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Will never understand why some SBCers can’t agree that a secular theory can still be “a useful analytical tool.” Don’t have to give it carte blanche approval. If CRT has given us *even one* true insight into racism, then you can affirm a statement like that. https://twitter.com/bj116/status/1340082499037356033
What amazes me, too, is that so many in the SBC from the reformed camp can't agree to a statement like Res. 9. The reformed tradition has long championed the doctrine of common grace—that unbelievers retain the image of God and experience levels of his grace.
Martin Luther, John Calvin, Herman Bavinck, Francis Schaeffer, and so many other reformed theologians.
An implication of the doctrine of common grace is that unbelievers can discover truths about the universe (e.g., the sciences, including social science). This is why it's possible for CRT to give us insights into racism that are true even though it's rooted in a secular ideology.
Francis Schaeffer was famous for saying it this way: "All truth is God's truth." In other words, if anyone, whether a believer or an unbeliever, discovers something true in the universe, it's because God, the creator, established it as true. They are discovering God's truth.
I know reformed SBCers believe this, and I'm baffled by their failure to see how it applies to the debate about CRT.
If Res. 9 gave a full endorsement of CRT I would understand their concern and join them in it. But it doesn't. It simply affirms that it can be a useful "analytical tool."
And the failure (especially of those in the reformed camp, because they of all people should see this!), to recognize this is driving African American brothers, pastors, and churches out of our convention.
Go back and read the resolution that was passed. The folks who put that together are demonstrating way more theological acumen than the ones I see bashing it. https://www.sbc.net/resource-library/resolutions/on-critical-race-theory-and-intersectionality/
From the resolution: "General revelation accounts for truthful insights found in human ideas that do not explicitly emerge from Scripture and reflects what some may term 'common grace'"
More: "Critical race theory and intersectionality alone are insufficient to diagnose and redress the root causes of the social ills that they identify, which result from sin"
And It just makes me wonder, do the folks who think we can't learn anything from CRT because of its secular roots really maintain that line of thought consistently when it comes all of their knowledge intake? Have they ever learned something from a book written by an unbeliever?
All of this to say @CharlieDates is right when he points out that "theirs is an inconsistent epistemology." That's it. The inconsistent epistemology of those who keep throwing the baby of CRT's insights out with the bathwater of its errors & secular roots. https://religionnews.com/2020/12/18/we-out-charlie-dates-on-why-his-church-is-leaving-the-sbc-over-rejection-of-critical-race-theory/?fbclid=IwAR0FGtJB6XBKYod46HVxA98nJyL_73m2mQP74SzVxGjDrVpFr-sGA5CsO9U
