My primary concern has never been politics, but has always been the spiritual health of individual people. I agree that, politically, the threat of actual White nationalism is negligible compared to the threat of progressive ideology. Neo-Nazi groups spout their propaganda from anonymous Twitter accounts, not from the podiums of prestigious universities. But Neo-Nazi race hatred is as harmful to the soul as the lies of queer theory. At an individual level, both are threats and both must be opposed. Additionally, our cultural location matters. The “greatest threat” to a church in downtown Portland is probably wokeness.

For the past 6 years, I’ve been reading, writing, and speaking extensively about critical theory. My work culminated in the publication of Critical Dilemma with Dr. Pat Sawyer, a thorough analysis and critique of the devastating effect that critical theory is having on the church and society.

During this time, I faced consistent resistance from the woke-sympathetic, who viewed my work as -at best- misguided and -at worst- racist. Then, about a year ago, I noticed an odd change. I began to face pushback not from the woke, but from the anti-woke. I began to see people insisting that I’d changed, that I was now a mushy third-way moderate, woke-adjacent, or even a secret progressive.

Consequently, I decided to try an experiment: I began posting quotes from sources which were, a few years ago (or even a few months ago!), viewed as unimpeachably anti-woke. How would people react? Surely, our discourse hasn’t evolved so rapidly that conservative statements from 2017 or 2019 or 2023 (!) are already viewed with skepticism?

But it has and they are.

In this essay, I’ll provide some illustrations of how evangelical perspectives on race are changing, and will then offer a few tentative explanations for this change: 1) CRT, 2) politics, 3) context, and 4) the (hopefully negligible, but troubling) acceptance of racism.

Examples

As I said, when I began noticing increasing criticism of my writing from the anti-woke, I decided to start posting verbatim statements from what had, until a few years ago, been regarded as canonically anti-woke conservative evangelical sources.

For example, on January 1, I posted the following statement:

“Racism is a sin rooted in pride and malice which must be condemned and renounced by all who would honor the image of God in all people.” 8:54 AM · Jan 1, 2024 186.9K Views

Here are a handful of the responses:

Define “racism”

What is “racism”? And even if you give a definition that would make “racism” genuinely sinful, would it coincide with how the term is actually used? If not, you’re just positing an idiosyncratic definition and insisting that we use it.

Wrong. You might be gaslighting. In group preference is displayed by every single race on earth. It is always normal, godly, and noble- except when white people do it, according to the world system we are not supposed to be taking our cues from.

Trashworld has one virtue and one sin, consent and racism. Racism mainly because it is a convenient tool to dominate others.

Racism is nifty actually. We should respect our own people and our families.

Universalist twaddle

What’s fascinating is that my post was a verbatim quote from the Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel, a 2017 document written by John MacArthur, Voddie Buacham, James White, Tom Ascol, and others. When this statement was originally published it was considered highly controversial because of how anti-woke it was. Seven years later, its condemnation of racism is considered ambiguous –at best– and a manifestation of woke “gaslighting,” “domination,” and “universalist twaddle” at worst.

Then, on Jan. 8th, I posted the statement:

“I utterly repudiate sinful ethnic partiality in all its forms.” 4:09 PM · Jan 8, 2024 102.9K Views

This sentence came from the Statement on Christian Nationalism and the Gospel, a document written by self-identified Christian nationalists –including James Silberman, Dusty Deever, William Wolfe, and Joel Webbon– to explain their core beliefs.

Responses included:

Stunning. Brave.

Publicly self-congratulating one’s righteousness avails nothing for God’s kingdom. Luke 18:9-14

I don’t repudiate ethnic partially.

To “utter repudiate sinful ethnic partiality” in the present age of massive monstrous manic race consciousness and propaganda of humiliation & power over culture w a lying ideology is probably not a good idea, imho.

Then I repudiate the Gnosticism you call Christianity.

One final example:

On Feb. 7th I was preparing to teach a U.S. history class on the Civil Rights Movement and posted Norman Rockwell’s famous and deeply moving painting The Problem We All Live With, which portrays the hostility 6-year-old Ruby Bridges faced when she integrated her all-white elementary school. I offered no commentary, but simply posted the painting with its title and date.

In response, one commenter wrote:

That’s not the problem we live with now. The problem we live with now is a white child being beaten by a gang of black ‘teens,’ who go unpunished.

His comment received 125 likes. A second comment:

And how did that school fare? Did it get better? Was it more peaceful? Did it gain from diversity?

And a third:

Living with whites is not a human right.

What are possible explanations for these reactions, which I was not seeing 5 years ago, or even 18 months ago? I’ll offer four suggestions.

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