Fault Lines: The Social Justice Movement and Evangelicalism's Looming Catastrophe

by Voddie T. Baucham Jr.

Critical Theory is not just an analytical tool, as some have suggested; it is a philosophy, a worldview.

CRT recognizes that racism is engrained in the fabric and system of the American society. The individual racist need not exist to note that institutional racism is pervasive in the dominant culture. This is the analytical lens that CRT uses in examining existing power structures. CRT identifies that these power structures are based on white privilege and white supremacy, which perpetuates the marginalization of people of color. CRT also rejects the traditions of liberalism and meritocracy. Legal discourse says that the law is neutral and colorblind, however, CRT challenges this legal “truth” by examining liberalism and meritocracy as a vehicle for self-interest, power, and privilege.

Knowledge is Socially Constructed: Storytelling/Narrative Reading is the way black people forward knowledge vs. the Science/reason method of white people.

Growing ethnic tension is a problem—but it is not the main problem. While troubling, it is no match for the truth of the Gospel and the unity it creates among those who embrace it.

I believe the current concept of social justice is incompatible with biblical Christianity. This is the main fault line at the root of the current debate—the epicenter of the Big One that, when it finally shifts with all its force, threatens to split evangelicalism right down the middle. Our problem is a lack of clarity and charity in our debate over the place, priority, practice, and definition of justice.

the only relevant fact is proportionality. If blacks are shot by police at a disproportionate rate, it is de facto racism. Moreover, any attempt to explain the disparity as anything other than racism is, according to DiAngelo, another form of racism called “aversive racism.” This is why antiracists also cry foul when issues like out-of-wedlock birthrates, criminality, and cultural norms enter into the discussion. Furthermore, as we will see, it also explains why the mere reliance on things like facts, statistics, or the scientific method are actually seen as racist.45 (That is, unless Kendi is using facts, statistics, and the scientific method to prove the existence of inequities.) In other words, if you do not accept this worldview, you are inevitably engaging in racism.

Ethnic Gnosticism, then, is the idea that people have special knowledge based solely on their ethnicity.

“Minority status… brings with it a presumed competence to speak about race and racism.”5 This makes sense, since “Critical Race Theory builds on the insights of two previous movements, critical legal studies and radical feminism, to both of which it owes a large debt.” Specifically, the debt CRT owes to radical feminism is the towering influence of standpoint epistemology, the hallmark of Ethnic Gnosticism.

Christianity Today makes the point succinctly by stating, “In an effort to incline hearts toward understanding, minds toward wisdom, and hands toward doing justice, CT Creative Studio has compiled a resource list specifically oriented toward coming alongside our white brothers and sisters in the work of becoming and living as anti-racists.”

As we saw earlier, the term “antiracist” is loaded. It has a very specific meaning—part of which includes the idea of works-based righteousness. White people are not called to look to God for forgiveness. They are not told that Christ’s blood is sufficient. No, they are told that they must do the unending work of antiracism. And this work must be done regardless of their own actions since the issue at hand is a matter of communal, generational guilt based on ethnicity.20 This flies in the face of the clear teaching of Scripture.

The Bible makes it clear that God forgives sin. Consider the following passages: And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, “Know the LORD,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. “For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” (Jeremiah 31:34; cf. Hebrews 8:12; 10:17) And sin, once forgiven, is removed far from us, “As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.” (Psalm 103:12) Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love. (Micah 7:18) “I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.” (Isaiah 43:25) The ide...

As Thomas Sowell points out in Discrimination and Disparities, the CSJ crowd “proclaim that statistical disparities show biased treatment—and that this conclusion must be believed without visible corroborating evidence… unless sheer insistent repetition is regarded as evidence.”

Racism is real, and it is alive and well in America. I have said as much from many pulpits on many occasions. Remember, my target here is the notion that “inequity must equal injustice.”

I continue to be disappointed and at times offended by Trump’s behavior. However, as I watch the fault lines of CRT/I shift beneath our feet, I must say I am grateful to God for having put him where he is, for such a time as this. Oh, that more pastors would see the threat this clearly and respond to it this boldly! But that is not an issue the president can fix.

I am not at war with the men, women, and ministries I have named in this book. I love them. Some of them are actually long-time personal friends. But I am at war with the ideology with which they have identified to one degree or another. I see Critical Race Theory, Intersectionality, Critical Social Justice, and their antecedents—Marxism, Conflict Theory, and Critical Theory—as “cosmic powers over this present darkness.”

We do not pursue equal outcomes, but righteous application of God’s Law: Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. (Romans 13:8–10) We have an opportunity to say to a world seeking the false, inadequate, burdensome law of antiracism, “We have something better; something more.” God’s law in the life of the believer manifests as vertical and horizontal love: We love God, so we keep His commandments, and in doing so, we love our neighbor. This cannot be legislated.

Truth, righteousness, the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, the sword of the Spirit (which is the Word of God), and prayer. If you have been paying attention, you have heard these weapons mocked by big-name evangelicals who call them “simplistic.” These things are all fine, they say, but they won’t cure racial injustice—as though racial injustice is a new sin that escaped God’s attention until now. However, nothing we face today is too powerful for our aforementioned weapons; we just have to know how to deploy them. And that is precisely what comes next.

Racism is real. Injustice is real. No matter how many times I say those things, I still will be accused of turning a blind eye to them—not because I deny them, but because I deny the CRT/I view that they are “normal” and at the basis of everything. But there is another way of seeing. “The history of the USA is neither purely wicked and racist, nor perfect,” writes Thomas Sowell. “Correlation is not causation, disparity is not necessarily discrimination. Complex problems require complex solutions.… To make racism the driving force behind slavery is to make a historically recent factor the cause of an institution which originated thousands of years earlier.”

I am a Christian. I believe all men are made in the image of God. Therefore, I most certainly believe that the lives of people matter regardless of how much or how little melanin is in their skin. The idea that saying the phrase or using the hashtag “Black Lives Matter” is now a litmus test for whether somebody is an antiracist ally is absurd. Nor do I need to see a hashtag on any of my white sisters’ or brothers’ social media accounts to know they were appalled by the death of George Floyd. I don’t sit around wondering if white Christians care when black people are gunned down in the streets. I believe they belong to Christ and love humanity until they demonstrate otherwise.

antiracism is also powerless against racism. It is Christ, and Christ alone, “who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility” (Ephesians 2:14). This doesn’t mean that black and white Christians won’t offend or sin against each other. It also doesn’t mean that the sin of racism will not raise its ugly head in the broader culture, or even in the Church. What it does mean is that we have an answer.

In the end, it is forgiveness that will heal our wounds. My hope is not that white Christians can feel sorry enough for their past or that ministries and organizations can dig up and grovel over enough historical dirt. That is not the powerful, life-changing, world-confounding message of the Gospel. That is the message of the world.

antiracism offers endless penance, judgment, and fear. What an opportunity we have to shine the light of Christ in the midst of darkness!

I also hope to embolden you to pull back the curtain and expose the wizard, call out the boy who cried wolf, proclaim that the emperor has no clothes, and any other metaphor you can think of for shedding light on these fault lines. Not so you can defeat your brethren in an argument, but so that you can engage them with the hopes of winning them. Love your brothers and sisters enough to contend with them and for them.

The Jew-Gentile divide was far more significant than the black-white one. If Christ took care of that on the cross, how much more did He take care of any man-made divisions we face today? Does that mean there is no more racism? Of course not! Does that mean it is not important for us to get to know each other, to hear one another’s stories? If I believed that, I wouldn’t have written the first two chapters of this book. What this does mean is that we do not occupy the space of oppressors and oppressed based solely on our melanin. Does that mean our ethnicity is irrelevant? I leave you with God’s answer to that: After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.” (Revelation 7:9–12)