Well, last time I said we were taking the week of Thanksgiving off from the podcast to give you more time to listen to the Providence Book audiobook excerpts, and here we are, back with Pastor John, who was led to record two special episodes for us. We are releasing them Monday and Tuesday this week, today and tomorrow.

The topic is critical race theory. It's a big one among evangelicals in 2020, and it comes up over and over again in the APJA inbox. About 50 emails have arrived in just the past year alone, all from listeners who basically just want to hear how Pastor John is thinking about CRT himself.

And that is what we will do today and tomorrow. These are longer than normal episodes, about 22 or 23 minutes each. Today Pastor John addresses the relational side of the CRT debate. Tomorrow he will address the root problem with CRT. I hope you can listen to both episodes. Here now is Pastor John with Critical Race Theory, Part 1, The Relationships.

If critical race theory were only a theoretical or philosophical or intellectual issue, I would definitely start with definitions. In fact, I would start with a biblical argument for why definitions and clarity and transparency are essential—essential for Christian faithfulness to Scripture and to God, especially when spiritual forces of darkness and confusion and deception are in the air, which they are.

Paul calls Satan "the prince of the power of the air." And Satan's specialty in this world is deception through twisted truths and half-truths. And deception flourishes in the fog of confusion, and confusion is deepened and advanced through the lack of clarity. And clarity is only possible where we know the meaning of terms that we're each using when we talk to each other.

So I hope you can see how seriously I take definitions and clarity and transparency in communication. And I do intend to get to as much definitional clarity as I'm capable of, but not in this episode of Ask Pastor John. I'm not going to start with that, and I hope you'll see why before we're done.

Critical race theory is not only a bundle of beliefs and ideas and ways of thinking about race and other important things, it has also become a relationally destructive means of defamation. And that's what I want to talk about first. The way Christians treat each other and talk about each other when it comes to this issue of race, or more specifically, critical race theory.

So I know this first session is going to be frustrating. We hope to do two of these. And I know this first one is going to be frustrating to listeners because my guess is that thousands of you listening to this right now don't have any clear idea what critical race theory is.

I want to say, like, join the club. I mean, does anybody know what we're talking about? And here I am talking about it as a pejorative label that some people put on other people to their detriment, and I haven't even said what it is. How frustrating is that? But please try to trust me, not for a long time.

I'm not asking you to trust me forever. I just—give me a little time in this, and I think you'll see why I'm coming at this so oddly when I love definitional clarity up front. I'm going to deal to the best of my ability with a definition in our second episode on critical race theory, but there are reasons for tackling the relational issue among Christians first, and I hope you'll see that as we go.

There are biblical relational principles at stake here that I think do not depend on the definition of critical race theory because they apply to all kinds of explosive issues. That's what I want to get at. Those biblical relational principles, and I think this needs to be said first. I want to illustrate what I'm talking about with a podcast conversation, a podcast conversation about critical race theory between Rasool Berry, teaching pastor at the Bridge Church in Brooklyn, and Neil Shenvey, whose apologetics website describes him as a homeschooling theoretical chemist.

And believe me, that is an understatement when it comes to his qualifications. They both have written and spoken about critical race theory. Both are articulate. Both are winsome. I found myself really liking and appreciating these two Christian brothers, even when they were emphasizing very different perspectives on critical race theory.

When I put it like that, namely emphasizing very different perspectives, I don't say even when they were disagreeing because I couldn't put my finger on any specific disagreement about the rightness or the wrongness of critical race theory in its specific assertions. What mainly emerged in this conversation, and what was so helpful to me, was a clarification of the relational dynamics at work in these kinds of conversations.

They were hosted by Justin Brierley on the unbelievable show, and you can watch it on YouTube. I think Pastor Berry was speaking for lots of African Americans, not all of them. Nobody speaks for all African Americans. When he said that his primary concern—those are his words, his primary concern, his primary critique of the whole conversation.

He's thinking culture-wide, not just his conversation with Shenve. He said his primary concern was that he and many others woke up one morning, so to speak, and found that they had been tarred and feathered with the label "critical race theory." He had to go look it up, just like most of us did.

He said he was born and raised in inner-city Philadelphia, went to University of Pennsylvania, majored in Africana Studies and Sociology, became a Christian his freshman year, was formed by evangelicalism. And during his studies, during all that undergraduate work in Africana Studies, he never heard about CRT at the University of Pennsylvania.

To quote him, quote, "The brothers and I had not even heard of critical race theory until we were told that when we said something needs to change, when George Floyd was kneeled on, we were being held captive by critical race theory. What are you talking about? We said, I'm just trying to respond to the injustices all around me." And then he explains, "I'm being given a label," he says, "that I don't really want to be talking about.

I want to be talking about the death that is in the street and the disparities like COVID having a disproportionate impact on people of color. We see these disparities across education, health care, economics. I would rather talk about that, but any time you talk about that in Christian circles, you are given this title," he says.

And then he adds, "More energy is being devoted to the tethering of critical race theory to what we are saying than is being devoted to the problem of racism itself." Or, more broadly, he expresses his concern this way, "The church is being brought ethical concerns and is responding with epistemological critique.

Like a man who tells you he's bleeding, and you ask, 'How did you come to that conclusion?'" Now, I said that my aim here is to get at biblical relational issues that are relevant quite apart from the definition of critical race theory. So in view of what we've just heard from Rasool Berry, let me state two of those biblical relational principles, and then unpack them one at a time.

Number one, Christians should be careful not to slander a Christian brother by the careless use of pejorative labels like critical race theory. That's principle number one. Principle number two, when a Christian brother is honestly analyzing and exposing false beliefs or unbiblical ways of thinking like critical race theory, we should not silence or denounce the brother by pointing to blood in the streets.

Now let me say a word about each of those principles, because my guess is that the first one may offend some critics of critical race theory, and the second one may offend some justice warriors, both of whom may be doing exactly what they should be doing, and neither of whom do I want to offend.

So first a word about slander. Jesus said, "What comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person." Paul said that our new identity in Christ involves putting away all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander, but that we be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you, Ephesians 4:31.

And Peter said that when we're born again, we should put away all malice and all slander, 1 Peter 2.1. And that quote from Jesus was Matthew 15.90. Slander, what is it? Slander is speaking untrue, pejorative things about someone, usually in public. And Jesus and Paul and Peter say, "That's just not what Christians do.

We don't do that to each other." Now, my guess is that when Pastor Barry says that he and others were pinned with critical race theory label before they even knew what it was, some critics of critical race theory will point out that you can be infected with a disease without knowing the name of the disease, which of course is true.

We all know that's true. But I am underscoring that it is a very serious thing to tell the world, which is what social media does, that somebody has a deadly intellectual and moral disease, which you may even think is worthy of excommunication, when all you see is a few symptoms of the disease, which may not be owing to the disease at all, but owing to some other cause.

What if one of the symptoms of the disease is excessive perspiration, but this perspiration is owing to long hours of hard work on some worthy cause? What if one of the symptoms of the disease is a loss of appetite, but this loss of appetite is owing to deep sorrow rather than to the disease?

Americans should be so hesitant to slander a brother with pejorative labels that we go the extra mile to make sure we know, we know whether his actions or statements are really owing to his infection with the lethal aspects of critical race theory or not. In fact, I think one of the best ways to avoid slander in these highly contentious days is this.

If you hear or read a brother say something that you think is unchristian or unbiblical with regard to race, don't call it critical race theory. Call it unchristian. Call it unbiblical. Preferably in a private email, not a public tweet or blog or podcast, and give solid biblical evidence for your concern.

Here's one more point on this first biblical relational principle of avoiding slander. One way to avoid slander is not assuming that we know a person's ethical or intellectual or doctrinal stance on the basis of the questions they ask rather than the answers they give. If I pose the question, "Why there may be racial disparities in health care or education or anything else," and you assume that because of my question I am infected with the disease of critical race theory, you're on the brink of slander.

It is possible for two people to ask the same question and come to radically different answers. So labeling someone on the basis of their questions is careless at best and possibly slander. So my first biblical relational principle that I'm pleading for is Christians should be careful not to slander a fellow Christian by the careless use of pejorative labels like critical race theory.

Now here's number two, second, and there are only two. When a Christian brother is honestly analyzing and exposing false beliefs or unbiblical ways of thinking, say in critical race theory, we should not silence or denounce the brother by pointing to blood in the streets. Now the biblical principle behind this is Romans 12.4.

In one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function. That's the biblical principle. Now I am not saying that Rasool Berry did this, that he pulled rank in that way and tried to silence his conversation partner, Neil Shenvey. I'm not saying he did that.

He didn't do that. But I want to address this because that is the way he will be criticized. Berry will be criticized when he says, for example, "The church is being brought ethical concerns and is responding with epistemological critique." Like a man who tells you he's bleeding, and you ask, "Well, how did you come to that conclusion?" People are going to criticize that kind of statement, first because it's an overstatement, which it is.

Everybody uses overstatement, as if the whole church is doing nothing but epistemology in response to the ethical issue of our time, and second because people will hear that statement as shutting down all intellectual wrestling with false ideas, which are upstream from the deadly effects they may have in the streets.

Instead of silencing or denouncing someone who is wrestling with the intellectual or theoretical or epistemological roots of false beliefs and unbiblical thinking, let's give each other some room to be different in the way we attack the same evil. For example, COVID-19 is a killer. One person is fighting it in the research laboratory 18 hours a day.

Another person is fighting it as a doctor or a nurse on the ground with his hands in the blood in the intensive care unit. Another person is a politician doing his best to discern what policies might hinder the spread of this disease. Another person is giving people guidance and hope with biblical interpretations of God's providence and trying to comfort those who've lost loved ones.

And how mistaken it would be for the doctor with his hands in the blood, risking his life in the intensive care unit to say to the researcher who has never touched a diseased person, "Stop wasting your time in the laboratory and get out here where the suffering is and get your hands dirty for goodness sakes." The same is true for racism.

Most Christians realize that belittling or disrespecting or hating or rejecting or hindering the success of someone simply because of their race is evil. One Christian might fight that evil in the street, another in the courts, another as a mother raising loving and respectful children, another as an academic historian unfolding the way race was constructed as an instrument of oppression, another preaching his heart out, the whole counsel of God trying to overcome the racism in his congregation, and another critiquing critical race theory precisely because he believes it is not a biblical path to justice and love but a destructive path.

So my second biblical relational principle then is that we not silence or denounce one strategy of love by exalting another, that we not say, "There's blood in the streets, therefore intellectual critiques of critical race theory are not a priority right now," nor that we say, "Demolishing critical race theory is such a priority that putting a tourniquet on a bleeding man in the street is irrelevant to the great struggles of our time." Brothers, we don't need to do this to each other.

There are tens of thousands of pastors right now who are not trying to tether critical race theory to every black lover of justice. And there are critics of critical race theory who believe with all their heart and rightly that there are aspects of critical race theory that are destructive to love and justice and racial harmony so that their investment in criticizing critical race theory is not a detour away from the problem of racism but an effort to destroy it.

So next time, in the next episode, I will try to say, "What in the world is it? Finally, what is critical race theory and why is it so controversial?" But for now, I am making two pleas from my heart to my brothers and sisters in the faith, and I'll just mention them as we close in reverse order this time.

When a Christian brother is honestly analyzing and exposing false beliefs and unbiblical ways of thinking, we should not silence or denounce or minimize the brother by pointing to blood in the streets. And Christians should be careful, oh, so careful, not to slander a Christian brother by the careless use of pejorative labels like "critical race theory." Thank you, Pastor John.

That was Critical Race Theory Part 1, The Relationships. Part 2 is coming up tomorrow, titled Critical Race Theory Part 2, The Root Problem. On the Ask Pastor John podcast, thank you for listening. We'll see you back here tomorrow. 1 The Root Problem The Root Problem is a controversial topic.

It is a topic that has been discussed in the past, and it is a topic that is being discussed in the present. It is a topic that is being discussed in the present. It is a topic that is being discussed in the present. It is a topic that is being discussed in the present.

It is a topic that is being discussed in the present. It is a topic that is being discussed in the present.