Biblical Critical Theory: How the Bible's Unfolding Story Makes Sense of Modern Life and Culture

Product Information

The first posture works (in a manner of speaking) in Christendom where Christians can presume we are in charge. The second posture is that of a minority people capable of mission in post-Christendom sharing the gospel and the justice of God in Christ with the world (who doesn’t believe) in a noncoercive way. I was querying in the previous post whether Dr. Keller is A.) or B.). I’m not entirely sure. For me however I am firmly in the second camp.

It is not enough for Christians to explain the Bible to the culture or cultures in which we live. We must also explain the culture in which we live within the framework and categories of the Bible, revealing how the whole of the Bible sheds light on the whole of life. Third, critical theory functions as a worldview. It answers our most basic questions: Who are we? What is our fundamental problem? What is the solution to that problem? What is our primary moral duty? How should we live? In his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, delivered on August 23, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. envisioned a world beyond racism in which people, including his own children, would be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. 23 It is ironic that his hope for a colorblind, post-racial humanity has come under such serious criticism by critical theorists who suggest it has been co-opted in a way that encourages racism. 24 MLK knew that his dream could not be accomplished by human effort alone, just as revolutions and riots can neither eradicate sin nor create peace. It was for this reason that MLK self-consciously distanced himself from the violent instigations of Marxism. 25 God would have to “make a way . . . where there is no way.” Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey :: 505 U.S. 833 (1992) :: Justia US Supreme Court Center. https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/505/833/In the previous post, I explored Tim Keller’s understanding of a “foundation” for justice in his recent article ( here) on justice? I asked, do we understand ‘Biblical Justice’ as a foundation in terms of A.) an objective truth to be argued for over against the other versions of justice? or B.) a tradition of justice to be worked out in the lives of Christians as a church under Jesus’ Lordship, lived before the world (alongside other justices) as a witness? Christopher Watkin’s expert, timely compendium of Christian Scripture’s subversive engagement of dominating themes of our modern age brings welcome healing to our world.”

In addition to the concept of race, critical theory also finds the concepts of gender and sex to be modern inventions, as has been noted previously. 16 Christian definitions of gender and sexuality are perceived as manmade social constructions intended to repress human freedom. 17 “Queer Theory presumes that oppression follows from categorization, which arises every time language constructs a sense of what is ‘normal’ by producing and maintaining rigid categories of sex (male and female), gender (masculine and feminine), and sexuality (straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual and so on) and ‘scripting’ people into them.” 18 The contrast between the teachings of queer theory and the Bible on gender and what it means to be made male and female in the image of God is stark. Critical Theory and the Family Bible– The struggle is not primarily between different groups in society, nor is it to amass the trappings of self-realisation; it is against evil forces. [43] Salvation is not the victory of one group over another, nor is it akin to individual self-realisation indexed by exterior success; it is a gift received by grace. Grace cuts across both CRT’s racial groupings and liberalism’s idea of the autonomous individual. It leaves no room for looking down on the unsaved and culpable, or for thinking oneself superior for being saved. [44] Through the death and resurrection of Christ, grace also offers the Christian a new identity grounded neither in autonomous liberal selfhood nor in the group identities of critical theories. [45] Forgiveness is offered without distinction and without reservation to all who repent, [46] regardless of their offence. The Christian identity marker of being ‘in Christ’ cuts across and relativises the sort of identity markers fundamental to CRT, [47] while also undermining liberalism’s atomised self-sufficiency and colourblind ideology. [48] Consummation Smith, David Woodruff, “Phenomenology”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2018 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = For each key moment in the Bible’s storyline I will briefly sketch the CRT and liberal positions, before turning to Scripture itself which, I will argue, diagonalises (cuts across and rearranges) orthodoxies of both critical race theory and liberalism. [25] This exercise reveals them both to be reductive heresies, taking elements of biblical truth and cutting them off from other complementary truths, distorting and falsifying them in the process. Creation

Another significant influence on critical theory was, and is, Marxism. “Critical Theory was conceived and birthed within the intellectual crucible of Marxism.” 7 But critical theory should not be equated with Marxism or reduced to it. It would perhaps be more accurate to say that early architects of critical theory had something of a love-hate relationship with Marxism, sometimes drawing from Marxist ideology and sometimes forcefully rejecting it. Marxism is well known for its portrayal of the tensions that exist between various economic classes that are collapsed into the categories of “oppressors” and the “oppressed,” with capitalism being one of the main causes of oppression. At the same time, critical theorists saw in Marxism yet another system of thought that proved unsuccessful in its attempt to bring equity to the world. For Students Pursue a deeper knowledge of God through self-paced college- and seminary-level online courses in Old and New Testament studies, theology, biblical Greek, and more. Watkin locates his primary scholarly contribution in BCT in mapping his cultural and theological insights “onto the Bible’s storyline from Genesis to Revelation.” [2] He hopes “this fresh arrangement is in itself significant.” [3] He also sees himself advancing a new way to do cultural apologetics that others can build upon: “By exploring biblical and late modern figures in a framework of biblical theology, I have provided a crudely drawn map, the finer details of which others can complete in ways I never could.” [4] CRT– Society is violent, and oppression is endemic and ineradicable. The world is divided into groups of oppressors and oppressed. Guilt is shared among all members of the oppressor group, in something equivalent to an original sin of whiteness. I am guilty of and responsible for the historical and contemporary actions of groups to which I belong. The problem of oppression is structural: injustice is systemic and baked into modern society. Both CRT and liberalism capture something of the complex biblical picture of justice, but both fall short – in different ways – of its rich complexity. As theologian and social theorist Charles Mathewes notes, Christians must not allow any political position to become ‘the uncontested ideology of our souls’. [19]

Queer theory is another activist school of thought deriving from particularly postmodern ideas about human sexuality, seeking to cast off historical (especially Judeo-Christian) definitions and characterizations of sex and gender. “Queer theory is about liberation from the normal, especially where it comes to norms of gender and sexuality. This is because it regards the very existence of the categories of sex, gender and sexuality to be oppressive.” 3 The movement wishes to detach gender identity from the historical trappings of the past that have deemed certain sexual behaviors as right or wrong. Like its ideological siblings noted above, queer theory advocates seek to reshape the ways that gender identity has been assigned. In Michael Serres: Figures of Thought, we learn that the concept of the figure became intuitive to Watkin in his reading philosophy as a graduate student: from all the power of the devil. He also preserves me in such a way that without the will of my heavenly Father As critical theorists endeavor to make “certain things visible and certain things valuable,” Watkin seeks to do the same through a fresh reading of redemptive history. He registers his particular critical interest in four ways. How many types of figures are there? Watkin says that there are six categories of figures. The six figures are time/space; language/ideas/stories; objects; behavior; relationships; and structure of reality. Taken together, these six categories form the “figuration totale of a given cultural moment.” It is important not to place on figure in the controlling position over all the others. Examples of biblical figures include:What does it mean to ‘understand’ a philosopher? As a beleaguered PhD student finding my way in the forest of modern and contemporary French thought I remember what it felt like finally to come to terms with a particular thinker. This sensation almost invariably came at the moment when I began to discern the characteristic ‘moves’ of the philosopher in question, to see the ways in which, time and again, they approached disparate subjects in distinct and recognisable ways, such that I came to be able to predict in a general sense the likely contours of their response to any given question. Not that they became predictable, not that they ceased to surprise me, but nevertheless I was able to fit what I was reading into an emerging understanding of the pattern of their thought. Once I began to understand how a philosopher thought in general, it became easier to understand what he or she thought about any theme in particular. [13] An important update of Augustine’s City of God, a proposal for making biblical sense of what is happening in contemporary culture.”