Prof. Randy Trahan and Travis McNeely on Critical Race Theory

Conversations That Matter

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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.

00:07

We have Travis McNeely. McNeely, that's Scottish, right? Travis McNeely. That's right.

00:14

Then we have, and I'm going to try this, Randy Trejon. I probably didn't get it right. Close enough.

00:21

We have a Scottish person and a French person. I don't know if there's a problem between you guys because of that, but we're going to get into that subject.

00:29

In fact, the French and the Scottish have long been aligned against the British. Oh, dang it.

00:36

That's me. I am the oppressor in this relationship, unfortunately, so I will do penance and pay reparations when we're done.

00:44

But in all seriousness, though, I really appreciate you guys joining me. This whole thing really started with you,

00:51

Travis. I think you put together, I think about a year ago, you started doing this, some videos with Professor Trejon, and they're on critical race theory and specifically how

01:03

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.

01:13

They want to try to understand it. They've heard some buzz about it. Hey, I say, go watch these videos. Here's a

01:19

Christian who was involved in that for years who's explaining it. So before I introduce Professor Trejon, 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?

01:31

Yeah, absolutely. So, John, thank you also for having us on. I really do appreciate it.

01:36

It's just a good opportunity to get the word out to fellow Christians and others who might be really concerned about this topic.

01:42

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 editing for him.

01:52

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.

02:01

And my goal of having Benjamin Leslie do this for us, our college student, he's 18 years old, he's a young guy, and I'm more academic minded, and so is

02:12

Professor Trejon. And so I wanted to get a lay level's perspective. So 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.

02:23

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.

02:30

And so I feel like it's really an accessible discussion guide and highly encourage churches to utilize it for their small groups.

02:37

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.

02:48

And this is something that small groups can go through. And 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

02:58

Bible have to say about this topic? So, Travis, I appreciate it. Travis, I know you're, I didn't really introduce you, you're an associate pastor.

03:05

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 Seminary, now

03:13

Scarborough College, and then the seminary itself, got a Bachelor of Arts in Humanities, and then two master's degrees, a

03:19

Master of Arts in Theology and a Master of Arts in Christian Apologetics. Okay, all right, awesome.

03:24

And then we have Professor Chajon, who is a law school professor at LSU.

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And upfront, 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.

03:40

These are his own views as a Christian, as someone who's also a law professor there.

03:46

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.

04:01

Well, critical race theory is something with which I've been familiar ever since it was founded.

04:08

And that's because whenever I was a law student at Harvard Law School, way back in 1982,

04:15

I got caught up in the movement out of which critical race theory came, which was called at the time, critical legal studies.

04:24

Now it tends to be called simply critical theory. And though I was caught up in it, and having been caught in it, became a neo -Marxist and was such for years,

04:36

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.

04:58

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,

05:27

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.

05:43

Now, Professor, you said that you kind of were involved in this to an extent. It sounds like you're a

05:49

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?

06:01

The story is complicated, and the path that led me to where I am now is really tortuous.

06:10

I grew up as a Southern Baptist, made a profession of faith when I was nine years old, but then when

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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,

06:29

I became agnostic. But then from there, I actually returned to a version of Christianity, some kind of liberal

06:38

Christianity, so diluted that it could be meshed with just about any other imaginable worldview.

06:44

And that's where I was at the time that I encountered critical legal studies, or again, as it's now called critical theory.

06:52

So as strange as this may seem to you, I felt no incompatibility between my

06:58

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

07:08

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?

07:18

On the one hand, thought of themselves as Christian in some sense of that word, but also embraced

07:24

Marxist social analysis. Well, I wanna explore what you just said about Marxist social analysis, because one of the knee -jerk reactions that I've gotten or I've heard other people getting is when they say, hey, critical race theory, critical legal studies, critical theory, this whole field, this is essentially, this is

07:46

Marxist derivative of some kind. People that are defensive of that usually want to say, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on, this isn't

07:54

Marxism. This is totally different. What do you say to that? Because you just kind of called it

07:59

Marxism or expressed a relationship between the two. Well, the first thing

08:04

I'd say is that it's complicated. 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.

08:30

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.

08:40

I mean, there are other influences, right, for every one of these moves, other influences for critical race theory, other influences for critical theory, but you're tracing the line back.

08:48

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

08:57

Frankfurt School, and then also at the same time to a neo -Marxist philosopher in Italy called

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Gramsci, and then back all the way to Marx and Engels themselves. Now, again, understand

09:08

I'm not saying that every particular school of thought on this line that I've reconstructed was solely

09:17

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

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Freud, being the most prominent other school of thought.

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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

09:45

Marxist. What elements would those be if you had to locate them and say, point to this specifically is

09:52

Marxist and critical theory? Okay, 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.

10:14

Every single one has been created as a means whereby one group can oppress another, right?

10:21

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.

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And you see that in critical race theory today, in all forms of critical theory, which divide up the social universe into various oppressor and oppressed groups.

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That certainly is the most fundamental aspect of Marxism that you can still see in the theory today.

10:53

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

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Gramsci and the Frankfurt School Scholars. Let me explain what

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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.

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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

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Marx underestimated the ability of the non -economic parts of the larger socio -political economic system to resist change.

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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.

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So this would be moral values, it would be institutions like the church and like government, institutions like the law.

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He recognized that superstructure reinforced the economic base, which is capitalist versus proletarian, right?

12:02

But he underestimated, or maybe didn't even fully appreciate the extent to which in its efforts,

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Frankfurt School 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.

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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.

12:31

That's because the superstructure is based upon values that belong to the dominant group.

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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.

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And again, that part, that is very much a part of critical race theory today.

12:54

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.

13:02

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.

13:20

Well, yes, they're a part of the superstructure through which the privileges of the oppressor group are maintained.

13:29

And then the oppression of the oppressed group is also maintained. Now, would you say as well that there's a utopian ideal that Marx kind of seemed to have this,

13:41

I mean, you can go back to Rousseau, I guess Rousseau had this, but that there's gonna 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.

13:58

I mean, Marx had this sort of utopianism that do the critical race theory people, do they have that same idea that they're gonna accomplish something like a heaven on earth equivalent of some kind?

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I think 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.

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But certainly I know if no critical race theorist who would subscribe to Marx's historical dialectic, right, is

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Marx's idea was the socialist utopia will inevitably come about.

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No matter whether we try to help it or we try to hinder it, it will just happen automatically.

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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.

14:53

I know 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.

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There were some critical legal studies scholars whose writings in this regard were very, very pessimistic.

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You know, 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.

15:25

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.

15:40

Well, and that's fascinating and very enlightening. Travis, were you taught any of this when you were in seminary learning apologetics?

15:48

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.

15:58

I read the Communist Manifesto, you know, but I thought, oh, you know, 1989, the Berlin Wall fell, like, you know,

16:05

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

16:18

Professor Trahan, it's been eye -opening to see the difference between the economic or classical

16:24

Marxism now to cultural Marxism and how it's seemingly a deviant way or another way to try to really be a heresy in our society.

16:35

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.

16:57

But meanwhile, I remember there was a professor there who gave a lecture against Marxism, but it was all classical

17:03

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,

17:10

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,

17:22

I guess, the more important topic here, what that is. Why is this a problem for Christians?

17:28

Why can't Christians go ahead and, you know, it's not materialistic like Marxism, so we're told.

17:35

Why can't this comport with our faith somehow? Okay, this is something that we cover in depth in the video series.

17:44

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.

17:50

But the truth is that critical theory, at least as it's practiced, and that seems strange, right?

17:58

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 is not just a theory, it's a worldview.

18:09

It's analogous in some ways, and Carl Truman pointed this out in a very good article he wrote just maybe two weeks ago.

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It's analogous to religion in this regard. So, you know, what's a worldview? Well, it's a way of viewing the world.

18:23

It is a set of assumptions that we bring to our experience of encountering social reality.

18:31

Everybody's got one, you can't not have one, right? But the worldview that 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

18:46

Orthodox Christian worldview. Worldviews answer our most fundamental questions.

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That is, what is life all about? Who am I? What am

18:57

I? What am I supposed to be doing with my life? You know, what is the end game?

19:03

How should I live it? And in Orthodox Christianity, the description that we get of what is the essence of life is we were created...

19:16

First of all, there's a God, yes? And this God created us and then we rebelled, we fell.

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And then this God came and through the only mechanism whereby our situation could be remedied, redeemed us, right?

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And then restored us. So we are made in the image of God through the creation.

19:39

We are restored through Christ's redemptive work. What's the purpose of life? It's to glorify

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God. Who am I? I'm a child of God. Who are you? Well, you're my brothers in Christ.

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But in addition to that, you're my fellow creatures of God. How am I supposed to live my life?

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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.

20:07

So God's not mentioned. I mean, the theory does not presuppose the existence of God. In fact, to the contrary, I think you could say that the theory is presuppositions in this regard are purely naturalistic.

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There's no supernatural belief behind this theory at all. And then it divides groups into, again, oppressor and oppressed groups.

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The fundamental social reality, according to critical theory, is oppression.

20:31

It is conflict between groups, one of which is always trying to get the upper hand over the other.

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And so 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, as you put it earlier, a more egalitarian state at the end of the day.

20:59

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.

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It comes from which group you happen to be a part of. If you're an oppressor group, well, you're an oppressor.

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If you're in the oppressed group, well, then you're an oppressed. And those are the possible identities.

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You might be the one putting down, you might be the one being put down. And you can see how these two worldviews at the most fundamental level are completely incompatible.

21:31

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.

21:42

That's one problem. Another problem is, I'll use a $10 philosophy word here, epistemology, which is the theory of knowledge.

21:52

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?

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The falsifiability proposition, which has been studied extensively in the philosophy of science.

22:17

Well, critical race theory has a different way of doing epistemology.

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It's called standpoint epistemology. And according to this epistemology, objectivity itself of the kind that, again, has been presupposed through most of the

22:33

Western tradition is it's a part of the mindset of the oppressors.

22:39

It doesn't really exist. So -called objectivity is, in fact, simply a part of the superstructure.

22:47

If we'll go back to that again, that's been constructed by the oppressor groups. On the other hand, we have, so it would be said in critical theory, standpoint epistemology, meaning what?

23:00

Meaning that our own experience is that through which we get to the truth.

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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 reevaluated because it's wrong, all right?

23:22

That's a serious problem from the standpoint of Christianity, because this idea of an objective truth is very much a part of Christianity, right?

23:32

We believe 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?

23:43

So that's a serious problem. I need to look at my notes now, if you'll forgive me. Yeah, go ahead. Just to review what you've already said is that it has a bad anthropology.

23:54

It doesn't presuppose the order and the kind of universe that we would have with a

24:02

God who created us and loves us and endowed us with meaning and worth.

24:08

And then it also undermines the objective truth that Christianity presupposes in order or really anything to get off the ground.

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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.

24:27

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.

24:35

On that, go ahead. Yeah, I think that happens a lot. And we've seen this in the last couple of years.

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Many people who espouse ideas that clearly come from critical race theory, but the people who are doing this don't have any idea of the provenance of these ideas.

24:56

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.

25:01

Right. You know more than you think because it's in the air now. Right. Yeah.

25:07

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

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Amazon's been making. But, you know, I have the Prime video and it's just every time you turn it on, you're inundated with really everywhere you go, some kind of an aggrieved group that you need to be, you know, somehow,

25:29

I don't know, watching or listening to material from them, stories that show this oppressed, oppressor dynamic.

25:35

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?

25:43

Like someone might point to, well, hey, there have been groups who have oppressed other groups and it's currently even happening.

25:49

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

25:56

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.

26:03

What do you say to people who lift that objection up? Well, the first thing I'd say is what you just said.

26:09

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.

26:27

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 gonna fly wide of the mark.

26:51

You use the example of Jim Crow legislation that discriminated against African -Americans in particular in the

26:59

Southern part of the country. I would call that systemic racism, right? I can see that system right there in front of me.

27:06

It's in the law, yes? And it was motivated by the most vile desires to keep black folk down and to preserve privileges of white people.

27:17

No, I'm not denying that that happened. My concern is with a theory that suggests, among other things, that it happened somehow behind the scenes and unwittingly such that persons can be guilty of being racist even if they,

27:36

I'll put it this way, don't really have a racist bone in their body. Again, I'm not denying oppression.

27:43

What I'm denying is the particular understanding of oppression that comes from these theories.

27:49

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.

28:04

But whereas in critical theory, it sounds like you can't do that because it's almost like an invisible force that is eating dinner with your family, your nuclear family could be oppression, going to your job and working because you are benefiting from some system that allocates privilege to you, supposedly that's oppression.

28:24

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

28:32

SBC convention in 2019. They didn't have one last year, but in 2019, they passed this resolution called

28:39

Resolution 9, 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

28:51

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.

28:59

Travis, could you just tell us what is Resolution 9 very briefly? And then

29:05

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.

29:19

Yeah, absolutely. The episode we did on Resolution 9 is my favorite episode, I think, because he really takes down this idea of a third way with critical race theory.

29:28

And so I definitely recommend people to go watch that one. But when you look at Resolution 9 at the

29:33

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 speak in favor that it can be used in some way.

29:44

And although in some ways it makes some positive statements, it needed further negative statements to say, look, what is this rooted in?

29:52

Which Tom Askell and Tom Buck tried to make an attempt to do. And unfortunately, it was seen as an unfriendly amendment.

29:58

But then it says kind of contradictory statements in the sense of, well, while scripture is sufficient, we can use this as an analytical tool.

30:07

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.

30:17

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.

30:26

And so we don't need critical theory to figure out like microaggressions or something like that.

30:32

We need the word of God. And it's just sad when you look at the SBC and the way it responded to this.

30:37

And 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.

30:45

We can have a little bit of it. And it's unfortunate. Well, the main, the center, the question that keeps popping up with, because this is the statement that I keep hearing is that we're not gonna use it as a worldview.

30:56

Like Professor Trahan, you were saying, critical race theory is a worldview. It's got fundamental assumptions that contradict

31:01

Christianity, that's dangerous. Well, they say, well, hold on, let's put that on hold.

31:07

We're not gonna go to those philosophical assumptions. Let's instead just take the things that we can glean, the analytical tools from it.

31:14

And we can, as Christians use those. What do you say to that, Professor? Oh goodness, there's a lot to say to that.

31:21

And we tried to respond to that particular objection in the video series.

31:27

The first thing I'd say is, it may be incredibly naive to assume that the tools can be separated from the worldview.

31:37

Let's talk about liberation theology again, which is so closely parallel to theology today that is being influenced by critical race theory.

31:46

It's like history keeps repeating itself. The longer I live, the more I see this. Anyway, the

31:54

Marxist theologians in Latin America back in the 1970s, 1980s contended that they could separate what they called

32:03

Marxist analysis from the Marxist worldview. And eventually the

32:09

Vatican itself concluded that was not possible. There's a famous report that was written by then

32:15

Cardinal Ratzinger. He's the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. That's the theological watchdog of the

32:22

Vatican. He later became Pope Benedict XVI, by the way. Anyway, in which liberation theology was pretty roundly condemned.

32:31

But the interesting part for me always was Ratzinger's insistence, you can't separate the one from the other.

32:40

If you try to just bring in Marxist analysis, the worldview is gonna follow it because they're so interconnected.

32:46

So the very idea that one might be able to separate one of these from the other may be fundamentally flawed.

32:53

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?

33:10

Well, I just don't see how you possibly can. Now, the first thing I'd say is that these tools are not worth using.

33:17

Again, as I said at the outset, my principal objection to critical theory, et cetera, is that it's just bad sociological theory.

33:25

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.

33:35

But what analytical tools are we talking about here? Travis just made this point in passing.

33:41

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.

33:56

I'm sorry, that's a part of the worldview. That's a presupposition, yes?

34:01

And it's a highly controversial presupposition and a very nebulous concept, to say the least.

34:08

But in any event, if that's what we mean by using an analytical tool that is separate from the worldview, then

34:14

I think we're talking nonsense because that is a fundamental part of the worldview, that 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.

34:30

But that is part and parcel of what I would call the worldview.

34:36

It's not just a tool. Travis, 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?

34:49

Yeah, so I mean, the first thing that comes to a lot of people's mind is Augustine and his idea of plundering the

34:56

Egyptians and taking the goods from the Egyptians or even John Calvin.

35:01

Which sounds racist. I just have to say, anyway. All these critical theorists who want to justify it by plundering

35:08

Egyptians. I just, anyway, sorry, go ahead, Travis. No, that's funny. Not only that, you have

35:15

John Calvin's all truth is God's truth. Or Justin Martyr, he said, whatever was said rightly among men belongs to us

35:21

Christians, right? So there's these different guys who had these takes on general revelation per se.

35:27

And it's actually, I think I agree with them that since all truth is God's truth, but the problem is, as Professor Treon has already said, critical race theory is just not true.

35:38

It does not rightly do sociological analysis. And so when we look at these things,

35:44

I like to say, and Randy said it in the video, I think it's my favorite line in the whole series. Plundering the

35:49

Egyptians for their gold, the CRT is not really gold, it's fool's gold. It might appear to be good, but it's fake, really.

35:57

It's not gonna be helpful for really dealing with reality and God's world that we live. And as it relates to even that further, going to a specific doctrine, which ends with our last video, the sufficiency of scripture.

36:09

Sufficiency of scripture, it's really important to realize the role of common grace and the noetic effects of sin.

36:16

Because yeah, people get things right in the world without having to necessarily acknowledge the existence of God.

36:23

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.

36:31

It provides, God's grace provides physical provision, intellectual provision, and moral provision.

36:37

So we have, the rain falls on the just and the unjust. Man can know within his heart, even in his conscience will bear him witness that murder is wrong or it's sinful, right?

36:48

Without having to hear the commandment, thou shall not murder. And in addition, intellectual provision, we're not all as wickedly foolish and dumb as we could be.

36:58

There's smart, there's smart lost people. And so common grace is important there, but you have to consider also the effects of sin on the mind.

37:10

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.

37:17

But the difference is when you go to interpreting your observations and trying to prescribe interventions, you cannot do that rightly apart from a

37:24

Christian worldview. You must have a Christian worldview to be able to give proper interpretations of the world and interventions.

37:32

Yeah, that's good. Oftentimes I hear it compared, critical theory in general, compared to like platonic thoughts or Pythagoras or some of these basic mathematical or philosophical ideas that have been ingrained into Western cultures and societies for a long time.

37:48

And so they'll say, Christians were able, even the Apostle Paul was able to glean stuff from platonic philosophy.

37:56

So can't we do the same thing? And what I've thought, and I'd like to get 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.

38:13

These are things that you cannot deny and live in the world

38:18

God's made. These are just fundamental to natural revelation, the world God's put us in.

38:24

They're basic observations based on the sense perceptions God's given us to ascertain and interpret the world.

38:30

Whereas in critical theory, it seems like it's a lot more abstract because these are not, or maybe abstract's not the word

38:40

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.

38:51

These are not fundamental to reality ideas. The idea that systemic racism is embedded in everything is not like two plus two equals four.

38:58

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?

39:07

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.

39:21

Professor Trahan, what do you think of that approach? Are we saying the same thing or is that valid what

39:27

I'm saying? Well, the distinction that you draw is certainly valid. And we're talking about what

39:33

Kant would call analytical propositions, right? Which are true by definition, basically.

39:40

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.

39:53

So philosophy and political science and sociology. Still though, there are valuable insights that can be gleaned,

40:02

I think, from some sociological theories. I can't think of any off the top of my head right now, but I suppose there might be some.

40:11

It's just that my position has been and will continue to be, there are no insights that are yielded by critical race theory that number one, could not be yielded from some other theory.

40:24

And then number two, that are not subject to being called into question.

40:30

Okay, yeah, that's good. Yeah, Travis, any thoughts on that? Yeah, I mean,

40:36

I would just say, I'm really interested in the biblical counseling world as well. The sufficiency of scripture approach versus the integrationist approach.

40:45

I think of Freud, for instance. He made observations of the world, but his interpretations and interventions weren't accurate.

40:52

They might observe that what depression, it can have a physical effect on your body or anxiety.

40:58

It can affect you. There is a medical side of things. We're body and soul. I get that.

41:04

But I didn't necessarily need that science to be able to make that proper interpretation or intervention.

41:11

Yeah, I think that's an excellent analogy. Freud is the perfect analog here.

41:18

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.

41:28

Because 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.

41:42

And there's numerous examples of it out there. Maybe you could give us some, Professor Trahan.

41:47

Where have you seen this playing out in Christian circles? And then what are your concerns about how this is playing out?

41:54

Well, we covered this in the video too in some detail. The point at which

41:59

I asked the question, where do I see critical theory, critical race theory in particular cropping up?

42:05

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 statements that had been made by various Southern Baptist seminary professors.

42:20

Copies of syllabi from courses being taught by Southern Baptist professors.

42:26

Statements being made by, I used the word earlier, luminaries and celebrities, if you want to call them that, in the

42:33

Southern Baptist Convention. All of which have some of the hallmarks of critical race theory.

42:43

Again, systemic racism. There's so many of the leaders in our

42:48

Southern Baptist Convention who take this very controversial idea for granted. I'm thinking of our president right now,

42:55

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.

43:07

And one of the things he said was, it shows us there's such a thing as systemic racism.

43:15

So again, that's just one example, but over and over again, white privilege, that concept, which again,

43:23

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.

43:35

And of course, what we're talking about here, if I'm correct, is searching for a solution to a non -existent problem.

43:44

And that could be a problem, I think on an ethical level, and you're just in mission drift, you're wasting resources.

43:52

What about the fundamentals of the faith? I mean, you mentioned objective truth, we need that.

43:58

The gospel though, do you see this threatening the gospel at all anywhere or the central message of Christianity?

44:06

Well, I will defer to the theologian to answer that question.

44:12

Pastor McNeely. But it depends, of course, in part on how you define the gospel.

44:18

And I have a very, I'll say narrow, but really Orthodox Protestant definition of the gospel, which is that Jesus died to rescue sinners from their sin.

44:31

So again, back to the beginning. Creation, fall, redemption, and restoration.

44:39

Is there anything in critical race theory, at least if we're talking just about the analytical tools that would contradict that?

44:47

I'll let Travis answer that. But before he does, I'll say, there may be some other dangers.

44:54

And that's what I wanna talk about. Not necessarily contradictory of the fundamentals of the gospel properly understood, but incompatible with Christian moral theology.

45:07

And 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

45:19

Jew nor Greek. There is no male nor female. There is no slave or free.

45:25

We are brothers, yes, and sisters. How do you reconcile that idea with the notion that my

45:33

African -American neighbors over here are oppressed, and here I am a white neighbor and I'm an oppressor.

45:40

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.

45:49

That is, some things that might be moral for one group would not be moral for the other.

45:55

So for example, it's moral for the oppressed 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.

46:08

Yes, that is highly problematic from the standpoint of Orthodox Christian moral theology.

46:14

God lays down his standards for everyone, regardless of oppressor or oppressed.

46:20

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

46:28

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?

46:40

So I would say, to answer your question, that it does and it doesn't. And here's how it doesn't.

46:46

The gospel is going to last, period, regardless of what people try to do to it, because God is overall, right?

46:53

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.

46:59

But number two, it's going to affect the way the gospel is able or not to be spread amongst our country and even in international missions around the world through the

47:10

Southern Baptist Convention or any other entities that says they prescribe to the gospel, because they'll distort the message.

47:15

It's going to, like you said, it gives you a bad view of sin and identity. And if you can't get those things right, how are you going to know who you are as well as who

47:24

God is? You can't properly communicate in the gospel, because one thing I remember reading a while back,

47:30

I can't remember where I read it, but it compared, it looked at Ta -Nehisi Coates. I think I said his name right.

47:36

And his view and saying that, like, my group identity is primary, my individual identity is secondary.

47:42

And so how do I ever repent on that view? How do

47:48

I ever repent of wrongs I've done? Do I just continually sob? Do I continually just feel bad and constantly, every time

47:55

I see an oppressed person, 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.

48:06

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.

48:12

We never did anything like that. When is enough enough? And just hearing that cry, it's so sad because people live in this sense of false guilt that's just forced on them.

48:23

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.

48:31

You know, and it's, 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

48:42

I was in Fort Worth. And I remember when the Dallas shootings happened and the five cops were killed.

48:49

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?

48:57

You know, to the black panel members, instead of saying like, 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.

49:09

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.

49:21

And, you know, like he quoted with, or in Galatians 3 .28, but also think of second

49:27

Corinthians 5 .16 and 17. You know, he says, we once regarded Christ according to the flesh. We regard him as thus no longer.

49:33

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. The new has come.

49:39

And that's how we're supposed to recognize each other as new creatures. So why are we going back to the old?

49:44

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.

49:58

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.

50:05

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.

50:11

I'm going to walk around confused, directionless, and really just be a great hindrance. I think to the gospel being spread.

50:17

Yeah, well, that's good. I think the more we unpack, the more we find that critical theory in general contradicts the

50:25

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.

50:49

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.

50:56

This is really my last question is, why right now are we seeing this?

51:03

I think you had mentioned, Professor Trahan, you had seen this in academia, but then when it jumped out of the lab, you were a little surprised at it.

51:12

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.

51:34

In particular, all of the fallout that has followed in the aftermath of police shootings of African -American suspects, which has brought, again, the issue of race back to the

51:47

American consciousness in a way that perhaps it had not been there for a while and perhaps had not been there since the 1960s.

51:56

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.

52:12

And where do they turn? But to the current academic scene, and what do they find there?

52:21

Well, they find critical race theory. Well, I appreciate you guys coming on and talk about this and your bravery.

52:29

I know a lot of people who are in your position have similar concerns, but are afraid to come forward.

52:35

So I appreciate it to both of you. And do you have any final thoughts for anyone before we end the interview and you guys go back to what you were doing before?

52:48

I think I've said my piece. Okay, yeah. I mean, I would just say, you might be on a different spectrum of this journey if you're listening today, and the sense of you have questions about critical race theory or you're unsure of where you stand.

53:03

And so I just wanna encourage people to have an open mind and to really test themselves. There was a point where I would say

53:09

I was probably woke and I experienced white guilt. I felt bad for my black brothers and sisters in Christ for the racial problems that they might face and the conversations they might have to have.

53:23

And I remember all those kinds of things, feeling bad about it. But after a while, it started to break.

53:29

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.

53:37

And then MLK50 conference was kind of like the moment for me of like, whoa, this does not sound right at all, especially the diversity quotas from Matt Chandler.

53:46

And then some things Eric Mason said, Angloid on the inside, might be black on the outside, but Angloid on the inside.

53:52

Those kinds of things, it just didn't sound right. So if you're someone like that, who's listening to the series or listen to John Harris's podcast,

54:00

I just wanna encourage you to have an open mind and really try to study these things for yourself and know why you believe what you believe.

54:06

It's a big driving force for me. Even what I do with my blog or my channel, I just want people to know why they believe what they believe.

54:14

All right. Well, for more information, go to the info section. You're gonna find a link to the

54:20

PDF to sign up to get that. If you wanna go through your small group and then of course the video series that Professor Trahan and then

54:28

Travis McNeely have put out together. Thank you both so much for doing this. Thank you for having us.