It’s hard to go a day without hearing something about Critical Race Theory (CRT). From school board meetings to church leaders to seminaries, everyone is talking about whether or not CRT is being taught in their world. One of the craziest aspects of this whole debate is the apparent lack of ability for anyone to actually define what they mean by CRT, and give the scope of what constitutes CRT.
In the midst of this mess, Voddie Baucham has made a wonderful contribution to the church. If you’ve never heard Baucham preach, you need to. He has sermons on Sermon Audio and other platforms. I mention this because Baucham has a unique voice, deep and low, the type of voice that I have heard referred to as “the voice of God.” I mention that because I listened to the audio version of the book, and the reader simply didn’t do the author justice. But that’s neither here nor there. Let’s talk about the book itself.
Baucham begins the books by sharing his story. His testimony alone is a powerful testimony to the power of the gospel to radically change lives and restructure futures. Baucham then lays out some of the issues of ethnic conflict facing our country, and how the gospel applies to those issues. This is where the strengths of the book really emerge. Baucham unpacks Intersectionality, and goes into the underlying philosophy and worldview behind CRT. Both of these concepts are antithetical to the gospel, and destructive to biblical unity within the church.
Baucham then moves on to explain how he sees CRT infiltrating the church in America, and expressly the Southern Baptist Convention, including the somewhat underhanded creation of Resolution 9 at SBC 2019. The problem with CRT being used in the SBC is that it is not an “analytical” tool for understanding someone’s lived experiences. CRT is a world view, and it is a worldview that is pagan in it’s origin and practice. CRT offers only one-sided guilt (the powerful, ie the “white” are the guilty), and offers no redemption. One can only acknowledge his guilt and live with it. This is a false, empty, and utterly bankrupt gospel that finds its roots in the pagan religion of Critical Theory.
Together with Thaddeus William’s excellent work on CRT and Social Justice, Fault Lines gives an excellent analysis of the movement from a biblical perspective. To be clear, Baucham never argues that there are not racial issues in the US. There are some sinful attitudes and actions that must be dealt with. But they must be dealt with biblically, not using a secular framework that offers no hope. Instead, we need to press into the joy, forgiveness, and reconciliation that are found in the power of the gospel.