Untangling Critical Race Theory (eBook)

What Christians Need to Know and Why It Matters

Ed Uszynski (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2024 | 1. Auflage
272 Seiten
IVP (Verlag)
978-1-5140-0482-1 (ISBN)

Infos

What is Critical Race Theory? It may be one of the most widely referenced issues of the day, but it's also one of the least understood. In its translation from the academic world to the general public, Critical Race Theory (CRT) has inaccurately become a catch-all term for anything related to race. But what does it actually mean, and how should Christians engage it? Ed Uszynski-whose PhD in American culture studies navigated readings in Marxism, Critical Theory, and Critical Race Theory-carefully unpacks what critical race theorists seek to accomplish and what Christians can learn from them. Uszynski generously explores CRT's roots, context, and central tenets, revealing how its insights are used and distorted but also how they might benefit the church. With responsible answers to legitimate concerns, Uszynski goes beyond the surface to provide a reliable path of just discernment and cultural engagement.

Ed Uszynski (PhD, Bowling Green State University) has been a content specialist for Cru, Athletes in Action, and FamilyLife for over three decades. He also serves as a oneness and diversity consultant for church and parachurch organizations. He has written for a range of online platforms such as Desiring God, Mockingbird, and The Washington Times. He is a frequent speaker and podcaster on topics of race, sport culture, and marriage.

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Introduction

Why We Need Another Book on Race

In my entire adult life, I don’t think America’s dialogue

about race has been as toxic as it is today. Extremists

dominate, pushing us into ever-more-polarized ideological

corners. If you live in right-wing space and spend time

talking about contemporary racism or the ongoing,

persistent consequences of centuries of slavery, Jim Crow,

redlining, and segregation, extremists will quickly label

you “woke.” And no one should listen to anyone woke.

 

If you live in left-wing spaces and you push back against

emerging “anti-racist” ideologies that sometimes declare

the nation foundationally evil, engage in their own forms

of gross racial stereotyping (including unremitting hatred

for “whiteness”), and seek to defund and discredit policing

itself, extremists will quickly label you “racist.” And no one

should listen to anyone racist.

DAVID FRENCH, “WHEN OUR FOREFATHERS FAIL”

“THE MESSAGES I SEE being pushed forward within our ministry have not been for oneness but are clouded with power and have caused separation and division.”

“My radar goes up when I hear words like oppressed, oppressor, and victim when it comes to race. They are words of power and control with an agenda attached.”

“Today it’s not just white privilege, but amped up to white supremacy. It seems to me that there is nothing a white person can do to help fight racism.”

“I’m concerned that we are slipping toward the heresy of liberation theology, if not in our statement of faith, then in our practice. We are moving toward a position and practice of the gospel only being the gospel if it moves us to action on the social justice front.”

The above are all snippets of emails from white evangelical minister friends who are struggling to make sense of the racial rhetoric and discussions they encounter daily on campus, in their church, on social media, and with people in general.

They represent confusion about race and how to talk about it. They represent concern over theological drift and a fear that ideas expressed by the people they’re engaging are unbiblical, especially when they suspect those ideas spring from secular ideologies. They represent feelings of inadequacy, since in their role they are expected to guide others in the race conversation but aren’t even sure how to lead it for themselves.

For most, apart from the news or social media, they’d never think about race. It’s not part of their daily experience. When nobody’s looking, they’re asking, “Why do I have to think about something that doesn’t really affect me? And why should I prepare for conversations I don’t really want to have?” These folks know they can’t say it out loud, but they wish the whole matter of race would just go away so we could stop hearing about it altogether.

But we can’t go on avoiding or ignoring it. As Christians, we need to talk about race because it concerns brothers and sisters who experience it as more than just a trending topic dropping into their social feed. They feel it every day of their lives, as either a person of color or a white person intimately connected to POC.1 For them, not a day goes by when race isn’t an issue on some level. It may be due to their work environment, where they live, or some other circumstance that keeps racial turmoil near the front of their consciousness. And guess what? They wish the whole matter of race would go away, too. But they know it won’t happen until we talk about it more, not less.

People on both sides seem to be tired of the discussion. For those new to the subject, they’re tired because they feel like it’s forced on them by political agenda. For others who think about race all the time, they’re tired because occasional “race quakes” give the impression of progress but never stick, and they don’t believe more words and emotional energy will make a difference.

It’s not the first time denominations have split, pastors were fired, or congregations were divided because of racial disagreement. Indeed, race never fully disappears from public discourse, but some epochs of American history seem more racially incendiary—and we’re in one of those right now. The first decades of this century produced racial kindling vulnerable to a spark from any direction, and eager match lighters are everywhere.2

I appreciate the fatigue represented on both sides. I feel it, too. But now more than ever we need Christ followers to activate their minds and hearts and will to embrace this moment, especially those who’ve characteristically avoided the discussion, to heal within the church if not within our society. These conversations have been difficult enough in years past, but many feel even more overwhelmed today because so much race talk flows from another rather intimidating and unfamiliar body of work: Critical Race Theory.

WHAT IS “CRITICAL RACE THEORY”?

CRT originated as a formal discipline in the 1980s with a group of activist-minded law scholars who’d grown discouraged at the ongoing presence of disparities between white and black folks across society, even a decade after civil rights legislation made overt discrimination illegal. Their work defied the prevailing narrative at the time, that post-civil-rights America was now an equitable democracy whose treasures were always equally available to anyone who lived responsibly enough to receive them. Instead, they exposed how the legal system had embedded enough racially significant policies and patterns that disproportionate outcomes were almost guaranteed without ever appearing racist on the surface. Their work showed how racism could be present without racists, and it shook legal scholarship at its core.

But today CRT gets credited or condemned for conflicts happening all over the place. You hear about school curriculums teaching white kids to hate themselves: CRT. One-sided diversity seminars in the workplace: CRT. People being “canceled” on campuses and online: CRT. Athletes wearing justice slogans on their jerseys: CRT. It’s not always clear what the three letters mean, but they seem to create problems between people wherever they show up.

In every lane of social life, a provocative lexicon confronts us with troubling ideas like “social justice,” “white privilege,” “white supremacy,” and “intersectionality,” disrupting concepts that sound vaguely familiar in some ways and radically new in others. We’re being thrown into academic currents whose streams most of us rarely wade in, talking about subjects most of us intentionally avoid, with words and phrases whose meaning seems to change depending on who uses them. It feels like you’re way behind in a complicated conversation with no obvious direction on how to catch up.3

Many in the evangelical Christian world have risen up to condemn CRT language and the ideas behind it, or at least what they perceive CRT to be based on social posts and media coverage. They warn that all of these concepts have roots in Marxism and Critical Theory—two other hastily condemned but little understood worlds—and are destructive to Christian faith. Disagreement about the relative danger of CRT has split churches, terminated pastors, and cost parachurch organizations staff and donors.

You hear the president of the United States condemn the use of Critical Race Theory in all government institutions, followed soon after by the presidents of major Southern Baptist universities doing the same on behalf of their own.4 Christians aligned with these decisions affirm rejecting CRT wholeheartedly, but if you ask them what they mean by the phrase, you’ll almost never hear the same definition twice.

But then you spend time with a Bible-believing, theologically robust, and culturally shrewd person who barely bats an eye at the language of CRT, who suggests that there’s greater evil in ignoring the conditions prompting the language in the first place. They see CRT concepts as pointing out evils that have been ignored for generations, particularly in the church. They believe conversations stemming from CRT ideas can unite the church and help lead people to Jesus, but when you ask them, they rarely know the origins of many of the concepts.

One friend says CRT is of the devil, while another suggests not paying attention to the social realities behind CRT is the true demon. The red-meat commentary on either side produces a hysteria like medieval churches accusing heretics. The ugliness is real.

As Christians, how do we sort through all the rhetoric?

GETTING HELP TO MAKE SENSE OF IT ALL

When it comes to the topic of race, I regularly talk with Christians who are trying to understand terms circulating on social media, the politics behind policies, the history being cited or ignored, and the proper Christian response. It’s not an overstatement to say that most...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 25.6.2024
• Vorwort: Crawford Loritts, Preston Sprinkle
• Verlagsort: Lisle
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Religion / Theologie ► Christentum ► Moraltheologie / Sozialethik
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Ethnologie
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie
• Themenwelt: Wirtschaft
• Schlagworte: banned books • black literature • Christian college • Church • critical race theory • CRT • crt school curriculum • Culture wars • Definition • Diversity • higher education • liberal agenda • Marxism • Professor • Race wars • Racial Justice • Racism • racism in universities • schools
• ISBN-10: 1-5140-0482-8 / 1514004828
• ISBN-13: 978-1-5140-0482-1 / 9781514004821