Welcome to another edition of the Conversations That Matter podcast. My name is John Harris. We are pleased to be joined today with two special guests. We have Travis McNeely. McNeely, that's Scottish, right?
Travis McNeely. That's right. And then we have, and I'm going to try this, Randy Trajon. I probably didn't get it right.
Close enough. We have a Scottish person and a French person. person.
And I don't know if there's a problem between you guys, you know, because of that, but, uh, but we're going to get into that subject. In fact, in fact, the French and the Scottish have long been aligned against the British. Ah, Oh, dang it.
That's me. I am the oppressor in this relationship, unfortunately. So I will do penance and pay reparations, uh, when we're, we're done.
But, um, in all seriousness, though, I really appreciate you guys joining me. Um, this whole thing really started with you, Travis. I think you. put together, I think about a year ago, you started doing this, some videos with Professor Trahan, and they're on critical race theory, and specifically how Christians should think about that. Those are up on YouTube.
People can go to the info section to find those videos, and I've recommended them to people who just kind of want an introduction to this topic. If they want to try to understand it, they've heard some buzz about it. Hey, I say, go watch these videos.
Here's a Christian who was involved in that for years, who's explaining it. So before I introduce Professor Trahone, Travis, you want to just hold up that book and kind of just walk people through the resources you have, where they can find it. Yeah, absolutely. So, John, thank you also for having us on. I really do appreciate it.
It's just a good opportunity to get the word out to fellow Christians and others who might be really concerned about this topic. And so actually, with a college student of mine here at our church, we together. and he did a lot of the work, but I did a lot of, you know, editing for him.
But we put together this discussion guide and I'll have a link for it below that John can give you guys that walks through each episode. If you're doing this in like a small group type setting. And my goal of having Benjamin Leslie do this for us, our college student, he, you know, he's 18 years old. He's a young guy and I'm more academic minded.
And so is a professor Trahan. And so I wanted to get a lay levels perspective. So I.
he walked through all the videos and he thought of questions that could be asked at different timestamps in the video that you can kind of click to. So it's a really helpful guide just to ask good questions. And so I was able to disciple him through this and help him think good about it.
And so I feel like it's really an accessible discussion guide and highly encouraged churches to utilize it for their small groups. Yeah. And that's why we're doing this just so people know upfront, this is something, you know, if you like what you hear today, if it piques your interest, you have more questions, you can go. and watch these videos, you can get that discussion guide. And this is something that small groups can go through.
And that's, that's the goal. And nothing like this has really come out yet, as far as I know, where you can take a small group week by week through what does the Bible have to say about this topic? So, um, Travis, I appreciate it. Travis, I know you're, you're, I didn't really introduce you.
You're an associate pastor. You also have, I think, a background in apologetics with, you know, where you got your MDiv, right? Yeah. So I studied at the college at Southwestern Cemetery, now Scarborough College, and the seminary itself, got a Bachelor of Arts in Humanities, and then two master's degrees, a Master of Arts in Theology and a Master of Arts in Christian Apologetics. Okay.
All right. Awesome. And then we have Professor Chahon, who is a law school professor at LSU. And up front, I know he wants everyone to know this, and we do. The views that he's going to express today do not reflect the institution he works for.
These are his own views as a Christian, as someone who's also a law professor there. But you have quite a story, Professor. Tell us, if you would, just about why this was an issue for you that you wanted to confront in these videos with Travis, kind of your background in this topic of critical race theory and critical theory in general.
Well, critical race theory is something with which I've been familiar ever since it was founded. And that's because... uh whenever i was a law student at harvard law school uh way back in uh 1982 i got caught up in the movement out of which critical race theory came which was called at the time critical legal studies now it tends to be called simply critical theory and though i was caught up in it and uh having been caught in it became a neo-marxist and was such for years i eventually rejected it on a variety of grounds, including that the theory is just bad sociology, but also the theory, critical theory in general, critical race theory in particular, have built into them a number of assumptions that are fundamentally contrary to Orthodox Christianity. And so recently. When I've seen critical race theory, which heretofore had been confined to the academy, showing, and in particular, law schools, political science departments, philosophy departments, now showing up in seminaries, showing up in sermons being preached by Southern Baptist pastors, statements being made by various Southern Baptist luminaries, I've become very concerned.
Because, again, I find this theory to be wanting on its own merits as a matter of sociology, but also even more so to be wanting as a matter of Orthodox Christian belief. Now, Professor, you said that you kind of were involved in this to an extent. It sounds like you're a Southern Baptist now, but you weren't always that way.
Did you kind of convert out of? a critical theory mindset if you will or how do you is it was there a religious component for you in this at all before you were saved the the story is uh is complicated and the path that led me to where i am now is uh really uh tortuous uh i grew up as a southern baptist made a profession of faith when i was nine years old but then when i went away to college my undergraduate studies i confronted some very skeptical philosophy professors who in the course of just a few semesters were able to dismantle my childhood faith and as a result I became an agnostic. But then from there I actually returned to a version of Christianity, some kind of liberal Christianity so diluted that it could be meshed with just about any other imaginable worldview and that's where I was at the time that I encountered. critical legal studies or again as it's now called critical theory. So as strange as this may seem to you, I felt no incompatibility between my Christianity at that time, which you understand was anything but orthodox, on the one hand, and the critical theory that I was embracing with all of its Marxist elements and I should add that in this regard, I was hardly unusual.
This was the story of every liberation theologian from Latin America and Africa, right. who on the one hand thought of themselves as Christian in some sense of that word, but also embraced Marxist social analysis. Well, I want to explore what you just said about Marxist social analysis, because one of the knee-jerk reactions that I've gotten or I've heard people, other people getting is when they say, hey, critical race theory, critical legal studies, critical theory, this whole field, this is essentially, this is Marxist derivative of some kind.
People that are defensive of that usually want to say, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on. This isn't Marxism. This is totally different. What do you say to that?
Because you just kind of called it Marxism or expressed a relationship between the two. Well, the first thing I'd say is that it's complicated. You know, tracing the genealogy of any particular theory or worldview is a somewhat dicey matter. But the history that is laid down.
in the literature by the people who were there at the time making this stuff up makes it clear that critical race theory grew out of critical legal studies. And everybody also knows, because of the literature that was written at the time, that critical legal studies came out of a neo-Marxist school in part. I mean, there are other influences, right, for every one of these other influences for critical race theory, other influences for critical theory, but critical legal studies are not the same. you're tracing the line back you can see a clear connection from critical race theory to critical theory critical legal studies and then from there to this brand of neo-marxism called the frankfurt school and then also at the same time to a neo-marxist philosopher in italy called grams gramski and then back all the way to marx and the engels themselves now again understand i'm not saying that that every uh particular school of thought on this line that i've reconstructed was solely Marxist, quite the contrary. By the time we get to Frankfurt School of Marxism, we actually see a merging of a number of different schools of thought, not just Marx, but also Freud, you know, being the most prominent other school of thought.
Nevertheless, you can trace the lineage of critical race theory all the way back to Marx, and you can look at critical race theory today and see therein some elements that clearly are Marxist. What elements would those be if you had to locate them and say, point to this specifically is Marxist and critical theory? OK, well, the first is and the most fundamental and also the most obvious is this view that social relations are inherently conflictual and more particularly that. Every social structure that has ever been created has been created not for the purpose of human beings to cooperate together in order to achieve common ends.
Every single one has been created as a means whereby one group can oppress another, right? So in Marx's original thought, the focus was on class. The capitalists oppress the proletariat. And back up the timeline, the feudal lords oppressed the serfs. And you see that in critical race theory today and all forms of critical theory which divide up the social universe into various oppressor and oppressed groups.
That certainly is the most fundamental aspect of Marxism that you can still see in the theory today. There are some others, but I wouldn't trace them to Marx himself, I would trace them to his second and third generation disciples, including Gramsci and the. and the Frankfurt School scholars. Let me explain what I mean by that. Gramsci and the Frankfurt School folks come along in the early part of the 20th century, and they've got a real problem.
Why did Marx's prediction of a worldwide socialist revolution not come to pass? And the answer that they gave, if I can oversimplify, is Marx underestimated the ability of the non-economic parts of the larger socio-political economic system to resist. change. This is what Marx himself called the superstructure, right? So you've got the base, which is the economy, and then you've got the superstructure, which is all of these elements of the society.
So this would be moral values, it would be institutions like the church and like government, institutions like the law. He recognized that that superstructure reinforced the economic base, which is capitalist versus proletarian, right? but he underestimated or maybe didn't even fully appreciate the extent to which in its efforts this is frankfurt school uh marxism i'm talking about here i don't believe this any longer but this is what they would say he underestimated the ability of the superstructure to respond to attempts to change the base the superstructure is so powerful it shapes the minds even of the people who are being oppressed so that they don't recognize they're being oppressed That's because the superstructure is based upon values that belong to the dominant group. And those are presented at, again, through government, law, church, whatever, as being normative, not just the values of the oppressor group, but the values of everybody.
And again, that part, that is very much a part of critical race theory today. And again, it can be traced at least as far back as the Frankfurt School and Gramsci, but the whole idea of superstructure. all the way back to Marx. So that's where we get this idea that systemic racism is just embedded in everything. You have white privilege, whether you're self-aware of it or not, and somehow your traditions, your family, the things that you've been doing for generations that you didn't consider problematic are now problematic because they're reinforcing the superstructure, as you call it.
Well, yes, they're a part of the superstructure through which the privileges of the oppressor group are maintained. And then the oppression of the oppressed group is also maintained. Now, would you say as well that there's a utopian ideal that, you know, Marx kind of seemed to have this? I mean, you can go back to Rousseau, I guess Rousseau had this, but that there's going to be some central authority of some kind that's going to take out the institutions or whatever problems are keeping people down and then is going to usher in this age of egalitarianism of some kind.
Marx had this sort of utopianism. Do the critical race theory people, do they have that same idea that they're going to accomplish something like a heaven on earth equivalent of some kind? I think that's a that's a great question. But the answer is complicated and it may well vary, perhaps even dramatically from one critical race theorist to another. But certainly I know of no critical race theorist who would subscribe to Marx's historical dialectic.
Right. Marx's idea was the socialist utopia will inevitably come about. No matter whether we try to help it or we try to hinder it, it will just happen automatically.
I don't know of any critical race theorist that believes that. I know of some critical theorists, because I'm much better versed in critical theory itself than in this variant critical race theory, to be honest. I know of some critical theorists who actually do not look forward to a utopia.
They're convinced that the existing superstructure is so adaptable that there's really no way. to get rid of the existing superstructure and to transform society. There were some critical legal studies scholars whose writings in this regard were very, very pessimistic.
We can try to change this, but when we do, the superstructure will react and it will end up inadvertently reinforcing the system through our efforts to undermine it. But I think most critical race theorists today, and critical theorists generally, do believe that there is something that can be done, and that something is to undermine and overthrow the existing oppressive social structures and systems. Well, and that's fascinating and very enlightening. Travis, were you taught any of this when you were in seminary learning apologetics? I know I wasn't.
Were you? None at all. I mean, in my humanities class, we did the history of ideas.
And so we ended up talking about Marx. I read the Communist Manifesto. You know, but I thought, oh, you know, 1989, the Berlin Wall fell.
Like, you know, Marxism's done, you know, maybe China a little bit, you know, but we've beat it. And really, this whole event in my life the past few years, really since MLK 50 and beyond and just meeting Professor Trahan, it's been eye opening to see the difference between the economic or classical Marxism now to cultural Marxism and how it's seemingly a deviant way or another way to try to really be. our heresy in our society.
I remember when I was at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, they were putting out all this like blogs and all sorts of podcasts and stuff on white privilege and, you know, ways in which you may be subconsciously racist and problematizing, you know, football games and national anthem and Donald Trump and not monuments and et cetera. But meanwhile, I remember there was a professor there who gave a lecture. against Marxism, but it was all classical Marxism. And so they pointed to that to say, well, hey, no, we're against Marxism here, but it wasn't what you're talking about, Professor Trahan. I would be curious now, though, if you could, you know, we've kind of given a basic sketch of what critical race theory and critical theory, because that's really, I guess, the more important topic here, what that is.
Why is this a problem for Christians? Why can't Christians go ahead and you know it's not materialistic like marxism so we're told uh why can't this comport with our faith somehow okay um this is something that we cover in in depth in in the video series so what we want to do here is just kind of hit the highlights and i may actually have to refer to my notes so that i can remember everything but um the truth is that that critical theory at least as it's um practiced and that seems strange right Praxis is supposed to be over here in theory, but the theory is practiced. As it's practiced by some scholars who adhere to it, it is not just a theory. It's a worldview. It's analogous in some ways.
Carl Truman pointed this out in a very good article he wrote just maybe two weeks ago. It's analogous to religion in this regard. So what's a worldview?
Well, it's a way of viewing the world. It is a set of assumptions that we bring to our experience of encountering social reality. Everybody's got one.
You can't not have one, right? But the worldview in which critical theory is embedded is one that has a number of elements in it that are fundamentally inconsistent with what we might call the orthodox Christian worldview. The worldviews answer our most fundamental questions.
That is, what is life all about? Who am I? what am I?
What am I supposed to be doing with my life? You know, what is the end game? How should I live it? And in Orthodox Christianity, the description that we get of what is the essence of life is, first of all, there's a God, yes? And this God created us, and then we rebelled, we fell, and then this God came.
And through the only mechanism whereby we could, our situation could be remedied, redeemed us, right? And then restored us. So we are made in the image of God through the creation. We are restored through Christ's redemptive work.
What's the purpose of life? It's to glorify God. Who am I? I'm a child of God. Who are you?
Well, you're my brothers in Christ. But in addition to that, you're my fellow creatures of God. How am I supposed to live my life?
I'm supposed to live it in obedience to God. well critical legal theory as a worldview gives fundamentally different answers to the most fundamental questions so um god's not mentioned i mean the theory does not presuppose the existence of god in fact to the contrary i think if you say the theory is presuppositions in this regard are purely naturalistic there's no supernatural belief behind this theory at all uh and then it divides groups into again oppressor and oppressed groups the fundamental social reality according to critical theory is oppression. It is conflict between groups, one of which is always trying to get the upper hand over the other.
And so, you know, what is the purpose of life? What is the meaning of life? Well, it is to tear down the systems and the structures through which the oppressor group oppresses the oppressed group and bring about a, as you put it earlier, a more egalitarian state at the end of the day. In this theory, your identity does not come from the fact that you were created in the image of God or that you were redeemed by Christ.
It comes from which group you happen to be a part of. If you're an oppressor group, well, you're an oppressor. If you're in the oppressed group, well, then you're an oppressed. And those are the possible identities. You might be the one putting down or you might be the one being put down.
And you can see how these two worldviews at the most fundamental level. are completely incompatible. Very different views of what human beings are, very different views of what, especially in the social dimension, very different views of what the purpose of life is and how life ought to be lived. That's one problem.
Another problem is, I'll use a $10 philosophy word here, epistemology, which is the theory of knowledge. Now in the Western tradition for sure, and this is what critical race theorists might today dismiss as being white. Our understanding of the way that we get truth is through the exercise of our reason, in particular, to test propositions against the available evidence, right? The falsifiability proposition, which has been studied extensively in the philosophy of science.
Well, critical race theory has a different way of doing epistemology. It's called standpoint epistemology. and according to this epistemology objectivity itself of the kind that again has been presupposed through most of the western tradition is it's a it's a part of the mindset of the oppressors it doesn't really exist still called objectivity is in fact simply a a part of the superstructure we'll go back to that again that's been constructed by the by the oppressor groups on the other hand we have so it would be said in critical theory standpoint epistemology meaning what meaning that our own experience is that through which we get to the truth and if the evidence as it's traditionally been understood doesn't line up with our experience well then the evidence just needs to be re-evaluated because it's wrong all right that's a serious problem from the standpoint of christianity because this this idea of an objective truth is very much a part of of christianity right we believe that that objectively speaking there is a god we believe in absolute moral truths that can be at least in some sense of the word objectively found right so that's a serious problem i need to look at my notes now if you'll forgive me what i'm going to go ahead just to review uh what you've already said is that it has a bad anthropology um It doesn't presuppose the order and the kind of universe that we would have, you know, with a God who created us and loves us and endowed us with meaning and worth. And then it also undermines the objective truth that Christianity presupposes in order or really anything to get off the ground. So so I mean, these are some major philosophical problems.
And I think for a lot of people, those sound kind of heady. Like, you know, hey, we just want to stop racism. Like, why are you talking about standpoint epistemology?
Right. And so it maybe comes in the back door and they don't see kind of what they're buying into on that. Go ahead. Yeah, I think I think that happens a lot.
And we've we've seen this in the last couple of years. Many people who espouse ideas that clearly come from critical race theory, but they the people don't who are doing this. don't have any idea of the provenance of these ideas you know they're they'll be confronted and they'll say well this is critical race theory no it's not i don't know anything about critical race theory right you know more than you think because it's in the air now right yeah i turned on my amazon account or whatever which by the way i'm ending just so viewers know i decided to end that because of the decisions amazon's been making but you know i had have the prime video and it's just every time you turn it on it you're inundated with really everywhere you go some kind of an aggrieved group that you need to be somehow, I don't know, watching or listening to material from them, stories that show that this oppressed oppressor dynamic.
Here's the thing, though. I think this is the emotional appeal. Can critical race theorists, like a broken clock, can they be right twice a day? Someone might point to, well, hey, there have been groups who have oppressed other groups, and it's currently even happening.
I mean, they often like to go back to segregation laws that existed in this country. We could go around the world, though, you know, the slaughter of the Armenians if I wanted to. I know they don't cite that, but that does happen, right?
You're not denying that as the sort of straw man would go. What do you say to people who lift that objection up? Well, the first thing I'd say is what you just said. I'm not saying that there has never been oppression.
In fact, you look back in human history from as far back as it begins until the present time, you could perhaps fairly describe human history as being largely. a history of oppression by one group or another. My objection to critical theory and critical race theory in particular is that it misrepresents the nature of the oppression, misrepresents the cause of the oppression, and therefore comes up with prescriptions for solutions to these problems that are going to fly wide of the mark.
um you use the example of jim crow legislation that discriminated against african americans in particular in the southern part of the country i would call that systemic racism right i can see that system right there in front of me it's in the law yes and it was motivated by the most vile uh you know desires to um to keep uh black folk down and to preserve privileges of white people no i'm not denying that that that happened um My concern is with a theory that suggests, among other things, that it happens somehow behind the scenes and unwittingly, such that persons can be guilty of being racist, even if they, I'll put it this way, don't really have a racist bone in their body. Again, I'm not denying oppression. What I'm denying is the particular understanding of oppression that comes from these theories.
So the difference would be that you have in the first example of legitimate oppression, you actually have actions and laws and people and you physically in the universe that exists, you can point to them and say, hey, we could get rid of this and it would change this. But whereas in critical theory, it sounds like you can't do that because it's almost like an invisible force that is, you know, eating dinner with your family, your nuclear family could be oppression, you know, going to your job and. working, because you are benefiting from some system that allocates privilege to you, supposedly, that's oppression.
Like, that's the difference. It sounds like I agree. I think that's a good way to put it. Okay.
Now, Travis, you were at the SBC convention in 2019. They didn't have one last year. But in 2019, they passed this resolution called Resolution nine, which seems to be every time anyone in the SBC tries to clarify their view on critical race theory. who has an official position in the denomination, they seem to rehash Resolution 9 somehow. Even when the resolutions committee tries to get away from what happened with Resolution 9, they somehow end up rehashing it again. Travis, could you just tell us what is Resolution 9 very briefly?
And then I'm hoping that Professor Trahan can explain to us maybe what's going on there, why that's not a viable way to navigate this for Christians, this whole... controversy. Yeah, absolutely.
You know, the episode we did on resolution nine was, is my favorite episode, I think, cause he really takes down this idea of a third way with critical race theory. And so I definitely recommend people to go watch that one. But when you look at resolution nine at the SBC, it was on critical race theory and intersectionality.
The original resolution that was made up was completely transformed by the committee and really seemed to kind of speak in favor that it can be used in some way. And although in some ways it makes some positive statements it needed further you know negative statements to say look what is this rooted in which tom askel and tom buck tried to make an attempt to do uh and unfortunately it was seen as an unfriendly amendment uh but you know then it says kind of contradictory statements in the sense of well while scripture is sufficient we can use this as an analytical tool but then when you look at the uses that really come from it there's really no good uses that come from it because everything it alleges to say it does like in other words inform us on oppression like you guys were just talking about well the scripture already gives us enough information from god and what he thinks about what is morally right and wrong but what is considered genuinely oppressive or not and so we don't need critical theory to you know figure out like microaggressions or something you know like that we we need the word of god And it's just sad when you look at the SBC and the way it responded to this. And like, you're right, all these statements that seem to come out seem to not to try to come down so hard on critical race theory, but just kind of say, hey, there's some good stuff.
We can have a little bit of it. And it's unfortunate. Well, the main the center, the question that keeps popping up, which because this is the statement that keeps I keep hearing is that we're not going to use it as a worldview.
Like. Like Professor Trahan, you were saying, you know, critical race theory is a worldview. It's got fundamental assumptions that contradict Christianity. That's dangerous. Well, they say, well, hold on.
Let's put that on hold. We're not going to go to those philosophical assumptions. Let's instead just take the things that we can glean, the analytical tools from it. And we can, as Christians, use those. What do you say to that, Professor?
Oh, goodness. There's a lot to say to that. And we tried to respond to that particular objection. in the video series, the first thing I'd say is it may be incredibly naive to assume that the tools can be separated from the worldview.
Let's talk about liberation theology again, which is so closely parallel to theology today that is being influenced by critical race theory. It's like history keeps repeating itself. The longer I live, the more I see this.
Anyway, the Marxist... Marxist theologians in Latin America back in the 1970s, 1980s, contended that they could separate what they called Marxist analysis from the Marxist worldview. And eventually the Vatican itself concluded that was not possible. The famous report that was written by then Cardinal Ratzinger, the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, that's the theological watchdog of the Vatican.
He later became Pope Benedict XVI. by the way, anyway, in which liberation theology was pretty roundly condemned. But the interesting part of, for me, always was Ratzinger's insistence that you can't separate the one from the other. If you try to just bring in Marxist analysis, the worldview is going to follow it because they're so interconnected. So the very idea that one might be able to separate one of these from the other may be fundamentally flawed.
Now, Then the question becomes, well, all right, assuming that's not true, assuming you can separate the analytical tools from the worldview, can you use the analytical tools in a way that is compatible with Orthodox Christianity? Well, I just don't see how you possibly can. The first thing I'd say is that these tools are not worth using.
Again, as I said at the outset, my principal objection to critical theory, et cetera, is that it's just bad sociological theory. Let's just set that aside for a second. And let's suppose that there is some merit to the analysis itself, the analytical tools. But what analytical tools are we talking about here?
Travis just made this point in passing. When you start to ask, when you ask people to identify what analytical tools they're talking about that they think can be used separately from the worldview, they'll say things like, Well, the fact that there's systemic racism, I'm sorry, that's a part of the worldview. That's a presupposition. Yes. And it's a highly controversial presupposition and a very nebulous concept to say the least.
But in any event, if that's what we mean by using an analytical tool that is separate from the worldview, then I think we're talking nonsense because that is a fundamental part of the worldview. there are these mysterious systems and structures that may or may not have been originally deliberately set up in order to keep non-whites down and keep whites up but that is part and parcel of the what i would call the the world view it's not just a tool travis uh do you have anything to add to what professor treon just said about this analytical tool approach to using critical theory maybe from a theological standpoint Yeah, so I mean, the first thing that comes to a lot of people's mind is Augustine. and his idea of plundering the Egyptians, you know, and taking the goods from the Egyptians, or even John Calvin.
Which sounds racist, I just have to say. All these critical theorists, you know, who want to justify it by plundering Egyptians. I just, anyway, sorry, go ahead. No, that's funny. You know, not only that, you have John Calvin's all truth is God's truth, or Justin Martyr, he said, whatever was said rightly among men belongs to us Christians, right?
So there's these different... uh guys who had these takes on you know general revelation per se and uh it's it's actually i think i agree with them that since all truth is god's truth but the problem is as professor chahan has already said critical race here is just not true it does not rightly do sociological analysis and so you know when we when we look at these things i like to say and randy said it in the video i think it's my favorite line in the whole series you know plundering the egyptians for their gold you know that CRT is not really gold. It's fool's gold. It might appear to be good, but it's fake, really.
It's not going to be helpful for really dealing with reality and God's world that we live. And, you know, as it relates to even that further going to a specific doctrine, which ends with our last video, the sufficiency of scripture, you know, sufficiency of scripture, it's really important to realize the role of common grace and the noetic effects of sin, because yeah, people get things right in the world without. having to necessarily acknowledge the existence of God. You know, they'll suppress the truth of God. They know he exists.
They live in his world. But common grace, it does three things in its provision for us. It provides, God's grace provides physical provision, intellectual provision, and moral provision. So we have, you know, the rain falls on the just and the unjust. Man can know within his heart, even in his conscience will bear and witness that murder is wrong or it's sinful, right?
Without having to hear the... the commandment thou shall not murder. And in addition, intellectual provision, like we're not all as wickedly foolish and dumb as we could be. You know, there's, they're smart, they're smart lost people, you know?
And so common grace is important there, but you have to consider also the effects of sin on the mind. And so, yes, I think we can get observations right in the world. If you're a lost person, you can observe the world rightly, but the difference is when you go to interpreting your observations and trying to prescribe interventions. You cannot do that rightly apart from a Christian worldview. You must have a Christian worldview to be able to give proper interpretations of the world and interventions.
Yeah, that's good. You know, oftentimes I hear it compared, critical theory in general, compared to like platonic thoughts or, you know, Pythagoras or, you know, some of these basic mathematical or philosophical ideas that have been ingrained into Western cultures and societies. for a long time. And so, you know, they'll say, well, we Christians were able, even the apostle Paul was able to glean stuff from platonic philosophy.
So can't we do the same thing? And what I've thought, and I'd like to get your, both of your take on this, if you think this is a valid way to approach this, is that in the first case, let's take some basic like law of non-contradiction or two plus two equaling four, something very basic that's fundamental to reality. These are These are things that you cannot deny and live in the world God's made. These are just fundamental to natural revelation the world God's put us in. They're basic observations based on the sense perceptions God's given us to ascertain and interpret the world.
Whereas in critical theory, it seems like this is, it's a lot more abstract because these are not, or maybe abstract's not the word I'm looking for, but it's much. more philosophically, you're taking like three more steps back because they're assuming things that actually contradict the reality that we live in, in the real world. These are not fundamental to reality ideas. The idea that systemic racism is embedded in everything is not like two plus two equals four.
It's not, you can deny that and still exist in the real world. And so I'm wondering if there's something there, what do you guys think of kind of that approach to this? Or maybe, and one more thing I could probably add to that to make it more sense. it's the difference between maybe looking at the world as it is, and then looking at the mind of a sociologist and what they think the world is, if that makes sense. Professor Trahan, what do you think of that approach?
Are we saying the same thing, or is that valid, what I'm saying? Well, the distinction that you draw is certainly valid. I mean, we're talking about what Kant would call analytical propositions, right, which are true by definition, basically. tautological truths to some degree and then mathematical truths as well as opposed to purported truths that come to us from disciplines whose conclusions are less secure shall we say so philosophy and political science and sociology still though you know there are um valuable insights that can be gleaned i think from um some sociological theories i can't think of any off the top of my head right now but uh i suppose there might be some um it's just that my position has been and will continue to be there's there are no insights that are yielded by critical race theory that number one could not be yielded from some other theory uh and then number two that are are not subject to being called into question.
Okay. Yeah, that's good. Yeah.
Travis, any thoughts on that? Yeah. I mean, I would just say, you know, I'm really interested in the biblical counseling world as well. You know, the sufficiency of scripture approach versus the integrationist approach.
And I think of Freud, for instance, like he made observations of the world, but his interpretations and interventions weren't accurate, you know, and they might observe that what depression. it can have a physical effect on your body or anxiety you know it can it can affect you and there are there is a medical side of things you know we're body and soul i get that but um i didn't necessarily need that science to be able to make that proper interpretation or intervention i think that's yeah i think that's an excellent analogy right freud freud is the perfect analog So a critical theorist might be able to say there's a disparity between people groups, but then when they go to interpret why that disparity is there, they're going to come out with all sorts of wrong reasons for it because they're not, yeah, they're not going back to the truth that God's given us. So we've already touched on this a little bit, but some of the dangers and pitfalls and concerns you have about Christians going down this road, and there's... numerous examples of it out there. Maybe you could give us some, Professor Trahon, where have you seen this playing out in Christian circles?
And then what are your concerns about how this is playing out? Well, we covered this in the video too, in some detail, the point at which I asked the question, where do I see critical theory, critical race theory, in particular, cropping up? And my sarcastic answer was, it might be easier to answer the question where I did not see it cropping up. And we produced a number of examples of uh statements that have been made by various southern baptist seminary professors copies of syllabi from courses being taught by southern baptist professors statements being made by i used the word earlier luminaries in celebrities if you want to call them that in the southern baptist convention all of which have some of the hallmarks in them of critical race theory again the systemic racism.
There's so many of the leaders in our Southern Baptist Convention who take this very controversial idea for granted. I'm thinking of our president right now, J.D. Greer, who released a statement just last week, and I think just as quickly took it down, but he was trying to indicate from his point of view what is valuable about CRT and what is problematic about it, and one of the things he said, well, is that it shows us there's such a thing as as as systemic racism.
So again, that's just one example, but over and over again, white privilege, that concept, which again, I consider to be highly controversial and problematic. So many of our leaders seem to take it for granted now that there is such a thing, and therefore that it needs to be addressed in some way. And of course, what we're talking about here, if I'm correct, is searching for a solution to a non-existent problem. problem. And that could be a problem, I think, on an ethical level, and you're just in mission drift, you're wasting resources.
What about the fundamentals of the faith? I mean, you mentioned objective truth, we need that. The gospel, though, do you see this threatening the gospel at all anywhere, or the central message of Christianity?
Well, I will defer to the theologian. To answer that question, but you know, it depends, it depends of course, in part on how you define the gospel. And I have a very, I'll say narrow, but really Orthodox Protestant definition of the gospel, which is that Jesus died to sin, to, to rescue sinners from their sin. So again, back to the beginning, creation, fall, redemption, and restoration.
Is there anything in critical race theory, at least if we're talking just about the analytical tools, that would contradict that? I'll let Travis answer that, but before he does, I'll say. There may be some other dangers, and that's what I want to talk about.
Not necessarily contradictory of the fundamentals of the gospel properly understood, but incompatible with Christian moral theology. This whole idea that groups are almost irrevocably divided into oppressors and oppressed seems to be fundamentally at odds with the notion that in Jesus Christ there is no Jew nor Greek. There is no male nor female. There is no slave or free. We are brothers, yes, and sisters.
How do you reconcile that idea with the notion that my African-American neighbors over here are oppressed, and here I am a white neighbor, and I'm an oppressor? Where's the room for brotherhood? And then this notion of moral asymmetry that is part of the writing of at least some critical race theorists. That is it. Some things that might be moral for one group would not be moral for the other.
So, for example, it's moral for the members of the oppressed group to riot and cause damage, whereas it would not be appropriate for the oppressor group to do something like that. Yes, that is highly problematic from the standpoint of Orthodox Christian moral theology. God lays down his standards for everyone, regardless of oppressor.
or oppressed. So those are just some examples. But in terms of moral theology, I think there is serious incompatibility at multiple levels.
But I'll let the Reverend here talk about the gospel itself. Yeah, that's excellent. Yeah. So, Reverend Pastor McNeely, what do you think about challenges to the gospel directly?
So I would say, to answer your question, that it does and it doesn't. And here's how it doesn't. The gospel is going to last, period. regardless of what people try to do it due to it because god is overall right and so they might try to pervert and distort the gospel but there will always be a remnant and god is faithful to preserve that remnant uh but number two it's going to affect the way the gospel is able or not to be spread uh amongst our country and even in international missions around the world through you know southern baptist convention or any other entities that says they prescribe to the gospel because they'll distort the message you know it's going to like you said it gives you you a bad view of sin and identity and um if you can't get you know those things right how are you going to know who you are as well as who god is you can't properly communicate the gospel because you know one thing i remember reading a while back i can't remember where i read it but it compared uh it looked at tawny hessy coats i think i said his name right um and his view and saying that like my group identity is primary my individual identity is secondary and so how do i ever repent and that view, how do I ever repent of wrongs I've done?
Do I just continually sob? Do I continually just feel bad and constantly every time I see an oppressed person, you know, do I have to continually give money and continually do things? I remember actually in that crew video that you shared with me, that lady is so sad. She was talking to that woman on stage and she said, you know, my family never owned slaves. I went back as far as I could.
We never did anything like that. When is enough enough? And just hearing that cry, it's so sad because people live in a sense of false guilt that's just forced on them. And it's so anti-gospel.
And so I think it's a major threat to the gospel and how I understand my own sin if I'm being told to feel bad about sin that I didn't even commit. And I think it's a great danger to the church. I remember actually I was a member at the village church in Fort Worth a long time ago, back when I was in Fort Worth. I remember when the Dallas shootings happened and the five cops were killed. And like that first Sunday, they had a panel.
And on that panel, the very first question that Matt Chandler asked was, how does this make you feel to the Black panel members? Instead of saying, let's go to the truth of Scripture, what Scripture says about it. There's obviously a time for sympathy over issues, but he started with our feelings rather than the truth. And it really just kind of went through this rant of just anger and frustration. And it was really sad to see that they were really taking on their, not their, their ethnicity is the main thing versus their identity in Christ.
And, you know, like he quoted with, or in Galatians 3.28, but also think of 2 Corinthians 5.16 and 17. You know, he says, we once regarded Christ according to the flesh. We regard him as thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away.
The new has come. And that's how we're supposed to recognize each other. as new creatures so why are we going back to the old we're supposed to move on from that we're supposed to put that off according to ephesians 4 22 put off the flesh with its deceitful desires and be renewed in the spirit of your minds and put on the new self created after the likeness of Christ and true righteousness and holiness.
So why this is going to not only mess up the gospel in the sense of evangelism, but also sanctification within the growth in the church. If I'm supposed to be putting on Christ, but I keep putting on my old self that I'm supposed to put off, it's a contradiction. I'm going to walk around confused, directionless, and really just be a great hindrance, I think, to the gospel being spread.
Yeah. Well, that's good. I think the more we unpack, the more we find that critical theory in general contradicts the Christian message.
Different identity, different view of truth, different anthropology. Sounds almost like it's its own false gospel with its own version of original sin, white privilege and ways of adjudicating and correcting this, which are not the gospel of Jesus Christ, but some kind of a social revolutionary movement that's going to usher in an egalitarian, more just egalitarian system. I would want to stay about as far away from this as I possibly can, but you have a lot of Christians that still are so tempted. And this is really my last question is, why right now are we seeing this?
I think you had mentioned, Professor Trahan, that you had seen this in academia, but then when it kind of jumped out of the lab, you were a little surprised at it. Why do you think that it's so popular right now, if you have an answer for that? Well, I'm not sure that I do, but I suspect that at least part of the answer has to do with the issue of race coming to the forefront in the political arena over the last four years. In particular, all of the fallout that has followed in the aftermath of police shootings of African American suspects, which has brought the, again, the issue of race. back to the American consciousness in a way that perhaps it had not been there for a while and perhaps had not been there since the 1960s.
And so now we have political figures, we have political pundits who are searching for ways in which to try to make sense of and then to again devise interventions, corrective interventions for the race problems that we see and where do they turn but to the current academic scene and what do they find there? Well, they find critical race theory. Okay.
Well, I appreciate you guys coming on and talk about this and your bravery. I know a lot of people who are in your position have similar concerns, but are afraid to come forward. So I appreciate it to both of you. And do you have any final thoughts for anyone before we end the interview?
you guys go back to what you were doing before i think i've said my piece okay yeah i mean i would just say you know you might be on a different spectrum of this journey if you're listening today you know and the sense of um you have questions about critical race theory or um you're unsure of where you stand and so i just want to encourage people uh to have an open mind and to really test themselves i was there was a point where i would say i was probably woke and i was uh i you know experienced white guilt i felt bad for my, you know, black brothers and sisters in Christ for the racial problems that they might face, you know, and the conversations they might have to have. And I remember all those kind of things, feeling bad about it, you know, and, but after a while, it started to break, as I started to just continue to read my Bible, and let the Word of God guide me, it just really, something wasn't sitting right. And then MLK 50 conference was kind of like the moment for me of like, whoa, this does not sound right at all, especially though. diversity quotas about um you know from matt chandler and then some things eric mason said angloid on the inside you know uh might be black on the outside but angloid on the inside those kind of things just it just didn't sound right so if you're someone like that who's listening and um or listen to the series or listen to john harris's podcast i just want to encourage you to have an open mind and really try to study these things for yourself and know why you believe what you believe that's a it's a big driving force for me and even what i do with my blog or my channel i just want people to know why they believe what they believe.
All right. Well, for more information, go to the info section. You're going to find a link to the PDF to sign up to get that if you want to go through your small group. And then, of course, the video series that Professor Trahan and then Travis McNeely have put out together. Thank you both so much for doing this.
Thank you for having us. Thank you. God bless.