Stop Drinking CRT’s Deceptive Kool-Aid!

By Dr. Eric Wallace

The current furor over Black Lives Matter (BLM) and Critical Race Theory (CRT) spreading into the church reminds me of Paul’s letter to the church in Galatia. In chapter one verse six, Paul is “amazed” -- but not in a good sense -- that false doctrine is seeping into the first-century Church. Calling them out as “foolish,” Paul asks: “Who has bewitched you?”

Today, I can identify with Paul as I listen to intelligent Bible-believing people falling for the deception of the social justice warriors (proponents of Black Lives Matter, Critical Race Theory and the 1619 project).

A recent case in point is the brouhaha over comments by best-selling author and speaker Josh McDowell at the American Association for Christian Counselors conference. In his attempt to denounce Critical Race Theory -- which he was correct in doing --  McDowell fell into the trap of speaking collectively of Blacks. Don’t get me wrong, it’s an easy trap to fall into. You’ve probably heard Black and White liberals do the same thing by speaking of Black people as though we’re a monolith -- all marching in step to the same cadence.

Critical Race Theory teaches “we [Blacks] are being oppressed every day by White people.” According to the rhetoric of Black and White progressives, “Blacks can’t get ID’s to vote.” They purport that meritocracy is a myth because White people get into all the best schools, are hired for the best jobs, and are invited to the best social parties. Proof of the alleged oppression is the disparity between the quality of life enjoyed by White and Black people.

But if this is true, what about the dominance of Black professional athletes and celebrity entertainers? And should we also ignore the achievements of Black millionaire businessmen and women, lawyers, medical doctors, college graduates, judges, and political figures, to name just a few?

McDowell was slammed on social media and in the press for stating, “Black Americans and other minorities were not raised to value hard work or education.” He said, “I do not believe Blacks, African Americans, and many other minorities have equal opportunity. Why? Most of them grew up in families where there is not a big emphasis on education, security... so many African Americans don’t have those privileges like I was brought up with.” The problem here is that McDowell spoke of Blacks and minorities using the same broad brush that progressives paint with when they illustrate the plight of a subculture of the African American populace or the “few” to represent all of us. This partial truth is both deceptive and detrimental.

Progressives tend to advance their agenda by painting a picture of pervasive Black poverty and victimhood in an effort to strike a bargain with progressive elites, peddling generous government aid. According to the narrative, as long as Blacks are portrayed as being poor and destitute, progressives can supply government helps to assuage White guilt over slavery and Jim Crow laws.

‘White Guilt’
In his book “Shame: How America’s Past Sins Have Polarized Our Country,” Dr. Shelby Steele writes, “White guilt was a smothering and distracting kindness that enmeshed minorities more in the struggle for white redemption than in their own struggle to develop as individuals capable of competing with all others.”

In the ‘60s, the Johnson administration waged our nation’s largest war on poverty to lessen White guilt. His policies helped create the underclass that McDowell refers to.  As a result, there are Blacks -- as well as their White counterparts -- who were raised without high regard for education. The issue is that McDowell -- like many progressive Blacks -- characterized the entire black population as such. This has no real foundation in truth.

Further, today’s social warriors take license by linking our nation’s past atrocities to perceived injustices in the present (such as the death of Michael Brown), to argue that nothing has changed.

The purpose is to foment an emotional response: Black people are moved to believe we are under attack and must remain in solidarity.

Whites are moved to extend compassion for white guilt and sins of their fathers.

Everyone is manipulated -- including the church that wants to prove its support for racial reconciliation. As Paul says in I Timothy 4:1-3, we have fallen prey to the deception of the demons.

In truth, we are being lied to.

The past cannot be redeemed, nor is it evidence of what is happening in the present. Critical Race Theory, an offshoot of Critical Theory, has a Marxist foundation. As the well-intentioned McDowell attempted to state, CRT is antithetical to a biblical worldview. Antonio Gramsci, an Italian philosopher and member of the Communist party in Italy under Mussolini who was one of the original framers of CRT, infamously said, “Socialism is precisely the religion that must overwhelm Christianity … In the new order, Socialism will triumph by first capturing the culture via infiltration of schools, universities, churches and the media by transforming the consciousness of society.”

In lock step, today the social justice warriors leverage race, gender, and equality to advance cultural Marxism, in order to fundamentally change our society.

This is nothing new. In 1958 Manning Johnson, a former operative in the Communist party wrote a book, titled “Color, Communism, and Common Sense - A True Story.” It details how Communists once tried to infiltrate and exploit Blacks in the U.S. In his chapter “Subverting Negro Churches,” Johnson describes a familiar strategy of the Communists, creating “doubt, lack of confidence, and suspicion; setting up situations that bring about racial bitterness, violence, and conflict; putting forth demands so unrealistic that race relations are worsened; attacking everybody in disagreement as reactionaries, fascists, Ku Kluxers among whites and Uncle Toms among Negroes, constitute the Red’s pattern of operation.”

America, I implore you to heed Solomon's wise warning in Proverbs 23: 31-32: “Do not gaze at wine [CRT's deceptive Kool-Aid] when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup, when it goes down smoothly! In the end it bites like a snake and poisons like a viper.”
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About the Author:
Dr. Eric Wallace is an African American scholar and the founder of Freedom’s Journal Institute (FJI), an Illinois-based nonprofit organization addressing contemporary social, political, and religious issues on behalf of African Americans. FJI’s mission is to create a “paradigm shift” in the way people in general -- and the African American population, in particular -- view matters of faith, race, and public policy. FJI vigorously challenges liberal ideology with conservative principles, essential to promote and sustain thriving families. On Oct. 12, FJI's flagship television program Kingdoms in Konflict: A Matter of Faith, Race, and Public Policy will launch its second season on NRB Network and other media platforms.