Seminary Presidents and Critical Theory
On Monday, Baptist Press released a statement from the six Southern Baptist seminary presidents, in which the presidents reaffirmed their commitment and the commitment of their faculties to the Southern Baptist Convention’s statement of faith, the Baptist Faith and Message 2000. In their statement, they also made a point to declare: “In light of current conversations in the Southern Baptist Convention, we stand together on historic Southern Baptist condemnations of racism in any form and we also declare that affirmation of Critical Race Theory, Intersectionality, and any version of Critical Theory is incompatible with the Baptist Faith & Message.”
This is good, especially in the wake of some serious concerns that were recently raised by trustee Tom Rush about my alma mater, the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS), and some related issues raised earlier this year by now-former professor Dr. Russell Fuller — both of which are only the latest in suspicious things coming out of the seminary.
Those concerns, though multifaceted, boil down to an alleged leftward drift in the theology at SBTS, including claims that Critical Race Theory (CRT) has been creeping into the classrooms. After the most recent revelation, I too added my Twitter voice to the calls for a direct, public, candid, and consistent response from SBTS and President R. Albert Mohler about these allegations.
This strong, unanimous statement from the six seminary presidents against CRT is a good start, and will hopefully provide some semblance of direction to those in the denomination who have been confused by the controversy over CRT that occurred during last year’s convention, when a resolution was adopted that affirmed CRT as a useful “set of analytical tools.” Lord willing, the presidents’ statement is a good sign about the direction of the denomination moving forward and away from that troubling resolution.
But I’m not counting our chickens just yet.
Not all of the concerns have been laid to rest. To me, the remaining concerns are threefold. The first is whether this statement against CRT will be coupled with action; namely, whether CRT or any CRT derivations will cease to make appearances in seminary teaching. This would speak to the need for consistency that, as I said, should define SBTS’s response to the recent allegations. Since lack of consistency is one of the allegations, the seminary is already in the red in the minds of some, so the evidence of sincerity will have to be clear and compelling moving forward. Unfortunately, there may already be some hints of remaining cracks in Mohler’s commitment to oppose “any version” of Critical Theory. The Baptist Press article included, after the statement, comments from each president. In Mohler’s comments, he states, “We must make clear that racism has no rightful place within the SBC, our churches, or our entities. Clearly, much work remains, if we are to be the denomination of churches we pray to be. We are thankful for our African-American brothers and sisters in the SBC whose voices are so needed and must be honored.” — In my opinion, this implication of widespread lingering racism in the denomination, and the declaration that “much work remains,” smacks of CRT. The concept of systemic racism, after all, is a child of CRT — or is at least, perhaps, a brother, descending also from Marxism [1]. So, it seems by his comments that Mohler may be giving himself a bit of an “out” to affirm some version, some aspects, or at least some supposed insights of Critical Theory, while perhaps redefining it or claiming otherwise [2].
Second, although this statement from the seminary presidents was clear and unambiguous, it’s not a direct and candid response from SBTS about specific allegations. This means it’s insufficient as a response to the concerns that have been raised, and if no other response is made, it will seem to be another sidestep of the issues rather than an effort to resolve them. I say “another” because something similar occurred when Fuller came forward with allegations earlier this year: SBTS released a series of videos that addressed some of the issues he raised, but did not explicitly mention him or his allegations. Whatever the intentions, this indirect approach came across as bizarrely passive aggressive, cowardly, and even underhanded. Did they want to address the controversy for those viewers who were already aware of it, but avoid calling further attention to it for those who weren’t? Isn’t it more Christ-like to face such a conflict head-on? It may be that they didn’t want to directly mention Fuller out of legal concerns about making statements regarding a former employee, but still, it was really quite off-putting [3].
Third, sadly, the presidents’ statement against CRT is not guaranteed unequivocal acceptance by everyone in the Southern Baptist Convention. There are certain factions among us that have cozied up to the “woke church” movement, and they are not likely to let it go that easily. So also, even those who may be genuinely seeking the truth about these complex issues may not be immediately on board. As a possible example, on Wednesday, Beth Moore tweeted a screenshot from the Baptist Press article, including the excerpt disavowing “any version” of Critical Theory, and added this comment: “I’ve repeatedly asked this question in good faith in direct messages to various SBC leaders & have yet to receive a clear, concise, consistent answer. Please, for those of us seeking to understand, define CRT in, say, 4 sentences. Is preaching against racism ‘any version’ of it?”
Seeking understanding about this is the correct instinct. I hope there are many Christians who are trying to understand CRT, but I wouldn’t be surprised if, as in Moore’s testimony, many pastors don’t know how to respond. I expect this is due in part to a failure to seek knowledge and wisdom, in part to an oversized respect for the opinions of denominational leaders who have played footsie with CRT ideas, and in part to cowardice about contradicting and confronting either those leaders or the broader culture that demonizes dissenters as bigots. CRT can be a complicated topic, particularly in its many applications and societal effects, but that’s no excuse for church leaders to not work hard to wrap their heads around it, think about it biblically, and teach their people about it clearly.
One Southern Baptist thinker who has written clearly on the topic is apologist Neil Shenvi. In his detailed review of Race, Class, and Gender: An Anthology, Shenvi outlines what he says are four fundamental assumptions or premises of Critical Theory. This almost perfectly answers Moore’s request. One might quibble that it’s not a definition, per se, but since it is a description of Critical Theory’s most basic beliefs, I think it should be admissible as an answer. The four premises are:
Human relationships should be fundamentally understood in terms of power dynamics, which differentiates groups into ‘oppressors’ and ‘the oppressed’. [Oppressor/oppression status is determined by intersectionality.]
Our identity as individuals is inseparable from our group identity, especially our categorization as ‘oppressor’ or ‘oppressed’ with respect to a particular identity marker. [This is commonly referred to as identity politics.]
All oppressed groups find their fundamental unity in their common experience of oppression.
The fundamental human project is liberation from all forms of oppression; consequently, the fundamental virtue is standing in solidarity against the oppressor.
Any thoughtful evaluation of each of these points will conclude they are unbiblical—or even anti-biblical. First, the Bible does not recognize power dynamics as the fundamental way to understand human relationships; rather, human relationships are fundamentally understood in terms of our shared status as image-bearers of God (e.g., Genesis 1:27; 9:6). Dividing people as ‘oppressor’ and ‘oppressed’ on the basis of identity is foreign to Scripture; in the Bible, when someone is described as ‘oppressor’ or ‘oppressed,’ it refers not to a class of people, but to those involved in wrongdoing or difficulty (e.g., Proverbs 28:16; Jeremiah 25:38; Psalm 9:9; Hosea 5:11). Second, our identity as individuals is not inseparable (or, more precisely, is not indistinct) from our group identity; rather, every person has a distinct individual identity (e.g., Ezekiel 18:20; Romans 14:12), which includes but is in no way exhausted by that person’s role as a member in various groups like family, nation, etc. (e.g., Joshua 24:15; Daniel 9:3-19). Third, since ‘oppressed’ is not a quality intrinsic to any group, there is no such thing as fundamentally ‘oppressed groups’; therefore, such non-existent groups cannot be fundamentally unified by a common experience of oppression. Fourth, the fundamental human project is not liberation, and the fundamental virtue is not standing in solidarity against oppression; rather, the fundamental human project and virtue is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength,” and, secondly, to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:30-31 ESV; cf. 1 Corinthians 13). Since we fall short of that two-fold project (Romans 3:23), we must believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ to attain to it (2 Thessalonians 2:14). Loving one’s neighbor includes putting a stop to oppression (e.g., Exodus 22:21; Proverbs 24:11; Isaiah 1:17), but only oppression as defined by Scripture, not by critical theorists. In short, Critical Theory gets the most basic facts of life all wrong. It misidentifies the human condition, humanity’s greatest problem, and the solution — and its answers are antithetical to the Bible’s answers.
If these unbiblical affirmations are the basic premises of Critical Theory, then if any other claims that Critical Theory makes happen to be true, it’s only by coincidence — analogous, for example, to an atheist opposing Sharia law. Just as we wouldn’t consider any version of atheism to be good or useful as an analytical tool or a basis for argumentation just because it happens to be right (for the wrong reasons) about Sharia law, we shouldn’t consider any version of Critical Theory to be good or useful even if it also happens to get something right along the way. We preach against racism because of the Bible, not because of anything related to CRT.
Moreover, neither CRT nor any other ungodly ideology can add anything to our faith and practice—not one single useful thing, least of all about the value and equality of every human life (which CRT does not actually affirm anyway, since it values the lives of those in alleged oppressed groups over those in alleged oppressor groups). Everything we need to know about these things, we can already discern from the pages of Scripture. Indeed, the sufficiency of Scripture is the underlying matter of this debate.
There will be fights ahead about these issues. I sincerely hope the leaders of our denomination and our seminaries will land on the right side of it all. But wherever they land, Southern Baptists who are on the right side of it had better pray for wisdom, get a firm grip on the biblical arguments, and be courageous to confront the falsehoods in a manner worthy of Christ, or this denomination may become the latest victim in the long march through the institutions.
NOTES:
[1] I am not saying that anyone who affirms the existence of systemic racism (a.k.a. institutional racism) is a Marxist, but the concept of systemic racism did develop out of Cultural Marxism, which, of course, developed out of classical Marxism. For a really good high-level explanation of the chain of development from classical Marxism to Cultural Marxism and Critical Theory, watch Pastor Voddie Baucham’s lecture on Cultural Marxism. More specifically, though, the term “institutional racism” was coined by Black Power activists Stokely Carmichael and Charles Hamilton in their 1967 book Black Power: The Politics of Liberation. You needn’t go farther than the subtitle to recognize the authors’ worldview; as we’ll see, “liberation” is a buzzword in Critical Theory.
[2] Full disclosure: While attending SBTS, I had a class with Mohler in which he spoke about his belief in the existence of systemic racism, at least in certain cases. It seems he may make a distinction between CRT and the concept of systemic racism, but I find drawing a sharp distinction to be suspect, given the origin of the systemic racism theory (see note 1). Is it possible to repudiate “any version” of Critical Theory while simultaneously maintaining ideas that came from Critical Theory? It’s dubious.
[3] It’s worth noting that I don’t delight in criticizing my alma mater. I would prefer to be wholly pleased with it, especially since, as an alumnus, I am in a certain way permanently associated with it. I got a lot of value out of my education at SBTS, but there are clearly some troubling issues that need to be addressed.