Biblical Critical Theory: How the Bible's Unfolding Story Makes Sense of Modern Life and Culture

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This is the best yet most accessible exploration of the intersection between Christianity, culture, and philosophy I’ve read in recent years.” CRT– Racism will remain endemic. Society cannot be reformed without tearing it down first. There is no prospect of racial justice short of this radical unmaking of society.

The language of a ‘fault line’ is taken from Voddie T. Baucham Jr., Fault Lines: The Social Justice Movement and Evangelicalism’s Looming Catastrophe (Washington DC: Salem Books, 2021).

Highly recommend this book! I have been both reading this book (digital version) and listening to its audiobook version for a few months on and off. It’s really fascinating and encouraging to consider how the Bible and its storyline offers its own critical theory that consistently subverts and offers a way that is much better, much more profound, and much more meaningful than the extreme views that people hold. Another significant influence on critical theory was, and is, Marxism. “Critical Theory was conceived and birthed within the intellectual crucible of Marxism.” 7 But critical theory should not be equated with Marxism or reduced to it. It would perhaps be more accurate to say that early architects of critical theory had something of a love-hate relationship with Marxism, sometimes drawing from Marxist ideology and sometimes forcefully rejecting it. Marxism is well known for its portrayal of the tensions that exist between various economic classes that are collapsed into the categories of “oppressors” and the “oppressed,” with capitalism being one of the main causes of oppression. At the same time, critical theorists saw in Marxism yet another system of thought that proved unsuccessful in its attempt to bring equity to the world. Another facet of a robust, biblical self-critique is to reflect on the way each of us tends to engage in particular ways with cultural trends like CRT. For some of us, our instinct is immediately to find where such theories are wrong, so that we can denounce them and appear faithful. For others, our first impulse is to engage with cultural trends just to see where they are right, so that we can join with them and appear relevant. Sadly, both approaches find what they are looking for, and receive their reward in full. DiAngelo, White Fragility, 40–43. It is noteworthy that MLK’s studies took him to the well of liberation theology, another offshoot of critical theory. But MLK was also grounded in the traditional Baptist theology of his family. ↩ Dr. Christopher Watkin gives a special talk at RTS Washington on his book, Biblical Critical Theory.

For a fuller discussion of diagonalisation, see my Biblical Critical Theory: How the Bible's Unfolding Story Makes Sense of Modern Life and Culture (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2022). Here’s a few comments on Tim’s take on critical theory to illumine how critical theory can help us make space for God to work in an antagonistic broken world. The bare fact that someone talks about ‘oppression’ or ‘social justice’ isn’t remotely sufficient to conclude that they’ve embraced critical theory. Keller says that, for critical theory, “the main way power is exercised is through language—through “dominant discourses”… Language does not merely describe reality—it constructs or creates it.” I think Dr. Keller is accurate as much as a generalization can be. But whereas Keller sees this aspect of critical theory as detracting from a theory of justice, I see it as a tool for helping us to see things we are blind to. I find discourse analysis as useful in unfolding both the contingency and the formative effects of a sociological discourse. In other words, it helps us see how the way we talk, use words, behave in certain ways embodies learned and unspoken assumptions in matters such as racism, sexuality, gender, socio-economics, etc. A wonderful book bringing the Scriptures—every part of them—into a deep and illuminating conversation with the concerns of culture.”For Instructors and School Administrators Enhance your school’s traditional and online education programs by easily integrating online courses developed from the scholars and textbooks you trust. CRT– Identity markers like race are fundamental to human existence. To think that one can get behind them to a generic ‘humanity’ is itself an oppressive dogma. The fundamental unit of social life is the group united by a particular identity marker. In terms of the philosophical dichotomy of the one and the many, the accent falls on the many: many unique and distinct social groups. It is not enough for Christians to explain the Bible to the culture or cultures in which we live. We must also explain the culture in which we live within the framework and categories of the Bible, revealing how the whole of the Bible sheds light on the whole of life. Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, Critical Race Theory: An Introduction (New York: New York University Press, 2001), 7.

Both CRT and liberalism capture something of the complex biblical picture of justice, but both fall shortof its rich complexity R.C. Sproul, “Do We Believe the Whole Gospel?” Ligonier.org, December 1, 2010, https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/do-we-believe-whole-gospel. ↩ R.C. Sproul, “R.C. Sproul on Social Justice,” YouTube Video, 12:02, June 5, 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIyiwrVhhn0. ↩ Third, Watkin’s unique method (more below) provides a pathway for believers to move from Scripture to conversation with unbelievers about some of the most polarizing issues of our time. Critical theory is concerned with the marginalized’ experience and the majority’s ethics. Traditional apologetics in the Reformed tradition tends to engage epistemology first, asking interlocutors to set their experience aside. In today’s social climate, the conversation often fails to bloom. The Reformed apologist declares the unbeliever irrational, and the unbeliever declares the apologist ethically irresponsible and uncaring. Watkin’s use of biblical figures (below) to diagonalize (also below) false dichotomies in the culture opens the dialogue without compromising biblical conviction. The flipside of convergence theory is that those in oppressed categories are excluded from being oppressors. This can be seen in some recent attempts to redefine racism, most notably the US Anti-Defamation League’s decision in late 2020 to define racism as ‘the marginalization and/or oppression of people of color based on a socially constructed racial hierarchy that privileges white people.’ [13]This stance is particularly dangerous because it undermines the function of Scripture as the final arbiter of truth, accessible to all people regardless of their demographics (Ps. 119:130, 160; 2 Tim. 3:16–17; 1 Cor. 2:12–14; Heb. 8:10–12). If a person from an oppressor group appeals to Scripture, his concerns can be dismissed as a veiled attempt to protect his privilege. For a helpful, biblically informed treatment of the subject, see John Piper, Bloodlines: Race, Cross and the Christian (Wheaton: Crossway, 2011), 234–40. ↩