ast week, a pastor friend told me about a new problem he is facing in his congregation. I hesitate to call it a “first world pastoral problem” because that runs the risk of trivializing it, of making it seem akin to those . . . Continue reading →
Critical Theory
Everything Is A Construct
The deconstructionists have a point: everything created is a construct. Continue reading
Critical Theory Is A New Species Of Gnosticism
Now, what Voegelin saw in these ideologies is manifestly present in Critical Race Theory and the rest of the “woke” insanity now spreading like a cancer through the body politic. But it is also to be found in certain tendencies coming from . . . Continue reading →
In A Shocking About Face Some Americans Want To Go Back To The Pre-Civil Rights Era
I ask that Smith College stop reducing my personhood to a racial category. Stop telling me what I must think and feel about myself. Stop presuming to know who I am or what my culture is based upon my skin color. Stop . . . Continue reading →
Pruitt: A Plea To The PCA To Avoid The Both The Meat And The Bones Of Critical Theory
If you care to read the architects of Critical Theory—Benjamin, Horkheimer, Fromm, Adorno, Marcuse, etc.— you will find that their project was animated in large part by a desire to undermine Christianity and its moral and philosophical norms. They believed these norms . . . Continue reading →
Trueman: Critical Theory Is Self-Certifying And Resistant To Evidence
Critical race theory, like other critical theories—postcolonialism or queer theory, for example—is self-certifying. Its basic claims, for example, that racism is systemic or that being non-racist is impossible, are not conclusions drawn from arguments. They are axioms, and they cannot be challenged . . . Continue reading →
Luther Delivered Us From The Doctrine Of Purgatory But Critical Theory Will Have It Reinstated
R. Scott Clark, professor of church history at Westminster Seminary California in Escondido, California, told Campus Reform that “Dr. Thompson calls Lutherans to repent for ‘systemic racism’ and takes for granted that we should all accept this new, rather radical redefinition of racism which, in her account, entails a new, decided un-Lutheran definition of repentance.” Continue reading →
Critical Theory Is Not Neutral
Christian advocates of critical theory frequently claim that it is a neutral tool to help us think through issue. That is not true. Continue reading
Trueman On A Source Of Political Correctness, Critical Theory, Screaming Yale Undergrads, And The Impulse To Destroy The Past
Perhaps pride of place in the intellectual pantheon of those who helped give a rationale for the rejection of history goes to Karl Marx. That might strike the reader as rather strange, given that Marx was himself steeped in history. His materialist . . . Continue reading →
Whose Moral Panic, Which Censorious Moralism?
If the 1950s gave us Communists under every bed, 2020 has given us fascists in every boardroom. The cultural Left cannot abide so much as sharing the same 3.8 million square miles with “those people,” let alone the same workplace, or even . . . Continue reading →
Weiss: American Tolerant Pluralism Under Siege
The liberal worldview was one that recognized that there were things—indeed, the most important things—in life that were located outside of the realm of politics: friendships, art, music, family, love. This was a world in which Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg . . . Continue reading →
The 1619 Project Is Bad History And Boring
Thus to speak of America’s “founding” at all is necessarily to speak of what makes Americans a “people.” When Abraham Lincoln said that the nation was “conceived in liberty” four score and seven years before the dedication of Gettysburg Cemetery—that is, in . . . Continue reading →
Stephens On The 1619 Project
The 1619 Project is a thesis in search of evidence Continue reading →
National Association Of Scholars: Revoke Pulitzer Prize For 1619 Project
The Project as a whole was marred by similar faults. Prominent historians, most of them deeply sympathetic to the Project’s goal of bringing the African American experience more fully into our understanding of the American past, nevertheless felt obliged to point out, . . . Continue reading →
Critical Theory Seeks To Suppress Dissent In America
One of the several reasons that Americans ought to be concerned about the inroads being made by Critical Theory (e.g., Critical Race Theory, Critical Legal Theory) into American life is its fundamentally anti-American view of free speech. Rod Dreher highlights the latest . . . Continue reading →
Trueman: The Goal Of Critical Theory Is The Destruction Of Transcendent Truth
The essay reminded me of the many years I spent trying to understand the various approaches to culture that fall under the umbrella term of Critical Theory. Queer Theory is one of the most significant of these approaches. Wading through the pretentiously . . . Continue reading →
AGR 2019 Conference Audio—Hospitality: The Gospel Comes With A House Key
On July 26, 2019 AGR and the Escondido United Reformed Church were pleased to co-host the first-ever Abounding Grace Radio conference. Our speaker this year was Dr Rosaria Butterfield. She is a former tenured professor of English and women’s studies at Syracuse . . . Continue reading →
AGR Conference Audio—Intersectionality: What It Is And Why It Matters
On July 26, 2019 AGR and the Escondido United Reformed Church were pleased to co-host the first-ever Abounding Grace Radio conference. Our speaker this year was Dr Rosaria Butterfield. She is a former tenured professor of English and women’s studies at Syracuse . . . Continue reading →
Rosaria Butterfield: From Victim To Guest: Sexuality, Intersectionality, and Hospitality
Raised and educated in liberal Roman Catholic settings, Rosaria Champagne Butterfield earned her PhD from The Ohio State University and was a tenured professor of English and Women’s Studies at Syracuse University where she taught until 2002. In her late 20s she adopted . . . Continue reading →
How We Got Here
In virtually every class, I was told that all scientific knowledge, and even science itself was founded on Western cultural constructions and was to be regarded as hegemonic. And since each of the world’s various cultural viewpoints were enmeshed in their own . . . Continue reading →