How can the knowledge of Critical Race Theory history help us answer a CRT adherent?
In my last blog post, I laid a foundation for a Biblical response that Young Earth Creationists may exhort. We hold to a literal twenty-four-hour day creation by a Sovereign, Majestic Lord and Creator who formed us all from one blood, from one family originating in Adam and Eve, and the obedient, faithful ancient shipbuilder Noah and his family. I highlighted the reality of truly Biblical sinful oppression instead of a “pseudo-oppression” of power inequities imagined by Critical Race Theory disciples. Finally, I presented the promise of justice and healing through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, which was proclaimed in the Book of Revelation.
As a student of history, I’m struck by the gravity and depth of sin that stains the pages of global history books. History bears the heartbreak and tragedy of the world’s deeds. You cannot help but stand speechless at the depravity of our sin against our Creator, Savior, and Lord, and against one another.
Karl Marx and his Communist disciples at the Frankfort School exploited the historical record of humanity’s sinful deeds. His methodology was schooling radical academics in the subversive art of unending criticism. The utopia he envisioned was not to be, but by then, the damage had been done in the theory’s endorsement by European universities and its jump across the ocean to our shores.
Marx’s dream of a worker revolution failed. Consequently, it was transformed by the next proponent of Marxism, Antonio Gramsci, father of the Italian Communist Party, whose target became faith, family, and country as the cause for the failed workers’ revolution. This demonic attack on the foundations of our Lord and Creator’s work still poisons the hearts and minds of young academics globally. Gramsci’s methodology became “re-education” or, as I liken it to, brainwashing a mind into a delusion (Romans 1).
The German philosopher and sociologist Max Horkheimer developed critical theory further at the Frankfurt School’s Institute for Social Research, then, in fleeing the Nazis, he eventually was welcomed to house the institute at Columbia University in New York City. At the end of Max’s life, he lectured at the University of Chicago after returning to Germany after the war. The idea stuck in the two prominent universities and became the most pronounced academic social theory of our century.
From critical theory emerged subtopics of gender, race, and economic critical theory. The legacy draws from a handful of men: Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, Walter Benjamin, Leo Löwenthal, Otto Kirchheimer, Frederick Pollock, and Franz Neumann. Marcuse’s famous statement is “Underneath the conservative popular base is the substratum of the outcasts and outsiders, the exploited and persecuted of other races and other colors." Other adherents in NYC included Margaret Sanger, eugenics and abortion proponent.
The theory’s progression moved to new radicals who further complicate critical theory with a focus on power and hegemony. These radicals include the Frenchman Michel Foucault, who argued in his book Crime and Punishment about ending the carceral system. Foucault wrote extensively in his life covering topics of power, the prison system, and human sexuality, before dying of AIDs in the 1970s. His books are required reading in the graduate programs of American universities, following his invitation to lecture at the University of California, Los Angeles. Coming into the 2020s, we can understand the reason radicals in the United States took to the streets to burn Minneapolis and demand the defunding, disbanding, and finally the abolition of the police. This type of reading is standard fare in our universities.
Race in critical theory was propelled into the social fabric of the United States largely through Columbia University and UCLA. This work was largely developed by Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989 with her paper, “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics.” Implicit is the theory of intersectionality to the presidential administrations of Obama and Biden. Her disciples include Representative Ilhan Omar, who proudly boasted of intersectionality on her Congressional webpage. Millions have been influenced by one woman’s theory in the age of the Internet.
When we understand the delusional philosophies permeating the culture, the sinful actions people take are not so shocking. Yet, shall we sit by and not do something about the cancerous ideologies around us? What hope is there?
Much indeed. Key to our Christian discourse as Young Earth Creationists is the unity of people as one blood through a common family in Genesis history. Yes, we endure the mockery and gaslighting as we are called the ones delusional on our social media. Yet people do project their own state. If you look at the final days of the lives of these men who created Critical Theory, you see futility and a reaping of the whirlwind. The warning should be to our college students who blindly walk into the university and are faced with a futile view of the world, leading to anger, rage, and despair.
Writing for Newsweek in her 2021 opinion piece, Liz Wheeler summarizes Critical Theory’s endgame. “Since a worker-led revolution wasn't happening, they needed another "oppressed" class to serve their purpose. That purpose was to tear down Western institutions that stood in the way of revolt and stage a Marxist revolution. Using racial minorities as their new vanguard would be brilliant. Who better to re-educate than a demographic of people whose ancestors had suffered oppression in America based on their skin color? Who better to paint as victims of a belief system of the "oppressors" and to claim the only way to liberation was to demolish the institutions of the oppressors? In other words, the designers and adherents of critical theory admitted their true intent. Not equality under the law. Not civil rights. Not freedom, liberty and justice for all. Not a better life for racial minorities. Critical theorists admit their intent is to use racial minorities as the vanguard for a Marxist revolution. Thus, critical race theory was born." (1)
What is the answer to such hopelessness? The Gospel of Jesus Christ and the hope of His salvation! The earth belongs to the Lord. He created it, redeemed it, and rules sovereignly in His will. Like the scattering of languages at Babel, humanity will not force a perceived “rule” against an Omnipotent Lord and Creator’s Sovereignty. The Bible says the Lord Himself will come again in the fullness of time, bringing justice and renewal, as all the Christian creeds proclaim - when He completes His harvest of souls.
In the meantime, we have the work of the Great Commission, the Comfort of the Holy Spirit, and the Promise of love from an Infinitely Good God who wants to gather innumerable people as both His children and His bride!
(1) Wheeler, Liz. “Critical Race Theory Is Repackaged Marxism.” Newsweek, 14 June 2021.
Login To Leave Comment