Dealing with Critical (Theory) Disagreement: In The Pews

This post is a follow up to the post: Critical Theory, Christianity, and Justice with a Capital J.

It seems that parts of my last post on the subject of Critical Theory were either misunderstood or not written clearly. I suppose it is not totally unexpected on a subject such as this. Regardless, this follow-up was one I had in mind before that last post published, because I wanted to focus on a question that hits us at home: “So, what do I do if the person next to me on Sunday disagrees on this? What do I do if they love White Fragility, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Cultural Pluralism classes—and I don’t?”

Hopefully, this can serve to clarify some thoughts shared previously, as well as explain how we ought to be dealing with these things in the pews.

Take a Deep Breath

The first thing that I think most good Christians ought to be doing when these subjects come up is to take a deep breath. We do not need to jump to level 11 just because someone in the Bible Study mentions something that sounds sort of like it might be taken from an Ibram X. Kendi book. Maybe our ears should perk up to listen closely, but we shouldn’t shoot, fire, aim, at the mere whisper of a potential issue.

Hopefully, you are in a God-fearing and Bible-believing church. If that’s the case, then you should default to trusting that those people next to you in the pew might have a few issues in their theology (as I’m sure we all do), but that doesn’t mean that they are necessarily the worst person you can imagine.

Assume the best of your fellow Christian—especially when you can see a track record of faithfulness and experience in their life. However, this street goes both ways. It is not only the job of the one who rejects Critical Theory to be gracious to the Critical Theory Advocate. It is not only the job of the Critical Theory Advocate to be gracious to the one who disagrees with Robin DiAngelo. It must be reciprocal, or the unity is not real.

If you are a Christian, it is your job to maintain unity and show grace when possible. That means dealing with people honestly, not hysterically—lovingly, and not hastily.

So, if you disagree with my thoughts in the last post, it is my job not to assume you are a secret Stalin, Mao, or Horkheimer. It is, likewise, your job not to assume that I am not Hitler, Robert Byrd, or Jim Crow.

As I said in the last post, your fellow Christian might simply disagree with solutions, but that does not mean that they love the problems in the first place. Them disagreeing with the method to solving issues is not the same as supporting and loving the issues’ existence. Even them disagreeing with the existence of some of the problems does not make them inherently evil. If you are presuming that this is what it means, you are being lazy with your thinking, and you are not being sober minded in any conceivable way.

A Point on A Counterpoint

When you cite the sufficiency of scripture on a subject that is categorized as political, sociological, economical, etc., people are likely to say: “Yes, the Bible is sufficient, but that doesn’t mean it touches on every question we could ever ask. Don’t we need more than only the knowledge found within the scriptures on some subjects. After all, we didn’t get to the moon through reading Bible verses.”

I certainly understand the drive behind this objection, because the rationale isn’t totally bogus. After all, I am not saying that the Bible gives us the answer for calculating the speed of light. However, that argument is still a red herring. The subject of the Bible’s sufficiency is a vast topic, but on a surface level this is imporant to understand: we’re not talking about a subject that is outside of God’s revelation. Asking a question of right and wrong is not some kind of obscure, technical question about building a computer that the Bible has no statement on. You are asking about right and wrong—justice and injustice. You are squarely inside the borders of scripture. 

There are many ways to skin a cat, but if the Bible were prescribe one, morally, then that’s probably the one we should use.

To say that the Bible is sufficient is not to say that the Bible answers every conceivable question on the subject in exhausting detail. We have some explicit things in scripture that directly apply to us today, and there are also clear principles that form the basis by which we can reason through our questions. To say that the Word is sufficient is to say that it does give us enough to discern just and unjust.

God’s revelation is the frame of the worldview. The scriptures are the train tracks, the guardrails. When we spot human reasoning that bumps into those rails or goes off the tracks, then we subject it to obedience unto Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5). The question in all of this is, which authority is the starting point and final authority? The Bible or modern perspectives?

Again, this is not to say that we have nothing that we can ever learn from a modern sociology text book, this is to say that the textbook is never more authoritative than God Himself—and that we all ought to be carefully examining what each book says in light of God’s revelation. Sometimes, falsehood’s subversion of the truth is obvious. Sometimes it’s not. Sometimes falsehood tries to tell us it’s actually part of the truth all along.

Is it Wrong to Think Your Fellow Christian Is Wrong?

If we presume that we are never incorrect, and we also presume that we have the only potential biblical, loving, and compassionate perspective on everything, then it is very easy for us to presume that a fellow Christian disagreeing with us is, by necessity, morally wrong from the get-go. So don’t do that.

In my last post I said in no uncertain terms that I think that Critical Theory is dangerous, and I do believe that. I do think that it’s the type of worldview and collection of thoughts that can not indefinitely exist at peace with a Biblical worldview. I think that a Frankenstein perspective that tries to use both will not work, and one will eventually have to conquer the other.

It is not out a spirit of condescension or superiority that I would tell a fellow Christian who subscribes to CT that I have a concern about that. An honest Christian would say the same thing to me, but in reverse. That’s happened before. And guess what, I’m still friends with that person, and they are still friends with me.

So long as you can see that fellow Christian trying their best to live out the truth of scripture, then you should fight to look at them as a brother or sister who is on your side, not an enemy. I promise you, two genuine Christians who prize Jesus and His Word will always be more on each other’s side than a Christian and the World. Don’t let the world tell you different.

This post is a follow up to the post: Critical Theory, Christianity, and Justice with a Capital J.

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