While logging into Twitter this past week, I saw a reference to a review of Critical Race Theory (CRT) by Dr. Anthony Bradley (click here for a bio). And before I discuss that article, I want to say that I have a mixed view of Dr. Bradley. On the one hand, I struggle with his political and economic views as I have read them on the Acton blog. On the other hand, I am forever indebted to him because it was from his sharing about his teaching experiences, that I finally began to understand what white privilege is.
Anyway, I looked up the article, which is the one being reviewed here, and wrote a comment (click here to access the article, my comment is the last one posted). Then I discovered that the article was written in 2021 and so it is unlikely that anyone would read my comment. So this article will combine some new reflections on the article as well as the comment I made. But first, a little intro.
When a new philosophical, political, economic, or social science theory or ism emerges, and that theory or ism catches on with the public, many of my fellow religiously conservative Christians suffer from what I call an apologetic panic. The reaction involves apologetics because apologetics can refer to the defense of something. So Christian apologetics is concerned with defending the faith. And the word 'panic,' is already known.
But the point here is if unbelievers can arrive at substantial insights into how the world operates, believers often feel pressured to discredit and reject that insight. When that feeling of pressure is strong and the desire to resolve the tension is urgent, that feeling can be called a panic.
Why do believers feel so pressured? It due to a combination of factors. First, when unbelievers come to come to a substantial insight, then the question becomes for some, why do we need the Bible to explain the world when unbelievers sometimes, if not often, seem to do a better job at explaining the world than believers. From that feeling arises a sense of competition between believers, especially the intellectual ones, and unbelievers. From that competition, eventually emerges a turf war of sorts.
Second, we religiously conservative Christians lean heavily toward authoritarian ways of thinking. And in authoritarianism, truth and facts are more determined by the credentials of a given source than by the facts and logic involved in a claim. So when Christians start to agree with an unbeliever source on a subject, that agreement rewards the unbelieving source with credence or credentials. The more credentials that a non-Christian source has, the more that source will be seen as a trusted authority. But the more that a non-Christian source is seen as a trusted authority, the more that source competes with our religious beliefs whether those beliefs come from the Scriptures, or from what our own church or spiritual leaders teach, or from a denomination's standards displayed in their confessions and catechisms in explaining the world.
And so Dr. Bradley tries to ease the pressure, or apologetic panic, if you will, in Christians over CRT. That is especially an issue for many religiously conservative American Christians because CRT has significant ties with Marxism.
Dr. Bradley first brings up the issue of apologetic panic, though not using that term or perhaps not believing in that description, by stating why six Baptist seminary presidents have strongly rejected CRT while confessionalists, like himself, are not threatened by new theories and isms. Dr. Bradley seemingly proudly declares that because of his theological roots, roots that include the Scriptures, the Nicene and Apostles Creeds, the Westminster Standards, and Covenant theology, that he feels no apologetic panic because knows how to pick and choose what is good in a given theory or ism and what isn't.
Theologically, the problem here is that with the Scriptures and the other sources being in the same list, there is no hierarchy between those sources. Thus, some of those extra Biblical sources could easily be placed on too high pedestal. And when that occurs, then one finds it difficult to read out of the Scriptures anything that did not come from those other sources. Thus, those other sources could easily become a canon for the canon. Certainly, we can't afford to ignore those other sources, they can provide some very insightful and necessary understandings of what the Scriptures say. But it seems that we are not being vigilant enough guarding ourselves from putting those other sources on too high a pedestal.
But notice how Bradley himself seems unwilling or unable to accept the current existence of racism without referring back to the Scriptures. This causes a problem because CRT has many roots including those in Marxism, in the words and works of Martin Luther King Jr., and, most of all, in observation. And so when Bradley writes:
Does racism exist in America? Absolutely. How do we know this? Because the fall happened (Gen 3) which set the stage for slavery in the Americas and the institution of Jim Crow at the close of Reconstruction. American history is a history of individual and structural racism. Does racism exist today? Yes. People are still affected by the fall (Gen 9:6). Moreover, the devil is real and works through people (Luke 8:29). Does racism exist in institutions and structures in 2020? It depends. Because of the fall and reality of the devil, it is not inconceivable to believe that structures of sin exist but the evidence will need to make that clear on a case-by-case basis.
Now there are good points made in that quote. Such as at the end of the quote, the determination of whether racism exists in institutions and structures is determined by a case-by-case examination. That is an essential and excellent point.
But why do we need to believe in the existence of the Fall of man, via Adam's sin in the garden, to accept the existence of individual and structural racism. Doesn't the real value of CRT rest in how well describes how many black Americans are experiencing racism in this nation? Can't unbelievers accept the existence of racism as described by CRT without reference to the Scriptures?
Also, sometimes doesn't our interpretation of the Scriptures cause us to deny certain realities. For example, when Heliocentricism was first proposed, well respected Protestant and Catholic leaders furiously reject both Heliocentricism and those who proposed it. Another example could be found in American History. Many religiously conservative Christians believed in white supremacy because of how they read the Scriptures. But what did the evidence say?
And so perhaps like how Dr. Bradley approaches the existence of racism in our nation's institutions and structures, when we see a theory or ism propose an idea that either we have not found in the Scriptures or disagrees with how we read the Scriptures, we need to further test that theory or ism along with our understanding of the Scriptures on a case-by-case basis. This is especially true when those theories and isms are strongly based in observation.
Though Dr. Bradley believes that we can learn from CRT, he seems to have an overall negative view of the theory. Consider the following quote from his article:
While I am able to see that CRT may have a certain limited usefulness in pointing out analytical blind spots in examining the role of race in American life, as a theologian, it is clear that there is a sense in which I do not really need CRT to interrogate racism. In fact, I am free to see how CRT may identify racial issues without having to pledge allegiance to its presuppositions about the nature of reality...
In other words, wherever we see God’s mercy and grace at work, we should not be surprised when the parasitic work of Satan may be adjacent. We see these parasitic realities in individuals as well as systems and structures. CRT is attempting to give an account of evil and salvation. It is merely a form of Gnosticism. CRT’s version of Satan is “white supremacy” and, instead of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, CRT simply wants to dismantle racism in an attempt to achieve cosmic salvation from their perception of the worst of all evils. For CRT, anti-racism will set us free.
In the first paragraph, Dr Bradley announces his independence from CRT to see racism in America. He could take it or leave it, though he makes a good point about not having to accept CRT in its entirety. Such would be difficult since Jemar Tisby has stated on Twitter that CRT has different voices and teachings that sometimes come in conflict with each other. But a problem with that first paragraph is that since CRT is based on observation, without CRT would Dr. Bradley have noticed all that those promoting CRT have observed? Also, could the Scriptures teach us enough about how racism exists in America without observing it?
BTW, Dr. Bradley's statement about not having to 'pledge allegiance' to all that CRT teaches about reality shows that unbelievers can put their favorite theories and isms on too high a pedestal as well.
Now the second paragraph is more problematic. Claiming that CRT is a kind of Gnosticism is an example of making an apples to oranges comparison--his comparison is often made by other religiously conservative Christians who review CRT and other theories and isms. While Christianity and Gnosticism dealt with the vertical, which is the relationship between God and man, CRT deals solely with the horizontal, which is man's relationship with man. Without an injection of the supernatural in CRT, what Dr. Bradley calls 'salvation' is merely earthly deliverance. Therefore, since CRT does not deal with the vertical, it can't be called a form of Gnosticism.
We will leave the rest of the article uncommented on. The point that is being made here is that new theories and isms often make us religiously conservative Christians feel threatened because we unnecessarily see them as challenges to what we believe. Certainly, Dr. Bradley made a good attempt to resolve that problem in this article. However, when what is observed is either uncommented on or seemingly contradicted in the Scriptures, we need to go back to proverbial the drawing board to see if either something is being wrongly observed or if we have simply been blind to what the Scriptures say about a topic and thus need to reevaluate how we have been interpreting the Scriptures.
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