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

[temporal1]

There’s a reason this topic has 1,309,771 views, and counting.
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[Bootstrap]

McClain Bible Church posts every single church service and sermon to YouTube in addition to loads of additional material from David Platt and others. It's all right here on their YouTube page:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoDxft ... AutX4c833g

David Platt has said clearly that he does not teach CRT. And so far, I haven’t seen any direct quotes from him that suggest otherwise.

If someone believes he’s teaching CRT in his sermons, could you please provide specific video links or reliable transcripts? If we’re going to make accusations about a brother in Christ—especially a public one—we need to be willing to back them up with evidence or walk them back.

Let’s act like Christians here.

You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with a wicked man to be a malicious witness.

The simple believes everything, but the prudent gives thought to his steps.

[Ken]

I am literally LOL

Ken, you just keep saying “well, that is not CRT”.

Execute me, who is the King of CRT?
I asked earlier. Who provides the nihil obstat for CRT?

For one, the academics who developed the theory and applied it as an analytical tool to understand the origins of bias within specific public institutions like the criminal justice system.

[JohnH]

McClain Bible Church posts every single church service and sermon to YouTube in addition to loads of additional material from David Platt and others. It's all right here on their YouTube page:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoDxft ... AutX4c833g

David Platt has said clearly that he does not teach CRT. And so far, I haven’t seen any direct quotes from him that suggest otherwise.

If someone believes he’s teaching CRT in his sermons, could you please provide specific video links or reliable transcripts? If we’re going to make accusations about a brother in Christ—especially a public one—we need to be willing to back them up with evidence or walk them back.

Let’s act like Christians here.

You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with a wicked man to be a malicious witness.

The simple believes everything, but the prudent gives thought to his steps.

Sure. Just like he claimed he didn’t support BLM, despite attending BLM rallies in, well, support of it.

I don’t really believe him at his word. I’m much more interested in believing what his church members have said.

[Ken]

McClain Bible Church posts every single church service and sermon to YouTube in addition to loads of additional material from David Platt and others. It's all right here on their YouTube page:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoDxft ... AutX4c833g

David Platt has said clearly that he does not teach CRT. And so far, I haven’t seen any direct quotes from him that suggest otherwise.

If someone believes he’s teaching CRT in his sermons, could you please provide specific video links or reliable transcripts? If we’re going to make accusations about a brother in Christ—especially a public one—we need to be willing to back them up with evidence or walk them back.

Let’s act like Christians here.

You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with a wicked man to be a malicious witness.

The simple believes everything, but the prudent gives thought to his steps.

Whether David Platt used CRT as an explanatory tool in specific sermons is neither here nor there. It is a benign tool that looks at how racial bias can be embedded within institutions. Which is not a controversial proposition or even a debatable one. Racism should be a subject for sermons, especially in Virginia.

However the claim upstream by JohnH was the David Platt used CRT as some sort of weapon to affect the takeover of McClain Bible Church. That was not even a claim that his opponents make. They do some grumbling about having to listen to some sermons on race. And how it hurt their feelings and was divisive. That is it. They never make the claim that David Platt used CRT as a weapon to effect the takeover of a church.

[Bootstrap]

I am literally LOL

Ken, you just keep saying “well, that is not CRT”.

Execute me, who is the King of CRT?
I asked earlier. Who provides the nihil obstat for CRT?

For one, the academics who developed the theory and applied it as an analytical tool to understand the origins of bias within specific public institutions like the criminal justice system.

I agree with Ken here - CRT is well defined in the communities that developed it. And it's not what the right-wing people are railing against.

Sometimes I think right-wing media has intentionally distorted what CRT is, creating a strawman to mock and scare people. Particularly Christopher Rufo, who was quite clear that he was doing that.

We have successfully frozen their brand—"critical race theory"—into the public conversation and are steadily driving up negative perceptions. We will eventually turn it toxic, as we put all of the various cultural insanities under that brand category.

So the confusion around CRT and the toxicity of the term is an intentional political strategy.

CRT is actually well-defined. It is:

A framework for examining how laws and legal institutions perpetuate racial inequalities, even when they appear race-neutral.

Some of the key tenets are:

• Racism is not just individual bias but embedded in systems and structures.
• The idea of "colorblindness" can obscure real inequalities.
• Storytelling and lived experience (especially of marginalized people) are valid ways of knowing.
• Interest convergence: progress for minorities tends to happen when it aligns with the interests of those in power.

If we want to discuss CRT, I think those are the things to discuss. I don't think Christopher Rufo defines CRT, nor the people he has influenced.

[Ken]

McClain Bible Church posts every single church service and sermon to YouTube in addition to loads of additional material from David Platt and others. It's all right here on their YouTube page:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoDxft ... AutX4c833g

David Platt has said clearly that he does not teach CRT. And so far, I haven’t seen any direct quotes from him that suggest otherwise.

If someone believes he’s teaching CRT in his sermons, could you please provide specific video links or reliable transcripts? If we’re going to make accusations about a brother in Christ—especially a public one—we need to be willing to back them up with evidence or walk them back.

Let’s act like Christians here.

You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with a wicked man to be a malicious witness.

The simple believes everything, but the prudent gives thought to his steps.

Sure. Just like he claimed he didn’t support BLM, despite attending BLM rallies in, well, support of it.

I don’t really believe him at his word. I’m much more interested in believing what his church members have said.

Who cares whether he attended a BLM rally or gave sermons on race that made some of his more conservative congregants uncomfortable? Sermons should sometimes challenge us and make us uncomfortable. Racism is a sin. So churches should preach against it. Are you equally scandalized if churches preach about some other sin like divorce or infidelity? Even if it makes some people uncomfortable or hurts their feelings?

Upstream you made the following claim. These are your exact words: "An interesting thing that emerged recently was how David Platt used CRT as a tool to gain power in a church."

When not even his opponents make that argument. Instead they talk about how he used political and bureaucratic machinations and control over purse strings to illegitimately gain control over a church. Which is maybe true or maybe not. We are just getting one side here and their lawsuit against David Platt was dismissed. The only thing race has to do with anything is that sermons about race are just one of the gripes that they had about David Platt's ministry generally. But of course they don't actually show any Platt sermons so we can judge for ourselves whether they even have a point.

[JohnH]

We are just getting one side here and their lawsuit against David Platt was dismissed.

Great to know we can trust the courts to decide who should be running a church.

[Bootstrap]

We are just getting one side here and their lawsuit against David Platt was dismissed.

Great to know we can trust the courts to decide who should be running a church.

Do we want to be the Kingdom of God or don’t we?

Scripture repeatedly warns us against gossip, slander, meddling, and joining in accusations without solid witness. (See Prov 11:13; 1 Tim 5:19; 1 Pet 4:15.) That applies whether it's in courtrooms or comment threads.

You're right that courts are imperfect. So is the internet. But 1 Corinthians 6 reminds us that if we're serious about being the people of God, we ought to handle disputes within the church—with wisdom, with humility, and above all, with love for the truth and for one another.

If we’re not part of the church in question, and we don’t have clear firsthand knowledge, maybe the godly thing is not to take sides at all. Not every story on the internet is ours to judge.

Let’s aim to be people who build up the church, not tear it down from a distance.

I think we should have a laser focus on What we’ll be held accountable for on Judgment Day?

Amen. According to Scripture, how we speak about others—especially our brothers and sisters in Christ—is one of them.

[Ken]

We are just getting one side here and their lawsuit against David Platt was dismissed.

Great to know we can trust the courts to decide who should be running a church.

The anti David Platt people who made the film you pointed us to are the ones who sued.

Take it up with them if you think lawsuits are unseemly. I'm just pointing out that the court didn't think their arguments had merit.