Welcome, to the world of Postmodern Theory, not the lightest of topics for summer reading.
However this is the last blog before my summer break. The next ‘Out of Many, One People’ will come out on Tuesday, 6th September. May August be a time of relaxation, refreshment and renewal for you.
Critical Race Theory – Some resources
‘Christianity and Critical Race Theory’ – by Christopher Watkin (published by Cambridge Papers – contact admin@cambridgepapers.org )
I have long been thinking I should blog on Critical Race Theory (CRT). No more. This excellent article (fifteen close printed A4 pages) covers the ground superbly. Christopher Watkin teaches at Monash University in Australia, particularly in the area of modern philosophy.
He begins by noting CRTs role as a way of describing a systemically racist society as both connecting with the experience of black people and influencing government and corporation policies, with the potential (notably in the USA) to divide churches in their response.
To describe CRT Watkin summarises the views of Derrick Bell, a black Harvard law professor, as an originator and strong proponent, putting forward eight principles:
* Racism is structural and permanent.
* There is no neutrality.
* White people are incapable of helping black people.
* Only black people have the right to speak about racism.
* Only white people can be racist.
* Change must be revolutionary not incremental.
* Equality is measured by outcome, not by opportunity.
* Final victory is impossible.
Watkin then provides a table contrasting these principles against ‘Classical Liberalism’. To help form a Christian assessment of the two positions, he takes as models Paul’s response to Greek ‘wisdom’ and Jewish ‘signs’ in 1 Corinthians and Augustine’s response to Roman ‘glory’. Both responses exemplify ‘subversive fulfilment’ – critically taking apart, but then re-assembling in new ways, so that the response is to be neither outright rejection nor uncritical acceptance. From this stance Watkin contrasts both CRT and Liberalism with the Bible across four areas:
* Creation (what exists), where CRT majors on the ‘many’, and liberalism on the individual, as opposed to the biblical emphasis ‘the unity and glorious diversity of all things – including peoples and groups – in Christ’.
* Fall (what is wrong), so that CRT sees violence and oppression as endemic, whereas liberalism sees oppression as caused by personal vices; when scripture sees oppression as not created but rather through the fall it involves us all, and that we need to take responsibility for the actions of our social group.
* Redemption (how it can be fixed) for CRT comes from struggle, which is zero-sum leading to offenders being shamed and unforgiven. For liberalism redemption is simply the right to choose my personal good, but in scripture it is by grace that we are lead into a new identity marked by forgiveness and unity.
* Consummation (where is it all leading) only comes by a radical remaking of society according to CRT, whilst liberalism looks for incremental and consensual progress. Christian eschatology is marked both by a vision of a future radical transformation, but by commitment to incremental change in the here and now.
Finally Watkin offers three ‘Guiding Principles’ to help Christians respond to the contested issues of racism and systemic oppression:
* Self-examination: ‘The Bible . . predisposes Christians to have a healthy scepticism about their own motivations and blind spots.’
* Discernment: a faith seeking to discern in all contexts the appropriate use of both prophetic denunciation and also wisdom’s readiness for negotiation with the realities of our world/
* Hope: “The Bible, by contrast, offers us a radical hope wedded to a predisposition to immediate action. It provides a vision for working towards forms of society that are beneficial for everyone, not just associations in which no-one is to blame or perpetual struggles of one group against another. Christians engage with issues of racial justice not in order to justify themselves, nor only in order to bewail their sin, but in hope that the aspirations of both critical race theory and classical liberalism will be transformatively, subversively fulfilled by the God in whose name the nations put their hope (Matthew 12:21).’
Overall, I found Watkin’s paper to be clear and well organised, eirenic and generous, and especially a challenge to be more rigorously biblical in my understanding of racism; and in particular that the danger of pushing back against the influential but increasingly implausible radical understanding of racism could mean too easily compromising and falling back into my cultural background of individualistic liberalism.
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Other Resources:
Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay: ‘Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship has made everything about Race, Gender and Identity – and Why This Harms Everybody’ (2020).
This book is particularly helpful in outlining the roots of Critical Theory in terms of the recent history of philosophy. The first two chapters cover Postmodernism, especially its stress on the use of language to exercise power, and then of how this came to be given application to a range of fields where language was held to create hegemonic and oppressive power over minds and actions.
Subsequent chapters track this across a range of contested areas, of which Postcolonial Theory and Intersectionality are of the most direct relevance to the concerns of this blog. A final chapter reasserts ‘Liberalism without Identity Politics’ as an ‘Alternative to the Ideology of Social Justice’, and can be read in tandem with Christopher Watkin’s critique of liberalism. One of the authors, James Lindsay, is intensely hostile to religion and sees Critical Theory as a new form of abstract dogma without evidential value in the world of rationality.
Neil Shelvi: Social Justice, Critical Theory and Christianity – are they compatible? (You tube 29/04/20).
Whilst American conservatives scaremonger over CRT, simply saying that it encourages people, especially school-children to hate each other (in other words don’t teach them about slavery, lynchings and state sponsored racism), Shelvi offers a more balanced and serious critique from a ‘conservative evangelical’ perspective, well using original sources.
He identifies four premises of Critical Theory:
1. Binaries of the oppressor/oppressed.
2. Oppression through knowledge (hegemonic power) so oppression is now in the mind.
3. Lived experience gives oppressed groups access to truth.
4. Social justice demands the liberation of oppressed groups.
The positives of Critical Theory:
1. It is right to resist oppression.
2. Its’ focus on structures, systems and norms.
3. The recognition of hegemonic power.
(Shelvi often gives these positives a different spin – abortion is an unjust structure; false depictions of female beauty are hegemonic).
Conflicts of Critical Theory and Christianity:
1. Different Worldviews (not dissimilar to Watkin above).
2. Epistemology – shift of emphasis from reason to motivation as formative.
3. Emphasis on adversarial human relationships – as opposed to a common identity in creation, sin and redemption.
4. Portraying Christianity as hegemonic and oppressive discourse.
Whilst Shelvi adopts a more adversarial approach to CRT than Watkin yet he does recognise its strengths, and (particularly perhaps because of his South Asian background) avoid the defensive posture of white American conservatives and underline the damaging legacy left by slavery and racism.
Timothy Keller ‘A Biblical Critique of Secular Justice and Critical Theory’ (downloadable from Keller’s web-site).
Keller’s approach is somewhat similar to Watkin, but covers a wider canvas than CRT. He begins by arguing that ideals of justice are not just ‘common sense’ but need a foundation in God’s revelation.
He then provides A Brief Outline of Biblical Justice:
* Community: Others have a claim on my wealth so I must give voluntarily.
* Equity: Everyone must be treated equally and with dignity.
* Corporate Responsibility: I am sometimes responsible for and involved in other people’s sins.
* Individual Responsibility: I am finally responsible for all my sins, but not for all my outcomes.
* Advocacy: We must have a special concern for the poor and the marginalised.
Following that he looks at The Spectrum of Justice Theories, moving from Individualism across to Collectivism. He gives brief accounts of Libertarian, Liberal and Utilitarian views, together with a ‘Quick Biblical Analysis’; then with a much longer look at the Postmodern emphasis on ‘Power’, with a summary of its main emphases, followed by biblical analysis:
* It is deeply incoherent since the claim that ‘truth’ is merely an expression of power undermines its own claim to be truthful.
* It is too simplistic since it sees evil as residing only in social policies.
* It undermines our common humanity, by elevating identities.
* It denies our common sinfulness.
* It makes forgiveness, peace and reconciliation between groups impossible.
* It offers a highly self-righteous ‘performative’ identity.
* It is prone to domination – other views must be silenced.
By contrast Keller then argues that biblical justice alone addresses all the concerns focussed on by each of the four secular theories, by having built in safeguards against domination, and a radically subversive understanding of power, supremely expressed in Philippians 2:5-8.