non-straight, so that you can mobilize all of those lower categories and begin to get more from the people that have stuff.
00:10:30.160And again, you might just think, well, why in the world would you even do that?
00:10:32.800Well, part of the materialistic concept of the world is that it's a zero-sum game.
00:10:35.820You know, we don't, Christians believe that, you know, you get one banana tree and stick it in the ground and you get all sorts of bananas from just that one.
00:10:47.680You can even cut off one of the pups from it and give it to somebody else and they can have bananas.
00:10:53.760It's a rich world that continues to produce, but not according to this other system.
00:10:59.340In this other system, if you're going to get anything, well, you have to get it from the people who have it.
00:11:03.460And they're not just going to give it to you.
00:11:05.720And so you need to find ways to either guilt them or to shame them or to politically maneuver them.
00:11:12.280And to do that with every single individual, well, that's going to take a really long time.0.74
00:11:16.660But if we can categorize them as white and male and have that become the primary way that they're thinking about themselves and the way that society is, well, now we can see that, you know, you men, you have certain privileges that women don't have.0.58
00:11:31.220And so it's time for all of you to kind of pay up and to make sure that all the ladies get the same stuff that you do.0.57
00:11:38.700And then Christian says, well, why would you do that?
00:11:40.720Because, you know, we don't want all the women to have all the same stuff that men do.0.97
00:11:45.320You know, men have to be conscripted into the army to go fight battles.1.00
00:11:49.140Why would we want women to do that?0.99
00:11:50.720Well, that's because you're thinking like a Christian and you're thinking about what God's revealed in the word.0.98
00:11:55.520But no, that's not the way this one works.
00:11:57.340This one says if we're going to have equality, it's got to be a feminist equality.
00:12:01.220These women have to have all the same kind of things that men do, and therefore we have to peg them for their oppression, have them think about themselves and their group identity so that we can raise up the oppressed category and get at some state of perfect equality.0.57
00:12:15.500So that's a very long way of saying, I really believe the identity politics is a tool used by those who are committed to this materialistic understanding of the world and want this will to power.
00:12:30.480They want things, and the way you get it is through power maneuvers.
00:14:08.240Yeah, well, the Imago Dei is a glorious Christian doctrine that we have assumed for a really long time.
00:14:17.020And even in our society, have treated people with respect because that doctrine has been underneath.
00:14:22.480We might not have maintained it in a civil way over the last 50 years or so.
00:14:29.160but it is still been bearing fruit and now you see the erosion of that that you can have people
00:14:36.780that get terribly confused about what a human being is that's what seeing with all of the0.97
00:14:43.840transgender realities that are now upon us where people are saying I can I can manipulate my own1.00
00:14:51.660existence and become kind of whatever I want to be and if that's the case if you're not if you
00:14:58.100really are able to do that kind of thing. And there's nothing that marks you. You are not
00:15:05.240created in the image of God. Well, why in the world should we respect you? Why in the world
00:15:09.920should we not take your stuff and just do whatever we want to with you? So there absolutely has to be
00:15:17.340a recovery of that doctrine, a clear teaching on it and the church so that people can live
00:15:23.720recording. Yeah, that's super helpful. Uh, let me go on. I got some more questions here. Um,
00:15:30.000so you, you talked about, you know, critical race theory is just one specific, um, one specific
00:15:35.100subset of critical theory. So we could almost, in some sense we could, you know, we've, we've heard
00:15:39.740a lot of guys talking about the Trojan horse of social justice and, or the Trojan horse of, you
00:15:44.080know, um, racial reconciliation, uh, the just thinking guys, Daryl and Virgil. I know you guys
00:15:49.400have had, you and Tom have had him, those guys before, that Trojan horse of race reconciliation,
00:15:56.560social justice, from that, you know, we get critical race theory, but even from critical
00:16:00.820race theory, we get, you know, we just get critical theory. And so one of my questions is this,
00:16:06.160as churches and Christians, many of them unknowingly, as they begin to adopt critical
00:16:12.260theory, what are some of the things that we can expect to see, or some of the things that maybe
00:16:16.880you and Tom have already seen in churches that have come about from critical theory that aren't
00:16:23.860related, something separate from race. So not just critical theory, critical race theory, but
00:16:28.420as critical theory in general is being adopted by local churches, have you noticed any,
00:16:34.680the way that they do conflict resolution or a dynamic of power between pastor and congregant,
00:16:41.180What are some other ways that critical theory in general is destructive for churches?
00:16:47.980And do you have some predictions or even some observations that you've already seen occurring?
00:16:54.400Yeah. Well, one of my fundamental concerns with critical theory is that you basically set up society and you look at it and without any divine revelation or without any of God's law, the claim is, well, we can just tell what's wrong with society.
00:17:14.800We can tell that something is not equal or something is not right, and we want to critique it.
00:17:20.740We want to critique it, again, without God, without his word.
00:17:25.600But we know, hey, you know, if women have been held back in the workforce, what we need to do is to put our finger on the scale so that women can be elevated in the workforce.
00:17:37.620And they will need to be elevated for about the same amount of time that they were not held to that equal standard, at which point we'll let our finger off of the scale and we'll get this, you know, beautiful notion of equality.
00:17:52.780We'll reach that utopia somewhere out there in the future.
00:18:26.800If we get that guy, then we're going to do this kind of thing, you know, or music.
00:18:32.660You know, we need this modern kind of music thing.
00:18:34.760That's going to be able to bring it in.
00:18:36.300And so we'll do that kind of thing or we'll never have any kind of ability to minister to the LGBTQ community until they recognize us as friends.
00:18:49.560And once they recognize us as friends, well, then we'll be able to to engage it.
00:18:54.780So there can be all sorts of specifics.
00:18:56.760The central problem is trying to critique and improve and enhance things,
00:19:03.340whether it be in your church or your community, without God.
00:19:07.180It's basically a paganism in the sense that there's no transcendent God in that world.
00:19:24.460Well, it is true that there's things for us to do in the Christian faith.
00:19:27.720We gather, we worship, and we preach the gospel, we do evangelism, we do discipleship, all of that.
00:19:32.960But we do all of that depending upon the spirit of God.
00:19:36.360We do all of that praying and asking God to bless his word and to bless his work and to establish the work of our hands.
00:19:43.960So as these ideas infiltrate the church, the tendency is to basically go about the work that God has given us to do, but to do it without him.
00:24:49.520What is it about critical race theory in particular that tugs on the heartstrings of so many Christians and even pastors in the church today?
00:25:01.060Yeah, it's a real threat for a number of reasons.
00:28:45.520Well, we actually have a project coming out called Wield the Sword, kind of a follow-up to our film By What Standard.
00:28:51.860And the thought process behind it was just that, that we have a lot of Christians, even conservative Christians right now,
00:29:00.820that are saying we really do believe the Bible, we believe it's inerrant,
00:29:04.020but we have not thought about how to actually take that word and apply it to the situations in which we live, to our lives.
00:29:12.820So C.S. Lewis calls this resistance thinking.
00:29:17.100And he's got a great little quote where he says something along the lines of, you know, if you emphasize the parts of Scripture that are acceptable to the spirit of the age, well, then there's not going to be any conflict, but neither are you going to be relevant.
00:29:30.560But if you emphasize the parts of Scripture and the parts of the Christian gospel that are contrary to the spirit of the age, then you will be relevant in your day and in the time to come.
00:29:43.760And so you've got this idea like the battle is over in the East, and a lot of conservative Christians want to wield the sword over in the West where there's actually no battle.
00:29:54.680They're not going to where the problem is.
00:29:58.500And there's a lot of texts that you can go to and you think, well, I'm preaching exegetical sermons.
00:30:02.920It's just I never turn to the texts that are actually under assault right there.
00:30:08.220And therefore, I'm not actually discipling my people to face the challenges that they're facing, thinking biblically about what is going on.
00:30:15.820And so you alluded to kind of this Kuyperian notion of all of Christ for all of life.
00:30:23.120And we do need to recover that, and we're being forced to recover that.
00:30:26.400We're being forced to recover that along the lines of complementarian issues, so narrow complementarianism versus broad complementarianism.
00:30:34.380Narrow complementarianism was more of a tenable position until recently, and we start to see that we know there are implications in the world for manhood and womanhood.
00:30:45.240And so we want to be wise in those applications.
00:30:47.460But when they start considering drafting women into the military, the idea that biblical man or the woman only matters in the church and the home and doesn't have any impact upon vocation or government or the way that we go about our lives day to day in the world is untenable.
00:36:05.540Yeah, well, I think you're right about
00:36:07.440what Scripture teaches on those issues.
00:36:12.000And that's first and foremost, just to underscore what you said, Paul says in Corinthians that man is the image and glory of God and woman is the glory of man.
00:36:21.980And that's a text that nobody wants to go to the side or talk about these days.
00:36:26.160And yet that is a distinction between male and female.
00:36:29.800And you don't see that same kind of thing when you're dealing with ethnicity.
00:36:34.360Now, ethnicity is a there are distinctions there and every tribe, nation and time will be around the throne.
00:36:39.620But when it comes to the binary of male and female, there is something foundational there.
00:36:49.100The way God has created the world, the way that he has created mankind.
00:36:54.200So what, you know, why in our current moment, I think some of the race issues that we're experiencing right now in America,
00:37:04.580you know there have always been you know tensions along these lines not only in our history but it's
00:37:10.380something that you experience universally in the world but um those are exacerbated right now
00:37:17.200primarily for political purposes as i see it the ways that your agendas that are trying to be
00:37:22.580advanced what you see going on in the with the um transgenderism stuff and the tendency to basically
00:37:30.240have a world in which you can be whatever sex you want to be and even creating new sexes and all0.77
00:37:37.980kinds of crazy ideas you're watching a romans one situation right there you're watching the
00:37:44.400a deep depravity set in and an unwillingness for many who know better to say that's not true
00:37:53.080that's not that's not who you are what you are so you do have different dynamics going on there
00:37:58.780Both of our manipulations on that are certainly driven by sin.
00:38:04.660And it's interesting to watch them kind of operating in different ways as you detail.
00:40:26.120But I still think the statement on social justice and the gospel is a great resource for this question.
00:40:34.060When Tom went to that meeting in Dallas, and then he was tasked with writing up the affirmations and denials.0.78
00:40:40.680So I remember he sat down here and he said, well, I've got to come up with these statement of affirmations to the Niles and put it before the crew.0.92
00:40:47.960And we had no idea at that time how big it would be.
00:40:51.220But I remember categories being formed, and then as they were worked up, I thought these are very, very helpful definitions because there's a lot of talk about racism.