What are your thoughts re Hegelian Dialectic & CRT in the Church?

[Falco Underhill]

This thread is for continuing the conversation we were having without being sidetracked by the Beth Moore issue.

The topic of this thread is Hegelian Dialectic & CRT in the Church, not Beth Moore.

Rules of this Thread:

1. Do not label anyone or anyone's opinion a conspiracy theory.

Okay, let's see how this goes.

[Soloist]

This thread is for continuing the conversation we were having without being sidetracked by the Beth Moore issue.

The topic of this thread is Hegelian Dialectic & CRT in the Church, not Beth Moore.

Rules of this Thread:

1. Do not label anyone or anyone's opinion a conspiracy theory.

Okay, let's see how this goes.

Does CRT actually have anything to do with LGBTQ or is that not part of it?
https://www.christianitytoday.com/edste ... erned.html
This is where I got the connection and the reason I asked.

https://answersingenesis.org/racism/cri ... ry-church/

Is this a fair description of the CRT portion, or have they unfairly painted it?

[Bootstrap]

Is there a widely accepted definition of Hegelian Dialectic and of CRT that we can base this discussion on?

[Soloist]

Is there a widely accepted definition of Hegelian Dialectic and of CRT that we can base this discussion on?

As for CRT, apparently not

Shedding light necessitates acknowledging that academic circles also spread ambiguity about CRT. Critical race theorist Tommy Curry observes that scholars use the term with a reckless range: “The CRT label to describe (1) any work dealing with postcolonial authors like W.E.B. Du Bois and Frantz Fanon or (2) the role postcolonial themes like power, discourse, and the unconscious play in the social constructionist area.” Kimberlé Crenshaw, one of CRT’s founders, adds that “the name Critical Race Theory . . . [is] now used as interchangeably for race scholarship as Kleenex is used for tissue.” This pervasive, fluid use of the term “CRT” has led scholars including Lewis Gordon, Charles Mills, and Lucius Outlaw to misidentify CRT. Beyond simply obscuring the definition of CRT, some appropriate the term to denote an emaciated conception of race divorced from CRT’s founders and their methodological and theoretical commitments. These scholars engage in academic gentrification: they take up residence within CRT scholarship, replace its original methods and commitments, ignore its founders, and silence the founders’ intellectual heirs.

The Need for a Guide
Confusion, misidentification, and gentrification characterize academic treatments of CRT; silence and name-dropping typify treatments within the Church. It’s hard to find accurate, detailed treatments of CRT. We as Christians need more than light. We need a guide.

CRT therefore is not a single theory, method, or analytic tool. It’s a diverse, contested, multi-layered movement.

https://faithfullymagazine.com/critical ... hristians/

[Ken]

CRT is an obscure academic term that really has nothing to do with most of the contexts in which it is currently used by modern culture warriors. In my own home town we currently have crowds showing up to school board meetings to protest the teaching of CRT in the schools when that is not something that has ever once happened in any curriculum or at any grade level. I doubt many if any people in my district had ever even heard the term CRT before it became a lightning-rod issue last year. I certainly hadn't.

I would like to see people discuss how the issue of race and racism relate to churches or schools without relying on meaningless buzz words like CRT. If one can talk about how the SBC, or Mennonite Church, or any other church is addressing race and racism without falling into toxic buzzwords like CRT then I expect one has something intelligent to say. If one can't do that then one probably doesn't have anything intelligent to say.

The SBC is perhaps an easy target because I don't think anyone posting here is SBC. So we can ask, for example, if the SBC has an historic problem with racism. And we can ask if they have a current problem with racism. And if we conclude that either of those two questions is true, we can ask what steps the SBC should be taking to address those problems. And we can do that much more intelligently if we avoid throwing around meaningless terms like CRT.

As for Hegel? I don't think anything related to Hegelian philosophy has much relevance to modern discussions of church and race.

[Falco Underhill]

This thread is for continuing the conversation we were having without being sidetracked by the Beth Moore issue.

The topic of this thread is Hegelian Dialectic & CRT in the Church, not Beth Moore.

Rules of this Thread:

1. Do not label anyone or anyone's opinion a conspiracy theory.

Okay, let's see how this goes.

Does CRT actually have anything to do with LGBTQ or is that not part of it?
https://www.christianitytoday.com/edste ... erned.html
This is where I got the connection and the reason I asked.

https://answersingenesis.org/racism/cri ... ry-church/

Is this a fair description of the CRT portion, or have they unfairly painted it?

Thanks Soloist! I can see this will take me some time to get through. It looks excellent though.

[JimFoxvog]

https://answersingenesis.org/racism/cri ... ry-church/

Is this a fair description of the CRT portion, or have they unfairly painted it?

I think some of it is fair and what is labeled CRT is correct.

For instance, CRT teaches some groups, like blacks in America, have been historically oppressed by a dominant white culture. They argue American culture is enmeshed in “systemic racism,” which is a rigged system where African-Americans cannot get justice or fair treatment in 21st century America. CRT also teaches that systemic racism started with slavery in the early centuries of American history and continues into the present time. Some given examples of systemic racism include disproportionate numbers of blacks being incarcerated, historically unfair housing regulations for potential black homebuyers, and police treating blacks unfairly or cruelly as in the case when George Floyd died while being roughly handled by a police officer in Minneapolis in May 2020.

I don't know if this is a fair description of CRT:

So what is so wrong about critical race theory? First off, we must acknowledge that truth is not determined by groups of people. Critical race theoreticians have shifted the center of truth away from objective standards to the subjective perspective of what are considered oppressed groups. To CRT advocates, truth is not determined objectively outside of themselves. Instead, truth is determined experientially by historically oppressed groups of people; thus, different groups of people can have different “truths” in this view.

It certainly is unfair to suggest that all that believe racism is systemic also have this view of truth.

[Ken]

https://answersingenesis.org/racism/cri ... ry-church/

Is this a fair description of the CRT portion, or have they unfairly painted it?

I think some of it is fair and what is labeled CRT is correct.

For instance, CRT teaches some groups, like blacks in America, have been historically oppressed by a dominant white culture. They argue American culture is enmeshed in “systemic racism,” which is a rigged system where African-Americans cannot get justice or fair treatment in 21st century America. CRT also teaches that systemic racism started with slavery in the early centuries of American history and continues into the present time. Some given examples of systemic racism include disproportionate numbers of blacks being incarcerated, historically unfair housing regulations for potential black homebuyers, and police treating blacks unfairly or cruelly as in the case when George Floyd died while being roughly handled by a police officer in Minneapolis in May 2020.

I don't know if this is a fair description of CRT:

So what is so wrong about critical race theory? First off, we must acknowledge that truth is not determined by groups of people. Critical race theoreticians have shifted the center of truth away from objective standards to the subjective perspective of what are considered oppressed groups. To CRT advocates, truth is not determined objectively outside of themselves. Instead, truth is determined experientially by historically oppressed groups of people; thus, different groups of people can have different “truths” in this view.

It certainly is unfair to suggest that all that believe racism is systemic also have this view of truth.

The larger point is that this is all esoteric academic stuff. It is like arguing about mechanisms for ion transport across the lipid bilayer cell membrane if you are a cell biologist. Or about the Lamda-CDM model of the expansion of the universe if you are an astrophysicist. Academics argue about these sorts of things intensely as well as the relevant components of CRT theory. But it is of little relevance to ordinary life or how we teach biology, physics, or civics in school classrooms.

In education, no one is teaching CRT to students at any level of K-12 education. Where it does have some useful relevance is when academics at graduate schools of education ask questions like: Are there racial biases in how we fund K-12 education in a given metro area? Why are suburban schools wealthier and have superior facilities than inner city schools? Are there systemic racial issues at play in terms of how we draw school district boundaries and allocate resources across a metro area like say Saint Louis or Atlanta? Or, perhaps they might ask the question. Why are black students disciplined more harshly and suspended more often for the same offences as white students in certain districts. Those are the sorts of academic questions where CRT might prove useful. But they aren't the sort of questions that are asked in school classrooms in civics or history classes. In point of fact, history curriculum in many states barely even addresses the issue of race and often goes way over the top in the other direction to promote white-supremacist propaganda and myths.

As for what CRT has to do with churches? It would be relevant, for example, to discussions about how resources are allocated within a denomination. Take the SBC. Do they allocate similar resources to church planting efforts in white communities vs brown or black communities? The answer in fact is no. They do not. The typical church planting effort in white communities is funded at 3x the level of efforts in brown or black communities. There was a recent article in the Washington Post about this very topic which didn't discuss CRT at all: https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion ... story.html If we are still talking about the SBC we could ask whether the concerns and issues facing black churches are being heard and given equal weight to those of largely white suburban churches within the SBC hierarchy. The answer again is probably no. Which is why so many are leaving. And that is largely what I perceive the split between the ultra-conservatives and mainstream conservatives is all about.

So it rather misses the point to waste time deep-diving and nit-picking what specific elements are contained within CRT and what aren't. That is all largely irrelevant to the questions at hand. And it is also like the blind men feeling the elephant. Each one perceives something entirely different based on the part of the elephant they are touching. CRT is nothing more than an academic framework that may or may not be useful for studying societal issues that involve race.

[Falco Underhill]

In point of fact, history curriculum in many states barely even addresses the issue of race and often goes way over the top in the other direction to promote white-supremacist propaganda and myths.

Exactly what "white-supremacist propaganda and myths" are history curriculums promoting today?

[Bootstrap]

In point of fact, history curriculum in many states barely even addresses the issue of race and often goes way over the top in the other direction to promote white-supremacist propaganda and myths.

Exactly what "white-supremacist propaganda and myths" are history curriculums promoting today?

Here's one starting point.


TWISTED SOURCES: How Confederate propaganda ended up in the South's schoolbooks