Christians and Critical Race Theory

“Critical Race Theory” may be the most controversial phrase in America today, although a precise and commonly accepted definition seems elusive. Is it a new form of Marxism? Or just a new way of reframing our already existing conversations about race? Is it a plot to destroy Western civilization or a way to help us towards racial reconciliation? Is banning CRT from our schools a realistic option? Or would that be like fighting authoritarianism with authoritarianism? Especially as denominations like the Southern Baptist Convention debate the proper theological response, if any, to Critical Race Theory, how Christians respond bears heavy significance. 

All of these questions were discussed on a recent episode of the American Enterprise Institute’s “What The Hell is Going On?” podcast, which included AEI fellows Danielle Pletka and Marc Thiessen as well as Princeton historian Allen Guelzo.

Thiessen opened the show by describing the dangers he saw from CRT becoming increasingly popular. For Thiessen, CRT represents “a rejection of the Age of Enlightenment and the Age of Reason and the principles on which our Republic was founded.” CRT contrasts with the rhetoric of Martin Luther King Jr. or Abraham Lincoln, who argued that America should be essentially colorblind, looking only at equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome. Thiessen and Pletka agreed this makes CRT an “embrace of the totalitarian philosophies of China, Russia and Jim Crow.”

Guelzo then described the intellectual roots of Critical Race Theory. According to Guelzo, Critical Race Theory is one particular variety of critical theory, which he traces back to Immanuel Kant, who wrote primarily at the end of the 18th century, the time known as the Enlightenment. Kant, along with Plato and Aristotle, is among the most influential philosophers. One of his main ideas is the phenomena-noumena split, the division of reality into how it necessarily appears to us due to the structures of our minds (phenomenon) and reality as it truly is (noumena). While this theory may seem radical, it has been accepted by a wide variety of thinkers from Fascist-sympathizers like Heidegger to paradigmatic Liberals like Rawls.

After Kant came Hegel, who was critical of Kant for dividing existence into phenomena and noumena. Where Kant argued for strict limitations on what we’re capable of knowing, which precluded any metaphysical questions, Hegel believed the bounds of the phenomenal world were much less defined. This led to generations of philosophers speculating over not only what we can know but also what exactly our knowledge is a function of. Where some would say that our knowledge is a straight-forward function of reality, Hegel began asking what, if not reality, our perception of the world could be a function of. Marxism and related ideologies came after Hegel and Kant in the early 19th century basically to answer the question of what our knowledge could be a function of, if not objective reality.

Classical Marxism, of which CRT is a distant descendent, answers this question with one word: class. For Marx, all of history is a story of class conflict. Instead of the central characters of the human story being nations, kings, generals, philosophers, artists, and prophets there are only two characters: the upper class and everyone else. But if history can be redefined exclusively through a lens of class the same process can occur with race, gender, sexuality, and any other category. Where Marxism sees only economic class, CRT sees only caste.

As Guelzo described it, “Critical Race Theory teaches that race is that most important, that non-negotiable that governs and helps us to interpret all human relationships because all human relationships are relationships of power.”

But what’s to be done about a potentially harmful academic theory? Thiessen pointed out that “the fight is not so much about teaching [CRT] in universities, because philosophy students are going to have a field day with what you’ve laid out, but we’re talking about teaching this to grade school students.” So “ban CRT” in the sense of banning it from universities is not the answer.

But what about in primary and secondary education? Pletka was also hesitant for state legislatures to go that far.

“Today, we may be very pleased with the notion of the Florida state legislature banning the teaching of critical race theory. But do we really want the Oregon state legislature banning the teaching of religion?” Pletka asked.

Although Thiessen expressed approval for state legislatures actively changing curriculums to combat CRT, Pletka argued that it’s much better “when parents come in and get rid of the people who want to infect our school systems. And I’m much less comfortable when this is in the hands of politicians just because I have seen too many times, the stupid ideas that our politicians often embrace.”