For the past 6 years, I’ve been reading, writing, and speaking extensively about critical theory. My work culminated in the publication of Critical Dilemma with Dr. Pat Sawyer, a thorough analysis and critique of the devastating effect that critical theory is having on the church and society.
During this time, I faced consistent resistance from the woke-sympathetic, who viewed my work as -at best- misguided and -at worst- racist. Then, about a year ago, I noticed an odd change. I began to face pushback not from the woke, but from the anti-woke. I began to see people insisting that I’d changed, that I was now a mushy third-way moderate, woke-adjacent, or even a secret progressive.
Consequently, I decided to try an experiment: I began posting quotes from sources which were, a few years ago (or even a few months ago!), viewed as unimpeachably anti-woke. How would people react? Surely, our discourse hasn’t evolved so rapidly that conservative statements from 2017 or 2019 or 2023 (!) are already viewed with skepticism?
But it has and they are.
In this essay, I’ll provide some illustrations of how evangelical perspectives on race are changing, and will then offer a few tentative explanations for this change: 1) CRT, 2) politics, 3) context, and 4) the (hopefully negligible, but troubling) acceptance of racism.
Examples
As I said, when I began noticing increasing criticism of my writing from the anti-woke, I decided to start posting verbatim statements from what had, until a few years ago, been regarded as canonically anti-woke conservative evangelical sources.
For example, on January 1, I posted the following statement:
“Racism is a sin rooted in pride and malice which must be condemned and renounced by all who would honor the image of God in all people.” 186.9K Views
Here are a handful of the responses:
Define “racism”
What is “racism”? And even if you give a definition that would make “racism” genuinely sinful, would it coincide with how the term is actually used? If not, you’re just positing an idiosyncratic definition and insisting that we use it.
Wrong. You might be gaslighting. In group preference is displayed by every single race on earth. It is always normal, godly, and noble- except when white people do it, according to the world system we are not supposed to be taking our cues from.
Trashworld has one virtue and one sin, consent and racism. Racism mainly because it is a convenient tool to dominate others.
Racism is nifty actually. We should respect our own people and our families.
Universalist twaddle
What’s fascinating is that my post was a verbatim quote from the Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel, a 2017 document written by John MacArthur, Voddie Buacham, James White, Tom Ascol, and others. When this statement was originally published it was considered highly controversial because of how anti-woke it was. Seven years later, its condemnation of racism is considered ambiguous –at best– and a manifestation of woke “gaslighting,” “domination,” and “universalist twaddle” at worst.
Then, on Jan. 8th, I posted the statement:
“I utterly repudiate sinful ethnic partiality in all its forms.” 102.9K Views
This sentence came from the Statement on Christian Nationalism and the Gospel, a document written by self-identified Christian nationalists –including James Silberman, Dusty Deever, William Wolfe, and Joel Webbon– to explain their core beliefs.
Responses included:
Stunning. Brave.
Publicly self-congratulating one’s righteousness avails nothing for God’s kingdom. Luke 18:9-14
I don’t repudiate ethnic partially.
To “utter repudiate sinful ethnic partiality” in the present age of massive monstrous manic race consciousness and propaganda of humiliation & power over culture w a lying ideology is probably not a good idea, imho.
Then I repudiate the Gnosticism you call Christianity.
One final example:
On Feb. 7th I was preparing to teach a U.S. history class on the Civil Rights Movement and posted Norman Rockwell’s famous and deeply moving painting The Problem We All Live With, which portrays the hostility 6-year-old Ruby Bridges faced when she integrated her all-white elementary school. I offered no commentary, but simply posted the painting with its title and date.
In response, one commenter wrote:
That’s not the problem we live with now. The problem we live with now is a white child being beaten by a gang of black ‘teens,’ who go unpunished.
His comment received 125 likes. A second comment:
And how did that school fare? Did it get better? Was it more peaceful? Did it gain from diversity?
And a third:
Living with whites is not a human right.
What are possible explanations for these reactions, which I was not seeing 5 years ago, or even 18 months ago? I’ll offer four suggestions.
CRT
One of the core elements of critical race theory (CRT) is its redefinition of “racism.” Whereas most dictionaries still define racism in terms of “racial prejudice,” CRT conceptualizes it far more broadly as systems which advantage Whites even in the absence of any racial enmity.
One of the (many) downsides of the rapid suffusion of CRT into our culture over the last few years is that it has robbed the word “racism” of a shared meaning. Even in 2019, conservatives felt comfortable condemning “racism.” Five years later, after recognizing how CRT has influenced our culture, many conservatives are –understandably– far more circumspect. They ask, “if I repudiate ‘racism,’ what exactly will I be condemning? Standardized testing? The scientific method? Marriage?”
You can see this hesitation in many of the replies to my posts. 10 years ago, responses like “Define ‘racism,'” or “what do you mean by ‘racism’?” might have been dismissed as disingenuous. Today, they’re understandable.
Politics
Politics also plays a role in conservatives’ hesitancy to condemn racism. For at least a decade, progressives have used accusations of “racism” as a bludgeon to coerce conservative compliance on a whole host of policy issues, from abortion to criminal justice policy to immigration. Moreover, corporations, education, and government are increasingly captive to a sprawling, progressive DEI bureaucracy. In contrast, far-right Neo-Nazi groups wield virtually no political power and are (thankfully) marginalized socially.
In light of these realities, many conservatives ask: “Why spend any time at all ‘punching right’? Yes, racism is bad, but we’re in no danger whatsoever of a Neo-Nazi becoming a local country commissioner, let alone a Senator or the President. By far, the greatest threat to our country is woke-ism. Therefore, any time spent criticizing racism is -at best- a distraction and -at worst- a gift to our political opponents.”
My answer is that my primary concern has never been politics, but has always been the spiritual health of individual people. I agree that, politically, the threat of actual White nationalism is negligible compared to the threat of progressive ideology. Neo-Nazi groups spout their propaganda from anonymous Twitter accounts, not from the podiums of prestigious universities. But Neo-Nazi race hatred is as harmful to the soul as the lies of queer theory. At an individual level, both are threats and both must be opposed.
Additionally, our cultural location matters. The “greatest threat” to a church in downtown Portland is probably wokeness. The “greatest threat” to a church in rural Alabama is probably not. Given that national surveys consistently show that more than 20% of church-going evangelicals still oppose interracial marriage, those of us with a predominantly evangelical audience would to well to at least occasionally talk about the sinfulness of racism.
Context
A third factor is the importance of context. For example, the meaning of a statement like “Jesus is the Son of God” depends a great deal on whether the speaker is a Christian or a Jehovah’s Witness. This consideration is exacerbated on Twitter, where space is extremely limited, and where a post’s meaning can hinge on the interpretation of a single word. Hence, a statement like “racism must be rejected” might mean one thing from a conservative and something entirely different from a progressive.
One might think that having spent the last 6 years critiquing wokeness (and having recently published a 500-page book denouncing critical theory) provides sufficient context to interpret my use of the word “racism.” However, two factors complicate this issue.
First, when my posts get 200,000 views, many of the respondents have no idea who I am and therefore can’t be expected to know my background.
Second, some conservatives are adopting a “no enemies to the right” (NETTR) approach to politics which is bleeding into their approach to everything. NETTR divides the entire political spectrum into just two sides, Left and Right, which are engaged in an internecine struggle for survival. Thus, any criticism of “the Right” is suspect because it is seen as giving aid to the enemy. Once this paradigm is adopted, even a verbatim quote from staunchly conservative evangelicals like John MacArthur or Voddie Baucham can be interpreted as “Leftist.”
Racism
Finally, it seems undeniable that actual racism is a factor in some of the responses I’ve highlighted above. I don’t know of surveys or polls that have measured the rise of racism or anti-Semitism, but it seems plausible to think that disaffected young, White men who have been labeled as oppressors and told for years that they need to “sit down and shut up” would seek solace in overtly racist ideologies. Their behavior is in no way justified, but it is comprehensible. For years, I’ve been warning about this backlash (as have commentators like Douglas Murray and Bret Weinstein) and it seems that, as a culture, we’re beginning to reap what we’ve sown. The solution is the same now as it was then: we need to reject both critical race theory and racism.
One Final Example
All of these dynamics were visible following my Tweet on Feb. 24, 2024. I wrote:
“Are you worried about the radicalization of young, White men by the far-right? Good, I am too. An important first step in working to de-radicalize them is understanding how CRT has poisoned our racial discourse over the past 10 years.”
That Tweet got 260k views and generated a variety of responses. Many people asked how I was defining “far-right.” Others insisted I was blaming racism on CRT rather than on the racists themselves. Others asked why I was criticizing the far-right when the Left is a far greater political threat.
When I explained that I defined “far-right” in terms the beliefs that: 1)The U.S. should be a White ethnostate, 2) Interracial marriage is wrong, and 3) Jews are a uniquely pernicious people group, I received responses like:
True. True. True. These are middle of the road stances.
Count me in then.
Woah guess I’m far right.
GFY Get out of my country.
Summary
Like it or not, CRT has changed our language. We can no longer assume a shared definition of “racism.” Politics is seen by many as a zero-sum. And a decade of critical-theory-infused DEI training has created cultural polarization that makes it easier for far-right groups to recruit. All of these factors affect how Christians and non-Christians process statements about “racism.”
How should Christians respond?
By standing on Scripture.
Yes, define your terms. Be charitable. Be precise. But refuse to capitulate to voices calling us to unbiblical ideologies, whether from the Right or the Left.
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