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Before you are "told" to "oppose" something, perhaps you should first find out what it really is and what's behind the people asking you to oppose it.
https://religiondispatches.org/where-did-white-evangelicalisms-hatred-of-critical-race-theory-really-begin/In his essay The Rise of Woker-Than-Thou Evangelicalism, conservative pastor and John MacArthur colleague, Phil Johnson laments how some evangelicals are getting on board with “doctrines borrowed from Black Liberation Theology, Critical Race Theory, Intersectional Feminism, and other ideologies that are currently stylish in the left-leaning secular academy.” He argues that in trying to make church “cool,” these leaders “strive for postmodern political correctness” and that “race must be an issue in practically every subject we deal with.” In contrast, he continues, “diversity, tolerance, inclusivity, and a host of other postmodern “virtues” have begun to edge out the actual fruit of the Spirit in the language and conversation of some of our wokest brethren.”
But it was John MacArthur’s repudiation of social justice in the infamous Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel (Dallas Statement) opened the floodgates for critiques on CRT. In Article 1 it reads:
We deny that Christian belief, character, or conduct can be dictated by any other authority, and we deny that the postmodern ideologies derived from intersectionality, radical feminism, and critical race theory are consistent with biblical teaching. We further deny that competency to teach on any biblical issue comes from any qualification for spiritual people other than clear understanding and simple communication of what is revealed in scripture.
At the 2019 gathering of the Southern Baptist Convention, in response to allegations that white evangelicals generally and Southern Baptists particularly were quiet on issues like systemic racism and police brutality, the messengers passed Resolution 9 titled “On Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality,” which read, in part:
That critical race theory and intersectionality should only be employed as analytical tools subordinate to Scripture—not as transcendent ideological frameworks; That Southern Baptists will carefully analyze how the information gleaned from these tools are employed to address social dynamics; and be it further RESOLVED, That Southern Baptist churches and institutions repudiate the misuse of insights gained from critical race theory, intersectionality, and any unbiblical ideologies that can emerge from their use when absolutized as a worldview.
The “denunciation” of CRT and Intersectionality in this statement, however, was too mild for many white evangelicals. For example, John MacArthur, who in the past has offered a theological rationale and support of slavery and enslavers, wrote that the “acceptance of Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality was a sign of “liberalism” taking over the SBC and called the approval of the resolution by messengers “a watershed moment” for the decline of the denomination.” Further, he commented, “When you decide to let the culture interpret the Scripture and you need cultural cues to translate the Bible, the horse is out of the barn.”
MacArthur was not alone. Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, wrote, “The main consequence of Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality is identity politics, and identity politics can only rightly be described as antithetical to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We have to see identity politics as disastrous for the culture and nothing less than devastating for the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ.” Tom Ascol of Founders Ministries wrote in a blog post, “The reality is that neither Critical Race Theory nor Intersectionality are simply tools. They are indeed ideologies that have arisen out of neo-Marxist, postmodern worldviews and are used by many to promote those worldviews today.”
The continued critique of CRT and Intersectionality led to the formation of the Conservative Baptist Network. According to their purpose statement, they believe in a “just society for all based on biblical truth, opposing racism and sexism in all forms, and therefore rejects worldly ideologies infiltrating the Southern Baptist Convention, including Critical Race Theory, Intersectionality, and other unbiblical agendas deceptively labeled as “Social Justice.” Therefore, it was no surprise that on September 5, the CBN supported Trump’s Executive Order. The statement read in part:
The Conservative Baptist Network has been clear from the beginning regarding this divisive, anti-gospel ideology. The Network strongly believes in a just society for all based on biblical truth, opposing racism and sexism in all forms, and therefore rejects worldly ideologies infiltrating the Southern Baptist Convention, including Critical Race Theory, Intersectionality, and other unbiblical agendas deceptively labeled as “Social Justice.” We call upon every Southern Baptist entity to denounce publicly—by statement and action—any and all support for Critical Race Theory.
At the recent 2021 Southern Baptist Convention held in Nashville, many messengers came to the convention to rescind Resolution 9, despite the fact that it was only the faintest nod to the existence of systemic racism and essentially demanded nothing of its members. When they discovered they couldn’t do that because resolutions are nonbinding and merely express the sentiment of messengers assembled that year, messengers tried proposing a new resolution titled “Resolution on the Incompatibility of Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality with the Baptist Faith and Message.”
In that resolution, supporters charged that CRT and Intersectionality were “ideologies rooted in Neo-Marxist and postmodern worldviews,” that they “collectively designate people by their social identity groups,” and that the theories “contradict the Baptist Faith and Message” about humanity in general. In closing, the resolution affirmed the statement from the Council of Seminary Presidents that the “affirmation of Critical Race Theory, Intersectionality and any version of Critical Theory is incompatible with the Baptist Faith & Message.”
https://religiondispatches.org/innocent-despite-proven-guilty-beneath-the-rights-anti-wokeness-campaign-is-the-religion-of-america-itself/What the recent slaps at “critical race theory” from the likes of Rick Santorum, Lindsey Graham, Tim Scott, and the thirty GOP senators who signed an angry complaint letter condemning Biden’s extremely modest proposal for some race-conscious educational grantmaking all have in common is a loathing of the disloyalty they perceive among those who would dare to challenge the approved narrative.
That narrative, going all the way back to Cotton Mather, insists that white men’s colonization of North America and the building of the American empire (continentally and beyond) is and must be the work of Divine Providence. The core American religion holds that any failures or “mistakes” along the way (e.g., the extermination of the indigenous peoples, the enslavement of millions of kidnapped Africans to build the wealth, the subjugation and exploitation of women, the vicious treatment of Asian immigrants, etc.) cannot alter the central fact that ours remains a virtuous history, that we were and are a redeemer nation, a city set on a hill, a beacon of democracy and human rights that still sends its bright beams of hope around the world.
What so infuriates the keepers of the flame is how the witness of Black people, going back to the very beginning, interferes with and ultimately defeats the myth of the Virtuous Republic. This is why anti-Blackness is baked into the increasingly vehement defense of the approved narrative: the one thing the mythmakers cannot tolerate is the persistence of this faithful witness.
The language of the senators’ letter to Education secretary Miguel Cardona shows how Republicans intend to tap into the still-potent religion of American Innocence and its anti-Black subtext:
Americans never decided our children should be taught that our country is inherently evil…Our nation’s youth do not need activist indoctrination that fixates solely on past flaws and splits our nation into divided camps…
Taxpayer-supported programs should emphasize the shared civic virtues that bring us together, not push radical agendas that tear us apart.
The GOP senators go on to fulminate over what they call the “infamous” 1619 Project, created by the New York Times, which was mentioned in the Education Dept.’s announcement of its proposed grantmaking program:
citing this debunked advocacy confirms that your proposed priorities would not focus on critical thinking or accurate history, but on spoon-feeding students a slanted story.
Never mind that the underlying historiography informing the 1619 Project has not been “debunked.” Trump made a big fuss over it, in his usual scurvy fashion, and now it’s accepted gospel among conservatives everywhere that Nikole Hannah-Jones should be hanged by her thumbs for disturbing the peace of the Virtuous Republic.
Here’s a bright red thread—a seething hatred for the likes of Hannah-Jones and Ibram X. Kendi—that conservative strategists hope will unite swampland yahoos and oh-so-refined academics and journalists like Sean Wilentz and Ross Douthat. Because they all agree on one thing: there were no actual crimes, white people are not really guilty of anything, and the whiners need to shut up and salute the flag of the redeemer nation.
The big question, of course, is whether the frontal assault on “critical race theory” will have significant political legs. Plenty of liberals seem willing to bet that what we have here is nothing more than white nationalism’s pathetic last gasp: that the demographic tide has finally turned decisively against the racism-drenched reactionary project.
https://www.edweek.org/leadership/what-is-critical-race-theory-and-why-is-it-under-attack/2021/05Critical race theory is an academic concept that is more than 40 years old. The core idea is that racism is a social construct, and that it is not merely the product of individual bias or prejudice, but also something embedded in legal systems and policies.
The basic tenets of critical race theory, or CRT, emerged out of a framework for legal analysis in the late 1970s and early 1980s created by legal scholars Derrick Bell, Kimberlé Crenshaw, and Richard Delgado, among others.
A good example is when, in the 1930s, government officials literally drew lines around areas deemed poor financial risks, often explicitly due to the racial composition of inhabitants. Banks subsequently refused to offer mortgages to Black people in those areas.
Today, those same patterns of discrimination live on through facially race-blind policies, like single-family zoning that prevents the building of affordable housing in advantaged, majority-white neighborhoods and, thus, stymies racial desegregation efforts.
CRT also has ties to other intellectual currents, including the work of sociologists and literary theorists who studied links between political power, social organization, and language. And its ideas have since informed other fields, like the humanities, the social sciences, and teacher education.
This academic understanding of critical race theory differs from representation in recent popular books and, especially, from its portrayal by critics—often, though not exclusively, conservative Republicans. Critics charge that the theory leads to negative dynamics, such as a focus on group identity over universal, shared traits; divides people into “oppressed” and “oppressor” groups; and urges intolerance.
Thus, there is a good deal of confusion over what CRT means, as well as its relationship to other terms, like “anti-racism” and “social justice,” with which it is often conflated.
To an extent, the term “critical race theory” is now cited as the basis of all diversity and inclusion efforts regardless of how much it’s actually informed those programs.
Does critical race theory say all white people are racist? Isn’t that racist, too?
The theory says that racism is part of everyday life, so people—white or nonwhite—who don’t intend to be racist can nevertheless make choices that fuel racism.
Some critics claim that the theory advocates discriminating against white people in order to achieve equity. They mainly aim those accusations at theorists who advocate for policies that explicitly take race into account. (The writer Ibram X. Kendi, whose recent popular book How to Be An Antiracist suggests that discrimination that creates equity can be considered anti-racist, is often cited in this context.)
Fundamentally, though, the disagreement springs from different conceptions of racism. CRT thus puts an emphasis on outcomes, not merely on individuals’ own beliefs, and it calls on these outcomes to be examined and rectified. Among lawyers, teachers, policymakers, and the general public, there are many disagreements about how precisely to do those things, and to what extent race should be explicitly appealed to or referred to in the process.
Here’s a helpful illustration to keep in mind in understanding this complex idea. In a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court school-assignment case on whether race could be a factor in maintaining diversity in K-12 schools, Chief Justice John Roberts’ opinion famously concluded: “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” But during oral arguments, then-justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said: “It’s very hard for me to see how you can have a racial objective but a nonracial means to get there.”
All these different ideas grow out of longstanding, tenacious intellectual debates. Critical race theory emerged out of postmodernist thought, which tends to be skeptical of the idea of universal values, objective knowledge, individual merit, Enlightenment rationalism, and liberalism—tenets that conservatives tend to hold dear.