Personal reflections on Critical Race Theory

Samuel Sey, A Ghanian-Canadian, writes thoughtfully and extensively on issues significant to our culture. He heard the gospel truth at the age of 19 and became a passionate proponent of truth through his blog (Slowtowrite.com). He is concerned that the white church is more concerned about the ideology of Critical Race Theory (CRT) than about actually doing justice to help the black community. He left a black church to join a white reformed church and felt more at home there because of the theological compatibility. 

When Michael Brown was killed by Darren Wilson in Ferguson in 2014, he saw the whole world change. The Black Lives Matter movement began. He absorbed Voddie Baucham’s book, Fault Lines: The Social Justice Movement and Evangelicalism’s Looming Catastrophe. The book has a critique against stalwarts like Tim Keller, David Platt and Eric Mason over their approach to CRT and sees the seeds of what they say are leading people astray on this issue. Baucham, a cultural apologist, sees a sinister world view behind the social justice movement and CRT in particular. He shows how it has infiltrated seminaries and resulted in denominational conflict and cancelled careers. He feels it threatens the evangelical church in particular.

Sey disagrees with CRT that some people are more fallen than others because of skin colour. He says Christians are not the agents of reconciliation and it is this idea which leads to division. He says only Christ is the one who reconciles and he has already done this in the church. We need to believe it and act like it.

Sey claims that “there is already racism within CRT when they say people’s skin colour is the most important thing about them…CRT focuses on the racism of others but not on our own. It’s not just about white or black people. It’s about human nature pushing us away from truth and love.”

When asked what positive contributions CRT may have made he says he “can’t find anything.” He says “do my experiences define truth? No!… God has spoken – why should I trust my folly instead of his wisdom?… The Bible is the greatest anti-racist book that we have!”

Bruce Abramson, a director of the American Center for Education and Knowledge, in a May 20, 2021 article on CRT in the Epoch Times notes the recent rise of legislatures, school board and parents in the US who see the ideology as divisive and dangerous for children to absorb. He says “CRT is a toxic, racist, anti-American conspiracy theory.”  Like Sey, he sees a problem with the redefinition of ‘racism’ that is being proposed by progressives. “The “antiracism” they’re preaching is not the “anti-racism” of Martin Luther King Jr. Nor is it opposition to the discriminatory treatment most Americans oppose when speaking against racism. CRT contends that the “systems” defining modern American life are irredeemably racist. It calls for a revolutionary upheaval, laying waste to every existing governmental, legal, economic, cultural, social, communal, and familial institution.”

The issue came to note when it was noted that students were being segregated by racial groups with racial identity being emphasized more and more. He sees CRT as the neo-marxist effort to undo the ‘American experiment’ of seeing all men as equal. He notes that slavery had been in existence long before America accepted the first slave ships in the 17^th century and that Thomas Jefferson was still a slaveholder and plantation owner when he helped pen the foundational creed of a new nation for the July 4, 1776 celebration. Lincoln put action to beliefs in the civil war and Martin Luther King Jr. galvanized a nation to end the Jim Crow laws. In 2009, Barack Obama took the presidency. 

Perhaps the passivity of Canadians means a longer, more arduous reflective journey without the bloodshed or angst involved in confronting reality head on. 

Abramson notes that “CRT relies upon the reasoning that’s the hallmark of conspiracy-theoretic thinking: Evidence (like slavery) tending to support the argument that America is racist is taken on face value; evidence tending to negate it (like the elevation of MLK into the forefront of America’s heroes) is inverted into support. To critical race theorists, CRT is self-evidently true. All relevant evidence, no matter what it appears to say, is taken as confirmation.

Stephen Phinney, founder of the Identity Matters Worldview Online School, in a May 20, 2021 article in the Epoch Times, says “CRT is knocking at the door of global culture and all educational institutions – even our beloved churches. Once this misnomer gets a foothold in a society, then develops a track record of normalizing, it will completely change the very nature of each country around the world. And worse yet, it will alter the way humanity lives on the face of the earth.”

CRT has fermented in the halls of higher-level academia long enough to find its spokespersons who are sharing it through political, military, lower educational, and even religious channels. Social media has become the main arm for its spread. Just one more issue for parents and pastors to be aware of as we try to keep ahead of the curve.