At the Heart of the CRT Debate – at Least for Me

People that truly like CRT are like Rep. Emmanuel Cleaver who prayed a blasphemous prayer to open this next Congress. He wasn’t praying to YHWH, the Lord God, Maker of heaven and earth. He was praying to the god of CT/CRT-I.

And many SBC people who are otherwise level headed think CRT is merely about recognizing racism in the SBC. Nope. Its about top-down total change.

And on top of it all, most people are still arguing about how evil Trump is when this kind of thing just walked in and laid down on the carpet!

Yes, widespread public acceptance of CRT will have adverse consequences, but mainly for unregenerate Christian Nationalists, not the true church of Jesus Christ.

The Trump Presidency has clearly revealed that the goal of Christian Nationalism is to repudiate, rebuke, and fight secular liberalism in the political and social-economic arenas. We can certainly debate how worthy of a goal that is, but that is decidedly NOT the goal of the church. The distinction between the two is the critical red pill decision of this current church generation.

OK you’ve got a beef with “Christian Nationalists”. What about the “Christians” who want to use CRT to make the church “better”?

Let’s start off by examining the set of individuals (Call them Set A) who comprise the church. These are Christ’s elect, who through faith and repentance have believed in Christ and accept his atonement as the basis for their redemption. These are those who know his voice and follow him. Those who view their identity in Christ as utterly transcendent and subsuming of all previous identities.

How do you see wholesale public secular acceptance of CRT as being a **NEW** threat or danger to this group of people?

[JBL]

Let’s start off by examining the set of individuals (Call them Set A) who comprise the church. These are Christ’s elect, who through faith and repentance have believed in Christ and accept his atonement as the basis for their redemption. These are those who know his voice and follow him. Those who view their identity in Christ as utterly transcendent and subsuming of all previous identities.

How do you see wholesale public secular acceptance of CRT as being a **NEW** threat or danger to this group of people?

JBL,

In this case it is leaders in the SBC (and not the world) who are looking to use CRT to make the SBC better. Your question reveals you seem to not realize this.

(15) RESOLVED, That critical race theory and intersectionality should only be employed as analytical tools subordinate to Scripture—not as transcendent ideological frameworks; and be it further

[JBL]

(15) RESOLVED, That critical race theory and intersectionality should only be employed as analytical tools subordinate to Scripture—not as transcendent ideological frameworks; and be it further

And?

OK you’ve got a beef with “Christian Nationalists”. What about the “Christians” who want to use CRT to make the church “better”?

Who are these Christians that are stating they want to use CRT to make the church “better?” Stating that one believes in a form of “white privilege” or believes there are systems of racism that still exists in our country doesn’t mean that they have been compromised by CRT. My Reformed theology that I embraced 30 years ago is what led me to believe that there was such a thing as systemic sin and racism ( way before CRT had got any traction in the academic world or in its twisted populist form that we see today). That the corruption of our hearts extends to the systems that we humans create. But that is not the starting point. Without the foundation of what it means for humans to be made in the image of God, our understanding of sin (such as racism) and redemption will inevitably be distorted. Our shared humanity is the starting point for talking about racism, not a history of oppression or current examples of individual and systemic racism. We cannot ignore racism in its history and current manifestations of racism and we must confront them, but once it is confronted, then reconciliation and healing can take place through the redemptive work of Jesus and modeled through his church. The Biblical meta-narrative of Creation-Fall-Redemption-Restoration is a far more superior analytical framework to address the totality of racism than CRT, even though CRT can have its uses such as pointing out some of the ways throughout history (including now) laws of our nation have intentionally or unintentionally hurt people of color.

is not needed for the observation of white privilege or systematic racism. Stay away from CRT for your own health and argumentation.

And several key people in the SBC insist CRT is used as a “tool” to fix racism.

In this case it is leaders in the SBC (and not the world) who are looking to use CRT to make the SBC better. Your question reveals you seem to not realize this.

And several key people in the SBC insist CRT is used as a “tool” to fix racism.

Do you at least have some publicly available record of who these people are and what their position is?

but it has been a long standing issue in the SBC since Resolution 9 was introduced a few years ago at the last SBC annual meeting. Someone in the SBC supports it or the Resolution committee never would have proposed Resolution 9.

Look at sbcvoices.com for more information.

(15) RESOLVED, That critical race theory and intersectionality should only be employed as analytical tools subordinate to Scripture—not as transcendent ideological frameworks; and be it further

Isn’t the major issue whether or not a transcendant ideological framework can be used merely as an analytical tool? CRT is a transcendant analytical framework. It is hard to see how that serves any biblical purpose. CRT has a specific meaning in sociology that seems incompatible with Scripture? What does it bring to the table that we don’t already have?

[Larry]

(15) RESOLVED, That critical race theory and intersectionality should only be employed as analytical tools subordinate to Scripture—not as transcendent ideological frameworks; and be it further

Isn’t the major issue whether or not a transcendant ideological framework can be used merely as an analytical tool? CRT is a transcendant analytical framework. It is hard to see how that serves any biblical purpose. CRT has a specific meaning in sociology that seems incompatible with Scripture? What does it bring to the table that we don’t already have?

Larry,

That is what many have been trying to get people in the leadership of the SBC to answer. No one does.

What a few African-American brothers have offered that I have seen is that CRT illustrates the racial bias of the SBC leadership.