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

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Dr. Christopher Watkin gives a special talk at RTS Washington on his book, Biblical Critical Theory.

The church is thus a colony of heaven. 27 It is where the faithful are gathered from every nation, tribe, and tongue and the earthly things that divide (race, gender, and class) are set aside as our identity and unity are ultimately found in Christ (Col. 3:11). Though the secular ideologies of the past, including critical theory, have never been able to bring peace or usher in their this-worldly utopia, Jesus brought the kingdom of God that is already present among His people by His Spirit and will one day be consummate when all things become perfectly one—in Him. 28 The church embodies the kingdom of God on earth. It may not be all that the kingdom of God is, but it is certainly the way that God manifests the life and love of the kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. The keys of the kingdom are held by the church. The righteousness and justice of God should be faithfully, creatively, and actively displayed in the church. The church should be the safest place on earth for the oppressed and the victimized as the mercy and compassion of God are tangibly expressed. The church “is a form of a reconciliatory theater: a theater of faith, hope and love. It is precisely because the church performs the gospel rather than some other script that it is also a revolutionary theater.” 29 The church should be the most just institution under the sun, demonstrating the love, mercy, and kindness of God in ways that silence and captivate the watching world.Third, Watkin’s unique method (more below) provides a pathway for believers to move from Scripture to conversation with unbelievers about some of the most polarizing issues of our time. Critical theory is concerned with the marginalized’ experience and the majority’s ethics. Traditional apologetics in the Reformed tradition tends to engage epistemology first, asking interlocutors to set their experience aside. In today’s social climate, the conversation often fails to bloom. The Reformed apologist declares the unbeliever irrational, and the unbeliever declares the apologist ethically irresponsible and uncaring. Watkin’s use of biblical figures (below) to diagonalize (also below) false dichotomies in the culture opens the dialogue without compromising biblical conviction. At the same time, some critics of critical theory are able to agree with some of its tenants. This isn’t surprising, since “all truth is God’s truth.” Neil Shenvi, an evangelical critic of the movement, is one who finds some truth in critical theory. For example, he notes, “Critical race theorists affirm that race—as it has been defined historically and legally—is a social construct and not a concept legitimately rooted in human nature or human biology.” 11 The Bible recognizes only one race—the human race. While we might distinguish between ethnicities, it is a misnomer to distinguish between races. 12 If critical theory’s view of humanity stopped there, it would be easier to find more with which we could agree. Wed to postmodernism, however, it takes on additional meanings: “One of the most important characteristics of postmodern thought has been its emphasis on the contingent, indeterminate, and socially constructed nature of the categories with which we perceive and converse about the world.” 13 Deconstructing and reconstructing these categories becomes a chief end for critical race theory in its struggle against racism. 14 This has birthed new terms such as “whiteness,” “white privilege,” and “white fragility” and has ultimately led to an entirely secular reconstruction of the way in which conversations about racism are now being framed. 15 Will we one day speak of Christian Figural Apologetics? Time will tell. As critical evaluation of this method unfolds concurrently with the positive application of figures in various fields of endeavor, the durability of Watkin’s method may well be demonstrated. Serres understood figures as algorithmic operators, “complex functions for producing an infinite variety of outputs from infinite possibilities of inputs.” [16] These structures and patterns are also generative. Different senses of meaning arise when one puts different words in a relationship using these structures and patterns. When repeatable patterns in space and repeatable rhythms in time are deployed beyond literature and language to include creation, ideas, systems, and behavior, they become helpful in analyzing culture. Watkin says this work mirrors God’s work in creation, where he organizes space and creates rhythms.

First, Paul establishes a hard antithesis between the ‘wisdom of the world’ and the wisdom of God (1:20, 27–28). The wisdom of the world is not halfway to being God’s wisdom; it is categorically ‘foolish’. The unbridgeable antithesis between the two can be seen in the fact that God’s wisdom is cruciform (1:24), which to the Greeks looks like utter foolishness (1:23).In 1 Corinthians 1, how does Paul deal with two of the dominant cultural values of his day, namely that ‘Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom’ (1:22)? He does not simply affirm wisdom as the Greeks understand it, nor signs as the Jews think of them, but neither does he completely reject these values either. Let us examine the example of wisdom. 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

there is a subtlety to the biblical account of justice that is flattened and over-simplified by both CRT and liberalism For a less extreme version of CRT-inflected ideas, the reader may be interested in the work of legal scholars Angela P. Harris and Wendy Chen-Wishhart. CRT– There is an endless struggle between oppressor and oppressed. Justice for the latter can only come at the price of the overthrow of the former: it is a zero-sum game. Salvation does not come from transcending my group, but from embracing it. Becoming righteous, or ‘woke’, is an achievement, often the fruit of a careful and painstaking education in the reality and pervasiveness of systemic racism. Forgiveness is hard to come by, with job losses, ‘cancelling’ and public shaming ensuing from individual infractions of CRT orthodoxies, no doubt compounded by social media. Repentant offenders frequently remain unforgiven. Kristina Rolin, ‘Standpoint Theory as a Methodology for the Study of Power Relations’. Hypatia. 24:4 (2009): 218–226. DiAngelo, White Fragility, 40–43. It is noteworthy that MLK’s studies took him to the well of liberation theology, another offshoot of critical theory. But MLK was also grounded in the traditional Baptist theology of his family. ↩Dr Christopher Watkin lectures at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. He has written extensively on modern and contemporary European thought, atheism, and the relationship between the Bible and philosophy. Chris blogs about his academic work at christopherwatkin.com, and posts reflections on the Bible and culture at thinkingthroughthebible.com.

Indeed, another remarkable feature of this work is that Watkin advances a novel thesis that scholars will have to consider while at the same time writing an accessible book for the Church. BCT crosses all the traditional boundaries—academic, pastoral, professional, and popular—and does so beautifully. Watkin models for other scholars how to cross these boundaries responsibly. The Church could use more literature like this from scholars that are accessible, designed for study, and sourced with scholarly precision for the academy. Given the target audience, Watkin’s arguments and assertions may leave scholars wanting more. They will not be left, however, feeling that he has been sloppy or careless. 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] Christianity provides us with an overarching metanarrative that runs from creation to redemption: We are creatures made in God’s image, who have sinned against him, who need to be rescued through the atoning work of Jesus, and who are called to love both God and neighbor. Chris Watkin] maps a path out of some of the most fundamental impasses of our time . . . Urgent and weighty, Biblical Critical Theory is . . . simply, a tremendously exciting read.” Both CRT and liberalism capture something of the complex biblical picture of justice, but both fall shortof its rich complexityThird, 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? For a fuller discussion of diagonalisation, see my Biblical Critical Theory: How the Bible's Unfolding Story Makes Sense of Modern Life and Culture (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2022).