I remember visiting a particular house with a rainbow flag. There have actually been many, but this one comes to mind. I like rainbows. They are pretty. They’re meaningful in the Bible in a good way. When that flag flies on a house today, I’m critical in my mind and heart. I don’t like what it stands for. The person who came to the door was a woman with a man’s hair cut, who also dressed and talked like a man. I was kind to this person, and we could talk, but I was critical, based upon scripture.
You know, I know, you can’t be critical today about what is obvious according to scripture. You are required to be silent to a lot of aberrant appearance and behavior, that is easy to see. So little is good that when you do see something that looks biblical, it’s extraordinary. For awhile, society has instructed toleration. No one knows enough or has the authority to say something is wrong. No one knows the truth.In one sense, the church has lead in capitulating to the loss of meaning. Almost nothing is sacred anymore. Music is amoral. The roles of men and women have become a mystery. The one thing you know is that you don’t want anyone to be offended or feel bad about almost anything. In this vacuum of meaning, critical theory steps in. Where the church embraces little to no authority to judge almost anything, especially in cultural issues, a new caste of secular experts claims the ability, and is judging with certainty and harshness.As I grew up in a first generation Christian home, my parents would not allow foul language, which even included forbiddance of minced oaths, words short for the longer profane term. At a certain point very early in my life, I just was not going to speak these prohibited words. The present culture in many places in the United States requires avoiding the expression of a new list of vocabulary. Rather than the historic encouragement of a clean mouth, a new movement has arisen that requires public shaming, firing, canceling, or even other forms of violent punishment for having said something racist, sexist, or homophobic. Devastating consequences could result from even inadvertent violation of a new speech code.You may see yourself as not a racist, which you might define in your mind as equal treatment or opportunity to all races and not judging someone by the color of his skin. You didn’t know that racism is undetectable to any one except for an expert trained in a critical method to decide if someone or something is racist. This expert is “woke,” meaning that he is awakened to what is invisible to you. He has an ability to spot racism, like a Geiger counter picks up radioactivity. His expertise at this critical method enables him to know not just what someone says, but what he meant by what he said. He sees things that you can’t see, so it is essential that you just admit you were wrong when they say you were wrong and to confess that you’re racist, when they say that you really are racist or have a white privilege.My title asks, what is critical race theory? What is the basis for these “critics” of “racism”? Their basis is not the Bible, the basis for criticism of premoderns. It isn’t science or reason, the basis for modernism. Their basis is “theory.” No one should consider theory to be a basis of criticism. Theorists have been imbedded in universities for awhile now, giving the impression of authority. They have tenure. Now they also have some very loud and extreme followers. They expect their ideas to be heard, allowed, and adhered to. Their critical theories, one of which is race, are now even considered the truth.The theory is that white males are racist. This is not based on the Bible, theology, or science. It is theory. White males either don’t know they’re racist or they can’t judge that they are. They are not the experts, the purveyors of theory. The can’t know what they can’t know.Opponents of critical race theory won’t call it liberal. Classic liberalism encourages free speech. Much speech is not tolerated by critical race theory. Therefore, disputants of critical race theory call it leftist, leftist ideology. When you hear, “critical race theory,” it sounds like something difficult to understand. It sounds smart, something proposed by a PhD, deeply read and researched. It isn’t. It is hard to understand, because it isn’t based upon truth. It’s nothing you’ll figure out through objective analysis. It is subjective. It is relativistic.Without a true, valid, or objective basis, critical race theorists invent whatever criteria suits them to prosecute their targets or victims. Since they believe that race and gender are only social constructs invented by power and the use of language, they apply these methods to construct their own reality on the world.
Not that I disagree with anything you've said here, Pastor Brandenburg. Quite to the contrary. I just very simply want to point out that you will find these theorists hold a certain type of authority that calls itself rabbinical in very high regard. You will never find them criticising said authorities. You will, as you explain, find them in universities across this great land. You might wonder where they're coming from. This is kind of important to realize.
The basis, as you have essentially pointed out already, is so called "critical theory." Also known as "liberating tolerance," this was very early formulated in English language by Herbert Marcuse and propounded by various academics and functionaries like: Stanley Levison, Saul Alinsky, and Kameny. This is the basis and these are the mainstays of that movement; It was first formulated by intellectuals in continental Europe such as Moses Hess. It led to national socialism and bolshevism in the 20th century. They would now like to replace the history of this country as we know it; they dislike the flag and the founding values of the US, and are behind the various "critical" movement and sentiments. And the basis of which, I will unequivocally state, is satan, his synagogue and the pharisees, and a very old theory of supremacy, that is fundamentally opposed to the doctrine of Christ. This isn't happening in a vacuum. That IS what the basis is and where the strange and foreign and downright invasive values are really coming from; But first we have to realize it to better be able to protect against/avoid it.
That is why I recommend avoiding as much as possible, anything that comes from such a source in the first place. I Hope this helps answer your question. God bless you, and may the Lord have mercy upon us. As it says in 1 John 2:
22 Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son.
23 Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: but he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also.
And in 1 John 4:
3 And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.
I just wanted to mention, as it is related to this post, that "Unconcious Bias Training" appears to not work, and could make people more biased:
https://spectator.us/dangers-unconscious-bias-training/
Oh yes and here is a typical picture of what one of them typically looks like. Picture is safe for work.
https://i.imgur.com/ozmXovi.jpg
Thanks Andrew.
I chose critical race theory, but there are critical theories applied to gender, sex, and others. They seem all essentially the same. I would call all of them the manifestation of a reprobate mind. They suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Absolute truth and authority exist in God's Word and rejecting that, God turns them over to their own lusts. Lust is their authority, worshiping and serving the creature rather than the Creator.
Critical Text Theory?
Can you discuss if that's relevant in any way?
Thanks,
Bob
Thanks for asking, Bob. The critical text and critical race theory are not related. The closest that they might be related is their lack of scriptural presuppositions. Critical Text people would believe that they are neutral. Critical race theorists would say that no one is neutral. The former is modernistic and the later is postmodernistic.
Yes, critical theory and the basis of the "critical text" do share a distant relationship, though the similar names might be simply a semi-coincidence or at least not intentional.
Critical theory is the idea of, instead of providing solutions, answers or positive concepts; to simply relentlessly criticize every idea that one dislikes for whatever reason. This was pioneered by the "Frankfurt school" of critical theorists, relying on pure cynicism to degenerating every (what would've been) discussion to the lowest common denominator, shutting down speech with thought-terminating cliches repeated ad nauseam, introducing pointless obscenity to shut down speech, and such tactics as this. Essentially not allowing good faith discourse to occur in the critical theorist's presence. Despite this, the critical theorist is unable to provide any kind of a positive replacement for the ideas they constantly deconstruct and put down. Similar to how the ancient philosophical school of the "skeptics" couldn't answer the proverb, that the skeptics should at last turn their method on their own philosophy and criticize themselves, which they never do.
The critical text proponent is a derivative from the continental system of "higher criticism," which posits that we should be deconstructing the authorship of the Holy Bible and presupposing theories that the text had been altered by successive generations of writers and that the original form is lost and/or not as old as it claims itself to be. You can find the original authorities in this school of thought as presupposing that, because the prophecies in the Old Testament were fulfilled, that must necessarily mean that they were written after the events. But they will never outright state this. Rather, they will just act as if it is matter of course. One subtype of these scholars enjoys coming up with eccentric theories in their spare time and then trying to get people to take them seriously, as a sort of game to see how other stupid people will actually believe the ridiculous theories about how the most unusual variant reading must be the true one and then inwardly laugh at them for believing it.
Both theories go hand in hand with relativism.