When I was a new believer, two gentlemen knocked on my apartment door wanting to talk about religion. I was pleasantly surprised and eager for Christian fellowship. But something was “off” about those two. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but I knew it didn’t feel right. The next day I mentioned the exchange to two of my football teammates, Brent Knapton and Max Moss. They had both grown up in the church and were mentoring me, including buying me my first Bible and teaching me how to study it. I knew if anybody could help me figure out what was going on, they could.
When I described my visitors, Max and Brent looked at each other, smiled, then turned to me and asked, “Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses?”
I had no idea what they were talking about. “How am I supposed to know?” I asked in all sincerity.
“Did they have name tags that identified them as ‘Elder So-and-So’?” Max asked.
I told him I hadn’t seen any name tags. They looked at each other again and said in unison, “They were Jehovah’s Witnesses!” and proceeded to warn me about the cultic theology of the JWs. I was astonished! I was also a bit disturbed. How many cults are there? How will I know them? Am I a part of one?
Those questions drove me deeper into what had already become an apologetics-oriented pursuit of Christian theology. I wanted to know what I believed, why I believed it, and to be able to defend it against legitimate objections. I also wanted to be sure that what I believed was rooted in Scripture and historic Christian orthodoxy.
That same passion has driven me to explore, analyze, and warn against yet another cult: the cult of antiracism.
My goal in this chapter is fourfold. First, I intend to lay out a picture of what I see as the theological underpinnings of the theology and worldview of Critical Social Justice. Second, I hope to help the reader see that this worldview stands in direct contradiction to the biblical worldview. Third, I will give examples that show the prevalence of this worldview within broader evangelicalism. Finally, I hope that this will all help the reader understand why identifying the elements of this worldview, far from being a tactic designed to “shut down conversation,” is actually fundamental to having a genuine and God-honoring conversation about race at all.
At the epicenter of the coming evangelical catastrophe is a new religion—or, more specifically, a new cult. While some may consider the term “cult” unnecessarily offensive, it happens to be the most accurate term available to describe the current state of affairs. John McWhorter was the first observer I am aware of to refer to it as the “Cult of Antiracism.” Others have used similar terms,1 and I think they are right to do so.
The antiracist movement has many of the hallmarks of a cult, including staying close enough to the Bible to avoid immediate detection and hiding the fact that it has a new theology and a new glossary of terms that diverge ever-so-slightly from Christian orthodoxy. At least at first. In classic cult fashion, they borrow from the familiar and accepted, then infuse it with new meaning. This allows the cult to appeal to the faithful within the dominant, orthodox religions from which it draws its converts.
This new cult has created a new lexicon that has served as scaffolding to support what has become an entire body of divinity. In the same manner, this new body of divinity comes complete with its own cosmology (CT/CRT/I); original sin (racism); law (antiracism); gospel (racial reconciliation); martyrs (Saints Trayvon, Mike, George, Breonna, etc.); priests (oppressed minorities); means of atonement (reparations); new birth (wokeness); liturgy (lament); canon (CSJ social science); theologians (DiAngelo, Kendi, Brown, Crenshaw, MacIntosh, etc.); and catechism (“say their names”). We’ll examine some of those topics in this chapter and a few later on.
In case you’re wondering about its soteriology, there isn’t one. Antiracism offers no salvation—only perpetual penance in an effort to battle an incurable disease. And all of it begins with pouring new meaning into well-known words.
Valparaiso University philosophy professor Aaron Preston’s observations are helpful here. He describes practitioners of grievance studies as “resentful specialists in subversion who treat literature and philosophy, and indeed language itself, as tools to be used for political purposes.”2 Ibram X. Kendi, one of the antiracist movement’s leading voices, makes this clear in his bestselling book How to be an Antiracist, describing his parents’ involvement with the Social Gospel and how it influenced him. “I cannot disconnect my parents’ religious strivings to be Christian from my secular strivings to be an antiracist,” he writes. “And the key act for both of us was defining our terms so that we could begin to describe the world and our place in it.” He then draws a conclusion with which I could not agree more: “Definitions anchor us in principles.”3 (Unfortunately, in this case, “Everyone deceives his neighbor, and no one speaks the truth; they have taught their tongue to speak lies; they weary themselves committing iniquity” [Jeremiah 9:5]).
According to Kendi, “If we don’t do the basic work of defining the kind of people we want to be in language that is stable and consistent, we can’t work toward stable, consistent goals.”4 He then outlines that language as well as his goals in a book that has not only reached millions, but has served as a roadmap for many more who, although they do not know Kendi’s name, have definitely been influenced by his definitions. He writes:
To be an antiracist is to set lucid definitions of racism/antiracism, racist/antiracist policies, racist/antiracist ideas, racist/antiracist people. To be a racist is to constantly redefine “racist” in a way that exonerates one’s changing policies, ideas, and personhood.5
It is important not to miss this. Kendi’s journey has not been about actions; it has been about “arriving at basic definitions.” His work is rooted in “setting lucid definitions.”
Kendi and others are operating from a set of definitions that are neither new nor unique. They have been around since the days of the Frankfurt School, and in some cases, even earlier. However, today those words—or more specifically, the new meanings given to old words—have made their way into mainstream conscience and vocabulary, giving rise to a new religion where many now “trust in deceptive words to no avail” (Jeremiah 7:8). So let’s examine the language and theology of the cult of antiracism.
We begin with its cosmology.
Although many White people feel that being White has no meaning, this feeling is unique to White people and is a key part of what it means to be White; to see one’s race as having no meaning is a privilege only Whites are afforded. To claim to be “just human” and thus outside of race is one of the most powerful and pervasive manifestations of Whiteness.6
Whiteness: a set of normative privileges granted to white-skinned individuals and groups which is “invisible” to those privileged by it.7
This statement is as critical to the cult of antiracism as Genesis 1:1 is to Christianity. Just as Christians cannot and do not conceive of anything in their worldview apart from the reality that there is a God who created the world, the cult of antiracism roots every aspect of its worldview in the assertion that everything begins with the creation of whiteness. More specifically, the creation of whiteness with the express purpose of establishing white people as the dominant, hegemonic oppressors and all non-white people as the objects of that oppression. This is the sine qua non of the antiracist metanarrative.
The foundation for this idea is laid in Critical Race Theory, then applied more broadly in other academic disciplines until it finally finds its way into the broader cultural context. “[T]he terms I am using are not ‘theory-neutral descriptors’ but theory-laden constructs inseparable from systems of injustice,” wrote Robin DiAngelo in a 2011 article that was a precursor to her bestselling 2018 book White Fragility. She was discussing her use of the terms “white” and “whiteness.” In other words, DiAngelo admits what many Christians either refuse to admit or simply don’t know: that these terms carry the assumption of a worldview—particularly the worldview that lies at the foundation of CRT.
It doesn’t take a trained theologian to see this. Let’s look, for example, at the Encyclopedia Britannica’s entry on Critical Race Theory:
Critical race theory (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 colour.8
This is CRT 101. Unfortunately, for many it has also become Christianity 101. And sadly, pointing out the CRT roots is often dismissed as mere name-calling.
In February 2018, Jarvis Williams advanced these same ideas in a series of lectures in which he lambasted students and faculty with what could only be described as a CRT-laced tirade. “Whiteness is not about your biology, it’s about ideology,” Williams exclaimed. “It’s a biological fiction, but a social fact. One aspect of whiteness was a way for Europeans who were different to homogenize themselves from these enslaved Africans.” Williams would go on to state, “One reason we get slavery is because of the construct of whiteness.”9 In other words, according to a professor of New Testament Studies at the flagship seminary in the SBC, the cosmology of CRT is undisputed fact. White people created whiteness with the express purpose of oppressing and enslaving black people.
In a now-infamous tirade at the 2019 Sparrow Women Conference, Ekemini Uwan noted, “The reality is that whiteness is rooted in plunder, in theft, in enslavement of Africans, in genocide of Native Americans.”10 Both Williams’s and Uwan’s statements are indistinguishable from the ideology espoused by Robin DiAngelo, who wrote, “The idea of racial inferiority was created to justify unequal treatment.” She said this to make the point that “belief in racial inferiority is not what triggered unequal treatment.”11 Imagine the theological and historical omniscience necessary to determine the priority of one of these sins over the other!
However, for the worldview to hold, one must accept the premise that the idea of inferiority was created for the purpose of justifying unequal treatment. As though unequal treatment, which was ubiquitous throughout the history of fallen humanity, needed a justification. One wonders what justification the Africans who sold my ancestors into slavery—probably after taking them as slaves of their own—needed in order to justify the unequal treatment of their fellow Africans. Did the Egyptians have to invent the concept of race in order to justify enslaving the Hebrews? Did the Babylonians? How about the Assyrians? The answer to these questions has to be “no” since race was invented 1) by white people and 2) for the express purpose of oppressing non-white people.
I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught not to recognize male privilege. So I have begun in an untutored way to ask what it is like to have white privilege. I have 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 like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools, and blank checks.12
White Privilege: a series of unearned advantages that accrue to white people by virtue of their whiteness.
According to the cult of antiracism, whiteness was established in order to create, perpetuate, and preserve white privilege. It is also important to note that this doctrine is assumed to be wed to the concept of male privilege, and by extension to every other privilege associated with hegemony. In antiracist theology, white privilege is a ubiquitous term popularized in 1989 after the publication of Peggy McIntosh’s now-famous paper “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.” The paper is a classic example of grievance studies in that it was based entirely on assumptions, anecdotes, and personal observations, and completely devoid of scholarly research. Here is how McIntosh describes her “research”:
I decided to try to work on myself at least by identifying some of the daily effects of white privilege in my life. I have chosen those conditions that I think in my case attach somewhat more to skin-color privilege than to class, religion, ethnic status, or geographic location, though of course all these other factors are intricately intertwined. As far as I can tell, my African American coworkers, friends, and acquaintances with whom I come into daily or frequent contact in this particular time… cannot count on most of these conditions (emphasis mine).13
Where else would phrases like “I decided to work on myself” or “as far as I can tell” be considered appropriate for academic research? They appear only in grievance studies. However, in the academic realm, this is a horse of a different color. According to Britannica, “Whiteness Studies begin with the premise that racism and white privilege exist in both traditional and modern forms, and rather than work to prove its existence, work to reveal it.”14 In other words, this is a foundational tenet of faith.
Nevertheless, McIntosh is the gold standard for teaching on white privilege both outside and inside the church. In one YouTube video, Matt Chandler, pastor of the Village Church in Flower Mound, Texas, former head of the Acts 29 network, and one of the leading representatives of the Young, Restless, and Reformed movement—in other words, not just some random evangelical—echoes McIntosh almost verbatim. “I have grown up with this invisible… bag of privilege,” he says in a direct-to-camera presentation. Then, as if to press McIntosh’s analogy of “an invisible package of unearned assets,” he describes “a kind of invisible toolkit that I can reach in there at any given moment and have this kind privilege that a lot of other brothers and sisters don’t have.”15
These were not off-the-cuff remarks. The video, titled “How to Understand White Privilege,” is very strategic. Chandler is clearly sympathetic to CRT’s version of white privilege. Nor is he unique in this. Volumes could be filled with examples of mainstream evangelicals echoing this concept.
White supremacy is a historically based, institutionally perpetuated system of exploitation and oppression of continents, nations and peoples of color by white peoples and nations of the European continent; for the purpose of maintaining and defending a system of wealth, power and privilege.16
White Supremacy: any belief, behavior, or system that supports, promotes, or enhances white privilege.
It is important to note that white supremacy, as used by the Critical Social Justice movement, doesn’t mean what it used to mean. “For many of us the term ‘white supremacy’ evokes strong images ranging from the Ku Klux Klan to the Nazi regime,” notes Daniel Hill in his influential book White Awake. Then, in a classic attempt to promote the redefinition of terms that CRT requires in order to advance the antiracist worldview, he continues, “When we get past the emotional response to the term and consider its definition, we can see that it remains relevant.”17 In other words, the word doesn’t mean what it used to mean, so we don’t have to feel the way we used to about it. It also is far less provable in this context than someone’s membership or status within the KKK.
This is perfectly in keeping with Sensoy and DiAngelo’s Is Everybody Really Equal?, a mainstay in schools of education throughout the United States. “When we use the term White supremacy, we are not referring to extreme hate groups or ‘bad racists,’ ” they write. “We use the term to capture the all-encompassing dimensions of White privilege, dominance, and assumed superiority in mainstream society.”18 And if you are going to take this ride and get on board with antiracist pursuits, you have to engage in the cognitive dissonance that comes when we attempt to ignore the definitions we know in an effort to apply the definitions we must use in order to adopt and apply this new worldview.
This is not your grandfather’s version of white supremacy. It does not refer to the KKK or Neo-Nazis (except when it does). This version refers to the very air one breathes in a culture created by and for white people. “Race scholars use the term white supremacy to describe a sociopolitical economic system of domination based on racial categories that benefits those defined and perceived as white.”19 As a result, white supremacy is both ubiquitous and intractable. In a now infamous video, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary Provost Matthew Hall gives about as clear a summary of the antiracist doctrine of white supremacy as one can:
Everything that you assumed or thought was normal in the world, or everything you thought was true about your tradition, your denomination, your own family, I’m going to pull the veil back, and what looked like this beautiful narrative of faithfulness and orthodoxy, and of truth and righteousness and justice, I’m gonna peel that back and I’m going to show you the rotting corpse of white supremacy that’s underneath the surface (emphasis mine).20
Note how closely Hall’s definition of white supremacy mirrors the orthodox doctrine of total depravity. However, for Hall, this depravity is not shared by all humanity by virtue of having descended from Adam (Romans 5:12), but is limited to a certain spectrum of the melanin scale.
The white complicity claim maintains that all whites are complicit in systemic racial injustice; this sometimes takes the form of the mantra “all whites are racist.” When white complicity takes the latter configuration, it implies not that all whites are racially prejudiced, but rather that all whites participate in and, often unwittingly, maintain the racist system of which they are part and from which they benefit.21
White Complicity: White people, through the practices of whiteness and by benefiting from white privilege, contribute to the maintenance of systemic racial injustice.22
In the 1978 movie The Wiz, Michael Jackson’s character, the Scarecrow, is introduced with the song “You Can’t Win,” which sums up the concept of white complicity quite succinctly: “You can’t win, you can’t get even, and you can’t get out of the game.” For the antiracist, this is the equivalent of imputed guilt. Whereas Christians see Adam as the Federal Head of all mankind through whom the guilt of original sin is imputed to all of mankind, the cult of antiracism sees the inventors of whiteness as the Federal Head of all white people through whom guilt is imputed in the form of white complicity.
“Without confession to the sin of white racism, white supremacy, white privilege,” contends Sojourners magazine founder Jim Wallis, “people who call themselves white Christians will never be free… from the bondage of a lie, a myth, an ideology, and an idol.”23 This sentiment is an affront to the Gospel. “For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:2, italics mine). And again, “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36, italics mine). But this is the gospel of antiracism, where there is no freedom—at least, not for white people.
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.24
White Equilibrium: The belief system that allows white people to remain comfortably ignorant.
While the term “white equilibrium” is not as well-known as the others we have covered, it is no less important to the antiracist cosmology. The Social Justice Encyclopedia is quite helpful here: it defines it as “occupying a position of privilege [which] allows a person to avoid having to deal with or even understand the experiences of oppression and marginalization, or indeed of bigotries like racism or even of the concept of race itself.”25 So even though you may not have heard the term, if you have spent any time discussing or studying the Critical Social Justice movement, you have definitely come across the concept.
Latasha Morrison’s work gives us a glimpse into the influence these ideas have on contemporary evangelicalism. “In my work as a bridge builder,” she writes, “I’ve seen how, time and time again, conversations about reconciliation stall when the topic of righting the wrongs comes up.” Morrison goes on to explain, “Terms such as reparations, affirmative action, white privilege, and Black Lives Matter are nonstarters for so many folks, in part because they disrupt the listener. They remind him or her that making things right costs something, often power, position, or money.”26 Clearly, Morrison is referring to a disruption of equilibrium. This is important when interpreting objections to her work, which has become a mainstay in evangelical circles. One need not be trying to “shut down the conversation” or “uphold white supremacy” to object to material that is awash with Critical Social Justice ideology.
This is also a key to understanding what happened on the last day of creation for the antiracists.
Though white fragility is triggered by discomfort and anxiety, it is born of superiority and entitlement. White fragility is not weakness per se. In fact, it is a powerful means of white racial control and the protection of white advantage.27
White Fragility: the inability and unwillingness of white people to talk about race due to the grip that whiteness, white supremacy, white privilege, white complicity, and white equilibrium exert on them (knowingly or unknowingly).
Unless you have been hiding under a rock, you have been exposed to the term “white fragility.” Not only has Robin DiAngelo’s book by that title found an almost permanent place atop every bestseller list, but the term has also made its way into common vernacular and in many a CSJ sermon. White fragility also serves as a kind of Kafka trap. In other words, it is a denial of guilt that is seen as proof of guilt:
The Claim: You have white privilege and are complicit in white supremacy and racism.
The Response: That is not true! I (fill in rationale here).
The Conclusion: That is just your white fragility fighting for equilibrium.
In the end, CSJ proponents believe white people can only respond appropriately to an accusation of racism by acknowledging, admitting, repenting of, and working to undo the racism. Anything other than that is evidence of white fragility. In fact, DiAngelo’s book is replete with definitions of various forms of racism, including colorblind racism, aversive racism, cultural racism, and more. In the end, she defines racism in so many ways that the reader is left with no choice but to agree with her statement that our “racial socialization sets us up to repeat racist behavior, regardless of our intentions or self-image.” Therefore, “We must continue to ask how our racism manifests, not if.”28
Of course, all of this is related to the ultimate reality that grows out of the antiracist cosmology: the new original sin, which ironically, also happens to be the new unpardonable sin.
“I am a racist. If you think the worst thing somebody can call you is a racist then you’re not thinking biblically.… I am going to struggle with racism and white supremacy until the day I die and get my glorified body and a completely renewed and sanctified mind because I am immersed in a culture where I benefit from racism all the time.”29
What if I told you that statement was made by a leading evangelical? What if I told you he was the provost of the flagship seminary of the Southern Baptist Convention? What if I also told you that this statement was made in a public forum?30
You might think the scandal here is that the official confessed a grave sin, and nothing was done. You may be wondering, “Where was Dwight McKissic? Surely the man who wants the Founders removed from mugs and T-shirts as well as all buildings would have fired off a missive demanding the resignation of an admitted racist and white supremacist.” However, you would be mistaken. The scandal here is not the sin this person admitted, but how an evangelical leader capitulated to the theology of the cult of antiracism and the complicity of the institution he represents.
You may think you know what racism is. However, you are almost certainly wrong—at least when it comes to the antiracist definition of racism. In fact, confusion and disagreement over this idea lie at the root of much of the disagreements among evangelicals about race, racism, and racial reconciliation. When most Christians speak of racism, we are referring to the traditional, historic definition like that offered by Merriam-Webster: “A belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.” Nor is Webster’s definition unique. The Oxford English Dictionary defines racism as:
A belief that one’s own racial or ethnic group is superior, or that other such groups represent a threat to one’s cultural identity, racial integrity, or economic well-being; (also) a belief that the members of different racial or ethnic groups possess specific characteristics, abilities, or qualities, which can be compared and evaluated. Hence: prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against people of other racial or ethnic groups (or, more widely, of other nationalities), esp. based on such beliefs.31
However, it is important to note that for the antiracist, these definitions no longer suffice. In fact, there is a serious movement afoot to change the definitions found in English dictionaries to suit the theology of antiracism. But what is the definition of racism that CSJ is striving for? Robin DiAngelo’s work is quite informative here:
Given the dominant conceptualization of racism as individual acts of cruelty, it follows that only terrible people who consciously don’t like people of color can enact racism. Though this conceptualization is misinformed, it is not benign. In fact, it functions beautifully to make it nearly impossible to engage in the necessary dialogue and self-reflection that can lead to change. Outrage at the suggestion of racism is often followed by righteous indignation about the manner in which the feedback was given.32
Note that DiAngelo sees this individualistic view of racism—the view we find in every reputable English dictionary—to be “misinformed.” Consequently, notes Aaron Preston, “as this bit of specialized nomenclature has migrated beyond its native habitat in left-leaning academic circles in the humanities and social sciences, it has entered the vocabulary of the average English speaker without a single, clear meaning.”33 How then shall we understand the term?
The most popular antiracist curriculum among conservative evangelicals is Latasha Morrison’s Be the Bridge: Pursuing God’s Heart for Racial Reconciliation. In the accompanying curriculum, Whiteness 101: Foundational Principles Every White Bridge Builder Needs to Understand, Morrison defines racism as “a system of advantage based on race, involving cultural messages, misuse of power, and institutional bias, in addition to the racist beliefs and actions of individuals.” It is important to note that this redefinition of racism, among other things, changes the location and therefore the nature of the sin. We are no longer dealing with the hearts of men; we are addressing institutions and structures. “For as long as America exists with its current institutions,” writes DiAngelo, “it will also need to be in group therapy where our turn begins with: ‘Hi. I’m America, and I’m racist.’ ”34
The implications of this statement are myriad. However, one bears mentioning here.
If DiAngelo and Morrison are right and 1) racism is corporate as opposed to individual, 2) racism is America’s sin, and 3) racism is connected only to whiteness, then it follows that as a black man, I am not only exempt from racism, but I am also not an American. At least not in any real sense. I am an ontological “other” who is a victim of America’s sin, while not participating in it.
Imagine if we thought this way about other issues. If America goes to war, are black Americans not called to arms? If America is guilty of a crime or an atrocity, are black Americans absolved of that guilt as well? This may seem like an esoteric point. However, I assure you, it is as relevant as anything else discussed in this book. If America owes a debt and I am excluded from that debt, then the implication is that I am less than American. (The same is true if American Christianity is the subject, as it often is.)
In an antiracist handout for educators, DiAngelo gives the following list to help participants understand the concept:
Racism exists today, in both traditional and modern forms.
All members of this society have been socialized to participate in it.
All white people benefit from racism, regardless of intentions; intentions are irrelevant.35
Much could be said about each of these points. However, my goal here is to help the reader see that these ideas are part of a system, a theology. Christians have been using these terms regularly of late, and in most cases, using them the same way the secular antiracists use them. Then, when called on it, the response (if the interlocutor is white) is some version of this: “That’s your white fragility speaking.” If the interlocutor is a “person of color,” the accusation is: “That’s your internalized racism.” But in both instances, the ultimate accusation is: “You are just trying to ‘shut down the conversation’ about racial justice.” Or “You just haven’t done your homework (i.e., reading Ibram X. Kendi, Robin DiAngelo, Latasha Morrison, Michelle Alexander, Jemar Tisby, Daniel Hill, Richard Delgado, Kimberlé Crenshaw, W.E.B. Du Bois, etc.), so you don’t know any better.” According to Critical Social Justice, without social science, the Bible doesn’t make sense.
At the heart of the “woke” movement lies the idea that the sin of racism is no longer to be understood as an individual sin. Instead, the term now incorporates the idea of “institutional/structural racism” and its implications. Hence, America has sinned, and certain Americans have inherited that sin whether they know it or not. “Hurling the damning label ‘racist’ at people and systems that don’t deserve it in order to incite revolutionary outrage is exactly the kind of subversive linguistic manipulation prescribed in [the grievance studies] playbook,” writes Aaron Preston.36 And leading evangelicals are following along. “[W]e have to address racism as a corporate problem,” wrote Criswell College President Barry Creamer for the Dallas Morning News. “In that light, we have to make sure we’re asking the right question.” Then Cameron taps his inner DiAngelo and states that the question is “not ‘how do I fix systemic racism in America?’ But: ‘In light of systemic racism’s reality, what actions on my part are right?’ ”37
In one of the approved canonical writings of the antiracism cult, DiAngelo explains, “In the post–civil rights era, we have been taught that racists are mean people who intentionally dislike others because of their race; racists are immoral.”38 However, she explains that this antiquated definition is no longer acceptable. For her and other leaders of the antiracist cult, the definition of racism is much broader. Today’s definition eschews the individualistic proscriptions of the past, arguing instead that racism is this: “A far-reaching system that functions independently from the intentions or self-images of individual actors.”39 In other words, today we have “racism without racists.”
This is why those inside and outside the cult of antiracism can use the same word while missing one another completely. What’s worse, antiracists see the mention of individual guilt as evidence that one is not only an outsider, but… a racist. “Racism is a marriage of racist policies and racist ideas that produces and normalizes racial inequities,”40 notes Ibram X. Kendi. Therefore, it follows that “institutional racism” and “structural racism” and “systemic racism” are redundant, when, according to the new definition, “Racism itself is institutional, structural, and systemic.”41 I appreciate Kendi’s candor as it helps to identify the competing worldview more clearly. For example, he offers a concrete example of racism, as he defines it, that leaves no doubt as to the antiracist perspective.
First, Kendi defines the sin of racial inequity as being “when two or more racial groups are not standing on approximately equal footing.”42 He goes on to offer a concrete example: “71 percent of White families lived in owner-occupied homes in 2014, compared to 45 percent of Latinx families and 41 percent of Black families.”43 Having provided a definition and an example, Kendi closes the loop with something one almost never finds in CSJ literature or sermons: a solution. Or at least, a description of what the results will look like once the solution (antiracist policies) is applied: “An example of racial equity would be if there were relatively equitable percentages of all three racial groups living in owner-occupied homes in the forties, seventies, or, better, nineties.”44
This is as clear as it gets! It is also critical to any analysis of the antiracist worldview and its compatibility with biblical truth. How, for example, would we apply the Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25 to this kind of thinking? For the antiracist, the goal is equitable outcomes. A goal that, as we will see, is neither biblical, reasonable, nor achievable. In fact, at no time in the history of the world has the kind of equity Kendi seeks existed. But this also explains so many things we have seen, and will see as we go forward.
For example, this definition of racism explains why antiracists are not moved by the evidence in individual police shootings. For them, the only relevant fact is proportionality. If blacks are shot by police at a disproportionate rate, it is de facto racism. Moreover, any attempt to explain the disparity as anything other than racism is, according to DiAngelo, another form of racism called “aversive racism.” This is why antiracists also cry foul when issues like out-of-wedlock birthrates, criminality, and cultural norms enter into the discussion. Furthermore, as we will see, it also explains why the mere reliance on things like facts, statistics, or the scientific method are actually seen as racist.45 (That is, unless Kendi is using facts, statistics, and the scientific method to prove the existence of inequities.) In other words, if you do not accept this worldview, you are inevitably engaging in racism.
If you think this definition is limited to academics in grievance studies, you are sorely mistaken. For example, David Platt, in a momentous sermon delivered at Together for the Gospel in 2018, defined racism as “a system… in which race, and specifically white and black skin colors, profoundly affects people’s economic, political, and social experiences.” This is unmistakably taken from the antiracist lexicon. But lest you think it lets individuals off the hook, Jarvis Williams claims that “race and racial reconciliation are soteriological issues.” Thus, not only are white Christians who fail to adopt antiracist theology and repent of racism in jeopardy of being alienated from God, but those who fail to elevate the preaching of the antiracist message to the same level as the preaching of the Gospel are apparently preaching another gospel—which, according to Williams, is no gospel at all. Ironically, it is the antiracists who have abandoned the Gospel since, in their view, there is no good news of grace. There is only law.
Albert Schweitzer once said, “A heavy guilt rests upon us for what the whites of all nations have done to the colored peoples. When we do good to them, it is not benevolence—it is atonement.”46 That sentiment lies at the heart of antiracism.
“What’s the problem with being ‘not racist’?” asks Kendi in How to Be an Antiracist. “It is a claim that signifies neutrality: ‘I am not a racist, but neither am I aggressively against racism.’ But there is no neutrality in the racism struggle. The opposite of ‘racist’ isn’t ‘not racist.’ It is ‘antiracist.’ ”47
In other words, antiracism means more than simply being “against racism.” The new definition adds the dimension of activism. The antiracist, therefore, is one who “does the work” of exposing, combatting, and reversing the ubiquitous influences of racism in the past, present, and future. “You’ll need to examine your own life and the lives of your ancestors so you can see whether you’ve participated in, perpetuated, or benefited from systems of racism,” Morrison writes in Be the Bridge.48
That’s right: it is not enough for white Christians to examine their hearts and lives to see whether they stand guilty (which they do); they must also examine the attitudes and actions of their ancestors—which, according to antiracist cosmology, includes all white people. And this is no small thing. In Morrison’s theology, this is a cardinal doctrine. “That is the power of the unconfessed sin of white supremacy, racism, and resulting colorism: it leads to death, sometimes physical, sometimes metaphorical.”49
It is one thing for me to suggest that antiracism is an expression of legalistic religion. It is another thing to see it in action. Kendi’s proposed amendment to the United States Constitution makes the case better than I ever could:
To fix the original sin of racism, Americans should pass an anti-racist amendment to the U.S. Constitution that enshrines two guiding anti-racist principals: Racial inequity is evidence of racist policy and the different racial groups are equals. The amendment would make unconstitutional racial inequity over a certain threshold, as well as racist ideas by public officials (with “racist ideas” and “public official” clearly defined). It would establish and permanently fund the Department of Anti-racism (DOA) 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.50
As legendary economist Thomas Sowell (who is black) notes, “This conception of fairness requires that third parties must wield the power to control outcomes, overriding rules, standards, or the preferences of other people.”51 If one didn’t know better, one might think Sowell’s words in The Quest for Cosmic Justice were written in response to Kendi’s amendment instead of two decades prior.
Four things are worth noting about Kendi’s proposed amendment. First, he couches it in religious terms but gives it government-empowered teeth—thus removing all doubt that we are dealing with a legalistic religious movement. It is designed to “fix the original sin of racism.” Second, because antiracism is rooted in law instead of gospel, Kendi’s solution is legal rather than spiritual. Third, the amendment is rooted in the assumptions of CRT/I. It requires us to assume that “racial inequity is evidence of racist policy.” Finally, the amendment must be enforced by a new priesthood, the Department of Antiracism. Why priesthood? Because the goal is fixing sin, the staffers’ training is based in antiracism, and their power is meant to be wielded “against policymakers and public officials who do not voluntarily change their racist policy and ideas.”
This is not just law-work; it is heart-work. This is inside-out, top-down transformation. This is the work of a new class of priests.
The words of Milton Friedman serve as a fitting caveat:
A society that puts equality—in the sense of equality of outcome—ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom. The use of force to achieve equality will destroy freedom, and the force, introduced for good purposes, will end up in the hands of people who use it to promote their own interests.52
1. John McWhorter, “Atonement as Activism,” American Interest, May 24, 2018, https://www.the-american-interest.com/2018/05/24/atonement-as-activism/; John McWhorter, “Antiracism, Our Flawed New Religion,” Daily Beast, April 14, 2017, https://www.thedailybeast.com/antiracism-our-flawed-new-religion; James Lindsay, “Postmodern Religion and the Faith of Social Justice,” Areo, December 18, 2018, https://areomagazine.com/2018/12/18/postmodern-religion-and-the-faith-of-social-justice/; Andrew Sullivan, “America’s New Religions,” New York Magazine’s Intelligencer, December 7, 2018, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/12/andrew-sullivan-americas-new-religions.html?utm_source=tw; Andrew Sullivan, “Is Intersectionality a Religion?” New York Magazine, March 10, 2017, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/03/is-intersectionality-a-religion.html; Elizabeth C. Corey, “First Church of Intersectionality,” First Things, August 2017, https://www.firstthings.com/article/2017/08/first-church-of-intersectionality; and many more.
2. Aaron Preston, citing Richard Rorty, “Redefining Racism against Activist Lexicography,” New Discourses, August 8, 2020, https://newdiscourses.com/2020/08/redefining-racism-against-activist-lexicography.
3. Ibram X. Kendi, How to Be an Antiracist (New York, New York: Random House Publishing Group, Kindle Edition, 2019), 17.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Robin DiAngelo and Özlem Sensoy, Is Everyone Really Equal?: An Introduction to Key Concepts in Social Justice Education (Multicultural Education Series) (New York, New York: Teachers College Press, Kindle Edition, 2012), 142–43.
7. Neil Shenvi, “Antiracist Glossary,” Neil Shenvi—Apologetics, https://shenviapologetics.com/an-antiracism-glossary-whiteness.
8. Tommy Curry, “Critical Race Theory,” Encyclopedia Britannica, May 28, 2020, https://www.britannica.com/topic/critical-race-theory.
9. For the New Christian Intellectual, “Jarvis Williams on ‘Whiteness’ Pursuing Gospel Centered Racial Reconciliation,” YouTube, August 29, 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAYy3nNdy4Y. The section I refer to begins forty-one minutes in and lasts approximately four and a half minutes.
10. “Dallas Conference On-Stage Interview with Ekemini Uwan,” Sparrow Women’s Dallas Evangelical Conference, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9JQntpn71I.
11. Robin J. DiAngelo, White Fragility (Boston, Massachusetts: Beacon Press, Kindle Edition, 2018), 16.
12. Peggy McIntosh, “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” https://www.racialequitytools.org/resourcefiles/mcintosh.pdf. This article is the gold standard and it does not have a single footnote! This proves DiAngelo’s point about the assumptions in Whiteness Studies.
13. McIntosh, “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.” This is as “clear” as it gets!
14. Ibid.
15. The Village Church Resources, “How to Understand and Address White Privilege,” YouTube, June 28, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzUXZpMQlTQ.
16. Center for the Study of Social Policy, “Race Equity Glossary of Terms,” Educate Not Indoctrinate, https://educatenotindoctrinate.org/glossaries/race-equity-glossary-of-terms.
17. Daniel Hill, White Awake (Westmont, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, Kindle Edition, 2017), 52.
18. DiAngelo and Sensoy, Is Everyone Really Equal?, 143.
19. DiAngelo, White Fragility, 30.
20. Trevor Loudon, “Critical Race Theory Promoted by Three Professors at Flagship Southern Baptist Seminary,” YouTube, August 30, 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M—gMO64r6U.
21. Barbara Applebaum, Being White, Being Good: White Complicity, White Moral Responsibility, and Social Justice Pedagogy (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2010), 140.
22. Ibid., 2–3.
23. Jim Wallis, “On the 50th Anniversary of Dr. King’s Assassination, Confessing the Church’s Complicity in Racial Division,” Sojourners, April 4, 2018, https://sojo.net/articles/50th-anniversary-dr-kings-assassination-confessing-churchs-complicity-racial-division.
24. DiAngelo, White Fragility, 112.
25. James Lindsay, “White Equilibrium,” New Discourses, January 13, 2020, https://newdiscourses.com/tftw-white-equilibrium.
26. Latasha Morrison, Be the Bridge (New York, New York: Crown Publishing Group, Kindle Edition, 2019), 154.
27. DiAngelo, White Fragility, 2.
28. Ibid., 138.
29. For the New Christian Intellectual, “ ‘I Am a Racist’—Mathew Hall, Provost at Southern Seminary,” YouTube, July 31, 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IiKCYSevDU.
30. To be fair, Hall has since gone on the record to repudiate CRT, and his statements were removed from Southern’s website. However, the fact remains that he made such statements repeatedly, openly, and unambiguously. It is hard to imagine simply walking back erroneous statements with an apology as being acceptable on any other theological issue—especially one that has been repudiated by all six Southern Baptist seminary presidents.
31. Oxford English Dictionary’s website, https://www-oed-com.dist.lib.usu.edu/view/Entry/157097?redirectedFrom=racism#eid.
32. DiAngelo, White Fragility, 123.
33. Preston, “Redefining ‘Racism’: Against Activist Lexicography.”
34. DiAngelo, White Fragility, 30.
35. Robin J. DiAngelo, “Anti-Racism Handout,” robindiangelo.com, June 2016, https://robindiangelo.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Anti-racism-handout-1-page-2016.pdf.
36. Preston, “Redefining ‘Racism’: Against Activist Lexicography.”
37. Barry Creamer, “Our Faith and Ethics Must Challenge Our Norms on Race,” Dallas Morning News, August 9, 2020, https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2020/08/09/hi-im-america-and-im-racist.
38. DiAngelo, White Fragility, 13.
39. DiAngelo, White Fragility, 20.
40. Kendi, How to Be an Antiracist, 17.
41. Ibid, 18.
42. Ibid.
43. Ibid.
44. Ibid.
45. The idea that the scientific method is inherently racist is a hallmark of CRT. In one of the seminal academic papers on the topic, Tara Yosso, one of the most-cited CRT academics, lists five key elements of the ideology. Among them, she identifies “the challenge to dominant ideology. CRT challenges White privilege and refutes the claims that educational institutions make toward objectivity, meritocracy, color-blindness, race neutrality and equal opportunity. CRT challenges notions of ‘neutral’ research or ‘objective’ researchers and exposes deficit-informed research that silences, ignores and distorts epistemologies of People of Color. CRT argues that these traditional claims act as a camouflage for the self-interest, power, and privilege of dominant groups in US society.” See San Jose State University’s “Critical Race Theory in Chicana/O Education,” April 1, 2001, https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://duckduckgo.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1036&context=naccs. Also, a flier at the Smithsonian’s Museum of African American History included the Scientific Method as “an element of whiteness.” The document specified that this includes objective, rational, linear thinking; cause-and-effect relationships; and quantitative emphasis.
46. David Lang, ed., Assorted Quotations (Altamonte Springs, Florida: OakTree Software, accordance electronic ed., 2001), paragraph 5139.
47. Kendi, How to Be an Antiracist, 9.
48. Morrison, Be the Bridge, 8.
49. Ibid., 94.
50. Ibram X. Kendi, “Pass an Anti-Racist Constitutional Amendment,” Politico, 2019, https://www.politico.com/interactives/2019/how-to-fix-politics-in-america/inequality/pass-an-anti-racist-constitutional-amendment/.
51. Thomas Sowell, The Quest for Cosmic Justice (New York, New York: Free Press, Kindle Edition, 1996), 12.
52. Sowell, The Quest for Cosmic Justice, 6–7.