This book is the product of many leaders and thinkers who have a capacity for understanding far beyond mine. God wants us to pursue wisdom and decide how we should live. It's hard to do that when we don’t know anything. The book of Proverbs is filled with promises that we see in our lives when we pursue wisdom. The pursuit of wisdom frequently requires us to hear things that we don’t agree with.

In August 2021, my dad asked me to teach a six-week series on some of what is written here. I don’t consider my study of these topics then or now all-encompassing. My understanding of both the Kingdom and Critical Theory is limited. If I am wrong or misguided in anything I have written here, I want to learn from that and grow. As you are reading this, thank you for extending me that grace. I still have much to learn.

In his book Fault Lines, Voddie Baucham recounts the writing of what has come to be known as the Dallas Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel. You can find the statement on the website statementonsocialjustice.com. Many churches and pastors have chosen to add their names as signers to that statement. Our church was  able to use that statement as a template and craft our own.

There are times in history where we must address the elephants in the room of culture. We believe that now is that time. We shouldn’t just address these things individually, but as the Church, as a community of faith. We have an opportunity to do much more than take a stand. We have an opportunity to change the world.

The world seems more broken than ever, more in need of Jesus than ever, more in need of his Church than ever. My prayer is that we will rise to the occasion and God will meet us there.

We must build a better world, but we must also do so with a virtuous worldview. In ancient architecture and engineering, there was one stone that would determine the stability of a building. This stone was called the cornerstone. Cornerstones were the most carefully shaped stones in an entire building project. They were often the largest and most solid as well. They were made as close to perfection as possible and placed in the bottom corner of a house or shop being constructed. The builders would then use that cornerstone and its angles to compare their progress to. If the cornerstone was misshapen, the building would be too. If a building was misshapen, it wouldn’t last.

Our lives are like houses that we are building, and we must first decide what our cornerstone is.

You are coming to Christ, who is the living cornerstone of God’s temple. He was rejected by people, but he was chosen by God for great honor. And you are living stones that God is building into his spiritual temple. What’s more, you are his holy priests. Through the mediation of Jesus Christ, you offer spiritual sacrifices that please God. As the Scriptures say,

“I am placing a cornerstone in Jerusalem,

chosen for great honor,

and anyone who trusts in him

will never be disgraced.”

Yes, you who trust him recognize the honor God has given him. But for those who reject him,

 “The stone that the builders rejected

 has now become the cornerstone.”

And,

“He is the stone that makes people stumble,

the rock that makes them fall.”

They stumble because they do not obey God’s word, and so they meet the fate that was planned for them. But you are not like that, for you are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light.

“Once you had no identity as a people;

now you are God’s people.

Once you received no mercy;

now you have received God’s mercy.”

Dear friends, I warn you as “temporary residents and foreigners” to keep away from worldly desires that wage war against your very souls. Be careful to live properly among your unbelieving neighbors. Then even if they accuse you of doing wrong, they will see your honorable behavior, and they will give honor to God when he judges the world. // 1 Peter 2:4-12

We must live in this world. We are born into the groups and cultures that we are born into. But we are not meant to be citizens of those groups, our countries, or the world itself. We are sent as ambassadors, foreigners who represent a new way of life, with Jesus as our cornerstone. We are meant not to adapt to this world but to show people a better way through our own lives.

“The world has yet to see what God can do with a man fully consecrated to him.” // DL Moody.

The Elephant Statement

INTRODUCTION

For 2000+ years, the Church of Jesus Christ has faced challenges, controversies and shifts in culture. For that same period of time – through every change and challenge – the Church has been a beacon of love, hope and light in the midst of a world that seems far from these things.

There have been, and will always be cultural movements that have great potential to affect the Church. The Church does not exist outside of the culture we live within. However, the Church was not created by people. It was established by Jesus Christ. Therefore the Church is not subject to the direction or whims of culture.

The trends that we see in our world have created topics and subjects that can be difficult to discuss. We call these subjects elephants. In every era, the direction of culture requires two things from the church: grace and truth (John 1:17). We believe that we must speak directly to the elephants in culture. There are times where – like elephants in a living room – some issues become so large and looming that they can no longer be ignored.

We believe that certain values borrowed from secular culture are undermining a biblical worldview. Recent cultural postmodern movements related to race, ethnicity, gender and human sexuality are challenging the Bible’s teaching and perspective. These movements are using the broad and vague term “social justice” to define themselves and challenge the Bible’s teaching. The truth of Scripture must be uncompromisingly asserted to confront, challenge and fight these movements.

This statement is meant to provide clarity and biblical truth related to these elephants that we must address.

However, we must remember the words of Paul in Ephesians 6 //

10 A final word: Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.

11 Put on all of God’s armor so that you will be able to stand firm against all strategies of the devil.

12 For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.

13 Therefore, put on every piece of God’s armor so you will be able to resist the enemy in the time of evil. Then after the battle you will still be standing firm.

14 Stand your ground, putting on the belt of truth and the body armor of God’s righteousness. 15 For shoes, put on the peace that comes from the Good News so that you will be fully prepared.

16 In addition to all of these, hold up the shield of faith to stop the fiery arrows of the devil.

17 Put on salvation as your helmet, and take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

18 Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere.

Our goal is not to solely speak truth, but to walk in grace. Like Jesus. That means that we must agree that our fight is not against people, or even groups. Our fight is against the deceptions and lies of the enemy of our soul. Our responsibility is to follow the Great Commandment and love our neighbor as ourselves. That requires us to treat our fellow human beings with the same grace that God extends to us in the midst of our sins.

And although we fight against evil itself, our enemy is not other people.

However, we take seriously the words of Paul in Colossians 2:8 // “Don’t let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the spiritual powers of this world, rather than from Christ.”

What follows is our attempt to listen to the warning of Paul.

STATEMENT

Derived and adapted from the Dallas Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel and The Nashville Statement

I Scripture and Truth

WE BELIEVE that the Bible is God’s Word, breathed out by him. It is inerrant, infallible, and the final authority for determining what is true (what we must believe) and what is right (how we must live). All claims of truth, behavioral and ethical standards must be tested by God’s final Word, which is Scripture alone. Our worldview and ideologies must be in accordance with Scripture. The beliefs, character, or conduct of a Christ-follower cannot be dictated by any other authority, and we deny that the postmodern ideologies derived from Critical Theory, Social Justice and Critical Race Theory are consistent with biblical teaching or a Kingdom worldview.

SCRIPTURE: GENESIS 2:18-25; PSALM 19:7-10; 1 CORINTHIANS 2:14-15; EPHESIANS 5:22-33; 2 TIMOTHY 3:16-4:5; HEBREWS 4:12; 13:4; 1 PETER 1:25; 2 PETER 1:19-21

II Divine Fingerprint

WE BELIEVE that God created every person equally in his own image. All people have inestimable value and dignity before God and deserve honor, respect and protection. All people have been given a divine fingerprint to leave an imprint on the world. Everyone has been created by God and for God. God-given roles, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, religion, sex or physical condition or any other attribute of a person either negates or contributes to that individual’s worth.

SCRIPTURE: GENESIS 1:26-30; 2:18-22; 9:6; 2 CORINTHIANS 5:17; COLOSSIANS 1:21-22

III Justice

WE BELIEVE that God requires us to live justly in the world. This includes showing appropriate respect to every person and giving to each one what he or she is due. Societies must establish laws to correct injustices that have been imposed through cultural prejudice. The standard of justice is defined by and derived from Scripture, not culture or social constructs. Christ-followers cannot live justly in the world under any principles other than a biblical standard of righteousness and justice. Relativism, socially constructed standards of truth or morality, and notions of virtue and vice that are constantly in flux cannot result in authentic justice.

SCRIPTURE: GENESIS 18:19; ISAIAH 61:8; MICAH 6:8; MATTHEW 5:17-19; ROMANS 3:31

IV God’s Law

WE BELIEVE that God’s law summarized by the Great Commandment (Love God with all your heart, soul and strength and love your neighbor as yourself) and manifested in Jesus Christ, is the only standard of unchanging righteousness. Violation of that law is what constitutes sin. Any obligation that does not emanate from God’s commandments cannot and should not be imposed on Christians as a prescription for righteous living. We deny the legitimacy of any charge of sin or call to repentance that does not arise from a violation of God’s commandments.

SCRIPTURE: DEUTERONOMY 10:4; MATTHEW 22:35-40; MARK 12:28-34; LUKE 10:27; ROMANS 6:14, 10:5; GALATIANS 2:16, 3:10, 12; COLOSSIANS 2:14- 17; HEBREWS 10:1

V Sin

WE BELIEVE that all people are connected to Adam, Eve and original sin defined in the book of Genesis. Everyone is born under the curse of God’s law and all break his commandments through sin. There is no difference in the condition of sinners due to age, ethnicity, gender or any other group status. All people are depraved and stand condemned before God’s law. All human relationships, systems, and institutions have been affected by sin. No person is morally culpable for another person’s sin. Although families, groups, and nations can sin collectively, and cultures can be predisposed to particular sins, subsequent generations share guilt only if they approve and embrace (or attempt to justify) those sins. Before God each person must repent and confess his or her own personal sins in order to receive forgiveness. Legislation and reformation will never cover the sinfulness of humanity. Only repentance will. A person’s perceived group status does not establish any necessary connection to any particular sin.

SCRIPTURE: GENESIS 2:16, 17, 3:12,13-15; PROVERBS 29:18; ISAIAH 25:7, 60:2-3; JEREMIAH 31:27-34; EZEKIEL 18:1-9, 14-18; MATTHEW 23:29-36; ROMANS 1:16-17, 3:23, 5:12, 10:14-17; 1 CORINTHIANS 15:3-11; 2 CORINTHIANS 11:3; GALATIANS 1:6-9; TITUS 1:12, 13; REVELATION 13:8

VI Gospel

WE BELIEVE that the gospel is the divinely-revealed message concerning the person and work of Jesus Christ—especially his virgin birth, righteous life, sacrifice, atoning death, and resurrection—revealing who he is and what he has done with the promise that he will save anyone and everyone who repents of sin and trusts Jesus as Lord. Nothing – including works performed or opinions held – can be added to the gospel without perverting it into another gospel.

SCRIPTURE: GENESIS 3:15; PROVERBS 29:18; ISAIAH 25:7, 60:2, 3; ROMANS 1:16-17, 10:14,15,17; 1 CORINTHIANS 15:1-11; GALATIANS 1:6-9; REVELATION 13:8

VII Salvation

WE BELIEVE that salvation is granted by God’s grace alone received through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone. Salvation cannot be experienced or received in any other way. Salvation does not make Christ-followers free from sin or immune from its consequences in this life. In God’s eyes there is no difference in spiritual value or worth among those who have received this gift of Grace. All Christ-followers are united to each other regardless of age, ethnicity, sex or any other classification. These, or any other classifications do not exclude anyone from understanding the gospel, nor does anyone’s heritage lessen or remove the duty to repent, believe and follow Jesus.

SCRIPTURE: GENESIS 3:15; ACTS 20:32; ROMANS 3-4; EPHESIANS 2:8-9; GALATIANS 3:28-29; 1 JOHN 2:1-2

VIII The Church

WE BELIEVE that the primary role of the church is to worship God through the preaching of his word, teaching sound doctrine, observing baptism and the Lord’s Supper, making disciples, equipping the saints, and evangelizing the lost. When the gospel takes precedence, the problems of culture and society are soothed. Christ-followers can and should utilize all lawful means that God has established to create a better and more just society. We believe that Christians have a responsibility to contend for, and uphold a Kingdom worldview and Judeo-Christian ethics in the cities, states and nations where they live. According to the Bible, we are also to obey the governing authorities established by God and pray for civil leaders. We deny that laws or regulations possess any inherent power to change sinful hearts.

SCRIPTURE: MATTHEW 28:16-20; ROMANS 13:1-7; 2 CORINTHIANS 5, 1 TIMOTHY 2:1-3; 2 TIMOTHY 4:2; TITUS 1:9; 1 PETER 2:13-17

IX Gender / Sexuality

WE BELIEVE that God created Adam and Eve, the first human beings, in his own image, equal before God as persons, and distinct as male and female. The differences between male and female reproductive structures are integral to God’s design for self-conception as male or female. Physical anomalies and/or psychological conditions do not nullify the God-appointed link between biological sex and self-conception as male or female. Ambiguities related to a person’s biological sex do not render one incapable of living a fruitful life and following Jesus. Those born with any disorder of sex development are created in the image of God and have dignity and worth equal to all other people. It is sinful to approve of immorality (homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual), transgenderism, or any other non-biblical definition of sexuality or gender. Such approval constitutes an essential departure from Christian faithfulness and witness. The approval of any kind of immorality is not a matter of moral indifference about which Christ-followers should agree to disagree. Adopting a self-conception that is fluid or contrary to Scripture is inconsistent with God’s holy purposes in creation and redemption. Human sexuality is not a socially constructed concept.

SCRIPTURE: MATTHEW 19:4-6,12; ACTS 15:20, 29; ROMANS. 1:26–27; 1:32; 1 CORINTHIANS 6:9–11, 18-20; 7:1-7; 2 CORINTHIANS. 5:17

X Marriage

WE BELIEVE that God has designed marriage to be a covenantal, sexual, procreative, lifelong union of one man and one woman, as husband and wife. Sin distorts sexual desires by directing them away from the marriage covenant and toward sexual immorality – heterosexual and homosexual. We affirm that God’s revealed will for all people is chastity outside of marriage and fidelity within marriage. God has not designed marriage to be a homosexual, polygamous, or polyamorous relationship. No affections, desires, or commitments ever justify sexual intercourse before or outside marriage; nor do they justify any form of sexual immorality. We further deny that any kind of partnership or union can properly be called Biblical marriage other than one man and one woman in lifelong covenant together. We deny that sexual attraction for the same sex is part of the natural goodness of God’s original creation, or that it puts a person outside the hope of the gospel. An enduring pattern of desire for sexual immorality of any kind never justifies sexually immoral behavior.

SCRIPTURE: GENESIS 1:26-28, 2:15-25, 3:1-24, 4:1, 19:24-28; MATTHEW 19:3-6; ROMANS 8:13; 1 CORINTHIANS 6:9-11; 1 TIMOTHY 1:10; TITUS 2; JUDE 7

XII Race / Ethnicity

WE BELIEVE God made all people from one man. Though people often can be distinguished by different ethnicities and nationalities, all are equals before God in both creation and redemption. Christ-followers should not segregate themselves into racial groups or regard racial identity above – or equal to – their identity in Christ. “Race” is not a biblical category, but rather a social construct that often has been used to classify groups of people in terms of inferiority and superiority. Any divisions between people groups have no legitimate place in the Church. All that is good, honest, just, and beautiful in various ethnic backgrounds and experiences can be celebrated as the fruit of God’s grace. All sinful actions and their results (including evils perpetrated between and upon ethnic groups by others) are to be confessed as sinful, repented of, and rejected. We reject any teaching that encourages racial groups to view themselves as privileged oppressors or entitled victims of oppression. While we are to weep with those who weep, we deny that a person’s feelings of offense or oppression necessarily prove that someone else is guilty of sinful behaviors, oppression, or prejudice.

SCRIPTURE: GENESIS 1:26–28; ACTS 17:24-26; 1 CORINTHIANS 13:4-7; 2 CORINTHIANS 12:16-18

XII Culture

WE BELIEVE that some cultures operate on assumptions that are inherently better than those of other cultures because biblical truths inform those worldviews. All people belong to larger social groups and cultures. Those cultures help shape us, but they do not define us. Elements of a given culture that reflect God’s revelation should be celebrated and promoted. All earthly cultures have features that are sinful – and therefore those sinful features should be rejected. Whatever evil influences to which we have been subjected via our culture can and must be overcome through repentance and the training of both mind and heart through biblical truth. All individuals and sub-groups in any culture are able, by God’s grace, to rise above whatever moral defects or spiritual deficiencies have been engendered or encouraged by their respective cultures.

SCRIPTURE: ROMANS 1:18-32; EPHESIANS 4:17-24; COLOSSIANS 3:5-11

XIII Racism

WE BELIEVE that racism is a sin rooted in pride and malice which must be condemned and renounced by all who seek to honor the image of God in all people. Such sinful prejudice or partiality falls short of God’s will and violates the Great Commandment. We affirm that virtually all cultures at times contain laws and systems that foster racist attitudes and policies. Treating people with sinful partiality or prejudice is inconsistent with following Jesus. We deny that only those in positions of power are capable of racism, or that individuals of any particular ethnic group are incapable of racism. Systemic racism is incompatible with the core principles of historic Christian convictions and Scripture. We deny that the Bible can be legitimately used to foster or justify partiality, prejudice, or contempt toward any ethnicity. We deny that the church has any deliberate agenda to elevate one ethnic group and oppress another.

SCRIPTURE: GENESIS 1:26-27; DEUTERONOMY 10:17; ACTS 10:34; ROMANS 2:11; EPHESIANS 6:9; GALATIANS 3:28; JAMES 2:4

XIV Love and Grace

WE BELIEVE that any battles we fight are not with human beings who are created in God’s image. Our battle is with forces of evil and spiritual darkness. All people have sinned and fall short of God’s standards for living. The goodness of God leads all people to repentance and following Jesus. In the eyes of God there is no sin worse than another sin. God’s love has the power to cover every sin that every human being commits. It is our duty to speak the truth in love at all times. The free gift of God’s grace both pardons us and transforms us into a new person by changing the way that we think first. The grace of God gives us the power to put to death all of our sinful desires and live a life worthy of our calling. God’s grace enables us to forsake immorality and unbiblical self-conceptions and accept his design of our biological sex and Biblical self-conceptions of male and female. The grace of God does not sanction self-conceptions, ideologies and narratives that are at odds with Scripture. Jesus came into the world to save us all from our sin. And through Christ’s death and resurrection, forgiveness of sins and eternal life are available to every person who repents of sin and follows Jesus. We affirm that God’s grace and mercy are sufficient for all of our weaknesses. As Christ-followers we have a requirement and responsibility to forgive anyone who sins against us, just like we have been forgiven. We believe that God’s gift of Grace grants all people the ability to receive salvation from the consequences of sin. We also believe that the truth of Jesus and Scripture, spoken in love, bring freedom to all people.

SCRIPTURES: ROMANS 3:23-26; 8:13, 12:1-2; 1 CORINTHIANS 13; 2 CORINTHIANS 12:9; EPHESIANS 4:15, 6:12; COLOSSIANS 3:3-6, 13; 1 TIMOTHY 1:12-17

When confronted by evil, Kingdom people extend forgiveness. Many of the family members of the nine people slain by Dylann Roof at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, showed up to court to express their forgiveness. Brandt Jean, whose brother Botham was killed by Amber Guyger – a white police officer – in Dallas, hugged Guyger in the courtroom while extending his forgiveness.

I cannot understand this myself. It's incomprehensible. How can a relative of someone who was murdered be so magnanimous? It is miraculous. This is the purest, most fundamental Kingdom response to injustice. Forgiveness. It can be impossible to comprehend. But once we experience it, there can be no denying it. This is what God invites us into when he makes us a part of his Kingdom.

In 1972, Holocaust survivor and author of The Hiding Place Corrie ten Boom told this story:

It was in a church in Munich that I saw him, a balding heavyset man in a gray overcoat, a brown felt hat clutched between his hands. People were filing out of the basement room where I had just spoken, moving along the rows of wooden chairs to the door at the rear.

It was 1947 and I had come from Holland to defeated Germany with the message that God forgives.

It was the truth they needed most to hear in that bitter, bombed-out land, and I gave them my favorite mental picture. Maybe because the sea is never far from a Hollander’s mind, I liked to think that that’s where forgiven sins were thrown.

“When we confess our sins,” I said, “God casts them into the deepest ocean, gone forever.”

The solemn faces stared back at me, not quite daring to believe. There were never questions after a talk in Germany in 1947. People stood up in silence, in silence collected their wraps, in silence left the room.

And that’s when I saw him, working his way forward against the others. One moment I saw the overcoat and the brown hat; the next, a blue uniform and a visored cap with its skull and crossbones.

It came back with a rush: the huge room with its harsh overhead lights, the pathetic pile of dresses and shoes in the center of the floor, the shame of walking naked past this man. I could see my sister’s frail form ahead of me, ribs sharp beneath the parchment skin. Betsie, how thin you were!

Betsie and I had been arrested for concealing Jews in our home during the Nazi occupation of Holland; this man had been a guard at Ravensbrück concentration camp where we were sent.

Now he was in front of me, hand thrust out: “A fine message, fräulein! How good it is to know that, as you say, all our sins are at the bottom of the sea!”

And I, who had spoken so glibly of forgiveness, fumbled in my pocketbook rather than take that hand. He would not remember me, of course – how could he remember one prisoner among those thousands of women?

But I remembered him and the leather crop swinging from his belt. It was the first time since my release that I had been face to face with one of my captors and my blood seemed to freeze.

“You mentioned Ravensbrück in your talk,” he was saying. “I was a guard in there.” No, he did not remember me.

“But since that time,” he went on, “I have become a Christian. I know that God has forgiven me for the cruel things I did there, but I would like to hear it from your lips as well. Fräulein” – again the hand came out – “will you forgive me?”

And I stood there – I whose sins had every day to be forgiven – and could not. Betsie had died in that place – could he erase her slow terrible death simply for the asking?

It could not have been many seconds that he stood there, hand held out, but to me it seemed hours as I wrestled with the most difficult thing I had ever had to do.

For I had to do it – I knew that. The message that God forgives has a prior condition: that we forgive those who have injured us. “If you do not forgive men their trespasses,” Jesus says, “neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses.”

I knew it not only as a commandment of God, but as a daily experience. Since the end of the war I had had a home in Holland for victims of Nazi brutality.

Those who were able to forgive their former enemies were able also to return to the outside world and rebuild their lives, no matter what the physical scars. Those who nursed their bitterness remained invalids. It was as simple and as horrible as that.

And still I stood there with the coldness clutching my heart. But forgiveness is not an emotion – I knew that too. Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart.

“Jesus, help me!” I prayed silently. “I can lift my hand. I can do that much. You supply the feeling.”

And so woodenly, mechanically, I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to me. And as I did, an incredible thing took place. The current started in my shoulder, raced down my arm, sprang into our joined hands. And then this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes.

“I forgive you, brother!” I cried. “With all my heart!”

For a long moment we grasped each other’s hands, the former guard and the former prisoner. I had never known God’s love so intensely as I did then.

And having thus learned to forgive in this hardest of situations, I never again had difficulty in forgiving: I wish I could say it! I wish I could say that merciful and charitable thoughts just naturally flowed from me from then on. But they didn’t.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned at 80 years of age, it’s that I can’t store up good feelings and behavior – but only draw them fresh from God each day.

Maybe I’m glad it’s that way. For every time I go to Him, He teaches me something else.

“So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up. Therefore, whenever we have the opportunity, we should do good to everyone—especially to those in the family of faith.” // Galatians 6:9-10

I must remind myself that if doing good was easy, I wouldn’t grow weary. For such a time as this, God has put us on the planet. He knew exactly where and when you and I were going to be born. And maybe he saw us as worthy enough to help bring the Kingdom to earth right here, right now. Perhaps we are uniquely created to be in the room with the elephants we find now. Elephants will always be in the room.

We’re supposed to talk to them. We’re supposed to talk about them. We’re supposed to show these elephants the truth. This doesn’t make the elephants go away. They are ever present, but it helps us learn to live with them. If we must live together, let’s learn how. We both can learn things along the way. Knowing what we know, how can we speak to the elephants in the room?

First, we must commit to reason, logic, civil debate, and free and open inquiry in the pursuit of truth. We must advocate for freedom of speech, association, and religion. For everyone, not just certain groups. Not “inclusion” that eliminates debate and free speech. We must be gracious and civil. We must give other people the benefit of the doubt. It's time for keyboard warriors to retire. We must believe the best in others. We want justice, so we must work together for it.

Second, we must be tolerant and civil. We must have respect and compassion for those who do not share our worldview. Not “diversity” that doesn’t allow us to disagree. One of our mantras should be “quick to listen, slow to speak.” We must seek to learn and understand first. Don’t listen to respond; rather, listen to listen. Ask for God’s help to respond to an opponent with love, compassion, and kindness. Don’t give up on discussions just because someone else does. We cannot control how people will respond, but we should never be the person to break a relationship. Practice unity, honor, and reconciliation when there has been division.

Third, we must pursue a more equal society. We must ensure that everyone has opportunities to maximize their potential and no one is prevented from them. Not “equity” of outcomes. We must create as many opportunities as possible for people to become their best. But we also must establish standards of performance. Competency matters. So does education. Society only gets better when we raise the bar. And the only way to raise the bar is to celebrate those to exceed the standard. We should reward those who take great pains to maximize their opportunities and exceed established standards. We can pray that people will turn from false beliefs into God’s truth. Our responsibility is to trust in God more than we trust in our own arguments or ideas. We also must be active in politics and society. We must engage the problems we face with biblical solutions. That’s the reason the Church exists.

Fourth, the most equal and just societies are built on Judeo-Christian ethics. We must not forsake biblical values and traditions within our civilization. Christ-followers must be active and involved in their nation’s direction. Run for local office, help to set policies. Start a company guided by biblical values. Those of us who are ambassadors for the Kingdom should take our place to shape the society we live in. We should build countries that are reflective of the values we claim to hold. We must stand for biblical truth, principles, and definitions. And we must do so openly and publicly, not just in our churches or small groups.

Fifth, we must place primary importance on how each person’s individual choices affect everyone. This includes the importance of moral choice, character, and responsibility. We must assess people according to their character, not according to what groups they belong to.

Finally, we must speak the truth in love.

Love requires both grace and truth. Grace gets us saved, but truth sets us free. We must affirm God’s truth, not the subjective truth of the culture in which we live. But we must also affirm this truth in a graceful way.

These ideologies and worldviews can make the world seem complex and overwhelming. I love what Theodore Roosevelt said: “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” Resolve to do your best in your personal world, with your family. That’s all any of us can do. Roosevelt left off one sentiment that I like to add:

“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are,” and let God worry about the rest.

We are human, but we don’t wage war as humans do. We use God’s mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments. We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God. We capture their rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ. // 2 Corinthians 10:3-5

Either way, Christ’s love controls us. Since we believe that Christ died for all, we also believe that we have all died to our old life. He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them. So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now! This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!” For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ. // 2 Corinthians 5:14-21

Our goal as those with a Kingdom worldview is not to become anti–Critical Theory. The Church is known enough for what we are against. It’s not enough to state what we’re against. We must also be able to make a stand for what we are for. We have a war to fight, but it’s not us versus them. The Kingdom is not zero-sum. Everyone is supposed to win together. Fighting this war requires the wisdom of God himself. We speak the truth to false arguments and destroy the obstacles that keep people from knowing God. And we do this with the mission to make them citizens of the Kingdom.

Jesus was faced with the same challenge in Matthew 9:35-38:

Jesus traveled through all the towns and villages of that area, teaching in the synagogues and announcing the Good News about the Kingdom. And he healed every kind of disease and illness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were confused and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. He said to his disciples, “The harvest is great, but the workers are few. So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send more workers into his fields.”

The word “compassion” used there is a long Greek word, σπλαγχνίζομαι – splanchnizomai (splank-niz-o-mai). This word means to “suffer alongside” someone else, as I mentioned earlier. This word is frequently used to mark how Jesus feels about people. When Jesus saw people going through difficulty, he got down and suffered alongside them. That’s humility. That’s Kingdom.

We must destroy arguments. We must take all these thoughts captive to obey Christ. But we must have compassion on people. That is how we all can win.

Think about people who really do believe that all the world has been created to victimize them. They’ve been told that they cannot win in life. The whole world is against them. It was from the start, and it always will be. They’re in a minority group, they’re oppressed. All of society has been created to oppress them. There’s really nothing they can do until their group becomes a majority group. Put yourself in such a person’s shoes. This is the weight Critical Theory puts on people. The worldview itself is oppressive.

This oppressive worldview is attractive and engaging for a reason. It is designed to entice. “I am not surprised! Even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11:14).

Smart, educated, gifted and talented people will fall for these things. It is easy to fall into that trap. The trap of Critical Theory is particularly sinister. The “lifelong work” of overthrowing oppression and problematizing will lead to more oppression, not less.

What do people who experience deep pain need? What do we need when we feel like the whole world is against us? What do people who have been deluded into believing a solution that only creates more problems need? Compassion.

Imagine this: you’re walking through the desert and are desperately thirsty. All you have been given is a shot glass full of water. You are carrying this glass of water carefully because you can’t waste a drop. You come upon a beautiful oasis with what seems to be an endless stream of fresh cool water. It’s so cold and refreshing in this oasis that the Coca-Cola polar bears are hanging out in there. To access the spring, you’ve got to set down your little cup, but you’re afraid to do so.

Critical Theory is a shot glass of water. The Kingdom is the oasis.

The people who need the Kingdom the most are the same people who are fighting so hard to go in the opposite direction. The Bible teaches us that every person is created in God’s image. Every life, regardless of group membership, has worth, value, meaning and purpose. God wants everyone to win because he created all of us. We don’t need to destroy each other. We need to repent of our own personal wickedness and come to God together so he can help us practice unity, honor, and reconciliation to all people.

Kingdom people are people who know that God wants everyone to win in life. They build atmospheres of unity. Atmospheres of honor. Atmospheres of reconciliation. Kingdom people believe the best in all people – especially when the worst has been displayed. Kingdom people give the gift of grace, regardless of a person’s identity. Kingdom people create a place where people can belong. Kingdom people are faithful friends who are ambassadors of the Kingdom, who speak the truth in love to the people that they love. They are activists who fight to build a better world and love people while doing it.

As long as human beings have existed, we have tried to figure life out. There will always be elephants for us to talk about. The Kingdom will face bluff charges. Kingdom people understand this and embrace the tension of navigating the gray areas and confronting the bluff charge.

One time, the disciples asked Jesus how to talk to God, and he said this.

Pray like this:

“Our Father in heaven,

may your name be kept holy.

May your Kingdom come soon.

May your will be done on earth,

as it is in heaven.

Give us today the food we need,

and forgive us our sins,

as we have forgiven those who sin against us.

And don’t let us yield to temptation,

but rescue us from the evil one.”

If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins. // Matthew 6:9-15

Kingdom people pray that God would bring his Kingdom to earth. They want the will of God, and they are reliant on God. Kingdom people still sin, but Kingdom people also repent for their sins. Not just to God but to those they sin against. Kingdom people don’t hold grudges or look for ways to overthrow their oppressor. Every form of oppression they experience is an opportunity for forgiveness. Jesus gives us the privilege to be like him, to say to the world, “The Spirit of the LORD is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free” (Luke 4:18).

What is the best way forward? We must live like Jesus. We must ask him for help to live exemplary lives that are an example for all those we meet. There’s not a one-size-fits-all solution. You exist to be the light in your world. And guess what? You get to decide what your light looks like. The only requirement is to make sure it shines bright.

“You are the salt of the earth. But what good is salt if it has lost its flavor? Can you make it salty again? It will be thrown out and trampled underfoot as worthless. You are the light of the world—like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand, where it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father.” // Matthew 5:13-16

We can’t individually control who is in the majority and who is in the minority. What CT advises us to do is to define ourselves according to our relationship to oppression. Our intersectionality. Our identity comes from the groups we belong to and their relationship to oppression. Both the groups we belong to and their relationship to oppression are outside of our control.

None of us got to choose from a skin color menu when we were born. For that matter, membership in most groups, oppressed or otherwise, is not by choice. Gender expression may be a choice, but sexual orientation and gender identity don’t seem to be, according to science. Our intersectionality, and thus our positionality, is defined by our membership in groups that we didn’t decide to be in. If we are in oppressive groups, we must make amends for the sins of these groups. If we are in oppressed groups, we must overthrow our oppressors.

What does the Kingdom say? The only things that matters are the things we can control. Why? Because God is taking care of all the things we can’t control.

Take some time and make a list of what you can control. Write it down. Now make a list of all the things that you can’t control right next to it. What we discover doing this exercise is that there is very little about our experiences that we control. No matter how long you worked on your list, it probably had some permutation of three things. Your thinking, your attitude, and your actions. Think. Be. Do.

We have a choice between option A and option B. Option A, presented by Critical Theory, says that the definition of our identity is in what we cannot control and our relationship to it. Option B, the Kingdom option, says the definition of our identity is what God has given us to control and what we choose to do about it.

Remember, in Romans 12:2 God wants to change us into a new person by changing the way that we think. And when we think like God wants us to think, we will learn to know how to live a good life. If you want to live a great life, think like God wants you to think. The power of your thinking isn’t just a biblical concept. Great thinkers have known since the beginning of time that we become what we think about.

“Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.” // Marcus Aurelius

“A man is as unhappy as he has convinced himself he is.” // Seneca

Understanding the dichotomy of control is simple but difficult to live out. The human default is to blame everything on external circumstances outside of our control, which, not incidentally, are also our greatest sources of anxiety. Critical Theory asserts that we can one day control that which is uncontrollable. If we fight hard enough and scream loud enough, we will be able to control the systems of society in the way that we want.

In contrast, the Kingdom says that there’s no use fighting to control those things. God is controlling them anyway. So which worldview do we want?

worldview

justice

toolkit

tools

Jesus tells us that we will know what is good and bad based on fruit: actions and the results of actions.

“Beware of false prophets who come disguised as harmless sheep but are really vicious wolves. You can identify them by their fruit, that is, by the way they act. Can you pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? A good tree produces good fruit, and a bad tree produces bad fruit. A good tree can’t produce bad fruit, and a bad tree can’t produce good fruit. So every tree that does not produce good fruit is chopped down and thrown into the fire. Yes, just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions.” // Matthew 7:15-20

What is the fruit of Critical Theory? Hate, anger, bitterness, frustration, destruction, dismantling, overthrow.

What is the fruit of the Kingdom? Galatians 5:19-25 gives us the fruit of the Spirit.

“When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God.

But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!

Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there. Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives. Let us not become conceited, or provoke one another, or be jealous of one another.”

There are plenty of worldviews out there, but only one will produce this kind of fruit.

Whenever a hostile, nonbiblical worldview gains widespread influence in a culture, pressure is exerted on the Bible-believing church. Historically, the church responds in one of three ways:

• It conforms itself to the reigning ideology by jettisoning orthodox biblical teaching in an attempt to align itself to the core presuppositions of the emerging ideology. This is typically motivated out of a desire for self-preservation. The belief is that unless we conform to the reigning worldview, the church will be marginalized and weakened.

• It accommodates the reigning ideology, often unintentionally. The new ideology changes culture so rapidly that it washes over Christians without their full awareness and begins to infiltrate their thinking. There isn’t necessarily a conscious choice to abandon orthodox Christianity, but over time, as one assumption after another of the new ideology is embraced, biblical orthodoxy slowly erodes.

• It resists the reigning ideology. It sees the threat with open eyes and responds by holding fast to orthodox biblical teaching, no matter the cost. In many cases, resistance leads Christians to disengage from the broader culture, particularly when it comes to educating their children. Resistance leads to open confrontation with the broader culture. (Allen, Why Social Justice Is Not Biblical Justice: An Urgent Appeal to Fellow Christians in a Time of Social Crisis (p. 94).

Christianity has been confronted by worldview challenges before. The rise of the Nazis in Germany in the ’20s and ’30s put massive pressure on the Church. Most German churches conformed and accommodated themselves to the Nazi worldview, some going as far as displaying the swastika throughout their churches. The Nazi Party would write messages and sermons for the pastors of these churches to teach, and these pastors taught them. In contrast, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his “Confessing Church” movement resisted openly, paying for their resistance with their lives. Critical Theory, at this point, does not have the same sense of danger that Nazism did 100 years ago. But then again, neither did Nazism before the start of World War II.

There are churches and church movements throughout America who have been more than willing to embrace and accommodate Critical Theory. Some have no doubt unwittingly chosen the second option.

Many pastors and leaders have a tendency to choose the third option: to become inwardly focused and disengage from culture, to respond to activism with silence. This is not what Jesus asks of us.

The Kingdom response is not to escape the world. Make no mistake – this is a war. It has always been. But we must be reminded of who our war is with.

“For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.” // Ephesians 6:12 NLT

We must embrace this conflict. There is no choice.

“Those who let the culture, a political ideology, popular opinion, or any other extrabiblical source define ‘justice’ for them will soon find that Scripture opposes them. If they are determined to retain a perverted idea of justice, they will therefore have to oppose Scripture.” // John MacArthur

Justice is being defined every day through what we watch, what we learn and what we teach. We don’t have the option to be disengaged. We must embrace Kingdom activism. That’s what Jesus did. We should write laws reflective of Kingdom perspective. We should elect school boards and local, state and federal governments that have a Kingdom worldview. We should campaign for a society that is based on Judeo-Christian ethics. These things will not happen unless we actively participate in the society we are living in and bring our worldview with us.

The Messiah, according to Jewish tradition, was supposed to be a political revolutionary. He was supposed to overthrow the oppression that the Jews found themselves in. His war would not be just a war of words but a war of reform and overthrow.

Jesus himself said in Matthew 10:34-39:

“Don’t imagine that I came to bring peace to the earth! I came not to bring peace, but a sword. ‘I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. Your enemies will be right in your own household!’ If you love your father or mother more than you love me, you are not worthy of being mine; or if you love your son or daughter more than me, you are not worthy of being mine. If you refuse to take up your cross and follow me, you are not worthy of being mine. If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give up your life for me, you will find it.”

We must look at the life of Jesus. How were these words translated into action? He was an activist. He was a revolutionary. Kingdom revolution is not human revolution though. What was the revolution of Jesus? How did he change the world? Love, humility, and self-sacrifice. That’s the sword that divides all of us in two. Giving up our rights to our pain, prejudices, and justifications for the Kingdom. That’s the hardest thing we could ever do, to lose our humanity for the sake of something better.

Jesus brought a war but not the kind of war that people expected. They weren’t freed from oppressors or tyrants or emperors. They were freed from their own humanity. What is a Kingdom war? It’s a war with ourselves. This war starts in our own heads and our own hearts. We must allow God to change our hearts and our thinking. We must become a new creation entirely from the inside out. We must fight within ourselves and give up our life for the cause of Kingdom revolution. We are activated for this cause. We are sent on this mission. We are ambassadors from the Kingdom to the Earth. Unity. Honor. Reconciliation – of all people, back to their Creator and each other.

The state of society does reflect the oppressor. But the oppressor is all of us.

Critical Theory would tell us that this is a zero-sum game. Someone has to win, and someone has to lose. Someone must be oppressed, and someone must be the oppressor. The worldview is hopeless. There is a vicious cycle of oppression and overthrow that never ends. Once the oppressors are overthrown, who becomes the new oppressor? Those who were formerly oppressed.

True change requires heart transformation. We must civically participate. We must advocate for a more fair and just society. But the starting point is the heart. The state of the world reflects us, so we must allow God to fix us. Once we are fixed, we bring a Kingdom revolution: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control, humility, and self-sacrifice.

The war against ourselves and the war against the “mighty powers in this dark world” require Kingdom tactics.

In Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life, Rule 6 is “Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world.” Peterson gives us great perspective. He says this about Hurricane Katrina:

When the hurricane hit New Orleans, and the town sank under the waves, was that a natural disaster? The Dutch prepare their dikes for the worst storm in ten thousand years. Had New Orleans followed that example, no tragedy would have occurred. It’s not that no one knew. The Flood Control Act of 1965 mandated improvements in the levee system that held back Lake Pontchartrain. The system was to be completed by 1978. Forty years later, only 60 percent of the work had been done. Willful blindness and corruption took the city down. (Peterson, Jordan B., 12 Rules for Life (p. 154).

A hurricane is uncontrollable, but hurricane preparation is certainly controllable. Difficulty and suffering are some of the common things that define the human experience. They are unavoidable. Life is hard. Our difficulties come at the hands of disease, people, and inevitable things outside of our control. When these things happen, we experience the injustice of situations that we can’t control. But what about the bad decisions we make, our sins and self-inflicted damage?

Critical Theory starts with a critique of the world. The issue in CT is uncontrollable. Injustice is because of oppressors who have created a system that oppresses people. It asserts that if we could just control all of society better, the world would be fixed. The problem is not us; it is everything except us. Applying Critical Theory is like trying to control the weather. No matter how hard we try, we most likely will make little progress.

Kingdom asserts that the problem with the world we live in is us. Our greatest pains are self-inflicted. Until we change that, there will be no progress. Are we taking full advantage of our opportunities? Have we forgiven those who have sinned against us? Do we have good habits that are helping us to be healthy? Are there things that we could do to make the world around us better? Are we doing those things? How well are we doing at controlling what we can control?

Are you currently doing things you know to be wrong? If your answer is yes, worry about that, and then worry about the system. Peterson advises, “Don’t reorganize the state until you have ordered your own experience. Have some humility. If you cannot bring peace to your household, how dare you try to rule a city?” (155).

The evil in the world is decreased when we decrease our personal evil. The Kingdom requires us to deal with the logs in our own eye, not the specks we see in others’.

Critical Theory tells us to commit ourselves to the lifelong struggle of antiracism, dismantling oppression, and overthrowing oppressors. Never forgive, never forget. The Kingdom tells us to commit to a different kind of lifelong struggle, the lifelong struggle against self. St. Francis of Assisi says, “Sanctify yourself and you will sanctify society.”

How should we sanctify ourselves? What is the lifelong commitment to getting our own house in order? Where do we start?

We must start by learning, living, and teaching a Kingdom worldview. The odds are that we don’t currently have one. It’s simple to start to develop a Kingdom worldview. Read the Bible. Start in John, read the rest of the New Testament, then read the Old Testament. Each one of us has to determine to allow God’s word to change us from the inside out before we start worrying about the state of the world. If we don’t allow God to transform us internally according to his word, then there is slim to no chance that anything changes externally in the world.

Setting your house in order is like the story of the boy and a fence. A boy once lived with his family in a small village. He was a troublemaker and frequently found himself in trouble in the village. His father, worried for his son's reputation and the way things were headed, took him aside one day.

"My son," he said. "The school has tried and failed to help you. Your friends and family have given you their best. Your mother doesn't know what to do anymore. I can see that when you get punished you lash out even more, so I'm asking you a favor: Every time you hurt someone, whether I hear about it or not, go to the fence and put one nail in. That's all."

The boy agreed and over the weeks he did as he was asked. Every time he'd get in a fight, steal, or cheat, he'd go out back and put a nail in the fence. At first, he saw these nails as trophies; he was glad to put a nail in and he did so frequently. He enjoyed it. As the months went by, he started seeing that the fence was getting filled with nails and his attitude changed. The fence had begun to look unsightly. A once beautiful painted fence was now dotted and cragged by uneven nails. This caused him to look at himself and realize how many times he could've done differently, how his own reputation appeared like that fence. He decided in his heart that he would change.

A month later, his father approached him. "My son, I've noticed you haven't put a single nail in my fence all month. Why have you stopped?"

"Because the fence looks dreadful and, besides, I would run out of room," the boy said. "So, I made an effort and I stopped causing trouble."

"That's good,” the father said. “Now I want you to go do one good deed a day. Every time you apologize or you help someone, I want you to use the hammer but this time to take one nail out of the fence and put the nail back in the box. And don't leave the hammer outside so it doesn't rust."

The young man did what his father asked. Little by little, he helped people, made amends with those he hurt in the past, took a nail out for each good deed, and made sure the hammer wouldn't be left out to rust. When the fence was cleared, he went to see his father, proud of his effort.

"Father, there are no more nails in the fence," he said. They went out back to observe and repaint the fence.

"Good for you, my son. But look at the fence. It's still full of holes. I want you to remember this. Although you've taken out every single nail from the fence, you will never be able to remove the holes you've made in the fence. This is why it's important to try not to put in any nails in the first place."

Setting our house in order is simple. But simple ≠ easy.

He's got the whole wide world in His hands

He's got the whole world in His hands

He's got the whole world in His hands

He's got the little bitty baby in His hands

He's got the little bitty baby in His hands

He's got the little bitty baby in His hands

He's got the whole world in His hands.

This song is easy for children to remember. It’s easy for adults to forget.

Critical Theory makes no room for “God’s plan” for the world. CT, just like Marxism, denies the existence of a higher authority than the system. The oppressor is the highest authority in the land, and we must remove them.

The Kingdom is not opposed to the removal of oppressors, but it teaches us that there is a higher authority than the government – God himself. Not the president or the bourgeois. Those who oppress are subject to this authority. Those who are oppressed make their appeals to this higher authority.

Romans 12:19 implores us not to take our own vengeance but to leave injustices in God’s hands. In Romans 8:28, Paul offers another reminder: “And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.”

The Kingdom admonishes us:

Praise the LORD!

Let all that I am praise the LORD.

I will praise the LORD as long as I live.

I will sing praises to my God with my dying breath.

Don’t put your confidence in powerful people;

there is no help for you there.

When they breathe their last, they return to the earth,

and all their plans die with them.

But joyful are those who have the God of Israel as their helper,

whose hope is in the LORD their God.

He made heaven and earth,

the sea, and everything in them.

He keeps every promise forever.

He gives justice to the oppressed

and food to the hungry.

The LORD frees the prisoners.

The LORD opens the eyes of the blind.

The LORD lifts up those who are weighed down.

The LORD loves the godly.

The LORD protects the foreigners among us.

He cares for the orphans and widows,

but he frustrates the plans of the wicked.

The LORD will reign forever.

He will be your God, O Jerusalem, throughout the generations.

Praise the LORD!

// Psalm 146

Our hope is not in the government, the system, allies, oppressors, or the oppressed. Our hope should be in God himself. He created us, and he created the world. He – and we – will win. The plan of God for us, and for the world, is good.

If we want to fight people, we shouldn’t choose the Kingdom. A Kingdom worldview is a license to have God’s peace within ourselves. It is not a license to go to war with other people. Religions fight holy wars. The Kingdom is much more than that.

For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of what we eat or drink, but of living a life of goodness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. If you serve Christ with this attitude, you will please God, and others will approve of you, too. So then, let us aim for harmony in the church and try to build each other up. // Romans 14:17-19

The Kingdom is goodness, peace, and joy. The ambassadors of the Kingdom bring these things wherever they go. Those with a Kingdom worldview can focus on goodness, peace, and joy because we know that God is taking care of everything we can’t control.

Critical Theory and other worldviews are frequently emotional, neurotic and hypersensitive. They paint a picture of “us against the world.” They behave as if they’re a small army who has shown up to a battle against a large army, with no reinforcements and no option for retreat. Fear, uncertainty, doubt. Like the bluff charge of an elephant, they’re asserting dominance, preparing for the real attack.

A Kingdom worldview says, “God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline” (2 Timothy 1:7). Therefore, a bluff charge doesn’t concern us. We must stand our ground but do so with a spirit of love and self-control. What about when the bluff charge turns into a real attack? That’s another open secret of the Kingdom. The real attack was already stopped by Jesus 2,000 years ago. The only way to lose is to run away from the bluff charge. If we stand our ground, the bluff charge stops.

“Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.” // Philippians 4:7

How can we have peace? Because the ultimate victory is already won. We have a power that transcends our humanity. Romans 8 tells us that the same power that raised Jesus from the dead exists inside of us when we become a part of the Kingdom.

“For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.” // 2 Timothy 1:7 ESV

We don’t live in fear of culture when we are in the Kingdom. We have power that transcends cultural pressure. Because of our power, we can control ourselves during a bluff charge and stand our ground. Because of love, we can speak the truth and be graceful towards every person we encounter.

The world is full of FUD: Fear. Uncertainty. Doubt. We’re often uncertain about outcomes. We doubt if things are going to work out, and we’re often afraid of the things we can’t control. But humans are also social beings. Regardless of our level of introversion or extroversion, we want cultural approval. We want to be accepted by the people that we value. Most of the things we do and say are done so that we are “in” with the right group. The reason we buy the products we buy, wear the clothes we wear, drive the car we drive and listen to the music we listen to is so that we can be in the “right” group. Some people refuse to drive minivans because they don’t want to be associated with the type of person that drives minivans. Advertising and marketing for all the products we buy and services we use is geared toward letting us know what groups we should seek to belong to.

The food in advertisements always looks better than the real thing. There’s an entire industry around advertising food. Food stylists are hired to make food look good for ads. Fruit in commercials looks shiny, but it’s never that way when we take it home. That’s because food stylists will spray fruits and vegetables with hairspray or deodorant to give them a shine. The best syrup is the kind in the pictures. It never seems to absorb all the way into the pancakes like the syrup at restaurants. That’s because food stylists use motor oil instead of maple syrup, as well as spraying the pancakes with a water repellent that prevents them from absorbing liquid.

In the real world, cereal soaks up milk and sinks to the bottom. There’s an easy fix for that in the ad world. Replace the milk with white glue, and the cereal will stay put. Rotisserie chicken ads don’t show fully cooked chicken. Raw chicken is cooked for a few seconds, then painted and stuffed with paper towels to increase volume. Burgers and steak aren’t cooked; they are seared with a blow torch and grill marks are added with shoe polish. Cardboard is used to separate cake layers. Mashed potatoes often play the role of ice cream. Soda bubbles are caused by antacids, and tweezers place sesame seeds on buns ever so carefully.

In advertising, it doesn’t matter if something is good; it only matters if it looks good.

Advertising reflects the culture we live in. We can often be more interested in our reputation than in our character. A lot of people focus on the appearance of real rather than realness itself. We claim to be individuals, to think for ourselves, but we embrace things that destroy our individuality.

Christians are no different. We buy books, go to conferences, and align with networks for the purpose of being in the room with certain people. Young church leaders often see leadership positions as career moves. The Church has become a force in culture itself. Some norms within the Church are like food advertisements. It looks good, but don’t get too close. And don’t take a bite! It might be made of plastic.

Considering this cultural conflict, the easiest option for those of us who follow Jesus is to nod our heads and submit to the atmosphere around us. We have an option to become cultural thermometers. Thermometers don’t cause conflict, and they don’t work that hard. They passively respond to ambient temperatures. But we also have another option: to become cultural thermostats. Thermostats have to work. They cause conflict. They’re not passive. They actively change the temperature of the room they are in.

Critical Theory tells us that everything must be destroyed and dismantled so that we can end oppression and start over. The Kingdom doesn’t tell us to maintain the status quo either. It shows us that there must be a reckoning. The Kingdom has always been counterculture. The Kingdom worldview is confrontational to human defaults. It always has been and always will be. And those who become citizens of the Kingdom will frequently find themselves estranged from culture.

If we’re going to embrace this worldview, it will cost us cultural acceptance. For Jesus, that is a worthy price.

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it. And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul? For the Son of Man will come with his angels in the glory of his Father and will judge all people according to their deeds.” // Matthew 16:24-27

We are asked to relinquish our humanity. Relinquish our earthly citizenship. Embrace a new life in the Kingdom. There’s an open secret to this worldview. The Gospel of Jesus is the most attractive thing on the planet. If we can live out a Kingdom worldview, we create a new world. A world that not only looks good, but it feels good and tastes good too. A world where the experience is even better than the commercial.

This wasn’t a lunch to discuss the Supreme Court decision though. This was a simple get-together and catch-up. I’m the young man in the room. I look at this pastor and my dad as OGs. They’re free to discuss whatever they want and I’m just glad for the free lunch. I’d rather eat my sandwich and not talk about it, especially with people 20+ years my senior. I prefer Abraham Lincoln’s approach: “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.”

However, that option was not available to me at this lunch. My dad, knowing full well that I had absolutely zero desire to engage in this conversation, turned to me and said, “Josh, what do you think?” My dad’s pastor friend looked at me and said, “We can’t allow this type of thing to take hold in the church, can we?”

My response was “Well, I’m willing to be wrong, but let me give a thought. Let’s say that we’re not going to allow people to be a part of the church based on which sins are in their life. That’s pretty much what we are talking about here, right?”

The pastor said, “Well, kind of, but more that we should not make allowances for sin. We can’t look at sin and say it's ok.”

“Absolutely agree,” I said. “So what we should do is start with the things that God says he hates. Because the Bible has lists of the things that God hates.” I pulled out my phone.

“In Proverbs, there’s seven things that God hates: ‘eyes that are arrogant, a tongue that lies, hands that murder the innocent, a heart that hatches evil plots, feet that race down a wicked track, a mouth that lies under oath, a troublemaker in the family’ (Proverbs 6:16-19 MSG). Then God says in Malachi, ‘“I hate divorce,” says the GOD of Israel. GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies says, “I hate the violent dismembering of the ‘one flesh’ of marriage.” So watch yourselves. Don’t let your guard down. Don’t cheat’ (Malachi 2:16).”

“The Bible doesn’t say that God hates homosexuality; it says that he hates divorce. If we’re going to talk about who is allowed to be here and who is not allowed to be here, I think we should start there. There was a time in church history where people who got divorced were no longer allowed to attend church. If we’re going to take a strong stance on one sin, we should most certainly take one on the things God hates. But then we’d probably have 10 people left in our churches, and they would all be liars.”

My dad liked my answer. I’m not sure the other pastor did. We haven’t gone to lunch together since.

The Kingdom works differently than the world. It always has. From time to time, we all must be reminded of that. We all have preferences and prejudices. CT tells us that the only time those things are “bad” is when they are used to oppress. Kingdom says our preferences must be submitted to God’s preferences. God doesn’t see issues, sins, gender, and sexuality like we do.

For a long time, and still today, many Christians have enmity towards divorce and “sexual sin.” Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote The Scarlet Letter in 1850, and although it’s a novel, the response of the Puritans in that book was true to life. In more recent history, the church has responded the same way to divorce as they did in the 1800s to adultery. Divorced people have been fired, removed from leadership positions, or excommunicated by churches. I have a good friend whose wife left him after she had an affair. The church that they had attended together, where he and his kids had deep friendships and relationships, where he ministered and spoke banished him. Not because he was complicit in a divorce but because divorce disqualifies you from ministry in their perspective. Forever.

When I was growing up and traveling with my dad, I would be asked to leave churches he was speaking at because I was wearing a hat, and wearing a hat is “disrespectful” in God’s house. I’m pretty sure there isn’t a biblical reason for that. When they found out my dad was preaching, they couldn’t make me leave, but I saw other people kicked out for wearing a hat or for the unforgivable sins of sagging pants or having an untucked shirt. I’m sure that “cleanliness is next to godliness” lady would have loved it.

In John 8:1-10, Jesus is speaking when religious people bring a woman to him. Can you imagine? You’re in the middle of a conversation and someone you don’t know drags another person you don’t know right up to you? These religious people were trying to trap Jesus. They tell Jesus that the woman was caught in the act of adultery and that the law of God said she needed to be stoned to death. Interesting. How was she caught?

The way they talked to Jesus and the language they used makes it clear that these men are making a legal claim, like a DA would do today. The law then, just as now, required proof to charge someone with a crime. These men possessed all the evidence the law required to convict her. Open-and-shut case. The law required strong testimony from two witnesses who saw the couple in a sexual context. Things like lying in the same bed, unmistakable body movements, and positive identities. The two witnesses had to see these things at the same time and place so that their testimonies would be identical. Such evidence virtually required the witnesses to set a trap. When they caught her engaging in adultery, it was potentially an intentional trap, one that would lead to her death. The guy she was engaged with? I’m not sure where he went; obviously wherever cowards go in situations like this.

What does Jesus do? He says nothing. He stoops down to write in the sand with his finger. We don’t know what he wrote, and we don’t know how long he wrote for. But it must have been a while because verse 7 says they “kept demanding an answer.” I’ve heard it said that he wrote a list of all their sins. There’s no evidence of that. There’s also no evidence that he didn’t do that.

We do know what he did next. The accusers demanded an answer. He stands up and says, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone.” Some translators say “without the same sin.” The accusers each walk away, starting with the oldest. I imagine they dropped the stones they had picked up as they went.

Jesus looks at the woman and says, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?” “No, Lord,” the woman says, and Jesus, the son of God – the creator of all the rules this woman had broken – says to her, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.”

Isn’t her sin problematic to the Kingdom? Isn’t the Kingdom’s perspective on sin problematic to her? Yes. Sin is the problem, and the grace of God is the solution. Jesus didn’t condone her sin. He didn’t approve of it, but he also didn’t condemn her.

The Kingdom doesn’t condone our sin, but it doesn’t condemn us sinners.

Discussing gender and sexuality, even without a biblical context, is fraught with peril. The objective truth of Scripture says that sin of any kind is wicked. Pure evil. Not just homosexuality. Go back and review your checked boxes. Romans 1 alone has 24 different kinds of sin listed, including that of “invent[ing] new ways of sinning.” That’s kind of like being able to wish for more wishes. Even the invention of sin is ruled out. In Romans 14, Paul also tells us that if we think something might be sinful, then it is. There’s no getting around how infected we are by sin.

The aversions that we feel in culture are often preference and prejudice related. We must be careful about conflating what we are averse to and what God is averse to.

Maybe one of the reasons it is so hard for people to discuss gender and sexuality is the discomfort we have about it. How much of our response to the LGBT+ community has to do with discomfort that has been hardened into condemnation?

Divorce is no longer an aversion for many Christians. For years, the divorce rate of Americans has hovered around 50%. This seems to be declining with the increase in cohabitation as more millennials and Gen Zers abandon marriage entirely. Abandoning marriage is also a sin issue. A friend of mine recently asked me to come to his house and pray a blessing. He and his girlfriend had just had a baby and were moving in together. I told my friend that he was welcome to pray his own blessing over his home, but I was unable to. I told him I could once he decided to do his relationship God’s way. Cohabitation is not God’s way, and neither is homosexuality.

Does that mean that we should take my sarcastic advice? Start removing people from our lives because of their sins? We shouldn’t if we claim to be citizens of the Kingdom. God doesn’t deal with sin lightly, but every sinner – us included – is given a chance to be new.

The Kingdom says there is absolute truth. There is absolute morality.

Critical Theory says it’s subjective, and if anyone judges you as immoral, they are oppressing you.

Paul reminds us in Romans 2 that we all do these things. We are all wicked, we are all immoral, we are all incapable of good without God. None of us are truly moral. Matthew 7:1-5 is worth repeating.

“Do not judge others, and you will not be judged. ² For you will be treated as you treat others. The standard you use in judging is the standard by which you will be judged. ³ And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own? ⁴ How can you think of saying to your friend, ‘Let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,’ when you can’t see past the log in your own eye? ⁵ Hypocrite! First get rid of the log in your own eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye.” // Matthew 7:1-5

There is the Kingdom and there is the world. The world tells us that judging others is acceptable and even preferred. In Critical Theory, judgment is required. If we are in an oppressed group, we must judge the sins of others as oppressive. If we are in an oppressive group, we must judge our own sins. It is not kindness that turns us from our sins but judgment and problematizing. CT tells us to judge others as oppressors or oppressed and overthrow them if necessary. CT tells us to judge ourselves as oppressed or oppressors and then dismantle and disrupt or lament and make reparations.

In the Kingdom, the judgment of others is not our responsibility. For any reason. There’s too much wrong with us to have time to judge anyone else. The Kingdom gives us no right to judge or condemn another person. The Kingdom tells us that God created each person and he is going to judge them. Not us. That’s what Jesus said to the Pharisees in John 8, that’s what he said in Matthew 7, and that’s what he says to us today.

Yes, there are stands we must make. The Bible makes no room for a spectrum of gender or a choice of gender. God created people male and female. The Bible admonishes homosexuality as sinful. This is absolutely true. God also makes no room for liars, or gossips, or those who cannot forgive, or any form of immorality. Jesus said in Matthew 5:28 if we look at someone with lust in our heart, we have already committed adultery. I don’t have same-sex attraction and I am cisgender. That still doesn’t preclude me from being an adulterer.

It's not cisgender vs. non-cisgender. It’s not heterosexuality vs. homosexuality or bisexuality. It's about sin. If we’re looking to throw people in “sin jail,” then we should tell them that we’ll meet them there.

I’ve been asked, as many pastors have, if a person can be gay and be a Christian. Can a person be divorced and be a Christian? Foolish? Greedy? Bitter? Deceitful? Disobedient? Alcoholic? Hypocritical? Jealous? Unforgiving?

It is not my, or anyone else’s, responsibility to decide that. We are incapable of assessing the state of another person’s heart.

“Don’t you see how wonderfully kind, tolerant, and patient God is with you? Does this mean nothing to you? Can’t you see that his kindness is intended to turn you from your sin?” // Romans 2:4

What we all need is not DEI. We need the kindness and the goodness of God in our own lives. Experiencing the kindness of God turns us away from our sin. It turns us from being citizens of America, citizens of our groups and citizens of the world. It makes us citizens of the Kingdom. A Kingdom of truth, yes, but also a Kingdom of grace.

His is a Kingdom where we experience grace that saves us and truth that sets us free.

If we understand this, we embrace it. Jesus said, “Whoever has been forgiven much loves much, whoever has been forgiven little loves little” (Luke 7:47). Those who cannot express empathy and kindness are those who don’t realize how much has been extended to them. A person who loves knows that their heart was once deceitful and desperately wicked. They speak the truth, but they do so with kindness.

God wants us to be a completely new creation. When you’re new, you don’t get to be old anymore. There are parts of all of us that we must abandon for the sake of the Kingdom. There are some things we must leave behind and some things that we must kill. Without the Kingdom there is only wickedness, and we must allow everything that is not of the Kingdom within us to end.

⁵ So put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you. Have nothing to do with sexual immorality, impurity, lust, and evil desires. Don’t be greedy, for a greedy person is an idolater, worshiping the things of this world. ⁶ Because of these sins, the anger of God is coming. ⁷ You used to do these things when your life was still part of this world. ⁸ But now is the time to get rid of anger, rage, malicious behavior, slander, and dirty language. ⁹ Don’t lie to each other, for you have stripped off your old sinful nature and all its wicked deeds. ¹⁰ Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him. ¹¹ In this new life, it doesn’t matter if you are a Jew or a Gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbaric, uncivilized, slave, or free. Christ is all that matters, and he lives in all of us.

¹² Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. ¹³ Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. ¹⁴ Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony. ¹⁵ And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful. // Colossians 3:5-15

Kingdom requires full metamorphosis. Complete, universal, and all-encompassing change. Where Critical Theory seeks to change the world, Kingdom seeks to change us so that we can change the world. The Kingdom is not affirming of non-binary definitions of gender. Nor is it affirming of any intimate relationships not based in a heterosexual marriage. It is also not affirming of people who judge other people’s sin.

KHT (Kingdom heart transformation) and UHR (unity, honor, reconciliation) give us standards. CRT and DEI do as well.

Kingdom is personal, individual. We don’t join the Kingdom and then get to attack those who aren’t in the Kingdom. This is not that type of Kingdom. The Kingdom response is graceful and truthful.

I’ve heard people say that the Bible does teach us that we can know people by their fruit, the results of their actions. Jesus makes such a statement in Matthew 7:16. We sometimes read this word “know” as “judge.” The word Jesus uses is not about judging and critiquing someone. The word he uses, epiginṓskō (ἐπιγινώσκω), is about knowing and recognizing someone.

In Ephesians 4, Paul tells us to speak the truth in love. Jesus himself came in grace and truth. We discussed both earlier, but they bear repeating here. We can know a person by their fruit and still make them feel loved. It’s hard to make people feel loved as we judge and critique them.

How can I know I’m speaking the truth in love? When I connect with someone before I correct them. When you’re tempted to tell someone the truth about their issues, ask yourself this question: “Does that person know I love them?” If the answer is yes, then with all empathy, love, and grace, speak the truth to them.

Theodore Roosevelt said it, and we all know it: “People don’t care about how much you know until they know about how much you care.”

As for gender and sexuality and how the Church is supposed to address that, the Church is at its best when we all strive to act like Jesus. To act like Jesus means that we walk in grace and truth. We speak the truth in love. To be the Church means that we listen to Jesus and work on ourselves first. We put our own house in order and let God worry about those who have a speck in their eye. Our beam is going to take our whole life to remove.

Billy Graham said, “It is the Holy Spirit's job to convict, God's job to judge and my job to love.” Grace is loving. Truth is loving. I agree with Billy Graham. Judging and convicting aren’t our job. We would do well to heed his advice.

Let’s look at 14 verses from Romans 1 in context.

¹⁸ But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness. ¹⁹ They know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them. ²⁰ For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.

²¹ Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused. ²² Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools. ²³ And instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they worshiped idols made to look like mere people and birds and animals and reptiles.

²⁴ So God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other’s bodies. ²⁵ They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen. ²⁶ That is why God abandoned them to their shameful desires. Even the women turned against the natural way to have sex and instead indulged in sex with each other. ²⁷ And the men, instead of having normal sexual relations with women, burned with lust for each other. Men did shameful things with other men, and as a result of this sin, they suffered within themselves the penalty they deserved.

²⁸ Since they thought it foolish to acknowledge God, he abandoned them to their foolish thinking and let them do things that should never be done. ²⁹ Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, quarreling, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip. ³⁰ They are backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful. They invent new ways of sinning, and they disobey their parents. ³¹ They refuse to understand, break their promises, are heartless, and have no mercy. ³² They know God’s justice requires that those who do these things deserve to die, yet they do them anyway. Worse yet, they encourage others to do them, too. // Romans 1:18-32 NLT

Verse 26 and 27 of Romans 1 make it clear that “women turned against the natural way to have sex and instead indulged in sex with each other” and “men did shameful things with other men” in a sexual way.” [BH1] I had to find it in there among all those other sins he described, but it’s there. For those of us who now feel that we have the moral high ground, Romans 2 has news for us. These are the verses immediately following Romans 1:32:

¹ You may think you can condemn such people, but you are just as bad, and you have no excuse! When you say they are wicked and should be punished, you are condemning yourself, for you who judge others do these very same things. ² And we know that God, in his justice, will punish anyone who does such things. ³ Since you judge others for doing these things, why do you think you can avoid God’s judgment when you do the same things? ⁴ Don’t you see how wonderfully kind, tolerant, and patient God is with you? Does this mean nothing to you? Can’t you see that his kindness is intended to turn you from your sin? // Romans 2:1-4

Let’s take a look at Romans 1 again. Paul makes a list of all the things God is mad about. Why don’t we each put a check mark next to the ones that personally define us. Feel free to check your own next to my boxes.

• Idolaters – people who put anything above God in their life. ☒ ☐

• Homosexuals – people who have same-sex attraction and relations. ☐ ☐

• Foolish people – people who don’t make good decisions. ☒ ☐

• Wicked people – those who do not live according to a Kingdom worldview. ☒ ☐

• Sinful people- those who make mistakes on purpose. ☒ ☐

• Greedy people – people who think about themselves first. ☒ ☐

• Hateful people – people who think about or treat people badly on purpose. ☒ ☐

• Envious people – people who are jealous of other’s success. ☒ ☐

• Murderous people – people who kill someone with premeditated malice. ☐ ☐

• Quarreling people – people who stir up issues and strife. ☒ ☐

• Deceptive people – people who lead others to false conclusions. ☒ ☐

• Malicious people – people who intend to hurt others. ☒ ☐

• Gossipers – people who talk about people who are not in their presence. ☒ ☐

• Backstabbers – people who betray people’s trust. ☒ ☐

• Haters of God – people who hate God (self-explanatory). ☐ ☐

• Insolent people – people who are arrogant and insulting. ☒ ☐

• Proud people – people who think they are better than other people. (If you didn’t check this one, you’re not paying attention.) ☒ ☐

• Boastful people – people who celebrate their own wins. ☒ ☐

• Sin inventors – those who find ways to make mistakes on purpose that aren’t listed. ☒ ☐

• Disobedient to parents – people who neglect or refuse to obey their parents. ☒ ☐

• Refuse to understand – stubborn and closed-minded people. ☒ ☐

• Promise breakers – people who break their commitments to each other. ☒ ☐

• Heartless – people who are unwilling or unable to love others. ☒ ☐

• Unmerciful – people who are cruel, not willing or able to forgive. ☒ ☐

Wait, hang on. I thought Paul was talking about “those people.” Not me. But when I go down this list, there’s only three boxes that I didn’t check. Everything else applies to me. This is not good. Paul, that’s enough, you can stop now. I feel bad enough. I was hoping to use these verses to attack someone else, but now I’m realizing that I am the problem.

Paul keeps going though. Romans 1 is just the appetizer. Romans 2 is the main course. Since we judge other people for doing these things, God will also judge us for the things that we do. We do the same bad things as the people we are trying to judge for doing bad things.

Paul does give us a spoonful of sugar to make the medicine go down. He reminds us of how patient, kind and tolerant God is towards us. That God’s kindness is the thing that turns us from our sins – our mistakes we make on purpose.

We may understand this conceptually but not practically. Especially in relationship to gender and sexuality. We know how Critical Theory responds to oppressed groups: destroy, dismantle, overthrow. It's the same everywhere. The oppressed do not sin in the world of Critical Theory. There’s no room for everyone’s wickedness. Only the oppressor is wicked. If you’re in the oppressed group, the good news is that you’re not wicked. If you’re of the oppressor class, you’re wicked. No ifs, ands, or buts.

This is not Kingdom though. Kingdom always brings us back to the heart. Not the heart of another person but our heart. We can make as strong of a stance as we like biblically on sexuality or gender, but while we’re making that stance, Jesus said this in Matthew 7 .

“Do not judge others, and you will not be judged. ² For you will be treated as you treat others. The standard you use in judging is the standard by which you will be judged. ³ And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own? ⁴ How can you think of saying to your friend, ‘Let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,’ when you can’t see past the log in your own eye? ⁵ Hypocrite! First get rid of the log in your own eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye.” // Matthew 7:1-5

Who is God mad at? Some of us? All of us?

Dr. Brittany runs a counseling practice in Frisco, Texas, called Mind & Heart Counseling, and her preferred area of focus is sex therapy. I had the opportunity to sit down with Dr. Brittany and record a conversation with her on gender and sexuality. She is an expert in the field and provided me with a lot of data so I could write this chapter. I encourage you to watch that video here.

There are a few key things mentioned in that conversation that I’m going to use as jumping-off points:

• All known data points to the fact that the dysphoria many people experience attached to gender and sexuality is not a choice.

• The Bible gives no indication of whether a person’s gender or sexuality is a choice.

• There are three separate elements that work together within us to create our gender and sexuality. Gender identity, sexual orientation, and gender expression. These things are not the same; they are unique and distinct components of each person.

Dr. Mark Yarhouse (one of Dr. Brittany’s teachers) is the Hughes Endowed Chair and Professor of Psychology at Regent University in Virginia Beach, Virginia. He has written two easy-to-understand books on the topic of Christianity, gender and sexuality. Homosexuality and the Christian and Understanding Gender Dysphoria are must-reads for anyone looking to do a deep dive on Scripture, gender and sexuality.

One of the reasons why CT/CRT sees Christianity as so oppressive relates to the two problematics discussed in chapter 6.1. Many Christians hold a definition of gender and sexuality that is cisnormative and heteronormative. Such an idea is oppressive to modern ideals – according to the CT worldview.

There is significant intersectionality related to Christianity. Critical Theory asserts that it is sexist and heterosexist and represents religious oppression.

The Human Rights Coalition dedicates an entire web page to the “fact” that the Bible actually doesn’t have a lot to say on the subjects of sexuality and gender. Its position is that the Bible is more concerned with being in a loving, faithful and monogamous relationship. Regardless of sex or gender, that is “God’s way.”

Gaychurch.org has a search function to find churches near you who are affirming of nontraditional definitions of gender/sexuality. When people talk about churches being “affirming,” they are asking if that church is more than just accepting of their attendance or membership. The “affirmation” of CT is the practice of DEI: diversity, equity, and inclusion.

What does DEI in the church look like in relation to sexuality and gender?

Diversity: There is no biblical definition of sexuality or gender. We should embrace the truth that gender and sexuality are social constructs and encourage each group’s expression of identity: transgender, homosexual, bisexual, pansexual, etc.

Equity: Allow those who are LGBT+ to serve in all ministry capacities. We must ensure that all expressions of gender, sexuality and identity have equal “church-life” outcomes: marriage, leadership positions, membership, platform and so on.

Inclusion: No one is allowed to speak on LGBT+ topics as sinful or immoral. Only those who identify as LGBT+ Christians can conduct discussion and speak on such topics. We should not allow anything in the church or church life that could be deemed offensive to LGBT+ groups.

“The evangelical church...supported the status quo. It supported slavery; it supported segregation; it preached against any attempt of the black man to stand on his own two feet,” Skinner would say. He went on to recount how he had worshipped a “white Jesus” that had been presented to him throughout his life. A Jesus that was white and polite. A Jesus that followed all the rules and wanted us to do the same. Skinner presented his new, revelatory version of Jesus as an activist, a social revolutionary in every sense. Stating that any gospel that does not “speak to the issue of enslavement...injustice...and inequality” is not the gospel, Skinner asserted that the systems that worked against Jesus were the same systems of power that worked against the oppressed in society today. “Jesus was dangerous, he was dangerous because he was changing the system.” According to Skinner, Jesus was killed because he was trying to change a system that oppressors didn’t want changed.

This has come to be known as liberation theology. Tom Skinner’s perspective on Jesus is just one example. Skinner was influenced by the theologian and author James Cone. Liberation theology teaches that Jesus’ mission was not primarily spiritual. Jesus meant to set people free not just from their spiritual bondage but from all forms of bondage faced by marginalized groups in society. Jesus’ liberation from captivity is political, economic, social, and spiritual. Therefore, the focus of this theology is identifying problematics and liberating groups oppressed by them. Liberation theology is best summarized as a mixture of the ideas of Critical Theory with the stories and perspectives of the Bible.

Liberation theology argues that the whole of Christian teaching and theology should be reconstructed along the “axis of the oppressor and the oppressed,” according to one of its fathers, a Peruvian priest named Gustavo Gutierrez. Liberation theology is itself a subset of an approach to theology called liberal theology.

The word theology simply means “the study of God.” In the world of theology, like politics, there is a spectrum of ideas. There are two primary camps – one conservative and one liberal – though these don’t necessarily coincide with politically conservative or liberal views.

Liberal theology is biblical interpretation through a postmodern worldview.

Liberal theologies are those that incorporate modern social or political movements into their doctrine and teaching. Liberal theology seeks to modernize the Bible and Christian teaching and teaches that the Bible is not fully sufficient for Christian living. Liberal theological teaching can often include progressive social stances.

Conservative theologies are often called “fundamental.” Conservative theology often sees Scripture and its doctrines as direct challenges to social or political movements. Conservative theology places an emphasis on the sufficiency of the Bible for Christian living. Conservative theology is often engaged socially but does not embrace progressive social viewpoints.

Here is a comparison between liberal and conservative theology:

Liberal theology says that Scripture is not infallible, inerrant, or sufficient.

Liberal theologians teach that Scripture can be wrong historically. It can also be wrong socially and otherwise. The Bible is a product of its time and is not a perfect document. Thus, it is important that the Bible is recontextualized and reframed in the context of modern society. The Bible serves as a guide for morality but is not to be taken literally.

Conservative theology is about sola scriptura.

Conservative theologians teach that the Bible is the only thing necessary to equip us to live the life that God designed us for. It is also infallible and inerrant. This does not mean the entire Bible or its approach to history should be taken literally. There is a difference between literal and figurative interpretation. We must use wisdom in assessing what is literal and what is figurative. Overall, conservative theology looks to the words of Paul in 2 Timothy 3:16-17: “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

Liberal theology says that there were and are no “supernatural” miracles of Jesus or anyone else.

Liberal theologians teach that the virgin birth of Jesus did not happen, and he most likely didn’t physically rise from the dead. The miracles of Jesus are allegorical and not factual. Jesus was a moral teacher and a great man, but his followers most likely exaggerated his miracles to give greater weight to his life.

Conservative theologians believe that the life of Jesus and the miracles described in Scripture are factual.

Conservative theologians assert that the virgin birth of Jesus did happen. That he was fully God and fully man. They teach that Jesus is much more than a moral teacher or a great man. He healed the sick, raised the dead, died on a cross and physically rose again after three days.

Liberal theology often subscribes to Universalism, the belief that Hell is not real.

Liberal theologians often have a tough time reconciling the idea of an omniscient, omnipotent God sending people to a place called Hell. If God knows everything, then why would he create people to send them to hell?

Conservative theology believes in the utter depravity of humanity.

Even though God created us, we are born with a wicked heart that wants to do evil. If we never accept the gospel of Jesus, we will find ourselves eternally damned after our death to a place called Hell. If we embrace Jesus, we will find ourselves in Heaven with him.

Liberal theology embraces subjective truth.

Liberal theology and Critical Theory agree that the concept of truth is a subjective social construct. Therefore, the “truths” of Scripture must be reinterpreted subjectively based on cultural progress. It is good enough to pursue what we believe to be socially good and do our best to live according to our personal interpretation of Scripture. People are mostly good how they are, where they are. God didn’t create objective standards for us to live by. Instead, he asks us to embrace the concept of moral goodness. Not grace + truth, just grace.

Conservative theology presents Scripture as bedrock and unchanging truth.

Conservative theology teaches that Scripture’s demands of us and its definitions of sin and morality are not subjective based on cultural “progress.” We must allow God to change our entire nature from the inside out to become who he has destined us to become. Yes, there is always grace for our sins, but we must also consider the objective truth of Scripture when defining what is sinful.

The difference between these two is vast. Liberation theology – the kind Kendi’s parents responded to – sits firmly in the camp of liberal theology. These theologies embrace the concept of problematics within the church and seek to reform them as well. They overtly embrace CT and postmodern ideology.

In relation to sexuality and gender, there are two problematics within the Bible and Christianity.

1. The biblical depiction of gender is cisnormative.

2. The biblical picture of marriage and sexuality is heteronormative.

I am often asked this question by people new to our church: “Are you affirming?”

It is important to understand liberal and conservative theology because of what that means in relationship to sexuality and gender and Christianity. In this context, to be affirming means to have a liberal theology related to gender and sexuality, to practice DEI towards those who are not heterosexual or cisgender.

CRT and KHT both admit the problems of oppression and racism. But they approach the solution from radically different perspectives based on the worldviews they are attached to.

CRT starts with the system. KHT starts with the heart.

CRT says that the fundamental issue facing us is the normalization of oppression. Everything about society, from its discourse to its laws, is oppressive for minority groups. The first and primary thing we must do is dismantle and remake the system in a more equitable way.

KHT admits the errors in the system. There are systems of oppression that always have and always will exist in society. Why? Because the primary players in society are humans. And the innermost part of humans – their heart – is the most wicked thing on the earth. There is no hope for a good person, much less a good society, without a radical heart change.

CRT is about reformation. KHT is about transformation.

CRT says the only way change can happen is the dismantling of the discourses and norms of society. Ibram X. Kendi advocates for an antiracist constitutional amendment to establish and fully fund the Department of Antiracism (DOA), to be

“comprised of formally trained experts on racism and no political appointees. The DOA would be responsible for preclearing all local, state and federal public policies to ensure they won’t yield racial inequity, monitor those policies, investigate private racist policies when racial inequity surfaces, and monitor public officials for expressions of racist ideas. The DOA would be empowered with disciplinary tools to wield over and against policymakers and public officials who do not voluntarily change their racist policy and ideas.” (1)

CRT says that if we can get the right people in place, we can reform society in such a way that prevents oppression.

KHT also believes that reformation must happen. We should write better laws. We should have moral and integrous leaders. We should build a better world. But these things don’t just happen. The only way to build a better world is through individualized and personal heart transformation. God must create in each one of us a clean heart. Our hearts of stone must be removed so that we can live a life that follows the model of Jesus. KHT is all about transformation. We don't deconstruct and dismantle and destroy society from the outside in. We change it from the inside out. And that requires us to change from the inside out.

CRT is built on critiquing, overthrowing and reforming what already exists. KHT is built on metamorphosis – an entire change into something completely new.

CRT is critical in both its name and its approach. It is meant to critique and reform something that already exists. CRT is focused on doing the same things we’ve always done but doing them in a different or seemingly better way. We should start society all over again. But this time, let’s try harder and, if we do our best, we can make progress. Those who aren’t inclusive will be censured. Those who haven’t treated people equitably will be discriminated against. Those who don’t celebrate diversity will be punished. They can’t change, and they won’t change, so they must be destroyed. We must also ensure that, regardless of effort or ability, everyone experiences a fair and equitable outcome in as many situations as possible.

KHT, in contrast, tells us to stop doing it our way. KHT implores us not to conform ourselves to the patterns, systems and cultures of the world but to allow God to transform us into a new person. If God wants to transform us into something completely different, what would the world look like? KHT says that all of us can take this journey. It’s not just for certain people or certain groups. We have all fallen short of God’s plan, but his grace covers that. There is hope for every one of us. We must lay down the music of our race. We must silence the music of our culture. We must silence the music of our politics. We must silence the music of America. We must commit ourselves to play the music of our conductor so that the noise of our humanity doesn’t get in the way of God’s Kingdom symphony.

KHT says that individuals must make their own choices and experience their own outcomes. We must ensure a society of equal opportunity, but equal outcomes are not up to us. Nor is equal outcome preferential. Equity is directly opposed to the parable of the talents in Matthew 25:14-28. The servants in that story were given different talents and produced difference outcomes based on their ability.

Scripture tells us that the way of life that is best is the way of love. Not division according to who is an oppressor and who isn't. Not enemies and enmity. Rather unity, grace, love, honor, transformation and reconciliation. God wants to reconcile all people to him and all people to each other. That’s the task of a Kingdom ambassador: reconciliation. Unity requires that we love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, more than ourselves and more than our group. Honor and reconciliation require that we love all people in the world the way that God loves them.

We shouldn’t continue to make society in the image of the oppressor. We also shouldn’t remake society in the image of the oppressed. We should allow God to remake us, and then watch how he changes the world through us.

CRT says we are oppressed. KHT says we are victorious.

CRT says that we must identify the way in which oppression dominates our daily life. Microaggressions, internalized dominance and hegemony make oppression impossible to escape for the oppressed. The oppressed person has very little power outside of being able to problematize and advocate for allies to join them in their “lifelong work.” The oppressors have always been powerful, and today they are still in power. What those who are oppressed must do is rise up together, eventually in strong enough numbers to overthrow, destroy and dismantle society. Until then, the only choice is to practice grievance and victimhood while hoping for change.

To think of ourselves as victimized, oppressed, or inferior automatically implies that someone is an oppressor or superior. When we call ourselves oppressed, we call someone else an oppressor. The moment we place ourselves in an inferior group, we place someone else in a superior group. This is what 10 out of the 12 spies sent out by Moses did when the Israelites saw the promised land. They saw the inhabitants of Canaan as much stronger than themselves, and they were too intimidated to receive what God had promised them. We too see ourselves as grasshoppers in our own sight; therefore, the “oppressor” must also see us the same way.

In KHT, being oppressed is not an option.

What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us?...Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? (As the Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.”) No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us. // Romans 8:31, 35-38

I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.” // John 16:33

Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place. // 2 Corinthians 2:14 NKJV

But you belong to God, my dear children. You have already won a victory over those people, because the Spirit who lives in you is greater than the spirit who lives in the world. Those people belong to this world, so they speak from the world’s viewpoint, and the world listens to them. // 1 John 4:4-5

In the Kingdom, no one has the right to see themselves as oppressed. Romans tells us that overwhelming victory is ours. 2 Corinthians tells us that God always causes us to triumph. Jesus tells us to take heart in the midst of trouble, because he has already overcome the world. The Spirit of God that lives in us is greater than any we would experience in the world.

CRT is a lie. CRT says there is no winning for the oppressed. The oppressor is just too strong. Look at history. Oppressed people never win. It's hopeless. Why even try? Or just wait. According to recent census data, white people will be the minority in the United States by 2045. What’s another 20 or so years? Maybe that will finally fix the system.

What if, in this era in history, there could be another great awakening? Maybe this generation, this time in history, there can be people that honor and respect each other’s differences. What if we modeled the kind of unity that Jesus prayed for in John 17:

²⁰ “I am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message. ²¹ I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me. ²² “I have given them the glory you gave me, so they may be one as we are one. ²³ I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me.

 What if we modeled reconciliation in all its forms in a way the world has rarely seen? What could God do with these people? What can God do with us?

What could God do with disparate people with disparate experiences? Distinct and contrasting cultures, experiences, giftings and talents – all these musical instruments coming together, used to playing their own music.

He can turn cacophony into harmony and discord into a symphony.

Jeremiah 17 tells us that our heart is the most wicked and deceitful thing, so we must start with our hearts.

In Ezekiel 36:26, God says He "will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart. And I will put my Spirit in you so that you will follow my decrees and be careful to obey my regulations.” In Psalm 51:10, David asks of God “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”

Our hearts are wicked. God wants to change them. But he isn’t going to change them unless we want him to. Kingdom heart transformation is about allowing the way of the Kingdom to invade every part of our lives, including our approach to race and any system or form of oppression we come across.

God works much more organically and relationally than CT or CRT. So KHT is about what we purpose in our hearts to do, much more than “proving” to people that we are going to do the work of the Kingdom through our doctrine. We must start with wanting God to transform our hearts and the hearts of others.

Within the toolbox of CRT is the set of tools we discussed earlier, DEI.

KHT has instead a set of tools called UHR, with which we can practically implement KHT: Unity, Honor and Reconciliation.

Unity: The objective truth of Jesus and Scripture is the primary shaper of our identity. Everything else is secondary.

As citizens of the Kingdom, we must decide and then remind ourselves that the primary shaper of our identity is God himself and the truth of Scripture. Our unity must also be around the objective truth of the life of Jesus, which we should strive to emulate. Jesus’ life is the standard for a good life.

For you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes. There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. And now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham. You are his heirs, and God’s promise to Abraham belongs to you. // Galatians 3:26-29

Once we come into the Kingdom, we put on a new image, new descriptors of ourselves as his children. Paul says that our primary identifier is not race, not socioeconomic status, not gender, but Christ. If we are allowing God to transform our heart, our focus must be on making our identity in Christ our primary identifier, not our groups. I may have this or that group I belong to, like a T-shirt that I wear, but when I put a sweater on, it covers that T-shirt. When we “put on” Christ, we don’t stop being in our groups. But when we put on Christ, our groups are not and cannot be our identity. Groups help shape us, but Christ defines us.

So now you Gentiles are no longer strangers and foreigners. You are citizens along with all of God’s holy people. You are members of God’s family. Together, we are his house, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. And the cornerstone is Christ Jesus himself. We are carefully joined together in him, becoming a holy temple for the Lord. Through him you Gentiles are also being made part of this dwelling where God lives by his Spirit. // Ephesians 2:19-22

We are not immigrants to the Kingdom. We have the rights and privileges of citizenship. We are all in God’s family, and therefore we must keep our focus on him. Regardless of our culture, background, or group identity, Christ is the foundation. This does not mean that our earthly culture doesn’t exist anymore. It doesn’t mean that we don’t vote our values or hold political beliefs. It doesn’t mean that we are all now genderless. Unity simply means that we see all of that as secondary to who we are in Christ according to Scripture. Our primary filter is not conservative or liberal, black or white, gay or straight, rich or poor, southerner or northerner. Our primary filter is who God says we are in his word.

Honor: We respect, celebrate and benefit from the uniqueness of each person’s fingerprint and the experiences and groups that shape them.

The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body. So it is with the body of Christ. Some of us are Jews, some are Gentiles, some are slaves, and some are free. But we have all been baptized into one body by one Spirit, and we all share the same Spirit. Yes, the body has many different parts, not just one part. If the foot says, “I am not a part of the body because I am not a hand,” that does not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear says, “I am not part of the body because I am not an eye,” would that make it any less a part of the body? If the whole body were an eye, how would you hear? Or if your whole body were an ear, how would you smell anything? But our bodies have many parts, and God has put each part just where he wants it. How strange a body would be if it had only one part! Yes, there are many parts, but only one body. The eye can never say to the hand, “I don’t need you.” The head can’t say to the feet, “I don’t need you.” In fact, some parts of the body that seem weakest and least important are actually the most necessary. And the parts we regard as less honorable are those we clothe with the greatest care. So we carefully protect those parts that should not be seen, while the more honorable parts do not require this special care. So God has put the body together such that extra honor and care are given to those parts that have less dignity. This makes for harmony among the members, so that all the members care for each other. If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it, and if one part is honored, all the parts are glad. // 1 Corinthians 12:12-26

I’ve heard my dad, Keith Craft, teach all over the world that each one of us has a unique fingerprint that makes a unique imprint. In his book Your Divine Fingerprint, he gives a correlation. We know that biologically our fingerprint is unique from everyone who ever has been born or will be born. It leaves a unique imprint on everything we touch. This is how God has created us. Our fingerprint is the physical proof of a spiritual truth. We are all unique and special in who we are. And we are meant to leave a special imprint on the world.

Unique and special don’t mean “better than.” Differences are important and amazing. No one ever wants to go into a restaurant with only one thing on the menu. No one wants to go to an ice cream shop to find out they only have one flavor. Some of us grew up filling our cup with every flavor from the soda fountain. Some of us still do. Differences are what make life exciting. Differences are worthy of respect.

The Kingdom’s goal is not to create a homogenous, monoethnic, monocentric society. The goal in the Kingdom is to honor and benefit from all forms of difference. To honor someone or something is to treat them with respect. Another thing my dad has always taught me is that “we don’t honor because they are honorable; we honor because we are honorable.”

Regardless of someone else’s lack of respect or honor towards us, we always have the power to extend the gift of honor and respect to others and their personal greatness.

In the Kingdom, colorblindness is not the aim. When we become citizens of the Kingdom, it is true that we unify around Jesus, but we don’t lose the good things about our gender, race, culture, ethnicity or other qualifiers. Those just become secondary to who we are in Jesus.

Kingdom worldview tells us that we are all created in God’s image. This includes our skin. No one gets to choose their skin color at birth. We didn’t order off the melanin menu. We cannot be colorblind. All of us see color. God created the rainbow in the sky. He created all 18 decillion colors that our eyes can detect. He made us to see color. Our skin represents another kind of rainbow. So do our culture, heritage and the groups we belong to. We’re supposed to see differences in each other, because those are the things we can celebrate and benefit from.

The Kingdom doesn’t deny the existence of groups. Unity says that those groups don’t define us. Honor says that those groups help shape us and are worthy of respect. To honor another person means that we honor the greatness in someone’s melanin, culture, background and experiences. All of them, not just those of the oppressed and not just those of the oppressor. All parts of this body are deserving of honor and value, not just certain ones.

I love Tony Evans’s take on honor as an orchestra. Think of the Kingdom as a massive orchestra. All of us have completely different experiences, abilities and instruments. No instrument in an orchestra is more important than another. When we hear orchestras warming up, everyone is playing their own tune on their instrument. They are playing the way they want to play. This represents the cultures and groups that we can belong to. They all have unique expressions.

When the conductor steps up to the podium, everyone gets quiet and waits to follow his lead. This is God with us. We all have different instruments, but we don’t get to play our own songs. We must play along with the orchestra. We must respect and honor the different gifts that each instrument brings. But we must also not make our instrument the most important one. Every instrument in the orchestra is meant to come together to produce a symphony – something that no instrument could produce on its own.

That’s how honor works. When we honor each other’s uniqueness, we learn to come together to create things that we could never create if we operate by ourselves.

When we honor, we learn to love each other. At the end of 1 Corinthians 12, Paul tells us that there is a “most excellent way.” That is the setup for 1 Corinthians 13, the love chapter, of which verse 1 reads, “If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” Perhaps I’m a saxophone, you’re a violin. We don’t sound like each other. But when the conductor steps up and we play his music, we find ourselves in harmony with each other.

When we play our own music, we make noise; when we play God’s music with others, we make a masterpiece. This is honor. This is different than DEI. It’s not about celebrating and encouraging each other’s humanity. This is about laying down our human way and choosing God’s way together.

Reconciliation: We exchange hate for love and evil for good. We fight to be in right relationship with God and others and help other people do the same. Read these words from Paul.

Either way, Christ’s love controls us. Since we believe that Christ died for all, we also believe that we have all died to our old life. He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them. So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now! This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!” // 2 Corinthians 5:14-20

First, we must be unified around Christ and die to our own ways. Then, we can stop evaluating others through our human filters. Bias, prejudice, discrimination, oppressors and oppressed. Finally, we get to help other people become the same. We become ambassadors for the Kingdom. We are sent out as model citizens to help people become citizens themselves.

Being an ambassador from a country is a special honor. A United States ambassador is the president’s top representative to another nation. Ambassadors have a high level of prestige and respect. For many people, becoming an ambassador is a lifelong dream. An ambassador moves to the country they are assigned and speaks to the host nation as the voice of the United States government. An ambassador also has a direct line to the White House, and their personal opinions on everything relating to their host country shape the president’s – and America’s – relationship with that country.

Benjamin Franklin was the first American ambassador. He was sent to France from 1776 to 1778, tasked with the critical mission of gaining French support for the Revolutionary War. Franklin became well known and was highly respected and admired by the French. He was a celebrity whose likeness appeared on rings, watches and all kinds of items. He was able to convince the nation of France to recognize American independence and become an ally. Historians frequently mention that without France, America would not have won the war for independence. When Franklin was succeeded by Thomas Jefferson in 1785, Jefferson was asked if he was the replacement for Benjamin Franklin. He replied, “No one can replace him, I am only his successor.”

Ambassadors of nations can turn the tide of human history. Ambassadors are tasked with keeping two countries in good standing with each other. The Kingdom needs the same kind of people. God has given us an assignment as ambassadors: reconciliation. Unlike Critical Theory, the goal of the Kingdom is not destroying and dismantling; it’s restoring and rebuilding.

Again, the tools of Kingdom Heart Transformation are: Unity. Honor. Reconciliation.

No matter what we have experienced, we know that Jesus wants us to find our identity in him. No matter how we have been mistreated or dishonored, the Kingdom gives us the tools to continue to honor the greatness in others. And we get the opportunity to fight like Heaven for reconciliation and restoration. These are some of the hardest things we can ever do, but that’s what the Kingdom asks of us.

John Newton was born in London in 1725. His father, John Sr., was a shipmaster, and his mother was the son of an instrument maker. She died of tuberculosis two weeks before his seventh birthday. At age 11 he began sailing with his father and began his shipping career, which would be marked by dishonor. At age 18, in 1743, his obstinance and disobedience caused him to be forced into service in the Royal Navy on the HMS Harwich. During this time he tried to desert and was continually punished. He once was tied to the grating on the deck of the ship in front of the crew of 350 men and received 96 lashes.

Newton resolved after this incident to murder his captain and commit suicide by throwing himself overboard. He ultimately decided against it and was transferred to the slave ship Pegasus bound for West Africa. On this new ship, he often openly mocked the captain by creating obscene poems and songs about him that became so popular the rest of the crew knew them by heart. He had several major disagreements with the captain and crew that led to him almost being starved to death multiple times. At some point he was imprisoned at sea, enslaved and chained along with the slaves they carried.

On their arrival to West Africa in 1745, Newton was sold by his former captain to a slave trader named Amos Clowe. Clowe gave him to his wife, Princess Peye. She abused and mistreated Newton just as much as she did her other slaves. Newton later recounted this period as the time he was “once an infidel and libertine, a servant of slaves in West Africa.”

In 1748, at age 23, he was rescued by a friend of his father who was captain of the ship Greyhound. Aboard this new ship, Newton gained notoriety for being one of the most profane men the captain had ever met. In a culture where sailors commonly swore, Newton was admonished several times for not only using the worst words the captain had ever heard but creating new ones to exceed the limits of verbal debauchery.

In March, a violent storm came upon the ship that was so rough it swept overboard a crew member who was standing where Newton had been moments before. In his cabin, bursts of water came right through the wall of his room and soaked him to the bone. Along with the crew, he spent the whole night furiously pumping water off the ship’s deck trying to keep the ship from going under. Some of his fellow sailors lost their lives, but he managed to survive. In the midst of the storm, he cried out a very simple prayer: “Lord, have mercy.” He was struck by his own words. He had little to no time for God, and he cared nothing for mercy. He had never given God a first thought, much less a second one.

The Greyhound made it through the storm, and for weeks after, John Newton could not shake the memory of his prayer. He began to ask himself if he was worthy of God’s mercy or in any way redeemable. His depravity had known no bounds. He believed that he had directly opposed God. He was known to mock others who showed their faith, and he derided and denounced God as a myth. But he had come to believe that God had sent him a profound message and wanted to use him.

Newton started to read the Bible, and from that point on, in his own words, he avoided profanity, drinking and gambling, but he continued to work in the slave trade. In 1749 while still in West Africa, he asked God to take full control of his destiny. He later said that this was the first time in his life that he felt true peace. In 1754 he suffered a severe stroke and was forced to retire from the slave trade altogether, at which point he began serious religious study.

He moved back to England and began writing songs and poems. He became a sought-after preacher who mentored many young social figures in England. One of these was a man by the name of William Wilberforce, a member of Parliament who had recently suffered a crisis of conscience regarding slavery and religious conversion while contemplating leaving politics. The younger man consulted with Newton, who encouraged Wilberforce to stay in Parliament and “serve God where he was.” Along with Wilberforce, Newton was instrumental in abolishing the slave trade in the British Empire.

John Newton, the slaver, became an abolitionist and said: “It will always be a subject of humiliating reflection to me, that I was once an active instrument in a business at which my heart now shudders...I was greatly deficient in many respects ... I cannot consider myself to have been a believer in the full sense of the word, until a considerable time afterwards.”

Many argue that the greatest legacy left on our world by this obstinate, disobedient slave trader John Newton was an autobiographical song he wrote, published in 1779 by the title “Amazing Grace.” The wretch in the song is Newton himself.

During this same period in America, the world’s first organized antislavery society, the Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage, was founded in Philadelphia in April 1775, before the founding of America and just as the Revolutionary War began.

The first legal ban on slavery anywhere in the world took place in Vermont in July 1777. Vermont’s legislature banned slavery entirely and moved to provide full voting rights for all black males. Five of the original thirteen colonies followed suit either during or immediately after the war: Massachusetts (1781), New Hampshire (1783), Connecticut (1784), and Rhode Island (1784).

The first federal ban on slavery was drafted in 1784 and passed by the Confederation Congress in 1787, banning slavery in the Northwest Territory. The Northwest Territory went on to form six states: Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and the northeastern part of Minnesota. The language of this ban was later adopted directly into the Thirteenth Amendment.

In 1807, the United States outlawed the importation of slaves. William Wilberforce – who once sought John Newton for help – led the charge that same year to abolish slavery in the United Kingdom. On the cover of his 1807 Letter on the Abolition of the Slave Trade, Wilberforce provides a biblical basis for the abolition of slavery:

Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all. Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness // Colossians 3:11-12

And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth // Acts 17:26 KJV

In 1821, Benjamin Lundy established the first American antislavery newspaper, the Genius of Universal Emancipation. In 1831, William Lloyd Garrison began publishing the Liberator. Another antislavery paper. It became one of the most famous antislavery newspapers in America and was published for 34 years. Elijah P. Lovejoy, a Presbyterian minister in Missouri, began his abolitionist newspaper, the St. Louis Observer in 1833. His printing press was destroyed three different times. The fourth time, it was thrown into the Mississippi River. He was attacked by a pro-slavery mob and killed when they came for his printing press the fifth time in 1837. His grave was left unmarked until 1897 to deter vandalism.

In 1836, after being convinced by William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips quit his law practice and dedicated himself completely to the abolition of slavery. He denounced the Constitution for tolerating slavery. In 1837, motivated by the death of Lovejoy, he became a leading voice in the abolitionist and equal rights movement for the rest of his life.

The Republican Party was founded in 1854 as an antislavery party. Its mission was to stop the spread of slavery into the new western territories, with the aim of abolishing it entirely.

In October 1859, John Brown and a group of abolitionists raided Harpers Ferry, Virginia. They intended to spread through the state of Virginia, freeing all its slaves along the way and building an army of freedmen to free slaves all throughout America. John’s father Owen was a noted abolitionist, and John Brown had planned a major attack on slavery for at least 20 years before his raid. It is said that he began his planning after committing to the cause of abolition at an abolitionist church. While unsuccessful, his raid is considered by many to be the final spark that set off the Civil War. Frederick Douglass believed that Brown’s “zeal in the cause of my race was far greater than mine—it was as the burning sun to my taper light—mine was bounded by time, his stretched away to the boundless shores of eternity. I could live for the slave, but he could die for him.”

On September 22, 1862, Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing more than 3.5 million enslaved people in America three years before the end of the Civil War and his assassination. It took 3 years for the Emancipation Proclamation to spread throughout the United States and was finally enforced in Texas in 1865. During the Civil War, more than 365,000 Union soldiers were killed and more than 282,000 were wounded fighting to reunite America and emancipate slaves.

By 1863, Harriet Tubman had already made a name for herself as a conductor on the Underground Railroad, leading hundreds of enslaved men, women and children from the South to freedom in the North. That year, she became the first and only women to lead a military expedition during the Civil War. She led 150 soldiers on three gunboats up the Combahee River in South Carolina for a surprise attack on prominent plantations. During this mission, they were able to rescue more than 700 slaves, 100 of which joined the Union army that day.

Abraham Galloway escaped slavery and returned to the South three years later to free other enslaved people. He posed as a slave to gather evidence from Confederate troops, set up a spy network and helped raise three regiments of “United States Colored Troops” comprising over 3,000 black men. In 1868 he became one of the first black men elected to the North Carolina legislature, fighting violent voter suppression by the KKK. During his tenure, he voted for the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, which granted citizenship and voting rights to black men.

Frederick Douglass was perhaps the most prominent black man in the United States throughout the 1800s. For 20 years he was a singular force in the abolitionist movement. He led the largest abolitionist newspaper in the country, the North Star, founded in 1847. He wrote three best-selling autobiographies describing his experiences as a slave. Douglass was also the first black person ever nominated for the vice presidency. He was instrumental in recruiting black soldiers for the Union army, and two of his sons were among the first to enlist. He was a prominent voice for freedom and human rights all of his life.

Susie King Taylor was born into slavery in 1848. After escaping with her uncle, at 14 years old she became the first black teacher to openly educate students in Georgia. Working as a nurse in Beaumont, South Carolina, she met and worked with Clara Barton, helping establish the American Red Cross. In 1902 she became the first and only black woman to write a book about her Civil War experience, Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33d United States Colored Troops, Late 1st S.C. Volunteers.

In 1866, the first Civil Rights act in the United States was enacted. It was the first law in the U.S. to define citizenship and affirm that all citizens are protected equally by law. It was mainly intended to protect the civil rights of people of African descent born in the United States after the end of the Civil War. It was passed by Congress and vetoed twice by President Andrew Johnson. A two-thirds majority in each chamber of Congress overrode the veto to allow it to become law without the President’s signature.

In 1870, Hiram Revels was the first black person elected to the United States Congress. He had organized two regiments of black troops and was a chaplain during the Civil War. He eventually became the first president of Alcorn State University. During the era of Reconstruction, hundreds of black men were elected to Southern state legislatures as Republicans, and twenty-two black Republicans served in the U.S. Congress by 1900. The Democrats elected their first black man to Congress in 1935.

Madam C.J. Walker was the first black American millionaire and first female self-made millionaire in America. She created the “Walker system” of hair care in 1906 and invented the world’s first hair-straightening formula and hot comb. Her reputation as an entrepreneur was outmatched only by her reputation for generosity. Walker promoted female talent and insisted that women were just as fit for leadership roles as men. She funded charities, helped fund and create the NAACP and the black YMCA, and instituted scholarships for women at the Tuskegee Institute.

Booker T. Washington founded the Tuskegee Institute in 1881 at the age of 25. He was the first black American to be invited to the White House in 1901 and became an advisor to Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft. After his death in 1915, the Tuskegee Institute had 1,500 students, a faculty of 200 and an endowment of over $2 million ($52+ million in 2021 dollars).

W.E.B. Du Bois, the first black person in America to earn a doctorate, became a professor of history, sociology and economics at Atlanta University. He was a prolific author, writing 21 books and countless essays, articles and speeches. The Souls of Black Folk and Black Reconstruction in America are still modern bestsellers. He was instrumental in the creation of the Civil Rights Act, which embodied many of his suggested reforms. He is considered one of the fathers of Critical Race Theory, and his ideas are still central to much of that worldview.

We must tell the whole truth of history – both the parts we are ashamed of and the parts we are proud of. Both before and after the Civil War, systems of oppression and racism existed in the United States. I have no doubt that systems of oppression exist today. But there’s a difference between a system being oppressive and the system being oppressive. Slavery is an oppressive system, Jim Crow laws are oppressive, redlining is oppressive. These are great evils experienced by people of color.

Does the existence of oppressive systems mean that every law in society is oppressive? Does it mean that the purpose and mission of an entire country – America – is rooted in maintaining oppression? That the government itself, as long as it has existed, is hell-bent on oppressing minority groups? Does the existence of oppressive systems support the thesis that the fundamental problem facing society is white people?

Systems of oppression are hard to ignore. But the entire system being oppressive is hard to believe.

Although society has its share of evils, both now and in the past, there have always been good men and women. A proverb commonly attributed to Edmund Burke says, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” In times of crisis, there have always been good people from all walks of life willing to confront evil. The history of America shows us great tragedy but also always those who triumph in the face of it.

Does Critical Theory or CRT make room for the goodness of an individual? Maybe, but only if we find ourselves intersectionally and positionally oppressed. More often this kind of discourse is frequently hand-waved by supporters of CRT as being fragile or upholding a white supremacist perspective on history.

Without people like Frederick Douglass, Harriett Tubman, Susie King Taylor, Hiram Revels, Booker T. Washington, Madam C.J. Walker, W.E.B. Du Bois and many other black leaders before and after them, Emancipation and everything positive that has followed most likely would not have happened. CRT tells us that the history of America is monoethnic. It is a white history of America. The history of America is not white, and it’s not black. It’s people from all walks of life coming together for what George Washington called “the great experiment.” We need each other; we always have. Not just the oppressors. Not just the oppressed.

Based on objective facts of history, CRT fails to establish a reliable narrative that racism is “the usual way society does business.” The premise that racism and oppression are everywhere, in everyone, all the time does not ring true when observing the truth of history. It is true that we cannot remove the stains from our history. But we also cannot create a version of history that is only stains.

Look at John Newton. Look at William Wilberforce. Look at the many white American abolitionists. There are marked times in Western history, and the history of the world, where the “oppressor” destroyed their systems of oppression without any benefit to them personally. Many of these men also happened to change these oppressive systems because of an experience with God. Wilberforce and Newton are both examples of that. These white, male, cisgender, heterosexual Christians (read oppressors) led the charge to see slavery ended. One of the most oppressive systems in the history of the world did not end because it was problematized, dismantled and overthrown by the oppressed. It ended because good men decided to do something. These “good men” weren’t only white people, but there were good white men (and women). Denying the truth doesn’t change the facts.

Being a human being of any color, culture or creed is hard. We will all do things that we wish we didn’t do. Maybe not all of us are evil, but our hearts are capable of great wickedness. This is being human. CRT says the system is the issue. Kingdom says that we are the issue. All of us.

This is difficult to believe. In fact, a casual glance at pre-European history shows us that the concept of race is prevalent throughout the ancient world, long before the modern definition of “white people” and certainly before the 16th century. Homer talks about skin color in both The Iliad and The Odyssey. In Herodotus’ Histories, the Athenians tell the Spartans that they will never betray them because they are like siblings – they have a common religion and the same way of life. In modern times, these things are considered key components of ethnicity and identity. Plutarch discusses ethnicity, race and gender in his Parallel Lives. Ancient art from all over the world shows interest in and engagement with the diverse range of human experience. The Bible itself speaks of race, whether that’s Moses’ wife Zipporah – who was Ethiopian - or that in Christ there are “neither Jews nor Greeks” (Galatians 3:28).

As far as we can know, there has never been a time in world history where race, ethnicity and all kinds of social strata have not been discussed. Humans and the human experience have always been varied and unique. The exploration of the uniqueness of individual and group experience – racial or otherwise – didn’t begin in the 16th century. It has been a part of human experience since the beginning of time. History, biology and even Scripture show us that race is a purely social construct. CRT actually has that right. But who shoulders the blame for the construct of race? White people? Every human being ever? Somewhere in between?

problematics

One of the focuses of CRT is to problematize. A “problematic” is something that is potentially upholding, producing, reproducing, justifying, or legitimating any form of systemic dominance or oppression, such as racism, sexism, misogyny, ableism/disablism, fatphobia, homophobia, heteronormativity, cisnormativity, transphobia, or the inequitable status quo. Identifying a problematic is done through critical methods including highly interpretive and subjective ones that look for problematics where there may not be any. This is known as “problematizing” – finding ways the system is imperfect and making noise about them (1, 2).

In CT, truth is subjective. If a person is in an oppressed group and they define something as a problematic, then their definition must be taken as truth. They, as a member of an oppressed group get to define what is or isn’t oppression. There is no objective truth. It's the word of the oppressor against the oppressed. When the oppressor says that something isn’t oppressive, they’re trying to maintain their dominance by lying or they are unaware of the oppression they partake in, consciously or subconsciously. In Critical Theory, if an oppressed group self-identifies something as a problematic, it is the truth. How can we know it's true? Because it makes a person in an oppressed group feeloppressed. Facts, contexts and intentions are trivial compared to the feelings of those who see themselves as oppressed.

Calling something a problematic is a way to say that something is oppressive without using the word “oppression.”

CT tells us that we need to identify things as problematic and fix the problem by practicing DEI. Although CRT is a theory on race, it’s framework is not limited to race. Therefore, practicing DEI is something we must do when confronting anything problematic, or oppressive. CRT is the toolbox, DEI are the tools.

In 2019, Katie Ishizuka and Ramón Stephens published a report, “The Cat Is Out of the Bag: Orientalism, Anti-Blackness, and White Supremacy in Dr. Seuss’s Children’s Books.” In their words:

“[This study reveals] how racism spans across the entire Seuss collection, while debunking myths about how books like Horton Hears a Who! and The Sneetches can be used to promote tolerance, anti-bias, or anti-racism. Findings from this study promote awareness of the racist narratives and images in Dr. Seuss’ children’s books and implications to the formation and reinforcement of racial biases in children...Notably, every character of color is male. Males of color are only presented in subservient, exotified, or dehumanized roles...This also remains true in their relation to White characters. Most startling is the complete invisibility and absence of women and girls of color across Seuss’ entire children’s book collection.” 

This report, and feedback attached to it, led Dr. Seuss Enterprises to stop publishing six books identified by the authors. The company stated that they “listened and took feedback from our audiences including teachers, academics and specialists in the field as part of our review process. We then worked with a panel of experts, including educators, to review our catalog of titles.” (1)

Many school districts, as well as the National Education Association, have distanced themselves in recent years from Dr. Seuss and his works. Dr. Seuss was once praised for the positive value in his writing, including environmentalism and tolerance. His writing is now considered to have problematic, oppressive, and discriminatory undertones. Dr. Seuss Enterprises went on to state that they are “committed to listening and learning and will continue to review our entire portfolio.” They have elected to continue publishing The Cat in the Hat despite some of that book’s problematics. And Dr. Seuss isn’t the only author to face criticism. In the UK, Babar the Elephant has come to represent colonialism and has been removed from certain libraries. Curious George and Little House on the Prairiehave also been identified as problematic.

This isn’t about the merits of Dr. Seuss or any other author. My intention is to paint a picture of how problematizing works. Dr. Seuss has been called an “unconscious racist,” as if he didn’t even know himself that he was racist. How is this possible? Whiteness. He’s white, so of course he is a racist according to Critical Theory. You’ll see in this chapter how in CRT all white people are considered racist. Remember the definition of Critical Race Theory according to UCLA? “The individual [oppressor] need not exist to note that institutional [oppression] is pervasive in the dominant culture.” We can take this to mean that even if Dr. Seuss wasn’t a racist, or was himself an antiracist, his books can still be oppressive and problematic. Because he is white, he operates with internalized dominance and is oppressive subconsciously.

Let’s revisit cheese fries and salad one last time. To problematize as a cheese fry person is to make clear all the ways that “nutrition” is oppressive and reform what nutrition means so that we don’t feel oppressed when we eat cheese fries. Calories are problematic, so we shouldn’t use those or mention those. Everyone has a different metabolic rate, and establishing an arbitrary number of calories to eat is oppressive to those who need more than 2,000 calories in a day. Simple carbs and saturated fats aren’t bad. Those are just scary words people use to describe the same thing. A carb is a carb. A fat is a fat. We must remove things that cheese fry people see as problematic. Salad is coming off the menu forever. This is how CRT works.

why white people are so problematic

The most frequently identified problematic group is white people. CRT identifies several things attached to “whiteness,” but a few I want to mention specifically.

The first is whiteness.

The organization Educate Not Indoctrinate defines whiteness as “a socially created ‘racial’ group who historically and currently receive the benefits of racism in the United States. The category includes all the different ethnic groups of European origin, regardless of differences in their histories, ethnicities, or cultures.” (2)

In How to Be an Antiracist, Kendi says this:

Some White people do not identify as White for the same reason they identify as not-racist: to avoid reckoning with the ways that Whiteness—even as a construction and mirage—has informed their notions of America and identity and offered them privilege, the primary one being the privilege of being inherently normal, standard, and legal. It is a racial crime to be yourself if you are not White in America. It is a racial crime to look like yourself or empower yourself if you are not White. (Kendi 2019, 38)

For CRT, whiteness represents more than just the color of skin a person has. It represents a socially constructed system of power that is selfish and only interested in creating and maintaining privilege and dominance across all of society. Whiteness is the foundation of oppression in the Western world.

According to this view, white people are guilty of whiteness from birth. But whiteness isn’t solely limited to white people. People of color can also subscribe to, support, maintain, or legitimize whiteness by adopting “white supremacist” attitudes and “white” ways of doing things. Such people are frequently accused of white supremacy, internalized racism, acting white, white adjacency, being a race traitor or seeking white approval. As a result of the deceit of whiteness, both people of color and white people especially are expected to commit to the “lifelong process” of antiracism and become an “ally” to those who belong to groups oppressed by whiteness.

The second is white privilege.

Peggy McIntosh popularized this term in her article, “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.” She says she had “come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets that I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was ‘meant’ to remain oblivious.”

White privilege is considered to be the unearned and unquestioned set of advantages and benefits that white people possess based solely on their skin color. Generally, white people who experience white privilege do so without being conscious of it.

The third is white supremacy.

“When we use the term White supremacy, we are not referring to extreme hate groups or 'bad racists.’ We use the term to capture the all-encompassing dimensions of White privilege, dominance, and assumed superiority in mainstream society” (Sensoy and DiAngelo 2017, 143).

When most of us hear “white supremacy,” we think of the KKK or neo-Nazis. Sensoy and DiAngelo state specifically that they do not mean this “lay usage” of the term. White supremacy means any belief, behavior, or system that supports, promotes, or enhances white privilege. All white people, as well as anyone who chooses to disagree with CT, critical justice and CRT, are considered white supremacists.

The fourth is white complicity.

White complicity is the idea that all white people, regardless of their intentions, are complicit in racism and white supremacy and thus bear some responsibility for it.

The fifth is white equilibrium.

“White equilibrium is a cocoon of racial comfort, centrality, superiority, entitlement, racial apathy, and obliviousness, all rooted in an identity of being good people free of racism. Challenging this cocoon throws off our racial balance. Because being racially off balance is so rare, we have not had to build the capacity to sustain the discomfort. Thus, whites find these challenges unbearable and want them to stop.” (DiAngelo, 2019, 112)

White privilege has rendered the “racial stress” that white people can endure very narrow. Therefore, white people are often upset when critical justice, CRT or antiracism concepts are applied to them. CT asserts that any frustration white people have is not because the concepts are wrong or unjust but because white people cannot imagine a world without white privilege. As a result, white equilibrium is something that white people work together to maintain for themselves as an identity group.

The sixth is white fragility.

Robin DiAngelo describes white fragility in her book of the same name:

“The state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves [in white people]. These moves include the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium. Racial stress results from an interruption to what is racially familiar.” (DiAngelo 2019, 103)

White fragility is both the inability and the unwillingness of white people to talk about race. This inability is due to pressure by a combination of whiteness, white supremacy, white complicity, white privilege and white equilibrium. White fragility manifests when white people, after being accused of racism, exhibit negative emotional reactions or disengage. Instead, what white people should do is both agree with and adopt the CT worldview and CRT framework. At least, this is according to critical theorists.

Why are we going to so much effort with these definitions? Because CRT identifies white people and whiteness as the primary cause of oppression. Ibram X. Kendi calls racism the “original sin.” CRT tells us that white people haven’t just created some isolated systems of oppression. White people have created the entire system, and the entire system is oppressive. White people created society as we know it, and they also created racism, sexism and every other ism and form of oppression.

Can we really generalize and stereotype this much? Do all people of one skin color really have an agenda for worldwide dominance that has played out for hundreds, even thousands, of years? If white people created the concept of race, are we solving the problem by continuing to define them – or anyone else – based on their “race”? If white people created the problem when they stratified society across groups, should we continue to do the same thing? Is the color of someone’s skin really the proof of their complicity in evil? Do we believe that the skin color of a person is proof of the content of their character? Are white people truly incapable of righteous racial action? By the same token, do we believe that people of color or people who are oppressed are incapable of unrighteous actions? Does the color of someone’s skin prevent them from being party to evil? CRT would vehemently say yes to all these questions. Would you?

The idea of whiteness is not the main issue I’m getting at. Whiteness is representative of a larger issue in CRT: the issue of communal guilt. CRT asserts that groups share guilt regardless of individual actions. So by being white, a person is complicit, regardless of their actions, because all white people are guilty. Many Christians will support this idea through the biblical concept of generational sin. Scripture has many references to children being punished for the “sins of their fathers.” There is often heated disagreement on this topic, even within the Church.

In most passages that mention generational punishment, it is clearly a specific punishment, to a specific people, for a specific sin. The people of Israel decided to worship other gods, and God promised to punish them generationally for their violation of the first commandment (Exodus 20:5; 34:7; Numbers 14:18; Deuteronomy 5:9; Judges 3:7-15; 1 Samuel 12:10-11; Exodus 20:6). In recent times, this concept has been extended to the idea of oppression and racism. Latasha Morrison, in her book Be the Bridge, states, “The church will not be a leading example in racial healing until we feel the weight of communal guilt and shame and then allow it to push us into the truth” (Morrison 2019, 77-78).

Communal guilt may be real, just as it was real in Scripture. Again, however, we find ourselves at a crossroads. CRT proposes reparations of all kinds, as well as communal shame and public self-flagellation for the oppressor. Kingdom tells us that we can be a new creation in Christ. If we are a new creation, we cannot be subject to generational punishments. In fact, Romans 14 tells us that we will all give an account of our own personal sins. Not the sins of others. Yes, our individual wickedness may be magnified by a group we belong to. But when we decide to let Jesus give us a new heart, we can stop being wicked. Paul defies the concept of communal guilt in 2 Corinthians 5:10: “For we must all stand before Christ to be judged. We will each receive whatever we deserve for the good or evil we have done in this earthly body.” In the Old Testament, Deuteronomy 24:16 says, “Parents must not be put to death for the sins of their children, nor children for the sins of their parents. Those deserving to die must be put to death for their own crimes.” The assertion that communal guilt is biblical is shaky at best. Without question, the New Testament focuses on personal forgiveness of personal sin through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. To assert communal guilt, we may also have to assert communal salvation, which would require us to abandon the Gospel of Jesus.

The Kingdom says the problem is in each individual’s heart, regardless of their skin color. White people aren’t the only evil walking this planet. All people are evil. The only solution to that is each one of us having a personal experience with Jesus. The experience is one of grace, mercy and forgiveness. After this experience, we are equipped to live a better life, make better decisions and act less wickedly. We will still make mistakes, but we can independently seek forgiveness and grace for each sin we commit.

CRT says that oppressed groups and their members are virtuous and oppressor groups and their members aren’t. There’s nothing to do for the oppressor except lament, apologize and atone through a consequence to be determined by those you have oppressed.

Critical Race Theory and Critical Theory both teach that the world is divided into groups: the oppressors and the oppressed. It implores its adherents to overthrow their oppressors, to liberate themselves and remake society. This is an absolute necessity.

Ibram X. Kendi emphasizes this in the introduction of How to Be an Antiracist:

“But there is no neutrality in the racism struggle. The opposite of “racist” isn’t “not racist.” It is “antiracist.” What’s the difference? One endorses either the idea of a racial hierarchy as a racist, or racial equality as an antiracist. One either believes problems are rooted in groups of people, as a racist, or locates the roots of problems in power and policies, as an antiracist. One either allows racial inequities to persevere, as a racist, or confronts racial inequities, as an antiracist. There is no in-between safe space of ‘not racist.’ The claim of ‘not racist’ neutrality is a mask for racism.” (Kendi 2019, 9)

How to Be an Antiracist is a treatise on the activist nature of CT and CRT. Activist towards what? Kendi says that the roots of the problem are power and policies. That is what an antiracist believes. If we believe that the problem is rooted in people, in humanity, then we are by his definition a racist. To be an antiracist, one must not be just an activist. One must also subscribe to the worldview of Critical Theory and commit themselves to the lifelong work of fighting the racism that is everywhere, in everyone, all the time.

How do we fight the “isms” all around us? CRT offers another set of tools, DEI. Diversity. Equity. Inclusion.

Diversity: All forms of age, ethnicity, class, gender, physical abilities/qualities, race, and sexual orientation, as well as religious status, gender expression, educational background, geographical location, income, marital status, parental status, and work experiences, must be embraced and celebrated – not just tolerated. Categories of difference are not always fixed but also can be fluid, individual rights to self-identification must be respected, and no one culture is intrinsically superior to another.

Equity: Whereas equality is a system in which each individual is offered the same opportunities regardless of circumstance, equity distributes resources based on needs. We live in a disproportionate society, and equity tries to correct its imbalance by creating more opportunities for people who have historically had less access. Equity means that we should strive not for equal opportunities but for equal outcomes for all people regardless of opportunity. The terms “equity” and “equality” may be used interchangeably by critical theorists, but equality is only equality if there are equal outcomes. This is why they use the term equity.

Inclusion: All individuals and groups should feel supported, respected and valued. Nothing that offends, might offend, or could be construed as being potentially offensive to any member of any marginalized group can be tolerated. Speech and expression must be controlled and restricted. Often those who are privileged or in the majority must be excluded to allow for those who are marginalized to create spaces free from oppressive influences. Thus, “inclusion” in CRT means restricted speech and sometimes physical exclusion of those who are oppressive, privileged or otherwise offensive to those who are marginalized. (1, 2, 3, 4)

How is DEI practically implemented? Remember cheese fries and salad?

Salad, as we know, is oppressive because of these constructs called calories, nutrition, cholesterol, fat and sugar. My truth, and the truth of many people who each cheese fries in the world, is that cheese fries are healthy because of how I feel when I eat them. Subjective truth.

Let’s say that we’re at a restaurant and they have cheese fries and salad. But this restaurant is fancy. They have famous food from all over the world. Some of the richest delicacies. Century eggs, balut, kale pache, mouse wine, surströmming and even casu marzu. Before you go look those things up, remember, there are people in the world who consider these delicacies. Just because you or I may not like something doesn’t mean that nobody likes it. People all over the world like all kinds of things.

This restaurant has a name: DEI. That’s because it practices diversity, equity and inclusion with how it builds the menu.

Casu marzu is a delicacy from the island of Sardinia. Considering American sensibilities and Western tastes, casu marzu might not be something that we want. That doesn't mean that it's bad. It's just something that we're not used to and something our tastes may not be suited towards. On Sardinia, casu marzu is like caviar. It’s something reserved only for the most special occasions.

To make casu marzu, cheese producers leave a slab of cheese out in the open, breaking the skin to allow flies to enter the cheese and lay eggs. Multiple flies may enter the cheese, filling the middle with thousands upon thousands of eggs. Then eggs then hatch, and the resulting maggots begin doing what they do best: eating and defecating. As the maggots work, the enzymes produced by their bodies rot and putrefy the inside of the cheese so that when it is opened for consumption, the inside is a gooey, sticky, gummy mass filled with countless live maggots.

You may find that gross, but it's a delicacy from another culture. “Fine,” you might say, “but I’m not going to eat it.” Sorry, that’s not your choice. That’s not how diversity works in CRT. Casu marzu might be the most marginalized food in the world. It’s illegal to buy or sell it. But it’s not illegal to make. We must eat casu marzu precisely because it is marginalized.

Remember, even though it’s called Critical Race Theory, it’s about much more than race. It is a toolbox to bring about critical justice. Diversity is one of the tools. There’s diversity of race, yes, but also gender diversity, sexuality diversity, culture, wealth, etc. Any “ism” that we see, in order to fix it, we must take the first step: practicing diversity.

Diversity in CRT doesn’t mean “embrace people’s differences.” That’s what we think it means. But CRT changes the meaning of the word diversity. How? Because in CRT, “It’s important to remember that diversity is less about what makes people different—their race, socioeconomic status, and so on—and more about understanding, accepting and valuing those differences.”(1) That may seem like a small distinction, but the “diversity” that we understand is different that the Critical Theory definition of diversity. It’s not just about people coming together from all backgrounds and walks of life and forming an understanding of differences. It’s not just about tolerating differences, or allowing differences. Diversity in CRT is about celebrating and valuing those differences. How can this be an issue? Keep reading. 

With CRT, diversity doesn’t mean that all these different foods are available on the menu. It means that there is only a certain amount available of each one. A cheeseburger may be on the menu, but only 3 people can order it. Salad is on the menu, but only one person gets salad. It doesn’t matter if we have all of the supplies to make the food. What matters is that at any given time there is equal representation of the menu among the people eating in the restaurant. You may not eat casu marzu, or another food you may not particularly be hungry for, you’re a part of the problem. You may want a salad, and I may want cheese fries. Diversity says that once the quota of orders is met for a certain item, regardless of what our preferences or dietary restrictions are, you can’t order it.

I lead the staff at Elevate Life Church. This church has a set of beliefs in line with Scripture. We have a set of moral and behavioral values attached to those beliefs. At our church, we embrace people from all walks of life. Anyone at any point in their journey can be a part of our church, serve on teams, be baptized, dedicate their kids and participate in ministry. However, not everyone can work for our church. To work at our church, you have to follow Jesus, which means to be a Christian. CRT diversity says that it's not enough for me to embrace an atheist or Buddhist within the church. Diversity says that in order for my church not to be oppressive, I should hire people of all religious affiliations. You may say that doesn’t make sense, and you’d be right. But this is diversity in CRT. Scriptural values are critical to the function of a church. Forcing an organization whose values are critical to its function to value and embrace people who do not represent or agree with its values undermines the entire existence of that organization. This isn’t just about churches though. The doctrine of diversity will require any organization with a strong value system to do more than embrace people who may even be completely opposed to their values. Diversity says that organization should encourage the erosion of their values.

Let’s break it down further. Our personal values are important to each of us. So you may not be the pastor of a church, let’s say you are the conductor of an orchestra. In your mind, what is the goal of an orchestra? To play the best music they possibly can. So, many orchestras do blind auditions, which means that the conductor and leaders of an orchestra do not know the identity of the person playing the music. Blind auditions were implemented to increase diversity in orchestras. Over time, the data has shown that blind auditions have increased diversity in orchestras by a considerable amount. However, music critics have called for the end of blind auditions for orchestras for the sake of diversity (1).

Why? So that conductors can choose musicians on the basis of diversity, not the merit of their ability to play music. Should orchestras be more diverse? Absolutely. Should they choose worse musicians just because it may increase the diversity of the orchestra? CRT says yes. Because the function of the orchestra matters less than the diversity of the orchestra. Diversity in CRT says that an orchestra should embrace a lesser musician and lower their quality, so that diversity can happen. Embracing differences and seeking to have people from all backgrounds and walks of life is absolutely important. But is it the most important goal?

Diversity in CRT is not just about respecting and tolerating differences; it's about exalting and glorifying them. That means I should honor and praise those who don’t share my beliefs working on my team. If I embrace CRT’s version of diversity, I should eventually make sure that those who don’t share my virtues or values work with me every day. The best way to do this is to hire those who feel “oppressed” by my beliefs, values and lifestyle. I’m not just required to keep casu marzu on the menu. I’m not just required to order it. Diversity says I have to like it. And if I don’t like it for any reason, there’s something wrong with me. Why must I like it? So that I can practice equity and inclusion.

What is equity? Equity is not equal opportunities; equity is equal outcomes. Let’s look at an example.

The caloric content of cheese fries is different than the caloric content of a Caesar salad. That’s probably pretty obvious to you. If we’re at a restaurant, nothing on the menu will have the same amount of calories.

Practicing equity in our restaurant means that even though people ordered different things, all of these things will have the same amount of calories. I will obviously order a whole plate of cheese fries and you’ll order a salad, but somehow the calories in both of those will be the same. If you’re tracking with me, you’ll understand that the only way this is possible is by ensuring that everyone gets portions that total out to the same amount of calories. Let’s say 500 calories. One slice of pizza can have 500 calories in it. A whole salad may have 500 calories. Equity says that regardless of how much pizza you want, how big you are, and what your fitness goals are, you can only have 500 calories worth of pizza because everyone in this restaurant only gets 500 calories.  

We all have different bodies, tastes, fitness goals and desires. We may have ordered pizza because it was a cheat day. Or a cheeseburger because, hey, it’s a free country. Wait, hang on. Don’t forget diversity. Diversity says you may not actually get to decide what you order. The individual experience of you deciding what you want on a menu and how much you’re going to pay is irrelevant. Diversity says you don’t choose your food. Equity says that everyone gets the same amount of calories. What matters is making sure every table has an equal caloric outcome.

In the real world, equity is not two people getting paid the same wage to do the same job. Equity is everyone getting paid the same, even if they don’t want a job. It doesn’t matter whether they had the opportunity to apply for a job. Their work ethic is inconsequential. It is irrelevant whether they ever took advantage of any opportunity presented to them. What matters is that we ensure that they have the same outcome as the person who does have the job.

Here's the problem with equity. Equal outcomes means that standards don’t matter. Do we want equty when it comes to who becomes a brain surgeon, pilot or teacher? Should every NFL team get to win the Super Bowl every year? If you found out you had cancer today, would you want to find the best doctor that you could find? Of course you would. To be the best, a person has to be able to exceed a certain standard. Equity is only possible if we stop caring about competence. Only the most competent surgeons, pilots, teachers and NFL players should be able to call themselves the best. I once heard this saying: “what do you call a doctor who graduated at the bottom of his class?” “doctor.” In the world of equity, everyone graduates and there’s probably no such thing as the bottom of the class. Equality matters, giving people the access to opportunities is important. But the pursuit of equity is the is the road to perdition.

Another way to say equity is this: intentional discrimination to ensure equal outcomes for all groups.

Critical theorists consistently state that discrimination is a good thing. As long as we are discriminating against the oppressor class. In How to Be an Antiracist, Ibram X. Kendi states:

“The defining question is whether the discrimination is creating equity or inequity. If discrimination is creating equity, then it is antiracist. If discrimination is creating inequity, then it is racist...The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.” (Kendi 2019, 19)

The last letter in our restaurant name stands for inclusion.

Here’s how it works in our restaurant. At every restaurant in the world there are items that are frequently ordered, and items that are not frequently ordered. Inclusion says that the items who are less frequently ordered should actually be given to customers more, regardless of their demand. Diversity, equity and inclusion are not sequential, they are all meant to take place at the same time. So let’s put them together. Earlier when we discussed diversity, I mentioned that there are only a certain amount of each item on the menu that can be ordered. Inclusion determines the amount of each item. So there’s three burgers available, one salad and ten orders of casu marzu. Why? Because inclusion says the items that are not in demand should be more prevalent than items that are. And then equity ensures that all of the portions are equal to 500 calories and a person can get no more and no less.

How does inclusion work outside of our imaginary DEI restaurant? Inclusion tells us that if we are in an oppressor class, we must be excluded from the decision-making process. Inclusion says nothing that is offensive or could potentially offend someone who is oppressed can be tolerated.

To practice inclusion, CRT says that we must regulate free speech and, in some cases, free will. The free speech and free will of the oppressor must be regulated to reduce oppression. Again, this is why intersectionality matters. So, we can understand our position in society and whether or not we are considered worthy of inclusion. Who gets to decide who is included? The person whose intersectionality gives them the most layers of oppression.

In the doctrine of inclusion, if you are white, you are not allowed to speak on the topic of race.

If you are cisgender and heterosexual, what you have to say about gender and sexuality doesn’t matter.

If you are a Christian, you are removed from the conversation about religion and morality in culture.

The goal of inclusion is to create safe spaces for expression for those groups who are oppressed. The primary way that we can create those spaces is by not allowing the oppressor groups to participate. At the very least, their speech and expression will be limited. This should happen regardless of a person’s experiences, intentions or understanding because our individual experiences do not matter. Only the groups we belong to, by birth or by choice. In CRT, your group is your identity. The way to remake and reform society is through the lifelong practice of DEI. This has become so prevalent on the campus of American universities that schools like MIT and the University of Chicago have taken faculty votes defending freedom of speech and expression. At MIT specifically, 98 faculty voted to allow free speech, while 52 voted against it. (1) Johnathan Turley, an attorney and legal commentator has said that “the greatest threat to free speech today is the growing support for censorship and speech codes in the mainstream of political and academic thought.” In the world of CRT and inclusion, speech must be controlled as a defense or response to the harm caused by someone classified as an “oppressor.”

How do CT and CRT stack up next to each other? We can use the same worldview questions to see how CT has influenced CRT.

America’s history with racism is not subjective. It is objectively factual.  Most readers will know our history with slavery and the lead-up to the Civil War. During Reconstruction, Jim Crow laws and the doctrine of “separate but equal” handed down by the Supreme Court were in place for almost 100 years. Whitecapping and lynching remained a problem throughout the southern United States for a long time. Miscegenation policies and laws were in effect in many parts of the country until the early 2000s. As recently as 2009, a justice of the peace in Louisiana refused to issue a marriage license to a black man and a white woman on the grounds that he was worried about their children’s future.

Some towns in America were known as “sundown towns,” communities that excluded blacks and other minorities using laws, harassment, or violence. I have a friend who was born and raised in Comanche County, Texas. On the county courthouse there hung a plaque that read “n*****, don’t let the sun go down on your back in Comanche County.”

In the infamous Dred Scott v. Sandford Supreme Court case, the court ruled that slaves aren’t citizens; they’re property. President Woodrow Wilson was deeply racist. After black athlete Jesse Owens won four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, he was snubbed by President Franklin Roosevelt. Roosevelt only invited white Olympians to the White House.

In 1873 in Colfax, Louisiana, it is estimated that up to 153 black militia men were killed by members of the KKK and former Confederate soldiers. Eric Foner, a Civil War historian, called the Colfax massacre the “bloodiest single instance of racial carnage in the Reconstruction era” (Foner, Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution; 1863-1877 2014, 457). It is hard to estimate how many people were killed because so many bodies were thrown into the river during the riot.

In 1917, the East St. Louis riots killed 150 black people and left 6,000 homeless. In 1920, the Ocoee massacre in Florida saw more than 30 black people killed and most black-owned businesses razed. It was called the "single bloodiest day in modern American political history" by the Institute for Southern Studies at Ole Miss.

In 1921, 300 black people were killed and 10,000 were left homeless in the Tulsa race massacre. In 1923, the entire town of Rosewood, Florida, was annihilated by a mob of several hundred white people.

This is a map of Dallas from 1937.

In the lower left corner of the map is a key related to different grades of housing. The red on the map indicates an area that banks and city planners had designated as unsafe for commercial and residential real estate. If a community was red, it was deemed hazardous to live and work in. A person who wanted to live in this part of town or start a business there either would not be able to get a loan at all or experience a predatory rate on their loan. It just so happens that the majority of the communities that were “redlined” were communities predominantly filled with people of color.

It is clear to me, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that systems of oppression exist and have existed. But is the entire system and fabric of society oppressive? The assertion that CRT makes is not that there are systems of racism or oppression. CRT’s claim is that racism – and oppression – are ubiquitous. In everyone, everywhere, all of the time.

The 1619 Project, founded in 2019, is a great example of a Critical Theory perspective on both race and systemic oppression. The 1619 Project is named after the first recorded time that African indentured servants came to the shores of America at Jamestown, Virginia, in August 1619. As we know, eventually, indentured servitude was replaced by chattel slavery, the complete ownership of one human being by another. All of this is factual based on recorded history.

The biggest claim of the 1619 Project was not that 20 indentured servants from Africa came to America. It was that the founding of the United States was for the purpose of slavery and that the Revolutionary War was fought not for freedom from Britain, but to create a nation based in and around slavery. What does Critical Theory teach us? We’re either oppressed or oppressors. The 1619 Project asserted that the United States is a nation created primarily for the purpose of preserving slavery. The creator of the project received a Pulitzer Prize for her work.

Many historians and researchers across the spectrum of history and the humanities disagreed with this claim. Allen C. Guelzo, a leading Civil War scholar and professor at Princeton University, went so far as to call the entire project a conspiracy theory. (1)

The New York Times received enough negative feedback from noted historians to cause them to publish a clarification in the notes of the 1619 Project that there is little to no evidence of the colonists being motivated to declare independence from Britain to preserve slavery. (1)

The 1619 Project, regardless of its flaws, succeeded in raising a question regarding America: Does America exist for the right to individual freedom as we’ve been taught for 250 years? Or does America exist for the preservation of slavery?

Settling this question is important because worldviews matter. A CT approach to race must show evidence that the entire system is, and always has been, racist. It must do this in order to confirm the worldview that we are either oppressed or oppressors. The founding of America, according to the 1619 Project and CRT scholars, is proof that this is a nation created for the purpose of oppressing people of color. Here is their worldview: White people are oppressors. White people founded America for the purpose of oppression. Through the 1619 Project, Critical Theory and CRT are given a platform to expand on the presumed definition of the goal and purpose of the United States.

Enter the year 2020. The 1619 Project is painting a picture of America as fundamentally oppressive and racist. In May 2020, the tragic and unjustified killing of George Floyd by a white police officer occurs. Black Lives Matter, an organization founded in 2013, begins to grow at a rapid pace. Black Lives Matter, a grassroots movement, gathers momentum as well. BLM, however, is not one entity. It is two different things with the same name. One is a movement and one is an organization.

The Black Lives Matter movement says something that we all can and should support, that the lives of black people have worth and value.

The Black Lives Matter organization says the same thing. But it also says a lot of other things that are hard to support. All three of the founders have made claims of being “trained Marxists.” One need simply to read their statement of beliefs to see a worldview rooted in Marxism and Critical Theory. The founders’ beliefs are no longer listed on their website, but you can find an archived version of their beliefs page here.

The tension between the movement and the organization has been immobilizing for many people. If I have a Kingdom worldview, I should not align myself with an organization that is founded in opposition to that worldview. BLM is one such organization.

However, if I am against the organization, I run the risk of seeming like I am against the movement. But if I say I’m for the movement, it seems like I am also for the organization. Those with a Kingdom or non-CT worldview are put in a no-win situation.

CRT and its proponents, including the Black Lives Matter organization, want us to agree with them that America is oppressive and has always been oppressive. The only way to fix it is to tear it down to the studs and rebuild. If we don’t agree, we are either racist ourselves or are attempting to perpetuate the oppression of minoritized groups.

Critical (race) theorists would have us believe that racism and oppression are just as prevalent today as they were in 1619. Why? Because they believe the foundation that supports the Western world, specifically America, is oppression. They would argue that it always has been and always will be, until we overthrow the system and remake it.

Critical Race Theory (CRT) is a framework and approach to race based on the worldview of Critical Theory. CRT rose to prominence around the mid-1970s. Derrick Bell, Richard Delgado and Kimberlé Crenshaw are some of its more well-known proponents. In 1989, Delgado and Jean Stefancic wrote what has come to be the seminal work on CRT, Critical Race Theory: An Introduction, currently in its third edition. They profess that “racism is ordinary, not aberrational—‘normal science,’ the usual way society does business, the common, everyday experience of most people of color in this country” (Delgado & Stefancic 2017, 8).

The UCLA School of Public Affairs defines CRT this way:

CRT recognizes that racism is engrained in the fabric and system of the American society. The individual racist need not exist to note that institutional racism is pervasive in the dominant culture. This is the analytical lens that CRT uses in examining existing power structures. CRT identifies that these power structures are based on white privilege and white supremacy, which perpetuates the marginalization of people of color. CRT also rejects the traditions of liberalism and meritocracy. Legal discourse says that the law is neutral and colorblind, however, CRT challenges this legal “truth” by examining liberalism and meritocracy as a vehicle for self-interest, power, and privilege. (UCLA School of Public Affairs | Critical Race Studies (2009, November 4).

The Encyclopaedia Britannica calls CRT “the view that the law and legal institutions are inherently racist and that race itself, instead of being biologically grounded and natural, is a socially constructed concept that is used by white people to further their economic and political interests at the expense of people of color” (Encyclopaedia Britannica (2016, June 9)

A detailed definition of Critical Race Theory includes five main topics. My description of these topics is taken from multiple sources listed below.

First, racism is normal. Racism is an invisible norm, and white culture and whiteness are the standard by which other races are measured. Racism is the way that society works. Critical Race Theory holds that racism is the ordinary state of affairs in society; thus the question in Critical Race Theory is not “Did racism take place?” but “How did racism manifest in this situation?” CRT asserts that racism is relevant to all interactions, and it is everyone’s duty to investigate, expose, and disrupt this racism once identified.

Second, racism is constructed and expanded by social groups (communities, groups, teams, friendships). Because of this, the doctrine of inclusion is the only way to bring about true social justice.

Third, the unique perspective and voice of victims of oppression and their personal stories are a primary learning tool. Subjective experience and the subjective truths of minority groups are crucial to understanding oppression. Minority status brings with it a presumed competence to speak about oppression. Those who are in the majority are disqualified to speak on the experiences, issues, and perspectives of those in the minority.

Fourth, all forms of thought, knowledge and communication – known collectively as discourse – create our experience of the world around us. Discourse determines what can or can’t be said about any given topic. Power structures in society control most discourse. This control and the discourse that stems from it must be used to analyze race relationships.

Fifth, oppression is systemic, meaning that all current economic, social, and institutional actions and beliefs systematize and perpetuate an unequal distribution of privilege, resources, and power between oppressor groups and oppressed groups. Racism is ingrained in the fabric of society. An individual racist need not exist for racism to be pervasive throughout society. Racism is hidden below the surface and everywhere all the time. Racism is a foundational component of how society works. Therefore, all acts of racism are to be understood not as isolated incidents by individuals or institutions but as specific examples of a system that underpins all of society. For instance, justice is not achieved by finding an individual police officer guilty; the policing system must be remade instead.

The laws and policies that exist in society are also rooted in an oppressive history and are politically motivated. These societal rules are primarily created to advance the interests of dominant racial and social groups. Dominant groups – white, cisgender, heterosexual, Christian, etc. – are incapable of righteous actions and only undo oppression when it benefits them, when their interests “converge” with the interests of oppressed groups. (1, 2, 3, 4)

Almost since its beginning, CRT has been highly controversial and frequently politicized. In recent years, many lawmakers have sought to restrict the teaching of CRT in primary and secondary schools. Advocates of CRT say that any attempt to restrict CRT is proof that the goal of such restrictions is to silence and prevent discussions of equality, justice, and racism.

As with their perspectives on justice, supporters of Critical Theory, critical justice and CRT often communicate as if their worldview, definition of injustice and proposed solutions to inequality, racism and other social issues are the only antidote for the issues of society. If we do not share their worldview or approaches, not only are we misinformed, but we are their enemy. We are not just their enemy though; we are enemies of cultural and societal progress. If their goals do not become our goals, our intention must certainly be to maintain systemic oppression.

CRT is called a theory on race, but it is much broader than that. Critical Race Theory is an approach to “isms.” Racism is one of those, but the tools of CRT are meant to equip us to overthrow any ism – not just racism. CRT is like a toolbox full of tools meant to help us address the problems society faces. Here is a non-comprehensive list of isms that CRT attempts to address.

Ableism = systemic and systematic discrimination against alter-abled or “disabled” people.

Adultism = systemic and systematic prejudice and discrimination against young people and children.

Ageism = systemic and systematic discrimination against persons of an older age group.

Anti-Semitism = systemic and systematic prejudice and discrimination towards Jewish people.

Classism = systemic and systematic prejudice and discrimination based on social or economic class.

Cisgenderism = systemic and systematic discrimination against transgender people.

Colorism = a form of systemic and systematic prejudice or discrimination in which people are treated differently based on the social meanings attached to favoring lighter skin color (distinct from racism but derived from white supremacy)

Colonialism = in the U.S. context, this is a form of systemic and systematic prejudice and discrimination against Indigenous people or Native Americans (like other forms of oppression, it intersects with racism and other isms).

Ethnocentrism = systemic and systematic prejudice or discrimination against people who do not speak English as a first language.

Heterosexism = systemic and systematic prejudiced attitude or discriminatory practices against homosexuals and queer-identified people.

Jingoism = an extreme form of patriotism that often calls for violence towards people who were not born in the U.S.

Lookism = systemic and systematic discrimination or prejudice based on a person’s physical appearance, often based on the media’s presentation and definition of beauty.

Nativism = the policy and attitude of protecting the interests of native-born or established inhabitants against those of immigrants.

Racism = systemic and systematic discrimination or prejudice based on race; the idea that whiteness is superior and therefore has the right to dominate another race or races.

Religious imperialism = systemic and systematic prejudice or discrimination against people who practice religions other than Christianity.

Sanism = a form of systemic and systematic discrimination and oppression based on a diagnosis or the perception of someone having been diagnosed with a psychiatric condition.

Sexism = systemic and systematic prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination against women on the basis of gender.

Sizeism = systemic and systematic prejudice or discrimination based on a person’s size or body shape.

Before we continue, I must admit that I do not possess the worldview of Critical Theory, in case that wasn’t clear by now. You may remember from the discussion of social justice that I am white, cisgender, heterosexual, and Christian. According to CT, this puts me firmly in the camp of the oppressor. Therefore, anything I would have to say about justice, racism or social issues must be immediately disqualified – according to critical theorists.

I acknowledge that a CT worldview prevents me from speaking about these issues. I also acknowledge that I possess a different worldview, one that requires me to speak about these issues. I can be guided only by the worldview that I possess, not another.

I seek to represent and perpetuate a Kingdom worldview. That is my personal conviction. You may feel in reading my thoughts on CRT, CT, justice or the elephants to come that I am misguided. And that could be true. I am not an all-knowing, all-comprehending sage. I am a human being trying to work all these things out too.

Jesus said in John 16:13, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth.” I want God to show me his truth, absolute truth. My prayer and belief is that he will do that for all of us.

“Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.” // Matthew 7:7