What does CRT have to do with Christianity?

Faith & Science Conversation
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Here is an article outlining how this is all a manufactured controversy.

As Rufo eventually came to see it, conservatives engaged in the culture war had been fighting against the same progressive racial ideology since late in the Obama years, without ever being able to describe it effectively. “We’ve needed new language for these issues,” Rufo told me, when I first wrote to him, late in May. “ ‘Political correctness’ is a dated term and, more importantly, doesn’t apply anymore. It’s not that elites are enforcing a set of manners and cultural limits, they’re seeking to reengineer the foundation of human psychology and social institutions through the new politics of race, It’s much more invasive than mere ‘correctness,’ which is a mechanism of social control, but not the heart of what’s happening. The other frames are wrong, too: ‘cancel culture’ is a vacuous term and doesn’t translate into a political program; ‘woke’ is a good epithet, but it’s too broad, too terminal, too easily brushed aside. ‘Critical race theory’ is the perfect villain,” Rufo wrote.

What “regional, conservative think tank” was this Christopher Rufo affiliated with, you might ask. Oh, none other than the esteemed Discovery Institute. Because, of course.

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For me I think this is the biggest issues with CRT , along with many other societal issues that are debated.

  1. The overwhelming majority of people have not read a single book on it. Even more people have not read two books on including a book presenting the other side of the coin in a legitimate way.

  2. Most people are more emotionally invested in it than they are educated about it. These people tend to go with the most triggering and emotionally exhausting aspects of it despite the fact those specific issues probably don’t make up even 1% of the overall examples and goal.

  3. Often the people who know the most about it are sold out and as others have mentioned demand 100% acceptance and God forbid you disagree with a single thing or it makes you a bleeding heart guilted liberal or with backwards conservative bigot.

This is true is almost any single social issue. That’s why I also don’t have a particular stance on a broad subject. If someone asks me about CRT I ask them about what specific example, event or law. It’s like asking are humans good or bad? There almost a endless list of good and bad people.

But ultimately should tons of attention be brought to laws and regulations that are clearly racist or full of bigotry that harm innocent people resulting in clear injustices. These things should also be taught to small kids by their parents and teachers in age appropriate ways.

Such as when I was a kid a simple rule that was passed was that you had to keep both pant legs all the way down. As in you could not roll up one pants leg. It seems like a simple enough rule. Does not seem like it’s even a bad rule or a racist rule. But it definitely was. Now I’m not sure why, but it was very common for black boys to roll up one pants leg. This law was passed under the guise of some kind of decent appearance or something. Not sure how it was affecting anyone. But the only people affected by the rule was black boys. Most of my teachers growing up were black. Well at least through middle school. One of my teachers was the one who brought up the problem with that rule. She also brought up how kids who walked home were only allowed to leave through the front gate. The school had a second fence that held horses that was on both sides of school. One had older horses and one had mini horses. You were not allowed to walk through that fence to head home. The black neighborhood was behind the school. White kids went through the front gate, across the street and into their subdivisions. Black kids had to go through the front gate, walk down about half a mile, then cut down through another field , then walk the half mile back essentially and cross the street to their neighborhood. There was a gate on the back side of the school and the gate was opened everytime we had fire drills. They could have easily opened up the back gate and cut the black kids time down by like 35 minutes. But the school rules was you could only pass through the front gate. Half the time the back gate was opened and the football or baseball players were practicing behind the school. But you still had to leave the front gate. This rule affected almost solely the black kids. We had another rule. You could only dye your hair natural looking colors. So white girls routinely dyed their hair blonde, black, brown and even red. Black girls could not dye their hair blonde or red because it was considered not natural looking. You were also only allowed to wear your hair in a ponytail or normal. I don’t think the black girls ever wore ponytails. I remember many being mad because some law was also passed on having big hair because it would block other kids from seeing clearly. So the black girls basically could do nothing but straighten their hair. No fros, not even natural ones. No dreadlocks or cornrows. Almost all these rules basically affected just black kids. There was also a rule passed that you could not listen to any explicit cds and teachers could check your cds at any time and look them up on some site that mentioned the explicitly of it. Essentially all country music was fine. Most rock music was fine. Granted a lot of punk music was banned. Most pop music was allowed. Essentially all popular rap and hip hop cds were banned. Now they ever said no rap or hip hop but that was basically the byproduct of the law.

So there are a bunch of innocent sounding laws that we don’t pick up on because it does not affect us culturally. Such as in school you’re only allowed to speak English, even when on break. Not even in private conversations. It’s sort of like laws that are passed where cops can stop and question suspicious people and suspicious behavior includes a group of 4+ people walking together all wearing matching shirts. Now if four rednecks wearing rebel flags was walking they would probjidt be viewed as “ good ole boys “ but 4 black guys walking wearing red clothes will probably be able to be stopped under potential gang colors despite the fact they were literally just walking.

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To the OP. CRT is the history of the failure of Christianity. Not from its inception, despite Jesus ‘not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel’ in His yet worse modernly politically incorrect discourse with a Gentile woman. As Peter and Paul realised. And that it addressed inequality as never before or since. It’s the since is the failure. And it is worse than failure. It’s complicity. Virtually total, hermetic, universal complicity. As in 99.9% complicity. In inequality. Unrighteousness. Still. No wonder it doesn’t like CRT in the obese white Bible Belt.

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What does Critical Race Theory have to do with Christianity?

The first step to become a Christian is to accept the fact that I am a sinner.

Racism is a sin. It is a sin that almost everyone commits. We cannot overcome that sin without confessing it and giving it over to God, rather than denying it and pretending it doesn’t exist.

People, human beings, sinners create the problems of this world, and therefore it is up to us, with the help of God, to do our part to straighten things out.

Love is the answer, but there are many ways to express this love, to help others, to forgive, to share, to learn and grow.

Love is the foundation of Christian morality and lifestyle.

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True, but CRT would say that racism is not an individual sin problem that can be addressed by a bunch of individuals simply admitting they are sinners and being empowered by the Spirit to do better. It’s a systemic problem that requires overhauling institutions and changing culture.

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Thanks for digging these up, Christy. I neede the first article in a different context and couldn’t remember this guy’s name.
It’s utterly shocking to see how “effective” his campaign has been.

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You’re going to have to read Kendi’s book for yourself to know what it says, how he supports his arguments and whether he does that well. Relying on secondary sources to get a lay of the land can be helpful,but it is no substitute for even the most basic research. Borrow the book from the library, if you are concerned about things like royalties. And read it for yourself.

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I’m betting discourse analysis textbooks of the future will use it as a case study. They completely redefined the language around race in the public discourse in a matter of months.

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So now groups of concerned Christian parents are coming up with lists of CRT-free Christian colleges. It’s a hysteria that parallels their attempts to find evolution-free colleges. Seems to me it’s a product of the rampant anti-intellectualism and distrust of academia that is nurtured in some Evangelical/Fundamentalist circles. As soon as you label something as Marxist or “promoting the LGTBQ agenda,” a certain brand of Christian will rally against it, no reading comprehension or actual learning necessary.

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And most of the people who do wouldn’t know a Marxist if one punched them in the face.

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I’m not sure which state. I think it’s either my state alabama or maybe Georgia. Can’t remember. But the governor or someone put up a hotline to report “ CRT in public schools”.

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Good gravy, this is one of the most distasteful stories of political car-jacking I have read in some time. The guy reads like a total narcissist.

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The late, renowned Stephen J. Gould of Harvard was a Marxist. One of my fellow parishioners became his second wife. Together they founded a non-profit, the Art Science Research Laboratory. It includes charities, such as “Cut Red Tape 4 Heroes”

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I would agree, but you can’t change institutions and culture without people taking responsibility for their sinful culture and institutions.

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I didn’t know that. Thanks for sharing.

Yes, Marxism, though the granddaddy of Communism is distinct from it. It was modified by Lenin and Bolsheviks and then even more so under Stalin. Whereas Marx foresaw a time when the proletariat would no longer need the government, Stalin’s communism argued that the state would always be necessary to safeguard the movement against anti-revolutionary influences. But in reality this was but a foil to ensure his continued power. Communism then mutated again in China under Moa Zedong. Yet they all presented themselves as being true to Marx and Ingles original vision of communism.

So In someways it is redundant to talk about Communism or Marxism as if it is monolithic. So if someone says that CRT is ‘Marxist’ or ‘Communist’ it is probably worth asking which Marxism or Communism they are talking about.

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It’s easier to just give them one of Miss Cobbs’s dolls
Xd.

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Absolutely, and more than that, it is the only source of knowledge about the spiritual truths God intended to reveal through it. I wouldn’t go to for other truths, though, like how GPS works (brought to you by the same sciences that brought you radar, nuclear bombs and big bang cosmology).
 

And YECism is not a little part of the reason.
 

Perhaps you have seen this before:

Truth True knowledge comes from reality – the truth that comes from the reality of the data that God has revealed in the Bible and the truth that comes from the reality of data that God has revealed in creation. They do not and cannot conflict. If they appear to, then our interpretation of one or the other or both is flawed.

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Yes, Kendi is a primary source for understanding CRT, and so our conversation has been related to that topic.

But the greater question for Christians is, "Who gets to define what is knowledge in our society? And in what way is the Bible a source of knowledge?

My answer to that is, “God’s Word, the Bible, is the primary source of knowledge and the standard by which all other knowledge is measured.”

Of course, that doesn’t mean that there are no other sources of knowledge. Certainly, a surgeon cannot be trained in brain surgery by reading the Bible. But when it comes to medical ethics, the Bible is the standard by which those ethics must be measured.

In our society, the Bible as a source of knowledge has been diminished and even eliminated. We now say that knowledge only comes from experts, research and science as if they are neutral arbiters of knowledge. I responded to the statement,

beaglelady:

Dr. Kendi is a scholar, a professor, a NY Times Bestselling author, and a voice for civil rights. I don’t care what religion he follows

Again, the Bible, God’s Word, for Christians should be the primary source of knowledge, against which all other claims for knowledge must be measured.

Another question was, “Why should I listen to Brian Overholt?” That’s a good question, and the answer is that he is speaking from the Word of God. It has been asserted that CRT has many versions, and that is likely true. But that does not mean that we cannot speak to what at least some of its proponents claim.

LM77:

I won’t lie, to provide Biblical references without providing references for his comments on CRT makes me instantly suspicious.

That is a good point. I only copied Overholt’s conclusions. The first couple of pages were charts, and these don’t copy and paste well. (I tried.)

So I have cut and pasted the citations, just to demonstrate that he has worked from primary sources:

CRT Tenet titles, source citations, and un-bracketed descriptions are unedited quotations from “The 20th-Year Anniversary of Critical Race Theory in Education: Implications for
Leading to Eliminate Racism” by Colleen Capper, 2015 p.8-9
Other sources:

Bell (1980a, 2004); Ladson-Billings (1998), Crenshaw (1988), Ladson-Billings & Tate (1995); Tate (1997); Crenshaw (1991) Bell (1992); Ladson, Billings and Tate (1995); Tate (1997); Harris (1995); Matsuda (1995); Delgado (1995); Solórzano & Yosso (2001)

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Of course that is a problem, and it has been since the dawn of time. It is called, “taking the name of the Lord your God in vain”–attributing to God what is contrary to his holiness. But that doesn’t mean we can’t or shouldn’t make a biblical case for anything because someone somewhere has co-opted scripture to justify their sinful behavior.

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I see that as prooftext hunting 101. There is a heck of a lot more than modern egalitarianism in the Bible. Outsiders are not always treated so well and much of “the Bible” it is certainly objectionable by today’s standards.

Our identity in Christ is certainly paramount but Christian’s shouldn’t be poaching the bible like this in an effort to caricature CRT. Galatians 3:28 (et al) means we need to end systemic racism and inequality. Period. This means seriously evaluating CRT.

Authentic Paul was ahead of his time!

Vinnie

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